Sir,
I would like to refer to the headline, ‘Hands off our history books’ and the editorial, ‘To rewrite history, you need to rewrite the history books’, in the September 6 edition of the Cyprus Mail.
I really do despair with some sections of Cypriot society. The Education Minister is taking bold and enlightened steps to change the half-truths, omissions and blatant distortions that are being peddled in the history textbooks which are read by Cypriot youth. Right on cue, the usual suspects in the Cypriot political establishment voice hysteria and displeasure against these long overdue proposals to do away with some of the chauvinistic, nationalistic claptrap in these books. Deputy Themistocleous even pulls out the old “self-castration of our Hellenic heritage” chestnut. In other words, despite the fact that everyone knows there are misrepresentations of the truth in the textbooks, they are prepared to leave them undisturbed and indulge in a bit of spin. Terrific. Socrates himself must be turning in his grave at this twisted logic.
Your paper quite rightly states that there’s no point in trying to reunify the island if current biased attitudes in these books are allowed to remain in situ. In enlightened Western democracies, the club to which Cyprus purports to belong, xenophobic textbooks such that exist here have long been consigned to the waste-paper basket. For example, the curse of slavery as practised by countries such as Britain, France and the United States, is acknowledged openly in books and television documentaries and quite rightly condemned as being iniquitous and a stain on their respective histories. There are other such examples too numerous to list here.
I would also like to refer to the headmaster who was “outraged” that Greek Cypriots might be asked to refer to Turkish Cypriots as brothers. Have I got news for him. They are. Brothers, that is. DNA tests have proved that Greek and Turkish Cypriots are nearer to each other than their respective “mother” countries. For the record, many subjects of the Ottoman Empire, including Greek Cypriots, converted to Islam to gain exemption from paying taxes: no doubt some of his and my distant cousins converted and their heirs are in the North. Do I also have to remind him that the Cypriot blood line is NOT exclusively Mycenaean Greek and has been comprehensively “breached” by, amongst others, Phoenicians, Romans, Byzantines, Franks, Venetians, Turks and British? The writer of this letter is the product of one such union.
Finally, on the subject of the fog of war and warped historical “certainties”, such examples abound in Cyprus not only in textbooks but also in the medium of the spoken word. One such example occurred recently at a Paphos restaurant where a group of us, Cypriot, British, Irish and other assorted nationalities, some of whom were refugees, were having lunch and discussing, among other things, world events and the Cyprus problem. A Cypriot estate agent, who had evidently been listening to our conversation at an adjoining table, stood up and aggressively said that he needed to educate us and “put us right.” He announced that during the 1974 Turkish invasion, Turkish jets were flown by British pilots. This was not the first time that I’d had heard this particular fairy story served up as “fact”.
He had assumed we were tourists. Instead, he was confronted with possibly one of the best informed groups of people that he could ever have meet. The assembled company was both shocked and angry. Unbeknown to this paragon of enlightenment and paranoia, one of our group was a retired RAF squadron leader of a fighter group. His reaction? His wry smile and reasoned argument treated the rantings of this badly educated man with the contempt he deserved. The rest of us, particularly the Cypriots, were rather more vociferous in our condemnation. Unfortunately, we were unable to convince him that he could possibly be mistaken with his groundless assumption.
I therefore applaud the Education Minister in his attempts to re-educate his fellow countrymen. It will be a long struggle but whatever the cost, he must not be allowed to fail.
Gavin Jones, Lemba
