Over the past half century, Cyprus has experienced several waves of displacement that have uprooted villages, severed ties of people and land, and remade the social geography of the island. For the more than 215,000 Cypriots who have been displaced, the flight from their homes and resettlement elsewhere is both a lasting personal trauma and, for many, a political cause. For some, there is a desire for return; for others, there is an insistence on remaining where they are and a refusal to be displaced again. These desires are reflected in media and political rhetoric and shape the ways that many Cypriot displaced persons perceive not only the political future but even their own experiences of loss and uprooting. Moreover, the division of the island led to almost four decades in which Cypriots on each side of the Green Line emphasized their own suffering and loss while unable to see what those in the other community had experienced.