Login
[…] The lake is the blood of times,
drops of sweat and blood of others.
Your only offer was innocence
Bargained away through time,
in everyday expressions,
Filipino, negro, whore…
Are you shocked?
Please…
Yes, yes, I know, not you.
You would never.
You’re a philanthropist, by definition superior. […]
a quote from the poem: “Why are you shocked?” by Giorgos Pericleous.
Mary Rose Tiburcio, Sierra Graze Seucalliuc, Arian Palanas Lozano, Maricar Valtez Arquiola, Livia Florentina Bunea, Elena Natalia Bunea. Bodies of women and girls,immigrant and insignificant lives for both the cypriot state and the cypriot society. Murdered bodies, thrown into wells, in ponds, in suitcases, that heavy rain and accidental reports from tourists brought recently to the surface. The fact that so far seven women and girls have been murdered indicates something far more abhorrent: the deep racism and misogyny of the Cypriot institutions and the Cypriot society itself.
The invisibility of the immigrant women living and working in Cyprus has transformed into a horrifying spectacle, reminding us of the daily violence to which these women are exposed due to racism, unjust working conditions and patriarchy; conditions established -not only- in cypriot society and consciousness.
The marginalization of the immigrant female workers from the realm of the “political” and their social position as abjects -not subjects- of the institutions of the Cypriot State were revealed by the total indifference of the State to their existence/luck. Once again, the “occupied part of Cyprus”, the “black hole”, functioned as an excuse to the reluctance of the State to deal with such matters. However, the failure to deal with the disappearances is at the same time a failure to recognize the social oppression of immigrant female domestic workers in Cypriot reality; a failure to recognize the violence of gender and power relations.
Behind the distinct story of each murdered woman, there is a structure which is no exception but the common ground of all femicides around the world: patriarchy. From America to Saudi Arabia, from Argentina to Spain, and from Turkey to Cyprus, the basic tool of patriarchal societies is gendered violence. Psychological and physical violence against women is one of the basic methods of their obedience. This type of violence has different manifestations and a different degree of brutality: it starts with words that afflict the bodies of women and objectify their bodies and their sexuality, it becomes systemic and subordinates on the basis of origin, color, class, salary, labor, sexuality and desire, while in its outburst it could result to physical abuse and murderous mania.
Patriarchy has for centuries sowed poison in the minds of men perpetuating a culture of sexism, deeply rooted in inequality and gender discrimination, the economic weakening of women, and the acceptance of toxic masculinity with its nationalistic and militaristic impacts. It is no coincidence that so many centuries of systematic violence create repeated expressions of sexist enforcement: in communication, in contact, in the workplace, in public space. Sexism is the daily expression of patriarchy in our lives. Because in the bipolar concept of power-domination one finds a whole range of sexist violence; from vulgarity to speech, to physical violation, and from rape to death.
The scariest thing of all though, is that we are progressively led to the normalization of this sexist culture and, without reducing the severity and tragedy of the femicides, we must recognize that they are only the tip of the iceberg from the surface of which are emerging cycles of gender violence and hatred that patriarchal societies have imposed in the form of physical, psychological, sexual, economic, institutional and symbolic subordination. Nikos Metaxas is flesh from the flesh of patriarchy in Cyprus, that sees the bodies of immigrant women as temporary, consumable, worthless.
Today, we stand in solidarity with the marginalized communities of immigrant domestic workers and their struggle for visibility and (social) justice. We recognize the privileges we have in making our voices heard more. That’s why we are walking side by side, shouting to uncover institutional violence.
It is our duty to create collective structures that will fight against sexism, patriarchy, racism and nationalism. Our debt is to change the public discourse and the public space so that it shows zero tolerance to cases of sexism.
SILENCE SHALL NOT BE OUR DOMAIN OF ABJECTION.
FEMINIST SELF-DEFENSE EVERYWHERE!
Syspirosi Atakton
10th May 2019
Note: The translation of the text was done in the framework of the documentary TONGUE –
(https://www.facebook.com/tonguefilm/?fb_…LnadcjU02Q)
Cypriot Consciousness
By Costis Achniotis
Within The Walls, Issue 35, September 1988
This text is my lecture for the event that our magazine has organized at Famagusta Gate. At the same event Mehmet Yiaşin spoke about the “Turkish Cypriot identity in literature”. We will publish Yiasin’s presentation in the next issue in which there will be a feature on Turkish Cypriots. We will also answer to some articles published in the newspapers about our event there.
____________________________________________________________________________
Firstly, I clarify that I understand the definition of collective consciousness (and its contents) not as stable and unchangeable and of course I do not give it the dimension of a natural order. Collective consciousness just as any social concept is changeable and follows the shifting needs of of a society.
This changeability of course is not at all mechanic. The superstructure can drastically act on social evolution. For example the appearance of industries shapes the totality of workers that are possible to become carriers of labor consciousness. Labor consciousness is potentially common for all nations and can determine the totality of the workers of the world. Of course, this understanding is macroscopic. Other factors (individual consciousness) act and shape opposing subtotalities.
For the purpose of this text, I call Cypriot Consciousness, the consciousness of the Cypriot Independence. Therefore, its carrier is anyone who understands Cyprus and its people as an independent entity and strives as a consequence for the protection of the corresponding state institution, the Independent Cypriot State.
Of course the understanding of Cypriot Independence is basically a subject that has not been studied neither historically nor sociologically, nor politically, and this stands for both communities. And it is entirely natural as since the 50’s the consciousness for Enosis (Union with Greece[1]) and for taksim (separation[2]) were entirely dominant. Regardless of the acceptance of this so-called Independence in 1960, the governing teams of both communities were (or were acting like) for Enosis or for taksim. Therefore only this version of history was projected with its corresponding ideological response. It is indicative how misguiding history is in Greek-Cypriot schools.
So it is not easy to realise that CPC (Communist Party of Cyprus) took an anti-union stand. I will quote an excerpt:
“…CPC sees as its duty to protest by any means, firstly against local English government which due to its indifference contributes in the intensification of intercommunal hate between the citizens of Cyprus and secondly against the fraudulent leaders of this place which spoke and will speak in the name of the Cypriot people. DOWN WITH ENOSIS – LONG LIVE THE INDEPENDENCE OF CYPRUS – LONG LIVE THE PROLETARIATS OF THE WORLD (Neos Kosmos, 25.4.1925)
We see that the understanding for Independence was already in combination with the effort to escape bicommunal conflicts.
Of course there is no doubt that since then, up until the categorical acceptance of “Enosis and only Enosis” by AKEL after about 25 years of inaptitude, the folk sentiment of the Greek-Cypriot community was all the more oriented toward Greece. The Turkish-Cypriot minority seems to have lagged behind in terms of following the developments and eventually takes a position after EOKA’s struggle. When AKEL leaned toward Enosis, the Trotskyist Party of Cyprus (which was a small communist organisation) criticized them harshly, as they saw independence as a self-government of the oppressed classes, without mentioning the Turkish-Cypriot community.
I quote an excerpt:
“COMRADES,
May this year’s 1st of May find us on the frontlines of the struggle for the handing down of power to our people, for SELF-GOVERNMENT. The traitorous abandonment of the position for Self-government on the part of the stalinist leadership and the adoption of the position for Enosis should make us come to our senses. We ourselves must stop the poisoning by Enosis. We must make the ill-fated leaders of our laborer’s organisations get on the right track of serving workers’ benefits. If they deny, we should set them aside and keep moving forward in a new polemic, with class-awareness and decisive leadership for the struggle for the handing down of power to the workers and farmers. Enosis can provide us neither better working conditions nor better wages, nor can it ensure our social emancipation. It will merely exchange our chains. Nothing more, nothing less.
WORKERS, FARMERS, OPPRESSED,
Move forward in the struggle for our emancipation. The struggle for our economic and political demands. The battle for the improvement of our working conditions and Social Security. For the creation of more jobs for the unemployed. For unemployment benefits. For the organisation and class awareness of all of the oppressed. For SELF-GOVERNMENT. For a Government of Workers – Farmers, that feels for the worker and protects the farmer. For the complete national and social liberation.”
In this text there is no mention of Turkish-Cypriots. But in the municipal elections the idea of proportionate representation of Turkish-Cypriots is projected from the candidates of this party and at the same time the request for Enosis is condemned in exchange for the request for Self-Government. The request for Enosis is considered a request which is entirely bourgeois (Ergatis, 15 May 1949).
The organisation of Trotskyists broke up and got dismantled soon after. One of the reasons is that a fraction of the members becomes for Enosis as one can witness through the conversational essays in it’s later editions.
We can see that briefly before the 50s, the Greek-Cypriot left tends to ambiguously want independence without always condemning Enosis and combines this demand with an intense worker’s politics (it is not by chance that the last labour struggles happened back then) and an understanding of danger that is included in a possible intercommunal conflict (and certainly other reasons such as geopolitical ones).
I do not know whether you, like myself, see that history actively justified the dears of the leftists of the era.
Whereas the Greek-Cypriot community votes for “Enosis and only Enosis” as one in 1950, and for the entire decade it leaves no space for anything else, I suppose that hidden within the bourgeois class exist thoughts for independence, because of course it cannot be by chance that Makarios gave that infamous interview in 1957 or that the national council of the time takes part, even in disagreement, in the negotiations in Zurich and London.
In making a report of the 50s, we can in summary say that the entire revolutionary force of the Cypriot people, Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot, was wasted on marginalising the conscious participation of the working class, in order for an intercommunal conflict to be built and for neither self-government nor Enosis but for dependence to be given.
This is why Cypriot Consciousness is always a newborn consciousness. It has never overcome the stage of infancy. In consequence, its face is marked by the sorrow of profound old-age and the main sentiment that it can feel is the uncertain pain of existence. Cypriot Consciousness exists trampled under the feet of its adversaries who are caught in an infinite hand-to-hand battle. From the point of view of where it exists, on the ground, it sees them as enormous giants. Regardless of the constant trampling, the Cypriot Consciousness is saved by the fact that none of the giants is entirely dominant. Otherwise the Cypriot Consciousness would be lost.
The Cypriot Consciousness thinks itself weak. That’s why it plays possum, waiting for better days.
The Cypriot Consciousness is weak and humble. It knows it and doesn’t go to battle. It settles for cackling at the weakness of its far stronger adversaries who are nonetheless also too weak to impose their own order of things. In its ears the voices echo like empty words and fanfare.
Cypriot Consciousness has the arrogance of the marginals.
[1]. The dominant Greek Cypriot Discourse which called for union with Greece.
[2]. The dominant Greek Cypriot Discourse which called for complete separation of the two communities.
Ecopolis is a 3-day anti-commercial festival with no sponsors. All events will be free. This year’s festival schedule is as follows (more info soon):
25/07 – Talks, presentations, and discussions
26/07 – Art exhibitions and performances
27/07 – Concert
Donations help us maintain the festival’s independent and self-funded character, so they are more than welcome.
The city as the main field of social activity and action reflects the wider social environment. Ecopolis festival aims to reveal, challenge, and renegotiate the social tensions of everyday life in the streets, squares and benches of Nicosia. A city that is drowning in coffee shops, street-side tables and fashionable bars. The old city of Nicosia has changed face: from sub-developed historical center it has now fulfilled its potential as an ideal city-commodity, maintaining the advertisable image of the “last divided capital”, while the accelerated gentrification of the last years has constituted it as an urban jewel “clean” from social relations and situations that oppose commodity relations mediated by spectacle.
Skyscrapers for high-class apartments and businesses, pedestrian zones occupied by the tables of countless interchangeable shops, the lack of public benches, fences around Faneromeni church that get taller every year, sidewalks full of parked cars, sky-rocketing rents that become prohibitive for migrant residents –all a result of gentrification and the consumerist influx which followed, creating a city where the only acceptable social / political activity is consumption. Meanwhile, barbed wire, barrels and armies force us us to live our geographical and historic site as half, mediated by the symbols of hatred and tedious queues at the checkpoints to walk a distance of 100 meters.
For us, these are factors composing a challenging landscape of action, in which we intervene creatively by expressing and making proposals for societies organized outside hierarchical, capitalist and sexist mentalities and institutions, on the basis of self-organization, solidarity and companionship. The Ecopolis festival is being held this year for the first time by the Ecopolis working group on ecology and the city. Ecopolis festival aims to put forth the claim to the city as a Common, as a field of resistance to the social and environmental endeavors of neoliberalism. We want to create the conditions in which the city is experienced as a point of reference and socialization, action and experimentation, rather than as a polished real estate commodity bought and sold according to the laws of the market and current trends.
Short-statement on the gathering of Beyond Europe – Antiauthoritarian Platform Against Capitalism in Nicosia (Cyprus) from the second to the fourth of March 2018
Last weekend antiauthoritarian groups from all over Europe came together in the divided town of Nicosia on the Island of Cyprus, located in the eastern corner of the Mediterranean Sea. Some of us hadn’t seen each other since the riotous nights of the G20 summit in Hamburg in July of last year, while many met for the first time. In 2013, when the platform Beyond Europe was formed, we were riding a wave of emancipatory unrest all over Europe, the United States of America and Northern Africa. This unrest was reacting to the economic crisis of 2008 and how it was handled politically. Today we are facing a different beast. It has risen out of the crackdown of this wave of unrest by the cooperation of neoliberal and authoritarian regimes. What we find as a result of the normalisation of the crisis through the policing of the social and militarization of the police-force is this: A massive resurgence of nationalism and populism in their many intersections with the various guises of authoritarianism and patriarchy. Going back to the recipes of the past, their promise is the promise of an easy solution. Politicians of all colors keep telling us that what separates us are the irreconcilable ‘natures’ of our ethnicities, nationalities, identity cards and genders, of our belonging. But if three days of discussions with fifty people from five countries and eleven cities has proven one thing, it is that this is a lie.
Under global capitalism, more connects us than it separates us. The culturalisation and naturalisation of bourgeois politics and capitalist economy does not solve one single contradiction arising from them. It simply displaces and externalises them. In this way it hinders progressive politics. Its discursive and material prominence is a danger for the safety and livelihood of everything different. The changed situation thus demands of us to take critical stock of our previous attempts. We are still few, weak and isolated. Our own reproduction often depends on the system and the mechanisms we seek to overcome. And we struggle to make our different histories as movements and the circumstances under which they were formed productive. But in a world divided by borders and classes, brutalized and depraved, we are far more surprised by how much common ground there is among us – how similar our desires for a different world are, and how careful we sometimes can be with each other. In several working groups this weekend – on labour and digitalisation, eco-social-struggles, feminist politics, the authoritarian formation and the rise of new fascisms – it became clear that our answer cannot be retreating into a position of self-defense. Even though they were won only by and after hard-fought battles of social movements, liberal rights or the social-democratic welfare state would not be able to counter Nationalism and Capitals even if they were tenable in the current situation. Nationalism and Capitalism are implicated in liberalism and social democracy, managing their on-going proceedings and enacting their exclusions. Instead, we need to expand and proliferate our struggles over the collective self-organisation of our lives: In the household and the neighborhood, the factory, the call-center, cyberspace, on the school-yard or the lecture hall, the fruit plantation, the coal mine or the hospital. The social and democratic experiment of Rojava, erected and defended admit the horrors of the Syrian war, surely is one example. The movement of #blacklivesmatter is another.
Together we will have to figure out what is to be done with so many issues and only very limited resources on our hands. This will take some time and we warmly invite you to join the discussion. This much is clear: It is only together that we can overcome the obstacles erected between us and the construction of a better life – be it the exploitation of our work, of our life or of our environment for the sake of profit and power. Whatever its form, Capitalism will continue to produce misery, surplus populations, war and the destruction of the Earth. So antiauthoritarian politics will have to change, but our goal remains the same: To move beyond state, nation and capital, be it in their national or supernational European incarnations. We won’t accept anything less. – Beyond Europe, Nicosia, 4.3.2018.
On this 8th of March, Beyond Europe takes an antiauthoritarian, anti-capitalist and anti-nationalist stance in the feminist struggles. This means that we are moving beyond traditional borders and radicalizing hegemonic narratives. The traditional approaches that link patriarchy either only to the state or capitalism need to be overridden so that they can be considered antiauthoritarian.
By drawing attention to the facts that patriarchy is the oldest system of oppression but also has the ability to move beyond borders and norms, we call upon its authoritarian structure.
Let’s fight authority on all its levels: from the local to the transnational. Join us in solidarity by supporting your local groups which strive for feminist demands.
We, as Beyond Europe, gathered today outside the Archibishop´s Palace in solidarity of feminist struggles. Particularly, we aim to support the demands for reproductive justice in Cyprus, since abortion is still illegal. There are currently initiatives for decriminalizing abortion in the law and Church of Cyprus is one of the forces who are actively against abortion as well as other political and wider eco-social struggles.
Here you can find the petition that gathers signatures for supporting the decriminalization of abortion in Cyprus: https://secure.avaaz.org/el/petition/Kypriaki_Voyli_Proothisi_tis_protasis_nomoy_gia_tis_ektroseis/?fLcxxab
Here’s the link for the initiative: fb.me/abortionscy
MY BODY – MY CHOICE! OUR RIOT – OUR VOICE!
by Sispirosi Atakton
December 2017
Over the long view of history, the reproductive rights debate has given rise to a vast number of conflicts as a result of an ever-expanding state, in which edicts of the church are often enshrined in law, and a gradual process of full politicization of the womb as a public space subject to legal and social regulation. These conflicts occurred both in the 19th and 20th centuries when many countries criminalized and recriminalized abortions (there were some exceptions as the fascist regimes in Germany and Austria adapted abortion restriction to eugenics and pro-natalist goals, while in Catalonia, Spain, abortion laws were briefly liberalized in the 1930s, but any efforts to implement reforms were squashed by the victory of the fascist Franco regime), and again in the late 20th century when many countries reformed and liberalized their abortion laws, after a heightened debate on the issue, leading to legislative change and partial decriminalization (1960s-1980s).
It is essential that every person has control over their body, and the ability to make informed decisions regarding their sexual and reproductive health, such as for example if and how many children one will have. Every woman, or person of any gender which might get pregnant (such as trans men, non-binary, agender people, etc.), must have the access and right to opt for abortion services, regardless of their reasons for wanting to terminate the pregnancy. This right to control our bodies is indispensable in the struggles for liberation and social justice, as nobody should be forcefully assigned the role of a child-bearing reproductive machine.
In our discussion it is crucial to think of abortion as just one of the issues of reproductive justice, which expands the pro-choice agenda to incorporate a wider array of economic, social and political issues affecting women’s power to decide about their bodily autonomy, reproduction and well-being. Legal abortions are meaningless if those who want them can’t afford them, and this framework allows to see the inequalities in women’s control over reproduction. Besides, middle and upper class women, with privileged access to relevant information, have always had access to abortion, by making use of the loopholes in the existing law, or by travelling to countries where abortion was/is legal. Working class women, on the other hand, not trained to argue with the authorities and/or could not pay for a doctor’s (legal or illegal) help, were the ones who have always been at risk. Thus, we can conceptualize a struggle not only for the right to choose, but for the social, political and economic conditions necessary to exercise that right. It entails a movement oriented approach, in addition to demands for safeguarding reproductive rights and accessible reproductive health services.
The acknowledgement of reproductive work as unpaid labor in the 60s made it possible to redefine the domestic or private sphere as an anti-capitalist site of struggle. In this sense, strict restrictions on abortion can be interpreted as an attempt to control the labor-supply, and deviations from the form of the procreative, heteronormative family and gender roles as resistance to this mechanism [1]. Radical and liberal feminists often disagreed about the demands the women’s movement should have, with the former arguing amongst others for free abortion on demand, free child-care and equal pay, while the latter were mainly concerned with the legal right to abortion and equal employment opportunities. The radical feminist agenda included practices such as consciousness raising and setting up self-help clinics and women’s shelters; discourses centered on liberation and sexual difference (rather than equality); and a political stance to which abortion and, more generally, the reclaiming of the sexed body, was central. Those were considered moments of deep feminist challenge to the dominant patriarchal culture and the state. Those creating policy and articulating hegemonic cultural norms responded (to a greater or lesser extent) to feminist threats to the status quo, and engaged in processes of negotiation and transformation [2].
It seems that with the demise of the radical feminist movements of the 70s which expressed an unapologetic stance for abortions, and the co-optation of women in legal debates over the matter, a shift occurred towards a defensive and prevention based stance. The focus has shifted from reproductive autonomy and self-determination to issues of sex education and contraception methods, with abortion framed as an avoidable last resort. In this way, regardless of how useful and necessary sex education and the availability of contraceptives might be, abortion is kept secret, shameful and regrettable, and the liberating potential of choice is surrounded by feelings of shame and guilt. It seems that the new, gendered language that was developed along the radical feminist movement with which to speak of one’s body, one’s sexuality, one’s pain and alienation faded away. Despite the efforts of radical feminist movements to center the debate on abortions around women’s self-determination, linking thus abortion to men’s assumed responsibility for controlling and monitoring women’s sexuality and reproduction, in most countries the initial debate is framed around the unborn fetus, doctors’ rights, or the state’s response to rising illegal abortions. It is important to bring back the unapologetic demand for abortions and the repeal (what has been called the decriminalization of abortion without limitation), not reform, of abortion laws into current struggles, as modernization of abortion laws does no justice to women, who are still denied agency.
It seems that a woman’s desire to end a pregnancy is not enough in itself, for it has to be approved first by a “respectable” authority figure, be it her husband, her father, her family, her community, her nation. Denying women the right to end a pregnancy is like denying them the right to own their bodies, which, in turn, results in women’s infantilization, which is all about rendering them incapable of making an independent decision. Historically, and ontologically, women and the feminine were strictly associated with the passion of the body; a body which was simply considered, by the Cartesian/humanist philosophical canon, to be inert and passive, silent and inferior, part of an unchangeable nature. On the contrary, the so-called superiority of the logos of the mind was associated with men and the masculine. Consciousness, rationality, intelligence, selfhood and subjecthood were synonyms of the masculine, and men were identified with the thinking subject and, by extension, with the universal [3]. There was no place for women’s voices to be heard, while their right to (own) a self was forbidden. They were supposed to live for others and their bodies were considered property of the autonomous (male) subject, as he was the one making all the decisions –nationally, institutionally, domestically– on her behalf. In a word, women were denied their existential freedom [4]; they were denied their status as thinking subjects, who could make decisions for their own bodies and choose between having a baby or not. This discourse is extremely important to the extent that it somehow sets the frame to understand better the arguments, claims, and struggles of the pro-abortion/pro-choice movement.
In other words, despite the fact that abortions are performed on women’s bodies, policymakers have often framed it in other terms –doctors’ rights, fetal rights, law enforcement, morality, religion, progressivism, family planning, eugenics– rather than discussing women’s choice, health, autonomy, agency, or sexuality. The dominant framework of the issue when abortion first arrived on the public agenda, was either the status of the unborn fetus (e.g. Great Britain, the Netherlands, Spain, Belgium), or doctors’ rights (e.g. France, Canada, USA), or state’s integrity in the face of rising rates of illegal abortions (e.g. Germany, Italy) [5]. The debate about how abortion policy could strengthen women’s autonomy was completely absent. Once again, women were not the talking subject, but rather a silent participant in a malestream debate, whose decisions were to determine the future of her own body. The political semiotics of representation play a crucial role here as, in this case, the object of representation (the fetus), permanently speechless, becomes the representative’s (patriarchal institutions) wet dreams because it can be easily naturalized and disengaged from the discursive realm. Women who want abortion simply vanish or become the enemy because they have opposing “interests”. The only actor left whose voice can be heard is the one who represents and is traditionally related to the hegemonic masculinity mostly articulated in juridical and medical discourses [6]. For this reason, concepts such as self-determination and agency are really important for the abortion debate because they put women, as subjects who are not afraid to speak their truth, back at the center of the way we talk about abortion.
However, relying solely on politics of ‘choice’ and ‘rights’ obscures the presence of other factors affecting the person’s choice over an abortion, such as access to subsidized care and job security [7]. Framing abortion and parenthood as an exclusively private issue suffers from an insensitivity to the way the private/public dichotomy fails communities whose social, political and economic realities are incompatible with this distinction. For example, migrant women’s paid labor is often domestic labor, and child-rearing is often intertwined with interpersonal relations and bonds of solidarity and cooperation for the overall well-being of the community, even in individualistic societies. When systemic inequalities result in the material conditions which determine the necessity of an abortion, defending only the right to choose is inadequate. Such a narrow-focused approach leaves unchallenged the fact that even if accessible abortions permit greater women’s access into the workforce, thus challenging the subordination of women in the private sphere, the burden of unpaid reproductive and domestic work remains disproportionately on them. In cases where abortion was legalized, legalization alone proved useless in claiming the resources women need to maintain control over their bodies and lives. While mainstream feminist movements made sure that women could have access to male-dominated workplaces, they abandoned reproductive work and the domestic sphere as a site of struggle. Terms like autonomy, empowerment and choice, historically employed by the feminist movements to raise consciousness, have been deployed by media and the state to promote the ideal of an active, individually responsible working and consuming female citizen. This promoted ideal does not suffice to challenge the exploitative relations of the capitalist mode of production and reproduction, and has accelerated the undoing of the radical women’s movements.
Additionally, focusing only on modernizing abortion laws, neglects the way age, class and ability influence one’s reproductive health priorities, and how under neoliberal restructuring of economies, the cost of the relevant reproductive health services is falling on the individuals. At the same time, women are more visible to governmental agencies, through the required medical intervention in abortions, giving birth, postnatal care, menopausal issues, breast-cancer checks, etc [8]. Reproductive capacity is monitored and medically controlled throughout a woman’s life. Even in countries where abortions are more readily accessible, women who want to undergo sterilization, the most permanent of contraceptive methods, are often forced to lie about their reasons and denied the agency in taking decisions affecting their bodies. Whereas the right to voluntary motherhood has become more accepted, the denial of a woman to procreate is often dismissed as an immature and immoral choice.
Upon impregnation, the person is stripped off their bodily autonomy, and anyone who wants to have an abortion must face the consequences of confronting not only medical authorities and their policies, but also the defenders of the procreative role assigned to women by capitalism and the nation-state. The latter insist on the patriotic mobilization of mothers against imagined demographic threats, either from minorities within the Republic of Cyprus, or by “Turkish settlers” in the north [9]. Lower birth rate, a phenomenon frequently associated with accessible abortions, is wrapped in nationalistic rhetoric and presented as a problem by government officials. The role of motherhood has been elevated over the past century to mother-of-the-nation, a heroic figure responsible for protecting traditional morals and producing the future defenders of the country’s national interests, as well as the younger sector of the workforce that would strive for the country’s economic recovery and growth. Future dehellenization and lack of local labor supply are expressed as the second most important problem after the Cypriot issue by conservatives and the right-wing, or even as an integral aspect of it [10]. This is not to say that everyone against abortions falls in these categories. As long as the debate over when human personhood begins remains open, some of the opposition might also be rooted in liberal defense of individual liberties. What we can conclude from this however, is that it would be a contradiction for the state to offer free accessible abortions. Defending abortions and reproductive justice requires to overcome the pervasive nationalistic rhetoric and militarist attitudes in society.
In October 2017, there was an arrest and 5-day detention of a woman and her doctor for an abortion, which is a criminal offence according to current laws, after a complaint filed by her partner, who was unaware of the event [11].
The Criminal Code of Cyprus (sections 167-169 and 169A), as amended in 1986 (Law No. 186), permits abortion if two medical practitioners are of the opinion that continuance of the pregnancy would endanger the life of the pregnant woman, or that physical, mental or psychological injury would be suffered by her or by any existing child she may have, greater than if the pregnancy were terminated, or that there is a substantial risk that if the child were born it would suffer from such serious physical or psychological abnormalities causing severe disabilities. The Criminal Code also permits abortion following certification by the competent police authority, confirmed by medical certification whenever possible, that the pregnancy resulted from rape and under circumstances in which the pregnancy, if not terminated would seriously jeopardize the social status of the woman or of her family. Although the Code does not specifically address socio-economic grounds other than as a factor in the criminal indication for abortion, in practice, “mental and psychological injury” is generally interpreted as including socio-economic grounds. The Code was first liberalized in 1974, when provisions permitting abortions only on therapeutic grounds were replaced. Prior to the liberalization of abortion laws in Cyprus, laws were not strictly enforced. Abortion could be obtained in private clinics. Most abortion clients were married women with multiple births or young unmarried women.
Any person performing an unlawful abortion is liable to seven years’ imprisonment. A woman inducing her own abortion is liable to the same punishment. Any person unlawfully supplying or procuring anything knowing that it is unlawfully intended to be used to procure an abortion is subject to three years in prison. An abortion must be performed by a registered medical practitioner. Although not specified by law, in practice abortion is performed within 28 weeks of gestation[12a,12b].
In February 2015, a new bill for decriminalization of abortions was proposed by four big political parties, but was never discussed in parliament and no voting was carried out, due to also direct and indirect influence of the church in order for this new bill not to proceed [13]. Just last year, in September 2016, the Archbishopric, the National Committee of Bioethics and the Pancyprian Medical Association organized the scientific convention “Abortions: medical, social, legal, spiritual dimensions” [14]. During the convention, positions against abortion under any justification were express and signed for by the three institutions in a memorandum of understanding. This alliance does not surprise us. The liberating potential of someone prioritizing themselves, usually against the patriarchal roles assigned to them, poses a threat towards the state, church and medical/scientific authorities. We perceive the decision for abortion as a matter of self-determination of our bodies, and consider unacceptable the criminalization and arrest of those pregnant and seeking abortion, as well as the doctors who help terminate a pregnancy safely.
As emerges from the analysis above, the capitalist-patriarchal state is deeply invested in control over reproduction, but when faced with acute social pressure key political and social actors are compelled to revise their positions. This includes elements of engagement with feminist arguments, but mostly a modification of those arguments, by refocusing the debate on a discourse of (sex-less) individual rights. Creating a legal consensus on abortion is seen across the political spectrum as key to the stabilization of socio-political life. More fundamentally, by controlling reproduction through an articulation of the conditions in which abortion is allowed, the state attempts not only to control population, but also to lay down the boundaries of acceptable values and behaviors [15]. Thus, it is important that abortion should be accessible to all women without discrimination, and each person seeking abortion to have access in safe abortion services around the world. On the contrary, abortion is either prohibited or criminalized or extremely limited (for example Ireland and Poland). When abortion is criminalized, it means that the person seeking abortion is denied fundamental rights over their bodies, health, self-determination, dignity and to have access to rights without discrimination. It means that the person will either seek abortion methods that would endanger their life and/or health and that they would try to seek for abortion in other countries. The right to abortion is just one part of the struggles for safe access to sexual and reproductive health care for everyone, which should entail access to counseling and support before and after the abortion if necessary. Lack of access to abortion services is an attack on the freedom to self-determination, and paves the way towards dangerous methods of terminating the pregnancy. Let’s not forget that the existing ‘way out’ through private doctors and clinics comes with a financial burden which prevents those with low income, migrants, teenagers and others from having an abortion. As long as the state monopolizes authority and uses it to define which medical and surgical procedures are accessible, it is necessary to proceed immediately into a discussion and amendment of the legislation, and decriminalize abortions without requirements for justification and medical opinions. It should ensure that everyone, regardless of gender and gender identity, will have access to these services when they need them.
The pro-choice, feminist movements and those in the radical left struggling for reproductive justice should not rest on their laurels, even in countries which witnessed progress on reproductive rights or positive abortion law reforms. As the anti-abortion camp is pushing for retrogression in abortion laws, it is becoming increasingly evident that abortion law reforms are insufficient to safeguard women’s increasing access to abortion. For example, Armenia, FYROM, Georgia, Russia and Slovakia have recently reintroduced preconditions for accessing abortions. Even in countries with legal abortions, long waiting periods and biased counseling services act as barriers to accessing an abortion safely. Legislative proposals for near-total bans or retrogression to stricter abortion laws also took place in Latvia, Lithuania, Spain, Romania, and Poland; however, they were met with public outcry and protests and never realized. Andorra, Malta, Liechtenstein, Ireland, Monaco and San Marino currently have very restrictive abortion laws, with the former two prohibiting all abortions. As in Cyprus, most of these countries’ criminal codes include sanctions for women who undergo unauthorized abortions and those who assist them to do so [16]. Amidst the rise of authoritarian populism and the resurgence of traditionalist values in public discourse, it is crucial that we do not remain silent in front of the attacks on reproductive rights and our sexualities. In our struggles for social justice, deciding for one’s own body is an inalienable right, without the intervention of any authority threatening one’s health, life or freedom. Our bodies are ours, and not reproductive machines of any system.
References and further reading
[1] Silvia Federici, “The reproduction of labour-power in the global economy, Marxist theory and the unfinished feminist revolution”
Silvia Federici, “The reproduction of labour-power in the global economy, Marxist theory and the unfinished feminist revolution”
[2] McBride Stetson, Dorothy (2003) Conclusion: Comparative abortion politics and the case for state feminism.
https://www3.nd.edu/~ggoertz/sgair/McBride%20Stetson2002chp13.pdf
[3] Braidotti, Rosi (2002) Metamorphoses: towards a materialist theory of becoming (Cambridge: Polity Press); Grosz, Elizabeth (1994) Volatile bodies: toward a corporeal feminism (Sydney: Allen and Unwin).
[4] Τούτος εν ένας όρος που εδιατυπώθηκεν πρώτα που την Katha Pollitt. Για περαιτέρω συζήτηση γυρώ που την έκτρωση σαν ένα ηθικό δικαίωμα, δες Pollitt, Katha (2014) Pro: Reclaiming abortion rights (New York: Picador).
[5] McBride Stetson, Dorothy (ibid)
[6] Για μια πιο εκτενή συζήτηση γυρώ που την πολιτική σημειολογία της αντιπροσώπευσης, δες Haraway, Donna (1992) The promises of monsters: a regenerative politics of inappropriate/d others, in: Lawrence Grossber, Cary Nelson & Paula A. Treichler (eds.) Cultural studies (New York, London: Routledge), pp. 295-337.
[7] Dorothy Roberts, “Reproductive Justice, Not Just Rights”
[8] Madame Tlank, “The Battle of all* Mothers (or: No Unauthorised Reproduction)”
Madame Tlank, “The Battle of all* Mothers (or: No Unauthorised Reproduction)”
[9] “Αυξάνονται οι αλλοδαποί, μειώνονται οι Κύπριοι”, Sigmalive
http://www.sigmalive.com/archive/simerini/politics/reportaz/451616
[10] An example of this argument can be found here: http://www.cna.org.cy/webnews.aspx?a=13b07a14e43f4f4e9bd2b891d8310818
[11] Woman who had illegal abortion released (Updated)
[12a] Ο περί Ποινικού Κώδικα Νόμος (ΚΕΦ.154), ΜΕΡΟΣ IV ΠΟΙΝΙΚΑ ΑΔΙΚΗΜΑΤΑ ΠΟΥ ΠΑΡΑΒΛΑΠΤΟΥΝ ΤΟ ΚΟΙΝΟ ΓΕΝΙΚΑ, Ποινικά Αδικήματα εναντίον των Ηθών
http://www.cylaw.org/nomoi/enop/non-ind/0_154/division-dd12fa068c-825c-475f-8af5-93cb97376e6e.html
[12b] www.un.org/esa/population/publications/abortion/doc/cyprus1.doc
[13] Εκτρώσεις: Τι προβλέπει η πρόταση νόμου του 2015
http://www.philenews.com/koinonia/eidiseis/article/437883/ektroseis-ti-problepei-i-protasi-nomoy-toy-2015
[14] Ιερά Αρχιεπισκοπή Κύπρου: Επιστημονικό Συνέδριο με γενικό θέμα: «Εκτρώσεις: Ιατρικές – Κοινωνικές – Νομικές – Πνευματικές διαστάσεις»
[15] Pollitt, Katha (ibid)
[16] Women’s sexual and reproductive health and rights in Europe
https://rm.coe.int/women-s-sexual-and-reproductive-health-and-rights-in-europe-issue-pape/168076dead
One Radical Planet