"Hope is the memory of Desire"

Honore De Balzac

Cypriots, just like the citizens of numerous countries, have found themselves in the historical position of having to decide whether they would be a part of the expanded/expanding E.U. both on a practical and on a symbolic level. However, this perspective, and eventually the process of joining the E.U., carried a different quality and degree of significance for Cypriot citizens when compared to citizens of other E.U. state members.

In view that this new convention could have functioned as a decisive factor for the solution to the ongoing political problem of the Republic of Cyprus (an issue that haunt peoples’ consciousness and practices), the debates that are typically expected to arise with any serious European matter, in this case were deemed unprovoked. Due to the placement of all emphasis on making the best out of this “opportunity” for the benefit of national interests, the prospective and the efforts of joining the E.U. have functioned as a one-dimensional ambition, having one emotional and practical objective: the alteration of the undesired Status Quo. Political and cultural concerns such as: the financial gain or loss, the cultural conflicts or cultural enrichment, movement of populations, as well as other relevant parameters - also discussed in countries that have in the past found themselves in an analogous situation to that of Cyprus - are all issues that did not constitute a point of reflection for Cypriots, at least not on a profound level.

Ultimately, our entrance to the E.U., the symptomatology of the Anan plan, and our existing reality, as a country which has not been able to resolve its political problem at this crucial historical moment, has transformed the ultimate goal of joining the E.U. into a failure. A failure that was much expected, as there exists no ex machina incident that is capable of influencing – let along resolving - the complexity of the political reality that has been developed on the island within the last 40years: A period during which, evidently, all political initiative would function independently (or even against) the organization of the ethnic consciousness of each of the two communities.

Hence, we are left with an E.U. that we haven’t actually thought of, a problem that we haven’t solved, and yet another formative ingredient of our identity, which has not been negotiated for. What does the title “European Cyprus” signify? And how about European Greek-Cypriots? Or European Turkish-Cypriots? After all, the concept of European as a point of connection may appear to be some sort of a solution, one however that could not comprise a functional outcome, as is clear to all. Ultimately, all these European neologisms that are being developed, reveal more than anything, that which Jean-Paul Sartre would call political “bad Faith”. A line of argumentation that is one-dimensional and that renounces both the responsibilities of the past and the hope for the future, by projecting each and every mistake, problem, and even prospect towards the outer force of the great political centers (this being an attitude, which is nothing but uncommon in the wider geographical area).

Given the dearth in the processes and the complex political archaeology, two years after our country has joined the E.U. the European identity of Cypriots remains fluid. An anticipated reaction would be turning the eye towards the West, which in itself presupposes turning one’s back to the East, in a locus that is characterized by the coming together, or at least the co-existence of these two imaginary poles. Imaginary ones because, here in Cyprus so much on a topographic level, as well as on a humanitarian one, the whole system of inventing the East and the West falls apart. Where the East, as Edward Said analyzes in his book Orientalism, amounts to the Other-opposite of the “civilized” West. This very effort of creating the Other is canceled each time simple events of our daily lives remind us that the Other can be reflected in one’s own mirror.

The consciousness of the Cypriot specificity is revealed on a daily basis in a series of verbal oxymora that one often hears, such as: “Just like the Europeans”, or “Do it like a European” and dozens of other variations. All these are viewpoints that presuppose distancing oneself from the European crystallization and which originally seem to indicate not so much our difficulty to identify ourselves as Europeans (an identity, which will be acknowledged by any Cypriot when asked), or at least to accept those things that bring us together with the rest of Europe (which of course are plenty), but the underlying consciousness regarding all that differentiates us from the German or the French European for whom, both the Concept and the Experience of the E.U. occur effortlessly and unambiguously.

Relieved from that which could constitute a convenient abstraction of our European identity and having renounced all the desires that can fit into such a projection, Cyprus seems to be a crystallization, which may only be possible to understand via the deconstruction of the various layers it is covered with. Our distance from the ideal Europeanism may on a primary level appear to be problematic. Nevertheless, when it comes down to it, it is our one and only hope of reconciliation with our sociopolitical complexity and perhaps the essential guide to the acceptance of our multidimensional identity. The condition of not quite belonging in Europe, at least not completely (even if this differentiation is only verbally manifested), enables us to maintain the prospective of negotiating this fossil that we call Cyprus, and perhaps we shall only manage to understand what it is that a European Cyprus signifies, after this political lapsus occurs as the absolute measure of consciousness. By recognizing one by one the layers of this fossil and with a future where the foundation of our identity is not the feeling of belonging but the acceptance of an identity formed on ongoing negotiations, we may envision Europe and Cyprus, not as that which we have left behind but as that which we aspire to arrive at.

With a reversal of that which is logical, that which Europe can learn from Cyprus, in the light of the current prospects of an opening to the East, is that after all, these coordinates make up a European geography, which is anything but static...it is a geography on a tightrope, balancing between past and future, memory and amnesia, desire and convention. Such a Europe is the only kind of Europe that could continue to expand.

Translated by: Andry Panayiotou

(This is a text I wrote a couple of months ago, answering to the question “What does it mean, if anything, for Cypriots to be part of an expanded Europe”. The text is finally not going to be published, so I thought of posting it here.)