Nobody is safe from a Politics of Paranoia and Purges

Alkan CHAGLAR
The Cypriots were once said to be one of the most educated subjects of the British Empire, considering the expanse of the Empire this is undeniably a distinguished compliment to the small island country. Yet a decades old politics of paranoia dating back to the cold war does not sit well with this image. For whenever Cypriots dissent with one another, Stalinist style paranoia kicks in and soon notions generate about the person’s allegiances, followed by a string of accusations and labelling and even can lead to attempts to purge the person. Often those engaging in such these acts are in power protecting their own clandestine politics or those once influential who have painfully lost political power, but like a national disease, they can occur in cafés, offices or in the sitting room during ordinary discussion.

PARANOID THINKING
In the original Greek, παράνοια (paranoia) denotes madness or a state of delusion. Indeed the definition is apt if we consider attempts by American Historian Richard Hofstadter to analyze the paranoid. “The paranoid spokesman sees the fate of conspiracy in apocalyptic terms—he traffics in the birth and death of whole worlds, whole political orders, whole systems of human values. Considering himself as the self-styled savior, the only one able to see the conspiracy to warn the unsuspecting public, the paranoid is always on guard. Like a militant leader who plays dirty when it suits them and then pretends to endorse democracy the rest of the time, he is uncommitted to democracy, dialogue and debate. The paranoid does not regard “social conflict as something to be mediated and compromised, in the manner of the working politician.” Hofstadter maintains: “Since what is at stake is always a conflict between absolute good and absolute evil, what is necessary is not compromise but the will to fight things out to a finish. Hofstadter adds that it is this demand for “total triumph” that often leads the paranoid to frustration when they cannot reach their unrealistic goals. In over-passionate Cypriot politics, where intransigence is seen as a merit and where hopeful heros line up to capture the limelight, few value the concepts of debate and compromise nor the virtues they can offer.

QUESTIONS OF SERVITUDE
In typical style if you dare think independently be prepared not for debate, if only we had debate, but for questions of servitude. One London-based columnist recently dared to ask his readers in his weekly column to guess Who they thought another writer was working for? The writer added that in politics people only develop views to safeguard their interests and accused the other writer of taking Greek money. In most Western states you would need proof to make such allegations or you or the paper you write for could end up paying a lot of money in damages in court. Even though he was unaware of press ethics, his comments got me thinking. If we are to believe the crazed notion that one only writes to safeguard ones interests, then I wonder what interests he is safeguarding. Irrefutably, any writer who suggests such a reason for putting pen to paper is simply insulting his own readers?

CONSPIRACIES…
But lamentably, the question of servitude features too often in Cypriot politics. It seems whenever disagreement occurs, in the paradigm way of thinking, the question of servitude routinely crops up as do conspiracies. If you propose that a Cyprus solution may lie in NATO, then obviously you are an American spy! If you speak of the universality of human rights in Cyprus and refer not just to your own community’s suffering but to another, then a conspiracy is thought up that you are paid by the Greeks! If you defend the human rights of all in Cyprus including Turkish/ Kurdish settlers who have lived in Cyprus for decades then you must be an agent of the Turks! Now, I wonder if I should mention my admiration for Irish President Mary Robinson or will I be dubbed an Irish spy? Surely, if one lends credence to such wild allegations, then Cyprus would be an island of espionage and most Cypriots double or even triple agents. Could it be that perhaps a writer writes solely for his / her own conscience?

LABELLING, DEFAMATION, SLANDER
With a view to crush one’s opponent with limited use of intellect, labels too are flung. Resembling the revolving wheel of a car stuck in a field, the perpetrators fling mud, desperately trying to move. With no intelligent answer to offer and relying solely on the impact of insults and labels to get by they pursue and harass writers, poets, intellectuals and journalists with the help of Right-Wing Nationalist newspapers both and in the diaspora. The cream of any society, people like Neshe Yashin, Sevgul Uludag, Niyazi Kizilyurek… are meant to stimulate debate and elicit ideas from the people, to try to prevent their work is not in the national interest at all but is to deprive the country of new ideas and ways of improving their lot. Exercising ochlocratic media tyranny over the Turkish Cypriot community, several newspapers in northern Cyprus have even been brought to the attention of International PEN, the European Journalists Federation and even Amnesty International for their campaigns of terror.
More much common, but equally destructive, often if one disagrees with a stance somebody has taken then traditionally they warn others off even meeting that person. On one occasion I was meant to meet an intellectual but was warned by people in the same movement: “He is dangerous, be careful!” When I asked why, they replied that that is simply what they heard. With no evidence, this person had already been tried, convicted and executed.

PURGES
Formerly under the Denktash regime, writers, poets, journalists and even politicians would have been purged. Despite international outrage, journalist Sener Levent even served time in jail for his articles, but now it seems labelling and Stalinistic purging is also the tool of the Left. Within the Cypriot Left too if you dare swing too close to the Liberal Conservative Right, you could end up being called a Fascist and excluded. Before long people you trusted as your comrades, would refer to you as the "enemy within.” Recently I heard that the Left-wing government of northern Cyprus even arranged to speak to high ranking members in my organisation to persuade them to try to sack our editor because of his articles. Like the practice of forced incarceration of political dissenters in psychiatric institutions in the former Soviet Union, sometimes when they cannot purge you they simply dub you as mad thus attempting to discredit all your work without debate.

TIME TO LEAVE THE TWILIGHT REALM OF PARANOIA
Considering the repeated outside interference in Cyprus’ internal affairs over the decades and the need to be cautious, paranoia some would argue is a natural dimension of Cypriot politics. But destructive, excessive paranoia acts as the destroyer of debate and the silencer of new ideas. Perhaps founded by fear of painful truths, political paranoia is a method to conceal. Perhaps accusations and labelling occurs only serves to distract our community from seeing the clearer picture of the world. But as you would expect, once in the twilight realm of paranoia, fear can lead men to stoop as low as to label their opponents. Like a witch hunt, the ‘enemy’ is always pursued until total defeat, in such a climate what room is there for free thought and debate? And what can our community ever aspire to achieve if we label and exclude the cream of our own society? Cypriots must stand up against the labelling and purges caused by execessive paranoia. Monotonous, nobody will benefit from a lack of debate and nobody regardless of their beliefs who exercises free thought will despite their feelings of security will be safe from this politics of paranoia and purges. I finish off with a quote by Martin Niemöller: “First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out. Next they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out. And then they came for me!”