Enosis Was a Stupid Idea

As the Greeks started to settle Cyprus in larger numbers, in an attempt to establish political control over the island, they quickly adopted the irredentist ideologies held by various other Greek communities living outside Greece.

20 October 2024 (Edited 17 December 2024 - 29 December 2024)

Mustafa Niyazi

MPhil International Relations

Founder & Chief Editor of Cyprus Profile

A Greek demonstration in the 1930s in favour of enosis. The banner reads "ΖΗΤΩ Η ΕΝΩΣΙΣ" which roughly translates to "WE WANT ENOSIS". The two flags behind the banner are the flags of the Kingdom of Greece.

Enosis, the idea of establishing political union between Greece and the eastern Mediterranean island of Cyprus, is popularly framed as the "will" of the "Cypriot" people.

Atleast, that is the branding, if you believe it.

"Cyprus is Greek."

"Cyprus has been Greek for thousands of years."

"We Greeks are the majority on Cyprus."

"We have the right to self-determination."

"We want enosis."

"GREECE! CYPRUS! ENOSIS!"

Apart from the lack of conviction in questioning the legitimacy and implications of this line of argument, which is very concerning, there is also a great deal of effort being spent to redefine its image in popular discourse.

But for all the attempts to paint Enosis and its legacy as "legitimate", "moral" and "humane" and of supposedly pursuing the right of a "downtrodden" and "occupied" people, "suffering" and living under "oppression", not able to determine their own political destiny on their own "native lands", the actual history of Enosis says much more than its social image.

Because behind the veils Enosis is just another settler colonialist imperialist project rooted in the extreme far-right ethnic purity fever dreams of taking somebody else's lands, or rather, atleast as far as this case is concerned, "Hellenising" an island that is otherwise historically, socially, culturally, and demographically Turkish and slapping the word "Greek" on top... and then forcing that island and its native population, the Turks, and others including Christians, Jews, Maronites and Armenians to against their will, interests and security, exchange one colonial master - Great Britain - with another - Greece.

But what does this all mean? And what bearing does it have on Cyprus today?

A map of Greater Greece after the Treaty of Sèvres, when the Megali Idea - Greece's ambition of territorial expansion or multiple enosis through much of the Ottoman Empire - seemed close to fulfillment. It features a portrait of Eleftherios Venizelos in the top left corner, and a female personification of the despotic kingdom to the right, bearing a scroll with a citation that reads: "Greece is destined to live and will live (Harilaos Trikoupis)". 31 December 1919. The map includes the following territorial acquisitions: The Kingdom of Greece, which was first officiated in the Peloponnese (Morea) in 1832. The Ionian Islands, which were gifted by Britain upon the arrival of the new King George I in 1864. Thessaly, which was ceded by the Ottomans in 1881. Epirus, Macedonia and Crete which were ceded after the Balkan Wars in 1913. Western Thrace which was ceded by Bulgaria in 1919. Eastern Thrace and self-proclaimed Ionia which were ceded by the Treaty of Sevres in 1920. And the Dodecanese, which were ceded by Italy in 1947. The island of Cyprus, a distant 800km away to the south-east, and nestled under Greece's old Anatolian mainland, is imposed in an isolated box in the bottom left.

The Birth of an Idea

Now before we begin talking about Enosis we first need to address that bigger elephant in the room called historical revivalism, Greek irredentism, and the Megali Idea, what it is a part of, how it came to be, and why Cyprus?

In the late 1700s philhellenism started to take root as a popular movement in European culture. The romanticisation of ancient Greek culture led many to advocate for Greek patriotism and independence from the Ottoman Empire. The Great Powers, who despite geopolitical adversity initially saw it necessary to preserve the status quo of the Ottoman Empire, soon changed their stance.

Emboldened by this, and on the platform of their own cultural, economic and academic liberty and equity under the Ottoman Empire, and due to its waning soft power and social image among the western bloc of states, they followed in the footsteps of the nationalism and enlightenment movements taking Europe by storm, and the cogs were set in motion that would bring about the genesis of a new nation and ideology, and change the face of the region forever.

A collection of paintings on the Greek War of Independence. Top Left: The camp of Karaiskakis at Phaliro. Theodoros Vryzakis (1814–1878). Painted in 1855. Top Right: The burning of an Ottoman frigate by a Greek fire ship. Original title: The attack on the Turkish flagship in the Gulf of Eressos at the Greek island of Lesvos by a fire ship commanded by Dimitrios Papanikolis. Konstantinos Volanakis (1837–1907). Bottom Left: Ibrahim Pasha at the Third siege of Missolonghi. Giuseppe Mazzola (1748-1838). Bottom Right: The Battle of Navarino. Ambroise Louis Garneray (1783–1857). Painted between 1827 and 1830. Underpinning the revolution, it's cradle and backbone, was the ethnogenesis of the modern Greek people by the western philhellenes. People who decisively associated with the specific defined culture and customs of that group then became ethnically distinct, forming and developing the new ethnic group born from the Sublime Ottoman State.

Disrupting the Status Quo, Establishing New Orders

Thus began the Greek Revolution. After gathering enough support for their cause, in the early months of 1821 the Greeks embarked on a great ambition. They declared their independence in the Morea, their cradle and backbone, and with clever diplomatic handling and the support of a combined British, French and Russian naval intervention, they de facto achieved it in 1829.

However, stuck with nothing but the tiny footnote of a difficult-terrained peninsula, yet still emboldened, in the 19th and early 20th centuries, they sought to expand their boundaries to include other parts of the Ottoman Empire, with a focus on areas where Greeks and Orthodox Christians resided.

The Megali Idea was born.

They first played a peripheral role in the Ottoman Empire's conflicts, expanding into Ottoman territories during moments of distraction, and made efforts to cause insurrections - which failed as they were decisively unpopular with the local populations, and easily crushed by Ottoman forces, just as had happened elsewhere during the Greek War of Independence, including on Cyprus.

Where they couldn't achieve expansion through direct conflict or insurrections, however, they sought to do so through strong geopolitical assertions and clever diplomatic leverage, exploiting Ottoman weaknesses and shortcomings, and taking advantage of their position as a satellite to the European states.

Map of the territory claimed by Eleftherios Venizelos as per the Megali Idea at the Paris Peace Conference, after World War 1 in 1919. The black areas are claimed while the shaded region is where Greek and French claims are disputed. The territory is also called Great Greece (Megali Hellas). Published by The New York Times Company, New York City, N.Y. 1919.

Unwanted Consequences, New Directions

The culmination of this Megali expansion came with the occupation of Eastern Thrace and Western Anatolia in 1919 with the support of the Great Powers, including the newcomer United States of America, which emboldened them to push deeper, only to lose again militarily to the defending Turks, but in stark contrast to the past, this time the Greeks, together with the other occupying powers: Britain, France and Italy, they were all decisively compelled to cede and return their most recent Anatolian and Thracian acquisitions.

But although the Anatolian Disaster and the unwavering sovereignty of the brave Turks forced them to all but abandon the Megali Idea, as far as Anatolia was concerned, they still none-the-less continued their aspirations and policies where the Turks essentially didn't exercise effective suzerainty or control.

Cyprus.

The war banner of the "Column of Cypriots" («Φάλαγγα των Κυπρίων»), consisting of a white flag with a large blue cross, and the words "GREEK FLAG OF THE MOTHERLAND CYPRUS" in the top left corner, purportedly hoisted on a wooden mast, carved and pointed at the end to act as a lance in battle. It is currently stored at the National Historical Museum of Athens. Background: On 9 June 1821, 3 ships from the Greek controlled Morea (Peloponnese) sailed to Cyprus under Kanaris Konstantinos (Κωνσταντίνος Κανάρης, Psara 1790 – 1877 Athens), a Greek Fighter of the 1821 Revolution. They landed at Kozan (Lapithou), Larnaka. Kanaris brought with him papers from the Filiki Etaireia. He brought with him back to the Morea between 580 and 1000 people (from a total population of approximately 185 thousand) who formed the Column of Cypriots, led by General Chatzipetros, many of whom died mainly at Missolonghi and at the Battle of Athens in 1827. Roughly 130 were killed fighting in the secessionist war against the Ottomans.

Regalvanising the Irredentist Torrent

Now prior to the sudden, violent and illegal formation of the Hellenic Republic of Cyprus (HRC) in 1974, which was precipitated by the dissolution of the bi-communal partnership Republic of Cyprus (ROC) in 1963, there were in-fact a number of not-so inconspicuous Enosist organisations and platforms working to achieve that goal.

Among the first was the Patriotic Cypriotic League (PCL) established in Athens in 1898 by one George Phrankoudes that, as he himself put it, was founded "with the object of effecting in Cyprus the same revolution as had taken place in Crete".

The very first Enosist organisation we could say was in-fact the Society of Friends (Φιλικὴ Ἑταιρεία, Filiki Etaireia), the secret political and revolutionary organization founded in 1814 in Odessa, whose purpose was to overthrow Ottoman rule in Greece and establish an independent Greek State, and which during the Greek War of Independence had visited the island to incite support.

There were also the various Patriotic Clubs established on Cyprus since 1878, that according to the British High Commissioner Sir W. F. Haynes-Smith were "engineered from abroad (and we know from where) by past masters in the art... (of you know what) and who have command of money".

Now I don't know about you, but I find that very telling.

And of course there was also the Greek Consul in Cyprus which, although you and I could fairly assume in good faith, and in context of today, to surely have been a diplomatic mission that steers well clear of any political interference in the host country, but its primary purpose was to vigorously act on behalf of Greece to openly encourage, support and facilitate achieving Enosis on Cyprus.

Most significantly perhaps, it's worth noting the role it played together with Athens and Britain to help facilitate the pumping of thousands of Greek settlers to the island from Greece, Egypt and other places allied or aligned with the philhellenic ethos, and ensuring this newly beefed up "Greek Cypriot" population would then be carrying the Enosis torch, and given all the arms and money it needed to ensure efficacy and dominance, and it deliberately targeted the native Turkish population and their assets as part of that process.

It encouraged the Greek population to abuse the Turks, to hate the Turks, to profile and attack the Turks openly, physically, socially, culturally, politically, economically in a methodical attempt to uproot, displace or replace them.

It spearheaded efforts at reappropriating the island's Turkish and Islamic heritage and culture, such as changing road names from Turkish to Greek and building over mosques with churches, essentially slapping the words "Greek" and "Christian" on top and manufacturing the conditions for a Greek "national cause" that, much like with Izmir in Anatolia, would supplant, supersede and fly-over the long-rooted but "undesirable" Turkish and Islamic elements, and provide a platform to push support for the Enosis agenda internationally.

A propaganda leaflet promoting enosis. It was produced by the EOKA terrorist organisation on an unknown date and distributed around the island at the start of the EOKA terrorism campaign on 1 April 1955. It features the word ENOSIS (union) in capital letters. The face is an image of the leader of EOKA, Georgios Theodoros Grivas (codenamed: Digenis) who prior to jointly-founding EOKA with the Greek government and Michael Christodoulou Mouskos (clerical name: Makarios) was also a member of the secret Committee for the Cyprus Struggle, and in World War II collaborated with the Nazi German occupation of Greece, taking part in critical operations on the side of the so-called Security Battalions. The words on the banner draped over a line-drawing of Cyprus read "Hellas" (Greek) - "Kipros" (Cyprus) - "Enosis" (Union).

Oiling the Cogs, Socio-Political Engineering

That then brings us to the infamous 1950 plebiscite, which was intelligently designed to politically bypass and disenfranchise the island's Turks, and of course none of this can even start to be mentioned without also doing our due diligence to recognise what followed, most crucially, the creation of the most prominent and infamous of the cogs in the Enosis machine, the terrorist organisations EOKA & EOKA-B.

And in mentioning all of this we also need to drive home the key instrumental role played here by the new Greek Cypriot society in facilitating, carrying and spearheading all of this.

This included the power and resources of the Orthodox Church of Cyprus, the religious leadership, the committees, the congregations, the Greek members of the political and judicial assemblies, the Greek political parties including by the way AKEL - a socialist communist party and the most leftist-leaning of the Greek political parties, there were also the unions, the social groups and organisations, the clubs, the businesses, even the schools, the hospitals, the coffee shops if you'd believe it, entire communities and villages from the top-down built on pushing the Enosis agenda, lest people wish to be completely excommunicated from the crucial-to-livelihood functions of society.

It was calculated.

It was systemic.

It was ruthless.

This was the rot that was brought to Cyprus.

The hostile, malicious, ethnocratic, theocratic, racist, supremacist, extremist, imperialist, settler-colonialist, terrorist rot.

Every single cog in the Enosis machine, from those pushing for it - be that with smash-mouth politics, or barbaric and heinous assaults on the Turks, to those simply standing back and letting it be pushed. All of it was built on the back of recruiting people to that agenda and relying on the support they received from complicity and inaction to it, or rather, of the rewards they got for the ethnic cleansing, dispossession and land theft committed by their national collective.

Pollice verso.

"What we all give a thumbs up or thumbs down to can't be made anyone's personal responsibility; no responsibility = no blame = no guilt = no shame."

A sign at the Girne (Kyrenia) Harbour reading "No entry to Turks and Dogs". Between 1960-1974.

But enough about that.

For now.

I often get into heated conversations and debates with froth-in-mouth zealots on this topic, many of whom I would dare say are the indignant-to-truth gatekeepers of a global campaign - and lets avoid any ambiguity here - a global campaign by Greece and its adorers to manipulate history, confuse humanity and trouble mankind with their idiocy and support for a level of barbarism so terrifying they need to hide it behind the ten-foot-thick walls of concrete disinformation and shameless blame-shifting and denial.

But one thing that never happens is nobody asks for an opinion on Enosis or how contrary to Greek claims of "Türkiye" or "World Powers" or basically anyone and everything else being to blame for their own errors and shortcomings on the island, it was in fact the relentless pursuit of Enosis by Greece and the Greek Cypriots and them alone - albeit with foreign aid, support and egging on - that led to the current "situation" on Cyprus today.

So lets talk about it.

What do I think of Enosis? And the current situation in Cyprus?

Top Left: Greeks from the Greek occupied south of the island march to the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC) border during TRNC foundation celebrations 2019 (DHA Photo). They are carrying the flags of Cyprus and Greece with provocative far-right Greek nationalist imagery imposed upon them. They burn a Turkish Cypriot flag while chanting pro-enosis and anti-Turkish slogans. The far-right National Popular Front (ELAM) which is the Cyprus wing of Greece’s Golden Dawn political party, organized three separate racist protests. The Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) and members of other political parties also participated in the protests. Top Right: Members of the Greek nationalist party ELAM calls for enosis and the Greekification of Cyprus, chants racist anti-Turkish slogans at a protest in 2013. ELAM is described as an extreme far-right neo-Nazi party and is heavily criticised by the Turkish Cypriots for its views. It is legally recognised as a terrorist organisation under Section 63 of the Criminal Code Chapter 154 of the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus (TRNC). The list includes a total of 52 organisations and comprises Al Qaeda, ISIS (Islamic State of Iraq and Syria), GD (Golden Dawn, ELAM’s parent organisation in Greece), EFEN (Organisation of Young People with Greek Spirit), KEA (Hellenic Resistance Movement), FETÖ (Fetullah Terror Organisation) and PKK (Kurdistan Worker’s Party) among others. It is one of the major political parties in the Greek occupied south of the island. Bottom Left: Thousands of chanting Greek Cypriot students are shown as they march through the streets of Lefkoşa (Nicosia), Cyprus, on 12 April 1964 demanding the return to Cyprus of Former EOKA Chief terrorist, Gen. George Grivas. Image Credits: Alamy (Image ID: 2NF3F7F) (AP Photo). Bottom Right: Greek Cypriot students march through the streets in Lefkoşa on 2 December 1967 carrying banners reading “Enosis (union with Greece) and we’ll not let the soldiers go back.” referring to the Greek soldiers occupying the island and trying to crush the Turkish Cypriot resistance. The demonstration went on as U.S. presidential envoy Cyprus Vance was meeting with Greek Cypriot leader Makarios III in an effort to get him to de-escalate enough to prevent Turkey from militarily intervening and potentially going to war with Greece over its invasion and occupation of the island. Image Credits: Alamy (Image ID: 2NF39EP) (AP Photo).

Lets cut to the chase.

I think Enosis, the idea of calling Cyprus "Greek" and strenuously trying to connect it to Greece, and the relentless pursuit of this despite the actual Cypriots - the Turkish Cypriots - and the only legitimate potential claimant to the Turkish island, Türkiye, saying "no", this was all a stupid idea to begin with.

I think the failure to recognise and address the existential threats posed to the Turkish Cypriots and Türkiye; the refusal to accept the wholly unnecessary concessions and olive branches of the Turks - which despite relentless adversity and attacks against them, and amidst the precariously dangerous backdrop, championed fairness and rights for both sides - was a big mistake.

The refusal to respect and implement the treaties concerning the establishment of a bi-communal partnership republic; the dishonesty; the brazenness; the lawlessness; the utter contempt of international law; the illegal occupation of the government and all institutions and organs of that republic; the illegal secession from that republic; the tearing up of the treaties to which they were signatories, was a big mistake.

The declination to benefit from independence and non-alignment, as well as the chance to build a new bi-ethnic national identity that brings together and celebrates both cultures; the continued wholesale disenfranchisement, suffering and slaughter of the Turkish Cypriots which ensued; the genocide; and the culminant withdrawal to the south of the island by Greece's proxy occupation forces, in the hope that Enosis could still somehow be achieved even after being resoundingly defeated and permanently scuttled...

It was all a terribly conscious and calculated step in the wrong direction.

And it was all undeniably crooked, arrogant, underhanded, dishonorable, malfeasant and unlawful.

And I think that was a stupid idea.

Map of the territorial expansion of Greece, 1832-1947. The Greeks first occupied the Morea (Peloponnese) in 1822 at the start of the Greek War of Independence. The independence of a Greek state on the Morea and in Rumelia was then recognised by the Ottomans with the signing of the Treaty of London on 7 May 1832. The Ionian islands, officially the United States of the Ionian Islands, were ceded to the Kingdom by Britain after the signing of another Treaty of London on 29 March 1864 and the following proclamation of the Lord High Commissioner on 28 May 1864. This came after a long and costly campaign for enosis with Greece, led by Greek nationalist groups on the island, who redirected their focus from supporting their fellow revolutionaries against the Ottoman Empire during the Greek Revolution to then fervently pursuing Enosis of the islands with Greece. This included the formation of the Party of Radicals (Greek: Κόμμα των Ριζοσπαστών), a pro-enosis political party founded in 1848 which incited rebellions, leading to Britain recommending Enosis. This move also coincided with the installment of the newly enthroned King George I, and was intended to bolster his reign and procure support for Britain, and is therefore seen as a "gift". The rest of Epirus was ceded by the Ottomans with the signing of the Treaty of Berlin on 13 July 1878, in the aftermath of the Russian victory against the Ottoman Empire in the Russo-Turkish War of 1877–1878. Tirhala (later renamed Thessaly) and part of southern Epirus was ceded by the Ottomans with the signing of the Convention of Constantinople on 2 July 1881. Macedonia, the majority of the rest of Epirus and many Aegean islands were ceded by the Ottomans with the signing of the Treaty of Athens on 14 November 1913, to stop Greece's hostilities during the Balkan Wars. The island of Crete was ceded by the Ottomans after the Balkan Wars, with the signing of yet another Treaty of London in 1913, which ended the First Balkan War. Western Thrace was given to the Kingdom by the main allies of the Entente powers (except the US) in late April 1920, as per the San Remo conference. During the First Balkan War, Western Thrace was occupied by Bulgarian troops who defeated the Ottoman army and captured the remaining Turkish troops on 15 November 1912. The Balkan League quickly fell into dispute on how to divide their newly conquered lands, resulting in the Second Balkan War. In August 1913, Bulgaria was defeated, but kept Western Thrace under the terms of the Treaty of Bucharest. In the following years, the Central Powers (Germany, Austria-Hungary, and the Ottoman Empire), with which Bulgaria had sided, lost World War I, and as a result, Bulgaria was forced to surrender Western Thrace under the terms of the 1919 Treaty of Neuilly. Western Thrace was then placed under temporary management of the Entente led by French General Charles Antoine Charpy, before a conference was convened which decided to give the territory to Greece. Eastern Thrace and Western Anatolia (the Izmir region, Greek: Ionia) were occupied by Greece following the signing of the Treaty of Sevres on 10 August 1920, but lost by the signing of the Treaty of Lausanne on 24 July 1923. (Source: Wikipedia. History of Greece. Created: 1 August 2006. Uploaded: 3 January 2014. URL: https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/History_of_Greece)

History, Reflection, Hindsight

Thinking about this from a purely historically comparative perspective, we also need to consider that Enosis was not unique to Cyprus, that it was in-fact the exact same "cause" with the exact same name - "Enosis" - which had been implemented in Rumelia, Thessaly, Epirus, Macedonia, Western Thrace, the Ionian Islands, the Aegean Islands, the Dodecanese, Crete... all with the exact same agenda, all with the exact same tactics and rulebook.

And given the special context of Cyprus in all of this, and juxtaposing it with what happened in Eastern Thrace and Western Anatolia, which may also have been threatened and yoked by the Greek nationalist machine, and so it was, but it could not in the reality of things actually succumb.

Because it was an immovable and unconquerable heartland of the Turks.

It was a bastion of uncontestable sovereignty and freedom for the Turks.

And unlike the methodically reluctant British host which bent over backwards with volition to unsympathetic terrorists and their demands it relinquishes its sovereignty - because those lands didn't ever truly belong to the British people, they were just extensions of the British state after all and not the heartlands of the British people, it posed no threat to the British public, those lands could be sacrificed if desired or needed, or abandoned, sold, given away, gifted... but the Turkish nation, faced with such an existential threat to their very existence, to their lands, to their lives, to their way of life, to their freedom, they simply could not be expected to just pack up and leave and while they're at it bend over and bare all and take whatever wanted to be done to them.

They could not be expected to do that, and they could not be expected to just be good victims, to acquiesce to the malicious impositions of - lets just say it openly - a terrible, ruthless, barbaric, aggressive foreign settler colonialist imperialist octopus of terror, trying to erase them and their kin from existence in a merciless campaign of wanton terror, death and destruction.

This is not the Morea we're talking about. This is not some freehold real-estate offered by the vacuum of an empire in decline.

This is Cyprus. This is Türkiye.

So despite all the Greeks' irredentist successes elsewhere, and in hindsight of their failures in Eastern Thrace and Western Anatolia, no matter how they looked at it, enosis on Cyprus was always a tacitly unachievable idea to them.

It was an imbecilic, simpletonistic, wallyheaded idea.

(Top Left) Cover of French periodical Le Petit Journal on the Bosnian Crisis: King Ferdinand (middle) of Bulgaria declares independence and becomes Tsar, Austrian Emperor Franz Joseph (L) annexes Bosnia and Herzegovina, while Ottoman Sultan Abdul Hamid looks on. (Top Centre) Caricature from Punch, dated June 6, 1896. It shows Sultan Abdul Hamid II in front of a poster that announces the reorganization of the Ottoman Empire. The empire's value is estimated at £5 million (£695 million in 2023). Russia, France and Britain are listed as the directors of the reorganisation. The caricature satirized the impoverished state of the Ottoman economy at the time. (Top Right) Political cartoon by JM Staniforth. National representations of the Great Powers of Europe, "heal" a subdued Crete, dressed in Turkish garb the ruling power on the island at the time, in the aftermath of the Cretan Uprising in 1898. 1 October 1898. (Bottom Left) Peace Rumors. Let Us Have (A) Peace (Piece) The Turk wishes he was a Christian published in Harper's Weekly A Journal of Civilization Vol. XXI. - No. 1070. New York, 30 June 1877. This political cartoon was drawn by the prominent political cartoonist Thomas Nast. It features a smoking Abdul Hamid II, Sultan of the Ottoman Empire, looking on helplessly as the leaders of the coalition against him carve up a map of Turkish territory. The Russo-Turkish War had begun just two months prior to publication, and the image is a tongue-in-cheek criticism of Russia’s ambitions in the campaign. The war, lost decisively by the Ottomans by March of 1878, would ultimately see the formation of Bulgaria, Serbia, Romania and Montenegro, as well as massive territorial gains for Tsar Alexander II. (Bottom Centre) Another Sick Man. 1898 Cartoon By Sir John Tenniel On The 'Sick Man Of Europe' Consoling The 'Sick Man Of Asia.' The caption at the bottom reads satirically: The Sultan (cheerily) - "Going to pieces, old man? Nonsense! All you want is a dose of 'Concert of Europe!' Why - Look at me!!" (Centre Right) Dr. Russia sharpens a knife to operate on Turkey, the Sick Man of Europe. The caption reads "Dr. Russia Seems to Consider an Operation Inevitable." Russia was attempting to project its power into the Balkans region after the murder of a Russian diplomat. 12 August 1903. (Bottom Right) A Pill In Time! An 1876 Cartoon By John Tenniel On The Demand By The Great Powers That Turkey Agree To An Armistice With Serbia.

Nationalism, Geopolitics and Great Power Politics

And of course there's the greater historical and geopolitical context to all of this too, because in order to understand Enosis even more deeply it's worth remembering that it is also closely related to the decline of the Ottoman Empire, as well as the emergence of the new European nationalism, both of which we've already mentioned above, and to which this can all be further juxtaposed.

So to give some background to that too, as well as where the Greek Revolution and the application of Enosis to Cyprus played a part, it's worth mentioning that a number of things had happened that led to political instability, economic trouble and social unrest in the empire, which weakened it at its core.

Because an empire is bigger than its center.

And as far as the Ottoman Empire was concerned, it was a huge empire, one of the most powerful, influential and enduring empires in history, spanning three continents at its height.

It was a hub of cultural and scientific innovation producing advancements in medicine, astronomy, architecture and engineering that changed the world.

It even sparked the renaissance and the voyages to the New World.

The Ottoman Empire, officially the Sublime Ottoman State (Turkish: Devlet-i ʿAlīye-i ʿOsmānīye) reigned from c. 1299–1922. It's motto was "The Eternal State" (Turkish: Devlet-i Ebed-müddet). (Top Left) Flag of the Ottoman Empire. The Ottoman Empire used various flags and naval ensigns during its history. The crescent and star came into use in the second half of the 18th century. A buyruldu (decree) from 1793 required that the ships of the Ottoman Navy were to use a red flag with the star and crescent in white. In 1844, a version of this flag, with a five-pointed star, was officially adopted as the Ottoman national flag. The decision to adopt a national flag was part of the Tanzimat reforms which aimed to modernize the Ottoman state in line with the laws and norms of contemporary European states and institutions. (Top Right) The Coat of arms of the Ottoman Empire. Every sultan of the Ottoman Empire had his own monogram, called the tughra, which served as a royal symbol. A coat of arms in the European heraldic sense was created in the late 19th century. Hampton Court requested from the Ottoman Empire a coat of arms to be included in their collection. As the coat of arms had not been previously used in the Ottoman Empire, it was designed following this request of Mahmud II, and the final design was adopted by Sultan Abdul Hamid II on 17 April 1882.

The Empire, The Renaissance, The Struggle, The Cause

It ruled a considerable mix of peoples and faiths, and there was no great history of ethnic tension, even though there was a history of massively complicated ethnic and professional co-existence.

And it wasn't just what they did, or what they pioneered, refined, developed and contributed to the world, but also what they influenced, be it directly or indirectly.

And although many already know that the Ottomans never really controlled or led Europe, and we can argue they never really even tried to, unlike let's say the Germans, or the French before them, who strenuously tried albeit unsuccessfully, or the United States of America today to varying degrees of success, and the part of the world the Ottoman Turks did lead, the Islamic world, was diametrically opposed by Europe, as were the Turks themselves.

But few know, for example, that they had in-fact played a massive indirect role in the development and future - now present - success of Europe.

They paved the way for the perseverance and triumph of the early European Christian thinkers of the 17th and 18th centuries, who studied the ancient Greek and Roman culture and knowledge the Ottomans preserved, and this inspired the Europeans to amalgamate and adopt a newfound "Greco-Roman heritage", the foundations of the Philhellenic movement in a nutshell.

And it was through this that they were able to marry their religious beliefs with the methods for obtaining truth ascertainable by reason alone, combining Christianity's revelations of a "higher truth" with the search for the "actual truth"; natural law evident to reason subordinate to, but not in conflict with, eternal law and divine law.

Clockwise from top left: (1) In the Salon of Madame Geoffrin in 1755. Reading of Voltaire's tragedy, The Orphan of China, in the salon of Marie Thérèse Rodet Geoffrin, by Anicet Charles Gabriel Lemonnier, c. 1812; (2) German philosopher Immanuel Kant, one of the most influential figures of Enlightenment and modern philosophy; (3) René Descartes, widely considered a seminal figure in the emergence of modern philosophy and science; (4) Philosopher John Locke argued that the authority of government stems from a social contract based on natural rights. According to Locke, the authority of government was limited and required the consent of the governed; (5) The Marquis of Pombal, as the head of the government of Portugal, implemented sweeping socio-economic reforms; (6) Cesare Beccaria, considered to be the father of classical criminal theory; (7) French philosopher Voltaire argued for religious tolerance; (8) Denmark's minister Johann Struensee, a social reformer, who was publicly executed in 1772 for usurping royal authority.

It would not therefore be unreasonable to suggest that the Ottoman Empire was also a key reason the Age of Enlightenment and the American Revolution could even happen, and key to this was the empire's mixed multi-ethnic and multi-faith identity.

Equally, one could also potentially argue that it was in-fact through the examples in history set by the Ottomans, in their glory and greatness, as was perceived in its day, that the most prominent and influential thinkers driving the Enlightenment movement were also essentially inspired to try and capture and replicate the essence of its cultural, military and economic power and successes, essentially, the perceived magnificence of the sublime state.

It could have been innocently unintentional, perhaps, but they were recreating the brave echoes of the Ottoman Islamic tradition of seeking to find the truth of divine love and knowledge through direct personal experience of God, the marriage between spirituality and philosophy, the idea of the authority of a state stemming from a social contract based on natural rights and the consent of the governed, religious tolerance, social reform... all the things that informed and conditioned the Ottoman state's existence and kept it alive.

Ergo, the enlightenment, a cultural movement emphasizing reason and individualism, a phenomenon that pervaded early modern European intellectual circles, was inexplicably linked to the Ottoman Empire, one of Europe's largest polities of the period, and which also became party to this not-so-new intellectual trend.

It led to the movement of individuals and ideas linking the Ottoman capital of Istanbul to the broader cultural shifts of the day, and, it sparked a new chapter of Ottoman Enlightenment, this time in conjunction with Europe, and with a serious and revolutionary rethinking of the concept of governance.

And the empire lasted almost 600 years, until it didn't.

One factor that contributed to its demise was, with the rise of Europe, its waning influence over the peoples and territories it had under its control, also known as soft power, and the same rang true for Cyprus, but not in the same way as elsewhere.

There was both a loss of soft power in terms of influence or support for a continuation of political continuity with the empire, which can be observed in their unwillingness to get involved in the island culturally and politically following their leasing it to the British Empire in 1878.

They abandoned the ability to exert influence and control over the island, and more crucially that soft power component was paradoxically both always there in the people who still followed the social and cultural reforms of the greater Turkish whole, yet also completely missing, especially politically.

To those who don't know, the role of soft power is to be more persuasive than coercive, and the Ottomans lost the willingness to have that, to use that, and on the flip side, at the very nature of their existence they simply could not have gone the other way and been coercive because this in turn would have undermined their very culture and principals which relied on getting people to accept or join or follow them willingly, or at worst comply without force.

"Vidayı zorlama" is the saying (Turkish: Don't force it).

Old Turkish lessons in wisdom for the Enosists.

In the case of Ottoman influence on Cyprus, perhaps there's room to argue that there should have been a delicate balance of diplomacy and cultural influence, but over time, the empire's ability to foster loyalty or support from diverse groups the empire over was eroding, led by rising nationalism within these communities.

The Greeks were the first to rebel.

And although there were attempts to sway Cyprus away from the vision of the empire and the Turkish national whole, to convince it to break off and join the Greek separatists, this fundamentally failed, and in the culminant Turkish struggle for independence against the occupying powers of Great Britain, Italy, France, Greece and to a lesser extent the USA, the islander's played a key role in supporting the empire and the rest of the Turkish nation.

So there was still that innate Turkish soft power at play on the island, albeit politically benign and left to stagnate by the authorities that be, the Ottoman Empire and even the new secular democratic Republic of Türkiye that took over, neither capitulated on that or balanced this constant purveyance of Turkish cultural influence - which is grounded in a very deep-rooted heritage - with the necessary diplomacy, until it was dragged into dealing with the Cyprus Problem not least by the determination of the Turkish Cypriots themselves.

But this also means that although there was a vacuum of sorts that could certainly have been capitulated on by the Greeks, that vacuum was not necessarily completely vacuous, so to speak, because the island itself was still socially, culturally and geopolitically wedded to the new Turkish state and the wider Turkish world.

So speaking just on that principle I really think it was all a stupid idea to pursue Enosis.

Top: Cyprus President and Greek Cypriot leader, Michael Christodoulou Mouskos, better known by his clerical name: Archbishop Makarios III, a designated terrorist leader and accused pedophile, speaking at the opening of an EOKA monument years after their sudden, violent and illegal seizure of power in 1963-1964, known to the Turkish Cypriots as Bloody Christmas. Image Source: Greek Cypriot massacres still raw 58 years after 'Bloody Christmas' | Daily Sabah. AA Photo. Bottom: Greek Cypriot leader Nikos Christodoulides giving a pro-enosis speech under a banner reading: "GREECE CYPRUS ENOSIS" (ΕΛΛΑΣ ΚΥΠΡΟΣ ΕΝΩΣΗΣ) in 2024, the same as Makarios III in 1963. The then-newly elected Greek Cypriot leader Christodoulides took part in a ceremony commemorating the EOKA terror group, which not only murdered near to 400 British servicemen in the 1950s, but also later played a significant role along with Greek-Greek Cypriot forces in the attempted genocide of the Turkish Cypriot people between 1963-1974. All for "GREECE CYPRUS ENOSIS", Union with Greece, which is the writing he stood under when delivering his address, which he openly supported in the footsteps of all his predecessors.

Precursing the Climax

Finally, bringing this back to the more social and humanist aspects real quick, and to the concept of resistance vis-a-vis occupation, or to the qualities or absences thereof, in the relentless pursuit of Enosis, but more applicably the responses to it, we might also benefit from noting the following.

We've already recognised the purpose of a Greek-settler-only plebiscite on a historically Turkish island, as weird as that sounds. We know it was deliberately designed, as has been societally conceded, to politically bypass the island's already disenfranchised Turks and the British colonial government.

But it would also be just as wise to flesh out some of what followed and preceded the establishment of the Greek nationalist guerilla terrorist organisations EOKA & EOKA-B, as well as how this was all part of the grander Megali scheme, but also how this was all tacitly derailed and undermined by the inevitable response; the formation and bolstering-in-stone of the grassroots Turkish Cypriot self-defensive structures that finally rose up to challenge the status-quo.

Birth of EOKA

Following the Greek-only referendum its main organiser, the Bishop of Kityon (Kition), Michael Christodoulou Mouskos, better known by his clerical name Makarios III, was made the de facto head of the new Greek Cypriot people by Greece.

Meanwhile a retired Greek colonel and known Nazi collaborator, Georgios Theodoros Grivas, was made a member of the secret Committee for the Cyprus Struggle (EKA), and took the oath of enosis together with Makarios III.

He was secretly tasked by the Athens government and EKA to clandestinely go to the island and work with Makarios to jointly lay the political and military foundations for a new armed terrorist insurrection.

And this all happened to the backdrop of an island-wide campaign of social shaming, ethnic-religious segregation, and public humiliation rituals compounded with a palaver denial of societal functions that are necessary for people to live their lives.

People literally saw their livelihoods, their faiths and their dignity as human beings trampled on by an archaically theocratic, rigmarole and folderal refusal to the rite of cultural association, intermingling, religious-led functions crucial to one's life including but not limited to marriage, birth and even death ceremonies and funerals...

What followed this was even more telling.

There was the establishment by Makarios III of the Pan Cyprian Enosist Youth Organisation (PEON) and the Young People's Christian Orthodox Union (OXEN), which became recruitment centers for the planned armed terrorist operation, and the P.E.K. (Farmers Union), which was particularly active in procuring arms and explosives in preparation.

And there were the ominous warnings of consequences Makarios III aired towards anyone who might have even just seemed to lean as "moderates" among their society, as few and far between as they already were; a society caught up in the antiquated anachronistic grip of a monolithic whole, Greece, forcing upon them through a despotic theocratic dictator an inescapable environment of resentment and fear.

Britain was everywhere, and it should therefore come as no shock that when the British Security Service (MI5) representative on Cyprus amassed a card index containing the personal details of 1,500 known or suspected Greek nationalist agitators and extremists, among them Makarios III and Grivas, there were indications even from that stage that Britain was not only very well aware of their presence but also of their activities both in Greece and Cyprus.

Clockwise from left to right: (1) (Top Left) 21 January 1958. Baton wielding security forces clash with Turkish-Cypriot students as several hundred youths shouting demands for partition in the Island marched through Lefkoşa. (AP Photo).; (2) (Centre Left) 21 January 1958. Carrying banners daubed with slogans Turkish Cypriot youths march through Lefkoşa, shouting demands for partition in the Island. Several hundred youths took part in the procession, and chairs and bicycles were hurled at troops during clashes with security forces. (AP Photo).; (3) (Centre Top) 27 January 1958. Protests by Turkish Cypriots in Lefkoşa. Protestors flee as British troops launch a tear gas attack against them in Atatürk Square. More than a thousand Turkish Cypriots shouting "Down with (Governor Sir Hugh) Foot" battled the armed police with stones and bottles until they were dispersed. The screaming crowd ignored a plea by their leaders to break up and clashed with police after being attacked. It quickly turned into a riot. As the rioting occurred Sir Hugh Foot was in Türkiye for conferences with Foreign Minister Selwyn Lloyd on the sidelines of the Baghdad Pact meeting. .; (4) Turkish Cypriots Riot for Partition. Lefkoşa, Cyprus. A tear gas bomb explodes amid a group of Turkish Cypriots who demonstrated in support of partitioning the island. British troops wearing gas masks walk through a tear gas screen toward a group of demonstrators. At least seven persons were killed in the first two days. (5) 2 February 1958. Turkish Cypriot Demonstration March to Downing Street. Girls in national costume taking part a Turkish Cypriot Demonstration March, which took place from Dean Street, Soho, to Downing Street, where a petition was presented at No. 10. demanding partition for Cyprus.; (6) 2 February 1958. Turkish Cypriot Demonstration March to Downing Street. Meeting held in Trafalgar Square; (7) 2 February 1958. Turkish Cypriot Demonstration March to Downing Street. Some of the demonstrators who took part in the march carry a ''coffin'' bearing the inscription ''Enosis is Dead’; (8) 3 February 1958. Turkish demonstrators on the streets of Lefkoşa in Cyprus. Five Turkish Cypriots were killed during the disturbances when British troops opened fire on crowds protesting in favour of Cyprus' partition. (Photo by Keystone/Hulton Archive/Getty Images); (9) 7 February 1958. A demonstration during the riots over union with Greece at Lefkoşa, Cyprus. (Photo by Express/Express/Getty Images)

Social Resistance, Solving the Cyprus Problem

When between January and March 1958, waves of Turkish Cypriot protests gripped Cyprus and London, decisively forcing the British government in Whitehall and Cyprus to completely re-evaluate Britain's policies towards the Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots respectively, this also should have come as no shock.

Tell-tale signs of the increased loss of Turkish Cypriot confidence in the durability and intention of Britain's stand against Greek provocations on Cyprus only seemed clearer than ever, or rather, although always markedly there, by now they were made impossible to ignore.

When on 21 January 1958 the walls of the Lefkoşa (Nicosia) Turkish Boys High School was vandalised with pro-enosis graffiti by the enosist terrorists, and the students protested this, and they also protested all the violent ethnic agitation their people had been enduring for decades, all completely unabated by the British authorities, the response to these protests was that British soldiers were called in, and they intervened quite thuggishly, hitting the students with batons and confiscating their flags.

This, as you'd expect, led to even more protests, this time taking place in Limasol (Limassol), and they shifted from not only demanding an immediate end to the EOKA terrorist campaign, and the relentless attacks endured by the Turkish Cypriot population for decades, which, they reminded, continued unabated despite the consistent good-willed efforts and counterprotests of the Turks, but this time, in a collective choice that would change the path of the island forever, the Turks had already decided to demand what they saw as necessary and fair: the equal partition of the island between the Greeks and Turks, or Taksim (Partition).

The British soldiers intervened again, this time escalating their attacks even further, and firing tear gas projectiles at the protestors, who responded by erupting in riot and throwing chairs and bicycles.

This was a game changing moment.

The Turkish Cypriots had now decisively had enough, and their political will was made loud and clear. They sought the partition of Cyprus between Türkiye and Greece, in accordance with Article 73 (b) of the United Nations Charter which provides that due account should be taken of the political aspirations of non-self-governing peoples in promoting their independence.

Britain then escalated its response, and so even more protests followed, this time returning to the capital Lefkoşa (Nicosia), and this time leading to even more British brutality, as a British jeep entered Atatürk Square from the direction of the Girne (Kyrenia) Gate, trampling 4 Turkish Cypriot students and killing two of them in the process.

This became an event that the Turkish Cypriots now mark annually as their nation's most defining moment.

But then the Turkish Cypriots were just understandably shocked. They almost couldn't believe what was happening. But they responded as they had to, and with indignation, and most of all with a strong sense of decisiveness and unity.

Subsequent protests then occurred in Mağusa (Famagusta), Limasol (Limassol), Baf (Paphos) and Lefke (Lefka), leading to the decision by the British colonial government to order its forces to fire ammunition at the crowds.

These events, which I refer to as the Turkish Cypriot Protests, or the Taksim Protests, led to a total of 7 Turkish Cypriots being killed as a result of British colonial brutality, and even more protests took place on the island following, as well as on Britain's shores.

The Turkish Cypriot struggle for freedom from Greek aggression AND the British colonial yoke had finally begun.

At great loss of life, land and time, the Turkish Cypriots had finally stepped up and done what Britain fundamentally couldn't or didn't do, and showed up the Greek Cypriots for what all along they had said they were trying to do.

By answering this way to the enosists, and by meeting the Cyprus Colonial Government head on, they had finally thrown cold water on the entire enosis movement.

Sadly though, it is not as if the Turkish Cypriot struggle had only started then, and if we retrogressively observe various instances of Turkish Cypriots trying to respond to all the enosis agitation, we build an even clearer picture of their struggle.

On 9 June 1943 Sir Charles sent a secret dispatch to his superiors in Whitehall, informing them that the Turkish Cypriots began forming self-defensive organisations. In this secret dispatch he described how this accentuated already restive and apprehensive moods among the Turkish Cypriots, including what these moods were caused by: ethno-religious racism and animosity by the Greeks, and their loss of faith in Britain as their protectorate due to decades of unimpeded displays of Hellenic patriotism and anti-Turkish agitation.

Now this is the part that should have been most concerning to Britain, and it was, for they knew even from this early stage that the Turkish Cypriots, who were known to be loyal, were being sacrificed over Britain's support for Greece's ambitions, and this was proving to be an existentially terrible mistake even before the Turkish Cypriot "Taksim Protests" of early-1958.

On 18 March 1943, the founding general secretary of the Progressive Party of Working People (AKEL) party, Plutis Servas, stated in his election speech that there was no nation known as Cypriots, that there is no other civilisation in Cyprus except Greek civilisation, and that all Cypriots are actually Greeks wishing to unify with Greece. It should have come as no surprise that the Turkish Cypriots would establish their own associations to promote their own cultural, political, economic and social interests, and as one would expect they did exactly that, precisely one month later to be exact, on 18 April, when they founded the Association of the Turkish Minority of the Island of Cyprus (KATAK).

And this of course naturally led to the creation of those grassroots self-defensive organisations, of which by the time of those protests in 1958, there were clear signs of, such as one Turkish paramilitary organization, the TMT (Turk Mudafa Teskilat) (Turkish Defence Organization), which called on responding to any attack on the Turks, and condemned the Greek terrorists the island over.

In December 1941 a couple hundred Turkish Cypriots and Greeks joined a strike at Limni Mine and formed a bi-communal committee to lead it, but when the Turkish Cypriots were not treated equally by the Greeks, this led to even more fractures.

On 1 June 1941 a Railway Workers Strike was declared by the roughly 240 Turkish Cypriots, Greek Cypriots, Greek refugees and Armenians working the railway, forming a bi-communal committee, the Turkish Cypriots took the brunt, but were also thrown under the bus and forced to face imprisonment and fines.

When on 12 April 1940 the Cyprus Regiment was founded, and Turkish Cypriot soldiers of that regiment were shipped out to help defend Crete against the tough and experienced Nazi German paratroopers, and even after their capture managed to escape and join the local Greek Cretan resistance before going to North Africa for more tough and brutal fighting for the island, but they were not treated as brotherly heroes by the Greeks they fought alongside.

When in 1940 Italy attacked Greece, posing a risk to the, the Greeks of Cyprus did not see this as a threat, instead they were encouraged and saw it as a window of opportunity to work with Nazi Germany and support the emergence of a greater Greece at the end of the conflict, in which they would be able to push for enosis.

When in 1934 the secret Society of Friends of Cyprus (EFK) was formed in Athens, the Governor of Cyprus, Sir Herbert Richmond Palmer, reported with some alarm that the society "openly advocated terrorism" and extremism that targeted the island. The Turkish Cypriots protested, but were ignored.

When on 21 November 1932, British intelligence in Athens uncovered that Greek moral and financial support for the enosis movement had been quite substantial up to and following the riots of 1931, not only was nothing done to impede this growing enosist fervor, but the Turkish Cypriots who were not even involved in the riots were implicated and punished, and their protests and counter-protests alike - which were against Greek interference, enosis and the enosist riots - were ignored.

Even after they concluded that this was a function of the Greeks "facile enthusiasm for meddling in other people's affairs."

No matter how many times we repeat this it never seems to be enough.

Enosis was a stupid idea.

And that's because colonialism in general was always a stupid idea.

Its politics was despotic and fundamentally relied on establishing a strict hierarchy separating the colonized and the colonizer; you are treated as an inconvenient subhuman who can be abused at will. And that's exactly what Greece did on Cyprus. That's exactly what Enosis was.

And that, I think, was a deplorable idea.

It was rotten to the core, dishonest, disengenuous, inhumane, morally bankrupt, unprincipled, undemocratic... and it was above all dangerous.

That's what I think about Enosis.