In my last blog post I wanted to reflect back on the class and how my world viewpoint has been altered through this class. So here, I am presenting one of my experiences that inspired me to take this class when I was in Cyprus. Cyprus is a land divided. Half of Cyprus is under Turkish occupation. When I was there my Cypriot friend took us to the Turkish side of the divided capital Nicosia. We walked through the boarder, a non-place still scarred with bullet holes from the fighting between the two countries. The other half of the city was completely different. The tourist stores became more like a traditional marketplaces and the language changed from Greek to Turkish.

Upon walking through the Turkish side, I found the sign in the picture above. It was next to an old Cypriot church that had been transformed into a mosque. It reads “Cypriots be caefull (‘careful’ spelled wrong), the world wants us to fight’. When I was first there, I just snapped the picture and thought it was just about the dispute of land. However, as I now re-read the sign with my knowledge from this class, I realize the larger ideological context of the photograph.

Analyzing the sign carefully, one can see the ‘Clash of Civilizations’ in the picture. On the left side of the sign is a church tower with the cross on top and on the right side in opposition is a minaret tower. The two birds who face each other, are divided by a tower with the Greek flag raised on the side with the Church tower and the Turkish flag raised on the other side with the mosque. It is interesting that they choose the Greek flag instead of the Cypriot flag, but I if a war is waged the Greeks will come to the aid of the ‘greek’ Cypriots. Also, looking at the flags you can see iconic religious symbols on each. For the Greek flag is has the cross in the corner and for the Turkish flag it holds the crescent moon and a star.

At first with my naïveté about the conflict, I thought of it as a threat to Greek Cypriots. However, after looking at it more closely it is actually promoting the union of the two sides with the coexistence of religious symbols surrounding the picture. Also, It says Annan Plan, which was the plan to join Cyprus under one unified country, however, the plan was blocked through larger political clashes between Turkey, Europe and the United States. Thus, Cypriots, like the Palestinians, have become a pawn in the political game of West v. East/ Christian v. Muslim: ‘The Clash of Civilizations’.

If there is one thing that I learned from this class, it is that most people do not want to fight. They do not want to be pawns in world conflicts. The message in this photograph is not of an violent attack, but it is a cautious warning to truly question why they are fighting? Do they really want to or does the world tell them they want to?