roads to peace - cyprus

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Roads to Peace: Peacebuilding, United Nations and Civil Society.

A case for the Home for Cooperation in Cyprus

Gianfabrizio Ladini - [email protected]

1. Introduction , p . 2 - 2. United Nations and peacebuilding , p . 5 - 2.1 Thehistorical context , p. 5 - 2.2 Changing context and changing response , p. 7 - 3.Conflict, civil society peacebuilding and the role of education , p . 11 - 3.1

Peacebuilding and civil society actors , p. 11 - 3.2 History and education , p. 13 3.3 Europe, history and history education in Cyprus , p. 15 - 4. Cyprus civil society andthe Home for Cooperation , p. 22 - 4.1 The social context: a brief overview of Cypriots attitudes , p. 23 - 4.2 The Home for Cooperation in Cyprus , p. 26 - 5.Conclusions , p. 28 - 6. References , p. 30

SummaryThe paper deals with peacebuilding, civil society and Cyprus civil society peacebuilding, tofinally argue for the Home for Cooperation project in Cyprus. It examines the historicalconditions and evolutions of the UN involvement in peacebuilding efforts taking into account thegeopolitical dynamics, the new wars features and the following initiatives that led to theestablishment of the UN Peacebuilding Commission in 2005. Although peacebuilding efforts are

broader than the UN system provisions thereof, the UN still is the global institutional framework where the pursuit of conflict resolution goals takes place. Thats why the UN has to be takenseriously into account in dealing with peacebuilding. Its provisions, moreover, explicitly addressthe complementary role played by other agencies, among which civil society actors. At thisregard the paper cites some measures and positions taken from UN documents. It then furthersthe analysis about the peacebuilding functions that civil society actors can be expected to

perform, citing the specific case of history and education. More attention is devoted to theEuropean context, briefly addressing the case of European history that, from wars and conflict,has led to the EU as a shared political entity where further interstate violent confrontations arevery unlikely to happen in the foreseeable future. Some educational policy guidelines adopted by

the Council of Europe, as well as some concrete initiatives, are tackled with a special referenceto Cyprus. The paper critically deals with the issue of history education in Cyprus, trying toexamine its shortcomings as well as some points of optimism in a peacebuilding perspective.These general premises will pave the way for a closer, yet more general insight to the Cypruscontext, both in descriptive and prescriptive ways. From a brief overview of Cypriots attitudesand peacebuilding needs and resources, the case for the Home for Cooperation will be argued.

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1. Introduction

It is only in a growing awareness of our diversity that we may come to discern our unity:our humanity and our common values and needs. (...) Dialogue is a key to effective

communication that can help us to pierce through the walls of misperception and

mistrust and gather valuable insights, lessons, and opportunities that enrich us all(Said and Lerche, 2006, p. 143)

War and violent conflict are complex phenomena affecting human societies since the

beginning of our history. As such, they have been somehow influencing our patterns and

dynamics of interaction that structure the social context, broadly intended, in which we were

born, where we live and build our future. War, indeed, doesnt take place in a social vacuum

but in a given historical context, which in turn is featured by a social institutional framework

deeply struck by its dynamics and able to crucially influence conflict processes in both positive and negative terms. Thats why wars never stop with mere ceasefires agreements

and violent conflicts go on shaping the social context in which armed confrontations have

eventually taken place. The institutions of a war-torn society typically reflect war experiences

of intergroup conflicts, be they nationally, ethnically or religiously perceived. Violent

conflicts, in other words, are typically used to foster social norms and structures able to

protract the conflict after armed clashes have passed, thus hindering the conflict resolution

possibilities and peaceful social changes to happen. History, nevertheless, shapes human

societies but its also shaped by them: past actions and interactions influence the context

where we live but our living actions and interactions give the future the form it will come to

have .1 At the end of the day, both the past and the future are what we make of them and there

is always the possibility to focus on a conflicting past of enmity, although painful it could be,

to build a peaceful and shared future.

Peacebuilding is commonly intended as that political action aiming to support self-

sustainable peaceful structures of social interaction in conflict-affected contexts. The

peacebuilding goals, thus, involve valuable social changes in a long-run perspective and, as

Any writing has a writer who holds the resposibility for what the reader finds therein. The ideas presented byhim or her, however, usually presupposes a more or less collective process made by others who wrote before or discussed with them. In this case, although Im responsible for what I wrote, I have to thank especially StavroulaPhilippou, Chara Makriyianni and Charis Psaltis for their suggestions and construtive criticisms to this papersfirst version. I want also to thank Stephanie Polycarpou for she pointed out some grammatic oversights.1 See Brown (2000) for some socio-psychological perspectives of the processes taking place within and betweengroups. It provides a good insight on the ways social norms emerge, structure and evolve. It also deals withconflict dynamics. Berger and Luckman (1966) focus on the social phenomena of transmission and constructionof knowledge. See Schutz (1960) for a more philosophical account of the ways individuals are shaped by their social context and shape it as well. See also Hayek (1973) for an analysis of social norms often unintendedevolution through individual actions and group interactions. Using the game theory framework, Axelrod (1984)and Taylor (1987) show how cooperative norms of interaction can evolve out of intecourses between rationalegoist players. Axelrod, for instance, applies his model in explaining cooperative norms that emerged during theFirst World War between groups of enemy soldiers.

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such, cannot be seen in isolation from other types of conflict resolution efforts. Peacebuilding

actors, objectives and strategies, in other words, are apparently comprised in broader peace

and justice efforts currently in place within human society. They are carried out by many

different actors, groups and organizations, each of them with its own peculiarities, resources

and shortcomings as well. Its like to say there are many roads to peace where certain vehicles

are better suited than others, so the point is to acknowledge the complexity of the route and be

able to use different means in order to advance on the way.

This paper, however, will not explore the good and bad news such a complex issue implies.

We will rather deal with peacebuilding, especially as envisaged in the UN system, to argue

that the specific ways of working it suggests actually support the idea of the Home for

Cooperation (H4C) in Cyprus. Although peace efforts are not confined to the UN system and

agencies, with their potentials and constraints, the UN is perhaps the most relevant player on

the field. As Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall (2005, pp. 326-327) argue, the UN

remains a hybrid organization, reflecting the coexisting aspects of the international

collectivity: at the same time an instrument manipulated by the great powers, a forum for the

mutual accomodation of state interests, and a repository of cosmopolitan values. As such, the

UN still retains its specific reservoir of legitimacy and integrative power in the international

and global community. That is why most of those engaged in conflict resolution see the

United Nations as the essential institutional global framework for the realization of conflict

resolution goals (p. 327).

As far as the UN system is concerned, well see in section 2 how peacebuilding was

officially defined in the two basic documents An Agenda for Peace (1992) and Supplement to

an Agenda for Peace (1995), receiving further specifications in the Report of the Panel On

United Nations Peace Operations (2000), also known as Brahimi Report . These documents,

and the geopolitical processes behind them, have paved the way for the UN Peacebuilding

Commission to be established in 2005. The section 2.1, namely, will provide a brief outlook at the historical context that led to the UN involvement in peacebuilding efforts, while section

2.2 will give a short account of the UN responses to the changing context where

contemporary wars are actually taking place. Well see how the peacebuilding idea has been

growing up within the UN system but also in cooperation with other international agencies as

well as civil society actors. The involvement of civil society actors in peacebuilding efforts,

indeed, came to be gradually recognized as fundamental, in its shortcomings but also with its

specific possibilities. Since every conflict is featured by its specific conditions andimplications, the peacebuilding functions that civil society actors can effectively handle are

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different as well, being related to a given conflicts context. Its out of doubt, however, that

civil society can play both a disruptive and enhancing role for peacebuilding efforts that aim

at influencing conflict dynamics towards valuable and sustainable social change.

In section 3 well examine the functions civil society peacebuilding is able to perform,

citing the special case of educational activities in conflict-affected societies. Suffice to say

that political manipulations of history and conflicting claims based on opposite historical

narratives are quite typical variables in contexts of war and violent conflict. History

education, within a peacebuilding framework, seems thus both a challenge and a reliable tool

for valuable social changes in conflict-torn contexts. In this section well also deal with the

case of Europe, whose history shows how a past of enmity, conflict and war can lead to a

shared political entity where further violent interstate clashes are almost unthinkable for the

foreseeable future. The role of history education will be explicitly tackled, showing how it can

be used to nurture cultures of conflict but it can also perform a valuable function in promoting

mutual understanding, democratic citizenship and, at the end of the day, peaceful futures. The

activities of the Council of Europe will be examined with a special reference for Cyprus

education, that will be further critically analyzed in the attempt to address both its

shortcomings and also some points of optimism which, in turn, involve civil society agencies.

Section 4, finally, will look at the case of Cyprus. Rather than trying to deeply analyze its

history and its ongoing high-level political processes, well take into consideration Cypriot

civil society as the space where both peacebuilding efforts have to be placed and the resources

thereof have to be drawn. Well first provide an account of some attitudes spread especially

among the Greek-Cypriot and the Turkish-Cypriot, as they were found in some surveys and

opinion polls. Well conclude that, on the one hand, any peacebuilding effort in Cyprus will

have to work with and change diffused attitudes of mistrust but, on the other hand, it can rely

on wide spaces of popular consensus about intercommunal activities, such as the discussion

about a common history to be taught to the children (4.1). At the end of the paper (4.2) wellintroduce the idea of the H4C, suggesting that it will perform some valuable peacebuilding

functions towards the Cyprus conflict resolution. The H4C, namelly, will endow Cypriot civil

society with a structure for cooperative social intercourses and educational activities, thus

promoting critical thinking, mutual understanding and various types of activities that different

individuals, groups and organization would have the possibility to join, share or propose.

United Nations and peacebuilding

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In this section well deal with UN involvement in peacebuilding efforts. Well start (2.1) with

a brief outlook at the historical context that led to the UN peacebuildings formation to

provide, then, some account of the changing responses to the changing context in which

contemporary wars take place (2.2).

2.1 The historical context

After the demise of the League of Nation and its failure in preventing violent conflicts to

erupt and the Second World War to happen, the United Nations was created. The general aims

of the new and first universal organization, as envisaged in its Charter (1945) Preamble,

were to save succeeding generations from the scourge of war, which twice in our lifetime has

brought untold sorrow to mankind, and to reaffirm faith in fundamental human rights, in the

dignity and worth of the human person, in the equal rights of men and women and of nations

large and small, and to establish conditions under which justice and respect for the obligations

arising from treaties and other sources of international law can be mantained, and to promote

social progress and better standards of life in larger freedom.

Notwithstanding these wide ideals and the giuridical provisions set in the Charter s

articles, the adversarial decades shaping the Cold War geopolitics made very difficult for the

UN to fulfill its promises and to act independently from the two blocks rivalry and the related

possibility of the nuclear holocaust. The UN system, moreover, was born as an

intergovernmental body according to the international law, which is clearly rooted

especially in that time, before later developments in the human rights jurisprudence in the

primacy of the state as the sovereign source of international juridical obligations. In the

complex relationships between might and right, between the sovereign autonomy of

governments and the rights an individual could effectively claim independently from and,

eventually, even against its government, the preminence of the former was undisputable.

The two variables mentioned above the Cold War and the state sovereignity posedserious limits to the UN flexibility and actually led the UN involvement in peace operations to

follow a narrow vision of action under strict conditions of intervention. 2 The practice of UN

peacekeeping, indeed, was not clealy stated in the Charter and was introduced in 1948 like a

pragmatic instrument for conflict management. During the Cold War, peacekeeping was

mainly limited to maintaining ceasefires between regular forces so that efforts could be made

at the intergovernmental level to resolve the conflict by more peaceful means. The guiding

principles for the UN involvement in peace operations were the consent of the parties2 The 2006 document published by the International Forum for the Challenges of Peace Operations(www.challengesforum.org) provides an easy and brief overlook at some developments of UN peace operations.

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involved, impartiality and the non-use of force except in self-defence. There is thus a clear

distinction between peacekeeping and peace-enforcing that, as envisaged under Article 42 of

Chapter VII of the UN Charter , does not require the consent of the main parties to the

conflict. The role for peacebuilding was, if present at all, at least very marginal.

These guiding principles still hold today but, nevertheless, their application has been

evolving in response to the changing geopolitical context with the demise of the Cold War

and the changing nature of violent conficts as well. On the first side, the end of the Cold War

has opened new possibilities as well as new threats for peace and security in the global arena;

the second half of the nineteenth century, on the other side, witnessed the emerging of a new

type of warfare neither understandable nor manageable according to the traditional patterns of

interstate wars, as they have been structured in the international law and spread at the

international level since the XVII century in Europe. 3 The new wars historical roots, indeed,

seem to comprise not merely the Cold War and the phenomena at work along its end, but also

decolonization - with the national struggles against colonial powers it witnessed - and

economic globalization processes as well, that have often been fostering brutal intrastate

conflicts where the civilian population was, and actually is, the main victim and target. Kaldor

(1999) notes that, whereas during the First World War the relation between civilian and

military victims was one for eight, in the Second World War it was about fifty fifty, and now

is eight for one.

Although these wars clearly involve ethnic variables, the ethnic hatred seems caused and

shaped by existing conflict dynamics, rather than causing and shaping them. Hatred and

violence, moreover, were and are often intentionally pursued by local actors interested in

presenting the conflict along ethnic identity lines, to then gain local and international

acknowledgement as the leaders of the ethnic group. On the other hand, external actors

interested in tightening the control over a society can try to foster a divide and rule policy

fomenting mistrust and conflict amongst ethnic groups. Contemporary warfare peculiarities,however, are also shaped by the global context of the world economy, where the marketing of

local resources and arms procurement takes place. The end of the Cold War and of the

superpowers rivalry, indeed, removed many interests in somehow controlling local conflicts.

3 See Vasquez (1993) for an analysis of the interstate war since the modern age onwards, with some relatedsuggestions on the ways to handle it by more peaceful means. Schmitt (1950) provides a deep insight on therelations between political dynamics, wars and the procedures, rules and laws that emerged in modern ageEurope and have then spread internationally. One of this rules, perhaps the most basic one, is the formal andmutual recognition of sovereignity rights as the legal ground of the international community of states. Black (2004) tackles the history of warfare after the Second World War. Kaldor (1999) addresses the distinctions

between the traditional form of warfare and the new wars, taking especially into consideration the war inBosnia. Istituto Geografico DeAgostini (2005) is a very useful textbook about the violent conflicts currentlyaffecting the world.

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It cut off the political and financial involvement of the U.S., the Societ Union and the former

blocs that, previously, were able to freeze existing conflicts by arming and supporting one of

their parties. Once this external patronage was not in place anymore, striving for the control

of the local economy, population and resources became also a fund raising strategy used by

warring parties with the ability to forge flexible links with the new opportunities provided by

globalizing markets and commercial networks. Warfare, then, becomes a worth economic

enterprise, with the violence against the civilian population as its mode of accumulation in

order to acquire commodities the global markets demand: just to make a clear example,

Charles Taylor, the Liberian warlord, was able to make $ 400 million per year during the

92-96 war (Berdal and Malone, 2000, p. 5). In contexts like these, where political and

economic agendas come to be intimately linked, war becomes not only the continuation of

politics with other means as Clausewitz said but also of economics, providing economic

interests in keeping on fighting instead of getting sooner to the negotiation table, creating

spaces of cooperation between supposed enemies at the expense of the powerless civilian

population, increasing the number of actors and interests involved in the conflict and,

sometimes, in its prolongation. Although its not the place to go in depth in the analysis of

their similarities and differences and to build a wars typology, the wars in the former

Yugoslavia, Afghanistan, Angola, Cambodia, the Democratic Republic of Congo, Liberia,

Peru, Colombia, Sierra Leone, Aceh (Indonesia), Sudan, Nigeria or Nepal present some

common features that make them different from the traditional type of interstate war. 4 It

seems interesting to note that, in the case of Cyprus, the war dynamics of anticolonial and

interethnic conflict would apparently belong to the same category but would reasonably differ

in its political economy.

2.2 Changing context and changing response

Intrastate violent conflicts involving so many different interests, actors, war economies,conditions and implications, they thus provide a much more complex context than a

traditional interstate war does for an external intervention. Peace efforts, in these contexts,

started to require more complex strategies than simple interpositions of military forces and

observers. 5 4 See Berdal and Malone (eds. 2000) and Ballentine and Sherman (eds. 2003) for the contemporary civil wars

political economy. See Gobbicchi (ed. 2004) for viewpoints and analysis on the relations between globalization,conflicts and security.5 As the war was changing, so started to do the international law. As noninternational armed conflicts has

become the dominant form of conflict, Cerone (2006, p. 232) observes, so has the law applicable tononinternational conflicts been expanded through the practice of international criminal courts. Similarly,challenged by the increasing consolidation of power in the hands of nonstate actors, international criminal lawhas extended its reach to regulate their conduct.

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The shortcomings featuring the traditional UN peace operations, with their uneasy

coordination with development agendas and more generally with a more positive sense of

the term peace, came to be fully recognized and tackled by the UN system in the 1990s.

Intrastate wars, indeed, constitute the overwhelming majority of post Cold War and

contemporary violent conflicts. As a result, UN peacekeeping operations have become more

complex and broader in scope without the tools to effectively address this new reality, which

paved the way for many operational failures and mixed strategic outcomes that damaged the

UN image and credibility. The UN failures in Bosnia, Rwanda or Somalia, where the

international troops couldt do anything to prevent bloodsheds and ethnic cleansing taking

place under their eyes, constituted painful cases that urged the need to rethink UN doctrines,

strategies and operations. In 1992 the UN Security Council asked the Secretary-General,

Boutros Boutros-Ghali, to prepare an analysis and recommendations on ways of

strengthening and making more efficient within the framework and provisions of the Charter

the capacity of the United Nations for preventive diplomacy, for peace-making and for peace-

keeping (Statement by the President of the Security Council, 31 January 1992).

Following this invitation, Boutros-Ghali developed a report titled An Agenda for Peace.

Preventive diplomacy, peacemaking and peace-keeping (1992) where, amongst other things,

he dealt also with the idea of post-conflict peace-building (pt. VI), suggesting the close

relationships amongst all these dimension for a successful UN operation: peacemaking and

peace-keeping operations, to be truly successful, must come to include comprehensive efforts

to identify and support structures which wil tend to consolidate peace and advance a sense of

confidence and well-being among people (par. 55). In 1995, on the occasion of the UN

fiftieth anniversary, the Secretary General presented another report attempting to specify and

better define some ideas already introduced in Agenda for Peace . In Supplement to an Agenda

for Peace the idea of peacebuilding is tackled again (parr. 47-56) and defined as

comprehensive efforts to identify and support structures which will tend to consolidate peaceand advance a sense of confidence and well-being among people. Through agreements ending

civil strife, these may include disarming the previously warring parties and the restoration of

order, the custody and possible destruction of weapons, repatriating refugees, advisory and

training support for security personnel, monitoring elections, advancing efforts to protect

human rights, reforming or strengthening governmental institutions and promoting formal or

informal processes of political participation.

With the 2000 systematic report known as Brahimi Report , from the name of the Chairmanof the Panel on UN Peace Operations, the role of peacebuilding is addressed both as a crucial

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element in contemporary conflict resolution and a fundamental UN deficiency. 6 This Report

of the Panel On United Nations Peace Operations (2000) represents a systematic attempt to

analyze the changing context in which the UN peace work gave rise to patent limits and many

failures during the 1990s. Suggesting the close relationships between development and

conflict prevention and arguing again about the complementarity of peacekeeping and

peacebuilding in complex operations (parr. 25-47), the report advocates the involvement of

local actors in self-sustainable peacebuilding efforts, taking into account human rights and

national reconciliation issues. The final recommendation about peacebuilding is to

strengthen the permanent capacity of the United Nations to develop peace-building strategies

and to implement programmes in support of those strategies (par. 47.d).

The need for a single intergovernmental agency with clearly specified peacebuilding

objectives and coordination functions was explicitly addressed in the 2004 UN Report of the

High-level Panel on Threats, Challenges and Change ( A more secure world , parr. 221-230),

that called for a UN Peacebuilding Commission to be established in order to fill that

institutional gap (parr. 261-269) This arguments and calls were taken again in the 2005

Report of the Secretary General Kofi Annan titled In larger freedom , where the Peacebuilding

Commission proposal is strongly endorsed in order to effectively address the challenge of

helping countries with the transition from war to lasting peace (par. 114). Kofi Annan,

indeed, started to effectively operationalize the idea of the Peacebuilding Commission with

the related involvement and civil society actors in peacebuilding efforts: also encouraging

reports, conferences and summits, this idea was spread and was able to gain further support.

For example, the report was published on 21 March 2005 and, on next 20 September, a

Statement by the President of the Security Council was issued, underlining the role and

potentialities a vibrant and diverse civil society could perform in conflict prevention,

peaceful settlement of disputes and national reconciliation attempts. A well functioning civil

society, it is stated, has the advantage of specialized knowledge, capabilities, experience,links with key constituencies, influence and resources, which can assist parties to conflict to

achieve peaceful solution to disputes. A proper civil society involvement, it is further

underscored, can provide leadership, positively influence public opinion and perform an

important bridge building function for reconciliation efforts.

6 It seems very interesting to note that the Brahimi Report cites the case of Cyprus as an example of these UNshortcomings in peace operations. The report, namely, says that traditional peace-keeping, which treatssymptoms rather than sources of conflict, has no built-in exit strategy and associated peacemaking was oftenslow to make progress. As a result, traditional peacekeeper have remained in place for 10, 20, 30 or even 50years (as in Cyprus, the Middle East and India/Pakistan (par. 17).

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Finally, on 20 December 2005, the Security Council ( Resolution 1645 ) and the General

Assembly ( Resolution 60/180 ) adopted similar, concurrent resolutions establishing a new UN

Peacebuilding Commission which, accordingly, will marshal resources at the disposal of the

international community to advise and propose integrated strategies for post-conflict

recovery, thereby focusing attention in countries emerging from conflict on reconstruction,

institutions-building and sustainable development; it will promote coordination among all

actors within and outside the UN system involved in assisting the recovery of a country. 7 The

Peacebuilding Commission has been set up as an intergovernmental advisory body that shall

work in cooperation with other UN agencies as well as international financial institutions.

Both resolutions, moreover, stressed the local civil society organizations involvement as

crucial for any reliable and sustainable peacebuilding effort, though in quite general terms and

without specifying this participations operational details. Hawkins Wyeth (2006, pp-3-4) - in

the report on the conference Getting the Peacebuilding Commission off the ground How to

include civil society on the ground (New York, 5 September 2006) - note that the principal

stakeholders in post-conflict peacebuilding are the citizens of the state in question, and their

perception of gaps are a valid barometer as to whether progress is taking root. (...) A crucial

role of the Peacebuilding Commission will be to ensure that national actors have sufficient

space for dialogue and priority-setting processes to take place. Civil society and particularly

organizations with deep ties to local communities has a crucial role to play in ensuring that

citizens are included in these processes.

On 25 July 2007 the Commission published its Report of the Peacebuilding Commission

on its first session , that summed up the activities undertaken, the work with its first target

countries (Burundi and Sierra Leone) and the challenges for future improvements. Its maybe

too soon to properly assess the strengths, weaknesses and, first of all, results of the

Peacebuilding Commission, not at last because peacebuilding itself is a long-run activity. It

seems also very premature to propose scenarios on the ways civil society organizations will be involved in peacebuilding activities within the international system. Whereas peace efforts

actually take place in the broad global context of which the international system and the UN

are parts, the more different actors, strategies and activities will be able to coordinate, the

more effective they will prove to be in the pursuit of shared goals.

These few pages, however, showed that the international system, and notably the UN, has

gradually come to recognize the positive role of civil society organizations for any feasible

and sustainable prospect of conflict transformation in war-torn societies. This fact may7 See Hufner (2007) for a more detailed analysis of the Peacebuilding Commission development, structure,functions and shortcomings.

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authorize a quiet yet reliable optimism giving, at least, something concrete where further

improvements could be built. The next steps apparently involve to more clearly specify the

strengths and weaknesses civil society organizations could provide to peace efforts. In the

next section well briefly deal with these issues.

3. Conflict, civil society peacebuilding and the role of education

In this section well deal with the role of civil society in peacebuilding. After analyzing the

functions civil society actors can be expected to perform for a conflict transformation (3.1),

well address the specific case of history and education (3.2).

3.1 Peacebuilding and civil society actors

Whereas peacebuilding efforts usually involve a wide range of activities, comprising

objectives of institution building, state reforms or good governance, they also convey the so

called peacebuilding from below, where solutions to conflict situations are derived and built

from local resources and agencies (Ramsbotham, Woodhouse and Miall, 2005, chap. 9).

Although external actors may have a role, local NGOs and civil society organizations are

decisive players in the work of grassroots peacebuilding by providing local knowledge,

leadership and networks for any reliable conflict transformation.

Recognizing the increasingly important role that civil society peacebuilding has been

acquiring in the last decade, the World Bank (2006) developed an analytical framework to

better understand the peacebuilding functions of civil society which, in turn, is defined as the

arena of un-coerced collective action around shared interests, purposes and values (p. 2).

Using a functional rather than an actor-centered approach, it is agued, helps to better analyze

the potentials and shortcomings different types of civil society actors can offer to conflict

resolution attempts. According to this framework, there are seven functions in which civilsociety actors can provide a valuable support to peacebuilding efforts in war-affected

societies. They are listed in the following table.

Table 1 : Seven Civil Society Functions in Peacebuilding (World Bank, 2006, p. 12)

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Function Activities Typical

actorsProtection Protecting citizens life, freedom and

property against attacks from state andnon-state actors.

Membershiporganizations,human rights,advocacy

NGOs.Monitoring/early warning Observing and monitoring the activities

of government, state authorities andconflict actors. Monitoring can refer tovarious issues (human rights,corruption), particularly those relevantfor drivers of conflict and earlywarning.

Think tanks,human rights

NGOs,operational

NGOs (inconjunctionwith CBOs).

Advocacy/public

communication

Articulation of specific interests,

especially of marginalized groups and bringing relevant issues to the publicagenda. Creation of communicationchannels, awareness raising and publicdebate. Participation in official peace

processes

Advocacy

organizations,independentmedia, think tanks,networks.

Socialization Formation and practice of peaceful anddemocratic attitudes and values amongcitizens, including tolerance, mutualtrust and non-violent conflict resolution.

Membershiporganizations.

Social cohesion Strengthening links among citizens, building bridge social capital acrosssocietal cleavages.

CBOs and other membershiporganizations.

Intermediation/facilitation Establishing relationships(communication, negotiation) to supportcollaboration between interest groups,institutions and the state. Facilitatingdialogue and interaction. Promotingattitudinal change for a culture of peaceand reconciliation.

Intermediary NGOs, CSOnetworks,advocacyorganizations,faith-basedorganizations.

Service provision Providing services to citizens or members can serve as entry points for

peacebuilding, if explicitly intended.

NGOs, self-help groups.

Every conflict being unique in term of its specific conditions and dynamics, an effective

and valuable civil society peacebuilding will address one or more of these functions in order

to create or strengthen social structures of peaceful interactions. Civil society, moreover, can

reasonably be expected to perform any kind of peace work under security conditions that

peacebuilding can help to create but sometimes cannot achieve without other types of peace

actions and actors. Just to give an example, we cannot expect civil society to be involved insocialization functions under the bombs or, at least, it could effectively perform this function

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only in cooperation with other actors protecting the people physical safety. On the other hand,

in contexts of conflict where the levels of violence are very low, the protection of citizens

life makes seemingly very little sense for a civil society organization.

Although peacebuilding from below cannot be seen apart from wider attempts to promote a

self-sustainable peace, the local knowledge, leadership and networks that shape and belong to

the local social context in which civil society actors operate are apparently crucial for any real

prospect of peace.

3.2 History and education

War is usually rooted in opposite claims around one groups rights that were denied by

another group, where the group identity can take a national, ethnic or religious form. Its often

the case that local elites or structures of power intentionally manipulate history for political

and strategic purposes through media and education, thus making a battlefield out of history,

where each group can claim its reasons to hate the other. 8 In these circumstances any prospect

of peace and reconciliation apparently requires a committed work on history, in order to shift

the focus from past conflicting narratives and claims towards a cooperative process of

discussing and building a shared future.

Media and education are the ways with which the state or civil society actors usually

influence the public opinion that is so crucial for every conflict context and dynamics. This

sort of influence can have both a negative and positive impact, being able to foster ethnic

cleansing like in Rwanda, Bosnia or Kosovo as well as to empower conflict

transformation efforts. Regarding education, the way society is portrayed to children directly

affect that societys future by shaping the minds of its future men and women. Education, in

other terms, can be both a weapon for repression, a fuel for conflict, and a resource for

positive social changes.

As Bush and Santarelli (2005) put in evidence, indeed, in contexts of interethnic conflicthistory and textbooks can be manipulated for political purposes rooted in the own group

esteem and hatred against the other group. On another side, however, a peacebuilding

education can be crucial in changing cultures of distrust, fear and hatred. According to the

report, then, the goals of peacebuilding education will be the demilitarization of the mind;8 Mertus (1999) deals with racism in civil wars, namely in Rwanda and Jugoslavia, showing the role of localelites in manufacturing a culture of victimization through mediatic propaganda. Racist discourse masterfullyregenerates historical mythology and creates a culture of victimisation. Once one feels like a victim, it is mucheasier to be a prepetrator. Many types of hate propaganda are useful in creating a culture of victimization () In

both Rwanda and Kosovo, hate propaganda was used in this manner to play upon memories of real and imagined past domination by the minority (p. 9). The ethnic hatred, hence, is an intended outcome of this kind of politicaland mediatic campaignes.

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problematization; articulation of alternatives; changing the rule of the game; delegitimation of

violent force as a means of addressing problems; re-membering and re-weaving the social and

antropological fabric; nurturing non-violent, sustainable modalities of change (p. 34).

The role of education in promoting a culture of peace and reconciliation has been integrally

recognized by the international institutions and, namely, by the UN system and its special

agencies that deal with educational issues: UNICEF and UNESCO. To go back to the 1948

Universal Declaration of Human Rights , article 26 proclaims that education shall be directed

to the full development of the human personality and to the strengthening of respect for

human rights and fundamental freedoms and, further, that education shall promote

understanding, tolerance and friendship among all nations, racial or religious groups, and

shall further the activities of the United Nations for the maintenance of peace. In the past two

decades, for instance, UNESCO has done much to foster both the theory and the practice of

peace education. As stated by the worlds ministers of education during the fortyfourth

session of the International Conference on Education (Geneva, October 1994), education

policies have to contribute to the development of understanding, solidarity and tolerance

among individuals and among ethnic, social, cultural and religious groups and sovereign

nations ( Declaration of the 44 th Session of the International Conference on Education ). The

Declaration, moreover, goes further in suggesting that families and societies should work

together with all those involved in the education system, amongst which NGOs.

It seems, indeed, that where state structures are directly involved in conflict dynamics,

there is both the space and the opportunity for civil society peacebuilding to operate towards a

better future by acting to set free from fear, violence and hatred the minds of today children

and, thus, of tomorrow women and men. In terms of the World Bank framework presented

above, educational activities carried out by civil society organizations would likely contribute

to the three functions of socialization, social cohesion and, eventually, intermediation/

facilitation for valuable social changes and positive conflict transformations. To put itdifferently, when the state is disfunctional - for instance when its educational policies help

mantain intergroup prejudices that negatively influence conflict resolution attempts civil

society peacebuilding would both face the challenges and possibly give positive responses

related to education activities. A successful peacebuilding education, indeed, would address

the formation and practice of peaceful and democratic attitudes and values among citizens,

including tolerance, mutual trust and nonviolent conflict resolution (socialization function).

It would strengthen links among citizens, building bridge social capital across societalcleavages (social cohesion function). Facilitating dialogue and interaction, as well as

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promoting attitudinal change for a culture of peace and reconciliation, moreover, it would

establish relationships to support collaboration between interest groups, institutions and the

state (intermediation/facilitation function). In addition to these three main functions, civil

society education could also be useful in order to articulate specific interests and to bring

relevant issues to the public agenda, thus influencing the public debate and raising awareness

(advocacy/public communication function). It seems also true that, through the provision of

educational services, a civil society organization could eventually play an entry point role

within peacebuilding strategies (service provision function). Regarding the other two

functions of protection and monitoring/early warning, instead, civil society education

seems to be relatively very weak and not in a position to perform any direct influence.

Lord and Flowers (2006, p. 444-446) argue that, in order to be effective, any program

seeking real and sustainable social changes through education needs to include the three

critical components: flexibility in the steadily evolving conflicts circumstances, a long-term

committment and a community base able to guarantee that education starts with the issues

tha affect peoples daily life (p. 446). They go on, moreover, analyzing some UN educational

programs that involved civil society actors and, in one case (Serbia), had to face suspects and

constrains imposed by the state. The role played by education and civil society in both

protracting and transforming conflicts, indeed, has urged the UN to design and implement

large-scale education programs in war-torn context like Cambodia in 1991-1993, Southern

Sudan in 2000 and Serbia in 1994-2003, though with mixed results (pp. 446-452).

3.3 Europe, history and history education in Cyprus

Europe is both the place of birth of the modern sovereign state and the political space where

the state sovereignity has been putting into question with the institutional developments of the

European Union. The expression modern state, indeed, is commonly intended as a model of

political organization, emerged in 16 th century Europe, featured by the sovereign control of aterritory and the population living therein. More specifically, the characteristics of the modern

sovereignity comprise the monopoly of legitimized violence within a given territory (public

order) and in the external relations (war); the power to tax the population living within the

states boundaries; the power of central decision in the hand of the government. The process

of institutional development that actually led to the modern states structure of power received

a crucial impulse from the conflicts between the European monarchies in the 16 th century,

with the following needs of soldiers and money: they had to be used, indeed, by kings with a power of decision more and more absolute and centralized. These needs fostered a stronger

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efficiency of the tax system through the development of one juridical order and a centralized

bureaucratic structure in charge of guaranteeing the uniformity of taxation within the state

territory (Giardina, Sabbatucci and Vidotto, 1999, cap. 8; Caccamo, 2001, cap. 3). The heart

of the modern state building, in other words, lies in the centralization and absolutization of the

power to decide effectively that is with the support of money and the control of violence -

within a given territory. It was pursued by developing a hierarchic structure of internal

competences and organizational tasks able to subdue the territory, population, as well as

former feudal and ecclesiastical rights, to the law, administration and jurisdiction of the king

(Schmitt, 1950, pp. 141-147). 9

The drives towards uniformity, so closely linked with the modern state building dynamics,

couldnt spare loyalties and identity phenomena related to ones own substate community.

Extra-state identities, loyalties or social norms, indeed, would disrupt the direct relation

between the individual and the state, thus undermining the efficiency of the latters structure

of power. Caccamo (2001, pp. 58-61) speaks, at this regard, of the central ethnic building,

to whom people have to give their loyalty and efforts to defend its honour and territory before

other nations, that is other central ethnies. The institutional revolution that, from medieval

Europe, led to the ideas and political practices of nation states, national governments, national

markets, national armies and national cultures, was actively supported by the building up, the

teaching and learning of history as national histories. National histories are typically easy to

turn into nationalist claims when related to current conflicts, so they often gave rise to

conflicting claims based on opposing historical narratives where each we was self-

sustaining its rights against other them.

However, whereas history - and its teaching and learning as well - can, did and do promote

conflicts, it can also provide the reasons to overcome them towards a different future. As far

ar Europe is concerned, the European Union - with all its shortcomings - has been showing

the world that a history of enmity, conflict, war and millions of deaths actually can betransformed in a shared political entity where further wars are very unlikely to happen in the

foreseeable future. 10

The crucial importance of dealing with ones own history in order to build ones own

future seems to have been recognized by the European institutions. As far as history teaching

and learning are concerned, the European foreign ministers seating in the Council of Europe

have issued some common positions and promoted joint initiatives with the aim of enhancing

the possible bridge-building role of history between peoples, cultures and religions. On9 See also Rothbard (1965) for a deep insight to the state structure of power.10 Nugent (1999) is almost a classic for whos interested in EU affairs, institution building and policies.

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October, 31 st 2001, for instance, the Commitee of Ministers adopted a recommendation 11

where, amongst other things, it expressed the need for stronger mutual understanding and

confidence between peoples, particularly through a history teaching syllabus intended to

eliminate prejudice and emphasising positive mutual influence between different countries,

religions and ideas in the historical development of Europe. It went further on

recommending the member states governments to continue activities relating to history

teaching in order to strengthen trusting and tolerant relations within and between states and to

meet the challenges of the twenty-first century. The Recommendations Appendix presents

some guidelines regarding history teaching and learning for the twenty-first century Europe.

According to the Council of Europe, history teaching in a democratic Europe should promote

the values of responsible, critical and active citizenship, tolerance, mutual understanding,

human rights and democracy. History should also constitute a decisive factor in

reconciliation, recognition, understanding and mutual trust between peoples, so to help the

efforts to build a Europe based on a common historical and cultural heritage, enriched

through diversity, even with its conflictual and sometimes dramatic aspects. The

Recommendation goes on stating that history must not be misused as a tool for ideological

manipulations or propaganda for intolerance or nationalistic racist ideas. Also to counter an

excessively nationalistic version of the past which may create the us and them

dichotomy, the European dimension of history teaching is suggested in order to enable

European citizens to enhance their own individual and collective identity through knowledge

of their common historical heritage in its local, regional, national, European and global

dimensions.

In line with the Council of Europes recommendations and recognizing the value of its

activities and projects, the European ministers of education, meeting on the occasion of the

21st session of the Standing Conference in Athens (10-12 November 2003), issued a

declaration on intercultural education in the new European context. 12 It explicitly calls onthe Council of Europe to attach greater importance to education in general and, on the

strength of its experience in this area, to successfully pursue the aspects of its work

programme relating to, amongst others, educational policies, history teaching, language

policies and education for democratic citizenship; to pursue its co-operation in the field of

education for citizenship and democracy on the basis of the fundamental principles of the

Organisation; to focus its work programme on enhancing the quality of education as a

11 See Council of Europe (2001).12 See European Ministers of Education (2003).

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response to the challenges posed by the diversity of our societies by making democracy

learning and intercultural education key components of educational reform.

Within the institutional framework of the Council of Europe, the European Commission

Against Racism and Intolerance (ECRI) is one of the most active body dealing with

educational policies. On 15 December 2006 ECRI adopted its General Policy

Recommendation N. 10 on combating racism and racial discrimination in and through school

education ,13 which advocate a quality education for all in order to fight racism and

intolerance, as well as a means to both deal with and enhance a multicultural society. ECRI

has been also carrying out its positions by analyzing specific countries such as Bulgaria,

Romania, Turkey, Greece and Cyprus and, as far as the latter is concerned, it develped and

published three reports that also took into consideration education issues.

In 1999 the first report stated that, as regards the sometimes tense situation between the

Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot communities, ECRI stresses that particular efforts should

be made, especially in the fields of education and the media, to avoid representations which

may exacerbate feelings of intolerance and or prejudices (ECRI, 1999, par. 19).

In 2001 the second report was published, which went on stressing the need to promote the

Republic of Cyprus efforts in raising awareness on human rights issues in and through school

education (par. 19). Also, ECRI urged the Republic of Cyprus authorities to ensure that all

teachers are properly trained to teach in a multicultural environment and to react to any

manifestation of racism or discriminatory attitudes at school (par. 20). Finally (par. 21)

ECRI also stresses the need for initiatives in the field of education specifically aimed at

improving better understanding between the Greek and Turkish [Cypriot] communities. To

the same end, it supports the organisation of bi-communal events involving both students and

adults. 14

The Third Report on Cyprus (2006) was adopted on 16 December 2005. The Education

and awareness raising issues are tackled in parr. 37-42. The Report notes that some positivedevelopments had taken place after the first two Reports: some seminars and workshops were

organized and some highly general guidelines were issued (parr. 37-38). ECRI noted also that

the school aims for the year 2004-2005 included a section on bi-comunal cooperation. It also

pointed out, however,

that bi-communal initiatives involving school communities, including students,

teachers and parents, have so far been very limited. In fact it has been reported to ECRI13 European Commission against Racism and Intolerance (2007).14 ECRI (2001), Education and awareness raising, parr. 19-21.

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that school communities often simply oppose such initiatives. The Cypriot authorities

have stressed that they encourage exchanges between teachers and pupils of the two

communities and that development of these initiatives takes time. As mentioned in other

parts of this report, however, ECRI considers that a more proactive approach to

promoting bi-communal activities, especially in the field of education, could be

beneficial to facilitate and speed up the process of reconciliation and restoration of

confidence between the members of Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities (par. 39).

The reports final recommendations were to intensify the efforts to strengthen the human

rights dimension in school activities; to train the teachers in these subject and equip them with

the tools to deal with acts of racism and intolerance; to intensify the efforts towards bi-

communal activities aimed at promoting the mutual understanding and the restoration of the

confidence between the Greek and Turkish Cypriot communities (parr. 40-42).

The Council of Europe, moreover, organized in Cyprus, in June and November 2004, a

series of seminars and workshop in cooperation with local civil society organizations. These

events dealt with history teaching and they were then gathered and summed up in the

publication Reports of the activities of the Council of Europe in History Teaching in Cyprus

in 2004 . The participants discussed about the opportunity to shift from the nationalistic and

ethnically based historical narratives, which are taught and learned in the school systems and

history books both in the Republic of Cyprus and the Turkish Republic of Northern Cyprus,

towards a more humanistic approach. As Marios Epaminondas argued (pp. 9-10), history

education and citizenship are closely interrelated, since the former reveals the kind of citizens

the educators are and the ones the pupils are likely to become through the latter. What is

apparently needed in Cyprus - he and others went on - are structured and systematic efforts

able to foster both the teachers and the pupils critical skills. According to the educators,

textbooks follow the ideology of the nation-state, and respect neither scientific criteria, nor guidelines on how to write history texts or teach history in the 21 st Century Europe. The texts

contain material that shows the victimisation of one group by the other. Moreover, there is a

lack of information about periods leading up to specific conflicts. For example, as one Greek

Cypriot teacher stated, there is no real information in Greek Cypriot texts regarding the years

1945-1974 (p. 17). Chara Makriyanni (pp. 21-22) and Guven Uludag (pp. 31-32) showed

how both Greek-Cypriot and Turkish-Cypriot history teaching and learning share an ethnic

perspectivity on the Cyprus history, thus drawing the picture of two opposite nations , Greek vs Turkish, instead of one of a common island for the two main Cypriot communities. The

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contemporary Cyprus history, hence, becomes a conflict between two opposing national

struggles that could only end with the victory of us against them, whose perspective on

the historical events is even morally wrong to take into consideration. The recommendations

advanced during the seminars and workshops were to conduct research and further workshops

on historical issues and teaching methods able to promote critical thinking through

multiperspectivity; to work on different types of teaching material; to develop a range of

institutions, research and training centers dedicated to the teaching and learning of history

according to the values of critical thinking, democratic citizenship and European standards

(pp. 48-49).

Makriyianni and Psaltis (2007) analyze history teaching and learning in Cyprus. They

argue that history teaching - across the existing divide, although the authors take into

particularly detailed account the educational policy guidelines currently in place in the

Republic of Cyprus (pp. 50-57) - has been fostering ideological models of segregation,

nationalism and conflicting claims between groups and, more specifically, between the

Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities. What takes place is the social transmission of

beliefs through conformity to and imitation to the views of authority. (...) In this way the

promotion of an active and critical citizenship is hindered (p. 47). At the same time the

pupils social identity is directed along conflicting shapes, in the form of exclusive

belonginess to the only group that has rightful historical ownership on a country (p. 48).

There are also point of optimism, however, like the 2004 Educational Reform Committee

that was formed by the Repubic of Cyprus and which developed a manifesto for educational

transformative reform (Makriyianni and Psaltis, 2007, pp. 58-59). The Committee advocated

a shift from Greek-Cypriot-centric perspectives to humanist approaches able to foster

critical thinking, respect of the differences and democratic citizenships habits, which all seem

in line with the European standards and education policy guidelines we have examined so far.

The Committee further criticized the practice of importing history textbooks from Greece andsuggested the establishment of a working group of Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot

academics as a means to impartially and critically examine history textbooks.

As far as the Turkish-Cypriot community is concerned, the recent revision of history books

seems definitely noteworthy. POST (2007) provides a comparative analyses of the old and

new history textbooks used in the education system, arguing that the new ones provide a

much more humanistic and not nationalist perspective on Cyprus history. In general, the new

history textbooks are far from the ethnocentric approaches used in the old textbooks. Instead,the new books evaluate historical issues from a humanistic perspective. Moreover, there is no

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obvious indication of a national enemy or the other in the new books (p. 8). The authors

suggest that these new critical stances before the official historical narrative are comprised in

wider social changes, within the Turkish-Cypriot community, which actually led to the

change of leadership in the TRNC, from Denktash to Talat, in 2003 election. They also show

the important role played by the active involvement of civil society actors and teachers unions

in these dynamics (pp.10-14). Likewise the Education Reform Committees manifesto,

importing history textbooks from Turkey is deemed very critically, so its natural for the

report to positively evaluate the new developments opened by the new, Cypriot-owned,

books.

The last, but not least, point of optimism we take into consideration is the establishment of

the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research (AHDR). AHDR

(www.hisdialresearch.org ) was born in April 2003 as a non-governmental, non-profitable

and multi-communal organization. Its mission is to defend and promote productive dialogue

and research on issues regarding history, history teaching and learning in order to strengthen

peace, stability, democracy and critical thinking. Its board currently comprises researchers

and educators coming both from the Turkish-Cypriot and the Greek-Cypriot community.

Since its beginnings, AHDR has been active in promoting dialogue, reconciliation and

research on issues related to history in general and Cyprus history in particular. Philippou and

Makriyianni (eds., 2004) provide the record of AHDR first public event, while Philippou

(2006) argue a case for AHDR based on the role the education can play in order to promote

peace, freedom and human rights in Cyprus. Amongst other things, the board members have

been advancing very concrete cases of research, dialogue and peacebuilding efforts. Recently

Charis Psaltis (Research Director of AHDR) has presented a research in which he has taken

part, on A Social Psychological Perspective on Contact Between Greek-Cypriots and Turkish-

Cypriots and Confidence Building Measures . Last February Stavroula Philippou (Board

member) discussed about the joint research project Representations of Europe: acomparative analysis of Geography curricula and textbooks used in Cyprus . Other two board

members, Mete Oguz and Marios Epaminondas (2007), jointly wrote a short history of

Cyprus for an Italian publication. 15 Apart from these cases of research and dialogue, AHDR

has currently in place many activities and projects that can be viewed in its website. In the

next sesction we will address the Home for Cooperation as one of them which seems of

particular relevance for Cypriot peacebuilding dynamics.

15 Natali (ed., 2007). I knew about AHDR for the first time thank to this short article, which I remember and citewith pleasure. I was, indeed, very positively impressed by Oguzs and Epaminondas effort of writing together acommon history for a foreign public out of opposing historical narratives. I believe it also correspond to thegeneral mission of AHDR and shed a good light of its work.

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Although all these points of optimism are not the solution of the problems they aim to

address, they nevertheless provide some very positive resources to solve them. They are

covered, indeed, with a special meaning because they represent the will of civil society

agencies to have a voice for actively building up a better future for Cyprus. This section

apparently suggests that, since in Cyprus the official historical narratives have been

cementing a culture of separation, mistrust and intolerance, they are part of the problems

actually hindering peaceful and sustainable social changes in the island. As a consequence,

civil society organizations aiming to promote real and sustainable peace on the island have

both the space and the challenge to work on educational issues so to enhance critical thinking

and dialogue between and within groups, mutual understanding, respect and reconciliation

towards a shared future. 16 In other words, there actually is the opportunity in Cyprus for civil

society organizations to perform valuable peacebuilding functions also through educational

activities. Whereas educational activities are apparently comprised in the broader, ultimate

goal of building a self-sustainable peace and a better society, this aim will be effectively

addressed with shared structures of cooperation. In the next section well introduce the idea of

the Home for Cooperation in Cyprus as a valuable case of social and physical structure that

will be able to perform a good peacebuilding function for the conflict transformation.

4. Cyprus civil society and the Home for Cooperation

In this section we will neither analyze the high-level political context of Cyprus nor well get

into the debate about the 2004 failure of the Annan Plan to deliver a solution to the long-

lasting conflict on the island, trying to identify its reasons and implications from a conflict

resolution perspective. There are, indeed, thousands of pages and many interesting reports

about these issues and on the ways the Cyprus conflict has been actually affecting and

damaging Cypriots, the regional and European politics, as well as the EU-NATO relations. 17

We will rather share Alexandros Lordos standpoints endorsing that while the leaderships

of the two sides are too busy protecting their respecive positions, it might be worthwhile to

ask ourselves: above and beyond the tactical posturing of local politicians, is there potentials

16 As far as we know, there are some projects and organizations actually dealing with history and education inCyprus. We have in mind, on the one hand, the Association for Historical Dialogue and Research(www.hisdialresearch.org) and, on the other, the POST Research Institute (http://postri.org). It seems alsointeresting to note that the International Crisis Group (2006, pp. 2, 10), recognizing the problematic role played

by opposite historical narratives, media and education in the Cyprus conflict, argued that civil society shouldexert pressure on the authorities to engage in an official review of the historical narrative of the conflict.Education and media projects aimed at re-evaluating historical narratives (...) are pivotal both to reaching anagreement and to ensuring its sustainability and success (p. 27).17 See for instance the International Crisis Groups report published on last 10 January 2008. See also Pope(2008).

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for consensus amongst the people of Cyprus, the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish Cypriots,

who are, after all, the final arbitrators of any proposed solution? (Lordos, 2005, p. 5). 18 In

other words, are there the space, opportunity and resources for and within Cypriot civil

society to perform impact-peacebuilding functions and to create or strengthen reliable

structures for valuable social change? 19 In order to answer these questions, we have

apparently to specify first the social context in which Cypriot CSOs operate so to somehow

assess the peacebuilding needs. Second, we should examine specific initiatives aiming to meet

these needs. In section 4.1 well address the first point using some recent surveys and opinion

polls, while section 4.2 will take into consideration the specific project of the H4C, arguing it

will be a highly valuable structure of and for civil society peacebuilding and peace

constituencies. This analysis doesnt claim exaustiveness at all and its far from considering a

specific initiative as the only one on the field. As we said, there are many roads to peace: what

we do believe, however, is that the H4C will eventually be one of them which will be able to

exert effective impact and influence on Cypriot-owned peacebuilding dynamics.

4.1 The social context: a brief overview of Cypriots attitudes

Statistical data are able to give anything but a highly simplified picture of any social reality,

whose stuctural compexity cannot ever be grasped with numbers or given questions to

specific targets of population. What analyses, researches, surveys and opinion polls can do,

nevertheless, is allowing us to discern some attitudes and patterns of thinking which, in a

conflict society, can open more or less wide spaces for consensus for peacebuilding efforts.

These datas relevance stems out of the grassroot level of the conflicts social perception -

though expressed by a given target of interviewed population - which, in turn, constitutes the

space for civil society peacebuilding to operate. Whereas it can provide a picture of the

general social context where peacebuilding initiatives in Cyprus take place, its also important

to add that further researches should address the specific conditions and involve some impact-assessment of civil society organizations. Civicus report (2005) which is downloadable

from the web - is an attempt to evaluate Cypriot civil society organizations according to the

four dimensions of civil society: its structure, the environment in which CSOs operate, their

values and their impact. In the southern part of Cyprus the report assessed the civil societys

structure as slightly weak, the environment as relatively enabling, the values as

relatively significant and the impact was judged moderate. As regards the North, the

18 Its true, however, that recent political developments can give rise to new hopes and optimism.19 Demetriou (2007) provides an interesting perspective on how in Cyprus changes can involve fears because thestatus quo had been lasting since long time ago. She advocates new openings, however, first of all in Nicosia,as a means of socialization for gradual yet reliable social changes.

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structure was deemed quite poor, while the environment looked less problematic than usually

assumed. The extent to which civil society practices and promotes positive values was seen as

moderate although a strong committment on nonviolence were cited to belong to some

CSOs. The impact, finally, was judged relatively insignificant.

Analyses, researches and findings of this sort seem highly valuable in order to better catch

the complexity of the Cyprus social context. They seem to play a complementary role along

with the attempts to understand what the people actually think and which kind of popular

attitude and public opinion should we expect. Given all these premises, were introducing

here some findings taken from statistical surveys that can all be downloaded from the web.

They deal mainly with the Turkish-Cypriot and Greek-Cypriot communities opinions.

Although all the different communities living in Cyprus should and will share the benefits of

the Cyprus problem solution, it seems nevertheless that the Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot

communities still hold the crucial power both to foster and to hinder any kind of

peacebuilding effort. Although both Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot communities acknowledge

that they have much in common, both of them tend to mistrust the other (Lordos, Faiz and

Carras, 2005, pp. 3-16; UNFICYP, 2007, pp. 46-47). In answering the statement the Turkish-

Cypriot are devious and self-serving, for instance, 50% of the Greek-Cypriots replied with a

totally agree and partially agree, while the 22,4% totally disagree and 18,8% partly

disagree (Lordos, 2005, p. 9). On the other hand, the 40,46% of Turkish-Cypriots agreed,

totally and partially, that the Greek-Cypriots will attempt to dominate us, while 28,21% and

15,38% strongly or partly disagreed (Lordos, 2005, p. 10). History, therefore, clearly matters

and gives rise to the different attitudes towards the Turks and the role of the Turkish army: the

46,9% of the Greek-Cypriot replied with a totally agree that I could never trust a Turk,

while many Turkish-Cypriots agree that Greek-Cypriot are murderers (just about 28%

strongly disagreed) and their overwhelming majority (79,1%) totally or partly agreed that the

Turkish army is here to protect us (Lordos, 2005, pp. 11-12).Although the 70% of the Turkish-Cypriots and the 57% of the Greek-Cypriots think that

the problem will not be solved in the forseeable future (UNFICYP, 2007, p. 43), the do

nothing approach is apparently the least favoured: both communities would like a more open

peace process that take into consideration not just the high-level leaderships and favour a

Youth Constitutional Convention able to influence the Cyprus problem with a forward-

looking outlook (Lordos, 2006, pp. 46 and 33). 20 It could be a reason why, along with the

clear tendency to disfavour armed struggle (Lordos, 2005, p. 13), both communities support20 However Sitas, Latif and Loizou (2007), in their survey about prospects of reconciliation in Cyprus, found thatoften the young tend to be less open that the elder to reconciliation and intercommunal dialogue.

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the proposals that a shared version of Cyprus recent history should be thought in all the

schools of the island (Lordos, Faiz and Carras, 2005, p. 119). The idea of a committe of

Greek- and Turkish-Cypriot historians, with the mandate to discuss and establish a common

history for the Cyprus events over the past 50 years, found very positive responses: namely,

63,4% of the Greek-Cypriots and 73,1% of the Turkish-Cypriots gave a somewhat positive

or a very positive answer (Lordos, 2006, p. 32).

More generally speaking, 65% of the Turkish-Cypriots and 83% of the Greek-Cypriots

agree that intercommunal contact today is essential in paving the way for a united Cyprus

tomorrow (UNFICYP, 2007, p. 37), although the levels of contact are very low: in the

overwhelming majority of cases, each community doesnt have contact with the other

(UNFICYP, 2007, p. 40). This notwithstanding, 73% of Turkish-Cypriots and 83% believe

that contacts with the other community have had a somewhat or very positive impact on

mutual trust (UNFICYP, 2007, p. 41). As regard the support of alternative ways to bridge the

gap between the peace process and the people of the two communities, the overwhelming

majority in each community would like an ongoing research project into Greek-Cypriot and

Turkish-Cypriot concerns; a website open to suggestions to the UN and the leaderships of the

two communities; a magazine about the life and concerns of Cypriot communities, as well as

information about negotiations for a comprehensive settlement; a regular TV programme for

common discussions and debates; an outreach programme, staffed by Cypriots, which will be

visiting towns and villages all over the island to discuss with citizens their concerns

(UNFICYP, 2007, p. 55).

Finally, regarding Nicosia and the buffer zone, although its too soon to think about any

kind of demilitarization (Lordos, 2006, p. 35), more than 70% of the cases in both

communities think that parts of the buffer zone should be utilised for projects that will

benefit both communities and increase contact between them (UNFICYP, 2007, p. 15).

We can conclude that, according to these opinion polls, any peacebuilding effort in Cypruswill likely face the challenge to work with and change attitudes of mistrust. On the other

hand, however, there seems also to be a wide room for consensus around the possibility of

intercommunal initiatives and some willingness to be more involved in dialogue and

reconciliation processes. These two elements are apparently closely related for any peace and

reconciliation initiative: without mistrust there will be no need for peacebuilding anymore,

but any initiative has to enhance local resources and Cypriot dynamics able to foster feasible

social change. What is apparently needed are social and physical structures where to host,

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enhance and create cooperation processes and, as well see in the next section, the H4C will

provide a powerful solution to meet this kind of needs.

4.2 The Home for Cooperation in Cyprus

Revitalizing the Dead Zone: an Educational Centre and Home for Cooperation briefly:

Home for Cooperation (H4C) is a project that the Association for Historical Dialogue and

Research has been carrying out since 2007 and that will be finalized in 2010. The projects

background, objectives, activities and timeframe can be found and downloaded at

http://www.hisdialresearch.org/news/HOME_FOR_COOPERATION.pdf .

The Associations idea is to restore a building in the UN buffer zone, in front of Ledra

Palace (Nicosia), which is actually not used but lies nevertheless in a symbolic place. The

Association states that the present project will offer notable opportunities for employment,

education, archiving, research and production of cooperative ideas and publications, drawing

on local resources. It will also contribute to promoting communication between people

from different ethnic, religious or linguistic background at a local, regional, European and

international level. In this way, the foundations will be placed for the establishment of

sustainable cooperation within the civil society of Cyprus, across the divide. Cyprus can

become and example of successful cooperation based on mutual respect, giving the dead

zone a new meaning: from a symbol of separation to (...) a new symbol of cooperation.

The H4C will explicitly address the limited infrastructure for intercommunal activities and the

lack of skills in finding institutional support that seems to affect Cyprus civil society and

CSOs. The Associations interests involve the issues of cultural heritage, human resource

development through education and history teaching, research and dialogue.

These interests meet some Cypriot societys needs that we have seen in section 3,

regarding the state educational policies, as well as in section 4.1, about the opinion polls

showing the popular willingness to discuss a common historical narrative. Its important tonote, however, that the H4C does not aim at simply providing an office for the Association.

Its purpose is rather broader and involves giving a hub for Cyprus civil society and different

CSOs so to enhance cooperation dynamics. The intended outcome, in other words, is to foster

a process of cooperation in Cyprus by endowing its civil society with a structure for education

and training activities as well as other initiatives that will call for others proposals and ideas.

The H4C, thus, will provide a successful case of cooperation that will hopefully attract others

to be involved in it and will stimulate networking dynamics and outcomes. Given that any peacebuilding effort aims at supporting self-sustainable peaceful structures of social

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interaction in conflict-affected contexts, with the goal of positive and reliable social changes

in a long-run perspective, the role of the H4C for Cyprus peacebuilding efforts seems highly

valuable. In terms of the functions it will perform (see section 3), the H4Cs activities would

likely address the formation and practice of peaceful and democratic attitudes and values

among citizens, including tolerance, mutual trust and nonviolent conflict resolution

(socialization function). They would strengthen links among citizens, building bridge social

capital across societal cleavages (social cohesion function). Facilitating dialogue and

interaction, as well as promoting attitudinal change for a culture of peace and reconciliation,

moreover, they would establish relationships to support collaboration between interest groups,

institutions and the state (intermediation/facilitation function). The H4C would provide help

and assistance in order to articulate specific interests and to bring relevant issues to the public

agenda, thus influencing the public debate and raising awareness (advocacy/public

communication function).

Dealing with the likely functions of the H4C, instead of focusing on specific results, is not

a shortcoming at all. On the contrary, the results that will stem from the H4C will

intentionally and hopefully involve all the different individuals, groups and organizations that

will come together to share their ideas and discuss their proposals. From the data introduced

in the previous section (4.1) we can infer that there are actually in Cyprus not only attitudes of

mistrust but also local resources for social change: the H4C will be able to address the former

while, at the same time, enhancing the latter. In this way, the H4C will really come to be a

successful case of civil society peacebuilding which, as we have seen before (section 2), has a

long and still ongoing world history made of blood, wars but also passions, actions and efforts

to build a better future out of them. Cyprus, in other words, could provide the global

community with an example of how a past of enmity has been transforming into relations of

mutual understanding, respect, trust and cooperation.

5. Conclusion

This paper dealt with peacebuilding, civil society and Cyprus civil society peacebuilding to

finally argue for the H4C in Cyprus. We have seen that peacebuilding is commonly intended

as that political action aiming to support self-sustainable peaceful structures of social

interaction in conflict-affected contexts. The peacebuilding goals involving social change in a

long-run perspective, they cannot be seen in isolation from other types of conflict resolutionefforts. Peacebuilding actors, objectives and strategies, in other words, are apparently

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comprised in broader peace and justice efforts currently in place within the global community

of human society. They are carried out by many different actors, groups and organizations,

each of them with its own peculiarities, resources and shortcomings as well. It means that

there are many roads to peace where certain vehicles are better suited than others, so the point

is to acknowledge the complexity of the route and be able to use different means in order to

advance on the way.

Section 2 dealt with peacebuilding, especially as envisaged in the UN system. Efforts to

build peace are much broader than the UN, which remains a hybrid organization that shares

the shortcomings of international politics. This notwithstanding, it also remains the main

forum where to articulate, integrate and operationalize cosmopolitan values with the power of

legitimacy. The UN, thus, still constitutes the global institutional framework where conflict

resolution goals are pursued. Moreover, we saw how the UN system was capable of some

evolutions in order to meet the demands a changing geopolitical context involved. Section

2.1, namely, provided a brief outlook at the historical context that led to the UN involvement

in peacebuilding efforts. The UN was born like an intergovernmental body without the tools

to effectively address the new type of war emerged after 1945, which has been putting the

state sovereignity in question and has been witnessing the civilian population as the main

target and victim of interlinked political and economic agendas. Section 2.2 gave then a short

account of the UN responses to the changing context where contemporary wars are actually

taking place. Following some UN documents, we have seen that peacebuilding was officially

defined in the two basic reports An Agenda for Peace (1992) and Supplement to an Agenda

for Peace (1995), receiving further specifications in the Report of the Panel On United

Nations Peace Operations (2000), also known as Brahimi Report . These documents, and the

geopolitical processes behind them, h

roads to peace - cyprus

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