Comfortable Conflict and (Il)liberal Peace in Cyprus

Abstract

Cypriots currently experience a peculiar conflict while negotiating different understandings of peace. The conflict today is starkly different from what they experienced in the 1960s and early 1970s. The old enemies and the same rhetoric – and even some of the same politicians – are still around. But nowadays the Cypriot conflict is more symbolic and ‘civilized’, as a certain kind of peace is also in place: that is, absence of violence combined with democracy, partial freedom of movement and enviable levels of prosperity, both north and south of the United Nations (UN) Buffer Zone. Still, as this peace is based on forced division, ethnic cleansing and legal exceptionalism, most want, or say they want, another kind of peace: a normalization of relations and a form of reunification of the island, including a bi-communal sharing of power. In other words, they exhibit a desire – in public discourse at least – to move away from an illiberal peace to a liberal one – something that can in effect hybridize peace pursuits as (il)liberal.