In the fall of 1971, various scenarios for the island’s future were on the table… and in the minds of those involved
On October 18, 1971, the popular Turkish singer Barış Manço arrived in Cyprus for a series of concerts. From Nicosia Airport, he was driven to the Ledra Palace area, where thousands of his Turkish Cypriot fans were waiting for him. There, the organizers had prepared an unusual welcome. They ceremoniously lifted him onto a camel, alluding to his then-hit song “İşte Hendek, İşte Deve,”* which literally means “Behold the ditch, here’s the camel,” and could easily be rendered in Greek as “here’s Rhodes, here’s the leap.” Finding a camel was no easy task back then, since with the prevalence of motorized transportation, they had all but disappeared from Cypriot roads.
This strange ritual took place against an equally strange political backdrop. Relations between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots had relatively normalized compared to the critical period of 1963–1968. Since 1968, the intercommunal talks between Clerides and Denktash had been underway, aimed at reaching a constitutional compromise that would allow the Republic of Cyprus to function once again on an agreed basis. Just a few days before Manço’s arrival, the foreign ministers of Greece and Turkey, Christian Xanthopoulos-Palamas and Osman Olcay, had met in New York and agreed to strengthen the process of intra-Cypriot talks.
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Behind the scenes of official diplomacy, however, there were other levels of political maneuvering. Athens and Ankara were also discussing among themselves what would follow in the event of a failure of the negotiations, so as not to disrupt the balance within NATO. Behind the scenes, there was talk of a settlement that would result in the division of the island between Greece and Turkey—euphemistically referred to as a “union with concessions.” There is no evidence that the two governments had reached an agreement on such a solution. It is clear, however, that Cyprus’s future was being negotiated on more than one front.
As if the situation were not complicated enough, another arrival in Cyprus had preceded this one—this time a secret one. In early September, Georgios Grivas had secretly returned to Cyprus from Athens, where he had been since the Kofinou crisis of 1967. The available evidence does not support the claim that he was sent by the junta in Athens; rather, it suggests he returned on his own initiative. His supporters claim that he intended to wage an anti-junta struggle. At the same time, he believed that Makarios had transformed independence from a temporary compromise into a permanent strategy. Grivas wanted to bring the Union back to the center of the political agenda. Soon, EOKA B would be formed around him.
Grivas and the Greek government did not necessarily share the same plan. However, Athens realized that his presence in Cyprus could serve as a useful lever to exert pressure on Makarios. At the same time, the Turkish government, although it supported the inter-Cypriot talks, continued to believe that some form of partition was the solution that best served its interests. What is most interesting is that the Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot leaderships maintained a consistent double-speak: they claimed to be pursuing different goals depending on the audience they were addressing.
In the fall of 1971, different scenarios for the island’s future were on the table… and in the minds of those involved. It was a moment when nothing was set in stone. Amid this atmosphere of overt confrontations and behind-the-scenes maneuvering, Barış Manço climbed onto a camel and, accompanied by daouli drums and zurna flutes, he set off on a spectacular procession through the Turkish quarter of Nicosia, from the Ledra Palace to the Serai Hotel. Along the way, his Turkish Cypriot fans chanted “Barış, Barış” in unison. In Turkish, however, “barış” also means “peace.” The crowd, of course, was simply chanting the name of their favorite singer. Against the backdrop of Cyprus’s political turmoil in 1971, the cheers of the Turkish Cypriot music fans were the most innocent form of ambiguity.
*Note: The song “İşte Hendek, İşte Deve” was adapted into Greek and became the 1999 hit “Agkyres,” performed by Kaiti Garbi.
