Multicultural Citizenship

The case of Cyprus

George Iordanou
PhD Student Department of Politics and International Studies University of Warwick

Table of Contents
Introduction ........................................................................................................................ 2 The importance of multiculturalism ........................................................................... 4 Review of the Multiculturalism Literature ............................................................... 7
Kymlickas Multicultural Citizenship .................................................................................. 8 Criticisms and Replies ............................................................................................................ 13 Liberal Criticisms .................................................................................................................................. 13 Feminist Criticisms ............................................................................................................................... 16 Deliberative Multiculturalism .......................................................................................................... 19

Why is Cyprus useful? ................................................................................................... 23

Outline and role of the case of Cyprus ............................................................................... 25 What will MC gain from Cyprus ........................................................................................... 30

Conclusion ......................................................................................................................... 37

Introduction
Modern states are now multinational since they comprise of citizens with different nationalities and cultural backgrounds. Political theorists have tried to respond to the challenges of diversity through what have become known as theories of multiculturalism (MC).1 Some are empirical, others are normative, and others are both. Some theories are based on traditional liberal texts,2 whilst others are not, some theories challenge and others compliment liberalism, or even dismiss it altogether. Multiculturalism is truly multidiscipline; it involves theories of political theory, sociology, cultural studies, security studies, international relations, education theory, history and law. This paper starts with the acknowledgement of the diverse nature of the theories of multicultural citizenship and attempts to provide an outline of the challenges of multiculturalism along with an assessment of the way the dominant theories of MC address them. The main goal of my research project is to evaluate the applicability of theories of MC in post-conflict and post-colonial situations. In other words, how normative theories of multiculturalism deal with the social-political phenomenon of diversity. This paper is the first stage of my PhD projecta review of
The Politics of Difference by Iris Marion Young, Justice and the politics of difference (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1990).; The Politics of Recognition by Charles Taylor and Amy Gutmann, eds., Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1994).; Liberal-Egalitarian Multiculturalism by Will Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995).; Deliberative Multiculturalism by Bhikhu Chotalal Parekh, Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory, 2nd ed. (Basingstoke: Palgrave Macmillan, 2006).; Multicultural Constitutionalism by James Tully, Strange multiplicity: constitutionalism in an age of diversity (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1995).; and Libertarian Multiculturalism by Chandran Kukathas, The liberal archipelago: a theory of diversity and freedom (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2003). 2 For example, Kukathas concept of toleration is inspired by Humes Of Parties in General, whilst Kymlickas concept of autonomy is inspired by J. S. Mills On Liberty. See John Stuart Mill, On liberty; with The subjection of women; and chapters on socialism, ed. Stefan Collini (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1989 [1859]); David Hume, "Of Parties in General," ed. Stuart D. Warner and Donald W. Livingston, Political Writings (Indianapolis: Hackett, 1994 [1777]).
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the existing theories side-by-side with the problems they need to address and an outline of my projects basic aspirations. My research will be based upon Will Kymlickas theory, which has initiated the debate of MC within liberalism. Kymlickas theory was the first systematic project to deal with the theoretical presuppositions of multicultural accommodation. Moreover, Kymlicka was the first to go beyond theory, into practical policy recommendations, which later became incorporated into Canadian national policy. Cyprus will be used as a case study, since it is a country that had to face British colonialism, inter-cultural and intra-cultural struggles, followed by the Turkish invasion, all within a century. The complexity of the cultural associations of the island and the challenges that arise from them, are representative of the hardest challenges that theories of MC are called to address. The fact that the history of cultural formation in Cyprus is recent will be especially useful in examining the imposed nature of cultural identification and the different levels of cultural recognition. The case of Cyprus is useful in extracting three generalizable conclusions firstly, the division of society into societal cultures, especially national minorities, should not be accepted a priori; secondly, ethnicity should not be the defining identity marker of national groups; and thirdly, cultural identity, although a critical source of self-realisation, should not be treated as the utmost source of identity. This paper will be divided into a series of five questions: Why is the study of multiculturalism important?; Why is Kymlicka the basis of the study?; Why is Cyprus an interesting and relevant case study?; and finally, What does this research aspire to achieve?.

The importance of multiculturalism

The British Prime Minister David Cameron in 5 February 2011 declared multiculturalism as dead, because as he claimed, it creates isolated groups that disintegrate society.
Under the doctrine of state multiculturalism, we have encouraged different cultures to live separate lives, apart from each other and apart from the mainstream Weve even tolerated these segregated communities behaving in ways that run completely counter to our values.3

This statement was made in the context of a seminar against terrorism, suggesting that the policies of multiculturalism are so problematic that they drive religious-others to radicalisation. These views are not confined to the conservative right that Mr Cameron represents. Labour politicians like Jack Straw are also unease with multicultural Britain. In 6 October 2006 in his column in Lancashire Telegraph and later in the Guardian, Straw explained how he felt uncomfortable with women who wore the Islamic veil since he could not have face-to-face interaction with them and as such was encouraging them to remove their veil.4 Moreover, left-wing academic philosophers like Brian Barry, also share such negative sentiments towards multiculturalism. Barry suggested that multicultural theories and policies should be dismissed because they institutionalize political divisions under the rule of law as they magnify conflicts and jeopardize peoples sense of national solidarity.5

Cameron went on to argue that when a white person holds objectionable views, racist views for instance, we rightly condemn them. But when equally unacceptable views or practices come from someone who isnt white, weve been too cautious frankly frankly, even fearful to stand up to them. David Cameron, "Speech at Munich Security Conference," The Official Site of the British Prime Minister, http://www.number10.gov.uk/news/pms-speech-at-munich-security-conference/. 4 Jack Straw, "I felt uneasy talking to someone I couldn't see," Guardian, http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2006/oct/06/politics.uk. 5 For example, Barry writes: From an egalitarian liberal standpoint, what matters are equal opportunities. If uniform rules create identical choice sets, then opportunities are equal. We may expect that people will make different choices from these identical choice sets, depending on their preferences for outcomes and their beliefs about the relation of actions to

The liberal nation-state is built upon the presupposition of neutrality, largely because it comprised of people who shared similar views about the good-life. Each country used to be a collection of co-nationals who shared the same language, religion and understanding of good and evil. This is not to suggest that people were the same, or even that they were similar, but rather that they based their sociopolitical exchange upon a common framework of implicitly accepted values.6 Therefore, the state meant to be neutral because it did not interfere with the exchange of good reasons amongst co-nationals. Its role was to maintain an institutional framework and issue rules of conduct that reflected the implicitly accepted norms that arose out of the shared conception of good and evil. This is obviously not the case anymore, at least in developed liberal countries. The technological advancements of the last century and the rise of globalisation facilitated immigration to an unprecedented degree. The increased multiplicity of different people and cultures has exposed the underlying assumption of the neutrality of the liberal state, calling for the reconsideration of long-established practices.7 The voices of non-dominant social groups have forced the liberal state into a critical self-examination. Certain practices that were considered universal are now
the satisfaction of their preferences. Some of these preferences and beliefs will be derived from aspects of culture shared with others; some will be idiosyncratic. But this has no significance: either way it is irrelevant to any claims based on justice, since justice is guaranteed by equal opportunities. Brian Barry, Culture and equality: an egalitarian critique of multiculturalism (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2001). 32. 6 I am not, of course, providing a historical account here. I think the most impressive historical account of the development of diversity and the response of mainstream philosophers is to be found in the first Part (the historical part) of Parekhs book, where he begins from Plato and Aristotle, moves on to the Christians Aquinas and St. Augustine, followed by the classical liberals Locke and J. S. Mil, which he then compares to Vico, Montesquieu and Herder, demonstrating how the perceptions towards pluralism and diversity have changed over the years. Towards the end of his historical account, Parekh addresses contemporary liberals like Rawls, Raz and Kymlicka, to whom he replies with his own theory of multiculturalism. See Parekh, Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory. 7 For an account of the shift that took place, see Anthony Simon Laden and David Owen, Multiculturalism and political theory (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 2007).

brought into question. In the United Kingdom for example, the state used to fund religious schools; that is, the state used to fund the schools of the national Anglican Church, the Church of England. Once demands for equal treatment of other nondominant religions emerged, the funding of religious schools was revisited. Should we allow Muslim religious schools, the liberals asked? Demands for equal treatment suddenly became an issue of multiculturalism, and social and cultural practices became classified as liberal and illiberal cultural expressions.8 The discussion was focused on very specific issues, such as the scarf affair (l affaire foulard) in France; the exemption of religious groups from general laws, such as the Sikhs in the UK who requested exemption from wearing a helmet whilst driving and whilst working in construction since it would require them to remove the turban; cultural defense in (mostly criminal cases in) the courts; female genital mutilation (FGM); sex-selective abortion and so on. In other words, the institutions of the liberal state found themselves increasingly unable to deal with the clash between constitutional essentials and the practices of cultural groups.9 Therefore, the challenges of diversity exposed the need to rethink the presuppositions underlying the institutions of developed liberal states. As a result, liberal theorists like Kymlicka, Kukathas and Barry, found themselves in a rather awkward situationthey had two options: the first was to modify universal rules in order to accommodate cultural groups and the other was to promote a new model of group-differentiated citizenship to accommodate minority cultures. Theorists like Brian Barry and Chandran Kukathas went down the first road and promoted a strong and weak state of universal rules
See Anne Phillips, "When culture means gender: issues of cultural defence in the English courts," Modern Law Review 66, no. 4 (2003), where it is demonstrated that in most of the cases where cultural defence is accepted, it is only when the defence is in accordance with the popular norms of the western society. Therefore, even though culture is used as a reason, it is only accepted as such when it is within the liberal realm. 9 Seyla Benhabib, The claims of culture: equality and diversity in the global era (Oxford: Princeton University Press, 2002). 112.
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respectively.10 Other theorists like Will Kymlicka supported the second model of group-differentiated citizenship, which was the beginning of what we now know as multiculturalism.11

Review of the Multiculturalism Literature

I choose to focus on Kymlicka in my research project because I believe that Kymlicka is the most interesting of the theorists that address the issue of group-differentiated citizenship based on cultural identity, since he is working within the liberal framework without disregarding the realities of everyday life. That is, he does not limit himself to the ideal levelinstead, he looks at the multicultural challenges and employs his theory in search of policy recommendations.12

Barry, Culture and equality: an egalitarian critique of multiculturalism; Kukathas, The liberal archipelago: a theory of diversity and freedom. Kukathas technically advocates no state at all; but provided that the state is a fact of modern society, then it should be as minimal as possible. 11 Kymlicka has firstly introduced his theory of multiculturalism in his book Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights. Since then, he became the leading theorist of multiculturalism, working in both the theory and policy of multicultural citizenship. Two of his most important works following his first book are Politics in the vernacular: nationalism, multiculturalism and citizenship (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001); and lately Multicultural odysseys: navigating the new international politics of diversity (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007). 12 I agree with Brennan and Petit who argue that the relationship between ideal and non-ideal theory is one where the former sets the ideal (or one version of it) and the latter guides the institutional reform in order to associate opportunity with virtue. As such, I classify Kymlicka in the non-ideal camp since he provides institutional recommendations for policy reforms. Other theorists, like Charles W. Mills and Colin Farrelly argue that ideal-theorisation should be abandoned because it fails to be action-guiding. Laura Valentini disagrees with them and argues that the ideal theory of John Rawls for example, does not ignore issues of discrimination, exclusion and other social defections (as accused by both Mills and Farrelly), but rather prescribe their absence. Hence, by intentionally excluding such issues, theorists like Rawls are actingand urging actiontowards their condemnation and abolition. How else, Valentini asks, could a theory be ideal, if non-ideal conditions were part of it? Holly Lawford-Smith, replying to Valentini explains that a theory can have other functions other than action-guidance, like explanatory justificatory or descriptive role. Sofia Stemplowska suggests that the best way to differentiate between ideal and non-ideal theory is by considering as ideal, the theory that engages in achievable and desirable recommendations and non-ideal, the theory that does not. See Charles W. Mills, "'Ideal theory' as ideology," Hypatia 20, no. 3 (2005); Colin Farrelly, "Justice in ideal-theory: a refutation," Political Studies 55(2007); Sofia Stemplowska, "What's ideal about ideal-theory," Social Theory and

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Kymlicka was not the first to criticise the neutrality of the liberal state in regard to recognition and difference of cultural groups. In fact, Charles Taylor, James Tully and Iris Marion Young did so before him,13 but it was not until Kymlickas theory of Multicultural Citizenship that a systematic account of multiculturalism was developed, one which puts under the same theory cultural claims on behalf of national minorities, indigenous populations and immigrant groups. At the same time Kymlickas attempt to challenge the cultural and racial stereotypes of the liberal state have initiated a parallel discussion that is critical to the western perception of the othera criticism which urges liberal theorists, Kymlicka included, to rethink the way they view non-liberal and non-western cultures. Therefore, Kymlicka is useful both for his theory and for the criticisms that his theory has attracted. In this section of the paper, I will present Kymlickas original 1995 theory of Multicultural Citizenship. In the following sections, I will address some of the most prominent criticisms that he received, before I move on to explain what does the case of Cyprus has to offer to this literature.

Kymlickas Multicultural Citizenship

According to Kymlicka, a nation is a historical community, more or less institutionally complete, occupying a given territory or homeland sharing a distinct language and culture.14 The advanced liberal state is multinational since it consists of more than one group with a distinctive national identity. These additional groups are called national minorities and are disadvantaged in comparison to the dominant

Practice 34, no. 3 (2008); Laura Valentini, "On the apparent paradox of ideal-theory," The Journal of Political Philosophy 17, no. 3 (2009); Holy Lawford-Smith, "Debate: ideal theorya reply to Valentini," The Journal of Political Philosophy 18, no. 3 (2010). 13 Young, Justice and the politics of difference; Taylor and Gutmann, Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition; Tully, Strange multiplicity: constitutionalism in an age of diversity. 14 Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 11.

majority culture, since the state, contrary to the contemporary liberal assumption of cultural neutrality, is ethnoculturally biased in favor of the dominant societal culture. Kymlicka, promotes group rights for the purposes of cultural accommodation, since the maintenance of culture as context-of-choice is pivotal to individual autonomy. Therefore, his theory of MC is a liberal one, since it is justified on the grounds of freedom of expression and association that treats autonomy as the most basic liberal right.15 Autonomy, according to Kymlicka, is the ability to acknowledge and revise one's beliefs and convictions. In this context, culture is the structure whose translational abilities provide meaning to the world. Hence, the existence of many cultures as vehicles of interpretation, does not threaten the solidarity of the modern state, since nationality is detached from patriotism and patriotism is defined as a shared commitment to diversity, rather than as a product of a common commitment to a nation. In order to grasp the complexities of cultural pluralism, Kymlicka distinguishes immigrants from national minorities. Immigrants, in so far as they have voluntarily entered the country, are expected to participate within the public institutions of the dominant culture and they are not asking for a parallel society.16 The demands they put forward to the host state, are claims for recognition of their cultural particularity in order to integrate better in the society. National minorities on the other hand, often articulate demands for political or territorial autonomy. The group-differentiated rights that Kymlicka promotes are self-governmental rights, polyethnic rights and special representation rights. Self governmental rights are answers to claims put forward by national minorities who ask for political autonomy
Ibid., 75. His definition of autonomy is based on J. S. Mills version of autonomy as a comprehensive right. See Mill, On liberty; with The subjection of women; and chapters on socialism. 16 Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 14-15.
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or territorial jurisdiction; polyethnic rights are responses to demands articulated by immigrant groups and can take the form of anti-racism policies like modification of the educational curricula, funding, and exemptions from the law; and finally, special representation rights are seen as a corollary to self-governmental rights and are utilised in order to counterbalance the historical exclusion that members of disadvantaged groups experience.17 In order to ensure that individuals enjoy freedom of conscience, Kymlicka suggests that the liberal state should support external protections to minority cultures and at the same time reject internal restrictions. By supporting external protections, the state must take action in order to ensure that the group is not treated disadvantageously at the inter-group level. In the same way, by guaranteeing that no internal restrictions take place, the state ascertains that the basic liberties and freedoms of individuals at the intra-group level are secured as well.18 Therefore, the state must ensure that the individual has a right of exit from his or her culture, a right whose cost does indeed matter, since it needs to be substantivethat is, the cost must be at least partially covered by the state, in order to ensure that the individual has the ability to realise the possibility of exit from a potentially oppressive culture, hence maintaining his/her right to evaluate his/her options.19 According to Kymlicka, in order to avoid assimilation, cultural membership must be maintained, since culture is the structure within which a person is able to live a good life. A good life therefore is not to be understood as merely freedom of

Ibid., 27, 32. Ibid., 35-37. 19 The case of the cost of exit has been addressed by Kymlicka in his discussion with Kukathas in the journal Political Theory, where Kymlicka differentiates between right of exit and substantial right of exit. See Chandran Kukathas, "Are there any cultural rights?," Political Theory 20, no. 1 (1992); "Cultural rights again: a rejoinder to Kymlicka," Political Theory 20, no. 4 (1992); Will Kymlicka, "The rights of minority cultures: reply to Kukathas," Political Theory 20, no. 1 (1992).
18

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choice, but rather as a life which reflects one's interests, beliefs and desires, all of which are open to reconsideration and revision. Therefore, Kymlicka aligns cultural accommodation with traditional liberal principles like freedom of expression, association, autonomy, and information. Cultural membership is so important, because it provides meaningful options and also affects how others perceive and respond to us.20 Moreover, culture as a source of identity is more secure than other identity markers because it depends on belonging and not [on] achievement, and is directly related to our self-esteem and dignity. Therefore, as long as polyethnic rights to immigrants and self-governmental rights to national minorities secure access to a societal culture, then they contribute to individual freedom.21 Kymlicka places special emphasis on language, in order to demonstrate that the policy of benign neglect is neither realistic nor practically plausible, since either deliberately or by implication, the state is bound to support one specific societal culture through the use of its language in public documents and institutions. Even if the institutions of the state seem to be neutral, the ethnocultural background of the national majority will be reflected in its decisions, leaving the members of minority cultures exposed to the will of the majority. Therefore, cultural minorities according to Kymlicka have a legitimate claim for group representation under two conditions: firstly, they must experience historical and structural disadvantage, and secondly, they need to demonstrate that their claim for self-government reflects the will of their members. The kind of representation varies; it can either be mirror representation, where the group is represented by some of its members as is the case with women who are often guaranteed 50 per cent proportional representation, or it can be like the case of Maori whose representatives
20 21

Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 89. Ibid., 101.

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do not necessarily need to be Maori, as long as they are accountable to the Maori voters. Parallel to the discussion of group representation, is the discussion of autonomy and illiberal cultures. The concern is expressed as follows: what if minority cultures do not want more rights, but rather they want to be left alone; in other words, what if these cultural groups ask for tolerance rather than autonomy? Even more worryingly, how should the liberal state react to an illiberal culture that restricts its members individual freedoms? One representative case is that of the Amish, who refuse to educate their children past the eighth grade, have a high rate of genetic disorders because of interbreeding and shun the members of their culture who choose to adopt any form of affiliation with the outside world. In reply to these concerns, Kymlicka argues that the principle of Millean autonomy should be defended in all contexts, public and private, political or civil, because it is autonomy that makes liberal tolerance possible. As he claims, what distinguishes liberal tolerance is precisely its commitment to autonomy; that is, the idea that individuals should be free to assess and potentially revise their existing ends.22 Therefore, he promotes a comprehensive account of autonomy, similarly to the one supported by Mill rather than the one put forward by Rawls. Contrary to Rawls, who treats autonomy as fundamental only at the political level, Kymlicka promotes autonomy as a value that must be endorsed at all the venues of human interaction. 23

Ibid., 158. Initially, in A Theory of Justice, Rawls adopted a comprehensive view of liberalism, very much like Mill, who argued that to restrict improvement is to restrict liberty, and therefore sometimes it might be necessary to force improvements on an unwilling people Mill, On liberty; with The subjection of women; and chapters on socialism: 70. This understanding of individuality and improvement is what has been interpreted as autonomy and is bold in both Kymlicka and Rawlss theories, deriving directly from Mill. It is the idea that everyone should have the ability to reflect upon his or her options, and improve or revise them. As
23

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Even though Kymlicka is not willing to drop his commitment to autonomy, he is not eager to justify intervention either in the public sphere of illiberal minority cultures or in the private affairs of their members. The promotion of autonomy or the abolition of illiberal and oppressive traditions is not a justifiable reason to intervene he argues. Liberal countries should treat illiberal cultures in the same ways as they treat countries whose laws are illiberal. Like a foreign country does not intervene in another country that might have oppressive laws, so should the liberal state abstain from intervening in cultures whose practices are deemed as illiberal by the majority. Instead, the liberal state must provide incentives for liberalisation and integration, through deliberation and cooperation. Of course, this should not be taken to its logical extreme, since intervention is not absolutely forbidden; rather, it is justified only in gross and systematic violation of human rights, such as slavery or genocide or mass torture and expulsions, just as these are grounds for intervening in foreign countries.24

Criticisms and Replies

Liberal Criticisms Kymlicka has received a lot of criticismsin fact his theory became the framework upon which discussion of multiculutralism was based, through responses and

such, any individual must be free to do whatever he wants, even harm himself, as long as he or she does not violate the (individual) freedoms of the other citizens. The Millean autonomy is comprehensive, which means that it is applicable and mandatory in all aspects of human life. Although, this was Rawlss position in the initial formulation of his theory, later in his Political Liberalism, Rawls limited the application of his two principles of justice to the political realm; that is to the civil society and the institutions of the state. Kymlicka on the other hand, based on the earlier Rawls, adopted autonomy as the basic value of liberalism which should be applied to all venues of human interaction. See John Rawls, A theory of justice (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1971); Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 162; John Rawls, Political liberalism: expanded edition (New York: Columbia Classics in Philosophy, 2005). 24 Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 169.

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criticisms to his book Multicultural Citizenship. The first criticism to outline is that of Brian Barry, who argues that the main problem that the world faces today is nationalism and ethnic conflict. It is absurd to institutionalise political divisions under the rule of law, Barry suggests, since it would magnify the existing conflicts and jeopardise the sense of national solidarity.25 The liberal state, Barry continues, has a duty to be impartial towards all its citizens. The regulatory and legal capacities of the liberal state are its most important assets since they guarantee the equal treatment of all citizens, and as such must remain impartial. Just like a tax is universal and applies to anyone, so should the regulations and laws of the liberal state. The fact that tax regulation applies to everyone, Barry suggests, does not mean that everyone is expected to pay the same amount of money as tax to the government. In other words, he is advocating for a system of universal rights. As he explains,
[Universal] rules define a choice set which is the same for everybody; within that choice set people pick a particular course of action by deciding what is best calculated to satisfy their underlying preferences for outcomes... If uniform rules create identical choice sets, then opportunities are equal.26

The focus of the state should not be directed on cultural conflicts, but rather on the common commitment to the welfare of the larger society where traditional values like civic equality, freedom of religion and speech, non-discrimination, equality of opportunity and so on must be guaranteed to everyone, irrespective of religious convictions or cultural membership.27 Another critique is Kukathas who provides a libertarian response to Kymlicka, arguing that the core value that liberalism needs to uphold is tolerance and not autonomy. Therefore, Kukathas rejects any claims of justice, because they are bound to a certain conception of the good life that can be contested by many cultural groups.
25 26

Barry, Culture and equality: an egalitarian critique of multiculturalism: 14. Ibid., 32. 27 Ibid., 22,88.

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Hence, according to Kukathass libertarian account, forcing groups to live under a system of values that they do not endorse is to force them to live against their conscience. Conscience is the desire to do what is right, and Kymlicka, by being committed to comprehensive autonomy, violates the liberal freedoms of the individuals.28 Kukathass disagreement with multicultural theorists is to be found in his criticism of Rawls and Kymlicka. He disagrees with the process of establishing a list of values upon which practices of groups, cultural or otherwise, will be assessed. As he explains,
"Much of recent theorizing begins with the question: what should the state or the governmentor wedo, or permit, in a good society? It asks what is the role of political authority to promote, and by what principles or considerations should it be guided; in short, by what values should we live".29

Kukathas disagrees with the approach with the above approach. If the state is allowed to impose any values upon individuals, it will in effect violate their freedom since it would force them to act against their conscience.30 Therefore, as long as individuals have freedom of exit, they should be allowed to engage in whatever practices they see fit. Even if they do not subscribe to liberal concepts like freedom, autonomy or equality, as long as individuals act according to their conscience and they have the right to exit from their cultural setting (whatever the cost of exit), then they are free and should not be restricted. Even in cases where women are members of cultures that restrict their freedoms, as long as they can leave, the state should not intervene in regulating their affairs.31

28 29

Kukathas, The liberal archipelago: a theory of diversity and freedom: 47. Ibid., 5. 30 Ibid., 48. 31 Ibid., 107.

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A further criticism comes from David Miller, who argues that Kymlickas multiculturalism undermines the welfare capacities of the liberal state, because trust requires solidarity, not merely within groups but across them, and this in turn depends upon a common identification of the kind that nationality alone can provide.32 Miller supports the principle of nationality as a vehicle of social solidarity, which is threatened by radical multiculturalist demands like those promoted by Kymlicka, since they rely upon a false contrast between the allegedly authentic group identities that a multicultural politics is supposed to express, and an artificially imposed common national identity.33 Millers theory of nationality is useful in the multicultural debate for two reasons. Firstly, because he explains why Kymlickas theory of MC is problematic it does not create a shared identity and as such makes national solidarity unrealistic; in other words, the support of multiple nationalities, is a challenge to welfare statism that Miller supports as an alternative to socialism. Secondly and most importantly, Miller differentiates nationalism from both statehood and ethnicitynationalism is a cultural identity and not a biological or a political one.34 Feminist Criticisms The first wave of feminists did not welcome the rise of the political theorisation of multicultural citizenship. The most notable and vocal opponent of multiculturalism was Susan Moller Okin, who argued that with multicultural policies, the state supports hierarchal cultures that oppress women.35 These cultures, she maintains, are

David Miller, On nationality (Oxford: Clarendon Press, 1995). 140. Ibid., 133. 34 Ibid., 24, 26. 35 Okin addressed multiculturalism in many of her articles and in two of her books, the most relevant one being her edited volume Is Multiculturalism Bad for Women?, which includes her original polemical article published in Boston Review, along with replies from prominent feminists and multiculturalists. See Susan Moller Okin, "Is multiculturalism bad for
33

32

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based on religions whose traditional texts treat women as inferior to men. Therefore, by supporting them, liberals support the oppression of women. Multicultural theories disregard what became known as the minorities within minorities issue, where women are silenced and become a minority within the male-dominated majority of their culture. Women, in Okins account, become the passive recipients of mens decisions. Okins worries are by no means unwarranted and are indeed shared by many feminists 36 after all, issues of female genital mutilation (FGM), sex-selective abortions (SSA) and other practices that oppress women have been for long in the centre of the feminist agenda. Yet, Okins critique of multiculturalism received a lot of scrutiny within feminism, despite the fact that the worries she raised are core feminist concerns. The source of the discontent that was expressed by Okins critiques was founded upon the way she portrayed and treated multicultural theories and nonwestern cultures. In addressing multicultural theories, Okin homogenised them, suggesting that they provide room for FGM, SSA and so on. As Kymlicka has responded to Okins article, this is not the case, as he does not argue in favour of FGM or SSA; instead, he advocates in favour of the equal treatment of the demands of majority and minority cultures.37

women?," in Is multiculturalism bad for women?, ed. Susan Moller Okin, et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). For other criticisms of multiculturalism by Okin, see "Gender inequality and cultural differences," Political Theory 22, no. 1 (1994); "Feminism and multiculturalism: some tensions," Ethics 108, no. 4 (1998); "Mistresses of their own destiny: group rights, gender, and realistic rights of exit," Ethics 112, no. 2 (2002). 36 For example, feminists like Azizah al-Hibri, Abdullahi An-Na'im, Homi Bhabha, Sander Gilman, Janet Halley, Bonnie Honig, Martha Nussbaum, Katha Pollitt, Robert Post, Saskia Sassen, Cass Sunstein, and Yael Tamir, share Okins worries about the effect of oppressive cultures on women, yet they have criticised her for the way she perceived non-liberal minority cultures. All of them have contributed chapters to her edited book Is multiculturalism bad for women? 37 Will Kymlicka, "Liberal complacencies," in Is multiculturalism bad for women?, ed. Susan Moller Okin, et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999).

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Moreover, in criticising theories like Kymlickas Multicultural Citizenship, Okin has caricatured non-western cultures, and portrayed them as static and holistic entities within which women are unable to exercise any form of agency. In criticising the hierarchical nature of cultures, Okin has hierarchically classified them, the critiques maintain. As Homi Bhabha claims, the main problem with Okins feminism is that the norms of Western liberalism become the measure and mentor of minority culturesWestern liberalism, warts and all, as a salvage operation, if not salvation itself.38 Therefore, the liberal state must become more flexible and abandon its selfrighteous attitude because it acts as an obstacle towards a plural society. Instead of searching for general and universal recipes, it should assess the claims of cultural minorities on a context-sensitive approach, rather than relying on Okin's dichotomous generalizations about oppressive minorities and egalitarian Western cultures.39 As Bonnie Honig argues, no member of any culture is only the recipient of discrimination. Every member has some agency, even in a discriminatory culture, an aspect that has not been accounted for by Okin.40 Therefore, Okins criticism of Kymlickas theory, initiated a parallel discussion of the way the liberal state and the liberal scholars view non-western cultures. This parallel discussion has been very useful in the multicultural debate, because it has demonstrated the issues associated with minorities within minorities that had been neglected by the MC theory of Kymlicka and others. 41 The main issues raised in this debate, are more clearly

Homi Bhabha, "Liberalism's sacred cow," in Is multiculturalism bad for women?, ed. Susan Moller Okin, et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999), 83. 39 Sarah Song, "Majority norms, multiculturalism, and gender equality," American Political Science Review 99, no. 4 (2005): 487. 40 Bonnie Honig, "'My culture made me do it'," in Is multiculturalism bad for women?, ed. Susan Moller Okin, et al. (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1999). 41 For the case of Kymlicka, see Kymlicka, "Liberal complacencies." For the case of Rawls see Sharon Anne Lloyd, "Situating a Feminist Criticism of John Rawls's Political Liberalism," Loyola of Los Angeles Law Review 1319(1995); Ruth Abbey, "Back toward a Comprehensive Liberalism? Justice as Fairness, Gender, and Families," Political Theory 35, no. 1 (2007).

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articulated outside the feminist literature, most profoundly found in the work of Parekh, Tully and most recently, Modood. Deliberative Multiculturalism Deliberative Multiculturalism is the name I give to theorists like Parekh, Tully and Modood. Although their theories are different, they share a common feature, which is the need to enter into dialogue with other non-liberal cultures. These theorists, although they are sympathetic to Kymlickas theory, are nonetheless critical of his static conception of culture. Instead, they promote multiculturalism as a way to recognise and capture the multiplicity of diversity; in other words, they try to give voice to non-dominant cultures whose demands and justifications are only assessed in the language and framework of the dominant liberal institutions. Parekh, Tully and Modood suggest that multicultural theorisation should move a step back from Kymlickas theory and examine the framework and language of deliberation and not only the liberal institutions. As Tully suggests, a just constitution arises through deliberation among equals; people who mutually recognise each other for what they are without reducing them to familiar and convenient images that distort and misrepresent them. This requirement (of diversity) has been ignored in the discussion of multiculturalism, since cultures are conceived as analogous to the more familiar constitutional concept of nations.42 Moreover, multiculturalism has been a victim of essentialism; cultures are discussed as if they are internally homogenous entities, even though in reality they are continuously contested, imagined and re-imagined, transformed and negotiated, both by their members and through their interactions with others.43 Tully suggests that we need to listen to the stories that other people have to tell us through
42 43

Tully, Strange multiplicity: constitutionalism in an age of diversity: 8. Ibid., 11.

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intercultural dialogue that will facilitate our understanding of other peoples diverse perspectives. This intercultural discussion has not taken place at the constitutional level, and therefore the modern constitution remains undemocratic.44 When claims for recognition are expressed, a two-track process takes place. Initially, the demands are redescribed in the language of each of the three prevailing traditions. For example, aboriginal peoples are redescribed as nations, with sovereignty or a right of self determination.45 Then, their claims are put under examination based on the critical norms of each of the three traditionsliberalism, nationalism and communitarianism. Therefore, both the language and the assessment take place within the modern authoritative framework of constitutionalism. As Tully argues, the language of modern constitutionalism is seen as an imperial meta-narrative which needs to be thoroughly deconstructed.46 Similarly, Lord Bikhu Parekh, argues that there is a universal human nature that is minimal and exists prior to cultural and social organization.47 Cross-cultural dialogue must be based upon this universal humanness, in order to overcome the failed attempts of inter-cultural deliberation of the last century.48 The most prominent failure of establishing universal norms is the UN Declaration of Human Rights, which Parekh uses to expose the moral differences across Western and Eastern Asian values.49 The institutions of the liberal state, he argues, are premised upon European values and as such they are anything but neutral 50 . Instead, the liberal state is associated with a nation and has trouble accepting the ethnic diversity of plural

44 45

Ibid., 28-9. Ibid., 39. 46 Ibid., 45. 47 Parekh, Rethinking multiculturalism: cultural diversity and political theory: 122. 48 Ibid., 181. 49 Ibid., 134. 50 Ibid., 137.

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societies, since it promotes homogeneity and assimilation rather than diversity.51 The state needs to be impartial and acknowledge the cultural particularity of each individual and the multicultural faculties of individuals should be cultivated through education, which will help create a common multicultural society that is compatible with cultural diversity.52 In order to give us an idea of the equality of culturally diverse societies, Parekh describes controversial multicultural cases like the Sikhs claim to be exempted from the British protective helmet law,53 the French debates around the issue of the Islamic veil54 and the turmoil around the book Satanic Verses which was considered insulting to Muslims in the US.55 All of his accounts come down to dialogue with emphasis on understanding the opinions and perspectives of the interlocutors, in order to avoid disagreements, which are grounded on misunderstandings of the other parties perspectives. A further contributor to the deliberative model of multiculturalism is Seyla Benhabibs Habermasian account, where she suggests that the recent debate on multiculturalism is grounded upon faulty epistemic premises which lead to the reductionist sociology of culturethe assumption that cultures are coherent wholes whose members agree with the collective description ascribed to them and whose defining characteristics are original and unique.56 Benhabib suggests a deliberative method, where we gain our self-understanding through conversation within webs or narratives, be they linguistic, racial or cultural. Therefore, this conception of identity is able to capture the fluidity of group identification, shifting the emphasis away from our perception of the group, towards the actual demands that are made in the name of
51 52

Ibid., 184. Ibid., 124. 53 Ibid., 243-49. 54 Ibid., 249-57. 55 Ibid., 295-320. 56 Benhabib, The claims of culture: equality and diversity in the global era: 4.

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the group. In order to reach any level of political legitimacy, we need a more inclusive understanding of the others; an understanding which will in turn affect our own selfimage through our engagement with other people. We have a duty to provide reasons for our claims and try to understand and then evaluate the claims made by other people. This process is two-way and affects both the claimant and the evaluator of the claim, who has an equal obligation to provide good reasons for rejecting the claim. As she argues, we can and should do justice to certain claims for recognition without accepting that the only way to do so is by affirming a groups right to define the content as well as the boundaries of its own identity.57 Therefore, what she calls the democratization of collective identities is a call to abandon the social labelling of collectives and focus on self-definition of the individuals within them. Now that the main issues and debates within the theorisation of MC have been addressed, it is useful to highlight where the focus of this research project lies, which is based on two fundamental disagreementsfirstly, a disagreement on the nature of societal cultures, about the idea that society can be divided into neat cultural groups, which is a central theme both in Kymlickas MC but also in Taylors Politics of Recognition; and secondly, on the way cultural collectives are represented in the formal institutions of the state, in other words, how, following Tully, non-dominant groups either lack recognition, or they are misrepresented by being codified in the linguistic and cultural norms of the dominant cultural group (the group which, as Miller explains, is in control of the state). Cyprus is useful as a case-study because it combines both these challengespeople are crossing the cultural boundaries who are reinforced by the state and non-dominant cultural groups, are either silenced, assimilated, or misrepresented. Therefore, Cyprus is interesting because it combines

57

Ibid., 70.

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many of the multicultural challenges, demonstrating their complex nature, in a nonwestern context, which is especially useful provided that MC theories are being exported to eastern contexts.58

Why is Cyprus useful?

Modood suggests that Kymlickas theory is multinationally biased.59 This suggests that Kymlicka favours ethno-national minorities without adequately justifying his preference. 60 In order to explore the privileged treatment of national minorities Kymlickas definition of minority culture needs deconstruction, in order to trace the meaning of the term ethnocultural national minorities. Cyprus is very useful in this process, since it demonstrates how the classification (ethno)national minority and religious minority can be imposed and can legitimise the outcomes of colonialism and military invasion. Kymlicka uses the term national in reference to ethnocultural groups. As such, ethnic nationality is used as the marker of cultural membership since it is used to define the content of the concept of nation. Therefore, ethnicity is the attribute employed to classify individuals into distinct societal cultures. Ethnicity is a very ambiguous concept whose employment into the definition of a national group reflects an underlying ideological presupposition. Benedict Anderson defines nation and nationalism as an imagined political community which is imagined as both

For example, see Will Kymlicka and Magdalena Opalski, eds., Can liberal pluralism be exported?: Western political theory and ethnic relations in Eastern Europe (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2001). 59 Tariq Modood, Multiculturalism: a civic idea (Cambridge: Polity Press, 2007). 34. 60 I mean other than the obvious explanation of him being a Canadian philosopher and as such more sensitive to claims of national and indigenous minorities like those advanced in the name of the French-speaking province of Qubec towards the Canadian government.

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inherently limited and sovereign.61 Ernst Gellner considers ethnicity primarily a political principle, which holds that the political and the national unit should be congruent.62 Ethnic nationalism, he explains, is not the awakening of the nations to self-consciousness but rather is the invention of nations where they do not exist.63 Therefore, according to Gellners definition of the nation, Kymlickas classification is challenged as one that maintains artificial and politically arbitrary associations that do not reflect reality, or even if they do, they might be products of conflict and violence. Eric Hobsbawms definition of nation and nationalism is equally troubling when applied to Kymlickas theory, as he suggests that the basic value of the nation is the exclusion of those people that do not belong to the same ethnicityin other words, the majority of mankind. 64 Therefore, Gellners argument that nationality is an artificial construct that lacks meaning, when embedded into the core of the nationstate, becomes dangerous, since it excludes, as Hobsbawm demonstrates, those who are not members of that nation, in other words, those who do not share the same ethnic identity. Hence, the members of non-dominant national minoritiesminorities with different nationalities/ethnic attachmentsare disadvantaged. For this reason, I suggest that the concept of ethnic nationality should have no place in the proceedings of the state. The argument that all national minorities should be supported by the state means that the state might in effect finance the product of morally questionable historical events; for example, if the state uncritically supports the existing social divisions, it might legitimise the outcomes of colonialism or the outcomes of
Benedict Anderson, Imagined communities: reflections on the origin and spread of nationalism, 2nd revised ed. (London: Verso, 1991). 62 Ernest Gellner, Nations and nationalism, 2nd ed. (Malden, Mass.: Blackwell, 1983). 1. 63 Ibid., 71. 64 Eric Hobsbawm, Nations and nationalism since 1780 (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1990).
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genocide. One such example is Cyprus, where the two ethno-national cultures (Greek and Turkish) are a product and an outcome of the British colonialist regime that replaced the rule of the Ottoman Empire on the island. If the state is called to support these post-conflict divisions without exercising any kind of judgment over them, then it means that it would legitimise and institutionalise the outcomes of colonial oppression. A state that guarantees the survival of a present group that was created by a past injustice does not condone the original injustice only under the proviso that it recognises and also takes action to remedy the outcomes of the injustice. Moreover, the case of Cyprus is useful in demonstrating the difference between a cultural group and a religious group, which are terms that have different political bearing, although sometimes are used interchangeably. The case of Cyprus demonstrates how some minorities are politically upgraded when classified as national; and politically undermined and constitutionally silenced when classified as religious groups. Most importantly, the case of Cyprus demonstrates the effects of basing the theorisation of multiculturalism on ethnic nationality. In the next section I will provide a brief outline of the case, in order to explain how the particularities of Cyprus add value to multicultural theorisation in general.

Outline and role of the case of Cyprus

The Republic of Cyprus (RoC) is the official state of Cyprus, governed predominately by the Greek Cypriots (GCs), and has been a member of the European Union (EU) since 2004. The RoC officially includes Greek, Turkish, Maronite, Latin, Armenian and Roma cultures, but with the exception of the Greek and Turkish communities the rest of the cultures are reduced to religious groups. That is, these cultures were effectively forced to choose an ethnic identity in affiliation with either the dominant

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Greek majority or the Turkish minority as a result of the British colonial policy that shifted the social divisions from religious- to ethnic-based.65 Members of all cultures have experienced displacement, either in the course of the civil-war between Greekand Turkish-Cypriots (1963-1964) or because of the Turkish invasion of 1974.66 The civil war was the culmination of a process commenced during the colonial period (1878-1960) when the GCs reacted to British rule and demanded union (enosis) with Greece. In seeking enosis, the GCs created EOKA (National Organisation of Cypriot Fighters) in 1955 and as a response the Turkish Cypriots (TCs) nationalists created the TMT (Turkish Resistance Organisation) in 1958 requesting partition (taksim) of Cyprus into two ethnically separate states.67 The nationalistic aspirations of EOKA and the TMT created a volatile situation that worsened when Cyprus became a sovereign state in 1960 and lead to the 1963 civil war and the 1974 Turkish invasion. Since then, Cyprus has been divided into the North and the South part and movement between the two was prohibited until 2003. In 2003, a few months before the referendum for a solution based on a plan drafted by the office of the Secretary General of the UN, Kofi Annan, Rauf Denktash, the TC leader, took the initiative to open the borders between North and South. Since then, in order to cross to the other side, the display of passport or identity card is required at the border of each of the two sides.

Costas M. Constantinou, "Aporias of identity: bicommunalism, hybridity and the 'Cyprus Problem'," Cooperation and Conflict 42, no. 3 (2007): 589. 66 Andrekos Varnava, "The state of Cypriot minorities: cultural diversity, internal-exclusion and the Cyprus Problem'," The Cyprus Review 22, no. 2 (2010): 212. 67 Michalis Attalides, The Turkish Cypriots: their relations to the Greek Cypriots in Perspective, in Michalis Attalides (ed.) Cyprus Reviewed (Nicosia: Jus Cypri Association, 1977): 78-86; Neophytos G. Loizides, "Ethnic nationalism and adaptation in Cyprus," International Studies Perspectives 8(2007): 175.

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After the 1974 division, the nationalist rhetoric became embedded into the policies and educational curricula of the two parts,68 reproducing and maintaining nationalism through government policy and education.69 The case of Cyprus can be utilised to criticize the static conception of culture that Kymlicka uses in order to demonstrate how his uncritical definitions of minority societal culture or dominant societal culture can be imposed products of colonialism, like they are in Cyprus; identities and classifications which do not necessarily reflect the self-perception of the people. Furthermore, these cultural identities can reflect the outcome of nationalist ethno-religious nation-building, which is imposed upon people through national symbols and educational curricula. Whilst Kymlicka actively tries to avoid the outcomes of nationalism (for example his group-differentiated citizenship model is an attempt to ensure that the dominant culture does not assimilate minorities), in effect through the use of ethnicity he runs the risk of institutionalising it. In the case of the Republic of Cyprus, the accommodation of the TC culture and the creation of the bicommunal state has resulted in the disregard of the other minorities in the island. Therefore, it is useful to demonstrate that the type of national minorities matters, and cannot be summed up under the three neat-categories that Kymlicka outlined (national-minorities, aboriginal groups, immigrant cultures).

Michalinos Zembylas, "Critical discourse analysis of multiculturalism and intercultural education policies in the Republic of Cyprus," The Cyprus Review 22, no. 1 (2010). 69 Stavroula Philippou, Constructing national and European identities: the case of GreekCypriot pupils, Educational Studies, 31:3 (2005), pp. 293-315; Other studies that conclude the same are: Niazi Kizilyrek and Maria Hadjipavlou-Trigeorgis, An analysis of the Cyprus conflict: its structure and causes, in Heinz- Jrgen Axt and Hansjrg Brey (eds.) Cyprus and the European Union: new chances for solving an old conflict? (Mnchen: SdosteuropaGesellschaft, 1997), pp. 10-23; and Panayiotis Persianis, The political and economical factors as the main determinants of educational policy in independent Cyprus (1960-1970) (Nicosia: Pedagogical Institute of Cyprus 1981); Mary Koutselini, Curriculum as political text: the case of Cyprus, History of Education, 26:4, pp. 395-407.

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The case of Cyprus is useful in demonstrating that Kymlickas theory of MC should not be applied everywhere, and as such should be modified according to case, in order to capture the local complexities. Hence, Cyprus is useful as a real-world example of the inapplicability of Kymlickas theory in complex situations, and as such, provides ground for revision and reconsideration of the theorys founding assumptionsabout the classification of cultural groups, the relation of these groups with religion, and the effects of multicultural constitutional provisions to other cultural and/or religious groups. The case of Cyprus is useful in demonstrating the differences between minority and religious groups. Kymlicka does not emphasise this distinction although it is critical for the survival of the culture as a context-of-choice of many individuals. When a national minority is diminished to a religious group (within a secular state), then the obligations of the state towards that group are diminished and the assimilation process is legitimised. This is obvious with the case of Maronites in Cyprus as both their language and their ethnic identity have been denied to them after the 1960s. Cyprus Maronites speak a local language, Cyprus Maronite Arabic.70 The RoC has repeatedly denied recognition of this indigenous language. Under the presidency of Tassos Papadopoulos (2003-2008), the RoC explicitly declined the existence of such a language, and it was only after the 2008 intervention of the Council of Europe that it was forced to grant them recognition. Even then, the RoC falsely claimed that the only people who actually spoke the language were a handful of elderly Maronites living in the North part of Cyprus, beyond the control of the RoC. As Constantinou shows in his documentary The Third Motherland the language is spoken in the RoC as well, and it is now taught at the Maronite State School in
Costas M. Constantinou, "The protection and revival of Cypriot Maronite Arabic," PRIO Cyprus Centre Policy Brief (January) (2009).
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Lakatamia, Nicosia.71 Unfortunatley, the RoC has yet to allow the teaching of Cyprus Maronite Arabic during school hours and as such, the Cypriot Maronite children need to stay after hours to learn the language of their culture.72 The second case is that of the Cypriot Gypsies who were never an organised minority, although their presence in Cyprus is firstly documented during the period of the Ottoman Empire.73 During the establishment of the RoC in 1960, the Gypsies did not choose to join neither of the two ethnicities. The Muslim-Gypsies became assigned to the Turkish ethnic group and the Christian-Gypsies to the Greek one. The 1974 separation found some Gypsies living in the North and some in the South part of Cyprus. Those living in the North were situated at Morphou and as newly-found Turks, were assigned the TC nationality. In the early 2000s, unemployment in the North was very high and as a result many Gypsies decided to migrate to the South in order to seek employment (as every citizen of the RoC has the right to do). At the beginning, there was confusion amongst the RoC officials as to whether Gypsies should be treated as TCs (and therefore as equal citizens of the RoC). This confusion led to the imprisonment of many of them who did not hold official documents. Those imprisoned, were paradoxically treated as illegal immigrants. At the social level, they were accused of espionage because like Maronites, they were able to cross the divide. As a result, no community or village was willing to accept them. The RoC transferred them to Kotsiatis, next to the Nicosia rubbish site, and then to a geographically isolated TC village in Paphos (Makounta) and at the TC section of Limassol.

Costas M. Constantinou and Giorgos K. Skordis, "The third motherland," (2011), http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=JVKH7thX8vc. 72 Marilena Karyolemou, "Minorities and minority languages in Cyprus," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the inclusion of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). 73 Varnava, "The state of Cypriot minorities: cultural diversity, internal-exclusion and the Cyprus Problem'."

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The third, and most sentimental case of the three is the case of Linobambakoi, who were Cypriots with hybrid religious beliefs. As Constantinou explains:
..these people participated in each others religious rituals and festivities, partook in the surrounding spiritual menu, without necessarily or consciously becoming Muslims or Christians, or even Linobambakoi, which in any case was rarely a self-designation. Associating religion with exclusivist ethnic identity rendered strange such theological hospitality.74

Such cases have been excluded from the historiography of both sides. The cosmopolitan nature of Linobambakoi was reduced to the understanding that they were Greeks who not withstanding the oppression of the Ottoman Empire converted to Islam. Therefore, the case of Cyprus is useful in understanding the clashes of identityhow personal identification might contradict the collective identification of the group, and how the collective identification, when it becomes political, can affect the individual liberties of citizens. Moreover, the case of Cyprus is an empirical example of the dangers arising from the classification of individuals into national groups. This is an under-theorised topic because the existing theories of multiculturalism have been developed on top of the framework of the liberal constitutional state. As such, they assume the existence of national groups and therefore legitimise them. In cases where such groups are not blatantly obvious, they are either created or imagined.

What will MC gain from Cyprus

This project is useful not only for what it has to provide to the case of Cyprus, but rather for what the case of Cyprus has to provide to the international theorisation of multicultural citizenship. This is an issue that requires further explanation. The case
Constantinou, "Aporias of identity: bicommunalism, hybridity and the 'Cyprus Problem'," 252.
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of Cyprus, for rather straightforward reasons, cannot be universalisedit would be unwise to say that all countries are slowly becoming like Cyprus. The overall generalisable implications of the examination of the case of Cyprus are the followingfirstly, it is not everywhere that national minority is the de facto appropriate classifier for cultural identity; secondly, ethnicity is not an appropriate source of formal identity more generally; and thirdly, culture, although an important and central aspect of ones life, should not be treated as the sole, or even the most important, source of identity. I will now elaborate on these three contributions a bit more. (a) National-minorities: As we have seen before, Kymlicka has divided cultures into national-minorities, immigrant cultures and aboriginal groups, of which the former is classified as hierarchically superior in the eyes of the liberal state. This is the first premise that my research challenges. It is impossible to classify cultures in such a clearly delineated fashion. The fact that the categories exist in many western countries does not mean that they exist everywhere. Any theory of multicultural citizenship must provide room for deliberation on the sources of cultural identity. By establishing pre-existing categories, the voices of those who challenge these categories are silenced. In the case of Cyprus, all cultures outside the Greek/Turkish dichotomy, are silenced in the aforementioned way, creating what has been described by Constantinou as surplus ethnicities.75 (b) Ethnic-nationality: A byproduct of the first criticism is the way national minorities are defined by Kymlicka. National minorities are defined as ethno-

Costas M. Constantinou, "Epilogue: Cyprus, minority politics and surplus ethnicity," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the inclusion of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009).

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national minorities.76 As such, ethnicity is used as a source of identity. What I aim to demonstrate is that ethnicity should be completely disregarded by the liberal state. There is no definition that can capture the concept of ethnicity, and as it has been argued earlier, ethnicity is used only as means of exclusion. Ethnicity, due to its thick nature, cannot be an ingredient of a diverse society. Ethnicity captures geography, religion, customs, history and tradition and as such, it is very restrictive but most importantly, it is the identity marker most likely to result in what Kymlicka calls internal restrictions,77 or what Okin calls minorities within minorities.78 Ethnicity can neither capture the diversity within the group, nor the reproductive nature of the group itself. Instead, an appeal to the concept of the ethnic nation is a recollection of a static and holistic notion of what it is to be a member of that imagined community which ranges across time and space. This classification, I argue, yields counterproductive results, such as those in the case of Cyprus. As a matter of fact, it is increasingly challenging to give a non-racist definition to the question What is it to be British?. The example of France is more illuminating in this context since French political elites have tried hard to maintain a sense of French nationality, following a rather crude interpretation of the values of enlightenment.79 The scarf-affair is a prime example of such policies, where three Muslim schoolgirls were expelled because they did not comply with the French law which prohibited them from wearing the Muslim scarf in their French school. In this case, the French politicians failed to understand the link between religion, culture and politicsinstead, they interpreted the scarf as a

In Chapter 6, Justice and Minority Rights, Kymlicka argues against the separation of state and ethnicity. See Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 107-30. 77 Ibid., 34-48. 78 Okin, "Mistresses of their own destiny: group rights, gender, and realistic rights of exit." 79 A recent example is the French President Nikola Sarkozys threat to close the borders of France because too much immigrants will alter the French way of life. http://euobserver.com/22/115556

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religious symbol that Muslim girls wore to school, which according to the French understanding, represented the oppression of women.80 In this process, the French appealed to their conception of what it is to be French, compared that conception with their crude understanding of what it is to be a Muslim and decided that the girls should be expelled. This demonstrates how much they disregarded the agency of the individuals involvedthe girlsfor the sake of maintaining their static understanding of their Frenchness. What I maintain is that the liberal state should neither appeal to static interpretations of identity nor hierarchically classify identity markers or identity sources. As such, the girls in question should have been asked why they actually wore the scarf before they were declared as oppressed. As many of the theories that have been mentioned before like Benhabib, Parekh, Tully and Modood explained, the (after-the-event) examination of the motives of the girls, demonstrated that their decision was indeed political. What was initially a religious symbol, became a cultural symbol, and as culture is political and re-negotiable, the act was not one of oppression but rather one of agency; in other words, an act of political disobedience against the patronising French state.81 Hence, in order to capture the complexities of cultural identity, the liberal state needs to move beyond the concept of the ethnos, since it is such that results in the suppression of individual agency for the sake of homogeneity. The case of Cyprus is another prime example in support of this argument. The invention of the Greek and Turkish nations, was promoted and imposed by the British colonialists who reformed the Millet system of the Ottoman Empire82 as soon
Benhabib, The claims of culture: equality and diversity in the global era: 117. Laborde examines this specific issue and provides a republican theory of non-domination. See Ccile Laborde, "Female Autonomy, Education and the Hijab," Critical Review of International Social and Political Philosophy 9, no. 3 (2006). 82 In 1571, after the Ottomans annexed Cyprus, when the Empire was transferring Muslim population in the island for the purposes of socioeconomic advancement. In the millet system
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as they bought Cyprus from the Ottomans, transforming (in lack of a better term) the two cultural groups from religious to ethnic-national minorities. Therefore, today, anyone who is classified as member of each of the two groups is identified either as of Greek or of Turkish ethnic-nationality, irrespective of whether that person indeed associates with either of the two nations.83 The Cypriot particularities are interesting in demonstrating the problematic nature of ethnicity especially when one considers the groups who did not belong to either the former Christian or Muslim millet; in other words, those people who had a different religion, language, customs and motherland, yet for political reasons have been assigned to the Greek or Turkish ethnicity, being denied what Taylor defined as the right of recognition84 or what Kymlicka described as context-of-choice. 85 Therefore, the case of Greek and Turkish ethnicity will be used to demonstrate how group-identity might conflict with the personal identification of the individuals. The case of Maronites,86 Armenians87

of the Ottoman Empire, ethnic nationality was not a conceptual term and as such was unrelated to the division of the millets. It was not until the rise of nationalism that ethnicity became a relevant factor in determining group and individual identities. Greek nationalism in Cyprus emerged in the 19th century, as a by-product of the Greek concept of Grand Idea that was a nationalist aspiration for the creation of a Greek state that would include all the lands which were inhabited by Greeks. In the course of realising the Grand Idea, the Greek state promoted nationalist educational reforms that had immense effect on the GC consciousness. Although Greek nationalism was introduced first, it was not long before Turkish nationalism became dominant in the political discourse of the TC community. Turkish nationalism came to Cyprus after the 1930s, following the secularist reforms that Mustafa Kemal Atatrk instituted in Turkey, which became the basis for the creation of the modern version of the Turkish state based on ethnic nationality rather than on religion. See Niyazi Mustafa Kizilyrek, H [Cyprus beyond the Nation] (Nicosia: . . , 1993); Constantinou, "Epilogue: Cyprus, minority politics and surplus ethnicity."; Niyazi Mustafa Kizilyrek, , [Turkish Cypriots, Turkey and the Cyprus problem] (Athens: , 2009); Andrekos Varnava, "The minorities of Cyprus in the history of Cyprus textbook for Lyceum students: a critique," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the identity of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). 83 Loizides, "Ethnic nationalism and adaptation in Cyprus." 84 Taylor and Gutmann, Multiculturalism: examining the politics of recognition. 85 Kymlicka, Multicultural citizenship: a liberal theory of minority rights: 84. 86 Guita G. Hourani, "The Maronites of Cyprus under Ottoman Rule," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the inclusion of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos

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and other minorities will be used to demonstrate how they have been affected by the conception of the Greek and Turkish ethnic identities, generalizing the effect that ethnic classification has on those who do not fit the neat pre-defined categories. (c) Multiple Identities: The issue of ethnicity, provides way to the third and final significant contribution of this project, which is the creation of a new multicultural theory which treats the individual as a bearer of multiple identities rather than as a purely cultural creature. This last aspect, although seemingly a project in itself, will be developed through my critique of existing theories. The motivating source behind this project is the dual suggestion that culture is indeed a significant source of individual identity but by no means the only one and that in order to understand the diversity that exists in the world one needs first to understand the diverse nature of individual identity. Therefore, my project is a move away from traditional monist interpretations of the individual and of the good, in favour of a more variable and multileveled understanding of individual identity.88 The internal and external identities of an individual can often come into conflict as peoples internal self-identifications often clash with those that others use to describe them. For example, one can feel Greek or Turkish, and still be externally described (i.e., in the official government-issued identity) as of Cypriot Nationality, despite him not endorsing the concept of the Cypriot NationI call this the
Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). 87 Ahmet An, "The socio-cultural relations of the Armenian and Turkish Cypriots," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the inclusion of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009); Gerard Dedeyan, "The Armenians in Cyprus during and after the Ottoman Conquest," in The minorities of Cyprus: development patterns and the inclusion of the internal-exclusion, ed. Andrekos Varnava, Nicholas Coureas, and Marina Elia (Newcastle upon Tyne: Cambridge Scholars Publishing, 2009). 88 I deliberately refrain from using the term cosmopolitan, as there seems to be a shift in the literature of cosmopolitanism in favour of universalisable values which either make claims for a universal human nature that I am hesitant to support, or make the case for global institutions that I find similarly troubling.

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internal-external conflict. In the same way, if Dawkins parents baptized him when he was born, and for some reason he did not unsubscribe from the Church of England, in the eyes of the Church he is still an Anglican Christian despite him not endorsing this identity. A further conflict between identities is the external-external one, where third party actors disagree over the identity of a group and/or of an individual; for example, if a person with a Cypriot passport speaks Greek then he can be described both as Greek and as a Cypriot, depending upon the political convictions of the person who makes the classification. Nonetheless, the most interesting identity conflict is, I believe, the internalinternal one, where people adopt multiple identities some of which are complementary and some of which are unrelated and conflicting. Maronites, for example, have been forced to choose either the Greek or the Turkish identity. They chose (coercively) the former, yet they still struggle to balance their Lebanese origins and their Catholic religion, with the Greek-Cypriot nation-building that followed after 1974. As a result, some Maronites feel more Lebanese than Greek, others less Lebanese and more Greek, others feel merely Cypriot disregarding altogether the notion of ethnicity, others base their self-identification on their Catholic Christian religion which comes into conflict with the dominant Greek-Orthodox Christian religion and finally, others relate with the GCs because of religion since they are both Christians who see themselves challenged by Islam (the religion of the TCs). Finally, another identity conflict is that of hierarchy; identities are ranked both internally and externally, some of which enjoy equal statusI call this transcendental hierarchy. A traditional hierarchy of identities is when one feels primarily Greek and secondarily Cypriot. Nevertheless, not all identities are ranked hierarchically; some

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identities transcend this structure. In the transcendental hierarchy for example, a woman can identify both as a member of her religious group and as a feminist and although these identities might be externally in opposition since some interpretations of religions are oppressive to women, yet internally for the individual they might hold equal weight. Identity then is both internal and external and it is both horizontally and vertically classified. What is often neglected is that identity is also socialized. Identities can be related internally, externally and internally-externally. In Cyprus, class and political identity are correlated with ethnicity; it is less likely for individuals to identify as Greek or Turkish respectively if they are working class leftists for example. Similarly, people of strong religious convictions are much more likely to self-identify as ethnic nationals rather than apathetic, agnostic or atheist individuals are.

Conclusion
Cyprus is a very challenging and intriguing case and one that is yet to be analysed from a politically theoretical and scientific perspective. By introducing the case to the debate of multiculturalism, I am hoping to add another dimension to the discussion of exporting liberal multiculturalism.89 My research will provide fresh challenges to the existing theories and will provide a contribution of political theory in the study of Cyprus, which is largely dominated by education specialists and anthropologists.

One popular attempt to export multiculturalism can be found in Kymlicka and Opalski, Can liberal pluralism be exported?: Western political theory and ethnic relations in Eastern Europe.

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