The Problem of Cyprus

The history of Cyprus derives from its geography. Tucked away in the northeast comer of the Mediterranean, the island is an outpost of three continents—Europe, Asia and Africa. Inevitably it has been, since earliest times, an object of contention between them : a mere accessory in the conflict, strategic and commercial, between the Empires of East and West, of North and South. Its history is thus not its own but that of others : of the procession of powers, from the ancient Egyptians to the British, which have for various reasons occupied it. Having never been free, its people have evolved, throughout the centuries, no appetite for freedom. They accept the fact—unlike so many of their neighbours— that they must always form part of a wider entity. But as such they seek to depend, for once, on a power of their own choice. They wish—or think they wish—to consolidate ties of religion, of culture, and, so they like to believe, of blood, by means of Enosis, or Union with Greece.