Hospitality in a Divided Nation

It began, unexpectedly, at the border crossing. Myself and three classmates were in Nicosia crossing to the north side of Cyprus, for myself it was the 3^rd time that weekend. The stone-faced and bored looking border control officers barely gave me a second glance as they scanned my passport and handed it back. As I waited for my three travel mates to complete the robotic procedure, I smiled at a border guard who was waiting past the passport control windows as he was catching the precious breeze at the corner of the building. He asked where I was heading: Girne. He loves it there, was just there yesterday, in fact, and asks me how we will take the journey. He informs me that the road that the bus takes is closed due to a car rally. After finding a map and explaining how to get to another bus station, he says, “Or, you wait for me here at the cathedral, and I will take you in my car.” 10 minutes later he is in his plain clothes and we are bouncing through back streets of Nicosia as he tells us about his time in Cyprus (he moved here from Turkey when he was six years old), what he thinks of reunification (“It is not so bad now. What happens, happens”), what he thinks of Girne (the harbour is the place to go) and as much as we can exchange in the 15-minute ride to the station. He drops us at the station, sees our perplexed faces from afar, and 2 minutes later comes back to escort us and ensure that we get on the correct bus.

Famagusta - a day at the beach.

When we arrived to the station Girne, we were picked up by Sayed*, our host for the night. He took us to a beach club, where we smoked shisha with him and his friends. Later, they cooked us a big traditional meal, barely blinking an eye that we are vegan, vegetarian and therefore, complicated, and reminding one another not to offer us the chicken. They told us that there are no rules in the house, and to not even ask if we need something. We had drinks and were taught traditional dancing. When speaking about our travel plans for the following day, Sayed said that we will have no problem hitch-hiking. “Why is it so easy here?” “Because this place is like a big village, everyone knows one another,” he said. The next day as we stood thumbs-up by the side of the road, we were surprised to find that 30 seconds later a car had stopped. 5 minutes later we were in a car (the 5^th that stopped) that was headed our direction – Famagusta. 

Fzmagusta - the barrier extending into the ocean.

We received hospitality from nearly everyone we met in Northern Cyprus. For the most part, people were willing and interested to discuss things with us openly. Perhaps, as German, Dutch, British and American girls, people were as curious about us as we were them. But one can’t help but think about how, on both sides of the divided nation, a feeling of welcome does not necessarily extend to those with whom they share an island, the people on the “other side”. With over 40 years since the Green Line divided them, Cypriots have a much stronger history of hostility than they have hospitality. During our conversations with people in Northern Cyprus, I got the impression that the Southern part seemed like a distant place, which is understandable as it was intangible for either side until borders opened in 2003. This distance was mimicked by the ways in which people played and enjoyed themselves on the beach in Famagusta, as huge abandoned buildings, a looming reminder of the Turkish invasion of 1974, towered behind the barbed wire and scrap metal fence. Something that happened a long time ago which has become a part of the background, an accepted fact. “I just don’t look behind me”, one beachgoer said.

"I am a Cypriot, not a martyr"

UN peacekeepers look on at the protest

Apathy is certainly not the rule. A few days before we reached Famagusta, we were in the Home for Cooperation. Lying in the UN Buffer Zone, the place seeks to bring all communities in Cyprus together through art, language, music and coffee. Both sides can meet halfway and just be with one another. The Home helps each side see what it could be like if reunification were to happen, through finding commonalities and creating a welcoming environment for everyone. In another buffer zone in Nicosia, we encountered a protest - signs, people banging on metal doors and chanting, all in the name of reunification. The Nicosia Master Plan is a bi-communal effort to create a whole, undivided city that makes sense infrastructurally. Beginning in 1978 with a joined sewage system, Nicosians are literally and figuratively getting their shit together in preparation for a reunified city. Of course, these efforts are seen in the divided city, where you turn a corner in a residential area and are confronted by the wall. In northern Girne, people were shocked that we were staying in Pafos, a 3- hour bus journey away. Distance and exposure to the “other” of course affects the way in which people consider and treat their linguistically different neighbours, and perhaps their motivation to reunite.

Tuğrul İlter** theorizes that “we become who we are by extending hospitality to others”, and that the creation of identity is based on a differential relationship with an other. He calls for Turkish Cypriots to take action in their identity formation, which he says has been shaped by xenophobia, nationalism and ethnocentrism which has been inherited from a paternal nation state. But hospitality is complicated when one has been displaced from their original home, which many Greek and Turkish Cypriots experienced in 1974. It’s also complicated by the fact that Turkish Cypriots experience a sense of isolation, and perhaps a weariness to outsiders.

Appeals for love, a better future for Cypriot children, and peace.

During our short time here, we have experienced hospitality wherever we have been in Cyprus. What I have seen are some solid efforts for reunification, and what I understand as a willingness to move forward together. It is reported that many Cypriots want reunification, and that Current UN peace talks are regarded as a “once-in-a-generation chance of reconciliation”. Can the village feeling that Sayed spoke of extend to nation-wide peace and welcoming? It seems that this requires facing the past, not turning one’s back to the history of conflict like the beachgoer in Famagusta. And in addition, as İlter said, taking responsibility for the future identities that Cypriots form in order to shift away from xenophobia and negative “othering”, and towards a hospitable future.

 (All photos taken by the author.)

*Names have been changed

**“The Island of Love/The Island of Conflict: Hospitality and Hostility of Turkish Cypriot Identity and Citizenship in North Cyprus” Tuğrul İlter, 2014.