The first thing to say about
this book, written by Niyazi Kızılyürek, is that it does not have a unity of
the subjects, dealt in the book. It is rather a compilation of 14 articles on
different subjects. Although the title of the book is “Pashas and the Priests”,
there is no account of their activities in the book. It seems that the title is
selected for the sake of commercial attraction. The book is introduced as the
first of a serial, called “Cyprus Notebooks”, as if others will follow.
Unfortunately the wish of the writer to bring a new viewpoint to the history of
Cyprus is not being realized in the 14 articles, published for the first time
in this book. There is no chronological order of the articles, no systematic
either. The introduction of the subjects is superficial and they have no
connection between them. There are a lot of mistakes about the references of the
books and the articles, on which the allegations of the writer are made.
Moreover, the bibliography given after the 4th article is very poor for a
researcher, who made his graduate and post-graduate studies in Germany. There
is no mention of the place and the years of the publications of the reference
material. There are also deficiencies in the footnotes within the text. There was
also no need to imitate the writing style of the Turkish researcher, Yalçın
Küçük. Although it is stated in the inner pages that the typesetting of the
book was made in London, there is no mention of where the book was printed (in
fact in Nicosia as I heard).
Özker Özgür, the Chairman of
the Republican Turkish Party, wrote an article in Yeni Düzen newspaper about
this book and said: “The loyalty to the Marxist method of criticism and
interrogation is observed in the book. But this did not cause any dryness or
boredom.” Thus, we learn from Mr. Özgür that the Marxist method can be dry and
boring! Was Mr. Özgür not the one, who found out his reading of Marx’s
“Capital” boring and turned to read Bülent Ecevit’s “This order has to be
changed”, when he wrote years ago in his column in Halkın Sesi?
Why does Kızılyürek find it
necessary to write the following sentence in the preface of the book: “The
method of criticism and interrogation of this book serial is Marxist”? We could
not find out the answer in the book. After we read the whole 14 articles, it
becomes clear, how superficial the researcher understood the Marxist method.
Although in the preface it
is written that there are 14 articles in the book, they are not numbered, but
put in disorder. The first article is a speech made by Kızılyürek at a panel,
organized in London on the “Cypriot Turkish Identity in the Literature”. The
writer uses the term of “Cyprus upper-class”, which is not used in Turkish and
it is indefinite. It seems that he preferred to use this term, translated from
English, after looking at the underdeveloped character of the Turkish Cypriot
commercial bourgeosie, instead of defining it with the classical term
“bourgeosie”. But it is not appropriate, because it is well-known that the
Turkish Cypriot notables have turned from tradesmanship and land-ownership into
commercial bourgeosie. Its dependent and underdeveloped structure should not
stop the writer to call them with this correct name. Kızılyürek writes the
following: “Undoubtedly, there is a collaborationist-traditional section in
every colony. But on the opposite side, there are local, national classes,
which are pioneers of the national liberation movement, in other words,
pioneers of becoming a nation and of modernization. This is failing in the
Turkish Cypriot community.”
The writer alleges that he
uses the Marxist methodology, but it is a pity that he prefers to take the easy
way by saying “No, there isn’t”, when he looks and he does not see what he is
looking for. Moreover, this proves that he did not make the necessary research
of the socio-economic and political structure of the Turkish Cypriot community,
which has a population of 100,000. As he could not use the Marxist thought in a
creative way, he writes in short. “The political ideology and the ideological
identity of the Turkish Cypriot upper-class formed itself as Sir plus Pasha
plus Turan (Panturkism)” (p.20). He refers to the Sirs, OK. But where are the
Pashas? He did not see it necessary to refer to the Ottoman society structure,
which lasted 300 years and what did it leave as a legacy to the Turkish Cypriot
community. He did not deal even with the rebellions of the people against the
Pashas and the Priests during the Ottoman period. He writes that the identity
of “Sir plus Pasha” got ripe in the 1940’s, without giving convincing and
detailed information. Whereas in those years, there were differentiations,
which started between the “upper-class” and the “lower-class” of the Turkish
Cypriots in the standard of organization and difference of ideological views
and the identity of today’s Turkish Cypriot leadership was about to be formed.
The internal and external factors towards
becoming a national Turkish
community out of a Muslim community started to be influential just at the end
of 1940’s.
It seems that Kızılyürek either
has insufficient information about the historical formation of the Turkish
Cypriot bourgeosie, let alone about the struggle of the Turkish Cypriot working
classes or he could not get what he wanted out of English and German reference
books he read! Otherwise he would not write the following evaluation: “The reason
of this crisis of the Turkish Cypriot community originates from the fact that
it does not have a history of his own.” (p.24) If we say it with the writer’s
terminology, contrary to his allegation (p.24), both the upper- and the
lower-classes of Cyprus have made their own histories. What is important is
that, one has not to alienate himself from these histories and has to regard
the internal and external factors and that one has to make a scientific
historical research. Such a work is done already in the reference books the
writer has given.
What are being told in the
section titled “Greek Cypriot bourgeosie, which is class-impotent” shows on the
contrary, how potent the Greek Cypriot bourgeosie has been. That is why the
judgements like are overturned realities: “The Greek Cypriot bourgeois class
refrained from making a bourgeois revolution in Cyprus by uniting the Cyprus
working class and why it does not want to share the power with the working
class.” (p.30-31) Because it was the working class organizations themselves, which
caused the historical division of the working class of Cyprus by grasping the
enosis ideology of the Greek Cypriot bourgeosie. The explanation of the
hegemony of the real pashas of today originates from this historical mistake.
(For the Turkish original
article, see Araştırma kitaplarımız bilimsellikten uzak, Kıbrıs Postası, 18-19-21
June 1988)
Niyazi Kızılyürek introduced
his book “Beyond Nation” to the readers in both Turkish and Greek languages in
the same volume with a preface, where he writes: “Since many years, let there
be a piece of scientific movement finally. With the hope of having more books
published in two languages.” But there have been several scientific
publications already about the influences of the Greek and Turkish nationalism
on Cyprus problem, written by Greek Cypriots (e.g. Zenon Stavrinides, Michael
Attalides and others) and by Turkish Cypriots (Notes on the development of a
Cypriot consciousness, a serial by Kemal Cankat, published in the weekly
Demokrat newspaper in 1989). Maybe these studies could not reach to a lot of
readers, but Mr. Kızılyürek, as a researcher, should have been aware of them.
The author, who seems to be
under the influence of Murat Belge, a Turkish writer, and especially of his
book “In which part of the world is Turkey?”, tries to adapt Belge’s view,
which is “to isolate the existing states from nationalism”. But he makes
important mistakes by bringing wrong comments on the history of Cyprus. For
example, he writes: “There was never a political or ideological initiative for
co-existence” (p.13). He overlooks the activities of the Communist Party of
Cyprus between the years 1921 and 1931 and the political activities of the
Turkish Cypriot intellectuals, who got together around the weekly newspaper
“Cumhuriyet” of the years “1960-1962.
The author defines the
founding of the Republic of Cyprus in 1960 as a “revolution” and the events of
the 1974 as a “counter-revolution”. These examples show us that he is not
realist, but he has a schematic approach. He does not refer to the fact that
the roots of “competitive nationalism” (in his own words) grasped the Cypriot
soil just in this period, when the British colonial administration staged the
“1931 rebellion”, in order to stop the common political and ideological
activities of both communities. (For a detailed explanation, please look at my
serial: “The formation of the Turkish Cypriot leadership, Yeni Çağ weekly, 8
March 1993 – 28 November 1994 – 85 instalments)
How can one create a “Cyprus
Beyond Nation” without referring to the importance of the “common class
consciousness” in the development of the “us” feeing, without referring to the
influence of Greece and Turkey, each being a NATO country, of the influence of
Anglo-American imperialism on the Cyprus problem and on the Cypriots
themselves?
Kızılyürek writes: “Even in
the meetings of the most advanced sections of both communities, one feels the
existence of doubt clouds”, which shows from which point of approach he looks
at the problem!
We can conclude by saying
that Mr. Kızılyürek need to learn more about the science of research and a sense
of scientific judgement, before he publishes books, which can cause a lot of unquietness
for himself and for those, who wage a struggle for the friendship of the two
communities in Cyprus.
(For the original Turkish
article, see Yeni Düzen, 30 January 1994)
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