turkey invades cyprus

on this day in 1974, turkey invaded cyprus, which ties in nicely with the post below regarding Jeffrey Eugenides. Funnily enough, one of my other favorite authors, Louis de bernieres has also written about the greco-turkish troubles of recent times. This is my planned holiday read. birds without wings . I will publish my thoughts when I get back.

I seem to be drawn to this area at the moment.

Actually, I have long been fascinated by this melting pot of western civilisation. I guess it started when I toured down through mainland Greece & Cyclides on my bike. When You travel in Greece, you cannot avoid immersing yourself in Greek history. The evidence is all around you.

Later, I was suprised at the extent of Hellenic Civilisation in Asia Minor. Travelling to the west coast of Turkey and touring the mainland by car, you keep seeing ruined villages with tattered signs whispering greek names. I had not realised that up until 1919-1922, Asia Minor has been both Greek and Turk, living side by side.

Reading Heroditus also gave a fascinating insight into the area. the constant movement of people, expansion, expulsion, invasion, and emigration have been the constant themes of this area. This leads you on to realise that to a lesser extent, this process has been going on over the world since the genesis of hom. sap., and I can see no reason for it to stop. To my mind, this reinforces how ridiculous nationality and nationalism is, we all hail from the same puddle........