Non-Governmental Organizations as a Place for Cultural Rituals: Cyprus Turkish French Cultural Association

Abstract

This study reveals the strength non-governmental organizations as a place for recalling cultural memory and cultural rituals. In this study, the theories about the tightness of cultural memory to its cultural environment, and the non-governmental organizations through the cross-border travel and the possibility of blending with the existing cultural symbols are described. The Turkish Cypriot French Cultural Association, which has been active in Northern Cyprus for 34 years, has been presented with a historical view, but the symbolic cultural rituals of the living legacies of French culture have been addressed through civil society organizations. While the subjects of cultural memory and collective memory are often referred to politics, non-governmental organizations with contributions to culture are often ignored. In the light of these conceptual debates a wide range of cultural memory and symbolic cultural rituals have been discussed. As a concrete assessment of all these information and discussions, the Turkish Cypriot French Cultural Association's French symbolic cultural rituals are the main objective of the study. In this context, the analysis of French cultural symbolic rituals in Northern Cyprus has been demonstrated by using visual text analysis technique and content-analysis technique. As the information and documents are obtained, the Turkish Cypriot French Cultural Association as a well-established non-governmental organization in Northern Cyprus has demonstrated its importance as a cultural memory venue.