Rewriting Cyprus history, starting with the textbook

Government intention to revise history schoolbooks has sparked outcry

A Cypriot student reads her secondary school history textbook on the steps of the Phaneromeni School in the heart of the old town of Nicosia as a Christian Orthodox priest leaves the building.

NICOSIA (AFP) – A decision by the Cyprus government to revise history textbooks in order to bolster peaceful coexistence between the island’s Greek and Turkish speaking communities has enraged many clerics and politicians.

Critics have demonized Education Minister Andreas Demetriou for making such a bold proposal, which opponents say will undermine the heritage of the Mediterranean island.

The minister’s circular is tantamount to “castrating our Hellenic heritage,” according to nationalist opposition party DISY.

“Does this mean everything that we have learned is false?” asked Archbishop Chrysostomos II, head of the powerful Cyprus Orthodox Church.

President Dimitris Christofias and Turkish Cypriot leader Mehmet Ali Talat on Friday held their fourth meeting in a round of talks launched on September 3 to try and reunify Cyprus.

The education minister issued his controversial circular to schools around the time the talks began, saying he wanted to help develop a culture of respect between the two communities in a bid to bolster reunification.

Demetriou said history books that have remained unchanged for decades must be reviewed to take into account the changing world. He set up a committee of experts to take on this sensitive task.

“Education must cultivate these things that unite us and characterize us as a people,” he said. “I personally believe... that there is nothing better than the truth.” Demetriou’s words had a bombshell effect on many, though the plan also found its backers.

Eleni Semelidou, head of the Cyprus Secondary Teachers’ Union, is among those who are anxious about the rewrite.

“I am all for peaceful coexistence but in the north live not only Turkish Cypriots, but also 40,000 Turkish occupation troops and 120,000 Turkish settlers,” she said. “The problem is: With whom shall we cooperate?”

For University of Cyprus social anthropologist Yiannis Papadakis, problems in teaching history are rife on both sides of the divided island. “Students learn more history of Greece or Turkey than history of Cyprus,” said Papadakis, who published a book earlier this year outlining comparisons in history manuals in the north and the south.

He said there is a common thread to all history books in Cyprus, except for those published in the breakaway Turkish republic where manuals were revised in 2004 following the election of leftist Talat.

“All the books... have a common plot: the good, the bad and the ugly,” Papadakis said. “The good is us, the evil is the neighbor, the enemy, and the ugly is the great powers who should have been on our side, and who betrayed us, namely Great Britain.

“Students learn that Cyprus has always been Greek, all the other communities... don’t belong. They are conquerors.”

Papadakis said that some teachers in the north have “refused to use the revised” manuals in protest at some of the content, while in the south “it is very difficult for Greek-Cypriot teachers to provide a more balanced viewpoint.” Since Talat took office, history manuals in the north have dropped such terms as “motherland” in reference to Turkey and use the words “Cypriot” and “people” to designate the two communities, the anthropologist said.

Tahir Gokcebel, head of the Turkish-Cypriot teachers union KTOEOS, acknowledged that revising textbooks after 2004 was a “very difficult task” and spoke of some “prejudice and bias” in manuals on the southern side of the island. He wants a “common curriculum” for schools across the island and would like compulsory classes in both the Greek and Turkish languages.