`Facebook`, a social internet tool, has become a space for young Turkish Cypriots a place of `defense` - at Facebook, you can create groups easily, find your old schoolmates, share photos, videos and stuff you like… But if we look closely at the groups being created by young Turkish Cypriots, it reflects a mood of `self-defense` for the Turkish Cypriot culture on the island.

There are groups in defense of the Cypriot pronounciation of Nicosia (Lefkosha) instead of the distorted pronounciation (Lefkoshe) by the people from Turkey. There are groups who write about memories from old Nicosia (even though they are young, the northern part of Nicosia is changing so fast that they can remember how it was before).  There is even a group of youngsters who `used to run behind the spraying machines of the municipality` when they were kids – at that time, the streets belonged to Cypriot kids and they could walk to school or run in the streets or even play hide and seek or ride a bike. Now, there are so many cars, so much traffic and a population change so dramatic that people don’t allow their kids to play in the street… So they miss the old Cypriot way of life when kids used to play in the streets… Now, if you go in the walled city of Nicosia, you can still see kids playing in the street but the difference is that the Cypriots have left the walled city to move out and the walled city belongs to non-Cypriots and the kids you would see playing in the street are in fact settler kids.

Some groups are multi-cultural where you can find both Turkish Cypriot and Greek Cypriot youngsters, Armenian Cypriot and Maronite Cypriot youngsters… The Cypriot youngsters have been creating groups like, `One country – one population`, `All troops out  of Cyprus`, `Cyprus belongs to Cypriots` and so on…

An interesting group has been created by one of my young friends called `Yes to shopping in the southern part of our island!` She gives directions of how to get to this or that nice restaurant, or a bowling place or writes her experience at Omodos, recommending to her friends what she likes in the south. She even went so far as to say she can take those, who want, on a tour, on Saturdays – first, shopping, then lunch, then shopping again, then afternoon coffee! This is another line of `defense` against the authorities who tried to `punish` Turkish Cypriots from shopping in the southern part of our island!

This group came under harsh attack by some fascists, threatening her so we all ran to her defense and called on our friends on Facebook to come and support this group. The membership increased rapidly and we also made news about the attacks so the fascists had to back off. But the fascists found another group to attack: Other youngsters had created a new group called `No more new citizenships` saying that the planned 50 thousand new citizenships to be given to new settlers in the northern part of the island, must be stopped immediately… So the fascists ran there to throw threats like `We will throw you out of the island!`

Another trend for `defense` is the re-discovery of Cypriot traditional food by Turkish Cypriots. All new restaurants now offer Cypriot dishes like bumbar (stuffed sausage), dolma (dolmades), mulihiya etc. They carry names with the Turkish Cypriot pronounciation of the words and this is like nostalgia, like finding our roots, the only thing that we can hold on to…

Turkish Cypriots are in a way, embracing themselves, their own culture, their own roots because they feel the pressure of change in population and the way of life on the island…