Creating a New Identity: From the Secular Turkish Cypriot to the Muslim Turk of Cyprus
Date
2014Author
Michael, Michalis N.ISSN
1015-2881Source
Cyprus ReviewVolume
26Google Scholar check
Keyword(s):
Metadata
Show full item recordAbstract
The purpose of this paper is to analyse the recent and noted effort to empower the religious framework in Turkish Cypriot education. The main argument of this paper concerns the question of whether this effort must be analysed as a new effort of 'Turkifying' the Turkish Cypriot community and not ' Islamifying' it. The term 'new' applies since the first procedure to ' Turkify' the community, according to the connotation of the term Turk that equates it to nation, is considered to have occurred in the late nineteenth century. Over a century later, the term Turk seems to also include the religious element, as opposed to the corresponding term after the creation of the modern Turkish nation. This change and the transition from the secular Turk to the Muslim Turk, a change that comes about in Turkey after the dominance of AKP, tries to penetrate the Turkish Cypriot community, turning the Turkish Cypriot into a Muslim Turk of Cyprus. However, what one should examine carefully are the peculiarities of the Turkish Cypriot community, especially in relation to religion, and, therefore, the difficulty to identify the average Turkish Cypriot with the term Muslim Turk of Cyprus. ABSTRACT FROM AUTHOR] Copyright of Cyprus Review is the property of University of Nicosia and its content may not be copied or emailed to multiple sites or posted to a listserv without the copyright holder's express written permission. However, users may print, download, or email articles for individual use. This abstract may be abridged. No warranty is given about the accuracy of the copy. Users should refer to the original published version of the material for the full abstract. (Copyright applies to all Abstracts.)