Hostage to History: Cyprus from the Ottomans to Kissinger

Rating:
Summary: A daring book by a gutsy author
Review: As time marches on the true circumstances relating to the Cyprus 'problem' (an euphimism, if there ever was one) become slowly but surely known: Hitherto secret Western papers are running their archive course and getting declassified; aging British and American diplomats write their memoirs and, inadvertently or not, let slip; and more and more political scientists, disillusioned with 'the ally that is Turkey', take a harder look at its policies and practices.

This wasn't the case in 1984 when this book, simply titled 'CYPRUS', was originally published. The cold war was still hot and, silly as it now seems, there was widespread phobia about 'supplying' the Soviets with 'propaganda' material. Understandably perhaps the Western establishment was not very keen on writers exposing dirty tales - and none too friendly. Turkey's invasion of Cyprus was barely 10 years old - too close for most politicians' comfort to have a book out that contradicted the official line. And Turkey itself was still a most esteemed ally, not to be downplayed.

It is in this setting that 'CYPRUS' hit the news stands. It created something of an uproar. In the corridors of power on both sides of the Atlantic Mr. Hitchens's name was derided; in the populist Press he was dismissed as a 'communist' (as if this was somehow reason to belittle his writings); and Turkey declared him a persona non grata.

But why? Simply because C. Hitchens had not been content to adopt the simplistic view as put forth by Whitehall and the Whitehouse. He dared to offer an alternative explanation of the Cyprus 'problem'. What's more, he had done his homework well. His thesis was deeply researched and persuasively argumented. And it posed some agonisingly embarrassing questions to high ranking British and American Tsars, most notably Henry Kissinger.

'CYPRUS' is now long out of print; thankfully it has been re-issued in its present guise as a Paperback with new prefaces and afterword. It also has a grandiose new title - don't let it scare you into thinking this is a boring History textbook: this is a compelling revelation of how big powers play chess using small countries as expendable pawns. It is a frightening recount of how rulers, to satisfy their ego, may steer policy towards mad avenues that result in the destruction of thousands.

And it is the sad story of how the people of Cyprus, Greeks and Turks alike, were brought to destitution through the skillful and not-so-skillful manipulation of outsiders. In fact, Mr. Hitchens superbly demonstrates his case that Cypriots had very little, if anything, to do with the grand designs that culminated in the catastrophic 1974 Turkish invasion of the island.

The Cyprus 'problem'? Don't look now, Mr. Hitchens is laughing.

A must-have book for any free-thinking spirit. A bold treatise by a political scholar worthy of the name.

Rating:
Summary: More anti Turkish drivel, just what we needed....
Review: Aw, the poor blameless Greeks...victims after all, give me a break! These two countries have been either fighting or kissing for centuries! It seems to me the Western world is just falling into the same old trap of "if their Chirstian, they must be okay" syndrome. We all forget how powerful the Greek empire was, and why is it from the hundreds of Greeks and Turks I know drop the hatred of each other as soon as they step onto american soil? COMMON GROUND...set Cyprus and it's people both Greek and Turk free...they'll do fine without their mother countries and all of us and our uninformed opinions....why is it anytime Turks are part of the subject of a book, even a cookbook, they are told how evil they are by the reviewers? This review should be about the book, not how much an reader hates other people...creepy...

Rating:
Summary: Who Ruined Cyprus?
Review: Christopher Hitchens earns his right as the author and narrator of this book to stricken from its pages the journalistic short-hand and gratuitous reference to "the Rape of Cyprus." In preparing this book, he sat through hundreds of hours of video-taped graphic testimony of Greek Cypriot rape victims, documented by the High Commission for Human Rights after the Turkish invasion of the island in 1974. Hitchens says he would prefer to use the Greek verb "kataklepse" which is the passive form of "ruined". As in "it was then he ruined me". But that would be Greek to most of us, and deciphering the message of Cyprus is difficult business alone.

Who the "ruined" Cyprus?

According to Christopher Hitchens, everyone but the Cypriotes themselves, and those Cypriotes involved in island politics who did make lasting contributions to chaos did so under duress or as a result of Britain's "last colonial effort" (whatever, if excluding Northern Ireland, that may be). Furthermore, Hitchens asserts, a conspiracy of international desires to see Cyprus fragmented and destabilized holds troubled Cyprus in check today.

Hitchens' text is often scored with insightful and lyrical passages, but it has two striking problems. We confront the first problem in the first four pages: the title misleads us. Contrary to the title's claim, this is not a thorough and balanced history from the Ottomans to Kissinger; it does not cover broadly the early conquests and settlements of the island, but instead, is a narrative which relies on some historical background (hence the four pages of honorable Ottoman mention at the beginning). The book focuses primarily on the years of the Greek junta, Britain's duplicitous role as island guarantor, and the intrepidly arrogant memoirs of then US Secretary of State Henry Kissinger, and agonizingly arrogant policies orchestrated by the British Foreign Office and British Foreign Secretary James Callahan.

Such bottle-necking of the b! ook's intended focus was bound to creep in to the author's judgement: Much of the meticulously woven narrative and documentation unravels as the author wields a loaded gavel. Judgements of any accomplishments the two statesmen mentioned above might have made toward real settlements for peace in Cyprus are thus tainted as they play out before us on the page.

The second textual problem is the historically inaccurate premise that Greeks, Turks, and Jews lived side-by-side on the island for millennia without native friction. This borders on the absurd. Historians will see the unbalanced scales and adjust them accordingly. But not all readers will: some will accept this premise without resistance as many have done with a generation of starry-eyed new histories of Bosnia. Good things can be said of Cyprus; but paradise it was not. Nor can it ever be.

The best writing in this book is found in the not-one-but-three prefaces and afterward, all provided by Hitchens, which brings us up-to-date on the recent blood spilled on the Green Zone in the summer of 1997. These four inserts alone summarize the issues and provide us with the quality and concision of writing we expect from the universally admired Hitchens. Everything in the middle is methodically documented, but alas...

Rating:
Summary: the best around, but still .....
Review: Highly informative, interesting, and moving. Necessary reading for anyone interested in the Cyprus problem.

Rating:
Summary: a must read for a free thinking spirit
Review: i read this book to begin my quest to read everything by the author hitchens. i know very little about cyprus so i cannot argue any points written by the author. im new to his style of writing but i admire his courage to put forth a different notion and expose the conventional way of thinking because it takes more work to do so.

Rating:
Summary: Incomplete
Review: The author's lack of research or lack of displaying his findings is evident from the first pages which mentions the Turkish conquest at Famagusta ends with the brutal flaying of the Italian commander. However if a research was conducted into this event then it would be found that the Turkish commander had made approach to the Italian commander in truce giving compliments to the bravery and endurance shown, and had asked for the release of the Turkish prisoners. Satisfying this the Italian commander and his troops was promised a safe passage back to his motherland. But history reveals that the Italian, had instead ordered the killing of the Turkish prisonsers, which in response to this the Turkish commander was angered and ordered the same be carried out to the Italian commander. It is this kind of vacuum of facts that are often left in books which unfortunately does not portray the absolute truth. Although this book does attempt to remain unbiased, it shys away from the mention of alarming events which would prove that the Turkish military intervention (known to Turks as the Peace Operation) was necessary to establish a peace on the island by seperating the two ethnic communities, after one of them containing the Greek Cypriot Junta planned an ethnic cleansing of the Turkish Cypriots.

This book merely concentrates on the behind the scenes events , dealings and possible motives between four nations, with not so much discussion of the Turkish participation.

Such books need to address the issue that the politics revolving around the events, leading to the Military Operation, were taken advantage of by outside powers to establish their own needs within the region. Some form of action had to be taken by some entity in order to protect the Turkish Cypriots, with all else failing (UN Peace keeping forces) including diplomacy between Turkey, Greece, Britain and USA, the result was the military operation. The point is that human life had to be protected and Turkey acted as a last resort in the way that it did. Therefore such history books must be wary when they lack they lack any mention of the social circumstances that would set the scene.

The 'Genocide Files' by Harry Scott gives a good acount of the actual events between the two communitites that will simplify the Cyprus issue in understanding the stance taken by Turkey.

Rating:
Summary: An excellent overview of recent Cypriot history.
Review: This is a book about international political intregue which reads almost like a spy-cum-action thriller. It is not fiction, however. To paraphrase Orwell, these things actually happened.

There are, as Hitchens acknowledges, those who will accuse him of creating a huge and unlikely conspiricy theory with this book. Yet, to those who care to follow him, there is plenty of confirmation for his conclusions. They make disturbing reading.

The Cyprus problem is not, he states, the result of ancient ethnic rivalries. Indeed, he notes how the old cliche that Greek and Turkish Cypriots have always lived peacefully together is actually true, and that, for example, during the American-backed Greek coup in Cyprus and the subsequent Turkish military occupation of the island in 1974, Greek and Turkish Cypriots sheltered together and helped each other. Rather, Hitchens shows convincingly, the division of the island is the result of foreign power-games, led by the cynical foreign policies of Lyndon Johnson, Nixon and Kissenger, who used Cyprus as a pawn in an international political game without care for or reference to the inhabitants of that island.

Hitchen's book provides a necessary antidote to the increasingly common glib commentators in the media whose lazy research, and ignorance of history, makes them automatically see the Cyprus problem in terms of ethnic rivalries brought on by the Cypriots themselves. As Hitchens shows, in his highly readable account, the people of Cyprus are the least to blame for their 'problem'.

Rating:
Summary: Incomplete
Review: We all know the story of Cyprus, well actually none of us do. None of us remmmeber what happaned at Famagusta. The Muslims were sieging the city and the indegenous CHristians were praying to god to help them. Then the Muslims lured the christian leader out under flag of truce. In front of the city the muslims cut his skin off him and stuffed it with hay, he was still alive to see his skin hanging on a dummy body. THis is typical 'peaceful' muslim behavior of course but what one forgets is that even with the ottoman victory the christians lived on, and currently occupy half of Cyrpus. THis would not have been the case had Kissinger and the Viscious intolerant anti-minority Tirks had their way(remmember what the turks and other 'peaceful' muslims did to the armenians?). Hitchens tells the story of Cyrpus as it happaned. How the Greek Cypriots were betrayed and how the machinations of foriegn powers brought the island to civil strife and finally turkish invasion. WIth the Turkish invasion the christians were forced to flee or be massacred, but of course like most population exchanges the only people that had to leave were the non muslims, the muslims in christian cyprus stayed put because western powers are always more benevolent(remmember what happened with India/Pakistan in 1948 how all the hindu/sihks were massacred in Pakistan but westerners get mad when one muslim dies in India). Hitchens book is an important work and not biased, it does focus to much on foriengers and does not talk about the day to day violence that overtook Cyprus prior to the invasion.

Rating:
Summary: The turks waded ashore and Christians were massacred
Review: We all know the story of Cyprus, well actually none of us do. None of us remmmeber what happaned at Famagusta. The Muslims were sieging the city and the indegenous CHristians were praying to god to help them. Then the Muslims lured the christian leader out under flag of truce. In front of the city the muslims cut his skin off him and stuffed it with hay, he was still alive to see his skin hanging on a dummy body. THis is typical 'peaceful' muslim behavior of course but what one forgets is that even with the ottoman victory the christians lived on, and currently occupy half of Cyrpus. THis would not have been the case had Kissinger and the Viscious intolerant anti-minority Tirks had their way(remmember what the turks and other 'peaceful' muslims did to the armenians?). Hitchens tells the story of Cyrpus as it happaned. How the Greek Cypriots were betrayed and how the machinations of foriegn powers brought the island to civil strife and finally turkish invasion. WIth the Turkish invasion the christians were forced to flee or be massacred, but of course like most population exchanges the only people that had to leave were the non muslims, the muslims in christian cyprus stayed put because western powers are always more benevolent(remmember what happened with India/Pakistan in 1948 how all the hindu/sihks were massacred in Pakistan but westerners get mad when one muslim dies in India). Hitchens book is an important work and not biased, it does focus to much on foriengers and does not talk about the day to day violence that overtook Cyprus prior to the invasion.