Hey again! Long time no see (but for real this time). I had other blogs that I was going to post saved in my notes, but I wanted to write this one now when it's still fresh. This weekend we went to Cyprus, which was not at all what I was expecting. To be honest, I didn't know much about Cyprus until I knew I was going on this trip and decided to read up on some of the issues. Despite this, I was still very much unprepared for what we saw.
The first night in Cyprus, I was struck by how different it was from Crete. There were lots of American businesses there, like KFC and McDonald's, yet I have not seen a single American business in Crete. Also, there were far fewer mountains than around Crete.
What really struck me, however, was the experience that started when we started walking around the Old Town. I began to pick up how normalized the border between the Turkish side and Greek Cypriote side was. There was a bar called "Checkpoint Charlie" near the border and Petros said there was another restaurant called "Berlin 2 Wall" as well. It didn't sit well with me that not only did the people normalize their situation, but they also capitalized on it. It was disheartening. Additionally, before we even went to the Turkish side, I could tell it was developmentally far behind the Greek Cypriote side.
When we crossed the border, it was even more depressing to see. There was propaganda everywhere. Next to the Turkish flag on the side of the mountain, there was some writing that John translated to roughly, "How happy I am to be a Turk!" Since the international community does not recognize the legitimacy of the Turkish occupation, they have to force the people to accept the legitimacy without question.
The most harrowing experience was seeing the ghost village. Not only were we given no explanation or background on what we were seeing, but our guide got yelled at for taking photographs after telling us not to take them.
Seeing the ghost village was really hard for me. This is something I've always struggled with, even before coming here. People always say things like "never again" or "I would've done something" after a tragedy happens, but we keep letting them happen. There have been genocides since the Holocaust, and there will probably continue to be some in the future. Mr.Gorbachev tore down that Wall over 20 years ago, yet Cyprus remains occupied. It's disheartening. It makes everything seem almost fruitless. The Turkish side, should Cyprus reunify someday, will remain behind the other side, developmentally and probably education-wise as well. How long will it take them to catch up? What will the consequences be? Slavery was abolished almost 200 years ago, and on the whole, there still is not equality in the African American community. So, why do we continue to play with people's lives? How much good can the political or institutional process do? We get so stuck in theory and forget that people's lives are at stake that we end up ravaging societies in seconds and leaving them a mess that will take years to rebuild. And it doesn't stop. So how do things change? Can they change? I mean what will it take really? I've thought about this a lot since taking my first political science class. It's hard for me, and I feel like I cannot express the full extent of what I feel in words. I just feel as though there's an internal battle constantly going on in my brain with one side believing that there can be real, meaningful change and the other side believing that nothing will ever change in a meaningful way and we will continue to ruin lives to advance agendas. I don't know. I feel like I've gone on too long.
I'm really grateful we talked about it all together after we went. And I'm grateful, as always, for the people I'm here with. That's all for now.
Fin.
XX Jess
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