Colonial conquests and the politics of normalization: The case of the Golan Heights and Northern Cyprus

Abstract

a b s t r a c tThe space of exception has been extensively discussed as a location in which governing technologies are deployed through the suspension and manipulation of the norm. The scholarship on the subject has underscored the ways in which various localities can be encamped, which alludes to the dynamic in which spaces of exception can be shaped through the application of various means of sovereign violence that produces new and unpredictable norms. Building on this literature, the article analyzes the ways in which the exception is intentionally used in order to spatially construct the norm. Two case studies are discussed: Israel's occupation of the Golan Heights and the Turkish occupation of Northern Cyprus. The article's main aim is to show how the state of emergency, which provided the justification for deploying exceptional meansdoccupation and subsequent colonizationdwas domesticated. By domestication I mean a situation whereby the state of emergency is not fully negated, but rather rearticulated and redeployed in order to reshape the space and transform it so that it is concomitantly both threatening and normal. I go on to show, however, how despite the processes of spatial normalization the state of exception always resurfaces.This article examines how occupying forces deploy exceptional means to reconstruct contested territories so as to normalize and in thus way fortify their presence. Analyzing two case studiesdthe Israeli occupation of the Golan Heights and the Turkish occupation of Northern CyprusdI show that the objective of the normalization process has in each case been different. Israel normalized its presence in the Golan in order to incorporate this region into its own territory, while Turkey has been normalizing its presence in Northern Cyprus in order to craft it as Turkish without fully integrating it into its own body politic. However, and despite these differences, a similar rationale has in both cases led the core statesdIsrael and Turkeydto employ a twofold normalization strategy during the conquest and subsequent occupation.On the one hand, the core states accentuated the geostrategic risks (real or constructed) embodied in the territories captured and presented them as constituting a threat that could be dealt with only through the imposition of a state of emergency and the deployment of exceptional means (e.g., ethnic cleansing, widespread destruction). On the other hand, and simultaneously, the core states strove to transform these contested spaces and reproduce them as normal in order to render them non-threatening.In other words, the core states present the spaces they had occupied as both an exception (a threat that needs to be controlled and managed) and simultaneously as normal. Examining how the strategies employed by the occupying states are informed by this tension, I show that the incongruity cannot be fully managed. The fact that these territories are colonized and are therefore constituted as spaces of exception is ultimately re-exposed.Following a brief literature r...

The Black Suits of Mayday: The Turkish Cypriot Opposition in a Period of Siege

“…They may also be the result of a longstanding border conflict or of an armed conflict. They can occur as a new settlement, enclave, or secluded city (Ram, 2015). What characterizes the exception is that it is excluded from any relation with the rule.…”

“…This dynamic relationship reveals that a state of exception can emerge as a practical expression of a particular ideological program and be promoted by the dominant force as an ideal space, a space for realizing their visions and goals (Ram, 2015). Rauf Denktaş himself, expressing in a "disguised manner" the ideology of the state of emergency, wrote in his memoirs: I am terrified that there are Turkish Cypriots who recognize the government of Makarios and this number increases every day.... Our slogan as community should be the denial and the questioning of the government of Makarios.…”

Ethnic cleansing and the formation of settler colonial geographies

“…It is, accordingly, not altogether surprising that when Israel occupied the Golan Heights (or the Syrian plateau, as it was referred to in Israel at the time), it dramatically reduced the indigenous population (Harris, 1978;Ram, 2013;2015).…”

“…In the Golan Heights, the layout of the settlements was initially determined by economic considerations (Harris, 1980;Efrat, 2012;Kipnis, 2013). Kibbutzim were erected mainly in the north and moshavim in the south where the terrain was more conducive to agriculture (Ram, 2015). Only at a later stage were a number of settlements established in the region's centre and close to the border where agriculture was limited due to the topography.…”

“…While our case study has its unique traits (like all case studies do), it reflects two different prototypes of settler colonial structures, which we have characterized as refined and intermediate. In the refined form of settler colonialism, the contradictions and excesses are less apparent since the indigenous population was completely or almost completely cleansed and the landscape was reproduced through comprehensive destruction of indigenous spaces (for an example of the inability to completely erase the materiality of the indigenous past see Tyner, Alvarez & Colucci, 2012; for a specific discussion regarding the Golan Heights see Ram, 2015).…”