Following the path of Shakespeare?s Othello we have traveled from Venice to Cyprus. Cyprus lies just off the southern coast of Turkey and the western shore of Syria. It?s a tricky geographical situation and, in its seven thousand year history, the island has changed hands dozens of times. The Greeks held it, then the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Romans, the Venetians, and the Ottoman Empire. Now it is not clear who holds or can hold it. Cyprus is claimed by both Greeks and Turks. It is geographically more Turkish, but culturally more Greek. This has caused trouble for centuries. It?s as if the ownership of Long Island was disputed between Connecticut (because we are so close to it) and Italy (because we have so many Italian restaurants). In the end, after many battles, we would probably decide to divide Long Island down the middle ? Yankees on the North Shore and Italians along the South Shore. But then the precise boundary would be perpetually disputed, and nobody would ever be satisfied. This is more or less exactly what has happened in Cyprus. In 1974 it was finally divided into two unequal halves, the north controlled by the Turks and predominantly Muslim, the south controlled by the Greeks and predominantly Orthodox. The frontier is the semi-militarized ?Green Line? which runs straight through the middle of the capital city, Nicosia (or Lefkosia, or Lefkosa, depending whose side you?re on). When you buy a street map in the Greek sector, as we did when we arrived, it stops at the Green line. There?s nothing but empty space above, like those ancient maps of the world where the unexplored areas were marked ?Here be Monsters.? In fact, there are no monsters in the empty space, just the other half if the city, the Turkish part. It is the kind of commentary on human nature that Jonathan Swift would have relished. It recalls the standoff between the Big Endians and the Little Endians in Gulliver?s Travels. These were two factions on the island of Lilliput bitterly divided by an ancient religious dispute about which was the proper end to open an egg. As we drove up from Larnaca airport to the capital through a landscape of parched hills, in a traditional Cypriot rental car with many dents and no brakes, I realized with a shock that I had first come here fifty years ago. Fifty years! I was sent to Cyprus by the army in 1958 as part of a singularly ineffective peacekeeping force. Cyprus was a British Crown Colony at the time, and a full scale rebellion was going on. The place still retains an odd air of Britishness, notably in its stodgy cuisine and the fact that, uniquely in Europe, everyone drives on the correct (i.e. the left) side of the road. Shakespeare?s Othello was a general, a much higher rank than I ever achieved in the army, and he was sent from Venice to defend Cyprus against the Turks. Unfortunately he became involved in a romantic plot and forgot his military duties. Probably because of this the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1689, and they?re still here. Nobody has forgotten a single dispute or a single insult for the past three hundred years. The Cypriot version of the Big End/Little End standoff on the island of Lilliput doesn?t look like being settled any time soon. In Nicosia, Cyprus, This is DB

Following the path of Shakespeare?s Othello we have traveled from Venice to Cyprus. Cyprus lies just off the southern coast of Turkey and the western shore of Syria. It?s a tricky geographical situation and, in its seven thousand year history, the island has changed hands dozens of times. The Greeks held it, then the Assyrians, the Egyptians, the Persians, the Romans, the Venetians, and the Ottoman Empire. Now it is not clear who holds or can hold it. Cyprus is claimed by both Greeks and Turks. It is geographically more Turkish, but culturally more Greek. This has caused trouble for centuries. It?s as if the ownership of Long Island was disputed between Connecticut (because we are so close to it) and Italy (because we have so many Italian restaurants). In the end, after many battles, we would probably decide to divide Long Island down the middle ? Yankees on the North Shore and Italians along the South Shore. But then the precise boundary would be perpetually disputed, and nobody would ever be satisfied. This is more or less exactly what has happened in Cyprus. In 1974 it was finally divided into two unequal halves, the north controlled by the Turks and predominantly Muslim, the south controlled by the Greeks and predominantly Orthodox. The frontier is the semi-militarized ?Green Line? which runs straight through the middle of the capital city, Nicosia (or Lefkosia, or Lefkosa, depending whose side you?re on). When you buy a street map in the Greek sector, as we did when we arrived, it stops at the Green line. There?s nothing but empty space above, like those ancient maps of the world where the unexplored areas were marked ?Here be Monsters.? In fact, there are no monsters in the empty space, just the other half if the city, the Turkish part. It is the kind of commentary on human nature that Jonathan Swift would have relished. It recalls the standoff between the Big Endians and the Little Endians in Gulliver?s Travels. These were two factions on the island of Lilliput bitterly divided by an ancient religious dispute about which was the proper end to open an egg. As we drove up from Larnaca airport to the capital through a landscape of parched hills, in a traditional Cypriot rental car with many dents and no brakes, I realized with a shock that I had first come here fifty years ago. Fifty years! I was sent to Cyprus by the army in 1958 as part of a singularly ineffective peacekeeping force. Cyprus was a British Crown Colony at the time, and a full scale rebellion was going on. The place still retains an odd air of Britishness, notably in its stodgy cuisine and the fact that, uniquely in Europe, everyone drives on the correct (i.e. the left) side of the road. Shakespeare?s Othello was a general, a much higher rank than I ever achieved in the army, and he was sent from Venice to defend Cyprus against the Turks. Unfortunately he became involved in a romantic plot and forgot his military duties. Probably because of this the Turks invaded Cyprus in 1689, and they?re still here. Nobody has forgotten a single dispute or a single insult for the past three hundred years. The Cypriot version of the Big End/Little End standoff on the island of Lilliput doesn?t look like being settled any time soon. In Nicosia, Cyprus, This is DB