HUBBLE BUBBLE TOIL AND TROUBLE

“It is when I sit in an AGM, listening to all the screaming and carrying on that goes on that I feel ashamed of being Greek.” First Generation Greek-Australian.
“I went to my first AGM the other day. Never again.” Second Generation Greek-Australian.

You wouldn’t know that bugger all students are choosing to study Modern Greek at VCE Level, their number declining rapidly over the past ten years. The media space devoted to yet another harbinger of our doom as a linguistic community is miniscule, and peppered with flimsy attempts to blame government policy, universities, anyone other than ourselves for this terminal decline.
The decline in student enrolments, is perhaps the most serious problem facing us as an entity today, for ethnic communities rely not so much upon shared racial characteristics to maintain cohesion, as they do upon a shared culture and language. Lose the language and you lose the main vehicle of cultural expression that underlies any attachment to an ethnic community. It may be argued, and in fact has been recently, in order to assuage our egos about our declining skills in the estranged mother tongue, that one does not have to speak the language in order to identify with the culture. However, if one can’t speak the language of that culture, then one will gradually become estranged from its thought processes and mores, to the extent where, communication with that culture and members of it will become impossible. As a consequence, identification with that culture will be gradually rendered impossible. The end result is assimilation, or in the best of cases, a Poseidonian identification with elements of a bygone culture that we merely re-enact, rather than live, and which we do not understand.
If you ask most of our community doyens however, the fact that marked and widespread language loss is occurring within the first generation’s life-time, does not seem to rate a concern. Instead, what is important is the perpetuation of the plotting and scheming which is a pre-requisite to an immersion in the byzantine world of internecine communal strife and petty politics. At a time when Greek schools, arks of the future, are in crisis, the letters pages of our print media are taken up in impassioned dissertations as to the magnitude of the inherent evil of various Pontian community ‘leaders.’ Further, in a scene reminiscent of Stanley Kubrick’s 1960’s blockbuster ‘Spartacus,’ diverse Pontic personages are purporting to be the legitimate committee of the Pontian Federation. If it is not the Pontians, then some other regional group will invariably find itself splashed across the pages of the papers, through the intercession of some righteously aggrieved member, performing a public service by outlining just how the non-disclosure of tens of dollars in an annual report or the omission to inform a committee about a certain act by its executive has placed the entire community in mortal peril. Once in a while, a fervent Christian will appeal to readers to reject the ways of this world and espouse Orthodoxy, while in riposte, fervent atheists, convinced that belief in religion is backward and that belief in nothing is downright intelligent and enlightened write in exposing the fallacies of their opponents and identifying in Christianity, the sole source of Hellenism’s problems.
Of late, the issue that has become the primary focus of the Greek community, is the upcoming elections within the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria. This venerable organisation occupies a key position within our wider cosmos as unlike most of the community organisations that compromise “the community,” its basis of existence is not the region of origin of its members. As such, it is seen as widely representative, given that it comprises, (especially since the latest bout of branch-stacking), some 4,000 of the reputed 150,000 member strong Greek population of Melbourne. As such the GOCMV acts as a sort of Oracle of Delphi for the Melbourne Greeks and other, pettier organisations measure their legitimacy and status according to their relationship with it. Indeed, some organisations, especially those with a political aim, go so far as to claim a stake in the GOCMV, while the GOCMV itself is not averse to attempting to influence the governance of other organisations, in order to secure regimes more favourable to itself, quite akin to the manner in which the ancient Macedonian kingdom created client states for itself – that is, if the rumours are to be believed.
I once let myself be talked into nominating for the board of the GOCMV. At that time, I believed that the board, was like any other Greek board, where interested parties put up their hand to assist in the running of the organisation. A week after I nominated, I was advised that no place could be found for me on the ‘ticket,’ and was asked to withdraw my nomination which I duly did. Come the next elections, I was asked again to nominate for two different tickets diametrically opposed to each other. By now alert to the pitfalls of partisan politics, something that I abhor as something conducive to extreme nastiness, I cheerfully declined, though I note with amusement how even until recently, my name apparently appeared on various draft tickets. No, ticket evasion is the only way for a diatribist. We are after all, whiners, not fighters.
It is fascinating to watch the various political constellations, negotiate, batter each other, align and then fall apart again as egos, vested interests and idealism all condense into a critical mass that threatens to implode come every petty disagreement. The current period, in which the various parties position themselves in order to fight the election is absorbing. On the one hand, there is that perennial electoral favourite: continuing concern about the fate of the Greek government’s cheque that may or may not have been intended for Alphington Grammar. Last time around, the issue was where the cheque was. Now it is what it is used for.
Debate also raged among the gladiator pits of the Saint Dimitrios Parish hall among the stalwart community warriors with regard to resolving the vital question of whether to limit the Emperor’s reign over the Senate and People of Rome for two terms or not, as well as whether the leftist opposition and Trotskyite wreckers should be rehabilitated into the Party, or best left alone in case a Thermidorian reaction consigns all the sans-culottes into the guillotine. These stalwarts screamed, wailed and gnashed their teeth in the furtherance of the cause of their future and consequently, were afflicted with sore gums for days. Interestingly enough, the previous pole of differentiation, namely, the erection of a very large, very hard tower that would grant us amazing potency and ensure our longevity for aeons to come, appears to have, temporarily at least, drooped flaccidly to the wayside.
A brief plunging into the abysmal depths of various community haunts and one emerges dripping with damp and dank rumours about community presidents who are organising certain events in order to sabotage other organisations, at the behest of shadowy forces in the Greek Foreign Ministry, about opinionated doyens becoming so infuriated at certain obscure policies held by youth organisations that they set the media bloodhounds on them in an effort to cower them into the submission of conformity with their views. Then there is the story about a reversion to fisticuffs between members of a regional organisation as a consequence of a recent argument as to their stance on a certain “national issue” before an audience of youngsters, coupled by an impassioned observation by a significant community leader: “If you do not share my opinion, then you have no place in here.” Dem’s fightin’ words. And of course, there are the various rumours as to projected planetary alignments that will reconcile the zodiac and ensure that x rather than y becomes president of the Council of Greeks abroad. These rumours are most absorbing and only time will tell whether w will be able to really “get the numbers” as he says he will, to upstage v’s support of x and really cause an upset. It all depends on whether....
Where we were? Oh yes, Modern Greek VCE enrolments. Was that not what were we are talking about? I’m clicking my tongue in shame and disbelief at the parlous state of the Modern Greek language. How did this come about? I mean, we have so many schools, so many teachers, and is not Melbourne the third largest Greek city in the world? It can’t be that drastic that we can’t fix it. I mean, there are so many Greek organisations out there. I’m sure that if we got them all together in a mass forum or something, we can work out something with the government to get it all going again. But mark my words, if that man attends the forum after what that other guy said that he said about my organisation, then I am going to tell his president that I will make sure that the other organisations will never work with him ever again. Anyway, I hear that moves are afoot to remove him from his position. Apparently one of the factions in the GOCMV is demanding his removal and the way they are going about it is this........

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 30 November 2009

PERSIAN MINIATURE

Verily, I am a Persian miniature, for I am small in stature and all can see over me if they bend down. Furthermore, I have border, a border of thorns and acanthus leaves, at least that is what they tell me has caused my wounds and they are cunningly fashioned, so much so that the cunning oozes out of their pores and is lost to the moon. Such borders as these are next to nothing. The void rubs their shoulders and the small shreds of paper tissue that flutter from the colophon know that the space is enclosed and that the space is called Paradise.
When I awake each morning it is morning and the sun is not real, for its rays have never given up the search for the Ultimate truth and Shams sings songs for me as he weaves them together. He gathers them up and hangs them upon the boughs of the Peacock Angel. There are no names for these songs as there are no names, it was ever so and I touch them with the forefingers of my hands extended and I call them what they are and Shams calls them and Shams is a cup of wine and the cup of wine spills onto the grass before I call it and disappears.
In Tabriz there was one such as this, excepting that she had never left her garden and her melons would not speak, nor would they comb her ebony hair, for it was not straight and could not be bent into the meter. She looked into the river and the river was her eyes and her eyes flowed down to the sea but the sand refused to follow her to a citadel where the sun could not be seen and the vultures perched upon their cubes waited for natrium to emerge from her soil.
When the beasts come to me, they come as one unto a brother who has not known his mother and must relate his provenance while spitting the seeds of dates through his teeth. When these seeds are piled high they are called calendars and from them, the age of the firmament is measured for the whole of an hour and the sky beckons. I name the beasts. They step upon the calendars and time stops still. No more will they call me brother for I know what they are and when I call to them next it will be as one who has eaten the wind but will not be fulfilled and I shall never cut my nails in memory of them.
There are fires in Yazd. They burn the sky perpetually but do not consume it. Their tenders wear masks and do not breathe before them, for to draw in the breath of fire is to consume infinity and their stomachs are kufic and will not be turned to any other purpose. Once a young boy placed a stick in such a fire. His hand blazed into a pomegranate tree and thereafter he could only see in shades of black and white. All around him believed in a miracle until the winter came and the pomegranates became the eyes of a peacock and his hand was seen in many dark places where the peaches reign.
I have not eaten, for my mouth is closed and my nostrils know no lust. I console the contortions of roses upon their stakes and bow before the flowering of the aubergine and the whispering of the rice, which leaves its marks upon my lips. I call to them and they do not answer, for their mouths too are clothed and know no lust, save that they leave themselves before me and go about their business, They have no names and their footsteps are golden for the winged ones protect them with their stings.
In Nineveh a lion was killed. The people of the city say it was their king who did this, for he protruded from behind the walls, sword in hand, wearing the lion's mane. Some say that in years to come, his face will be blasted off the walls by the lightning of a foreign race and then it will become known that giants once ruled the land. But those who say this have blood on their jaws and eyes that are yellow. They will not look upon their countrymen in the face and upon their foreheads there is a mark from the impression of a reed.
When I look upon the waters at noon, I see the Peacock Angel flagellating himself with reeds for they must suffer on my behalf and my back is streaked with blood and a leaf caresses my shoulders and I know not the touch of silk for the mulberries have turned their heads away from me. I call to them and they do not answer, for my hands are as yet untrammeled and they cannot see my tears for the water and the water has heard them walking in the garden and is afraid of them.
In Urfa the stones cannot be moved, for upon them is inscribed protection. The fish know this and that is why they are sacred. They bear the marks of the stones upon their fins and it is death to all of those who would eat them, for the water is dead and it goes nowhere; it died in childbirth and there is no burial shroud for it that does not bear the mark of the stone and all recognise this and shudder, for in all of Urfa there is no linen with which to wipe their faces and they wipe them upon stones until they are smooth and polished, like marble.
In the evening, shadows call. They fill the clearings with their footsteps and the holes where the shrieks of peacocks have been left unguarded. Their footsteps shed hair and fur that covers the skin when it is touched and once touched it will never let go, not even at the behest of the cork tree which sheds itself continuously and floats upon dew. There shall be fur upon the moon tonight. The sun can see it and it is red and I am red and I am the waning son.
In Konya there is no need for a moon. All faces are pale and they circle the earth concentrically and the earth counts their revolutions and withdraws its waters for a time. There people count their wealth and inscribe it in books, for as long as these books survive, such wealth cannot be lost and they can all recite the ninety nine names of the sun but none of them have ever heard of the Peacock Angel.
The Peacock Angel sings to me for he has extinguished the sun and I cannot read what is written upon the moon, for such sounds have no name. There was a place for me in this darkness even before the rising of the sun though I cannot remember it and the earth has its own purpose for me, which is cold and moist. I can see the moon with my eyes and the moon has bristles. I will sing a song to these bristles that has no name and I will use my talons as a plectrum before I leave the palm trees and follow the feathers that have fallen from the sky.
In Usak, Usta Vasil the cobbler spent his daughter's dowry on sheets of the supplest leather for he was to fashion shoes for the Padishah such as never had been worn before but the next day he was never seen again. Some said this was because when Usta Vasil took the shoes to the Padishah, he saw that his feet were cloven and he ran away in fear and others say that there never was a Padishah and that Usta Vasil walked a very long way and his shoes were not exhausted though his feet, which were cloven, crumbled into the dust that is picked up on the wayside these days as a protection against curses, though they will not ever say why this is so.
I call upon the sun and from the soil there rises such a scent of rose water you would think that roses have been crushed into the soil. She rises before me, the perfume of my blood and I adorn her with eyes and she draws back and shuns my embrace. She accuses me of falling in love with her messenger and the stars fall, the bees are enraged and I am turned without the walls and wash my clothes in the waters of my tears and spread them out to dry in the glow of her radiance. And there are peacock feathers on my eyes and peacock feathers in my hands but the Peacock Angel is nowhere to be seen and the peacocks within the gate shriek that they are the Door and the Door is shut.
In Kostantiniyye there will come a time when the half-cooked fish will one day jump out of the water. The monks will catch them in their frying pans and eat them and then, they will spit out my bones upon the page.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 23 November 2009

GENUINE GREEK ORTHODOX KOINOTIKOI

A long time ago, when I was involved in the Council of Greeks Abroad, I attended a youth conference in Adelaide. In their infinite wisdom, the Adelaide youth delegates had put in pride of place on their agenda, the following topic for discussion: “The schism within the Greek Orthodox Church that is dividing the community in Adelaide.” At the time, I felt this to be an invidious and rather sinister attempt to embroil the youth in a political issue that did not concern it. Further, viewed canonically, there is no schism within the Greek Orthodox Church in Australia. Instead, there is the Church, and those institutions/ entities that have chosen to separate themselves from it, for sundry reasons. Consequently, I advised the Adelaide delegates that unless the item was removed from the agenda, the Melbourne delegation would return home. The offending item was duly removed and we went on to discuss diverse measures with which to perpetuate Hellenism for the youth of Australia, none of which were ever implemented.
The (unnecessary) dichotomy between Church and Communities has served to define and define the Greek organised presence in Australia. Greek Community organisations are constituted and given legal existence and regulation by the laws of the dominant ruling group in Australia. Adopting Vassilacopoulos and Nicolacopoulou’s analysis, the ruling group seeks to legitimise its power over a country that does not intrinsically belong to it, by abrogating to itself the right to define the manner in which other minorities that it has allowed to be here, relate to it. The Greek Orthodox Church on the other hand, is governed by a set of canons so venerable, that they comprise the deliberations of the Apostles, along with those of the Ecumenical Councils, held during Byzantium. Furthermore, they have been applied, all around the world and in diverse circumstances, for two thousand years.
Had Hellenism been a purely racial, national or cultural phenomenon for the Greeks of Australia, then perhaps the conceptions of these would have been seen as mutually exclusive and thus they could co-exist without friction. However, the dichotomy between them is blurred. Ever since the fall of Byzantium, when the Greek Orthodox Patriarch was seen as the head of the Rum millet, and was made responsible to the Sultan for its behaviour, as well as the church’s role in retaining a Greek Orthodox identity among its adherents, the Church has in the popular consciousness, become synonymous with Hellenism.
It is this equation between Orthodoxy and Hellenism that created a historical anomaly in Australia. Secular organisations were incorporated according to Australian law whose task was to safeguard the Greek identity. Invariably, one of their first endeavours was to build a church, proving the inextricable link, in their minds, between Orthodoxy and Hellenism. The Greek Orthodox Communities that arose, are symptomatic of this way of thinking.
Though these Communities are aberrations of a time when communication with the motherland and ecclesiastical authorities was difficult and the Greek community was small, (in Melbourne, we conned the Syrians, Bulgarians and Lebanese to help us build our first church and after we built it, we kicked them out), they give rise to problems. Secular organisations, especially those run by lay community members with no experience or knowledge of the complexities and intricacies of ecclesiastical law and tradition should not purport to administer churches. Had this been a stop-gap arrangement until such time as proper ecclesiastical authorities were able to establish themselves in this country, then this would have been acceptable. However, upon the establishment of the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, these secular communities refused to cease claiming a right to dabble inexpertly in religious affairs.
Consequently, for much of our history as an organised presence in this country, secular communities have purported to run the churches they held as assets like clubs, or investment properties, contrary to the intention of their founding fathers. In doing so, they have neglected many other facets of community life that are vital to the development of a healthy community, especially in the sphere of welfare, culture and most importantly, cohesion and goodwill. Essentially then, this is a ‘turf war,’ where secular communities want to ‘play Church’ simply because they own Churches and the Greek Orthodox Church does not want them to play church. On occasion, the Greek Orthodox Church also sees itself as the peak representative of the Greeks of Australia, understandable historically, though, in today’s diverse and fragmented post-modern society, possibly debatable. The result of this turf war has been bitterness and a dysfunctional community. The obvious, that religious organisations should deal with religion and that secular organisations should deal with everything else escapes us, simply because many of us, rather than seeing the Church as a body that expresses a conviction about Christ, see it as a cultural organisation that can be used as a pawn for power-play in community politics. That in itself, is sick.
In Adelaide and in Sydney, some Greek Orthodox Communities, not being able to achieve a modus vivendi with the Archdiocese that would permit them to dabble in Orthodox religious affairs, eventually went ahead and formed their own autocephalous ‘church’, not in communion with any other canonical Orthodox church, under a defrocked cleric, Pavlos Laios. For these lay members of the community, ecclesiastical teachings about the importance of unity and communion were if not unknown, then certainly sacrificed to the cause of secular power. As a result, what are effectively for the canonical Church, ‘mock’ sacraments performed in these autocephalous ‘churches’ are not recognised by the Greek state. Further, a deep chasm separates the Greeks of these regions, according to their ecclesiastical affiliation, something that is reprehensible.
There are of course two sides to every story but the clincher for me is the fact that the directors of the Greek Orthodox Community of South Australia seem to display a complete lack of ignorance of the tenets and canons of the Orthodox Church, something that renders them, as lay–people, ineligible to purport to govern a church. I remember reading a newsletter of the SA Community a few years ago, where its president professed respect and adherence to the Ecumenical Patriarchate as spiritual leader and then went on paradoxically to thank the defrocked Laios, ‘head’ of the ‘Autocephalous Church,’ as his archbishop. Speaking, around about the same time, to a member of the Tasmanian Community, which had just separated itself from the Archdiocese, I was amazed to discover that the Tasmanians who had engineered the split over administrative issues, had no idea of the concept of apostolic succession, or of the unity of the Orthodox Church, under the Ecumenical Patriarchate. They seemed to believe that having found someone who could parrot the liturgy, they could purport to be a legitimate Orthodox Church. The fact that they were willing to split from the Church, not on questions of doctrine or teaching but merely because of operational problems, and make up a new ‘church,’ seemed gravely disquieting. It reminded me of the myriad of Greek regional organisations that split form each other for exactly the same reasons and exist in parallel and multiplicity to plague and fragment our presence as an entity here. That may be permissible, though in the long run harmful when dealing with petty intra-community politics but shouldn’t we afford the sacred greater respect? What kind of people are we, really?
The latest announcement by the Federation of Greek Orthodox Communities of Australia that they now seek to submit to the jurisdiction of the Old Calendarist Genuine Orthodox Christian Church can therefore only be viewed with derision. This fundamentalist ‘church’ which exists in about four different forms, none of which recognise each other in Greece, has had a chequered history. In 2004, its church here in Melbourne, left the jurisdiction of one of its bishop’s, citing allegations against him that he had tried to seduce a young man. The ‘church,’ is not in communion with the canonical Orthodox Churches, because it opposes the adoption of the New Calendar by the Ecumenical Patriarchate in 1924.
The Federation does not give two hoots about the adoption of the Old Calendar. As the Federation’s President, Theo Maras stated: “This is a canonical church, recognised in Greece. Its sacraments are recognised by the Greek state and since it is a canonical Church, representatives of the Greek government can visit them. Thus, our problems are over.” In order words, in its shopping for jurisdiction, it has found a more convenient one, with greater benefits than the autocephalous construct it has constructed, giving its revered ‘primate’ Pavlos, an ultimatum: Join us or be discarded.
So much for the Federation’s religious convictions (and expertise) then. A church is not canonical because a state recognises its existence. The Greek government also recognises the Catholic Church in Greece, along with its sacraments, as valid for legal purposes. It is the Orthodox Church in its entirety that recognises a church as one of its own or not, according to its own canons. In making such statements, the Federation is exposing itself, for what it is: a disingenuous secular entity that seeks to play church. The Genuine Orthodox Church also displays a lack of conviction by accepting adherence to the New Calendar among its potential new parishioners. This is strange given the erstwhile strictness of this church. Is it the prospect of possessing more parishes that encourages it to be more ‘flexible’?
The prospect of having parallel religious leaders purporting to propagate the same doctrines is a stupid and immature one. In a community already polarised by ego and politics, where the vast majority of its constituents are not represented by the existing ageing organisations, the last thing we need is another unnecessary ecclesiastical controversy, borne of ignorance and vested interests. Whether or not one believes in the doctrines of religious organisations, they should be respected, not parodied and cloned when their existence does not suit us. The Federation of Greek Orthodox Communities has displayed its fundamental moral bankruptcy in considering submitting to an uncanonical ‘church,’ for secular reasons. Its members, and the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne, which has established a workable arrangement with the Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of Australia, the sole canonical Greek Orthodox Church in Australia, should call it to account and abandon it. Maybe a few words from He who they claim to represent, may offer guidance: “Render unto Caesar the things which are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s.”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 9 November 2009

SPARTAN SPACE

The iconic Melbourne suburb of Brunswick, was named after the hapless Caroline of Brunswick, or rather, Braunschweig, a German city notable for housing the offices of the German Federal Bureau of Aircraft Accidents Investigation. Caroline was selected to be King George IV's wife by his mistress, who confided in the Duke of Wellington that she deliberately chose a woman "of indelicate manners, indifferent character and not very inviting appearance, from a hope that disgust with a wife would secure constancy to a mistress." If so, she chose well. On meeting his future wife for the first time, George called for a glass of brandy. He was evidently disappointed for at his wedding ceremony, George was drunk. He regarded Caroline as unattractive and unhygienic, and his correspondence reveals that the couple only had sexual intercourse three times: twice the first night of the marriage, and once the second night. He wrote, "it required no small [effort] to conquer my aversion and overcome the disgust of her person."
Caroline was to eventually find out that her husband has already married a certain Maria Fitzherbvert in secret, and indeed Geroge made out a new will in which he left all his property to "Maria Fitzherbert, my wife", while to Caroline he left one shilling. Eventually, after seeking unsuccessfully to divorce her, George persuaded the Bishops of the Church of England to remove her name from the liturgy, insitgated the "Deligate Investigation" in which Caroline was accused of lesbianism and promiscuity, restricted her access to her daughter and after demolishing her reputation, hounded her out of England and into exile. Jane Austin wrote of Caroline: "Poor woman, I shall support her as long as I can, because she is a Woman and because I hate her Husband." While she was in Italy, her only dsaughter, the Princess Charlotte died, something she learned from the Pope, as her husband refused to inform her. Upon her subsequent return to England, George compelled the government to introduce the Pains and Penalties Bill 1820, to strip Caroline of the title of queen consort and dissolve her marriage. Being denied, at bayonet point, entry as Queen into her husband's Coronation Ceremony, Caroline fell ill and died in 1821. She was buried in her native Brunswick in a tomb bearing the inscription "Here lies Caroline, the Injured Queen of England."
In 1841, Thomas Wilkinson bought land in what is now the City of Moreland. Being patriotic, he marked out two streets:Victoria Street (after Queen Victoria) and Albert Street (after her husband Prince Albert of Saxe-Coburg and Gotha). Wilkinson had been an active campaigner for the rights of Caroline of Brunswick thus named his estate Brunswick in her honour. When the area's first post office opened in 1846 it took on the name of Wilkinson's estate thus establishing the name of the whole area.
If anyone thus deserves a statue, it is Queen Caroline, a symbol of spurned, mistreated and long-suffering wives anywhere. Given that a whole suburb was named after her, it is meet that a colossal statue be erected in her municipality, in her honour. Instead, what do we get? A $35,000 statue of King Leonidas, to be erected in the mysteriously named Sparta Place. This has justifiably angered local residents and business-owners who are not Greek. These non-Greek voters postulate that environmentally sustainable gardens planted in this long, dark and rather obscure alleyway would be of more benefit than a bronze statue of a wog movie-star who if you have the movie "Meet the Spartans" as your guide, was crushed by Xerxes after he morphed into a Transformer. Come to think of it, would it not be a most excellent idea to erect a statue to his wife, Carmen Electra instead? I refer to the segment in the fil where she is gyrating most dextrously before the elders in order to secure a relief force for her husband. But I digress...
Of course, statues of wogs are unacceptable in Brunswick. If we pop up statues to wog heroes in places where reffos have been allowed to live, then very soon they will think that they own the place. Now the Mayor of Moreland, Lambros Tapinos may argue that Leonidas is significant because his actions in holding a pass against a myriad of Persians saved the world for democracy, but in actual fact a) Leonidas lost, so effectively we would be putting up a statue to a loser, b) he was the king of the first fascist regime, so we would be putting up a statue to a Nazi and c) he was a wog.
This third point is significant vis a vis inter-wog social tentsions. What if the Persians of Brunwick get offended and go on an anti-Greek pogrom? What if they ask to set up a statue of Xerxes as well? After all, in a post-modern world, revisionist historians could plausibly postulate that all Xerxes was trying to do was to provide the barbarous and marginal Greeks with the benefits of Eastern civilization, under the auspices of the largest and most stable monarchy of the times. Indeed, what if certain other ethnic groups decide that the Spartans were not Greek but Slavonic and begin to venerate Leonidas as their one true god? Very soon these Slav-Spartans will be setting up their own statues of Leonidas, and appropriating for themselves the Lamda asymbol on his shield. In consequence, we would have to impose an economic blockade on the Peloponnese and organise protest marches in the city. And indeed, what if the Egyptians decide that they wish to erect a statue of Ibrahim Pasha, mastermind of the planned Peloponnesian genocide during the 1821 Revolution? After all, he was in fact Greek and a distinguished administration. That won't be fun will it? No, best to keep all these wog-problems back in the countries from which they came. We are all in the lucky country now.
It is typical of these lackadaisical Lacedaemonians that they should seek to create so much inter-ethnic strife and imperil the cohesive social fabric of the City of Moreland. As Cavafy points out, they were the only Greeks who refused to accompany Alexander into the East. The way they carry on, one would think that no other Greeks exist in the region. And yet, the Cretans, not so far down the road, have soberly erected a statue of the great political leader Eleutherios Venizelos on their own grounds. Simple, inoffensive and tasteful. (Try telling them otherwise.) Furthermore, just two streets away from the Pallaconians, one can find Pansamian House, home to the descendants of Pythagoras. Now if anyone deserves a statue, it is he. For it was Pythagoras that invented the right angle and did really groovy things with the hypotenuse, before claiming that he heard the cry of his dead friend in the bark of a dog. If Mayor Tapinos wants to do something good for humanity, he should name some prestigious corner of his realm Pythagoras Place and erect a statue to a person who has benefited all of humanity. After all, we could have survived without Thermopylae. What would we have done without the right angle? History would still be going in circles.
The Anglo-Saxon common law principal of private property allows that one can do what they will, with their own land. Driving through Brunswick the other day, I was fascinating to see a dummy in a shop window, dressed up as a Turkish soldier. When it comes to public property however, the situation is different. The opponents of the plan to erect Leonidas' statue are either Australian or of ethnic background. To erect a statue of a foreign hero in a public place seems ludicrous as it denies the legitimacy of the ruling group's hold over this land. Similarly, to persons of other ethnic backgrounds, the erection of a statue to a Greek gives the Greeks a primacy over other ethnic groups, this is unacceptable in a society that affords all those ethnic groups the opportunity to reside here a level playing field as long as they are subservient to the ruling group's conception of government and ownership.
Ultimately, Leonidas' statue achieves nothing for us other than to make Greeks, who love having their culture exposed more than maintaining it (much harder), proud. It also has exposed undercurrents of community bias that we have always to exist and created unnecessary resentment. Had the prime movers of this initiative been Anglo-Saxons laconophiles who wished to pay respect to the Greek community and an outstanding histroical figure, then we should justifiably be proud. However, when it is we who make such endeavours, then what are we really doing? I believe the Greek is «ευλογούμε τα γένια μας.» Do we really need such superficial honours? Would it not be far better if the thousands of silent, selfless citizens of Greek background who laboured so hard to make Australia a better place were honoured with a monument to their valiant efforts instead?
Nonetheless, as a non-Lacedaemonian Greek, I can't help but relish the erection of the statue, but with one pre-condition: That when you press its belly button, it growls: "Madness? No this is Sparta!" and kicks detractors down the pit of death. Μολών Λαβέ.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 2 November 2009

RAPHAEL MORGAN: ORTHODX PRIEST

To all intents and purposes, the Greek-Australian view of the Greek Orthodox Church is a parochial and ethnophyletic one. However, the venerable Byzantine tradition that defines Modern Hellenism and the permeation of that culture through much of eastern Europe and the Middle East, notwithstanding, the adherence or interest of others in Orthodoxy looms strange. Enter the Very Rev. Raphael Morgan a Jamaican-American priest of the Ecumencial Patriarchate, designated as Ιεραποστολος to America and the West Indies, founder and superior of the Order of the Cross of Golgotha and thought to be the first Black Orthodox clergyman in America.
He spoke broken Greek, and therefore served mostly in English. Having recently been discovered, his life has garnered great interest, but much of his life still remains shrouded in mystery.
Fr. Raphael is said to have resided all over the world, including: "in Palestine, Syria, Joppa, Greece, Cyprus, Mytilene, Chios, Sicily, Crete, Egypt, Russia, Ottoman Turkey, Austria, Germany, England, France, Scandinavia, Belgium, Holland, Italy, Switzerland, Bermuda, and the United States."
Born in Chapelton, Clarence Parish, Jamaica either in the late 1860s or early 1870s, he became a minister in the African Methodist Episcopal Church and left as a missionary to Germany.
By the turn of the 20th century, Raphael seriously began to question his faith, and began intensive study of Anglicanism, Catholicism, and Orthodoxy over a three year period, to discover what he felt was the true religion. He concluded that the Orthodox Church was "the pillar and ground of truth", resigned from the Episcopalian Church, and embarked on an extensive trip abroad beginning in the Russian Empire in 1904.
Once there, he visited various monasteries and churches, soon becoming quite the sensation. Various periodicals began publishing pictures and articles on him, and he soon became the guest of the Tsar. He was allowed to be present for the anniversary celebrations of Nicholas II's coronation, and the memorial service for Tsar Alexander III.
Leaving Russia, Raphael traveled Turkey, Cyprus, and Palestine returning to America and writing an article to the Russian-American Orthodox Messenger in 1904 about his experience in Russia. In this open letter, Morgan expressed hope that the Anglican Church could unite with the Orthodox Churches. He also stated that people of African descent were generally well-received within the Russian Empire,
For another three years, Raphael studied under Greek priests for his baptism, eventually deciding to seek entry and ordination in the Greek Orthodox Church. In 1907 the Philadephia Greek community referred Raphael to the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Constantinople armed with two letters of support, describing Morgan as a man sincerely coming into Orthodoxy after long and diligent study, and recommending his baptism and ordination into the priesthood and that he could serve as an assistant priest if he failed to form a separate Orthodox parish among his fellow African Americans.
In Constantinople, Raphael was interviewed by Meropolitan Joachim, one of the few bishops of the Patriarchate that could speak English. Joachim noted that he had a "deep knowledge of the teachings of the Orthodox Church." Citing the Biblical exhortation "...the one who comes to Me I will certainly not cast out" Joachim concluded that Raphael should be baptised, ordained and sent back to America in order to "carry the light of the Orthodox faith among his racial brothers".
.On Sunday August 4, 1907, Robert was baptised in the Church of the Lifegiving Source at the Patriarchal Monastery at Valoukli,before 3000 people and was ordained a priest on 15 August1907. Metropolitan Joachim conducted the sacraments of Baptism and Ordination in the English language, following which Fr. Raphael chanted the Liturgy in English. Fr. Raphael Morgan's conversion to the Greek Orthodox Church thus makes him the first African American Orthodox priest.
Fr. Raphael was sent back to America with vestments, a cross, and 20 pounds sterling for his traveling expenses.
Ellis Island records indicate the arrival in New York from Naples, Italy, of the priest, Raffaele Morgan, in December 1907. Once home, Fr. Raphael baptized his wife and children in the Orthodox Church. This is noted in the minutes of the Holy Synod of 9 February 1908, which acknowledges receipt of a communication from Fr. Raphael.
The last mention of Fr. Raphael in Patriarchal records is in the minutes of the Holy Synod of 4 November 1908, which cite a letter from Fr. Raphael recommending an Anglican priest of Philadelphia, named "A.C.V. Cartier. According to the letter, Cartier desired as an Orthodox priest to undertake missionary work among his fellow blacks.
In 1909, Raphael's wife filed for divorce, on the alleged charges of cruelty and failure to support their children. She left with their son Cyril to Delaware County, where she remarried.
In 1911 Fr. Raphael sailed to Cyprus, presumably to be tonsured a hieromaonk. Possibly somewhere around this time, he founded the Order of the Cross of Golgotha.It is suggested that in 1911 Fr. Raphael was tonsured a monk in Athens.
In April 1913, Jamaica Times wrote that Fr. Raphael was headquartered at Philadelphia where he wanted to build a chapel for his missionary efforts, that he had recently visited Europe to collect funds to this end, and had the intention of extending his work to the West Indies. Towards the end of 1913, Fr. Raphael visited his homeland of Jamaica. In December, a Russian warship came to port, and he concelebrated the Liturgy with the sailors, their chaplain, and the Syrians resident in Jamaica.
The main work of his visit, however, was a lecture circuit that he ran throughout Jamaica. Citing a lack of Orthodox churches, Fr. Raphael would speak at churches of various denomination. The topics would usually cover his travels, the Holy Land, and Holy Orthodoxy.
In 1916 Fr. Raphael was still in Philadelphia, having made the Philadelphia Greek parish his base of operations. The last documentation of Fr. Raphael comes from a letter to the Daily Gleaner on 4 October, 1916. Representing a group of about a dozen other like-minded Jamaican-Americans, he wrote in to protest the lectures of Black Nationalist Marcus Garvey. Garvey's views on Jamaica, they felt, were damaging to both the reputation of their homeland and its people, enumerating several objections to Garvey's stated preference for the prejudice of the American whites over that of English whites. Garvey's response came ten days later, in which he called the letter a conspiratorial fabrication meant to undermine the success and favour he had gained while in Jamaica and in the United States.
Little is known of Fr. Raphael's life after this point, except from some interviews conducted in the 1970s between Greek-American historian Paul G. Manolis and surviving members of the Greek community in Philadelphia, who recalled the black priest who was evidently a part of their community for a period of time. One elderly woman, Grammatike Kritikos Sherwin, remembered that Fr Raphael's daughter left to attend Oxford; another parishioner, Kyriacos Biniaris, recalls that Morgan, whose hand "he kissed many times", spoke broken Greek and served in the church, reciting the liturgy mostly in English; whilst another, a George Liacouras, recalled that after serving in Philadelphia for some years, Fr. Raphael left for Jerusalem, never to return.
The elusive and obscure Father Raphael's legacy is an interesting one. He is said to have inspired and influenced George McGuire an associate of Marcus Garvey and his Black Nationalist UNIA movement. McGuire soon after founded the African Orthodox Church a non-canonical Black Nationalist church, in the Anglican tradition. Today, it is best known for its canonisation of Jazz legend John Coltrane. Many of the parishes established by him in Africa now come under the jurisdiction of the Patriarchate of Alexandria.
Ultimately, while Fr. Raphael Morgan's work among Jamaicans in Philadelphia appears to have been transitory, nevertheless he did serve as an important precedent for current African American interest in Orthodoxy, especially that of Father Moses Berry, director of the Ozarks African American Heritage Museum, who served as an Orthodox priest in Ash Grove, Missouri.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 26 October 2009

DINA DOUNIS: POEMS FOR MY MOTHER

The bilingual form of Dina Dounis’ recently launched first collection of poetry: “Poems for my Mother,” requires comment. We could, should we wish to do so, subscribe to the theory of translation that would have the rendering of expression and concepts from the source language into the target language as a mere interpretation of the original. This is the reason why Islamic theology holds the Qu’ran to be untranslatable. We could thus view the appearance of Christos Avramoudas’ Greek translation of Dina Dounis’ original English poems as manner of approximating her work for a Greek audience. Or we could consider that somewhere deep within the Greek-Australian psyche, there is a tacit belief in the primacy of the Greek language, even when our preference is to write in English. As human beings, we have demonstrated a strange propensity to record or preserve sacred texts in extinct or archaic languages. So is this what Konstantina Dounis is doing? Refining her cosmology into a sacred text?
Cafavy wrote of the Poeidonians that the only thing surviving from their ancestorswas a Greek festival, with beautiful rites. Ιn her poem “Visiting my mother,” referring to a visit to her mother’s grave, Dounis writes: “I kiss her photo, light the candle , prepare the incense... and let it burn …I tend to the flowers… The familiarity of ritual frames me, in my shadow of sorrow.” The bilingual language use thus frames a conceptual Poseidonian ritualism for reasons that will become apparent as the collection unfolds.
In the poem “My Childhood Home,”
“My childhood home,
rendered more cognizant now…
enshrouding the translucence
of that most poignant of mysteries.”

The last sentence appear in Greek as «του πιο οδυνηρού μυστηρίου.»The word poignant signifies something that is profoundly moving; touching. Οδυνηρός, however ventures off into the painful and the horrific. There seems to be a parallel narrative here, depending on which language you speak and the mythological requirements of each one. An experience (such as death or migration) may be poignant for the purposes of an Anglo-Saxon narrative) and horrific and painful for a Greek narrative. This is the language of myth and mystery. The poet will refer to this plurality of narrative and its convergence time and time again.
In the field of folkloristics, a myth is conventionally defined as a sacred narrative explaining how the world and humankind came to be in their present form. It could be that Poems for My Mother forms a personal myth and that Dina Dounis, in inducting us into its mysteries – for what else was a mystery in ancient times but a series of myths, symbols and stories about the divine that would only be revealed to the initiated? In the Orthodox tradition, it refers to that which, being outside the unassisted natural apprehension, can be made known only by divine revelation.
The revelation here, then is the poet’s own cosmogony. We know that the poet came into being in her present form due to the union between her mother and father. However, what we also come to learn, is that her world, could very well be our world and that it is underpinned by a mythology and sacred doctrine of experiences of those primieval parents. Like Hesiod, she reveals to us the golden age of our antipodean existence:

“In the photograph is
a beautiful looking couple
they are happy
they are together
they have just arrived on this foreign shore
the endless hours in the factories and shops
have not yet etched
their endelible scars
on their face and body
there is only the anticipation of a better life.”


Reading this poem, which goes on to list the many sacrifices the poet’s parents made for her, one gets the feeling that much more is at play here. One feels as if the poet is describing a ritual and not just any ritual. If you remove the photograph and replace it with a chalice, you have a description of the Orthodox mystery of communion, replete with Orthodox hymnology. For the Eastern Orthodox, Christian life is centered in the Mystery of the Incarnation of Christ, the union of God and man. The Sacraments, or Sacred Mysteries are the most important means by which the faithful may obtain union with God,. Ιt could be said that poetically at least, Dina seeks that type of union, that communion through an understanding of the lives of her progenitors, including but limited to the sacrifice they made for us. She will do so by enumerating their works and deeds, much as Hesiod did for the ancient Greeks, in the hope that they imbue everything we do and that even when they are long forgotten by future generations, they will at least remain in ritual for tomorrow’s Poseidonians, to unsettle them and make them uneasy. That faith and ritual are at the center of this work, can be evidenced by the poem Byzantine Hymns, is a parallel and a response to Cafavy’s poem “In the Church”. Dina’s description of ordinary long lost events also is imbued with Orthodox symbolism:

“Every Easter a lamb was kept in the yard
And then slaughtered for the feast
The hanging carcass
Becoming the lamb on the spit
And the sausages, their deliciousness
An immediate recompense
For the horror of the preparation.”

Here we have the Pascal sacrifice, the book of the Apocalypse all rolled into one culinary morsel for easy bolting down. When the poet witnessed her parents slaughtering the sacrificial lamb, was she in fact witnessing the slaughter of their own hopes and dreams of happiness in a land not their own? Isn’t this the most poignant and horrific of mysteries – the myth-busting of the myth that we had nothing to eat, then came to Australia worked hard, had kids and then lived happily ever after?
As an aside, the poet related to me her daughter’s response to this particular myth element. It was one of incredulity. Such things, which many of us in this room have witnessed or partaken of have already passed into the realms of implausibility for the next generations.
One of the foremost functions of myth is to establish models for behavior. The figures described in myth are sacred and are therefore worthy role models for human beings. Thus, myths often function to uphold current social structures and institutions: they justify these customs by claiming that they were established by sacred beings. In this case of course, founding fathers/creators.
Another function is to provide people with a religious experience. By retelling myths, human beings detach themselves from the present and return to the mythical age, thereby bringing themselves closer to the divine. In fact, in some cases, a society will reenact a myth in an attempt to reproduce the conditions of the mythical age: for example, it will reenact the healing performed by a god at the beginning of time in order to heal someone in the present.
We see this approach to myth in the poem Greek school.:
“Australian at day school
Greek at home
The epicentre of cultural identity
Crystallised in the four hours at Greek school…
the glories of Greece
gave way, in our senior classes
to the world of Greek literature.."

How Poesidonian a moment is this. We go from the blind recitation of almost unintelligible mantras relating to our past, to a period of knowledge, knowing that we will swing back to a period of Poseiodianism once again. That small window of knowledge however, is a mythological age, the time when we truly knew what this transported culture was all about. It is a time that we need to refer to and perpetuate.

Time itself, for the Greeks, was a mythological being. In Dina Dounis’ work, time is of the because mythology is of necessity, backward looking, looking to the past to establish and explain the presence, as well as to guide the future. In Summers at Sorrento, while following the Poseidonian listing of symbolic elements, such as spanakopita, dolmades, roast chicken, honey cookies), what makes time wonderful, is our mother’s selfless fussing. Summers at Sorrento, describing the now largely lost custom of mass Greek picnics by the seaside, takes the same form as and is sister to the poem Soccer at Middle Park, which follows the same format: a liturgical listing of symbolic elements “an assortment of treats, oranges nuts and cake, passed along” as if in a communion of all those united by their attendance and adherence to the same tenets of identity. This moment is a break in time, a snapshot before the real essence of the progenitors existence, which is back breaking toil, again part of the sacrifice of those by the virtue of whose labours, time began for us.
Dina is, like Doctor Who, a Time Lord and she can play with time, showing that it is not just linear but can be looped, so that we are can be ensconced in a space time vortex. She can “resurrect the past” as she does in the poem “A Minutiae of Rememberance, where she recalls the exact details of a doll. In “Meanderings,” which again describes a semi linear progression that weaves back upon itself – a true reflection of Dina’s conception of time, we learn however, that this resurrection has side effects, namely “the intangible ache of the heart and the sadness of time’s passing.”
It is important, not only because of its attitude to time, its attempt to create a teleturgy for the mythologisation of the works and deeds of an entire generation but also because of the sensitive manner in which it mourns the passing of a truly remarkable woman.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 19 October 2009

GRELECTIONS

“It’s exciting; I don’t know whether I’m going to win or not. I think I am. I do know I’m ready for the job. And, if not, that’s just the way it goes.” George W Bush.

This Diatribe was supposed to be about why I should be the leader of my own Greek political fringe party. After all, it works for Alexis Tsipras, president of Synaspismos, who vaulted into prominence as a representative of the pupil movement when he was featured as a guest at the Anna Panagiotarea talk show. Aleko is young, much too young in the gerontocracy that is Greece, to be a serious political leader and up until the recebnt elections, he was not even a member of the Greek parliament. Instead, he was a member of the Athenian municipal council. That in itself does not totally disqualify him from legitimate aspirations to power. Rather, it is his name.
A Tsipras does not appear in the annals of Greek politics anywhere. As is well known, Greek politics is a family business and only the true dynasties who have a pedigree of at least three generations can rule. Constantine Mitsotakis gained his legitimacy from his uncle, the great Eleftherios Venizelos, which in turn justifies the existence of his son, Kyriakos in Parliament, along with his prominent daughter Dora, whose alleged Prime Ministerial aspirations are widely speculated upon. Kostas Karamanlis on the other hand, is merely a second generation politician, following in the footsteps of his uncle, unless you take into account any reputed link to the Karamanli dynesty of Tripoli, headed by Ahmed Karamanli, in which case, Kostas should try his luck contesting the Libyan elections, in the hope of becoming a successor to Qaddafi. At any rate, it his his lack of pedigree which seems to have cost him the recent election. Diatribe prophetically cautions the gentle reader to watch for the fallen PM’s son Alexandros. Should he enter politics upon attaining his age of majority, then we can be assured of the permanency of this upstart political family. Hopefully, he will not inherit the quixotic nature of his father, who called the poll midway through his term in office, hoping it would boost his legitimacy. By voting out the incumbent New Democrats so determinedly, analysts said, Greeks had shown how "fed up" they were with the abuse of power. Conceding defeat Karamanlis said: "I take full responsibility … and will start the process for the election of a new leader." That in itself is offensive. Everyone knows that the new leader must be a scion (here read scioness, for anti-scionism in New Democracy seems soon to be outlawed), of the greatest New Democracy family ever to grace its party halls.
Karamanlis congratulated his rival, saying in a brief speech in central Athens: "From the depths of my heart, I wish to thank the voters who backed us in these elections. I wish to congratulate George Papandreou for his victory. We hope he succeeds in the great challenge of facing the economic situation." What about castigation, hyperbole and rhetoric followed by drinks at the club? Bad form, I would say.
Yiorgakis Papadreou on the other hand, PASOK leader and prime minister elect has an impeccable pedigree. His grandfather George, an aide of Venizelos, was Prime Minister of Greece on three occassions, assisting the British soldiers in his first term, against the ELAS guerillas. His father, Andreas Papandreou, who made being a socialist a borgeois pastime, was prime minister twice, which means that Yiorgaki may just only make one term (may he reign forever.) Yiorgaki has a son, Andreas, who deserves to be made prime minister just after young Alexandros Karamanlis has had a go, for the sake of symmetry. Papandreou had wooed voters by promising to "revolutionise" cultural and political life – and offering the possibility that Greece's near bankrupt economy could be "fixed" without further austerity. "We need a new start," he told the media. "We need to clean up our act … people, clearly, are looking for an alternative that is both realistic and visionary." He added: "We bear a great responsibility to change the course of the country ... We know that we can make it." Where have we heard all that before? That’s right, daddy Papandreous slogan of «Αλλαγή.» Good to see that slogans also remain in the family, along with the right to rule.
Having one family succeed the other is a brilliant political innovation for two reasons. Firstly, when asked who the current Prime Minister of Greece is, one has a fifty percent chance of getting it right and thus avoiding the appelation of politically uninformed, which, as I’m told, is death on the dating scene. Secondly, if the Greek state was to do away with elections and simply alternate between members of the two families, for pre-determined terms, the savings would certainly heal any trauma caused by the entrepreneurial property-developing prelates of Vatopaidi monastery, the spurious scandal-mongering Siemens executives, or any other peccadillo or slight mishap that will be dredged up by the Papandreou government in order to justify itself when it inevitably hits a brick wall.
After all, implementing Pasok's agenda of reform will not be easy, and Papandreou is unlikely to be given a honeymoon period. He must deal with a faltering economy that is expected to contract in 2009 after years of growth, while the budget deficit will probably exceed 6% of economic output. Despite his plans for a stimulus package, the new government will probably have to borrow heavily to service the ballooning debt, which is set to exceed 100% of GDP this year, and pay public-sector wages and pensions.
"People are very scared out there. They are very worried about the economy because in this country so much depends on the state," said analyst Pavlos Tsimas. "I have been following Greek elections for over 30 years and I have never seen anything like it, there is absolutely no joy, no hope."
If there is hope, it lies in the smaller parties who continue to amuse us with their existence. Apart from KKE, which despite the downfall of almost every communist regime in the world, save those that have reintepreted Das Kapital as a call for rampant capitalism, still believes in the proletarian revolution (and this in one of the most borgeois societies in the world), the Greek parliament is graced by the presence of LAOS, not to be confused with KAOS, which is short for Popular Orthodox Alarm, as opposed to any other sort of generic brands that can be purchased at your local electrical shop, headed by the beefy and obscure New Democracy defector, Karatzaferis, one of whose claims to fame, according to Ios Press is broadcasting his opinion on television that: "1/3 of Greek congressmen are passive homosexuals with Albanian Stallions." This party has won 15 seats in Parliament. Then there is Tsipras’ party, the Coalition of the Left and Ecology, which began life as a splinter of the Communist Party and like its rival, is able to comment adversely and profusely on all aspects of government with luxurious abandon, given that it will never have a chance to assume the reigns of power.
Amidst the Trotskyites, parties whose name is an acronym for chicken (KOTA) and other worthy partakes of the Greek democratic system, there is no reason why I should not be compelled to lead the Neos Kosmos party, short for Coalition of the Bereft and Phrenology. Our platform is manifold and is comprised of, well recycled manifolds from American classic cars. Our policies include the ritual smearing of Eleni Menegaki with coconut oil every 17th of November and including “The Spit” as compulsory reading in all high school syllabi. Further, the inclusion of the glyph comprising the name of the artist formerly known as Prince in the Greek alphabet and the exile by ostracism to Folegandros of all those who do not acknowledge Tzimis Panoussis as their personal saviour. Given that none of my family has ever entered politics or is likely to do so, I feel that I am well equipped to take my place at Alekos Tsipras’ side. All I have to do, is to be opinionated and spew forth my unsubstantiated and highly twisted social critique in a public forum in an attempt to beguile people into thinking that I have a social conscience. But then again, is that not what the Diatribe is for? From a grand adept at democratic elections, Imelda Marcos, these words of wisdom to tide us over intil the next poll: “Win or lose, we go shopping after the election.”

DEAN KALIMNIOU

First published in NKEE on 12 October 2009