The post -74 generations need a threshold moment
By Argyro Nicolaou Despite the growing impression that we can get on with our lives without being affected by it, the Cyprus problem leaves no aspect of our existence untouched. The case of those born after the events of 1974 illustrates the paradox. For the post-1974 generations, the Cyprus issue is both spectre and reality; ghost and materiality. Let me illustrate what I mean. For a 27-year-old born in the south of the island, the north – its towns, villages and landmarks – are less like real places and more like ideas or abstracted concepts. They have been defined more in terms of nationalist propaganda (think elementary school textbooks) and as settings of violent conflict than sites of personally lived experience. At best, the places in northern Cyprus are constructed solely in one’s imagination, with the help of parents’ or grandparents’ stories and memories, some fond, others bitter. At worst, they be...