MAINLAND Turks (settlers or naturalised Turkish Cypriots, depending on your point of view) have for the past two months been left on the fringes while their Turkish Cypriot friends and relatives cross the Green Line freely into the free areas of Cyprus.
Many mainland Turks settled on the island shortly after 1974 in an effort by the Turkish government to bolster the population in the north. The settlers were granted Greek Cypriot properties, mainly in remote areas less desirable to Turkish Cypriots, who wanted to live closer to larger population centres.
The numbers of Turkish settlers, the mainlanders referred to as Turkiyeli in the north, have been a topic of political debate ever since they started arriving on the island.
Having got married – many to Turkish Cypriots – the original settlers now have grandchildren born on the island: but what is their actual identity; are they Cypriots?
Their plight may arouse little sympathy among Greek Cypriots – especially the refugees whose homes they took – but in the north it is becoming apparent that they have been the victims of a game played out above their heads. And the Annan plan and opening of the Green Line have brought their status sharply into focus.
The number of settlers has always been used as a tool by politicians on both sides of the Green Line, with head-counts serving as ammunition.
Mete Hatay is an independent researcher living in Kyrenia, teaching in universities in the north in between his own studies and musical projects.
Describing himself as a post-nationalist Turkish Cypriot, Hatay studied at Westminster College in London and has now returned to rediscover his homeland after a seven-year sabbatical abroad.
Before that, he had worked his was up from food and beverage manager of the Dome Hotel to its general manager, opting from early retirement five years ago to research the people of his island.
“My detailed research on the cultural history of Cyprus started five years ago,” he said in an interview with the Cyprus Mail, sitting in a Kyrenia cafι sipping a frappι – a recently imported concept to the north.
“During my studies I developed an interest in different cultures, away from Cyprus for first time, away from the Turkish and Greekness,” he said.
Living in London, Hatay started to see the differences and similarities between the people of the eastern Mediterranean.
“I saw similarities and differences between people coming from a similar region – Armenians, Greeks and Arabs – and all of these people were around us in London,” he explained.
“I didn’t want to come back to Cyprus, it was too small for me,” said Hatay.
“When I came back to do my military service, I realised I liked the place again… it was like rediscovering your own country,” and with a desire to listen to peoples’ stories, Hatay started developing his own archive of the people that made up Cyprus’ cultural fabric.
Through explorations in social history, culinary and musical traditions, Hatay started gaining a multi-faceted understanding, not only of Turkish Cypriots, but all of the various ethnic and social backgrounds of groups populating the island – past and present.
He has published numerous articles on topics, ranging from slavery in Cyprus, from the Middle Ages to the First World War, to Jews, Maronites and Armenians on the island.
“Recently I’ve been working on the newcomers on Cyprus after 1974,” said Hatay.
“There have been a lot of myths about the so-called settlers in Cyprus, like that they were brought here to assimilate the Turkish Cypriot with mainland Turkish culture.
“This has been the myth voiced by certain parties in Cyprus, on both sides. We had these people around us all the time, we saw them, we worked with them, but we never heard their voices. Why are they here, what do they feel, what perceptions of the Cyprus problem do they have, what political parties do they vote for?”
Hatay says it is wrong to believe the settlers are all staunch supporters of Turkish Cypriot leader Rauf Denktash.
“When I looked at the election results it wasn’t like that. There were different political orientations among these people.
“They were Alawites, different religious sects, social democrats, socialists, fascists. They were part of an intricate mosaic,” said Hatay.
“Then I went to the documents and I tried to find their numbers. There has been a lot of speculation on their numbers. According to the Greek Cypriots, there are around 119,000 mainland Turks living in Cyprus.
“This isn’t true. When I looked at census reports and voter registration cards one by one, I came up with an estimated 50,000 people, including their children who were born on the island,” revealed Hatay.
According to his findings there are approximately 28,000 original mainland Turks born in Turkey and recorded in statistics between 1974 and 2001.
“If the mainland Turks are 120,000 and there are only 80,000 Turkish Cypriots, why are there only five Turkish MPs in a 50-seat parliament?” Hatay asked.
“Of course, these five MPs are not an accurate representation because they are not 10 per cent of the population, they are around 25 per cent of the population. But still, this does prove they do not vote for ethnic orientation. They don’t say, ‘oh, this candidate is from the mainland, let’s vote for him’.”
Delving into election results, Hatay discovered that in the late 70s and 1980s Turkish settlers were voting for a variety of parties.
In 1981 the candidate of the left of centre Communal Liberation Party (TKP) almost beat Denktash in the elections. “I saw a lot of mainland Turk dominated villages voting for this candidate. So with the help of the mainland Turks, Denktash was almost overthrown,” he said.
The variation in voting habits is due to the varying political backgrounds and ideologies. “They are not an army of political clones, they have their own conflicts and a lot of them are assimilated into Turkish Cypriot society.
“A lot of people who settled here in 1974 came from the southeast, the Hatay region, and they were mainly social democrats voting for the Republican Peoples’ Party in Turkey, and here they started looking for a social democrat party,” said Hatay.
Other than Turkiyeli, mainland Turks are described by two other epithets in the north, neither of them complimentary.
One is Gadjo, a Gypsy word to describe non-Gypsies, now often used by Turkish Cypriots as a derogatory term for mainland Turks.
The second is Karasakal, or “black beard”, a word used by Turkish Cypriots in the 1960s to refer to Turkish military officers stationed on the island.
“They would not have the opportunity to shave for a couple of days, so they would grow a short dark beard, it wasn’t considered an insult then, it was a sort of reference to the macho Turks,” said Hatay. But since 1974, the term has become an insult.
After the invasion, Turkish Cypriot from the south were loath to live in remote villages like Rizokarpaso or Akanthou. So mainland Turks were imported to the island to live in these villages and cultivate the land.
“They continued with this policy since 1977, and between 25,000 and 30,000 Turks came, were given lands and houses, but not title deeds.
“They were there to look after the houses and cultivate the land, they were just the guardians, but in 1995 were given title deeds,” said Hatay.
“Of these 30,000, some went back because they did not find what they were expecting,” he added.
Hatay said other settlers
had moved to Cyprus simply to find jobs, or attended university and married in Cyprus.
“A lot of them were born here and assimilated into Turkish Cypriot society. And the ones who kept their traditions and customs in these remote villages are not causing anybody problems, they have their own way of life… they have become a part of the cultural fabric of the island.
“But Turkish Cypriots having been a closed and isolated community for years, especially in the 1960s, suddenly found themselves all together in the north facing these newcomers, and they reacted,” said Hatay.
The Turkish Cypriots’ rejection of the settlers in recent years was primarily because they were immigrant workers. “There are a lot of workers coming here because there is a demand,” he explained.
“The prejudices are mainly a reaction from the petty bourgeois, who, ironically, are the ones who employ them. The image of this slave labour – the immigrant worker – is disturbing their European image, since they claim to be European,” said Hatay.
Most of these labourers work under extreme conditions, up to 15 hours a day without proper accommodation, exploited by Turkish Cypriots and Turkish businessmen, according to Hatay.
“They are looked down upon, and then this image projects on to the mainland Turk, and a stereotype is formed,” he said.
As to the future of Cyprus, Hatay does see a common identity emerging: “There is a parallel Cypriot identity being formed, Turkish Cyriotness and Greek Cypriotness, but it will take time.
“This will come after a solution, where people will have to respect the differences between them, because these two identities have certain bases, a different language, different religion. So once we accept the difference, we can have a civic identity later in a new common state if we have a solution, rather than putting ourselves into blocks and having this obsession of being Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot,” said Hatay.
“But I’m not optimistic, because we still need to work on becoming a human beings, respecting non-Cypriots, we have to stop being the egotists of our own victimisation.
“Nationalism is not that bad, but a nationalism that excludes people, that is obsessed with your identity, is dangerous, you have to be more inclusive. Include and respect peoples’ rights and their cultural identities.”
