Anatomy of a political crime

Let's put things in a logical order, starting with the basic terms. What happened in Chloraka (Cyprus) last Sunday was a pogrom. It was neither an action of “hooligans” (who have no political demands) nor something like a pogrom, but it was a typical pogrom. All the necessary and sufficient characteristics of a pogrom were there: a mob composed of the dominant group in the area (Greek Cypriots), violently attacked people and property of a particular ethnic-religious group, in order to expel them from the area. The targeted group need not be Jewish, nor does a genocide need to be committed in order to qualify as a pogrom. Clarifying the definition of what has been done also clarifies the basis on which the analysis of the crime - and the way to deal with it - must be made.

A pogrom is a double dialogue between the attackers and the attacked group, and between the attackers and the government. The perpetrators tell the victims to “go away”, but at the same time they tell the government to “get rid of them”. The attacking group “takes the law into its own hands”, substitutes the legal authority and sends a clear message to the state, trying to force it to act in a way that satisfies the group’s demands and wishes. The government could bow down - like the previous government that bowed down to “satisfy the client”, and issued a decree banning asylum seekers from residing in Chloraka. The existing decree, however, is now no longer sufficient for them, because it does not “purge” the area of all migrants, since it only prohibits residence to asylum seekers and not to those who have already been granted asylum.

The most important ingredient of the pogrom, then, is not the desire to abolish constitutional order and laws in general, since they are trying to impose new laws that will programmatically implement the demands of the pogrom. The backbone of the pogrom consists of prejudices and interpretations that result in political demands that could be institutionally implemented. All are implementable in a chauvinist, religious, nation-state. All that is needed is willpower.

This state would have the same backbone as the pogrom. Conspiracy theories, prejudices, fake news, false numbers, false facts, distortions: All the nations and groups around us are Turkmen who want to devour us, jihadists who want to Islamize us, a constant and absolute “hybrid war” from Turkey that pulls all the strings, a bunch of subhuman African tribes coming in for handouts, a state that is all drowning in immigrants (for decades), fake refugees, black rapists, Syrian criminals, etc. Voluntarism, irrationality, dogmatism.

No, the pogrom was not a deviation from the dominant narrative around the migration issue and around the far-right political vision for Cyprus. It was a push for its completion. The prejudices, the interpretation of what is happening, the racism and chauvinism, have all been there for a long time. The hundreds of public calls for violence against migrants, the incitement to violence in the social media has been there for a long time. There is an organic coherence and causal link between the pogrom and the prejudices, the hate speech and the conspiracy theories promoted by large sections of civil society, by paramilitary assault groups and by other organised groups, by politicians and by institutions.

If I were the government I would not start from “the immigration issue”. That’s not the way to solve the problem. That’s not where the problem is. I would start by tackling the prejudices, the distorted interpretations, the misinformation that have been passed on to the public. I would start with the fake or inaccurate news, as well as the hate speech spread by right-wing groups. I would start by defending the truth. The concept of evidence and substantiation has been lost, and the will for a Greek-Christian nation-state has been well established. This is the backbone of the pogrom. This is what the government has to work with first. And not with “the immigration issue”.

[The article was originally published in the Greek-Cypriot newspaper Kathimerini on Sunday 3 September 2023, in Greek].