Apostolos Kouroupakis
Fifty-one years after the coup and the invasion. Half a century has passed, and the island remains divided, its northern part still under Turkish occupation, while the landscape changes drastically. Even Cyprus’ geography is being dismantled. City and village names have changed, refugees with living memories are dwindling, and the younger generations remember less and less. Not because they’re forgetting; there’s just nothing to forget. They’ve been fed the same handful of facts, memorized like schoolbook “exam tips”: Apostolos Andreas, the Kanakaria mosaic, Salamis, the little port of Kyrenia, “progressive” Famagusta, and citrus-scented Morphou. Just enough for a cheat sheet.
We talk, we preach, we intellectualize, mostly into the void. The goal? To stir emotion in the older folks, not to teach the younger ones, who should have been our top priority all along. Because those who do remember are leaving us, and soon no one will even recall the basics.
Some descendants of refugees might have heard stories about their grandparents’ villages. The rest just picture a vague island that once stretched from Akamas to Karpasia, a lost paradise envied by many. And now? Some of them play the nationalist card even harder than the actual nationalists, spouting slogans with zero understanding, while refugee housing blocks still stand and aging refugee associations still hold on... while missing persons are still unaccounted for, and memorials for the fallen continue.
Fifty-one years later, the island is still under siege. On both sides, patience and perseverance are being tested. On our side, we’re still hung up on Grivas and Makarios, so much so that we can’t even agree on what actually happened, let alone how their actions led to that fateful summer of 1974. Public discourse offers nothing useful about how, after 51 years of division and occupation, we could reimagine Cyprus as united and thriving.
We need to start speaking the language of 2025. We need to read today’s reality without filtering it through the lens of past decades. Both sides must recognize that clinging to the status quo leads nowhere. No border is secure enough to protect anyone from the dark ambitions of shady players, and no society, especially a small one, is resilient enough to maintain its identity forever without change.
Fifty-one years of loss is a lot. And the north is changing, not year by year, but day by day. So while there are still people and groups trying desperately to bridge the divide, time is merciless. And perhaps that should be our compass: to realize how unforgiving time can be and figure out how to both remember and move forward.
*This op-ed was translated from its Greek original
