In addition, to my earlier e-mail where the UN classifies Cyprus as being part of Asia-Occidentale.I strongly recommend to all who receive this e-mail that from a "tz" perspective we stay away from "politics". Israel has special status with the European Union. Canada and the United States are member of the UN Economic Commission for Europe(UN/ECE),the European Union if it so pleases can accept/include Australia or even Tonga as a member, i.e. any country in the world. I feel strongly that we should keep "politics" out of "tz". I did my M.A. in East European studies and for my Ph.D. covered the Balkans and the Byzantine Empire . The last thing that "tz" want or needs to do is get involved in issues, disputes and perspectives which have been festering for over 1,500 years. Could we end this discussion by simple stating that "tz" referencing of timezones to "continents" does not imply or pertain to geo-political considerations? trust this is of some help - Jake Knoppers
-----Original Message----- From: Yiango [mailto:yiango@programmer.net] Sent: September 14, 2000 1:24 PM To: tz@elsie.nci.nih.gov Cc: Gwillim Law; alex@agsm.edu.au; djk@cyber.com.au; phill@myriad.com; yiango@programmer.net Subject: Re: Fw: (Cyprus), Nicosia is in Europe not Asia.
Yiango, do you have any references to quote to the contrary?
First of all I'd like to apologize for the somewhat slow reply. I've asked a friend (an other fellow Cypriot, Alexia Galati) to help out, and she very kindly spent some time at the library looking up information to re-enforce my original request that Cyprus should be listed under Europe instead of Asia.
There is no doubt that indeed Cyprus in numerous locations is listed as being in Asia. This became especially more evident to me after reading Gwillim Law's reply. I'd still like a shot at convincing you guys to the contrary, even if my attempts end up being futile.
A few relevant references are the following:
- In the Readers' digest, Atlas of the World (1999), Cyprus and Turkey are included in the political map of Europe. (However this does not totally debunk your argument since it is also included in the Asian map). My point in mentioning this is that the evidence that you have presented is far from conclusive.
- Cyprus is also included in "the political map of Europe in 1999" which is presented in the list of tables of the book "Nationalizing and Denationalising European Border Regions, 1800-2000: Views from Geography and History" ed. by Hands Knippenberg and Jan Markusse.
I realise that the tz archive should actually be following "standard geographical practice" but is it not wrong to ignore basic facts such as Cyprus' participation in the European arena? Cyprus is politically, culturally and historically part of Europe and participates in most of its institutions (it has been a full member of the Council of Europe since 1961). How about Cyprus' potential future admission into the EU?
At least on the Greek side, one could claim how the Greek-cypriot community upholds the Greek culture, language and religion that are undoubtably European (they are in fact the predescents of many aspects of European culture itself). Even the Turkish-cypriot community, although of Anatolian origin, has a claim over European identity proved by a) the fact there's a lot of cultural convergence between Greek and Turkish Cypriots and b) Turkey's endeavors to become an EU member.
Though I'm definately not an expert in this subject, how could one prove that the existing boundaries are conclusive? From the Yearbook of European Studies (V6), ed. by J.Th.Leersen and M. Van Montfrans, 1993; there's an interesting article called "Political and Mental Borders" by Alexandru Dutu (who's President of the Center for South-East European studies at Bucharest). Here's a lovely quote: "Borders usually take shape in political circles and result from the talks among political representatives of the major powers. But politicians always pay attention to how people establish their identity and define "the others". Borders result from our need to settle limits to space and time and to discover ourselves in the "others": their roots are to be found in the world of imagination...It would be wrong to seperate "real" from "imaginary" borders, since frontiers are the products of our thought, feeling and imagination."
With the above quotation, I'd like to contest the legitimacy and validity of purely geographical frontiers that are used in segmenting the globe (because frontiers are in themselves imaginary, determined on the negotiation table of political powers, etc.).
I, therefore, do not wish to categorize Cyprus on the basis of cartographic evidence (as it could actually be really hard to prove that Cyprus is not also a part of Asia -- but we are nevertheless also presented as being a part of Europe in various references.)
Regards,
Yiango Yiangoullis