Live

The Illusion of Peace 

We grew up thinking peace was a given. We were brought up in a Europe where war was treated like history – something you saw in old photos, remembered on special days, or read about in books. We thought the conflict was over. 

But we’ve actually come into adulthood with wars all around us. Ukraine, Gaza, Syria, Yemen, Sudan, the Caucasus – these places are all different, with different reasons and different sizes of conflict, but the same thing is happening: violence doesn’t vanish. It just moves somewhere else, changes its name, or becomes less obvious. War didn’t come back; it was just always there, lurking. 

What’s even weirder than the wars themselves, though, is how everyone reacts to them. Because not all invasions get the same attention. Not all takeovers are seen as equally bad by the world. And not all pain is remembered. Some invasions make the news. Others just fade into the background. 

Cyprus: The Conflict People Stopped Talking About 

Cyprus is one of those things people don’t talk about much. Back in 1974, the island got invaded and split in two. Now, almost fifty years later, it’s still the only country in the European Union that has some of its land occupied by foreign troops. This isn’t just some distant political issue. It’s about where things are, how things are permanently, and how people live every single day. 

The northern bit of Cyprus has been cut off ever since Turkish forces took over about 36–37% of the island. A UN buffer zone still divides the country – it’s not a temporary fix, but more like a border that’s just always been there.

And still, outside of Cyprus, this situation isn’t really discussed with any real concern. It’s turned into a “frozen conflict,” something mentioned in passing by diplomats, an issue that exists but doesn’t really grab the world’s attention. The occupation never really ended; people just got used to it being there. 

Displacement: Losing a Home Without Leaving Your Country 

When a country is invaded, the most human fallout is often people being forced to leave their homes. In Cyprus, back in 1974, about 160,000 Greek Cypriots had to pack up and go. 

They had to leave their houses, their streets, their schools, their churches, and their family land. These places weren’t destroyed, they just became off-limits. It’s a kind of loss that doesn’t always show up in pictures but stays with families for ages. 

Think about losing your home not because it’s gone, but because you just can’t get to it. Imagine knowing your front door is still there, but you can’t open it. And then, just imagine everyone else keeps going about their lives. 

That’s what sets Cyprus apart from many conflicts we hear about: it’s not just about what happened, but about how it was never really sorted out.

Ukraine and the Politics of Attention 

The way the world pays attention to things is a big deal. Ukraine became a symbol for the whole world almost overnight. The invasion was shown as it happened, live. It changed how Europe stayed safe, was all over the news, led to sanctions, brought countries together, and became a major event of the past ten years. 

Cyprus, on the other hand, ended up being something different: a conflict that just faded into the background. Both situations involved a country being invaded, people being displaced, and issues with international law and who has control over the land. But one became a huge crisis, while the other just became a long period of quiet. 

This isn’t to say Ukraine isn’t suffering. It’s about facing a hard reality: the world doesn’t react to unfairness in the same way. How much attention something gets affects how urgent it seems. And global politics influences what we remember. Some invasions are treated like urgent crises. Others are just accepted as the way things are. 

What Gen Z Inherits 

For Gen Z, this isn’t just ancient history. It’s the world we’re born into, a place where borders can still be changed by fighting, people are constantly being uprooted, and our focus is all over the place. We’re living through a time when war feels both right here and super far away – you can watch it live in one spot and then completely forget about it in another. 

Cyprus shows us that after an invasion, things don’t always get sorted out. Sometimes, they just become the new normal. It’s not just the violence that’s scary. What’s really dangerous is when we forget. 

When an occupation just becomes background noise, it’s easier to just go along with it. And when the rest of the world accepts it, the people actually living through it are left to deal with the weight of history all by themselves. 

Cyprus isn’t just something that happened in the past. It’s still happening now – a European occupation that never ended, people displaced who never really recovered, and a split that everyone else got used to, except for those living it. 

Some invasions become famous worldwide. Others just get stuck in limbo. But for the families who lost their homes, for the island that’s still split, and for a generation that grew up thinking peace was a given, Cyprus isn’t stuck. It’s still an open wound. 

And maybe the biggest question isn’t why wars start. It’s why we remember some of them, and let others just disappear. 

Written by

Shape the conversation

Do you have anything to add to this story? Any ideas for interviews or angles we should explore? Let us know if you’d like to write a follow-up, a counterpoint, or share a similar story.

Write a counterargument article Write a related article