Hyperpresence and the Divided City

The last divided city

Towards the end of our first week in Cyprus, we got to travel to the “Last Divided City” which is Nicosia to stay there for the night. The long bus-ride took us past the famous “Five Finger” Kyrenia mountain, one of the only two mountain ranges in Cyprus, where there is a massive Northern Cyprus flag on it. The flag is a statement of the northern people of Cyprus and a reminder of the 1974 incident of division and violence. The theme of violence here shall be revisited again later in this post.

Dr. Yiannis Papadakis, who kindly led our tour, coined the term “Hyperpresent” to describe not just the flag of Kyrenia but also the Northern Cypriots’ eagerness to make themselves visible via flags and other forms of significations. He talked about how this attempt to be hyperpresent is something that is implied to be done on the part of fear. Perhaps, he said, it is the fear that they will be forgotten or oppressed. My further understanding is that the hyperpresence is a form of retaliation or one that furthers the binary, the divide between the Turkish-Cypriot to the Greek-Cypriot. By having more contrast between the two sides of the binary, the Turkish side may achieve a form of an intensified sense of identity.

Upon our arrival, we headed to the Home for Cooporation to attend a presentation about the various efforts people have been doing to promote the compassionate approach towards the buffer zone and the greater conflict in general, through art exhbitions, social events, and cultural activities. However, we are not to forget the sign that sits in front of the gate of the buffer zone, which reminds us about the violent and fatal beating of a man and the killing of his cousin.Tassos Isaac was beaten to death during a Greek Cypriot demonstration to remove Turkish occupation of the buffer zone, his death was closely followed by the death of his cousin Solomos Solomou who was shot as he was climbing to remove the Turkish flag during the mourning of Isaac. This violent event conjures up the image of the Cyprus Crisis that first constituted the divide between Greek and Turkish Cypriot.

We got a chance to cross the border ourselves on the very next day. The buffer zone had two checkpoints, both of which one have to process through to be able to arrive in the other side of the border. Although we did not get to truly explore the northern side of Cyprus, as we only had a few hours to walk around the Turkish side of the border, there were already differences to be seen in the architecture as well as in minor things such as the items in the convenient store or the menu in a restaurant. Personally the first striking difference came to me in the form of minor things such as items in a convenience store. The entire ice cream selection looked different and the same went for chips. Obviously there should have been an incentive for the same brands and series of products to be bought in the country, even if it is divided. I am rather confident that this was intentional.Perhaps is it a form a hyper-desperation to differentiate themselves from the south?