“Writing history is as difficult as making history.”
says Atatürk, the Great Leader.
This week, I will share with you a few notes from a summary of a book that came into my hands.
The author of this book is Birol Özter, a retired teacher of Cypriot history and a researcher and writer.
The book is titled “Cyprus History Textbooks in the Light of the Facts.”
After reading these lines,
I hope you will not remain indifferent.
Because this is such an important subject that even you cannot remain indifferent to it.
***
A few notes from the book “Cyprus History Textbooks in the Light of the Facts”; “Writing history is as difficult as making history,” says Atatürk, the Great Leader.
As if to belie these words, the new history books prepared for state schools in Cyprus erase the last 50–60 years of Turkish Cypriot national history. In an effort to instill a Cypriot identity in Turkish children, history has been distorted, and lies, errors, and myths—everything but history—have been included in the books.
1. Since the four principles of the discipline of history have been violated, these books cannot be history books:
a. Objectivity:
- These books aim to instill a Cypriot identity in students in line with a particular ideology,
- They were written under EU directives,
- According to a claim by Petros Papapolyviou, a lecturer at the University of Cyprus, these books are quoted from the book “Kition, Mycenaean and Phoenician Discoveries in Cyprus 1976” by Greek writer Vasos Karageorghis (Volumes 1 and 2, covering up to 1931).
Paragraph 10 of the Gali Ideas set also stated on July 5, 1992, that the following was being requested of us: “ A bicommunal committee will be set up to review the textbooks used in schools on each side and to recommend the removal of material that is inimical to the development of goodwill and close relations between the two communities. The committee may also recommend positive measures to further this aim.”
b. There is no cause-and-effect connection, c. There are events for which no time or place is given, d. Written and unwritten documents have been denied.
2. The covers of all three books feature a map of Cyprus that does not show the borders of the TRNC. (The 23-year-old TRNC is being rejected.)
3. The preface says, “We must write the history we have created ourselves and teach it to the new generations.” Two different ideas are concealed here:
a) There is denial, and more than denial—there is ingratitude: They say, “We created this history,” thus denying both the contributions of the Republic of Türkiye and the heroism of the Turkish Armed Forces.
b) They say, “We created it; we will write it as we wish and leave it to the generations after us.”
We want to ask: Did we create the history of the last 50–60 years ourselves?!!!
Did we make this history alone as Turkish Cypriots?!!!
If we had been left alone, all of us would be in massacre pits today.
4. The books include absurdities such as “If the bones of priests in the Kyrenia Mountains are boiled and drunk, they cure fever” or “the legend of St. Barnabas, the legend of Aphrodite.”
5. Beside the sentence “The Ottomans sent hardened murderers and criminals into exile in Famagusta,” a picture of Namık Kemal’s dungeon is shown, presenting Namık Kemal as a “hardened criminal.” He was a man whose nationalism was beyond debate and who poured his irrepressible national fervor into his poems, with lines such as “EVEN IF THEY CAST US INTO THE CENTER OF THE EARTH, WE WILL BURST THE GLOBE AND EMERGE.” His patriotic poems have been studied in literature classes.
6. There are 30 or so pictures of priests, seven of them real and the rest illustrative.
7. Pages are devoted to the spread of Christianity and diagrams of the Catholic and Orthodox churches. (These books seem to have been written for Christian children.)
8. Not one of our martyrs is named, but Muzaffer Gürkan and Ayhan Hikmet are discussed in these books (audio tapes proved in court that they had spied for Yorgacis). In fact, to accuse the TMT and its esteemed leaders, the books say that “it is still unknown who killed them.” Greek writer Makarios Druşotis exposed this in his book. He also exposes those who bombed the Ömerge and Bayraktar mosques, as well as those who planted a bomb at the statue of Markos Dragos.
9. Under the picture of the two-minaret Selimiye Mosque in Nicosia, it says St. Sophia Church; under the picture of the Lala Mustafa Pasha Mosque in Famagusta, it says St. Nicholas Church. (Turkish teachers deny that they are mosques.)
10. The books say that the defeat at Lepanto brought the end of the dominion in the Eastern Mediterranean won at Preveza. Neither Preveza nor Lepanto is in the Eastern Mediterranean.
11. They say, “Anatolia was occupied after the Treaty of Sèvres.” Anatolia was occupied under Article 7 of the Armistice of Mudros, signed on October 30, 1918 (Sèvres was signed on August 10, 1920).
12. In the English-language book adopted for the curriculum as a textbook in colleges, it says:
“ Kemal organized the national forces, attacked the Greeks, and drove them out of their lands.” (Were İzmir, Manisa, Aydın, etc. Greek territory?)
13. The same book says that Constantinople is the capital of the Turks.
14. On page 46 of the book, the word CONSTANTINOPOLIS is written inside a map of Anatolia. Anatolia was never Constantinople in any period of history, whether under the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire.
15. Pages and pages of propaganda are devoted to Cypriot identity, island identity, Mediterranean identity—but above all to Cypriot identity. We are two separate peoples on this island, with different languages, religions, races, histories, cultures, flags, anthems, etc., and that is how we will remain.
The aim is to make Turkish Cypriots Cypriot and melt them into the Greek community. (Osmosis)
16. Although they have nothing to do with the history of Cyprus, the September 6–7 events in Istanbul are discussed, and it is explained that Turks attacked Greeks for two days (while attempts are made to make people forget the massacres of Greeks exposed by Greek writers, poisoning with typhus, paratyphoid fever and arsenic, and the Akritas and Hephaestus Plans).
17. “Just like the eggs in a basket. ... So why shouldn’t we unite? Why shouldn’t we resist? Why shouldn’t we defend our rights? Stavro is right. There is still a long way to go together, in peace and friendship, to drive the British and the Americans from our beautiful island. Only when we achieve this will we be able to work for ourselves, our children, and our country. Only then can true peace, freedom, and true happiness come.” An effort is being made to instill a Cypriot identity.
18. On the first pages of the Grade 9 history textbook, the letters that stand out as different from those in the secondary-school history books are printed in a style different from the LATIN LETTERS ADOPTED WITH THE 1928 ALPHABET REFORM.
- The letters “n” and “m” look more like the pi and mu letters in the Russian or Greek alphabet (the Cyrillic alphabet).
- The dots above the letters “i,” “Ü,” and “ö” are shaped like crosses—that is, tiny crosses. For example, there are two crosses above the “Ü” in the name Atatürk, and two each above the “Ö” letters in the word PREFACE, making four crosses in total; there is also one cross in the middle of each “Ö.” In short, the dots above the vowels have been removed and replaced with crosses.
The cross is used as a symbol by Christians because Jesus was crucified. It is also the symbol on the Greek flag. It has also been used as a symbol of the Crusades.
One would have to be blind not to see the meaning of the message being conveyed by placing crosses over the words “Atatürk,” “National Anthem,” and “Preface” in Turkish history textbooks.
19. EOKA: According to the history textbooks, EOKA was an organization that targeted communists.
20. “The Akritas Plan explained the methods to be followed to achieve ENOSIS.” In other words, it was not a plan to exterminate the Turks.
***
I don’t know what to say or what kind of comment to add after these findings.
Actually, I do know, but I don’t want to believe my own thoughts.
THANK YOU...
This week, I am dedicating the thank-you column—entirely—to those who wrote the history textbook taught in our schools.
To those who wrote it in a perfectly sincere manner, based on the facts(!), without distorting anything(!), without lies(!) or errors(!), just as our children should learn it...
Thank you...
Cem KAR