Redux
Every journey circles home
On the return flight, as I leafed through Blue, Aegean’s magazine, my eyes stopped at the cover: the Aslan Pasha Mosque, built on the ruins of the Byzantine church of Saint John, in Ioannina. Centuries of history, faith and coexistence, but also contradictions. I could not help wondering how extreme nationalist voices, some of whom were travelling with us in business class, would react if a Cypriot airline magazine featured a mosque from Cyprus on its cover. The distance between symbolism and reality remains vast.
I felt this distance during the journalistic mission to Strasbourg for the Cypriot EU Presidency. Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot journalists shared flights, routes, meals and long working hours. We shared the same physical space, but not the same experience. The Turkish Cypriots were present, yet at the same time invisible. Part of the group, but also outsiders. Exactly as in the broader political narrative of Cyprus. In theory, the Cyprus problem remains the country’s number one, the national issue. In practice, daily pressures, economic insecurity and political fatigue have turned it into a matter that can be managed rhetorically without any real risk.
The Turkish Cypriots who took part in the mission noted the absence of references to reconciliation, the language of shared ownership and the lack of recognition of their presence as equal European citizens. I wondered if the European official and MEPs realised the absence too. Whether they noticed that the dominant terms were “occupation” and “liberation”, familiar for decades, reinforcing nationalist narratives and limiting the space for dialogue.
From the start, the Cyprus EU Presidency remained within a safe political zone, focused on projection and symbolism aimed at its own voters, without steps to enhance the visibility of Turkish Cypriots. The visit to the Green Line, with European leaders looking north through gaps between barrels, revealed the dismissive treatment of the community. Despite their participation in the mission, Turkish Cypriots remained unseen, and the opportunity to create practical bridges of cooperation was not used.
Language is never neutral. It creates realities, opens or closes pathways, sends messages. When the language of resolution is absent, this is a political stance. And as long as reconciliation is treated as a communication burden rather than a choice, the communities will continue to coexist without meeting. Like the mosque on the Greek magazine cover, standing upon the past.