Northern Cyprus

Abstract

Karahasan and Beyidoglu Onen discuss the position of history education in Northern Cyprus. The debate centres on the rise of ‘Cyprus-centred’ thinking among the Turkish Cypriot community in the late 1990s, which allowed for fundamental changes in social and cultural narratives in the country. The revision of school textbooks under the Republican Turkish Party (CTP) government removed the ethnocentric approaches apparent in earlier volumes. However, following the election of the National Unity Party (UBP), new textbooks reintroduced themes underlining the disharmony between Turkish and Greek Cypriots. While the desire for peace and reconciliation through education is apparent, the centralised production of textbooks, the lack of a settlement between Turkish and Greek Cypriots, and the lack of official policies on textbooks only increase the vulnerability of history and its possible instrumentalisation.