Below are my answers to the questions asked by Haravgi correspondent Costas Pitsilloudes:
a) How likely is it that the announcements of
Ersin Tatar, and also of the Turkish ambassador, Ali Murat Bashcheri, that will
change the teaching of history in the schools of North to enter into
force?
Turkey has an agenda for Turkifying the occupied part of our island since 1974. The governments in Turkey wanted to make the T/Cs feel “more Turkish and more Moslem”. This policy was intensified especially during the power of the “Justice and Development Party” (AKP). On the other hand, they aim mainly the Anatolian settlers and their children who have been living here in the last almost half a century. They were given the citizenship of the “TRNC” and they vote together with the indigenous Turkish Cypriots, who are less in number than the newcomers.
It is well
known that Tatar won last year the “Presidency of the TRNC” in the second round
only with 4,412 more votes. This was an increase of 9% that was made possible
with the interventions of the officers of the “Turkish Embassy” in Nicosia. The
votes came especially from Famagusta and Trikomo areas, where the settlers are
mostly settled.
It is
interesting that 29 governments and 43 cabinets have served in the occupied area
of our island in the last 46 years. Turkish ambassador functions as an
appointed governor of the “subordinate administration”. With the help of the
local collaborators of the occupation regime, many changes were put into force in
the past and new history text books will not be an exception!
b) If this event takes place, what impact can it have on the Turkish Cypriot community, but also and to G/c?
Certainly, the new books will propagate the “two states” policy of the separatist T/C leadership and define the free part of the RoC and the G/C community as a potential enemy like it was done in the previous history text books.
As you
know, I, as a retired paediatrician and author of 24 books on Cyprus politics
and T/C history, was one of the T/Cs who were denied entry to Turkey on 11 July
2021 according to a list of T/C federalists, a list made in September 2020 before
the “Presidential election”. I had also won my case against Turkey at the ECHR
in 2003 that started the crossings over the dividing line for the first time
after 1974. It must be a political revenge of the Turkish state to put a ban on
my entry to Turkey, after the new policy, which brought the separatist Tatar to
power in October 2020.
The G/Cs
used to make touristic visits to Turkey before the COVID pandemic. I don’t know
if they will be allowed to do so, when the “two states” policy of Turkey
continues and enmity will be propagated also in the mass media against the
Republic of Cyprus.
The curriculum taught in T/C schools are very similar to the one in Turkey. All the text books are imported from Turkey. Only the books about the history of Cyprus were written and printed in Cyprus until 2000’s. The author was Vehbi Zeki Serter, who was a chauvinist history teacher and later a member of the governing “National Unity Party” (UBP). Serter’s books were taught for nearly 30 years in the T/C secondary schools and lyceums. They were written with an ethno-centric Turkish nationalist perspective, legitimizing the “national goal” of the T/C community and denying the legitimacy of the “other” community.
Besides the
books on history of Cyprus and history of Turkish Cypriots, other locally
written books were also introduced: Geography of Cyprus, Human Rights, Traffic
and Information about Life. But when the UBP came to power again in June 2009, all
these books were left aside since they were regarded as “far from our national
identity”. A new commission was appointed by the UBP, comprising of Turkish and
T/C teachers of history that prepared new history text books.
This last call
from Erdoğan will be the third change of the history text books, taught at the
secondary schools and lyceums. It will certainly have an Islamic-fascist
perspective, which will be dehumanizing the G/C community as an enemy again.
c) Do you think that the act to change the history books, is placed in a broader context promoted by the Turkish Cypriot Right (UBP, DP etc.) and Turkish government?
Various
speakers addressed the panel by saying that “the T/Cs were the grandchildren of
the Ottomans who stepped foot on the island 450 years ago and they needed to
know their heritage, religion and history”, as if they knew nothing before and
as if no other communities live on our island.
