The Republic of Cyprus (RoC), controlling about two thirds of the eastern-Mediterranean island's territory, installed a wired fence across a part of the Green Line earlier this year to keep migrants out. The Green Line, or cease-fire line, divides north and south Cyprus, with the south being controlled by the Greek Cypriots and the Turkish-occupied north being controlled by Turkish Cypriots.
Justifying the fence in an 8 March press release, the RoC ministry said: “We are defending our land against illegal migration and the methods which Turkey is plotting to hurt, once more, the Cyprus Republic.”
Cliché anti-migrant, patriotic rhetoric, a bit a-la Donald Trump, it may be, but still able to inspire a further rise of racism and nationalism and direct social attention away from corruption scandals in which the president, Nicos Anastasiades, is allegedly involved. The fence shifted focus to a nationalistic stance on reunification and cementing the government’s authoritarian turn; a laughable governmental clumsiness in dealing with the matter does not seem to diminish its desired symbolic and material power.
