Analysis
Famagusta: The Netflix series that angered Ankara
What is perplexing is how quickly the Turkish authorities were able to bend the U.S. giant to their will, even though this was a property that had been around for some time.
Despite the ongoing storm in the Middle East, it is a period of relative calm for next-door-neighbors Greece and Turkey: the incendiary rhetoric that had been the backdrop of their cohabitation for the past century and more has lately been all but silent, taking on an unusually low profile. However, those familiar with the two countries know just how little it takes for someone in Athens or Ankara to get riled up. All it takes, for instance, is to mention Cyprus: an issue that always brings up an opportunity to forget all about “looking to the future” and instead look back to the past and the very long list of historical grievances left unsettled.
These days, at the center of the latest flare-up of tensions between the quarrelsome neighbors is a TV series, which has already been aired in Greece since January on the private Mega TV channel and was getting ready to make its global debut on Netflix. The series, already in its fourth season, is called Famagusta, a Greek and Greek Cypriot co-production inspired by the events of the summer of '74 in Cyprus: the coup orchestrated by the colonels of the Greek military dictatorship who harbored the dream of enosis (annexing the island to Greece) and the subsequent Turkish occupation that persists to this day.
Famagusta recounts the seizure of the town of the same name, an ancient coastal town on the eastern side of the island, from which thousands of residents and tourists fled in a matter of hours. Among them, it focuses on the story of a young couple who lost their barely three-month-old son amid the chaos of the evacuation. The series revolves around this human story and the couple's ongoing attempts to find him, 50 years later.
While the initial airing of the series in Greece didn’t seem to get any reaction from Turkey, when Netflix announced during the summer that it had bought the rights to the series and scheduled its release for September 20, the Turkish side went on a war footing: there was unanimous condemnation from the top political figures in the country, with the Foreign Minister calling the series “dark propaganda that distorts historical facts” and Vice President Cevdet Yilmaz lashing out at Netflix. And it wasn’t just a show of words: after the protests from Turkey, the American platform backed down, saying it would limit the availability of the series so it could only be watched within Greece and not include it in the catalog available in other countries.
Was it a victory for Ankara? The more cynical have pointed out that Turkey is so uncompromising about the Cyprus narrative because the ‘74 military operation represents, to date, their only military victory since the fall of the Ottoman Empire. However, this heroic self-image as liberators of “their” Turkish Cypriot brethren does not erase the consequences of the stalemate Cyprus has been stuck in for half a century.
And the narrative is unconvincing even to some of the Turkish Cypriots. Ironically, they were the first ones to make a TV series on the troubled Cyprus issue: 2021’s Kibris: Zafere Dogru (Cyprus: Towards Victory), which tells the story of Bloody Christmas, the massacre of Turkish Cypriots in 1963 at the hands of Greek Cypriot nationalists, was broadcast on TRT, the Turkish national TV station – nonetheless, the series was widely disliked by the Turkish Cypriots themselves. Now, the president of the secessionist Republic (on the Turkish side), Ersin Tatar, has said that they should produce their own “counter-series” as an alternative to Famagusta; and from Turkey itself, the Defense Minister seized the opportunity and announced this week that on Monday, TRT Belgesel, a channel of the national TV network, will broadcast a documentary entitled 50nci Yil Belgeseli (“Documentary on the 50th Anniversary”) which will supposedly tell “the whole truth” about the Cyprus operation (with another subtle dig at Netflix, which was tagged in the post).
Judging by the standard of how things usually happen in Cyprus, had it not been for the twist of Netflix backing down so quickly, we would be seeing business as usual. The opposing narratives that have appropriated recent history for their own use and consumption on both sides of the divide: Greece and Greek Cypriots mourning the fallen and protesting against Turkey's occupation, while on the other side of the Green Line, Turkey and some Turkish Cypriots would celebrate liberation and the “Peace Operation.” What is perplexing is how quickly the Turkish authorities were able to bend the U.S. giant to their will, even though this was a property that had been around for some time.
For those unfamiliar with Cypriot affairs, it is worth taking a moment to get a clear view of the story of Famagusta and its ghostly Varosha Riviera – and of why they are the subject of so much attention nowadays. The coastal stretch wedged between the British military base at Dekhelia and the current U.N. buffer zone dividing the (ethnically Greek) Republic of Cyprus to the south from the secessionist Republic of Cyprus to the north is one of the symbols of the 1974 war, and certainly one of the most controversial issues that are yet to be resolved. It represents a symbol for the Greek Cypriot residents, who for half a century were only allowed to look on from afar as their abandoned properties were crumbling behind miles of barbed wire; and it is also a symbol for the “dark tourism” trend, with influencers and YouTubers coming to Cyprus in droves, drawn by the uncanny atmosphere of the gutted silhouettes of buildings and the faded signs above abandoned night clubs and tourist shops – the last remaining vestiges of the heydays before the invasion.
Varosha was seized in August 1974 during the second phase of “Operation Attila,” the name given by Turkey to the military intervention that led to its occupation of 37 percent of the island, while the turbulent peace negotiations under the auspices of the UN were ongoing. By July, the Turkish army had taken only 3 percent of the island; but when the negotiations broke down less than a month later, the soldiers were ordered to head south, and Famagusta was among the territories conquered before the ceasefire came, then at the peak of the tourist season: in addition to being an internationally-renowned resort, it was one of the richest and most developed areas for Cyprus among the Greek Cypriot-majority areas. The town was evacuated within hours, and residents were told to only take essentials with them because they would be back in a few days.
But no civilians would set foot in the area again until 2021. Turkey had managed to occupy an important economic center, and converted it into a military zone, leaving the infrastructure to crumble from the passage of time and exposure to the elements.
As a result, the city of Famagusta became so charged with significance that it became one of the major roadblocks to reunification, as well as the object of several U.N. Security Council resolutions over the years, which reaffirmed again and again the prohibition on occupants making use of it and the obligation to allow its population or their descendants to return. In 2021, amid a full-blown pandemic and ignoring the protests of the still-dispossessed former residents, the EU and the UN, Turkey gave the green light to a kind of partial (and cruel) reopening of the ghostly riviera: no one has been allowed to return to their former homes, but rows of buses full of tourists now arrive daily to visit the area as if it were an archaeological site, with the war trophy buildings behind barriers and a shuttle or bicycle rental service that allows everyone to walk around and take selfies among the rubble of former wealth. Ankara is dreaming of luxury and investments to replace the skeletal buildings, while the descendants of former residents would like a piece of their past back.
At this point, Varosha is less of a forbidden city than before (although a good chunk of it is still a military area), but if the conflict is still able to move governments to action (overt or not) over as little as a Netflix series, this means that a solution to the Cyprus question is still a long way off.
Originally published at https://ilmanifesto.it/la-serie-della-discordia on 2024-09-13