Nationalist Imaginings of War in Cyprus

During the last 40 years Cyprus has been the setting of a number of violent confrontations related to attempts at national self-determination and external interventions. This paper seeks to explore this darker sides of Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot societies by concentrating on the language, symbols and forms of their respective nationalisms, the aim being to show how violence and war are embedded in nationalist rhetoric and imagery. As Anderson points out in his seminal study on nationalism, it can inspire both love and hatred. However, Anderson's view regarding the insignificance of 'elements of hatred in expressions of national feeling' (1991, p. 142) I find contestable, as feelings of glory and love can not be separated from those of hatred and animosity, at least in the specific model of nationalism under discussion here. Moreover, as I try to show, the social mechanisms which lead to a diachronic transference and exaggeration of an ethnic group's suffering, along with a tendency to ignore or belittle another's, can lead to polarised situations where compromise or dialogue have few chances of success.

If as Anderson (1991, Ch.2) argues, the idea of the nation has replaced those of the dynastic realm and the religious community as the prime source of moral authority in the modern world, its imagery and moral prescriptions deserve close examination. In Anderson's own view notions of sacrifice and war are central to the nationalist imagination. Kapferer's study of nationalisms as diverse as those of the Sinhalese and the Australians confirms Anderson's insight of the centrality of images of war and sacrifice, to the point where it leads to 'the glorification of war' (1988, p. 135). These observations are clearly born out in the context of the primary symbols of the nation/state -- the flag, the national anthem, the parade -- that the two sides in Cyprus utilise.

As far as the flags and the anthems go, both Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots have in the recent past mostly relied on those of their respective 'motherlands' <1>. The version of the Greek flag most commonly used has nine stripes which symbolise the nine syllables of the slogan 'Freedom or Death (Eleftheria i Thanatos)'. The notion of sacrifice and blood is embedded in the design of the Turkish flag. According to the common account provided in Turkish school textbooks, it symbolizes the reflection of the crescent and a star in a pool of a dying fighter's blood. The Greek 'Hymn to Liberty' talks of Liberty springing from the 'holy bones of the Greeks', recognisable from 'the playing of that terrible keen blade'. The Turkish 'Independence March' asks Liberty not to frown upon the Turkish 'heroic race' so as to deserve the blood that was poured in its name.

On both sides, military parades mark the most significant national commemorations. Such events provide occasions for the glorification -- to the point of explicit worship -- of diverse types of arms in mass yearly public rituals. Such parades are set in a heroic atmosphere of flags, marching tunes praising the glory of the nation and the courage of its fighters, sometimes being accompanied by live commentary which provides information on the use and function of the weapons along with a stream of praise for the nation and descriptions of the period and events which the parade commemorates. That the most important national commemorations are marked by military parades in itself points to key values at the heart of nationalism. If nationalist rhetoric constantly alludes to a 'deep horizontal comradeship' (Anderson 1991, p. 7), what better way than a parade to express this, where 'the nation' marches as one, in the same step and rhythm with the same uniform and in the same direction. The 'historic atmosphere' which surrounds such occasions, either through their allusions to a specific historical event, or through the historical background provided in the lyrics of the marches or in the commentary, in conjunction with the parade, bring us once more to Anderson's view of the 'nation as a solid community moving steadily up (or down) history' (1991, p. 30).

Nationalist narratives of the past

One reason why national symbols are intimately linked with preoccupations of war and violence is to be found in the nationalist conceptions of the past. Such conceptions often present war as the very stuff from which history is made, thus coming to 'naturalise' it as one of the most significant elements of human existence, a notion with important implications for the persistence of war. This section explores some aspects of the nationalist presentation of the past in the form of narratives of national struggle. Though this is not a universal model of history it is how history is popularly conceptualised in many parts of the world, the Balkans being just one obvious example. Drawing from the two Museums of National Struggle, situated on either side of the divided capital Nicosia, as well as from the ways in which history is commonly presented in school textbooks, I try to indicate how such nationalist constructions of the past lead to undue emphasis on past armed confrontations, create dehumanised images of other ethnic groups/nations and conjure images of 'historic enemies' which lead to associated notions of revenge or retribution.

Detailed descriptions of these museums are provided elsewhere (Papadakis 1994): here I confine myself to the issues which concern us. These two museums present the past of Cyprus in radically opposed ways by subsuming the the island's history into the histories of the respective motherlands with which they either desired to unite or whose protection or help they were seeking. The Greek Cypriot museum was built in the 1960s to commemorate the 5 year long Greek Cypriot armed anti-colonial struggle against the British which despite its aim of enosis (Union with Greece) culminated in independence in 1960. The Turkish Cypriot was built in 1978 and concentrates on the interethnic violence which followed independence until the 1974 coup launched by extremist Greek Cypriots with the help of the Greek Junta, which led to the military intervention of Turkey. The division of the island followed by population transfers allowed Turkish Cypriots to set up their own state, aided by the presence of the Turkish army.

Despite their striking differences these museums draw from a common idiom (as their shared name suggests) in presenting the past as a narrative of national struggle. Narrative discourse being an account of reality governed by continuity rather than discontinuity, requires a social centre by which to locate events with respect to one another and charge these with moral significance. Thus narrativity is taken to be intimately related 'to the impulse to moralise reality, that is to identify it with the source of any morality we can imagine' (White 1990, p. 14) If , as Anderson argues, the idea of the nation is nowadays the major source of morality, it is this which features as the major actor and moral centre of these narratives. The continuity of the narrative requires the existence of an actor who appears as continuous or the same. The idea of the nation comes to assume this role and as a result it is presented as coterminous with history and in this sense 'eternal'. Then the emphasis on 'struggles', by which is meant armed struggles, as the contents of the two museums which concentrate exclusively on fights, fighters and guns suggest, presents a view of the past dominated by violent confrontations. Finally, the notion of 'struggle' presupposes the existence of enemies.

The major problem with such presentations of history is that they are not viewed as one possible way of presenting the past among others (e.g. social history, art history etc.) but provide the paradigmatic form of what is in Cyprus commonly understood by the concept of history itself. Thus, both Greek Cypriot and Turkish Cypriot school textbooks closely follow the historical form which the two museums provide. Both sides' histories are constructed by posing one's own nation as the moral centre, according to which events can be judged as tragedies or victories. While it would be more correct to name such narratives as the history of Greeks or Turks in Cyprus, they are in fact presented as histories of Cyprus. Treating the history of a geographical space or of the corresponding state(s) as equivalent to those of nations amounts to a conflation of the two concepts, the state and the nation, in a coterminous whole namely the nation/state. But by treating the nation and the state as coterminous, the presence, experience or desires of other ethnic groups within the state is effectively ignored or they appear only from the standpoint of one's own ethnic group/nation as either obstacles, internal enemies or remainders from foreign occupations. The treatment of other ethnic groups as foreign to the body of the nation/state permits, in cases of interethnic confrontations or general anomie, attempts to 'cleanse' the national body (that is the state) from such elements. During more peaceful periods this may take the 'milder' or more symbolic forms of linguistic purification movements, folklore studies which seek to establish what is authentically 'ours' and purge culture of other elements, along with the neglect or plain demolition of monuments treated as 'remains left over by foreign conquerors'.

The narrative aspect of such histories and their emphasis on struggles also give rise to perceptions of other groups as 'historic enemies' who also appear as continuous or the 'same'. If one can draw pride and joy from the nation's past accomplishments, one is similarly entitled to feelings of animosity or pain for what such 'enemies' have committed against the nation in the past. Since the concept of enemy implies some kind of contact, it is mostly specific neighbouring polities thought to have committed past injustices against one's nation state which are placed in this role whether there are current disputes or not.<2> This in itself presents the danger that any dispute could be seen as a manifestation of eternal confrontations making the process of negotiation more difficult ('how much more goodwill can we show?') or leading to an escalation by being treated as 'the last straw'. The problem is augmented if one considers the mismatch between the maps of states with those of ethnic groups, which means that neighbouring polities will commonly include minorities taken to ethnically 'belong' to the adjacent 'nation/state'. The modern history of Cyprus provides a good example of the potential for internal conflict as well as for external 'protective' or 'enabling' military interventions -- which in 1974 both Greece and Turkey felt obliged to undertake -- that can arise in such a situation. Doubtless, latent notions of 'historic claims'<3> on the island along with the idea that there is 'something wrong with the present borders between the two countries' (Millas 1991, p.30) provided internal legitimation for both these interventions.

The dates which the two ethnic groups in Cyprus chose as the 'beginnings' of what each regards as 'The History of Cyprus' reinforce the belief that the very presence of the other ethnic group on the island is somehow problematic. Greek Cypriot history begins with the settlement of the first Mycenean colonisers on the island during the 14th century BC. Portraying Cyprus as 'a Greek island from the dawn of history' gives rise to the view that Turkish Cypriots are simply 'remains from the Turkish conquest in 1573' and thus not truly part of the indigenous population. The relevant start for Turkish Cypriots is the coming of Cyprus under Ottoman rule in 1573. As the Ottoman rule lasted until 1878, Turkish Cypriots in turn argue that Cyprus has been Turkish for three quarters of its history. What the two versions of the past are in fact saying is that 'historically Cyprus has been ours'. Thus, a meaningful dialogue between the two ethnic groups is difficult to achieve, for both feel that the very presence of the other is in some way illegitimate.

If this is the past to which the prime symbols of nationalism refer, their preoccupations with war, glory and suffering is hardly surprising. Notions of heroism and liberation presuppose those of the enemy and oppression. For it is only in the fight against an enemy that heroes can emerge and only against a background of oppression that liberation can be meaningful. In this context, love of the nation implies identification with its past sufferings, respect for the heroes and their actions but also hatred for the enemies. It is this which makes Anderson's view regarding the absence of feelings of hatred in expressions of national feeling problematic. While it is true that national occasions concentrate on the glory of the struggle and the self-sacrificing love that the nation inspires, if the basis for the construction of the past is a narrative of national struggles, such occasions will inevitably give rise to associated feelings of pain and hatred against the 'enemies'.

Celebrating the victory of 'our nation' in the course of such commemorations also signifies the celebration of the defeat of the 'enemy/oppressor'. Thus, the celebration of Greek independence by Greek Cypriots was simultaneously a celebration of the defeat of the 'Turkish oppressors' and the Independence of Cyprus one of the defeat of the British and their 'Turkish Cypriot collaborators'. Similarly, the Turkish Cypriot celebration of the Independence of Turkey was directed against the 'Greeks and their Western allies' while the celebration of Turkish Cypriot independence in 1974 is presented as a victory against the Greek Cypriots.

If nationalism does resemble religion in providing answers to vital questions of values, life and death, it is the national heroes who are immortalised as saints in its Pantheons, the National Struggle Museums. Sacrificing oneself for the nation becomes the road to symbolic immortality, with the role of the hero presented as the noblest for youth to follow. If primary school classrooms are to be decorated with important personalities, more often than not it is photographs or paintings of heroes that predominate in Greek Cypriot classrooms and as far as I could tell those of the Turkish Cypriots. Educational curricula not only present the fighter/hero as a role model but also put forward the idea that 'ours is a nation of heroes' -- heroism and bravery emerging as unique national characteristics<4>. If the notion of a powerful enemy is required to establish the heroism of 'our people', this can only be due to their superior numbers or armaments -- an idea that both museums are at pains to stress by providing displays of the powerful modern guns that 'they' used next to the ones of poor quality that 'we' had to fight with.

While one's own national struggles are always presented as noble and glorious, the enemy is singularly presented as barbaric. The cover of the primary school textbook of Greek history (Aktypis et al. 1990) -- which Greek Cypriots use -- presents an evocative illustration of such themes. A group of Greek fighters holding a flag (under which the national anthem is written) and waving swords is heroically presented against the background of 'Turkish oppressors' beheading a group of Greek priests. Turkish Cypriots have devoted a whole museum, 'The Museum of Barbarism' to the actions of Greek Cypriots while the latter's National Struggle Museum similarly presents Turkish Cypriots on the side of the British as 'slaughterers' who 'commit barbaric acts'. As Millas (1991, p. 25) also notes in the context of his review of Greek and Turkish school history textbooks (which are the ones used by the two ethnic groups in Cyprus) 'superiority is only relative and requires that the other party be discredited'. He subsequently finds both sets of textbooks are equally guilty of striving to establish the 'superiority of our nation' (pp. 24-5) and of 'belittling the other' (pp. 25-7).

The most striking illustration of these notions is found -- hardly surprisingly -- in the army lessons of arithmetic, where I, for example, learnt that 'one Greek equals ten Turks (mainlanders)'. Turkish Cypriot informants spoke of having received the reverse lessons of nationalist mathematics during their military service. Significantly, Loizos (1981, p. 57) points out that it was on the basis of such calculations that the extremist-nationalist members of the EOKA B organisation, which carried out the coup leading to the Turkish military offensive, dismissed the Turkish threat. This lends credit to Stoessinger's (1985, pp. 207-8) observations on the role of misperceptions of the other's capabilities and distorted views of an adversary's character in precipitating war. Such distortions and misperceptions, however, are part of the structural logic of such nationalist constructions of the past. Thus nationalists on both sides often deride those who talk of the need for realism, negotiations and mutual compromises as 'cowards' who have not learnt the 'lessons of history which prove that our nation has always emerged victorious against insurmountable odds'.

The past as a source of post-Independence political legitimation

The impact of such nationalist narratives as elements in the socialisation of individuals in a world which places the utmost importance upon the concept of the nation -- as the misnomer 'United Nations' for example suggests -- deserve serious consideration. But the question why history is presented in a form which places an exaggerated emphasis on conflict, violence and sacrifice as a source of national pride has not yet been answered. Here, I present an explanation for this having to do with post-Independence political struggles in Cyprus, leaving it to those better acquainted with other geographical areas to evaluate its relevance elsewhere.

Accomplishments in the arts and sciences are not completely ignored but if they do feature at all in school histories, they only do so as short chapters or appendices while the bulk of the syllabus deals with political history. Surely, in Cyprus the influence from Greek and Turkish histories, which Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots took as their models, is significant. One of the generic problems with such constructions of the past is that they are mostly concerned with 'history from above' (Millas 1991, p. 29) which by focusing on the evolution of empires and states and concentrating mostly on 'wars and spectacles' and political events at the top level, ignores the grassroots. The perception of war as a supposed structural necessity has a long tradition in Western thought and is by no means confined to these societies (cf. Pick 1993). Periods of peaceful coexistence and elements of co-operation and syncretism which a social history could reveal are completely ignored (also cf. Loizos 1988, p. 642). Considering, the two Museums in the socio-political context of the periods when they were set up can reveal some of the underlying motives which guided the forms they subsequently took.

The Greek Cypriot armed anti-colonial struggle for Union with Greece led by the fighter's organisation known as EOKA ended in 1960 with Independence being granted to the island as a bi-communal republic. Left wing Greek Cypriots of AKEL, the Communist Party, who initially expressed reservations against both the form and timing of the struggle were eventually excluded and became subject to considerable violence from EOKA (Purcell 1969, pp. 270-1). The employment by the British of Turkish Cypriots as auxiliary policemen also led to considerable interethnic violence between Greek Cypriots and Turkish Cypriots who were opposed to the former's plans for Union with Greece (Pollis 1979). Turkish Cypriots thus began to voice their own demands, initially for the return of Cyprus to Turkey and later for the Partition of the island. Independence found the two ethnic groups with bitter memories of the previous interethnic conflict having to cooperate while each was more keen to pursue its own goals.

The decision to set up the Greek Cypriot Museum of National Struggle was taken in 1961. Greek Cypriots were still keen on Union and this is reflected in the historical narrative of the Greek Cypriot Museum which presented independence as unjust and the struggle as not yet finished. After Independence it was mostly the ex-EOKA fighters who came to monopolise positions of power in the Greek Cypriot administration (Markides 1977, p. 69; Attalides 1979, p. 55; Loizos 1974, p. 122 ), though by the early 1970s this was not necessarily the case. Their claims to positions of power were mainly challenged from two sources: members of the educated elite who had not necessarily fought but had the best educational qualifications for governmental positions (Loizos ibid., pp. 123-4) and the communist party AKEL. AKEL throughout the pre-1974 period had not received any high posts in government (Markides 1977, p. 44). Its stance on the issue of Union was ambivalent. It traditionally had the best links and relations with Turkish Cypriots and more than any other political force followed a policy of reconciliation with Turkish Cypriots (Markides 1977, p. 62).

The form and content of the National Struggle Museum can thus be seen as an attempt to consolidate political authority and silence alternative voices in the context of internal Greek Cypriot politics. By glorifying the struggle and the fighters (whether dead or alive), by ignoring intraethnic killings and presenting the struggle as pure and heroic, it provided a reply to those who challenged the claims of ex-fighters to positions of political authority. Portraying the enemies as powerful and brutal served to underline both the contribution of the fighters in liberating the people and the extent of their efforts and sufferings. The implicit argument was that since it was they who bore the costs and who were responsible for bringing liberation, they were the ones who deserved to be in control of the new state. The communists who had not participated in the armed struggle should have no claim to power in the newly-born republic. Moreover, abandoning the ideal of Union would amount to an absolute betrayal of all those who died in its pursuit and seeking the co-operation of the Turkish Cypriots could, in this light, be regarded as an equally treacherous act of co-operation with the enemy.

Neither these comments, nor the following ones concerning the Turkish Cypriot Museum, imply that atrocities were not committed, oppression did not exist or belittle the idealism of many of those who took part in such struggles, in which the over representation of youth is easily established simply by looking at the photographs of the dead in the two museums<5>. Rather, what concerns me here is to indicate the political and economic uses to which these struggles were subsequently put as well as to explain the forces which influenced the forms that both museums and the dominant historiographical models took.

The Turkish Cypriot Museum was constructed in 1978 in commemoration of the Turkish Cypriot struggle. It stresses the events of interethnic violence from 1963 to 1967 and concentrates on the suffering of Turkish Cypriots at the hands of Greek Cypriots and the resistance struggle of the fighters of TMT, the Turkish Cypriot equivalent of EOKA, with photographs of those who died prominently displayed. The 1974 'Happy Peace Operation', as the Turkish offensive is called, is presented as having delivered them from the Greek Cypriot yoke and allowed them to set up their own state. In contrast to the Greek Cypriot Museum whose narrative did not attain closure as it implied that the struggle should continue, the Turkish Cypriot narrative distinctly finishes with 1974 standing for the final act in any self-determination struggle, independence itself.

A number of the points previously discussed regarding the relation of the form and content of the Greek Cypriot Museum to the internal political contests of the period of its construction apply also to its Turkish Cypriot equivalent. Admittedly, my evidence regarding the links of the post-1974 Turkish Cypriot leadership with ex-fighters is less sound than that for Greek Cypriots due to the brevity of my research with Turkish Cypriots and lack of alternative sources. However, the links of the UBP, the party which emerged as the major political force among Turkish Cypriots and which virtually monopolised the leadership, with ex-TMT fighters were noted both by its opponents and its followers (also cf. Coufoudakis 1983, p. 119) .

Ex-fighters' claims to economic and political resources, I should point out, have been a consistent pattern of post-1960 politics in Cyprus where EOKA and TMT fighters clubs which have acted as foci for the presentation of such demands still proliferate. Apart from legitimating the post 1974 leadership, the museum's narrative serves as a means of silencing alternative voices among the Turkish Cypriots, notably by the left which is more in favour of reaching a federal settlement (Soysal 1992, p. 42-3) by presenting this as a betrayal of the sacrifices of those who fought for Turkish Cypriot independence. To those who oppose the claims by the Turkish Cypriot left that Turkish Cypriots and Greek Cypriots can coexist, this narrative readily presents the argument that history 'proves' that Greek and Turkish Cypriots cannot coexist, because the past is solely one of conflict. It also lends the left to accusations that it seeks to once more throw the Turkish Cypriots into the arms of the barbaric Greek Cypriots.

Both the Greek Cypriot and the Turkish Cypriot left have tried to put forth an alternative vision of history which stresses -- and sometimes romanticises -- peaceful struggles (such as common strikes) and co-operation at the grassroots. These ideas dominate the parties' and their followers' political discourse. That these positions come closer to what could be regarded as 'social history' rather than 'nationalist history' is not accidental. Nor are they apolitical as, within the context of both sides' domestic politics, they attempt to stress the positive aspects of their own contributions which they feel are excluded by the dominant paradigms of history. Since co-operation at the grassroots in an institutionalised setting mostly took place through institutions of the left such as trade unions, and since the left of both ethnic groups came under attack from the nationalists, these institutions came to reinforce feelings of mutual solidarity and of opposition against the nationalists of both sides. Still, their attempt at revising history present an effort to claim a space for the representation of a grassroots experience completely denied by the dominant visions of the past, an experience which academic works both by insiders (e.g. Kitromilides 1988) and outsiders (Sant Cassia 1986) are increasingly highlighting.

One outcome of constructions of a state's past as a narrative of national struggle, which take place from the perspective of one ethnic group, is that memories of pain in the hands of past oppressors are diachronicaly transferred to younger generations even if they refer to events which took place hundreds of years ago. At the same time the sufferings or experiences of other ethnic groups are ignored. The subsequent impression is one where 'it is only we who suffered', a notion which gives rise to notions of 'historic wrongs' and to latent feelings of revenge. This places any current conflict in a series of sometimes seemingly 'eternal confrontations' and leads to an accounting of pain such that each side may feel that its 'historical sufferings' justify a position of extreme 'self-righteousness'. This can make any process of negotiation extremely difficult to succeed.

This mutual feeling of 'self-righteousness' was one of the most striking features I encountered during my research with the two ethnic groups in Cyprus, where I was able to observe how even events within living memory are given radically different significance. The 1974 division of the island and the Greek Cypriot desire to reunite it has led to a revision of the history presented in the Greek Cypriot Museum. Greek Cypriot official rhetoric now stresses a past of 'peaceful coexistence with Turkish Cypriots' so as to justify a vision of a united Cyprus and to counter Turkish Cypriot claims that the past proves that the two ethnic groups can not live together.

This has led to a silence with regards to the events of interethnic conflict during 1963-7. Since younger people are hardly aware of them, they are passing into the realm of social amnesia. By contrast, the Turkish Cypriot leadership by and large talks only of these events and the Turkish Cypriot textbook of the history of Cyprus (Serter 1990) is little more than a list of who Greek Cypriots killed during this period and how. The scale that these have assumed in the social memory of each ethnic group is readily apparent by the terms commonly used to describe them: Greek Cypriots, if they do talk about them, will dismiss them as mere 'incidents (episodhia)' while Turkish Cypriots often refer to them as 'war (savash)' and associate them with a period of fear, fighting, deprivation and involuntary dislocations. Public commemorations which inform social memory (Connerton 1989) on the Turkish Cypriot side place significant weight on these events while Greek Cypriot social memory focuses on the catastrophic consequences of the 1974 division of the island brought about by the coup and the 'barbaric Turkish invasion' as the Turkish offensive has come to be called (Papadakis 1993). But for Turkish Cypriots this is the '1974 Peace Operation' which delivered them from Greek Cypriot oppression and during my fieldwork they showed little understanding of the impact of this on Greek Cypriots, as the term itself implies. Yet, even the Turks and Turkish Cypriots revert to the use of war symbolism where the aim is to glorify these events in commemorative documentaries. Similarly, the 'Peace Operation' turns into 'War for Peace' in the title and imagery of background images of memmentos into which the photograph of Turkish soldiers who fought in Cyprus or who are serving there are inserted.

Moreover, while on the Greek Cypriot side mention of the 1963-7 period is avoided or treated as treacherous, the same applies to talk of coexistence with Greek Cypriots on the Turkish Cypriot side. While it is true that memories of pain and oppression may be exaggerated -- or selectively presented -- for various reasons previously discussed, denying the other group's sufferings as mere propaganda only reinforces feelings of 'self-righteousness' and hinders the emergence of a mutual understanding which could lead to a successful resolution of the conflict.

This chapter does not presume to present a complete explanation for the war and armed confrontations in Cyprus. It has rather tried to indicate some of the factors which present violence as a legitimate manner of solving disputes, augment the scale of violent confrontations, or perpetuate them, as well as those factors which hinder possibilities for solving conflicts before they reach the stage of armed confrontations. For such processes to be successful an understanding of each other's experience, sufferings and fears is required and this chapter has been concerned with identifying some of the obstacles in reaching this.

The role of such portrayals of the past in contributing to the eruption, escalation or perpetuation of armed conflict by presenting war as the motor of history and as the most significant source of national values with associated ideas of 'historic enemies and debts', might thus deserve serious attention in contexts beyond Cyprus, as the multiple sources of ethno-nationalist conflict nowadays remind us. If, as Hobsbawm (1992) argues, in times of social disorientation ethno-nationalism becomes a potent force, then such views of the past which he calls 'retrospective mythologies' (p. 3) have an ominous potential.