Defending history is a vital matter

The opinion piece ‘The Challenge of Defending History’ (Sunday Mail, February 8) is a fantastic work of journalism.

It is an absolute relief to read such well-considered views that do not reduce complex problems into simple fabricated binaries and simulated polemics.

The article is entirely right to point out how subjective accounts of history are used naively to ‘objectively’ construct nations, and it does seem that Cyprus suffers more than most here. The past is indeed made up of ‘shades of grey’ and your analogy can quite easily be extended to the idea of nationality. The sooner people realise that nations, history and individuals are themselves hybrid and not inherently of a particular ‘sort’, the quicker many of the islands troubles will dissolve.

Yiannaki Loizou
UK

The Cyprus Mail is the only English-language daily newspaper published in Cyprus. It was established in 1945 and today, with its popular and widely-read website, the Cyprus Mail is among the most trusted news sites in Cyprus. The newspaper is not affiliated with any political parties and has always striven to maintain its independence. Over the past 70-plus years, the Cyprus Mail, with a small dedicated team, has covered momentous events in Cyprus’ modern history, chronicling the last gasps of British colonial rule, Cyprus’ truncated independence, the coup and Turkish invasion, and the decades of negotiations to stitch the divided island back together, plus a myriad of scandals, murders, and human interests stories that capture the island and its -people. Observers describe it as politically conservative.