Méditerranée : Ruptures et Continuités

TMO 37, 2003

THE POLITICS OF IDENTITY IN THE TURKISH CYPRIOT COMMUNITY

A RESPONSE TO THE POLITICS OF DENIAL?

Niyazi KIZILYÜREK ∗

RÉSUMÉ

In nationalist ideologies the national identity of a person is usually regarded as something permanent, innate and immutable. It is often thought to consist of some natural or spiritual essence which is identified with a person’s blood or soul. However the historical record shows that national identity is a “ product” of modernity and is always in a process and is never complete. We cannot treat the national identity separate from the state and nation building processes and therefore not as a “ natural entity”. It is not because of a particular collective identity that we do belong to a nation but we do have a sense of national identity because we do participate into the life of a particular nation. And participation into the life of a nation differs radically of being a member of any pre-modern collectivity. There was no need of a homogenized culture in the premodern societies and above all, the politics did not need to refer to a collective culture for its legitimization. It is the nation state which turns the subjects into citizens, hence into the participants and in turn deprives them from their local or supra national attachments and equips them with a national high culture. It is this amalgam of culture with politics, which turns the “ local subject” into national citizen. In other words, it is in the modern times that ethnicities become nations. With the nationalization of ethnic identities and the politicization of local cultures, a national identity develops like a thin veneer on top of pre-existing regional or ethnic identities (Danforth 2000, p. 90). It is the powerful economic, political, cultural and social forces of modernity which construct and shape the identities. And above all is the hegemonic power of the states which structure them. “ State polices, the ideologies that legitimate them, and the institutions and organizations that realize them, all influence the process of identity formation as individuals are socialized and become citizens of particular states. To a great extent the states have the power and the resources to determine what choices are available to people and what the rewards or the sanctions will be when they exercise and adopt specific identities. […] Despite the best efforts of a

•University of Cyprus.