The Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus is a country that doesn’t exist. At least, as far as the rest of the world is concerned. On paper, Turkey is the only nation to recognize Northern Cyprus as a sovereign state. That’s no surprise. The Turkish military has maintained an active presence in the region since they invaded in 1974.
The Republic of Cyprus to the south is an active member of the European Union, meaning the EU officially considers Northern Cyprus “occupied territory” with an indefinite suspension on the rights of its citizens. The UN, and all other nations, follow suit. There is an international embargo on all ports and airports on the northern part of the island, meaning all trade, banking, and communication has to go through Turkey. As a result, the small coastal village where we’re staying this month has no bank or atm.
Northern Cyprus has its own government, a parliamentary system comparable to the United Kingdom. The southern republic, operates under a different presidential model. They use the Euro. People in the north use the Turkish Lira. As you cross the border, street signs and conversations switch from Greek to Turkish. We had to ask them not to stamp our passports as we crossed to avoid any issues when we eventually reenter the United States.
It’s not a large island.
The economy of Northern Cyprus is based on services, at times out of necessity more than anything else. It’s hard to sell a product no one can legally import. Tourism and higher education bring in the most money. The casino culture is growing, as is the market for human trafficking and the sex trade.
There’s no one to enforce international standards in a country that doesn’t exist.
Culturally, the people in the North are Muslim, but our village is only a few miles away from the place where Paul arrived on the island to begin his first missionary journey. Cyprus has a long history that’s as much about contested ownership and changing hands as anything else.
It’s as much reality as allegory.
Every morning, Turkish Cypriotes go to work in a country that doesn’t exist, but people are more than politics, and maybe a country isn’t defined by its foreign embassies (or lack thereof).
We live in the first ecotourism focused hotel on the island, and have spent a lot of our time here working in their large organic garden and attached vineyard. I’ve never seen so many snails in my life, or lizards for that matter. There’s a large cave on the property the owners use to teach their guests about traditional Cypriot culture. We baked bread in an oven that was over four hundred years old.
The Mediterranean coast is only a ten-minute walk away. The sun starts to set here around 5:00 pm, maybe earlier, and it’s awfully beautiful for a country that doesn’t exist.
Beautiful or not, Greek or Turkish, legal or otherwise, it’s here. That’s the moral of the story. Maybe existence isn’t really up to the world. Perhaps, we are who we are regardless of approval.
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