The martyrdom of the missing ; Bodies of evidence : burial, memory and the recovery of missing persons in Cyprus

Abstract

In this chapter I examine how both groups have turned their missing into martyrs, though with significant differences. These differences are as much due to cultural symbolism as to the different political agendas of the Greek and Turkish Cypriot political leaderships. Briefly put, the Greek Cypriot missing have become metaphors or signifiers for the recapture of a past and a lost territory. As they possess an ambiguous liminal identity, being neither legally dead nor experientially alive, they share certain characteristics with saints or even with Christ. Turkish Cypriot missing persons are signifiers for a future for which they sacrificed their lives. They are therefore associated with the spilling of blood for land and security. There are political differences between the two groups in their attitudes towards the recovery of the bodies of the missing. This can be attributed to their different political agendas, as well as formal differences between Christianity and Islam in the theological significance of the body in the economy of salvation. Nevertheless I show that despite these differences between the political exploitation of the missing by their leaders, at the grassroots there are many similarities between Greek and Turkish Cypriot relatives towards the recovery of the bodies of their loved ones. ; peer-reviewed