Diatribe

I want to introduce you to my friend Liako, a member of our community who is proudly of Maniot descent, and with whom all of Melbourne is currently well pleased. Twenty years ago, when I first met him at his parents’ house, I was immediately struck by his penetrating eyes, the simplicity of his demeanour and his acerbic sense of humour, which divest you of any pretentions to egotism you may harbor, even unwittingly. Over the years, we have argued passionately about almost everything, especially Greek politics and history, for in Liako’s world view, everything that needs to be done is settled and crystal clear, whereas for me, everything is nebulous, uncertain and untested. He exudes confidence where I exude doubt, conviction, in the face of my indecision. Liako articulates his views with firmness, unyielding, but always listening, appreciating, but never retreating from his deeply held convictions. Fiercely independent, devoted to his ideals and his family, it is his solidity and stoicism that mark him as true friend, one who with whom you can have an intellectually brutal argument over abstruse points of Byzantine history one minute in the small hours of the morning, and the next rely on him for absolutely anything, brushing previously spoken angry words aside, for this a person both of thought and action, a true elemental in the Olympian sense, who can melt the sum of human expression in the crucible of experience, reducing his relationship with people to their fundamentals.

I am unsurprised therefore that Liako, (known to the populace at large and lionised in the media as Lou Bougias), acted the way he did during the horrifying Bourke Street massacre, stopping his taxi and calmly and confidently attending to victims and those traumatised by what they had seen. For those that know him this is no aberration in behaviour: he acts in this way every single day of his life, for he is deeply imbued with a sense of decency and love of humanity that is expressed subtly and with deep humility. Consequently, to have had Liako not assist victims in the kind, and sensitive way he did, would have been perverse. When I spoke to him in the aftermath of the massacre, he was unchanged, curt and considered, though somewhat perturbed by all the publicity he has received and puzzled at the way people have made so much of what he deems to be a simple, logical and natural reaction to the circumstances he found himself with any in which he acquitted himself with such nobility . In an age of disquiet, when there are fears that community aggression and dysfunction are increasingly eroding our social fabric, unassuming but extra-ordinary Liako truly is an urban hero, a righteous role model and I am both proud and glad to call him a friend.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 4 February 2017

The above, positioned above a photograph of John Laws holding a bottle of Valvoline motor oil is the caption from one of the countless memes with which I inundated social media in the lead up to the extra-ordinary general meeting of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria in order to obtain member approval for the sale of part of its holdings in Bulleen. My favourite meme however, is one I posted of Greek Prime Minister Alexis Tsipras, grinning devilishly while saying: “A referendum for Bulleen? Even if you vote No, the result will still be Yes.”

The aforementioned meme proved to be not far off the mark. Despite strident opposition, primarily expressed via some sections of community radio, a whopping 92% of members present and entitled to vote, voted in favour of the GOCMV board’s proposal for the sale. As I stood in the immensely Andrianakos Centre, itself a product of the Board’s strategic engagement with previously unharnessed sections of the community, watching the crowds mill and discuss the proposal enthusiastically, I was taken aback by the frisson of excitement that pervaded the space. Here there was none of the fractious, acrimonious and combative atmosphere that generally characterizes the gatherings and deliberations of organized Greek communities in Melbourne. There was no breaking off into smaller groups, the famous «πηγαδάκια,» there to indulge in skullduggery and number crunching. No recalling of past favours, or marshalling of apparatchiks seemed to be conducted. Where there were once scowls, smiles abounded and an almost palpable buzz of optimism and goodwill was omnipresent.

Everyone I spoke with had a different interpretation of what they were voting for. Some thought they were voting for the construction of a tower, others, for the construction of an old people’s home with adjoining shops and one particular elderly gentleman labored under the opinion that he was voting for the construction of a more genteel counterpart to Oakleigh’s Eaton Mall. We are, after all, talking about Bulleen. When it was explained to them that the resolution they were called upon to vote for was for the subdivision and sale of part of the Bulleen property, this did not perturb them in the slightest, where only a few years ago, questions of: “And what will they do with the money? Why should we sell now?”would have left the proposal dead in its tracks. Indeed, so firm in their convictions were the attendees of the meeting, that they kept coming in droves, long after the meeting had started. Most were not interested in hearing the arguments for and against. Instead, they were there, as most of them put it, to vote for progress and change. As one voter put it: «Να κάνουμε κάτι επιτέλους.» For them, the GOCMV’s vision for Bulleen represents that change.

The fact that the Greek community can go from nitpicking profit and loss statements in order to trip up Boards about the unaccounted five dollars spent on postage stamps to placing their trust in a Board’s vision for a multi-million dollar development represents an important cultural and sociological shift in the way our community conducts is affairs, and I would venture to say, is of historical importance. Furthermore, the presence of leaders of diverse smaller community groups in the Andrianakos Centre last Sunday, all of whom felt that they had a vital stake in the deliberations of the GOCMV and were more than ready and willing to assist, where only a few years ago, they were excluded and had no hope of even getting close to the GOCMV, also represents a historic shift in the dynamics of our community: From a fragmented, dysfunctional mosaic, we can see disparate forces, while retaining still their own sense of identity, gradually coalescing around the central pole of the GOCMV. What is more, rather than being dragged, kicking and screaming, jealously guarding illusory privileges to the tombstone, they seem to be wishing to offer themselves to the GOCMV voluntarily and, with rapture.

The sale of the Orestias brotherhood’s club building and its subsequent donation of one million dollars of the proceeds to the GOCMV must be viewed in this light. Such a donation would have been inconceivable a decade ago and yet there they were, the committee members of the Orestias brotherhood, standing before the members at the extra-ordinary general meeting, received the acclamation that is their due. Soon after, the members, some of whom I know to be the most querulous, minutiae-delighting, community leaders ever to disrupt an election or undermine a committee, streamed to the ballot boxes also to give of themselves willingly to the GOCMV, in a docile and friendly fashion. I found myself scratching my head in incredulity. Looking up at the Board, seated at the stage above, I found myself asking: “Who are these people and what have you done with the real Greeks of Melbourne?”

The answer is simple. The GOCMV Board has presided over one of the most progressive, dynamic and productive eras in that institution’s history. By embarking on necessary infrastructure projects and successfully completing them, they have managed to galvanise a hitherto apathetic and disengaged community. By boldly and actively engaging with Greeks of all regions, political persuasions and religious affiliations, the GOCMV has transformed itself, in the space of a few years, from an insular, exclusive, ideological ghetto, into that which its founding fathers dreamed it should be: the all-embracing, inclusive, peak representative body of Greeks in Victoria. Any chance visit to the Greek Centre on any given day, but especially on Saturday, when its floors are bursting with children learning the Greek language in brilliantly appointed classrooms, or on a Thursday night, when all and sundry can attend lectures on Greek culture and history, speaks volumes about the historical revitalization of our community under the current Board of the GOCMV.

The Bulleen vote was thus more than just about Bulleen and its future. It was a ringing endorsement of the direction the GOCMV has taken under this Board and most importantly, given that the plan to redevelop Bulleen is subject to numerous conditions and circumstances falling into place, that rare thing for a Melburnian-Greek: a declaration of trust, that this Board, which has taken upon itself the task of re-imagining our future as Greek Australians and is proceeding to lay the necessary foundation to secure that future, will deliver on its promises and most importantly, has the capacity, to make a collective dream, a functional reality. The magnitude of that trust (92% of the vote), marks a historical turning point in the affairs of our community.

As does the way its leadership is perceived. The almost rapturous manner in which GOCMV president Bill Papastergiadis was received by the majority of members at the general meeting, the way in which large numbers confided in me on the day that they were “voting for Bill,” or that they “came here for Bill,” or that «οΜπίλληςξέρειτικάνει,» suggests that we may be witnessing the emergence of a charismatic leader in Hellenic Melbourne, a historic aberration for a people that both laments the absence of ηγέτεςand proceeds to defenestrate anyone displaying leadership pretensions, refusing to acknowledge their legitimacy. In the case of president Bill Papastergiadis, there appears to be a tacit, taken for granted acceptance among members that he is their leader, that his words carry weight, that his vision is true and that he is the appropriate person to represent us within the broader Australian social fabric and beyond. That, in and of itself, is truly remarkable.

From a sociological, cultural and even psychological point of view, the Bulleen vote, which by means of future hindsight will most probably be viewed as Chapter 2 in the process of our community’s redevelopment and reorganization, is thus of immense historical importance. Just how far that vision can be carried forward, depends, largely, upon our ability to maintain the unprecedented level of communal cohesion the GOCMV has been able to achieve, and ultimately, upon all of us.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 11 February 2017

I knew what a τσιμπούκι was from a very early age. After all, one of them took pride of place in my grand-aunt’s living room. Its cylindrical shaft was incredibly long, approximately two metres in length and it was covered in intricately fashioned patterns of translucent mother of pearl swirls juxtaposed against geometric designs. For reasons best known unto itself, it was green in hue and at its base there were two large circular protruberances, upon which the entire contraption rested. I was fascinated by it but apparently, it was very old and very fragile, so, I was forbidden to touch it. Instead, I would experience it vicariously through the viewing of the multitude lithographs of the τσιμπούκι-obsessed Ali Pasha in Greek history books, for that Albanian potentate seems to have done little else than put his mouth around one, thus, Ali Pasha reclining on pillows in a longboat smoking a tsimbouki on Lake Lapsista, Ali Pasha reclining on pillows in a longboat smoking a tsimbouki on Lake Pamvotis, Ali Pasha reclining on pillows in his harem in Ioannina, smoking a tsimbouki….you get the general idea, though I suspect that one of these lithographs bearing a tsimbouki weilding Ali Pasha, placed next ot a photograph of Ali Pasha’s bloody decapitated body as portrayed at the Vrellis waxworks in Ioannina, would serve as a grand Ottoman health warning against smoking.
The revelation that the term “tsimbouki” had connontations other than a long, Ottoman smoking pipe, came to me at my first attendance at an Australian soccer match, back in the days when soccer was ethnic and reflected the dreams and aspirations of disaffected, hen-pecked migrants across all social and racial sub-strata. At some key stage in the game, a group of mullet-headed youths began to chant: «Πω, πω, πω, τι τσιμπούκι είν’ αυτό.» As they did so, their eyes gleamed with unworldy glee and they clutched at their crotches in ecstasy. I remember asking one of them whether tsimbouki was in fact, some type of migrant patois for “goal,” and my interlocutor rolled up the sleeves of his flanelette checked shirt tightly over his biceps, thrust his face uncomfortably close to mine and shouted: “It’s a τσιμπούκι ρεεεεεεεε,” before rushing off in search of a light with which to light some flares, for he had come unprepared and was completely disorganised. On the way home, my attempts to vocalise my joy at being exposed to such exhilliarating surrounds and linguistic polyvalencies, through the chanting of «Πω, πω, πω, τι τσιμπούκι είν’ αυτό,» were met by my father unceremoniously, with a backhander. I surmised that my father was secretly, an Alexandros fan after all, this being how we used to refer to a team that now identifies itself as Heidelberg United.
Somehow, after a certain age, the word tsimbouki seemed to have widespread intellegibility among the students of my school, Greek or otherwise, along with other expletives such as pousti and malaka, which in our corner of Essendon, were ingeniously conflated by the Aussie kids into the compound poustamalaka, a kind of taramasalata portmanteau that makes sense when one thinks about it. Going to school and being told that one’s mum is a poustamalaka is a heart-warming experience that shows just how multicultural the melting pot of vital fluids actually is. Incidentally, up until the ninenties, when people returning from holidays in Greece began to ape the mannerisms of the ultramarine Hellenes, malakas was an offesnsive term. Now, not only is it a term of endearment, it is a compulsory linguistic addition to the beginning of each and every sentence, if one is to establish genuine Neohellenic credentials. As one recently arrived Neohellenic friend observed not so long ago:
«Βρε μαλάκα, εσείς οι Αυστραλοέλληνες είστε κρύοι και λιγομίλητοι.»
“Yes,” I agreed. “That is because we tend to move our hands a lot less when we talk.”

It would have been at this point that some of the more nationalistic Greek students in the school, decided to assert their ethnicity by means of scatology. I remember one notable soccer training afternoon, whereby, having once more successfully utilised my powers of advocacy in order to excuse myself, I hung around long enough to hear some of the Hellenic soccer stars of the future (for every Greek Australian boy that undergoes soccer training is a potential star player for Real Madrd in his parents’ eyes), ask our beleaguered Chinese language teacher cum soccer trainer:
“Sir, do you know Jim Boukis?”
“Who?”
“Jim Boukis, sir. Do you know him?”
“Didn’t he train about two years ago?”
“Ha, ha sir, I knew you would know Jim Boukis. You look like just the kind of guy who would.”
“What is he doing these days?”
Spasms of laughter ensued and this ritual was played out upon soccer trainer upon soccer trainer with the questions varying from:
“Hey Sir, do you know Mal? Mal Akas,” to do you know: “Michael O’ Tripper, Sue Benny,” or when imagination exhausted itself “Sue Vgeni,” until the time when one of the main protagonists, a boy who modelled his speech directly upon Jim Stephanidis of Acropolis Now fame asked a new blonde, haired blue eyed, Anglo-looking trainer:
“Hey sir, do you know Travis?”
“Travis? Travis who?”
“Travis Boutsas, do you know him?”
«Τον ξέρω. Θέλεις να ρωτήσω την μάνα σου πώς τον ξέρεις κι εσύ; Τράβα τώρα,» came the snarling response. We stood around speechless, for the common consensus was that Travis Boutsas was the schoolboy pièce de résistance of Grecoscatology, a work of the highest expletive genius, now deflated and rendered redundant until the next season by someone who knew exacly what we were up to. This trainer was not only Greek, he was pure evil. He pushed us hard, refusing to accept my impassioned references to the Magna Carta as pretexts for my non-participation in training and though I did not ever learn to kick a ball straight at the end of his tenure, I fantisized about kicking his own, countless times. What is worse, he adopted the use of the term Travis Boutsas as a collective noun to describe all of us.
It is for this reason, that when I graduated and obtained my first job, being mentored by a particularly sadistic Greek lawyer, that I raised my eyebrows quizically when he asked:
“Can you come here?”
“Yes?”
“Do you know Tom Poustie?”
“Seriously? You’re going to go down this path now?”
“Answer the question. Do you know Tom Poustie?”
“No. Do you?”
“Yes, as a matter of fact I do. You want to see?”
Quick as a flash, he flipped his computer screen around to face me. There in front of me, an email from a colleague, who, and my chief tormentor had taken the trouble to look up his profile, was truly labouring under the applelation of: Tom Poustie. I glanced at the email and the look of sheer demonic delight on my torturer’s features. Shrugging my shoulders, I remarked:
“Βρε Tom Poustie,” as the rafters shook with my persecutor’s manical laughter.
Tsim Booky, the enigmatic taxi driver who appeared recently on the Commercial Networks, with that name, to comment upon the taxi driver’s protest against government policies must be viewed in the light of hallowed Australo-hellenic scatological tradition. The fact that he can convincingly pass himself off as an act of fellatio (which may or may not be symbolic of what he may believe to be the not-so-genuine efforts of the government to mollify his brethren and which could more likely be likensn to irrumatio instead), in multicultural Australia, proves that this man must be given his own television show or youtube channel, whereupon, tsimbouki in hand, he can comment upon the issues of the day. In this, and our continued delight in asserting our identity through smut and converting it into social protest, we ought to be immensely joyful.

DEAN KALIMNIOU.

“The theme of our encounter escapes me –

I thought I was your envoy to the gods.”

I have a theory that in poet Tina Giannoukos’ latest collection “Bull Days,” nominated for the Premier’s Award, the poet is a modern twist on the Ifigeneia, spirited away to Tauris (hence the bull). Unlike the young, innocent Ifigeneia of myth, the poet who inhabits the Bull Days is neither unwitting, sacrificial, or a conduit to the gods. Instead, with the modern prophetess, nothing is certain and all is ambiguous. She is weary, in pain, disillusioned, violently passionate, yet dictatorial, egotistical and aggressive (“This is cowardice, not tenderness. This is unhelpful. You know I can gore you…” she says in poem XIV). At the same time, she is multi-voiced, restrained in expression and immensely dignified. Furthermore, unlike the archetypal Iphigeneia, the poet, despite her travail, real or imagined, appears to have no need of rescuing, as she tells us in no uncertain terms: “What if I were to tell you that we arrived too late for all that might be?” A prophetess who defies her own prophecies then? Or possibly self-defeats them, in order to merge once more with the original Iphigenic prototype: “I’m back where I vowed I’d not return, decision once made unmade as if time unfurled…”

On a second reading, I become convinced that the Bull Days is a parallel narrative to Solomon’s Song of Songs, itself considered an allegory of the love of God and his Church, through the voices of two lovers, who praise each other, yearn, or each other, proffering invitations to enjoy. Bull Days seems to be the inverse, and it is perhaps not coincidental that Psalm 52 reads: “Then you will delight in the sacrifices of the righteous, in burnt offerings offered whole; then bulls will be offered on your altar.” The priestess of Bull Days, on the other hand, informs us that: “The gods are cruel. They have an ill humour.” In her Song of Songs, there is no dialogue between lovers, only a multitude of voices that seem to emanate from the same source. Instead, we suspect we are witnessing the unraveling of a relationship that we are not quite certain has ever quite begun a relationship in which the parties are unknown and could likely be, manifestations of the multifaceted nature of the poet herself.

Nonetheless, Bull Days is undoubtedly a love epic, one in which both the transiency but also constancy of love )”I trace my love for you back ten thousand years to days of honeycombed rooms and courtyards. My love for you makes me eternal”), its dominating (“Watch how I move, and move quietly into the ring to face me. I will lower my head for the kill”) and passive aspects (“A bride must serve papadums fried in sesame oil, if she’s to woo a lover”), its sublime desires, and deep loathings (compare the Song of Songs’ “Behold, you are beautiful, my love, behold, you are beautiful! Your eyes are doves behind your veil. Your hair is like a flock of goats leaping down the slopes of Gilead,” with Tina Giannoukos’ brilliantly perceptive: “My lover is shitty eyed… He will not sit with my friends, whom he calls amoral, so he sits alone relishing his principles. Now he’s forlorn and a hypocrite, enjoying surreptitiously the wobbles of the waitress’s sallow breasts.”) are artfully explored, through poems that seem to break down upon each other like disoriented waves on a Daliesque beach, threatening to shipwreck the inattentive or unempathetic reader.

Thus in poem XX, we are placed in an arena, and told: “Sex is not easy, but it is natural. I am your bull charging you and you, a working matador, show your control, drive the steel into my heart,” only to be returned to the same arena in poem XXII, wherein: “Your moment has come. Aim correctly, plunge the sword between my shoulder-blades… I am a bull and must die. That is the point.” In this world, love is locked within a perilous game that could prove fatal. In ways intelligible and incomprehensible, the prophet both as lover and as an ambiguous sacrifice, not so bloodless: “Blood drenches my mouth.”

Where Bull Days reach the apogee of their emotive power is in the expert way in which the poet negotiates the subtle shifts of power between the lovers, lending real depth to the multiplicity or singularity of the relationships forming the corpus of the work. Thus, in subtle incremental shifts, we go from Song of Songs-like images in X, such as: “These breasts are honey to your eyes. …This is the fire you want, the tremble you seek,” to “Her breasts are honey to my eyes… This is the fire I want, the tremble I seek. It’s too late, the time is past for loving too loose to count as song or praise,” in XII. Perspectives and power plays shift as the relationship flows and eddies, perfectly portraying the hard, gritty substratum of the work’s world.

It is difficult not to admire the manner in which Tina Giannoukos refracts love through the cauterizing prism of the Bull Days, splitting it into parts constituent and dysfunctional. She does so by articulating her own “mellifluous alphabet of ache,” in tightly structured, jewel-like interpretations of the sonnet form, a form in which she displays extreme mastery. Abjuring the self-indulgence of configuration or expression, Tina Giannoukos’ style is austere, tightly wrought and classicizing. As a result, the emotions she evokes are stark, vivid and inescapable. They gore you in the shoulder.

An intensely learned poet, Tina Giannoukos has her Bull Days engage in intertextual dialogue with Shakespeare (of course, as master of the sonnet) but also, more than sparingly, with Sappho, incorporating her thus: (‘Fragments survive’, ‘Is this the Sapphic line? O sweet! O love!’) and definitively providing her own understanding of Sappho’s famed γλυκύπικρον stance on love, noting: “Bittersweet lips angle me in sharp relief.” As a highly functional bilingual, it would be easy to make much of Tina Giannoukos’ Greek background as facilitating such references, but to do so would be to obscure the art and an intertextuality that transcends both language and genre.

Bull Days labyrinthine manoeuvring of intricate levels of meaning and its meandering, serpentine treatment of metaphors and images, as an exploration of antithesis is absorbing as it is awe-inspiring. In producing a work that paradoxically demands so much from the reader, while taking so little, the highly acclaimed Tina Giannoukos creates a work that is an antipode of itself, fitting for an antipodean writer. Truly, she exhausts superlatives.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday, 18 February 2017

“What?” the incensed Ελληναρού spluttered, her heaving chest encased in a tight fitting Nikos Kazantzakis “I hope for nothing, I fear nothing, I am free,” souvenir T-shirt purchased in Santorini, her Sue Sensi bedecked arms jangling wildly with various Ottoman inspired charms, all the colour of the Aegean sea. “I’m telling you that we gave the world democracy and you are telling me that in the same way we gave the world democracy, we also gave them twerking? Are you serious? There is nothing worse than a self-hating Greek.”

There actually is, and that is an uncontrolled gesticulator with the propensity to make grandiose, sweeping hand-gestures that result in the toppling of their frappe and the latitudinal dispersal of its contents. I abjure the frappe, considering it a western perversion (even though it is not; it was invented at the Thessaloniki International Trade Fair in 1957 by a Nescafe representative named Dimitris Vakondios), so the Ελληναρού, σβαρνήsied (her word, not mine) her own frappe and my βαρύγλυκο, across the table, mingling it into a pleasing viscous mélange of the old, the new, the traditional and the invented.

“And anyway,” she continued, flecks of saliva foaming at the corners of her deep-red painted lips (“Do you like this colour,” she had asked. “It’s called ‘Vixen,’) as I proceeded to mop up the contents of her wrath. “Miley Cyrus invented the twerk. And she is no way near to being Greek. If anything, her name sounds Persian and everyone knows that the Persians are the ancient enemy of the Greeks. Who invented democracy? Abraham Lincoln? No it was Democritus. But like everyone else, you’ve been taught to deny your own heritage by the Judaeo-Christians who destroyed the pure Greek civilization. If we are going to survive as a people, we need to regain the glory of the ancient Greeks.” Pausing, she reached into her burgundy Callista leather hand-bag, purchased last summer in Mykonos and pulled out a packet of cigarettes. Now in the first fabulous years of our friendship, the Ελληναρού, was a committed non-smoker. However, her first trip to the Greek islands and her rapid conversion to Neo-hellenism has led her to espouse the constant quoting of Hatzigiannis lyrics (no doubt to fumigate the mind), and the lighting of cigarettes (to fumigate the soul) as rites intrinsic to the preservation of the purity of the modern Hellene from the ersatz variety. She took a deep drag and sighed with exasperation. Είχεντέρτιαηκοπέλα.

I felt it would be impolite to refute my interlocutor’s claim as to the origins of democracy. After all, had not sundry members of the Greek Democritus League over the years also strenuously maintained to me that said club was named thus because Democritus invented Democracy? (He didn’t. He, along with his teacher Leucippus formulated the atomic theory of the universe). And in any event, in English-speaking liberal democracies, whose political system has evolved slowly but surely from the witenagemots and local assemblies of the Anglo-Saxon and Viking rulers, forged through feudalism, Magna Carta, Oliver Cromwell’s rebellion and the Glorious Revolution, rather than from any direct inspiration from an Athenian polis democracy that did not even last a century, it seems trite and hyperbolic to become riled up about the self-evident. (We antipodeans are complaisant like that. No insecurities about democracy here. More than happy to export it to the Middle East and the Maghreb and let everyone share the love).

Twerking though, is quite another thing entirely. For one, it is an activity around which I harbor surprisingly strong emotions. I cannot sit idly by and allow anyone, Ελληναρού or no, to ascribe its invention to the unspeakable, though evidently not unshakeable, Miley Cyrus. For Miley did not invent the twerk, neither did JLo, Shakira, Rihanna nor even the limber Fergie and anyone who makes such spurious claims cannot count themselves among the philhellenes. While it has been associated with West African traditional dances, specifically a style known as the ‘Mapouka,’ and most likely came to the American continent through the transplantation of those dances, in actual fact, the twerk has its origins in the ancient Hellenic homeland in which my Ελληναρού friend feels, salvation lies.

According to some, the twerk has its origins in the kordax, a provocative, licentious, and often obscene mask dance of ancient Greek comedy, with similar moves as twerking. In his play The Clouds, for instance, the master comedian Aristophanes complains that other playwrights of his time try to hide the feebleness of their plays by bringing an old woman onto the stage to dance the kordax, much as B-grade film directors of the sixties and seventies filled the plot holes in their sword and sandal epics with equally suggestive exotic dancers. Aristophanes, on the other hand, notes with pride that his patrons will not find such gimmicks in his plays. Rather than being hyptonised by the rhythmic undulations of buttocks, he expects his audience to actually pay attention to his finely crafted instances of anal humour. Phat chance.

Not only did the Ancient Greeks invent twerking but, my angry at the world Ελληναρού was incredulous to learn, they also had twerking competitions, which makes sense when one considers what a competitive bunch the ancient Greeks actually were. In his "Letters of Courtesans" second century AD author Alciphron relates how one such twerking contest took place and precisely in which spirit connoisseurs were supposed to savour the game: "But the thing that gave us the greatest pleasure, anyhow, was a serious rivalry that arose between Thryallis and Myrrhina in the matter of buttocks—as to which could display the lovelier, softer pair. And first Myrrhina unfastened her girdle (her shift was silk), and began to shake her loins (visible through her shift), which quivered like junkets, ((which is the direct ancestor of the pertinent to the art of twerking phase “junk in one’s trunk.’)) while she cocked her eye back at the wagglings of her buttocks. And so gently, as if she were in the act, she sighed a bit, that, by Aphrodite, I was thunderstruck. Thryallis, nevertheless, did not give up; on the contrary she outdid Myrrhina in wantonness. “I certainly am not going to compete behind a curtain,” said she, “nor with any affectation of coyness, but as if I were in a wrestling match; for the competition brooks no subterfuge.” So she put off her shift; and, puckering her croup a little, she said, “There now, look at the colour, how youthful, Myrrhina, how pure, how free from blemish; see these rosy hips, how they merge into the thighs, how there’s neither too much plumpness nor any thinness, and the dimples at the tips. ((Again the direct ancestor of the Missy Elliot ‘Work it’ lyrics: “See my hips and my tips, don't ya,/ See my ass and my lips, don't ya.”)) But, by Zeus, they don’t quiver,” said she with a sly smile, “like Myrrhina’s.” And then she made her buttocks vibrate so fast, swaying then-whole bulk above the loins this way and that with such a rippling motion, that we all applauded and declared that the victory was Thryallis’s."

A great and resounding silence ensued after I expounded the above, especially upon the revelation that even the seemingly innocuous word orchestra, is sexually charged, come from the world ὀρχοῦμαι, meaning to dance, but literally, to swing one’s genitals, presumably, while dancing. The Ελληναρού’s painstakingly plucked eyebrows were furrowed, her cigarette, still in one hand, had burned to ashes, while with the other hand, she nervously examined her split ends. All of a sudden, all that she had been taught to think of as imposed, decadent, oriental and inimical to the identity of a cool, rational and noble ancient Greek had been found to emanate from the source of her pantheon. Fearing that I had committed a crime tantamount to revealing to children that Santa Claus is not real, I haltingly went on to state that some pundits consider that the kordax can be compared with the modern Tsifteteli. It was at this point that those vixen lips parted into a dazzling smile. Flicking her hair back, she twittered happily, “ I knew the tsifteteli wasn’t Turkish. Thank God! No more guilt trips! Just wait until I tell the parea at Kinisi…..”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 4 March 2017

I have a theory that one of the reasons one rejects or discards a language, is because that language is an imperfect medium for communication. If one does not possess enough words in a given language to express that which they wish to communicate and need to resort to another language in which they have greater facility to do so, then it is logical to suppose that over time, the language in which the speaker has the larger vocabulary will be preferred over the former, at which time, the former will gradually be discarded.
Within our own community, the absence of “words” primarily stemmed from the socio-economic background of most of the first generation migrants. Coming from a rural background and settling in an urban centre for the first time, those migrants did not possess the vocabulary of the city. They could neither express nor articulate names for consumer goods, trade, or even concepts such as wages, or compensation. The hybrid Greeklish that was subsequently developed to fill in the lacunae, was an admission that their own language, tailored as it was to a completely alien rural reality, was a medium considerably lacking in the ability to address their new environment.
Younger migrants and second generation Greek-Australians also found that their idiomatic Greek was severely limited in being to articulate the school or social experiences of growing up in Australia. The requisite ancestral words simply did not exist in order to discuss the difficulties of growing up, or the issues of the day. Slowly, English, the most accessbile became the preferred medium, for its words for multiple uses abounded and the Greek language receded to where it generally tenuously survives today, the kitchen of yiayia (this apparently is how grandmother is pronounced nowadays in Greek-Australian, with the emphasis on the first syllable).
As a child I remember being bundled into a living room, sardine-packed with relatives, there to watch, what was referred to as an «Ελληνικό Βίντεο». All of us would scour the screen, for this was our tool to Re-hellenisation. Through such videos, I learned that Greeks say εμπρός when answering the telephone, not άλαου, the way my grandmother did, and, thanks to Stathis Psaltis, that a σούζα, was a wheelie. Sadly, under the influence of said videos, I also thought it expedient to ask my teacher, Tamtakos’ question: «Ντου γιου λάικ δε γύφτος Γκρικ;»which earned me a detention, my educator forming the opinion that I was a precocious seven year old making indecent suggestions to her.
Nonetheless, the fact remained that in those days, when communication with Greece was sparing and except for the weekly VHS tape, access to media from Greece was almost non-existent, such small exposures to Greek media as we were able to glean had a powerful effect upon us linguistically. I remember my uncles in the eighties, most of whom had been brought up in Australia, laughing gleefully as they repeated word for word, all of Harry Klynn’s expletives, from one of his comedy tapes, for up until that point, they did not possess the words to swear properly in Greek. At that point, our polite, bourgeois family structure transformed into something earthy and refreshingly robust.
Nowadays, should we choose to be so, we are swamped by Greek media, via cable television, radio or the internet. Nonetheless, in my daughter’s kindergarten class, of the four third generation students of Greek background attending, only one speaks and understands Greek. This, is not only because the parents of the three children choose not to speak to their children in Greek, but also because they themselves lack the skills to express anything more than simple concepts in that language. As a result parents feel uncomfortable and insecure about passing on a medium that they themselves have not mastered.
Yet all is not lost and paradoxically enough, technology can come to the rescue in order to provide children with a linguistic experience in line with the modern urban world, in Greek, that will assist them in supplementing their vocabulary and learning new expressions: Kαρτούνια, as we called them in Greeklish back in the day, more commonly known as κινούμενα σχέδια. For, unlike the days of old when parents would pay large sums to secure Greek DVD’s that would be played to children ad nauseum, there exist on the internet, an inexhaustible supply of Greek language media that young children can be exposed to. Many of these are Greek dubbings of known children’s favourites, such as Peppa Pig, Ben and Holly, Charlie and Lola, Fireman Sam, Thomas the Tank Engine, allow children to seamlessly flit from one language to the other, comparing and contrasting vocabulary, in the manner of a true bilingual.
Animated well known children’s tales, Greek myths, and even tools for teaching the alphabet, by way of jingles and cartoons (the Ένα γράμμα, μία ιστορία series that can be found on youtube is brilliant in this regard) can also be found, so that children can be introduced slowly and gradually to vocabulary and linguistic experiences in an age appropriate manner. Furthermore, in viewing cartoons about Aesop’s fables, or even the well-constructed Zouzounia series of Greek songs for children, the child is being inducted into the traditional world of Greek thought, history and poetry and absorbing cultural references that might otherwise be lost. Of course, all the while they are developing an attachment to Greek culture as something absorbed rather than imposed, imbuing them subconsciously with a profound sense of identity.
Additionally Greece does not belong to the Anglosphere, cartoons dubbed in the Greek language are sourced from a multitude of other countries, such as Germany or Russia, and thus the cartoon experience in Greek actually becomes a multicultural phenomenon, providing for a richer experience than that which would otherwise be offered solely by way of English media.
As a result of my own daughter’s exposure from a young age to Greek language cartoons, (as part of a daily diet of family members speaking Greek to her as well,) she has, at the age of four developed a vocabulary in that language far broader than that which I would have possessed at the age of ten. This is simply because she is, via the medium of television, being exposed to words and expressions that no one around me in my time would have known even existed. Since the amount of media available on the internet is diverse and not repetitive, there is always something else to explore and engage with. All the while, the facility to express any though whatsoever, is being built. Thus quite apart from being greeted each evening with expressions such as: «Ώστε ήρθες απαίσιο τέρας,» I become stumped by questions such as:
- Μπαμπά, τι είναι πίδακας;
- Πίνακας; Ξέρεις τι είναι πίνακας.
- Τι είναι πίδακας, λέω.
- Είπαμε, πίνακας.
- Όχι μπαμπά, πίδακας.
- Δεν ξέρω μάνα μου. Εμείς δεν είχαμε τέτοια πράγματα στο χωριό του παππού.
I had to resort to the dictionary to learn that a πίδακας is a spurt or jet of water.
Cartoon Greek language learning does create some idiolectic discontinuities. Even though we understand each other, my daughter does not speak the way I do. At home, among my family, I make of use my father’s regional dialect, replete with its idiomatic expressions. My daughter’s accent and expressions on the other hand are modern Athenian, signifying how a linguistic spoken tradition can, through various influences, in this case, the fact that Greek cartoons invariably utilize the Greek of the capital, come to an end.
Greek cartoons, carefully selected, though valuable in introducing children to a diverse Greek linguistic world and supplementing words, expression, attitudes and customs that we may not know of or have forgotten, will only get us so far, however. For if the opportunity to practice and interact with others in the language, as a language of daily life, does not exist, then sooner or later that language will again be discarded, not as an imperfect but as an irrelevant medium. Utility therefore is key and March, the month in which we all speak Greek, is as good a place as any, to start putting words in our children's mouths. In the words of PJ Masks, dubbed in Greek as «Πυτζαμοήρωες,» έτοιμοι για δράση!

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 11 March 2017

I will never forget the first time I obtained a taste of the famed Kung Fu movie: “The Way of the Dragon.” I was fifteen and chanced to come across the scene where Bruce Lee is fighting Chuck Norris in the Colosseum. The sheer majesty of the ancient edifice, the chiaroscuro interplay of the light between the arches and the galleries as the two masters attempted to harm each other lent the film a palpable Dutch master-like quality. For weeks afterwards, my friends and I, haunted by the incongruity but also the majesty of the conflict in such an iconic place, attempted to recreate it in the playground, to no avail, for we lacked the necessary chest hair which would grant our re-enactment, the requisite verisimilitude, though I do remember feeling slighted at the time, that Bruce Lee was not possessed of the sensitivity and respect for Greek civilisation, to set one of his signature fight scenes, amidst a similarly iconic Greek building, such as the Parthenon, or the OTE Tower of Thessaloniki. The thought of Bruce Lee ripping off Melina Merkouri’s chest hair in front of a restored Parthenon, fully replete with marbles, remains an enduring fantasy, to this day.

It is not as if the Parthenon has not been used for commercial or political reasons before. In 1929, the photographer Elli Sougioultzoglou-Seraidari (known as Nelly’s) published a series of photographs of scantily-clad or nude models frolicking in ancient-pastiche poems between the columns of that temple. At that time, the intellectual Pavlos Nirvanas, defended her actions against accusations of ‘desecration’ of a scared site by saying: ''I see respectable gentlemen sitting around a table, scratching their heads and writing about desecration. Desecration would occur if, in the throes of archaeological enthusiasm, they happened to throw off their clothes on the Parthenon Marbles and pretended to be Hermes of Praxiteles...'' Neo-pagans would be nudists be warned….

Whether it was due to Nelly’s artistic talent, or the public’s inherent voyeuristic tendencies, by 1951, when Christian Dior artfully posed ethereal his models before the Caryatids, bravely inviting comparison, and then, artfully arranged them before the columns of the Parthenon like mid-West prom queens asked to assume the air of an ancient Greek chorus, the populace at large seemed unperturbed.

Given this precedent, the largely adverse and rather indignant Helladic reaction to the news that Gucci has recently sought to use the Parthenon as the setting for a fashion show, for a vast sum of money, appears mystifying. That is, unless one is to infer from the vehemence of the Greek reaction, that the Greek populace know good taste and that Gucci, manifestly does not partake of it. The Greek authorities’ declining of a request to use the Parthenon as a setting for one of those excruciating Bourne Conspiracy, Identity, Inadequacy sequels should also be seen in this light.

Ostensibly mystifying too, is the Orthodox Church of Greece’s weighing into the debate, with its Primate, Archbishop Hieronymos stating his opposition to Gucci’s proposed utilisation of the space, by commenting: “When something is de-sanctified, it is cheapened. And when it is cheapened, it becomes a valueless commodity.” The leader of a church, which, it is common knowledge, does not particularly appreciate pagans, has suffered under their hands, and has persecuted them in turn, (and there are still in effect innumerable church canons prohibiting pagan usages) is, without hesitation, calling what we understand to be a pagan temple/archaeological site, sacred.

From an Orthodox point of view, such an appellation is completely justified however. The Parthenon was converted into a Christian church in the final decade of the sixth century AD, becoming the Church of the Parthenos Maria. It remained as such until 1458, when Athens was conquered by the Ottomans, after which time it operated as a mosque until the liberation of Athens in 1832. Although it is therefore a building sacred to at least three religions, importantly, it cannot be denied that it has been used as a Christian church for longer than anything else in its history.

In “The Christian Parthenon,” Professor Anthony Kaldellis of Ohio State University reveals that not only was the Parthenon a Christian church for almost a millennium, far from being derided as an unwanted relic of an unsavoury past, it actually became the fourth most important Christian pilgrimage destination in the Byzantine Empire after Constantinople, Ephesos, and Thessalonica. Such was its significance that in 1018, the emperor Basil II the Bulgar Slayer deliberately embarked upon a pilgrimage to Athens directly after his final victory over the Bulgarians for the sole purpose of worshipping at the Parthenon. In doing so, he followed in the footsteps of the many monks and pilgrims who had gone before him and who have carved their names on the building’s columns and walls. Further, in so doing, his view of the Parthenon unwittingly mirrored that of those who originally constructed it: as a monument for the celebration of a military triumph over “barbarians.”

By the twelfth century, the Panagia Atheniotissa had become famous throughout the Eastern world and also become a foundation for other religious founding myths: According to one story, the miraculous icon of the Theotokos written by Saint Luke and taken to Mount Soumela by the founders of the Panagia Soumela monastery in Pontus, was removed from its original housing, in the Parthenon.

The central importance of the Parthenon in the Christian world defies easy justification. No significant religious events took place in or around it. Instead, Professor Kaldellis argues convincingly, that the Parthenon was “trapped between a discursive Christian element and a non-discursive subliminal supplement that pointed to the monument’s non-Christian background.” In other words, the Byzantines revered the space because it had always been, outstandingly special and sacred and they sought to enshrine that outstandingly special sacredness in their own religious discourse. By doing so, they maintained its importance and cult status according to the manner it had always been regarded.

It would have been easier to understanding the complex and beguiling manner in which the Parthenon has been seen by the Greeks throughout the ages had not, soon after liberation, the Greek authorities decided to strip the Parthenon of all of its Muslim, Venetian and Byzantine accretions, rendering instead, an interpretation of a building that is both anachronistic, and Orientalistic in the Saidian sense, a manifesto, rather than a building, calculated to instil pride in a culture of which the West claims it is the sole inheritor, inducing in all of us Neo-Greeks, an ontopathology of self-loathing and inadequacy far more dysfunctional and disruptive, than the Byzantine experience of appreciation and continuity.

When it comes to the Parthenon and its numerous palimpsests, we are therefore extremely touchy, for we too pick which of our many layers to emphasise or efface. We make our symbols in our image and our symbols make us in theirs. To all intents and purposes, whether we are Christian or pagan, secular or spiritual, a large part of our psyche is enmeshed and interwoven within that glorious marble ruin that crowns the Acropolis, for it is the first image that comes to mind in most, when one evokes Greece. Because we are bonded to it, each in his own way, we are willing to overlook the fact that its existence is owed to the theft of the treasury for the mutual defence of the Greek city states by Athens and is actually, the product of stolen goods, for its beauty, and by corollary, our own, absolves us of our sins. Similarly, any slight, real or perceived, upon the Parthenon, is a slight upon us and is not to be countenanced and it is to this interweaving, rather than the incontrovertible Christian history of the Parthenon, that Archbishop Hieronymos is possibly alluding.

Though I suspect my own psyche would escape unharmed from the aftermath of pre-anorexic girls prowling in impossible clothes than no one can plausibly wear upon a Parthenon proscenium, there is something heart-warming, though unsurprising, in knowing that at this particularly low eddy in the collective Helladic fortunes, the Panhellenium’s pride cannot be bought, and remains intact… except for that part that is housed in the British Museum, that is….

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 25 February 2017

Distinguished Greek-Australian poet Dina Amanatidou OAM concludes her latest collection of epigrammatic poetry "Existential" with the following ominous poem:

The Greek language book will not survive for long
in Australia, in the circles of time.
It will survive as long as our generation.

There may be some exceptions of youth
who will speak, write and read
in Greek. However, their first language
will be English...

Of interest is to note the poet's implied view that even if the second generation of Greek-Australian migrants do choose to produce literature in the Greek language (and she is correct, very few do), then this literature somehow possibly lacks the linguistic validity and authenticity of that produced by the first generation, since, for those few who do, for whatever reason, choose to write in Greek, English is their mother tongue, and therefore, their Greek pretensions, however well meaning, are ersatz. The poet here makes sense. If we accept the proposition that each generation has less facility in the Greek language than that which has come before it, then it follows logically than when and if they do seek to express themselves in a literary context in Greek, the result will more often than not, be a parody or pastiche of that original language. Already a disturbing genre of poetry has emerged whereby second-generation Greek-Australians seek to pander to mainstream conceptions of multiculturalism by spicing up their verses with sprinklings of "ethnic diversity" in the form of ill-fitting song lyrics or clichéd sentences. Considering that these are invariably rendered in an ungrammatical and unorthographical manner, the poet Dina Amanatidou's prognostications are prescient to say the least.

Validity and authenticity aside of course, it is an often recited mantra of the ideology of the Greek-Australian community that we are not only “Greeks,” but also “proud Greeks,” this pride stemming from a conviction that Greek civilization (by which the pre-Christian era is ordinarily meant) has proved to be superior to that of any other and we ought to revel in this fact, it providing the necessary “justification” or evidentialry proof that is required in order for a latter generation Greek-Australian to become convinced that espousing a Greek identity is a worthwhile pursuit indeed. Such arguments imply that a) latter generations are uneasy about espousing a Greek identity (and it is important to note that in a post-modern diasporic world where everyone is free to form and espouse a multiplicity of identities, it is so difficult to define what is meant by the Greek identity that accusations about rejecting it are almost meaningless) and that b) prospective adherents need to be provided with some convincing arguments as to why they should choose to espouse such an identity.

Thus, missionaries for Hellas wax lyrical about ancient Greek civilisation, democracy, theatre, philosophy, the beaches and a purported easy going lifestyle as keys to conversion. Yet to expect me to become a Hellene because of the exploits of Alexander the Great or the penmanship of Sophocles is tantamount to expecting me to love and identify with my parents because they have a real estate empire, a PhD and a superior taste in dramatic irony. Only the latter is true and I do not love them because they are better than anyone else, but because we belong to each other. Similarly, I do not choose to identify as a Greek because I have become convinced that the Greek culture is any way superior to any other, or because I believe that adhering to it will provide me with material and other benefits, but rather because it is the culture I have been brought up in, within the Greek-Australian context, and my sense of self is inextricably interwoven within its warp and weft. Re-branding a la Peter Ekonomides, is completely irrelevant in my view. I am one with the product. I can see through the "brand."

It is exactly for this reason that missionaries of the Greek language are wasting their time when they try to convince us of the "positive" attributes of the language in order to encourage or rather plead with latter generation Greek-Australians to learn Greek. These arguments are similar to those provided by Greek culture missionaries. There is the "mine is bigger than yours" approach, ie: "the Greek language has been written for over 3,000 years." So what? So has Chinese. And while we are at it, Ancient Egyptian was written for over 4,000 years, as was Assyrian, a language far older than Greek which survives to the present. What of it? We should revel in the antiquity or youth of any and all languages.

Then there is the "mine penetrates yours argument, ie: "There are x (the number varies constantly but the figure 40,000 features regularly) Greek words in the English language." How this becomes a conclusive argument for the adoption of the Greek language when there is no language that has not engaged in linguistic exchanges with others and especially when instances of Greek borrowing from Phoenician, other Semitic languages and Persian can be identified in ancient times, intensifying during the time of the Roman Empire and continuing unabated to the present, is anyone's guess. Further, how knowing that the word 'physiognomy' is of Greek origin or that the word algebra is of Arabic origin or that indeed the word penguin is of Welsh origin, provides sufficient motivation for one to learn any of those languages is a mystery.

A corollary to 'mine is in yours,' is the "if you are good in yours, you can better appreciate mine," argument, most recently articulated by our august prime minister. According to this argument, being a Greek speaker can somehow improve your English, because it is assumed that being a Greek speaker from, let's say Doncaster, Greek derived words such as Haliaeetus pelagicus, (Sea Eagle), or Glycyrrhiza glabra (liquorice) are always at the tip of your tongue. Consequently, could we not invert the PM's argument, propounding that a good knowledge of English assists in learning Greek, for one is more likely to come across Greek-derived words in their daily English discourse and can then transfer them accordingly? I did so, when studying ancient Greek and attempting to master the polytonic accent system. Remembering which Greek-derived words were transliterated into English with a h, such as Haematoma, Hysteria, History etc allowed me to know which vowels to accent with a voiceless glottal fricative (δασεία). The argument thus becomes circular, and leads us nowhere.

My personal favourite is the: "Greek is an official language of the European Union and/or an important language of trade," argument which though in use for a while, has been tacitly dropped from the discourse, as has the "Greek will help you with your career" argument. It appears that the missionaries believe that in the current socio-economic climate, this argument no longer has much currency, if you will pardon the pun.

The truth is none of us really need convincing about the merits of the Greek language. As a people obsessed more than others about their identity, we all come from a background where the importance of retaining the Greek language, as a means of retaining the Greek identity was stressed. And herein lies the rub. That was a value stressed and imposed by the first generation. It is not always a value that was actually adopted or passed on to the latter generations.

When I see friends accosting mothers as they wait to pick up their children from Greek school with phrases such as: "Why are you torturing your children?" or when I speak to parents who are both fluent in Greek but admit that they choose not speak to their children in Greek because they believe that their offspring spending time on Greek will somehow diminish their standing among their peers or their educational and career prospects (and it cannot be doubted that Greek-Australian parents are being told by English-speaking educators that acquiring a second or third language "slows" a child down, an interesting piece of advice, given that the people who give it are not linguists and are invariably monolingual), I can only conclude that the downturn in Greek language fluency is not simply one of attrition, but rather one of psychology. For deep seated psychological reasons, people are choosing to reject the Greek language both as a medium of daily use and as an expression of an identity. And whereas within previous generations the choice to reject was made democratically, ie, but those who could but chose not to retain the language, nowadays, this choice is made undemocratically, by parents, in advance for their children. In other words, in order to allay our own prejudices, desires for social acceptance and progress, we are often depriving our children of linguistic choices, with all that this entails.

The Greek language in Australia is not about superiority, advantage or for that matter multicultural ghettoisation. Put simply, it is a matter of life: the medium in which a significant number of people in Australia communicate and negotiate the world around them. It is a medium that embraces the vast gamut of literary, political and other endeavours of a people that have made a difference to the world. It forms the backstory but also the foreground for our own presence in Australia and a looking glass by which we can see ourselves for who we really are. It is a key, via translation, to the entire European corpus of literature that is generally not taught in Anglo-centric schools. It is, in a word: vital to our existence and consciously depriving it from our children, is what will, at least for a generation or two, create the ersatz human beings that poet Dina Amanatidou so decries.

In 'Mortal Remains,' Margaret Yorke admirably reinforces this view of vitality and this March, the month of speaking Greek, we ought to take heed, for this truly is a struggle of life and death:

“Soon the two men were chattering away sounding excited, they could only be discussing trivialities yet their voices, their gestures might lead the observer to suppose they were arguing about life and death. Such was the Greek manner of conversation.”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

First published in NKEE on Saturday 1 April 2017

The word revolution, is a noun of action from the past participle stem of Latin revolvere meaning to turn, or roll back. Thus, it describes a process of change whereby things are returned to their rightful starting point and was especially applied in English, to the expulsion of the Stuart dynasty under the Catholic James II in 1688, in what was termed the “Glorious Revolution” and the transfer of sovereignty to the Protestant regal duo, William and Mary.

The word επανάσταση, however, which is how the term revolution is rendered in Greek, has other connotations. Rather than a turn or roll back, it is a compound word derived from the ancient ἐπί and ἀνίστημι, signifying, a rising. As such, it is related to the word ανάσταση, which signifies a resurrection.

The semantic differences between the two terms are significant because they represent two different perspectives of history. The first connotes that history is circular, and that the same patterns succeed each other predictably, so that a fallen nation, especially one that has pretensions to greatness, will inevitably achieve the exact heights from which it has fallen, though the ancillary inevitability of it once more plummeting to the depths of decay in due course is glossed over. The second, indicates a linear view of history, one where somewhere along the line, a nation has been crushed. The act of revolution is thus inevitable. It is a special, possibly unique occasion, where that nation has managed to extricate itself from the quagmire of servitude, and has actually stood up and asserted itself. Nowhere is it implicit that in doing so, that nation has to ‘turn’ or ‘roll back’ to, or indeed replicate the prevailing conditions, political, cultural or economic, at the time of its fall. The act of arising is thus not linked and indeed is emancipated from the past. Instead, having arisen, the nation is free to carve its own destiny (as long as it is a great one of course).

While it should be noted that the early Greek historians talk about αποστασία και εξέγερση sometimes about παλιγεννεσία, it is fascinating that the modern Greek people, in viewing their own revolution, chose to ascribe to the term επανάσταση, in use since the 1840s, the connotations of the Latin ‘revolution.’ Thus, in constructing a ‘nation,’ they engaged in a process which Anthony D Smith views, “is essentially one of political archaeology: to rediscover and reconstruct the life of each period of the community’s history, to establish the linkages and layerings between each period and hence to demonstrate the continuity of the nation.”

Once the nation is constructed and defined, a process not without trauma or controversy in the modern Greek context, then revolutions such as the Greek Revolution of 1821 inevitably become viewed in the Latin light. In expelling the Ottomans from part of our world, which period of ‘greatness’ is the ‘nation’ supposed to be rolling back to? For a time, contemporaries conceived of a ‘roll back’ to the last time that Greek speaking people enjoyed some sort of sovereignty, this being during the time of Byzantium.

Yet it is important to note the discourse of revolution as understood by Greeks was not framed by them alone. The western, Enlightenment tradition of historiography viewed Byzantium as an example of cultural decay, political corruption, despotism and religious fanaticism. As the nineteenth century Greek intellectuals and socially aspirant bourgeoisie internalised western mores and values, they came to reject a ‘roll back’ to a disreputable Byzantine past, one which was seen as an impediment to the earlier integration of Greece with the western world as a result of its cultural retrogression. Thus in 1842, Markos Renieris, an Athenian lawyer, could write of the Crusades (which fragmented the Byzantine Empire into Catholic controlled duchies and caused the brutal sack of Constantinople in 1204), “Oh, how different the fate of Greece would have been, if those chivalrous virtues [of the Crusaders] had been permanently grafted onto Hellenic civilization!”

Thus, in a bid to purchase into the material and political benefits of the Western world that was framing the modern Greek narrative, Greeks increasingly began to view their revolution as a ‘roll back’ to a time that the West accepted and agreed was truly ‘great,’ this being the classical period of times ancient. Given that the West had adopted this period and its achievements as the basis for its own civilisation, a “roll back” to this point in history would signify a deletion of all those historical events and eras that had seen Hellenism diverge or alienate itself from the West, and thus provide a useful reintegration point.

For a time, it appears that this ‘roll back’ worked, at least in so far as European public opinion was concerned. Inspired by their studies in the classics, romantics were eager to cast the foustanella clad klephts and petty chieftains, many of whom spoke Arvanitic, rather than Greek, in the panoply of a Leonidas or an Achilles. When the facts on the ground indicated a divergence too vast to comprehend, let alone bridge, the West, in a process Edward Said brilliant describes in his scholarship on Orientalism, appropriated ancient Greece for its own, leaving the modern Greeks as oriental, irredeemable elements, unworthy of their ancient forebears and unable as a nation, to truly “roll back” to them. Significantly, we also adopted this approach, creating an ontopathology about our identity that endures still.

The energy spent in Hellenic “roll backs” is truly phenomenal. With Adamantios Korais at their head, linguists attempted to “roll back” a Greek language they considered to be bastardised and impure to a “clean” and “pure” form that was both contrived and incomprehensible. A similar process was played out in Constantinople, where the Patriarchate sought to mediate between those who sought to incorporate western polyphonic music into the Orthodox liturgy, on the grounds that the current music tradition was “oriental” (ie. retrograde) and those who tried in a Korais-like fashion to “cleanse” Orthodox music of its “oriental” accretions and “roll back” to the imagined purity of ancient Greek music. At all stages we see a society locked in a discourse of insecurity and inadequacy with regards to itself, for the roll-back position was ever shifting and consensus could never be found as to the optimal roll-back point. In so far as consensus could be found, it was in that “roll backs” were infinitely to be preferred, to the ‘true’ etymology of an επανάσταση, of picking oneself up of the ground and rather than looking backwards, carving a future for oneself in the present world.

In collectively ruminating over the Greek Revolution, recently, a friend lamented to me: “1821 I understand, but why do we not, as a nation, commemorate the Battle of Marathon, or the Battle of Salamis, when we saved the world from Persian domination? Why do we not, as a people, celebrate the battle of Issus and the victories of Alexander? It is this failure to celebrate the true greatness of the time when Hellenism was pure that is the cause of our troubles.” Reared in the roll-back discourse of Modern Hellenism, I almost found nothing singular in this point of view, that is, until I asked:
“Why do you think that the British do not celebrate the Battle of Hastings?”
“That’s different. Why would the British celebrate an invasion of foreigners?” came the response.
“Well are they foreigners? The Normans changed the English language and culture forever. They created what we understand to be modern Britain. Why don’t the British celebrate the defeat of the Spanish Armada, or Glorious Revolution, or indeed the victories of Marlborough, all events that took place a millennium and a half after the ancient Greek victories? Does this make them any less great as a people? Does this denote a diminished sense of history, given that the modern Greeks could learn a thing or two from the British when it comes to respect for history and preservation of historic sites?”
“When we were building the Parthenon, the British were living in caves,” came the stock, roll-back response, closely linked to the: “When we worshipped the Twelve Gods, we were great, so we should worship the Olympians again,” mantra.

To suggest to any English-speaker except possibly Mel Gibson, that the key to their greatness lies in adopting the dress, social organisation and mannerisms of a fixed point in their collective past, be it Jacobite, Elizabethan, Brucian, or Druidic, would be the height of implausibility. To suggest to them that their society is inferior because since the time of the ancient Britons it has incorporated the cultures of the Saxons, Vikings, Normans, Scots and half the world besides, would be ridiculous for it is the hybrid nature of that culture that has created its relevance and vibrancy. And yet, to us as a people, such a prospect appears perfectly natural. For implicit in the “roll-back” view of revolution is a smug conviction of the perfection of our own culture, in and of itself. Somehow, we have been taught to believe that our ‘nation’ achieved socio-cultural perfection millennia ago and if we are to achieve the power and respect they enjoyed, all we need to do is work backwards, discarding the dross that has accreted since those times. At its heart, it is a racist and historically misleading narrative, which is why it is possible to have Greeks supposedly possessed of mental faculties justify the execution of the fascist salute in contemporary Greece, with the roll-back argument that this was an ancient Greek salute. Gadzooks.

In this sense, 1821 marks the point when the Greek people stood up, looked backwards, and for the most part have been wanting to walk backwards ever since, indulging in cosmetic retrogressions (remember the Junta’s mangled speaking of katharevousa) that have done nothing to further the relevance or vitality of the modern Greek nation. When we return, rather than roll-back, to 1821 therefore, it should be as a point of embarkation, than a point of gyration, in the hope of engaging in a serious debate about the future direction of the nation, rather than as a weekend meeting of a historical re-enactment society, dress ups and all.
DEAN KALIMNIOU

First published in NKEE on Saturday 1 April 2017

«Σε τούτα εδώ τα μάρμαρα/ κακιά σκουριά δεν πιάνει,» the great poet Yiannis Ritsos proclaims. He is absolutely right. Rust does not assail Greek marbles, wherever these are situated. Instead, despite their ability to blindingly reflect the sun, in the Antipodes, they acquire a tendency towards the opaque and to merge silently with the ashen background of grey, Melbournian pretermission.

One of those forgotten marbles, is the one most recently installed. Mouldering away on the Lonsdale Street "Greek" precinct, placed strategically close to the shops, now gone, that once comprised the hub of Greek life in the Melbourne's Central Business District, is the monolith dedicated to the sisterhood of Melbourne and Thessaloniki. The monument, an initiative of Melbourne's Thessaloniki Association "White Tower," which appears to be a vociferous, and probably, the only truly committed proponent of the stilted sister-city relationship, was triumphantly installed amid fanfare, by controversial Thessaloniki Mayor, Panayiotis Psomiadis, in 2007. One side of the monument bears a relief, in early Byzantine style of Saint Dimitrios. The other, predictably, bears a relief of Alexander the Great holding what appears disturbingly to be a butcher's knife. Once upon a time, the black inscription upon the monolith advised the wayfarer that both images were based on mosaics of old. There are no images remotely linking Thessaloniki to Melbourne on the monument and we can only speculate that it is possibly the act of replicating a mosaic itself, in bas relief, that provides the connection with Melbourne, implying that its society forms a mosaic in its own right, one that ironically enough, defies being set in stone.

It is hard to defend this contention with any confidence, for in just a decade, the inscription has faded to the point of near-illegibility. Indeed it is not at all certain that the part of the inscription that informs the viewer that the monument was installed during the time of Psomiadis reign will endure beyond the year. Instead, there it stands, hidden in plain sight, before the vibrant Asian businesses that fringe the precinct. Though white and gleaming, passersby rarely spare it a glance. It is a ghost, of a past and of a relationship no one cares to remember and whose continued existence frightens nobody.

Another Greek ghost haunts the environs of the city of Stonnington, opposite the Greek Orthodox Church of Helen and Constantine. The memorial, remarkable in how its socialist realism aesthetics mirror those of the Soviet period, comprises triangular marble-like panels, bearing two bronze reliefs of Reifenstahlian torch bearing athletes on either side. The installation is surrounded by a low metal barrier which is broken in one place, two flagpoles upon which the Greek and Australian flags flap desultory and is fringed by a row of olive trees and a grove of abandoned shopping trolleys. Unlike the Psomiadis monument, there exists no inscription or plaque to enlighten us as to when and why the aged pile was erected. Instead, the sole form of writing upon the monument is a scrawl of graffiti across its front, branding the ghost of the past for the present. Nonetheless, the Olympic Rings emblazoned upon the torches borne by the athletes hint at a connection between Greeks, International Sport and Melbourne.

This particular ghost is possessed of peripatetic tendencies. According to local residents, it was once located at the Malvern Road access of the park in which the Prahran swimming pool is situated. However, it moved to its present solitary position, as it had fallen victim to vandalism. Now it poignantly whiles away the hours to oblivion, forlorn, and forgotten, the significance of its strong, virile and noble brazen male caryatids incomprehensible and remote to a latte bearing, iphone7 wielding generation at large and to the old ladies who enter and exit the church frequently without sparing it a glance, alike. Nonetheless, it would be fascinating to learn of the existence of any Lady of Rho-like figure who secretly tends to the olives and raises the flags upon their flagpoles, unobserved by the local populace, guarding her own Thermopylae, aeons after the Persians have passed us all by and have become forgotten.

That is not to say that all of our mouldering spectral piles signify oblivion. The marble monument at the Axion Estin monastery in Northcote has admittedly seen better days. Bearing in bas relief, the image of a foustanella clad euzone clasping the hand of an Anzac wearing a bizarre elongated sun-visor, underneath a pediment atopped by busts of a helmeted Pericles and an equally helmeted Alexander, it defies inscription, for the Melbournian weather has caused the once gilded Greek buzzwords of Peace, Civilisation, Freedom and Democracy to fade away, most likely in sympathy with the erosion of these values in the Brave New World of our times. Despite this, and its increasing fungal discolouration, the Axion Estin monument serves as a backdrop and a place of reference for the commemoration ceremonies of multitudes of local Greek organisations, all of which have something to do with war, but little if anything, to do with their life in Australia, though it plausibly could be argued that commemorating various Greek regional war events, IS a feature of Greek-Australian life. Here then, dilapidation is not a consequence of obscurity but rather, comfortingly, of wear and tear. The Greek-Australian war memorial in the gardens close to the Shrine of Remembrance is used nowhere nearly as frequently, except to mark grand and solemn national commemorations, and is thus as immaculate as it is unnerving.

The Rye memorial to the Greek and Australian dead, smart, neat and luminous on a summer’s day, featuring a plinth poised upon a mosaic of the Greek flag was erected by the Rye Greek community in 1995. Despite its relative age, it is lovingly tended and serves as focal point for the commemorative ceremonies of the local Greek communities of the Peninsula. If one were to prognosticate, one would venture to feel confident that this memorial will fend off ghosthood for at least another generation, for the Greek-Melbournian urge to retire, or seek relaxation in Rye its environs is a particularly enduring one.

A similar enduring status must be afforded to the monument erected by the Cretan Brotherhood of Melbourne, to Crete’s most famous son, Eleftherios Venizelos. Every time I drive down Nicholson Street, the architect of the Greece of the two continents and five seas greets me. I know that in the years to come, subsequent generations of Greek-Australians will struggle to recognise him or appreciate what he means to us. For this reason, I propose that the land upon which the monument is placed become the subject of a restrictive covenant, so that, regardless of whatever use the adjoining building is put to in the future, Eleftherios Venizelos can gaze upon our descendants in perpetuity, a symbol of the failure of our own Μεγάλη Ιδέα, this being the deeply held belief that we could reconstruct and perpetuate, the lives our ancestors left behind prior to their arrival upon these shores.

Pretermission, the act of forgetting, is especially haunting when it comes to monuments. For to forget a monument which has been erected in order to keep you from forgetting, negates its entire purpose, rendering it, a spectre. It is for this reason, while we as a community, are in construction mode, that we should consider building a monument to commemorate those monuments we have erected, which have lapsed from our memory. And while we are at it, during our community’s vibrancy, we should also build a monument to commemorate ourselves, lest we forget. After all, it worked for the pharaohs….

DEAN KALIMNIOU

First published in NKEE on 1 April 2017

A long time ago, in a place quite far away, a young man embarked upon an epic galactic quest for truth that saw him embroiled in an interplanetary war. Compelled to choose sides, he befriends doughty fighters who command three-headed vultures, giant fleas and space spiders and traverses landscapes inhabited by grass-bodied birds with wings of giant leaves, elephant-sized fleas, half women half grapevine beings from whom a kiss would send one “reeling drunk”, and men who sweat milk of such quality “that cheese can actually be made from it by dripping in a little of the honey,” which runs from their noses. George Lucas on performance enhancing stimulants? Hardly likely. Instead, the plot of this bizarre story, entitled “True Histories” (Ἀληθῶν διηγημάτων) was concocted some two millennia prior to Lucas’ earthly manifestation, by Lucian of Samosata, an ethnic Assyrian author of the second century, who wrote in Greek. As such, it can safely be stated that the first work of science fiction, was written in the Greek language.

Unlike the epics of Lucas, which takes themselves just a tad too seriously, the work of the eerily similarly-named Lucian, are delightfully cheeky. Indeed, rather than being constructed as a dualistic moral tale, Lucian weaves, throughout his racy tale, innumerable and skillfully rendered send-ups of the philosophers and authors of his day. Thus, in passing, the iconoclastic Lucian mentions the tales of Ctesias, Iambulus, and Homer, and states that "what did surprise me was their supposition that nobody would notice they were lying." Indeed, the very title of his work, is provoking. Ancient readers would have known the paradox of Epimenides who stated that “All Cretans are liars” – if he is telling the truth he is lying, but if he is lying then he is telling the truth. Thus, as Aaron Parrett explains, when Lucian calls his fantastic tale (which makes fun of liars) a “true story,” he references one of the key paradoxes of philosophy and its inability to be completely self-grounding. Charmingly, Lucian takes a swipe at the tale spinners of his day, especially his rival Antonius Diogenes,’ now lost Of the Wonderful Things Beyond Thule, whose protagonist also reached space, stating that the story recounted in True History is about "things I have neither seen nor experienced nor heard tell of from anybody else; things, what is more, that do not in fact exist and could not ever exist at all. So my readers must not believe a word I say."

Caricaturing philosophy is one thing. To do so in a breathtakingly interesting way is quite another. Lucian’s space adventure features a group of travelers who leave Earth when their ship is thrown into the sky by a ferocious whirlwind. Eventually they arrive on the Moon, only to learn that its inhabitants, the Selenites are at war with the people of the Sun, for the most Lucasian of reasons: both are vying for control of a colony on the Morning Star. As Endymion, king of the Moon relates, in pure science fiction fashion: "The king of the inhabitants of the Sun, Phaethon,…has been at war with us for a long time now. Once upon a time I gathered together the poorest people in my kingdom and undertook to plant a colony on the Morning Star which was empty and uninhabited. Phaethon out of jealousy thwarted the colonization, meeting us halfway at the head of his dragoons. At that time we were beaten, for we were not a match for them in strength, and we retreated. Now, however, I desire to make war again and plant the colony."

The warriors of the two celestial orbs travel through space on winged acorns gigantic turnips as ammunition. Anticipating the mass slaughters brought about by colonialism, by almost two millennia, blood “[falls] upon the clouds, which made them look of a red color; as sometimes they appear to us about sun-setting.” Of course, the mood is lightened someone by the fact that Lucian casts one class of killers as the Garlic-warriors ῾Σκορδομάχοι,᾽ another as the Millet Throwers, ‘Κεγχροβόλοι’ and yet another as the Ostrich-Slingers ‘Στρουθοβάλανοι,’ while the imperial battleships of George Lucas, take the form of the Lettuce-Wings ‘Λαχανόπτεροι.’

In lampooning Aristotelian views of the natural world, Lucian makes some novel imaginings that would arrest the attention of gender scholars of the modern age. In particular, he envisages upon the moon, a society in which women are completely absent and men are by necessity, self-procreating. Thus babies are born from men’s swollen calves, delivered dead but brought to life “by putting it in the wind with its mouth open”. Another people known as the Arboreals employ a different method of propagation: a man’s right genital gland is cut off, planted, and from it “grows a very large tree of flesh, resembling the emblem of Priapus”, and from its fruit of enormous acorns men are ‘shelled.’

Lucian’s imagination even embraces technological advances, in particular, conceiving of a telescopic microphone: “There is a large mirror suspended over a well of no great depth; any one going down the well can hear every word spoken on our Earth; and if he looks at the mirror, he sees every city and nation as plainly as though he were standing close above each. The time I was there, I surveyed my own people and the whole of my native country; whether they saw me also, I cannot say for certain.”

Eventually, Lucian’s protagonists return to Earth, and become trapped in a giant whale. Inside the 200-mile-long animal, there live many groups of people, including, Robinson Crusoe-like, a self-sufficient father and son team that farm the fish entering the whale’s stomach. They also reach a sea of milk, an island of cheese and the isle of Elysium. There Lucian meets the heroes of the Trojan War, and other key characters of Greek mythology, and literature, including Homer. The god Rhadamanthys arbitrates disputes between Alexander the Great and Hannibal, Theseus and Menelaus and certain philosophers are also to be found there: “I heard that Rhadamanthys was dissatisfied with Socrates, and had several times threatened him with expulsion, if he insisted on talking nonsense, and would not drop his irony and enjoy himself. Plato was the only one I missed, but I was told that he was living in his own Utopia, working the constitution and laws which he had drawn up.”

Tellingly, we learn there that Herodotus is being eternally punished for the "lies" he published in his own ‘Histories,’ which is amusing, considering that Lucian ends his story abruptly, promising to continue it in later books, and never does so.

In combining science fiction and parody in equal proportions, Lucian’s remarkable work, also notable for the fact that is constitutes an early expression of the idea of crossing the Atlantic and exploring lands which might lie on its other side, some 1400 years before Columbus, anticipates the French philosopher Voltaire’s ‘Micromegas’ and the writings of Douglas Adams. Significantly, astronomer Johannes Kepler’s 1634 novel Somnium which describes a trip to the moon and the view of Earth seen from far away, was partially inspired by Lucian. He picked up True History in the original Greek to master the language.

English critic Kingsley Amis has remarked “that the sprightliness and sophistication of True History make it read like a joke at the expense of nearly all early-modern science fiction, that written between, say, 1910 and 1940.” In producing a tale concerning itself with exceeding the margins of the possible and the plausible, Lucian manages to lampoon the hallowed tradition of his world, while imagining the infinite permutations of others. If there is any regret, in reading his remarkable work, it is that he did not prove immortal, in order to have seen and satirized, George Lucas’ puerile “Rogue One.” Had he done so, arguably, he would have given him a slightly more abrasive treatment than that which he gave Pythagoras, in the aftermath of an Elysian war victory: “From this Pythagoras alone held aloof, fasting and sitting far off, in sign of his abhorrence of bean-eating.”

To the man that taught us to reach for the stars, and take the mickey out of them, we are eternally grateful.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

First published in NKEE on Saturday 8 April 2017

"Did you bring it?" the old man rasped earnestly from his bed.
I looked down at him. Emaciated and yellowing, he forced a grin, as he painfully raised a withered arm as if to confer a stunted benediction. "Look at all these tubes. Truly I am being trussed and seasoned for sacrifice, just like the Pascal lamb."
Pushing aside the multitude of tubes attached to various parts of his person, he asked again: "Did you bring it?"
Slowly, I revealed the box of chocolates I was hiding behind my back and tried to balance it on the bedside table, between a desultory vase of nonchalant flowers and a rather large leather bound tome, open at the centre and almost completely covered with pencil notations.
"Oh joy," he exclaimed, licking his lips. "By your Passion we were set free from our passions, O Christ, and by your resurrection we were redeemed from corruption." Steadily, his fingers enclosed a truffle and looking furtively at the door, quickly enveloped it with his mouth. "Bliss. Take one."
"After Easter," I responded. "We aren't there yet."
"Oh yes," he snorted. " Let all mortal flesh keep silent and stand in fear and trembling, giving no thought to things of the earth. Yet it is the flesh that betrays us in the end you see, because the soul and the flesh are interconnected. Plato was either a blithering idiot, or set out deliberately to mislead. Chrysostom on the other hand..."
"Don't get yourself excited," I murmured, grasping his hand. "It's ok."
"Well, imagine how differently Christian theology would have evolved if the Holy Fathers had access to chocolates, or for that matter, if Kierkegaard had had someone to sleep with. The whole thing would have been unrecognizably different, don't you see."
He reached over to pour himself a glass of water and became entangled in an unspeakably complicated contraption, full of buttons, tubes and emitting high pitched, rhythmic bleeps. "They do not know nor understand; They carry on in darkness; all the foundations of the earth shall be shaken," he grimaced, as a nurse, entering the room, silently wrested control of the water jug, helped him back into bed and fluffed his pillows for good measure.
"Bloodsucker, ανέραστη," he cursed. "They are not humans. They are automatons. No feelings to speak of at all except for one, some type of South East Asian. A beautiful bloom. His skin radiates jasmine and hibiscus of the East. When I was in the South East, this was before the war, you understand, I was captivated by the scent. And I told him, if there is a Paradise, this is what it will smell like. Because at that time, the whole South East smelled of him, or the other way around, I don't know. And he just smiled, the bastard. Smiled like he always did. You know we were together for forty years?"
"No, I didn't know. No one ever told me."
"I don't imagine they would have. Together ever since Cairo, my and my British Tommy. We came to Australia together. I was the first Greek your grandfather met here. That much you must know. And HE was the first non-Greek, he met here. Simply because he was wandering around the dock like a lost sheep with that frown on his face, yes, exactly like that - it's uncanny how similar yours is, it's like I'm looking at your grandfather resurrected - and we felt sorry for him and took him home with us and helped him find a place of his own. And I remember he would always scold your grandfather for frowning and tell him: "Lift up your finger and say: Tweet Tweet, Shush Shush, Now Now, Come Come," which were the words of a popular song of the time." Your grandfather thought he was insulting him and looked like he wanted to throw him a punch. He never liked him you know. And even when he would come round, never with your grandmother, you understand, the first thing he would do, was ask gruffly: "Is your husband here, αφορισμένε? No? Good." A tremendously dry sense of humour, your progenitor had."
"Pappou is long gone," I mused.
"They all are," he spluttered. "All gone, and left me alone, an aging fag, to find my pleasures turn to ash in my mouth, to face Death alone. What does it say in there?" he asked, pointing to the fat tome on the table.
I picked it up and flicked through the pages. It was an old service book for Holy Week, so well thumbed that the corners of most pages were almost translucent. The text was so heavily annotated it was barely legible. Taking my place from a large pencil asterisk, I begin to read: "Now then, if you are ready, when you hear the sound of the trumpet, the pipe, the harp, the four-stringed instrument, the psaltery, the symphony, and every kind of music, that you shall fall down and worship the golden image I made."
"Not like that," he snapped. "Properly. Chant it, the way I've shown you. Now read this."
"I said, "You are gods, and you are all sons of the Most High. But you die like men, and like one of the rulers, you fall."
Grasping my hand so tightly that I let out a gasp, he closed his eyes and intoned: "Today, Hades groans and cries out, "It would have been better for me if I had not received the One born of Mary; for when He came here, He destroyed my power. He shattered the gates of brass; and, as God, He resurrected the souls, which I held captive for ages..." Then, leaving off suddenly, he asked: "Will there be a resurrection, do you think? And stop frowning, boy."
"There has to be," I responded after a time. "Otherwise our hearts would break."
"But that is precisely the point, dear boy," he chortled, his eyes widening. "Down there among the mud and clay, you won't have a heart for very long will you? How long do you think it will be before it disintegrates? One month? Less? So why do you need a resurrection?"
I remained silent.
"Will you go to the service of the First Resurrection on Holy Saturday morning, the one that anticipates His rising?" he asked.
"Yes. I always do."
"When the priest comes out with the laurel leaves, I want you to bang your pew hard. I want you to hammer at it. Make an almighty ruckus so I can hear it all the way down in Hades. Harrow those gates of Hell," he pronounced, almost with manic urgency. Sitting up on the creaking hospital bed, he pleaded: "Please, do this for me."
"Yes, alright. It's only a few days away and then I will come to see you again. And next year, we will go and hammer those pews together."
"Oh no," he smiled, waving me away. "I'm going off to meet not one, but two bridegrooms. I'm the luckiest person in the world."
On the third day, Holy Saturday, very early in the morning, I took the koulouria and eggs I had prepared and went to his chamber. I found the curtain drawn away from the bed, but when I entered, the bed was empty and his body was not there. While I pondered this, suddenly a nurse in whites that gleamed like lightning stood beside me. In my fright I turned my face away from her but she said to me: "Why do you seek him? He is not here."
"The Lord awoke as from sleep, and He rose and saved us," I recited, as I discerned an empty chocolate box poking out of a drawer of the bedside table. As I walked away, light penetrated the four panels of the window, flooding the empty chamber. And I wept.

DEAN KALIMNIOU
kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 15 April 2017

Every year on Holy Saturday, our doorbell rings. Standing outside our doorway, our Italian neighbor awaits, brandishing a panettone. “Buona Festa,” she smiles as she hands it over. That smile gradually merges into a grimace, when I reciprocate by handing over a tsoureki of our own construction. Such unrefined items rank rather low in the Magna Graecian pecking order of comestible appreciation.

By now, said neighbor would be justified in her reticence, for this year’s tsourekia are by all reckoning, the worst to have emerged from the Kalimniou kitchens and this would probably explain her forced smiles and quick shuttling back into the safety of her own property as soon as she sets eyes on me, ever since. The fault, in my opinion, lies solely with Easter itself.

On that Great and Holy Thursday, after weeks of fasting, the sight of eggs and milk rendered me weak at the knees. It was all that I could do, to cast a pontificating and supervisory eye upon the tsoureki production, without dipping my snout into the trough, as my wife kneaded the dough. She did so methodically, rhythmically, ignoring the clouds of flour in which she was covered, transforming her into a type of human λουκούμι. Back and forth went her hands upon the dough, back and forth, until I could bear it no more.

“You are supposed to knead the dough, not stroke it gently,” I commented. Coming up behind her, I plunged my hands on top of hers, into the dough. “Like this,” I said, and slowly began to pummel the dough. Back and forth, went my hands, back and forth, until she could bear it no more.

“It needs more mastiha,” she said breathlessly, pushing my hands away. “Crush some.”

Quickly, I poured the mastiha granules into the mortar and taking hold of the pestle, I began to pound them inexorably. Back and forth went my pestle, grinding the mastiha into oblivion. Having pulverised the entire contents, my head swmming, I poured them into the dough. Some hours later, the most bitter tsoureki ever made emerged from the oven, overwhelmingly tainted by the mastiha of my own deviant anticipations.

Some twenty minutes after our Italian neighbour departed bearing the tainted tsoureki, the doorbell rang again. This time it was a Greek-Australian friend, proffering what looked suspiciously like a panettone. Now in my mind, Greek-Australians who gift each other panettoni instead of tsourekia for Easter are the abomination of desolation as spoken of by Daniel the Prophet. This pernicious custom is aided and abetted by the Greek grocers of East Keilor, for, as one of them told me when I accused him of destroying all that is sacred and righteous about our Easter traditions, panettoni retail for thrice the price. One cannot argue against the free market with margins of this magnitude.

A half an hour later, the doorbell rang again, this time to herald the arrival of an effusive exponent of internet inspired, born again Hellenism. Not only was the donor inordinately enthused in providing a home-made tsoureki that was gluten free, she also gushed excitedly that she could not wait to see who in our family would "win the coin.""What coin?" I asked. "The coin that I put in for good luck" was the response. This is because apparently in New Age Hellenism (it is a Greek Australian Vasiloxristopita thing), New Year is celebrated in April and Easter not at all, among those who define themselves as “Culturally Orthodox.” This is also a “thing.”

Owing to an inspiration best attributed to an inordinate amount of angst causedd by the proliferation of tsourekia in our household, I managed to crack my long-departed grandmother’s secret koulouri recipe. Upon crowing triumphantly about my achievements to a friend, said friend was singularly unimpressed, commented drily tha making one’s own koulouria is so last season, and the Greek-Australian tradition is to “re-gift.” According to the rules of the game, if your koumbara, friend, or cousin's koulouria are excremental, in that they look, feel and taste like an ossified dog turd, then playing “Re-gift the Koulouri” is mandatory. Accordingly, one takes the said excremental koulouria and gifts them to another Greek family to whom one is linked by a bond of υποχρέωση. You score one point if you able to pass this off successfully. Two points are gained if you can identify koulouria given to you by others as a re-gift and you proceed to re-gift these as well. Ten points if you re-gift your mother in law's koulouria and these are re-gifted down the circle of relatives until she ends up with them. Twenty points if your mother in law realises what you have done. Thirty points if you are what is termed an “Afstraleza nyfi” in game terminology and have only made koulouria (which you criminally call Easter cookies) in order to placate the fury of your mother in law in taking her precious son away from her. Lose thirty points if you are an “Afstraleza nyfi” and you think that by making koulouria you will obtain your mother in law's acceptance. Gain forty points if you are an “Afstraleza nyfi” and you find your koulouria in your mother in law's rubbish bin (she wouldn't be caught dead re-gifting them). Lose twenty points if you seriously believe your aunts, mother and in laws don't hold a grudge if you didn't make koulouria. Gain fifty points if you froze last year's gifted koulouria and are gifting them this year. Apparently, the game is won when you say “Stuff This” and get your mum to make your koulouria for you. House-proud Greek Australians who pride themselves on their koulouri-making prowess are disqualified from entry, as are Greek-Australians who attribute their koulouri recipes to George Kalombaris. Of course the flaw in the game, is not having a critical mass of one’s own koulouria to effect the first exchange, but my friend was so wrapt in her exposition of the rules that I didn’t have the heart to tell her. Instead, in honour of her ingenuity, I re-gifted her koulouria to someone that I love, on my way to the Epitaphios service.

Evidently, in modern Greek Australia, it is de rigueur for some parents to become abusive when it is suggested to them by older parishioners that the ornately decorated candle with the Easter bunny/butterfly/AFL team logo they purchased for their children from one of the various Greek cake shops that purvey articles of this sort, is inappropriate for the Good Friday Epitaphios, for the reason that this service is one of mourning and thus, their candle is out of context and better suited to the Resurrection Service. Quoth one mother, on the steps of our church: "How dare you judge me. It is a scam on the part of the church to sell more candles." I observed her in silence, for my four year old did not want to bring a candle to the service at all. Instead, as she informed me, she wanted to bring her collection of marbles, with which to stone the evil men “που σκοτώσαν το Χριστούλη.” I made a mental note to have a father-daughter chat to her about fundamentalism in a few months’ time.

Her proclivities towards violent revenge notwithstanding, said daughter was extremely well behaved on Holy Saturday, despite being untimely woken from her sleep, in order to take communion. The line outside our church was long but orderly, and we had plenty of time to absorb the comments of the eager communicants:

- Στηβ, έλα Στηβ; Το κρεατάδικο έχει μόνον λόιν τσοπια. Νάου, δε ξέρω πού να πάω. Νο γουόρυ. Θα περάσω από το φρουτάδικο.

"Im not going to your (I think the word was fornicating) mother's alright?"

"Yia yia (emphasis on first syllable), why are we drinking this wine anyway?

Answer: "Μπηκόζ Χριστούλη” wants you to.

Googly eyed woman observing a scruffy unshaven fellow wearing tracksuit pants walking down the street: "Obviously he's not Orthodox" Ten seconds later, scruffy man joined the line, proceeded to roll his own, and generously, offer rollies to those behind him.

“Seriously, why can't they have disposable spoons? Are they that stingy?"

In our corner of Greek-Australia, it becomes Easter at exactly the stroke of midnight, regardless of whether the priest has completed the service and chanted the Resurrection Hymn. This year, the priest proclaimed the Resurrection five minutes past twelve, which meant that a large number of the faithful had already kissed each other, smashed eggs (I was informed by a particularly militant vegan family that smashed avocados are a more ecologically viable alternative to this barbarous custom) and wished each other the uniquely Australian version of the traditional Orthodox Easter Greeting:

“Christ is Risen.”

“Yeah, thanks, same to you.”

When I finally arrived at my parent’s house for the Easter feast, my mother looked me up and down and asked incredulously: “Didn’t you bring any koulouria?” In my haste, I had not realized that I had forgotten to re-gift and thus had depleted my own store of edible koulouria. “Here,” I smiled, proving my maternal progenitor an offering from my notorious mastiha-laden batch. “I’ve brought you a tsoureki instead.”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 22 April 2017

Anzac Day, the cornerstone of our collective Australian national identity, has just been solemnly commemorated. Men and women marched, or attended dawn services, honouring the lost youths who fought and fell at Gallipoli, in incomprehensible numbers.

Among their number, members of the broader Greek community. Considering that during most of the Great War, Greeks in Australia where considered enemy aliens and were interned, harassed and in some cases attacked, (King Constantine kept Greece out of the war ands was passing state secrets to the Kaiser) it is worthwhile to question whether the way in which Greek Australians increasingly honour ANZAC day is connected to a desire for inclusion, is a calculated or subconscious effort to insert Hellenism into the Australian national narrative or is merely an appreciation of heroism and sacrifice? After all, up until recently, there was scant inherited memory of the important contribution of Greeks and Greek Australians to the Allied cause within our community.

Ruminating over this after the dawn service, I saw an advertisement on television that claimed: “They fought, not for King, not for Country, but for their mates.”

This then is the Australian version of the Adonic cult . The emphasis on ‘mateship’ was borne of the ANZAC tradition and exemplifying the ‘very best of the Australian character’, to lend a particularly Antipodean tinge to the Mediterranean cult of the lost youth, who, through commemoration, achieves deification.

Such mateship mythmaking is important, and Australians have successively capitalised on ancillary mateship myth-making, emphasising the magnanimous words of the founder of Modern Turkey in the aftermath of the Great War, Kemal Ataturk: “There is no difference between the Johnnies and the Mehmets to us where they lie side by side here in this country of ours,” in order to ensure continued permission for Australians to commemorate their dead directly at their place of slaughter. It is well that they do so, for it is becoming apparent both, that Ataturk never uttered those words and that Australian commemorations at Gallipoli are negotiable, by a Turkish government that is increasingly viewing the Ottoman Empire with nostalgia and admiration and which is purging intellectuals and others who would challenge the validity of its own national myths.

Thus, myths of mateship aside, the ANZACS actually fought at Gallipoli, a peninsula ethnically cleansed of its Greek inhabitants by the Ottomans at the instigation of their German advisers Colonel Liman von Sanders and Ambassador Wangenheim, in anticipation of the ANZAC landings.

The Australians fought willingly in what the spin doctors of the time termed ‘the Great War for Civilisation,’ because apparently Teutonic barbarism had to be stopped and the world made safe for benign monarchies like the British Empire. Barely having been given self-government some thirteen years previously, Australians went to war to serve British strategic interests, in the firm belief that these were also their own.

Gallipoli is the Australian Thermopylae, a place where Australians distinguished themselves through their valour, thus creating cultural archetypes to boost the self-esteem of a young nation, even though their efforts were ultimately futile and absolutely useless in serving their military aim: the capture of Constantinople.

For the Turks, the battle is seen as one of the finest and bravest moments in the history of the Turkish people - a final surge in the defence of the motherland as the centuries-old Ottoman Empire was disintegrating; laying the grounds for the so-called Turkish War of Independence and the subsequent foundation of the new Turkish Republic, led by Atatürk, a commander in Gallipoli himself.

This is significant because the Gallipoli campaign could, according to scholars, have been the catalyst not only for the creation of the Turkish republic and the Australian national identity, but also the first genocide of the twentieth century. According to an essay by Robert Manne, Professor of Politics at LaTrobe University in ‘The Monthly’ magazine, what the Turkish genocide of the Armenians (and in parallel that of the Pontic Greeks and Assyrians) and the battle of Gallipoli have in common is that they started on almost the same day, within a few hundred kilometres of each other. He poses the question, one which is pertinent considering blatant attempts to recast the Ottomans as Turks and in that guise, as an ‘honourable enemy’ in a manner not attempted with Australia’s other historical military opponents, such as the Germans, Japanese and Vietnamese, why we don’t know this as a nation and why Australian historians and literati have apparently never made the connection between the two events, except for Les Murray, who used Armenian genocide victim Atom Yarjanian’s poem: ‘In shock I slammed my shutters like a storm,/ Turned to the one gone, asked: ‘These eyes of mine/ How shall I dig them out, how shall I, how?’ in his work ‘Fredy Neptune.’

In The Monthly, Professor Robert Manne, explains that “in 1915, the Ottoman Government began one of the first really systematic genocides in history, certainly of the twentieth century. And within a year or so, perhaps one million Armenians had been killed because they were a Christian minority in the Muslim Ottoman Empire, which was in its point of crisis. And there’d been persecution for a long time, but this the attempt to eliminate a people.”

The Turkish government has consistently denied the genocide of the Christian peoples of Anatolia. As Professor Robert Manne posits: “The Turkish Government has always utterly denied that a genocide took place, although they admit that some massacres took place. But the largely blame the Armenians for that saying they were a rebellious, subversive element at a time of wartime crisis. But it's at the heart of Turkish identity to deny the meaning and the reality of that genocide.”

Of course, up until recently, the fact that modern day Turkey was considered a vast economy of some eighty million people that paid lip-service to Democracy and was, apart from Israel, the only non-Arab ‘democratic’ state in the Middle East, could possibly explain why the West has been willing to overlook a painfully obvious crime that allegedly inspired Hitler to perpetrate the Holocaust, supposedly remarking “Who remembers the Armenians?” Realpolitik is also compounded by the difficulty the West would experience in sympathising with such Middle Eastern peoples with unpronounceable names as the Pontians, Armenians and Assyrians, who were slaughtered a century ago, when in our own time, the nightly news has for the past decade, flooded our living rooms with images of mass slaughter in the same broader region, coupled with our own tears of terrorism. However, considering the increasingly authoritarian nature of the Turkish government, such attitiudes may change.

The inconsistency of such historical indifference has not escaped Professor Robert Manne, who stated to the ABC a few years ago: “It seems to me the strangest thing. We have Anzac Day as April the 25th 1915 is remembered; the Armenians have April the 24th 1915 as their day of mourning, which they take to be the beginning of the genocide. The two events not only coincided in territory and in time, but there is quite a lot of evidence that the genocide was pushed on because of the Dardanelle campaign of the Anglo-French forces in which the Australians were involved.

So despite the fact that the things happened at the same time and int he same place more or less, and they were even kind of connected with a causal link, I looked through book after book about Gallipoli, and there's no end of books that Australians have written about it, and virtually none of them mention it for more than a passing paragraphs or a couple of lines”.

Yet as Professor Manne states, the evidence linking the two events, seems to be incontrovertible: “[T]here are some contemporary historians, there's a wonderful Turkish historian, Tanner Akcam, who think that when the Gallipoli campaign began, or when the Dardanelles were first bombed by the Anglo-French in March 1915, that was the final moment of reckoning, and that the Turkish regime, which was run by two or three young Turks were the dominant figures, they set upon and decided on a systematic extermination of the Armenians, saying that at this moment of crisis, where Constantinople might fall, we can't afford to have as subversive minority within our country.

So, the Dardanelle campaign and the Gallipoli landings pushed on and maybe not exactly caused, but at least triggered the final events that led to the genocide…. My point is how strange it is that the event that's really by far the most important historical event in the national imaginary in Australia, which is the Gallipoli campaign, our historians have never thought to ask the obvious questions about the connection between the two events, or even to comment on the fact that the two events took place at the same time. Apart from the poet Les Murray, I've not come across an Australian writer who's really thought imaginatively about the connection of the two events in whatever they've written.”

The causal link between the two events is further cemented when one considers that just twenty days after the Gallipoli landing, on 14 May 1914, Talaat Pasha, a member of the ruling Young Turk triumvirate ordered the forcible evacuation of all Greek settlements on the Dardenelles as far as Kyssos and the re-settlement of the region with Muslim refugees from the Balkans: “For political reasons it is urgently necessary that the Greek inhabitants of the coast of Asia Minor are forced to abandon their villages… If they refuse to move… please give oral instructions to Muslim brothers how to force the Greeks to remove themselves ‘voluntarily’ by any means possible. In that case, don’t forget to obtain confirmations from them that they are abandoning their homes of their own free will.”

Consequently, in May and June 1914, there were massacres of Greeks in Erythrae and Phocaea in Ionia, while in Pergamon on 27 May 1914; the Greeks were given just two hours to leave the city. This ethnic cleansing, along with the simultaneous massacres of Armenians and those of the Assyrians in inaccessible areas such as the mountains of Hakkari, were widely reported by diplomatic personnel and missionaries. U.S Ambassador Morgenthau, who had the ear of the Young Turk Pashas and was also privy to their boasting about what they would do to the Christians in their realm, was one of the first to link ethnic cleansing with the Gallipoli landings in his memoirs. Arnold Toynbee, who worked for the British secret service wrote as early as 1915: “The scheme was nothing less than the extermination of the whole Christian population within the Ottoman borders…”

As always, there was no mention of the millions of innocent Christian victims of bungled western policy in this year’s ANZAC Day commemoration. Nor was there any mention of the thousands of Greeks who assisted and nursed wounded Australian soldiers from Gallipoli on the island of Lemnos. Homage instead, was paid to that ‘honourable enemy army’ that, upon German instruction, cleansed the coastline of its Christian inhabitants in order to better defend it against the ANZACS and who, as the campaign dragged on, engaged in their wholesale slaughter.

But then again, Gallipoli was never about justice, or historical fact. It is a national myth within the confines of which other people, especially victims of its aftermath who may sully the noble pure page of its epic with their blood, have absolutely no place. In the words of Robert Manne:

“… I think always Gallipoli has been tied up with identity and almost never been really connected to a kind of interest in the history of the First World War, let alone an interest in the Ottoman Empire. And so it's not really pessimism so much as kind of trying to identify the difference between history and myth, that I think it'll never become a matter of great interest in Australia, except perhaps for some intellectuals…. The interests of myth, I think, drive the historians that move time and again back to Gallipoli. Even if they want to revise the story, what they're doing is revising the myth. But they're not really interested in the kind of overall historical questions that are connected to it.”

In this context, the traditional expression: “Lest We Forget” assumes the form of a pious hope indeed.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 29 April 2017

I confess to be conflicted about the amorous proclivities of the Modern Greek people. This is because, growing up in the eighties, I was assailed by sundry compatriots sporting T-shirts proudly emblazoned with the slogan: “Greeks do it better.” What objective criteria were used in order to verify such a broad claim remains a mystery and for this reason, I accepted the claim as fact. In my university days, I was advised by the executive that “NUGAS is for lovers.” Considering what transpired at the various national conventions, again I had no reason to doubt that this was the case.

Similarly, every once in a while, the Greek press is wont to publish articles whose sole aim is to disprove the myth of the Latin lover, asserting variously instead, that Greeks do it better, or more often, or longer, or with more partners or in manners more lyrical and ebullient. Again, I accept these wholesale, because as a newly arrived Ellinara in an Oakleigh cakeshop once told me while attacking a kok with gusto, Greeks invented σεξ. Literally. Breaking it down etymologically, he explained that the English word sex is derived from a Greek compound comprising the words σε (you) and ἐξ (outside). According to him one has to come outside oneself in order to indulge in the said act, and my observation, that the opposite of sex is thus men με (me) and ἐν (inside), being in itself a form of tantric constipation was met with incomprehension and sundry dismissal. Similarly, when I advised him that the Greek term for sex is συνουσία, meaning the conjoining of essences, he dismissed this angrily, stating that he would never allow anyone to con-mingle with his essence, which was well defined over the course of the decades of his existence and uniquely perfected. As a sexual monophysite, then, he roams the barren fields of all that remains of Greek-Melbournian nightlife, sadly unable to fertilise, for, as he confides, Greek-Australian women are just not women enough for him, and being a Hellenic supremacist, no other type of woman is worthy of him.

To add to the confusion, despite being the world’s best lovers, this does not appear to translate to superior Hellenic fecundity. Ultra-right nationalists, religious folk and purveyors of the deeply held conviction that humanity is descended (or is rather in a process of decay) from an original Greek master-race that covered the globe (except for the Amazon basin, the Australian desert and sub-saharan Africa), are most concerned that Greeks do not produce enough children and that as a result, within a projected period of time, the Greek state will be populated by peoples of inferior blood lines and the pure Hellenic blood line will be sullied forever. According to them, there is therefore much in the way of copulative activity, but not much to show for it. This could easily be a metaphor for the manner in which the Greek economy or the Greek public service works.

The august Prime Minister of Greece, Alexis Tsipras has also appeared to explode the myth of Greek amorousness. This is gravely disquieting, especially considering that during a time of crisis, the leader of the home of democracy and the world’s best, longest and most frequent lovers should be “talking up” Greece’s capabilities, rather than casting further doubt upon them. However, instead of concerning himself with the prickly demographic fears of the far-right, for Tsipras, it is the act of copulation in Greece itself, which is under threat. And as usual, we have the Troika to blame for the fact that quite simply, young Greeks, just simply, cannot be ……ed.

In his recent address to the Youth Conference of his own Syriza party, Alexis Tsipras thus stated pertinently: “Children who reach the age of thirty and when they wake up in the morning, they are in their children’s bedroom, who cannot enjoy sex, who cannot feel autonomous… we are determined to change this with a plan and with substantial interventions. In the next few years, we have designed and will implement a major program for utilising state-owned buildings to accommodate young people." In other words, Alexis blames the crisis (and not tradition) for the phenomenon of Greeks living with their parents beyond the age of thirty, and thus not being able to find a private place in which, as the Greeks say figuratively, they can “take their eyes out.”

Commentators rejoice in the consistency of this new SYRIZA policy, coming as it does in the midst of the greatest humanitarian and economic crisis to flagellate Greece since the Second World War, proving, that SYRIZA is committed to providing the populace with its basic needs, quite apart from food, safety and financial security. Indeed, Tsipras’ exciting new policy directive can be considered revolutionary, given that traditionally, it is the government that is widely held to “screw” the people. Now, in what could thrillingly be described as state sponsored anarchism, the government is providing the means for the people to “screw each other.”

Rather than being an inept form of the worst type of populism, signifying that Greek politics has learned nothing from its travails over the past few years, Tsipras' bold new move must be interpreted as a calculated strike against the coerciveness of the modern state. George Orwell in 1984 pertinently observed that: “unregulated, naturalistic, animalistic, erotic, hedonistic, pleasure-for-pleasure’s-sake sex [ is] a politically rebellious act and, particularly, a political act of defiance against states, state power, and state authority.” Orwell, and Tsipras, by providing Greeks with the means in which to have sex, is in effect reinforcing the fact that sex is an effective response to a concentrated, and therefore dangerous, state power and thus ensuring that sexually rancid fascism will never again blight Greece.

In like fashion, Tsipras conceivably desires the youth of SYRIZAn Greece to be satiated and satisfied because this forms an effective resistance against the cult of false excitement that seems to plague the western world. At all times, we are supposed to gush happily about the latest programs on our screens, or assume paroxysms of orgasmic delight at the progress of our workplace, traverse the streets in our active-wear and measure every pace we take according to the dictates of an insidious fitbit. Tsipras rails against the coercive misuse for such energy, using as Orwell does in 1984, sex, as the key tool to emancipation from the cult of the ersatz social orgasm and the repression that it masks: “When you make love you're using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don't give a damn for anything. They can't bear you to feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All this marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you're happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother…. and all the rest of their bloody rot?” In youth sex, therefore, lies freedom.

Greek Olympian Voula Patoulidou, was perhaps more prescient than she could have ever known when she muttered those immortal words: «Για την Ελλάδα βρε γαμώτο,» which literally translates as “I copulate with this, for Greece.” Let us go forward therefore, with this injunction indelibly engraved upon our generative parts, happy in the knowledge that a brave new generation of Tsiprasjugend is being created, one that, suitably discharged of all frustration, will, in a languorous and pleasurable way, lubricate the Greek economy and facilitate Greece assuming all the requisite positions that will see her able to withstand the bump and grind of Weltpolitik, well into the future, or at least, until such time as the Troika see fit to levy a tax on them as well.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 6 May 2017

The Portokalos, Windex—infused conception of Greek linguistics would have almost every single word in the English language derive from a Greek root. For many Greeks, this patrimony forms an intrinsic part of their identity, which is why the ‘fact’ that there are 40,000 to one million words of Greek origin in the English language, depending on who one speaks to, is often offered as a reason as to why reluctant diasporic offspring should study the language of their forefathers. The need to prove that our language has gone boldly where no other languages have gone before, is thus symptomatic of an inferiority complex that ties national pride, not just to over-achievement but also an acceptance of one’s culture’ superiority over all others, in all fields, in this case, linguistics.

There is, however, no need for exaggeration or inflation of facts or figures when it comes to the Greek language for, from times ancient until now and for often complex reasons, the Greek language has profoundly influenced tongues, transcending the boundaries of proximate language families. In this context, Professor George Kanarakis' tome: The Legacy of the Greek Language, recently launched at the Greek Centre under the auspices of the Greek Studies Program of La Trobe University, the Greek Community of Melbourne and Victoria, the Greek-Australian Cultural League οf Melbourne, and the Hellenic Writers Association of Australia, is a must-have book for all Greek-Australian households. Not for the jingoistic reasons outlined above but rather, because it outlines just how deeply the Greek language has contributed in shaping the language, grammar and even thoughts of various other cultures over the centuries, or in some cases, relatively recently. In doing so, it does not crow over the superiority of the Greek language or culture. Instead, it analyses the manner in which such contributions occurred, and most importantly, the historical and social factors that facilitated such a contribution, which are surprisingly diverse.

Of course, the fact that this monumental endeavour, comprised of a compilation of essays by noted linguists throughout the world, had its genesis in Greek Australia is of great significance, one that leads credence to the assertion in the book, that within the context of the reception of various aspects of the Greek language by so many other tongues, we can truly speak of “Globo-greek.”

Of great value especially are the essays on the Greek influence in the Coptic language, for this language relationship uniquely was engendered in a manner similar to the spread of the English language in India, that is, via conquest and colonization, with Greek being the language of the ruling class. Thus Greek was not only a language of administration and intellectual activity, but also, more enduringly until today, as a language of theology and as a medium with which to record Coptic itself. Consequently, Coptic is not only peppered with Greek loan words, but also Greek grammatical forms that are otherwise alien to the dialects of that language. It is hoped that revised editions of the book will examine the trickle down influences of related languages and cultures, such as Meroitic in Sudan, where, in the kingdoms of Nobata and Alarodia, Greek was the official language for centuries, and of course, the various Ethiopian languages, considering the important diplomatic and religious ties shared by the Greek world with that region.

The corollary with Coptic are the articles on Bulgarian and Russian, which are interesting, considering that at the time of first contact, Greek was the official language of the Eastern Roman Empire, a dominant power and thus able to export culture, religion and alphabet as well as political might. In the case of Bulgarian, these cultural ties endured even as political power waned, and the fact that the word order of such Balkan languages corresponds in large part with that of Greek, should not go unnoticed.

The essay on Albanian is also of profound interest, as it delineates not only how languages that exist in close proximity with each other can influence each other grammatically and via vocabulary, but also how such languages can converge and diverge several times over the course of a millennium of inter-association, while dialects spoken in areas more remote to Hellenism, such as the Northern Albanian Gheg, preserve Greek loanwords in more archaic forms, providing the linguistic archaeologist with a treasure trove of information.

Moving towards the east, the article on Arabic is instructive, because our modern western orientation often causes us to forget that the Greek language and culture was diffused both more broadly and deeply in the east than in the west. The plethora of loan words existing in Arabic are symptomatic of a wholesale movement to understand much of the philosophy and science of the Greeks. Given that the bulk of these works were mediated into Arabic by way of Greek-speaking Syriac scholars, the addition of an article on the Greek influences on Syriac/Aramaic would also have been valuable. Since the aforementioned language forms part of my linguistic reality at home, I am constantly amazed at the presence of both Greek words, calques and ideas within it.

Similarly, the article on Hebrew fascinates the reader by exposing the old Greek elements embedded within that language from ancient, to medieval and modern times, exploring the usage of such words as diyatiki (diathiki) for will, timyon (tameion) for treasury, tuganim for fries, from the Greek “taginon” meaning frying pan, lagin from the Greek “lagynos” meaning flask and even the remote pakres from “epikarsion” a redundant Greek word for a striped garment.

As a speaker of Chinese, I am fascinated by the process in which, phonologically and culturally, Greek words are received into Mandarin. An article by the Greek Orthodox Archbishop of Korea about the phonological challenges entailed by the reception of Greek words into that language is also fascinating, and with its companion Japanese article, marks a Cavafian spread of the influence of the Greek language, way beyond his Hellenistic Indies.

The well-constructed article on Turkish informs the reader just how many Greek loanwords were adopted by the Turks as they entered Asia Minor, and, given that in turn, Turkish lent many of its own words to Greek, this piece constitutes the best argument for the publication of a companion volume, in which the influences upon the Greek language by other languages since times ancient is examined. Arguably, such an endeavour is sorely needed and would prove most challenging for the cherished stereotype of the Greek language existing in blissful and splendid superior isolation for much of its existence, with each linguistic borrowing being equated to subjugation, contamination and cultural decay.

Nonetheless, within the thirty languages which the book examines, to whom largely Greek influence has been spread via other dominant world languages, the legacy of the Greek language is shown to be both complex and awe inspiring, as it is extensive and long-lasting perhaps suggesting patterns for the future development of languages within the context of globalization., In facilitating a study of such awesome scope, Professor George Kanarakis thoroughly deserves, our heartfelt gratitude.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 13 May 2017

“What are you going to get me for Mother’s Day?” the yoga-panted, sun-glassed woman asked, as she hoisted two 5 litre tins of olive oil onto the counter at the Greek deli. “Huh?” her bald, blue Kappa-tracksuited partner sporting a luxurious beard responded. “You’re not my mother.” “Finally you get it,” the woman responded.“No, I’m not your mother.”

“Next please,” the cashier smiled, turning to me.

Mother’s Day is a concept fraught with difficulties for many Greek-Australians of the first generation. I attribute this to the lack of a similar counterpart back home, prior to our metastasis en masse upon these welcoming shores. It is not that Greeks do not revere their mothers, as one friend pointed out recently over coffee in one of the few remaining ‘Greek’ cake shops in the centre of Melbourne. Rather, the confusion lies in the method of reverence and its institutionalised form. According to my friend, Greeks have internalised their mothers to the extent that they invoke them randomly, even when they are not present, as if they are household deities, in the course of their daily activities; to wit: «Αχ μανούλα μου, ω ρε μάνα μου,» or if you happen to come from where I am from: «όι οί μάνα’μ». As such, Greek mothers are, at least to their offspring, domestic hearth goddesses, or at least, humans in an advanced stage of deification. Anglo-Saxons on the other hand, as my friend put it, see their maturation as a process of emancipation from their mothers and as a result, need structured, socially imposed dedicated days in which they are reminded that they must relate to and pay homage to their maternal progenitors. Because they have psychologically cut off from them, they seek to bridge the sundered bond by the proffering of material goods.

It took a while for all of this to sink in and discerning in my face, tell-tale signs of dissent (after all, I knew many Anglo-Saxons who shared close and extremely fulfilling relationships with their parents, as well as many Greeks who did not), he asked: “Did you ever ask your mother what she wanted for Mother’s Day?”

Not at first. There were Mother’s Day stalls at our school from which we would all select a present. In those times, any gift purchased was indiscriminately made a fuss over, even though it was purchased with the intended recipients own funds. Cards and artwork, commissioned by teachers, on the other hand were a completely different matter altogether, simply because my mother was a teacher and thus subjected my offerings to orthographic and stylistic criticism. It was only in my teenage years, when artwork and stalls were gradually phased out, that I was compelled to ask the inevitable question:

“What do you want for Mother’s Day?”

«Τι να θέλω; Να είσαι καλό παιδί και να μην αντιμιλάς.»

“But that’s too hard! There has to be something that you want.”

«Σου είπα. Να μην αντιμιλάς.»

«Μα..»

«Καλά ούτε αυτό δεν μπορείς να μού κάνεις;»

Eventually, I would settle for breakfast in bed, which was an uncomfortable experience for her, considering that my mother seldom, if ever, eats breakfast of a morning and I ascribe this to the time when, as a young boy, I made her a carrot breakfast, comprising a large quantity of shredded carrot, artfully garlanded upon a piece of charcoal toast. As we grow old together, my mother finds herself ideologically opposed to Mother’s Day, citing as a reason: «Τι, μόνο μια φορά το χρόνο θα θυμάστε ότι έχετε μάνα;» thus providing the doctrinal props to buttress my friend’s theory.

On the other hand, one of my non-Greek acquaintances, who is enamoured of Greek-Australians and who chooses to associate solely with Greeks, asked this, when I expounded my friend's theory to her: "If you people are so close to your mothers, then why is it that when Greek girls get together, all they seem to do it bitch about them?" This, for me, was a revelation.

Sadly, my friend never got the opportunity to complete said theory, and indeed expound upon why, if Mother’s Day is alien to the traditional Greek reality, it has been embraced by our community so enthusiastically, because moments later, he received an angry phone call from his mother, who, in a colourful array of Greek dialectical idiomatisms, called his sanity, morphology and moral uprightness into question, for he had forgotten to collect her from the doctor.

Nonetheless, over the years, I have chanced upon various conversations relating to preparations for Greek-Australian Mother’s Day, the first of which took place while I was on the tram late at night, listening in on the following phone conversation:

“Mum what do you want for Mother’s day?”

The answer, emanating from the telephone speaker was as thunderous as if the mother was seated beside us:

«Όλα σου τα έδωσα. Όλα, Τι θα μπορούσες να μου έδινες; Τίποτα. Αν δεν ήταν για μένα, θα ήσουν ένα τίποτα. Τι θέλω; Να ακούς τη μάνα σου. Να σταματήσεις να είσαι γάιδαρος. Να γίνεις άνθρωπος επιτέλους. Να συμμαζευτείς. Αλλά σε ποιον τα λέω; Σε κάνα γηροκομείο θα καταλήξω…..αχαΐρευτε.»

“But mum…”

«Σκάσε. Είκοσι χρονών μουλάρι…»

“Mum, I’m nineteen, not twenty.”

«Σε ποιον τα λες αυτά βρε ρεμάλι; Εγώ σε γέννησα. Έκλεισες τα δεκαεννιά και πας στα είκοσι…»

Eventually, his mother having unceremoniously hung up on him, the boy turned to me and shrugged: “Mothers.” I had not the heart to tell him that I had understood every word.

Mother’s Day in a controlled environment where one can be one’s Greeκ-Australian self is one thing. Having to share such an event with a melisma of companions of diverse origins can be quite another, especially by those mothers in denial about their offspring’s life choices. The following snippet comes from a conversation outside a local church, a few years ago:

“Mum, get a move on. We are taking you out to the Brickmaker’s Arms for Mother’s Day with Craig’s mum.”

«Τι δουλειά έχω εγώ με τους κωλοαυστραλούς, μού λες;»

“Come on mum, its for Mother’s Day. We are all going to get together.”

«Τι μάδες ντάι και μαδέρια, που μού μάδησες το κεφάλι από τη στεναχώρια; Αν αγαπούσες τη μάνα σου δεν θα έπαιρνες αυτόν τον προκομμένο. Άσε με εδώ να σαπίσω. Καλά να πάθω.»

Like in many other aspects of communal Greek-Australian life, Mother’s Day can also be about one-upmanship, especially the stage-managed type, for it is not unknown for Greek-Australian mothers to boast to their peers about and magnify the excessive troubles taken by their offspring to honour them on their special day. Where it is felt that the aforementioned offspring’s efforts will fall under par, then that provides cause for maternal intervention. Thus:

«Μαμά, θα πάμε στου Γιάννη για το Mother's Day.»

«Δεν πατάω εγώ εκεί με την νύφη τη φαντασμένη. Τόσα ντίνα σέτια έχει αλλά από μαγείρεμα τίποτα δεν ξέρει.

«Mum, don’t be like that. Γιος σου είναι.»

«Σκατά στα μούτρα μου είναι. Τη Σούλα θα την πάνε τα παιδιά της στο Langham. Δεν θα πάω εγώ να φάω κότες έτοιμες από το κοτάδικο. Ή στο Langham, ή πουθενά. Έκανα ένα μπούκιν. Θα πάρουμε γρουπ ντισκάουντ.»

Sadly, despite the intrinsic role our mothers play in our lives, within a community for whom internecine and interfamilial strife is not unknown, not a few mothers will have spent last Sunday's Mother’s Day alone, forgotten, unforgiven or merely neglected. Others still will have spent Mother’s Day in the cemetery, lamenting over things said and things left unsaid.

For me, Mother’s Day, culinary disasters notwithstanding, will always have me yearning for past commemorations spent with my paternal grandmother Kalliopi, pointing at the icon of the Panayia whenever we came to wish her a happy Mother's Day, and telling us: "Wish it to her. She is the Mother of all of us,"before sitting us down to a vast feast comprising of but not limited to Samian tiganites and pumpkin bourekia, (instead of us treating her), because as she would say, "That's what mothers do."

Time also pauses upon those Mother’s Days when my great-grandmother, who died at the age of 105, would sit in the doorway, watching a long litany of children, grand-children and great-grandchildren enter, process before her, laden with flowers and other gifts, ready to pay homage. With a gleam of triumph in her eyes, she would remark: «Αυτοί είναι όλοι δικοί μου.» Because ultimately, that is what Mother’s Day, like everything that has to do with Greek-Australia, is all about: belonging.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 20 May 2017

“Foustanella-wearers and Amalias are national symbols that we must respect, but they are now anachronistic. They do not convince and do not reflect modern Greek cultural reality."

Professor A Tamis.

My first reaction upon reading Professor Tamis’ thought provoking article “The First Generation is Declining” about the future of the Greek community in Neos Kosmos on 18 May 2017, was to reflect that he is in origin, a Pontian. As such, he is therefore genetically and culturally without capacity to appreciate the exquisite perfection of manhood that can be achieved by means of the foustanella, a garment that is crying out for a retro re-run, with or without hipster moustache (sold separately).

Secondly and as a corollary, it immediately becomes apparent that the Professor’s relegation of this superior form of garb to the realms of the anachronism could be ascribed to jealousy, because being a Pontian, his legs would not look good in a foustanella anyway.

Jokes aside, in his article, Professor Tamis makes some pertinent points. He points out that our local organisations are not only antiquated in scope but also anachronistic, since they rarely meet the aims that they were founded to pursue in the first place and, being self-serving and short-sighted, lack the capacity for co-ordinated action and strategic planning.

Further, he proceeds to do something obvious, that has eluded many omphaloscopic office-holders of our organized community. He compares and contrasts our institutions and level of cultural development with communities of Greeks that arose historically in similar conditions in various parts of the world. Having adopted our yoga navel-gazing stance for a while now, we have generally forgotten that a knowledge of the development and fate of those elder communities can assist us in planning for pitfalls and help us to avoid futile activity.

This is especially so considering that our community seems largely to be in palliative care mode. Professor Tamis’ study of Greek communities in South America, among other places, suggests that within a generation, aged care facilities, which are costly to build and maintain, and clubhouses, become under-utilised, obsolete and then, invisible. Indirectly he makes the most pertinent observation of them all: What is the point of going to such effort and expense to perpetuate Greek community organisations and institutions when that sense of community that is supposed to be the unifying force behind their existence is not passed down to the latter generations, who not seeing the need to relate to one another on the basis of a common ancestry, choose not to engage with such institutions? How do we go about re-creating that sense of community?

Professor Tamis is scathing about the latter generations, who as he says: “Defines the boundaries of [their] interests as not beyond that of the individual..” The change in community ethos from the communal to the individualistic, between the generations is undoubted but unsurprising, reflecting broader global trends and I marvel that the first generation now expresses bitterness about it, for they are partly the authors of this change. Countless members of the first generation, especially those actively involved in organized community affairs, deliberately absolved themselves of any of the social responsibilities and ties of mutual obligation that underlie our community. Instead, it was hinted that their offspring were ‘above’ such pursuits, which were better suited to their “peasant” progenitors and instead, were tasked with obtaining an education and/or making money, a task the second generation dutifully performed. Why the first generation, which, in denigrating themselves and their peers and their community to their offspring at every given opportunity, marvel at the fact that the second generation has largely cultivated a lofty contempt for the organised Greek community and has in part distanced itself from it, is thus mystifying. One reaps that which one sows.

Professor Tamis however, perhaps does not give due weight to the fact that significant Greek community institutions such as the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria and the Pan-Macedonian Association are now headed by members of the second generation. The owner of this publication, which is arguably the glue that binds the Melbourne Greek community together, is also of the second generation. The many dance teachers around Melbourne who are often the first port of call for younger Greek-Australians when it comes to imbibing Greek culture are also in their vast majority, of the second generation and it is they, along with a significant number of second generation musicians, who are now largely the mediators of Greek culture to the latter generations, in forms that are yet to be quantified or assessed. Also unmentioned, is the latest grass roots attempt by Hellenism Victoria to co-ordinate the activities of Greek clubs of Melbourne’s suburbia, so that by sharing resources and working together, a sense of community can be created among Greeks in the areas in which they live. This too, is a second-generation initiative.

Thus when Professor Tamis states that foustanella wearers do not reflect modern Greek cultural reality, he is actually voicing a powerful protest against the reduction of Greek culture to arid and restrictive stereotypes, that marginalize and trivialize whatever vitality exists in our community as kitsch. Significantly, the process of such stereotyping is bi-polar, taking place not only by us, through a preferential distillation of our understanding of our cultural heritage but also by the ruling class that seeks to define us in a certain way. Professor Tamis considers closer contact and understanding of the cultural scene as it exists in Modern Greece to be vital to the breaking of such stereotypes and the creation of a viable Greek culture in Australia.

Nonetheless, what is the Modern Greek Cultural Reality we are expected to emulate? I for one am convinced that the Greek Australian Cultural Reality is an entirely different proposition from the Helladic one altogether and that our reality such that it is, with all our myths, stereotypes, delusions, anachronisms and bizarre rituals form a unique culture of its own that is derived from but is not identical to that of Modern Greece. As anyone who places a Greek and a Greek Australian side by side can deduce, our points of reference that provide our conception of who we are, are often markedly different. Our culture, such that it is, exists in differing forms, permutations, geographical areas and even is expressed in completely different dialects or languages than that of Modern Greece though it cannot be disputed that close cultural contact with Greece is desirable, as long as we are provided with the opportunity to interpret and adapt Helladic cultural forms, rather than unthinkingly adopt them wholesale.

Thus, though it cannot be doubted that foustanella wearers and other cultural fetish idols can become stereotypes, does the fact that so many Greek-Australians were moved by the visit of the foustanella-wearing Evzones of the Presidential Guard to Australia this year suggest that these are not only a symbol, but also a very potent one that has great meaning for many Greek-Australians?

Similarly, does the fact that every year, thousands of us feel the need to don the foustanella in order to participate in public dancing performances, or to march through the City of Melbourne also suggest that the foustanella is not an anachronism but a part of our Greek Australian life, albeit in a commemorative context, much as many Aussies of Scottish background don the kilt to mark their own important days? In addition, is it not part of the unique Greek-Australian language that we employ in order to articulate our identity to others, regardless of how relevant it is to our everyday reality?

Professor Tamis’ assertion however, is an extremely valuable one because it gives rise to questions as to what extent we make our own cultural reality and whether the symbols we use to express it evolve gradually over time.

The fact that, over one hundred years after the founding of our community, we are still apparently labouring under a cultural cringe that sees us psychologically and culturally dependent upon a country whose mores, values, interests and manner of thinking are extremely different to our own and have not been able to coherently articulate or develop our own Greek-Australian culture, with reference to our daily lives, is perhaps the real reason why our community, in its present form, lacks an ideology and framework all of its members can identify with, that will enable it to perpetuate itself and address the needs of the future. It is thus this stance of culture as archaeology or folklore, that Professor Tamis, in employing the motif of the foustanella-wearer, is rightfully decrying. Symbols are important but they do not define culture, only express it. This is why the nuanced and multi-faceted approaches to culture outlined by Professor Tamis in his article deserve thorough consideration.

Ultimately however, it is for the second generation to decide the form their community should take. The comitragedy here is that the ageing and declining first generation still feels responsible for the second generation, and instinctively wants to make decisions on its behalf, without reference to it, even though it of itself, is of an age of maturity and integrated into all facets of Australian life. Conversely, having been absolved of the responsibility of being active in community affairs for a generation, much of the second generation has little vision for the community or any conception of what it should be.

It is therefore in the pious hope that our ruminations become symbolic of an ethnogenesis, I humbly beg pardon for imposing upon the gentle reader, an anachronistic picture of myself, with my Assyrian nephew, as foustanelloforoi. My Assyrian nephew dons the foustanella every year and marches proudly by my side because his foustanella identifies him with me, his Greek cousins and our extended multicultural family. He can also sing Σαν πας Μαλάμω για νερό in flawless Greek. That has to count for something.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 27 May 2017

“Why is there a Greek meander pattern along the path, so far away from Medallion? Isn’t this Chinatown?” my friend asked. The answer of course, is that by accident of history, the meander is something that both Chinese and Greek traditions share in common, along with immense antiquity, and an awe-inspiring philosophical, scientific and artistic legacy. In addition, both cultures have deep roots within the Australian social fabric and both have exercised a marked influence upon the evolution of modern Australian culture.

We were standing outside the Museum of Chinese Australian History, arguably one of Melbourne’s hidden gems, unobtrusively tucked away in Cohen Place, just off Bourke Street, behind a bronze statue of the father of modern China, Dr Sun Yat-Sen. Established in 1985 with a charter to present the history of Australians of Chinese ancestry, I knew it as the home of the Millenium Dragon, the largest Chinese dragon in the world. Now, I was visiting for another reason: to see exactly how Chinese Australians see themselves and wish to be seen by others.

Over a rickety and atmospheric three floors, a grand narrative unfolds, one that has its point of reference in a period of time contemporaneous to that of the Hellenistic period, that defines the identity of the Chinese: the Han dynasty. The ancient artefacts on display are few but powerful in their symbolism. In one terracotta ensemble, a boy sits on a horse, in what could be a counterpart to the Hellenistic sculpture of the ‘Jockey of Artemision.’ Whereas the Greek sculpture captures the vibrancy and ebullience of Hellenistic civilization, appearing as it does, to capture the precise moment prior to it galloping off into the distance, the Han sculpture is static and stolid; a powerful metaphor for the solidity and enduring qualities of Chinese civilization. In a dark, tomb-like annexe, a priceless jade ceremonial burial suit lies in state. The expression on its face, one of serene majesty and power, is eerily similar to that of the Mycenaean death mask attributed to Agamemnon. Similarly, the terracotta Han statuettes of houses and people going about their daily business are surprisingly reminiscent of the fourth century BC Tanagra figurines of Boeotia. To explore the Han culture through the Chinese Museum, therefore, is to marvel at the similarities both in focus and scope of two great civilisations that emerged and evolved in isolation from each other.

Yet that which brings both Greek and Chinese Australians together, is perhaps what makes the Chinese Museum unique: While it provides the visitor with a small impression of traditional Chinese culture and history, it only does so by way of context and in no way is shoving the glories of ancient China down one’s throat its main focus. Instead, this merely forms the backstory behind the museum’s true mission, which is to showcase and provide a narrative framework via which the complex, multilayered and fascinating history of the presence and experience of the Chinese people in Australia, can be comprehended.

Thus at a time when the Greek-Australian community is only just tentatively seeking to graft itself upon the ANZAC mythology by exploring the Greek people’s involvement in this seminal moment in Australian identity formation, the first floor of the Chinese Museum is currently dedicated to tracing the experiences of those Chinese who enlisted and fought for Australia in the First World War, while also providing an insight into their lives and integration within a war-scarred broader community at war’s end.

A cavernous basement, painstakingly adorned with dioramas and reconstructions of Chinese homes and temples evokes memories of another seminal moment in Victorian identity mythology: the Gold Rush. On the top floor, a carefully curated selection of ephemera, including copies of old Chinese Australian newspapers, Chinese local football jumpers, old function tickets and concert programmes, or invitations to debutante balls, increasingly in English, attest to a community in transition, enthusiastically adopting and absorbing pastimes and attitudes of their host culture, without this necessarily signifying a diminution of their own. A host of traditional Chinese instruments forms an exhibit outlining one of the manners in which the Chinese-Australian community entertained itself. Yet one of those instruments invariably makes me gasp, for it forms part of my own personal history. It is a yangqing, the exact equivalent of the Greek santouri, and it was used in the resplendently opulent Chung On Chinese nightclub in Moonee Ponds, the area in which I was raised, right up until its recent closure. As I look at it, I muse whether in years to come, a violin played by Hector Cosmas, a guitar strummed by Kostas Tsikaderis or the clarinet sounded by Haralambos Fakos will also become equivalent museum pieces, a dusty footnote in the history of our own revels, with a special space devoted to heart-strings snapped at Kinisi, owing to over-tuning.

Along with reproductions of contemporary articles and cartoons bearing testament to the acute racial intolerance displayed by the mainstream culture towards Chinese Australians for much of the community’s history, and its political implications, such as engendering the White Australia Policy, the various Chinese-Australian ephemera are tastefully displayed in order to subtly underline the fact that the Chinese-Australian community is inextricably woven within the fabric of Australian society. This is a powerful multicultural message and an example to other Australian ethnic groups, including our own.

The artful and understated manner in which the Chinese Museum articulates its community’s relationship to the broader national narrative should facilitate our own understanding that our history as Greek-Australians is not simply that of the Greece, though this undeniably forms our backstory and continues to influence the manner in which we express our identity. Instead, our history was shaped in this country and thus should not be glossed over, allowed to be effaced or over-ridden by a necessity to showcase the glories of the mother culture due to a cultural cringe, or buried in sundry "archives," dotted around our city haphazardly. Instead, the entirety of our sojourn, which in longevity at least, and arguably in complexity as well, is comparable to that of the Chinese, ought to be interpreted, threaded into a narrative of our own and displayed for all to enjoy.

Granted, if one was to critique the Chinese Museum, it could be pertinent to observe that the voices of the more recently arrived migrants and the way they have changed or shaped the Chinese community largely remain unheard. Instead, what the visitor sees, appears to be the Cantonese dominated experience of acculturation that pre-dates the arrival of the by now, majority, Mandarin speakers. Perhaps it is felt that more time is needed to contextualise their experience, or being relatively recent arrivals, there are other priorities.

Compared with the Chinese, whose blanket ethnonym covers a fast array of diverse linguistic and cultural traditions, not all of which are mutually intelligible, thus rendering the faithful portrayal of the multiplicity of constituent groups difficult, Greeks in Australia are, in relative terms, culturally and linguistically homogenous. The task of highlighting for posterity, our own unique cultural and social achievements (such as assisting in the world-wide revival of rebetika, instituting multiculturalism, being at forefront of the struggle for class and gender equality and crafting a community that tends to its members welfare) should not prove difficult. Yet the more we shy away from public interpretations and exhibitions of that history, the less incentive is provided for the members of our community to preserve and cherish it. As a result, memories, ephemera and artefacts attesting to our presence in this country are tragically lost on a daily basis, simply because their owners cannot find a use of them.

Already, despite the best efforts of Australian and community historians alike, there is generally no thread of continuity that links the generations of our community over the course of a century and beyond. The often extremely different experiences of those generations thus generally exist without the popular consciousness, creating an ahistorical conception of a community that struggles to identify its already deeply embedded cultural roots in this country and instead is psychologically and culturally dependent on a Greece, whose modern culture and mores have diverged from those of the antipodeans. If we cannot identify and articulate our own local traditions, then the foundations of our community are shaky indeed.

Similarly, if we do not control the manner in which our narrative intertwines with that of the mainstream, there is less opportunity for that mainstream to appreciate our contribution to it, and consider it to be truly Australian. In this fashion, via lack of exhibition and willingness to communicate a coherent conception of that which our culture means, save in the form of street festivals, we condemn ourselves perennially to the margins of the national discourse and ultimately to oblivion. Surely, in this important task, the Chinese Museum can provide valuable parallels and insights that are sorely needed.

I shocked the lady in the rickety lift with the broad Australian accent, when I started to speak Chinese to her two daughters, on the way up to the third floor of the Museum. Unlike her Chinese accent, which was permeated with the nasal sounds of Australia, her offspring’s accents sounded native. As she explained, her daughters, having been brought up as fluent Chinese speakers, an opportunity she herself did not have in a different time, felt the need to educate their mother about the history of their people. Stepping into the Chinese Museum however, her China-oriented daughters, entered into an almost unknown world of an Australian experience that, were it not for the existence of the Chinese Museum, would have been consigned to oblivion. Here then, was cross-generational Sinification, Australian acculturation and Re-sinification, all taking place in a historical Melburnian warehouse, with dragons lurking in the basement.

“What language are you?” the attendant asked, as I took my leave.

“I’m Greek,” I responded, in Chinese.

Without batting an eyelid, he quoted a Chinese proverb: “Small as it is, the sparrow has all the vital organs.”

I affected to have absolutely no idea what he meant.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday, 3 June 2017

‘Pyrrhichios Flight’ is the latest monument to the Pontian Genocide, unveiled recently in Piraeus. The work of sculptor Panagiotis Tanimanidis, it has engendered some controversy because to many, it appears incomprehensible. An installation of barrel-like segments of steel springs in the shape of a vast arch, it is markedly different from the classicizing or socialist realism style of sculpture or monument that so peppers the urban landscape of modern Greece.

Most Greek monuments depicting massacres take the form of a classical stele, invariably in shining Pentelic marble, with pensively draped figures depicted in bas relief. Further, at first glance, Tanimanidis’ treatment employs none of the common vocabulary generally used for all matters pertaining to Pontus. Ostensibly there are no blatant displays kemenches here, no Pontian eagles or Pontian dances. There are no eternal flames burning centreed, as is the case with the Armenian Genocide monument in Yerevan. Nor are there any funerary inscriptions by way of explanation. Instead of the obvious, the port city of Piraeus is treated to the sight of an oversized metallic arched tapeworm that appears to have been excreted from the fundamental orifice of inhumanity. If this is the artist’s intention, it would be a poignant metaphor for the nature of the crime of genocide and, the place of its derivation. In such an interpretation, the segments that comprise the work could be seen as being in danger of breaking off, as tapeworms do, if left untreated, to infest humanity again and again, as they have consistently done, ever since.

With the scatological as my primary point of reference, I marvel at all artistic attempts to interpret the human condition. Given that Tanimanidis’ installation purports to be a public monument to the victims of a crime that is still unrecognised by the perpetrator, I pondered whether that said public monument had to articulate its message more clearly. Its position, overlooking the sea, from which the Pontian genocide survivors had crossed, seeking sanctuary, but also tucked at the very edge of the polis, seems to be both inviting interpretation and understanding while simultaneously marginalizing itself. If this was the sculptor’s intention then it forms a brilliant piece of social commentary about the place of the Pontian genocide within the broader Modern Greek historical narrative and within Modern Greek society itself.

Having deliberately chosen not to expose myself at the outset to the artist’s own interpretation of his work, which he was compelled to provide to the multitudes of Modern Greeks who could not cope with artwork of a non-prescriptive nature, I did not know what to make of this piece of sculpture. Its hunchbacked shape evokes the traditional stone bridges that can be found all over the Ottoman Empire. Is the monument therefore a bridge that not only symbolises the passage to salvation for genocide survivors but also, the necessary path that needs be crossed, by victims and perpetrators alike, in order that we may heal the wounds of the past? Is it a powerful evocation of the hunched backs of refugees, bent with burdens, either of pain, loss or bowed down physically by the few possessions they are able to carry with them to their place of safety, or is it in actual fact a rainbow, a symbol shared by the Armenians, symbolizing God’s covenant to Noah never to destroy humanity ever again?

The segments that comprise the arch also invite interpretation. Are we looking at a conglomeration of prison bars or cages to show how the non-recognition of the crime of genocide makes the victims captives of history? Are these barrel-like contraptions coffins, symbolic of the fact that the narrative of our modern history rests upon the corpses of the massacred? Is it, in actual fact an accretion of rubbish bins that denote how the perpetrators and genocide deniers alike will be consigned to the dustbin of history as more and more people around the world become sensitised to this heinous historical crime?

Or do they simply form part a narrative featuring the physical passage of the refugees themselves, with some of the smaller cylindrical segments placed on top of beside the larger ones suggest infants being carried by their mothers?

The name of the installation is also laden with significance. ῾Πυρρίχιο Πέταγμα᾽ has been tenuously translated as “Pyrrhic Flight.” This mistranslation lends its own interpretation to the piece. The word pyrrhic generally has to do with Pyrrhus, the ancient king of Epirus, not with Pontus. Although, if a pyrrhic victory is one which actually is considered a loss because the price of victory is so high, than a pyrrhic flight may be considered by analogy to be a triumph of the human spirit in that the refugees survived and the memory of those massacred is still preserved.

However, Pyrrhic is a bad translation of Πυρρίχιος, an ancient Greek war dance, which purportedly has been passed down and preserved exclusively among the Pontians, even though the Kurds and Assyrians of Asia Minor have similar dances with broadly the same movements. The Pyrrhichios is thus a war dance, casting the victims and survivors of the Pontian genocide, as “battlers” and “fighters,” either with history, memory, pain or the world itself. Interestingly the English rendition of “Flight” is tantalisingly more polyvalent than πέταγμα, which denotes flying with wings. The English also has connotations of fleeing, which juxtaposed against the portrayal of the Pontians as warriors, lends itself to interesting perspectives.

The artist himself states that his work is a sculpture within a sculpture, a sculpture that changes depending on the position of the viewer. Anyone who has studied the Genocide in all its depth and complexity can see how Tanimanidis’ statement forms the embodiment of their experience. The more we study the Pontian Genocide, the more our understanding of the time in which it unfolded, of ourselves, its victims, the perpetrators and even its commemoration peddlers, accretes and changes. As a monument to the capacity of study and introspection to transform perspectives, ‘Pyrrhichios Flight’ is a masterpiece.

In the photograph in which I first saw the monument, which was at its launch, I particularly appreciated the way it was augmented with crimson textiles spread before it, symbolising how memorials and debates about them are built on the foundation of the blood that has been spilt and can become a stylised motif if we use them for political purposes only and become desensitised as to their true importance. The Assyrian flag is emblazoned with similar rivers of crimson blood, and this augmentation of the monument, albeit inadvertently, references the history of the other inhabitants of Asia Minor who were subjected to the same genocide, engendering and entrenching, a spirit of brotherhood.

Tanimanidis himself views his arch as a wave, one which emanates in Pontus and breaks upon the shores of Greece. The segments, made of coiled springs, symbolise perpetual tension and rage at injustice, as well as remembrance. He embeds within those segments, coded retellings of the experience of the Pontian people before and after the genocide, all of which tell a story. A kemenche, predictably enough, is the first thing the Pontian refugee takes with him, and along the way, various symbols denote, locks, drums, the Bible, a flag, wells, evoking memories of desparately looking for water while fleeing, docked ships, church bells, churches, looms, the kemenche as a javelin, binoculars, the kemenche as a plough and finally, the kemenche as it arrives in Greece, ready to be transplanted into Modern Greek culture. This kemenche, a symbol done to death and dragged far beyond the borders of the land of kitsch by the Pontians themselves, becomes in Tanimanidis’ hands, an instrument of a bard, reciting a Homeric Epic.

I am incensed that the artist was compelled to provide such a thorough exposition of his work by irate and impatient Greek viewers. In contrast, Peter Eisenman’ hauntingly beautiful but deeply disquieting Berlin memorial to the Holocaust and Daniel Libeskind’s bold abstract design of Berlin’s Holocaust Museum has provided no such explanations. Instead, the viewer is invited to ponder its significance and by corollary, that of the event it commemorates, itself.

If true art is that which makes one think, challenge, enlighten but ultimately feel, then Tanimanidis’ monument to the Pontian Genocide is exactly that, a worthy depiction of a horrific event but most importantly, of its complex, conflicting and often disturbing after-effects. It compels thought.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 10 June 2017

BOUGIAS OF BOURKE STREET

BULLEEN- YOU KNOW WHAT I MEAN

TSIM BOOKY

BULL DAYS

TWERKING AND DEMOCRACY

GREEK SPEAKING CARTOONS IN MARCH

SACRED SPACES

LIFE, DEATH AND THE GREEK LANGUAGE

REVOLUTION COMPREHENDED

MAPMAPA

STAR WARS ONE: THE GREEK ORIGINAL

ΠΡΩΤΗ ΑΝΑΣΤΑΣΗ

GREEK-AUSTRALIAN EASTER: THE AFTERMATH

ANZAC: MYTHS MATES AND MANIPULATION

ΓΙΑ ΤΗΝ ΕΛΛΑΔΑ ΡΕ ΓΑΜΩΤΟ

THE LEGACY OF THE GREEK LANGUAGE

REFLECTIONS ON MOTHER’S DAY PAST IN GREEK AUSTRALIA

ON FOUSTANELLAS AND FETISHES

RECORDING RELEVANCE

PYRRICHIOS FLIGHT