GREEK SCHOOL DAZE

“I’m taking my child out of Greek school,” my hyperventilating friend spluttered in outrage. “I think someone needs to tell the people that run these establishments that this is the twenty first century.”

“You mean in terms of setting Αντιγραφή and Ορθογραφία?” I asked.

“No, I mean the complete absence of any LGBTI role models. My son come home the other day in tears because his teacher told him off for stating that Alexander the Great was gay.”

 

When I on the other hand, mentioned the topic of Alexander’s sexuality to my Greek teacher aeons ago, remained unpunished. By way of reply, he told me instead about Aphroditus, who, originating from Amathus on the island of Cyprus, was a male counterpart to Aphrodite, celebrated in Athens through a transvestite ritual. Depicted with a feminine form and attire resembling Aphrodite's, Aphroditus also possessed a phallus, hence being given a male designation. Apparently, this trans deity arrived in Athens from Cyprus during the fourth century BC. According to Macrobius, part of his worship entailed an exchange of clothing between men and women, with women assuming “male” roles, and men acting as “females."

 

“Well now Queer is completely missing from the Greek narrative,” she complained. “It’s disgraceful. I won’t have any of it.”

 

There is no accounting for what outrages citoyennes who reside in Brighton, but I thought that by way of being emollient, I would set out the benefits of not having one’s son attend Greek School. I referred by way of example to the Homeric Hero Achilles, who prior to becoming infatuated with Patroclus, missed out on hooking up with Helen, the most gorgeous woman ever to walk the Hellespont, simply because he was at Greek School., being tutored along by a half naked old man who was also a horse. At least so maintains the Hesiodic Catalogue of Women which tells the story of of Helen's suitors, explaining that Menelaos won Helen's hand because of the magnitude of his wealth. The fragment, however, does not stop there, explaining the reason why Achilles didn't make the cut:

“Atreus’ war-loving son Menelaos conquered everyone

Because he gave the most gifts. Kheiron took Peleus’ son

of swift feet to wooded Pelion, that most exceptional of men,

when he was still a child. War-loving Menelaos wouldn’t have defeated him

nor would any other Mortal man on the earth who was wooing

Helen if swift Achilles had come upon her when she was still a maiden

As he returned home from Pelion.

But, as it turned out, war-loving Menelaos got her first.”

 

Alexander the Great is the reason why another of my friends pulled her child out of Greek school. “They keep on going on about how he is this great Greek hero and my daughter goes home and tells her dad and it does his head in and he starts yelling at me, saying that they are preaching hatred,” she complains, adding by way of explanation: “He is Maco.”

 

Upon hearing the forbidden word I jump three times of the spot, do the sign of the Cross and sprinkle salt over my left shoulder. “So what are you going to do?” I ask. “Take her to Slav school?”

 

“No bloody way,” she sniffs. “I don’t want her learning that blockhead language.”

 

Appalled, I advise her that when Amphicrates the rhetorician visited Seleucia in modern Iraq in 85BC, he was asked to create a school of rhetoric for local Greek students. He refused stating that a dish could not hold a dolphin. She responds by stating that she has no idea what I mean.

 

Yet another of my friends has contemplated taking their children out of Greek school, thought not because of the curriculum but rather because of what he sees to be a clique of favourite parents that surround the teaching staff, ensuing preferential treatment for their progeny, including their pick of roles for the end of year school play. Indeed, he alludes to organised nepotism on a grand scale, hinting at money and foodstuffs changing hands, railing at the existence of the sycophants which apparently exist in Greek schools in plague proportions.

 

One of my early childhood memories is of visiting Patriarch Bartholomeos on the occasion of one of his visits to Melbourne when he was still the Metropolitan of Philadelpheia.

Commenting on intrigue and gossip, Patriarch Bartholomeos stated: "What I detest most in the world, are sycophants."

-         Αυτό που απεχθάνομαι όσο τίποτε άλλο στον κόσμο, είναι οι κόλακες.

This remained etched in my memory, because it was the first ever time that I heard the words: "απεχθάνομαι" and "κόλακες."

The week after, I went to Greek school and told my teacher:

-         Απεχθάνομαι τους κόλακες και την αντιγραφή, causing her to burst out laughing. She gave me homework regardless.

 

When I taught at a Greek school a decade ago, parents would drop off their children having first regaled them with graphic stories of savagery meted against them by sadistic vitsa-wielding educators. This was not my experience, and I suppose since those times, the saying attributed to the great Pythagoras, “educate the children and it won’t be necessary to punish the men,” is adhered to, though I do recall being punished for daring to comment to one of my teachers that the Babylonians discovered the Pythagorean theorem centuries before the sage did. I was made to stand in the corner on one leg for what seemed like an age causing my hypotenuse to throb most acutely in angles I never even knew existed.

 

I will never forget, however, the response of one of my teachers when I asked why we being made week after week to conjugate verbs in nauseating succession. Stretching himself to his full height of five feet and two inches, he intoned: “The great Aristotle said: “We are what we repeatedly do. Excellence then is not an act, but a habit.” Given that said teacher had a habit of rubbing himself on the corner of his desk as he delivered the lesson, the words of the philosopher opened unlooked for pathways, especially when the more intrepid pupils rubbed chalk on the desk corners prior to the lesson’s commencement.

 

You cannot but love an institution where the teacher, instead of telling you your mark for your Greek history exam, reveals that the word for brick in Greek τούβλο is derived from the Latin, tubulus, referring to the tube-like holes within the bricks themselves. And all this because I stated in my essay that ELAS resistance leader Aris Velouhiotis originally came from Baluchistan in Pakistan, because this in Greek is rendered as Βελουχιστάν.

 

The Greek School I send my children to completely captivates them to the extent that I am fully convinced that they would murder me should I ever contemplate to remove them from it, even after disagreeing with the modern parvenu Greeks’ propensity to write αβγό instead of αυγό, or after jostling with parents in order to secure optimum position during pickup. Nonetheless, even it were not so, I have had two seminal experiences that ensure that come what may, I will ensure that my children attend Greek School until the bitter end:

The first was a few years ago, when I had just dropped off my daughter at Greek school and was talking to my then infant son. A band of rather scruffy gentlemen rounded the corner. Hearing us babble to each other, their faces contorted in rage as they screamed:

“We don’t speak f....n wog, alright?”

“I know,” I replied. “That’s why no one is talking to you.”

 

The second is perusing an early twentieth century photograph depicting Greek and Armenian students in the only school for deaf children in the Ottoman Empire in Merzifounta of Pontus. In the photograph, they are forming words and looking at their mouths in hand mirrors. The teacher looks at them with the tenderness that my children’s Greek teachers gaze at them. Her love and sensitivity as to their disability, as well as her positivity emanate from the image. Not long after, most, in not all of these children would be dead, victims of one of the most barbarous crimes of the age. Looking at their optimistic countenance and knowing the ultimate price they paid for being who they are makes me resolve to be steadfast in supporting the Greek educational institutions of our community.

 

But don’t take my word for it. Rather, take that of Virginia Woolf, whose stance on the Greek language is so visceral, so sensuous, that it makes me want to undergo Greek school again and again and again:

 

“Every ounce of fat has been pared off... Then, spare and bare as it is, no language can move more quickly... Then there are the words themselves which... we have made expressive to us of our own emotions, θάλασσα, θάνατος, ἄνθος... so clear, so hard, so intense, that to speak plainly yet fittingly without blurring the outline..., Greek is the only expression. It is useless, then.. to read Greek in translation.”

 

Now that, mes enfants, is sexy.

 

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 30 March 2024

STRUGGLING AGAINST IMPERIALISM: THE 1848 IONIAN REVOLT

 

The revolt in the Ionian Islands in 1848 was a significant episode in the island's history, closely intertwined with the broader revolutionary movements that swept across Europe during the tumultuous year of 1848, often referred to as the "Springtime of Nations" or the "Year of Revolution." While not as well-documented or celebrated as some of the revolutions in mainland Europe, the events in the Ionian Islands nonetheless shed light on the aspirations and struggles of its people for greater political rights and autonomy.

 

At the time of the revolt, the Islands were under British rule, having been part of the United States of the Ionian Islands, a British protectorate established after the fall of the Venetian Republic. The Treaty of Paris having promised the inhabitants of the Ionian islands a constitution, a “Constitutional Charter” was issued by Britain’s first Commissioner, Sir Thomas Maitland. This provided for an elected assembly and a senate. However, delegates were generally politically reliable grandees ‘suggested’ by the Commissioner himself, who were expected to rubber stamp whatever legislation was put before them by Britain. Further, franchise was based on the amount of property owned effectively restricting those eligible to vote to 1% of the male population. As George Ferguson Bowen, a senior bureaucrat in the British administration in Corfu wrote, “By the constitution of Sir Thomas Maitland, the press was more restricted and parliament was more submissive than in England under the Tudor Princes.”

  Consequently, the British administration, despite bringing some economic development to the island, was viewed by many Islanders as oppressive and exploitative. There was a growing sense of discontent among the local population, fuelled by grievances such as heavy taxation, restrictions on trade, as well as the lack of political representation. A particularly perennial grievance was the semi-feudal system of tenant farming where farmers were obliged to pay to the owners of the land they were cultivating, a proportion of their produce by way of rent, coupled with an entrenched culture of predatory lending that led to the practical serfdom of much of the productive population. The transition, encouraged by the British, from a diverse agricultural base to the cultivation of cash crops such as olives on Corfu and currants in Zakynthos also led to impoverishment as farmers became susceptible to extreme price fluctuations with no back up if the crops failed or there was a market oversupply.

 

The outbreak of revolution in mainland Europe, commencing in neighbouring Greece and later on Italy, served as a catalyst for dissent on the Islands. The liberal and nationalist ideas that permeated these revolutions resonated with many islanders who yearned for freedom and self-determination. The British were extremely wary of the Ionians desire for union with Greece, Commissioner Maitland admitting that the Ionian Islanders: “displayed the strongest sympathy in favour of the insurgents, who were of the same religious persuasion with themselves, with similar habits, language and manners.” Nationalist dissent was however dealt with harshly, where in one instance, martial law was declared and ‘offenders’ were executed, their corpses being displayed in iron cages on hill tops to act as a deterrent to the rest of the population. However, these measures had the opposite effect, radicalising the populace, which began to organize and mobilize against British rule, forming the Ριζοσπάσται (Radicals) who openly began to question the legitimacy of colonial rule and demanding self-determination.

In 1848, news flowing in from the rest of Europe, as to revolts in Austria, Hungary, Germany, France and Italy, these being democratic and liberal in nature, with the aim of removing the old monarchical structures and creating independent nation-states, as envisioned by romantic nationalism, led to the creation of political clubs and newspapers who directed their ire at Britain, being as George Ferguson Bowen admitted: “full of the most bitter abuse of England… and openly advocating annexation to… Greece.”

The revolt on the islands was characterized by protests, demonstrations, and sporadic acts of violence against British authorities and symbols of colonial power. The insurgents, comprising a mix of peasants, workers, intellectuals, and nationalist activists, demanded political reforms, including the establishment of a representative government, the abolition of oppressive policies, and greater autonomy for the island. Thus in September 1849, as the price of currants fell, a revolt broke out in Cephallonia, with bands of armed peasants turning of their landlords. The newly arrived Commissioner, Sir Henry Ward declared martial law and despatched 500 troops in order to suppress the revolt, which they did swiftly and ruthlessly, given the divisions among the insurgents, lack of coordination, and external pressures that undermined the revolt’s effectiveness, resulting in 44 death sentences, summary executions without trial, and some three hundred pubic floggings for offences of disturbing the peace, obstructing soldiers or refusing to respond to soldier’s questions. The floggings, administered with the infamous cat-o’ nine tails, was considered a cruel and unusual punishment by the islanders who fulminated against such barbarities which they associated with Ottoman practice and many of those flogged eventually died from infections arising from their punishment.

The British soldiers then engaged in deliberate acts of terror in order to cow the local population into submission. Houses of dissidents were burned down, crops and plants were destroyed and mock executions performed with little discrimination being shown between those actively involved in the revolt and ordinary inhabitants. Further, in 1851, prominent Ionian personalities with a leadership role in society were exiled to Kythera, an island at the time that was practically deserted, with no infrastructure.

While Sir Henry Ward justified his repression in a speech to the Ionian Assembly by stating: “I had to deal not with an ordinary insurrection…. but with the congregated ruffianism of the community.”  Elsewhere he stated that he “had seen… many of the same breed in Spain and Mexico and felt satisfied that nothing but the most rigorous measures would do.” The contemporary press was sceptical however, with the Daily News commenting that the amount of death sentences meted out: “certainly does not look like an error in the side of leniency,” stating further that Sir Henry Ward had “aped the cruelties and rigour of Austrian and Russian commanders,” while the Morning Chronicle also commented on the extreme nature of the punishments given to the locals. Nonetheless, Sir Henry Ward was never censured by his superiors and a few years later was promoted to governor of Ceylon.

In his magisterial work: “Revolutionary Spring, Fighting for a New World 1848-1849, historian Christopher Clark highlights how in the case of the Ionian Revolt, colonialist attitudes were prevalent among the British even though the Ionian Islands were not a colony but a protectorate. He provides ample evidence to suggest that the British saw the local inhabitants as lazy, idiots, thick, savages, orientals, ruffians, removed but one degree from donkeys, pointing out that this is the vocabulary colonial powers drew from when seeking to turn others into racial others.

Predictably, the harshness of the British suppression of the Ionian Revolt was cited by other repressive European Powers, when called upon to temper their own conduct. In 1851, for example, when British Prime Minister William Gladstone sought the intercession of the Austrian Government in order that political prisoners in the Kingdom of the Two Sicilies be released, Prince Schwarzenberg wrote back stating that he saw no reason why he should be preached at by Britain on human rights considering the way it had suppressed the Ionian Revolt.

Despite its failure, the revolt in the Ionian Islands left a lasting impact on the island's political consciousness and historical memory. It served as a poignant reminder of the enduring struggle for freedom and self-government, inspiring future generations in their quest for independence and national identity. Additionally, the events of 1848 contributed to the gradual evolution of political discourse and activism on the Islands, paving the way for later movements advocating for democratic reforms and territorial unification with Greece. As such, while short-lived and ultimately unsuccessful, it remains a significant chapter in the island's history, highlighting the aspirations, challenges, and complexities of the struggle for liberation and self-rule in the context of 19th-century European revolutions.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 23 March 2024

ALEXANDER THE GOLDEN GAYTIME HERO

“I need a hero

I'm holding out for a hero 'til the end of the night

He's gotta be strong, and he's gotta be fast

And he's gotta be fresh from the fight.”

 

Bonnie Tyler.

 

From the outset, I feel the need to admit that I struggled with the new Netflix series on Alexander the Great. The inane introduction by the strange neither Egyptian, nor Hellenistic Alexandrian elderly lady, spruiking her tale perhaps a tad too enthusiastically had me aching to inform her that in the filmic medium, one is better off showing, rather than telling.

The confession I feel I must make, is that in my first viewing, I only made it to the part, some ten minutes or so in, where Alexander is portrayed snogging Hephaestion in the river. I subsequently lost interest and began to re-read the Alexander Romance in translation from the Syriac instead.

The reason for this is simple. Unlike various Greek organisations of the world who have protested vehemently at the portrayal of Alexander as same-sex attracted, some of which have even intimated that they intend to issue legal proceedings, I harbour a complete disinterest in the Macedonian conqueror’s sexuality. Had Netflix shown the equally voracious Julius Caesar humping a concubine or a catamite on the shores of the Rubicon, ten minutes into a documentary about his remarkable life, I would have had exactly the same reaction.

 A legend in the Alexander romance claims that a certain “Candace of Meroë” (a queen of Sudan) fought Alexander the Great. The story is that when Alexander attempted to conquer her lands in 332 BC, she arranged her armies strategically to meet him and was present on a war elephant when he approached. Having assessed the strength of her armies, Alexander decided to withdraw from Nubia, heading to Egypt instead, not before Alexander and Candace had a romantic encounter. Admittedly, had Netflix chosen to portray Alexander and Candace going at it atop elephants ten minutes into the documentary, this may have caused me to seek to watch further, only for scientific purposes, in order to appreciate the logistics.

Similarly, had Netflix chosen to lead with the story of Bagoas, a eunuch in the court of the Persian Empire and reputedly a lover of Alexander the Great, this would have arrested my attention. According to Plutarch, Bagoas won a dancing contest after the Macedonian crossing of the Gedrosian Desert. The Macedonian troops, with whom Bagoas was very popular, demanded that Alexander should kiss Bagoas, and he did so. The philosopher Dicaearchus, in his book “On the Sacrifice at Ilium,” maintains that Alexander the Great was so overcome with love for the eunuch Bagoas that, in full view of the entire theatre, he, bending over, caressed Bagoas fondly, and when the audience clapped and shouted in applause, he, again bent over and kissed him deeply. The legal implications of dramatising this scene of course, are legion.

 

Conversely, Netflix could have chosen to portray the scene in the Alexander Romance where Queen Thalestris of the Amazons brought three hundred women to Alexander the Great, hoping to breed a race of children as strong and intelligent as he. According to the legend, she stayed with Alexander for thirteen days and nights in the forlorn hope that the Macedonian king would be possessed of enough stamina as to father a daughter by her. A feminist critique of the ultimate macho hero’s legacy being inverted so that he is merely treated as breeding stock would have been most welcome but it was not to be.

Indeed, instead of the inexplicably bland lady introducing the series, Netflix could have cast Queen Christina of Sweden, who, being enamoured of the long dead king, in her seventeenth century “Diverse Reflections on the Life and Actions of Alexander the Great” proposed to “endeavour to place truth in a clear light, because the world [including Netflix] has not as yet done justice to his merit.”

Alternatively, Netflix could have commenced with a dramatization of Alexander the Great handing his concubine Campaspe of Larissa to Apelles the renowned painter. According to Pliny, “Seeing the beauty of the nude portrait, Alexander saw that the artist appreciated Campaspe (and loved her) more than he. And so Alexander kept the portrait, but presented Campaspe to Apelles.” The episode could have thus concluded that this was an early example of φιλότιμο, passed on to his descendants, proving the nobility of our ancestral provenance.

Otherwise, seeing as the Persian manner of venerating their king known as προσκύνησις involved the gesture of blowing the king a kiss with the hand, Netflix could have shown how when Alexander conquered Persia, he demanded that his army also blow him kisses, causing much distress among the troops who had not yet complete their diversity training course, to the sound track of Iron Maidens’ “Alexander the Great,” featuring the lyrics:

“Hellenism he spread far and wide

The Macedonian learned mind

Their culture was a western way of life

He paved the way for Christianity

Marching on, marching on.” No identity or racial politics to be found here….

Finally, Netflix could have commenced with the scene where Alexander the Great besieged Massaga, a city belonging to the Assaceni people in India. Their king was slain, and Cleophis, the queen, consented to surrender to Alexander, with her troops joining his forces. As the Assaceni soldiers left the city, Alexander commanded for all of them to be massacred. Witnessing this brutality, the Assaceni women rushed out to confront Alexander's soldiers, prompting him to order their slaughter too. This merciless act led to condemnation by ancient historians like Diodorus, Arrian, and Plutarch, for the concept of collateral damage had not been invented.

 

The truth is that I switched off because the clumsy love scene was boring, predictable, conventional and lame, designed to lazily titillate and provoke those easily titillated and provoked. The ensuing howls of outrage from sections of our tribe were far more diverting. Some of them launched into learned discourses, attempting to prove that Alexander the Great was not gay and that Netflix was part of a secret cabal constituted, probably with Rothschild or Masonic funding, to denigrate the Greek nation. Others tried to show that there is no conclusive evidence to indicate the complete spectrum of Alexander’s sexual tastes while others still, the fence-sitters, sought to make the point that one cannot make define the sexuality of the past based on the values and mores of the present. Of course, given the ambiguous nature of the evidence relating to Alexander’s relationships, the creators of the series were definitely justified in asserting an interpretation of his sexuality which is consonant with that held by many distinguished historians. But not in a river. Think of the leeches.

 

And why all this hullaballoo? Because to many, Alexander the Great is a hero. To be a hero traditionally, is to combat adversity through feats of ingenuity, courage, or strength. To be classical hero, one would have to undertake such activities for the sake of honour and glory. Seth Schein, in his “The Mortal Hero: An Introduction to Homer's Iliad,” for example, argues that classical heroes assert their greatness by “the brilliancy and efficiency with which they kill.”

 

These days however, physical prowess is not enough. Heroes are supposed to grant us wisdom; they augment and uplift us; they act as exemplars of our own moral code and they confer legitimacy. This is the reason why we need our AFL footballers, lauded for their ability to catch and kick the treated skin of a dead animal to be culturally sensitive, aware of diversity and to espouse inclusivity. Ultimately, it is their superhuman physical prowess which also accounts for the fact that we are so willing to forgive, justify or tolerate up to a point their transgressions when they engage for example, in drug use or abusive behaviour.

 

This is also the reason why incidents such as revolutionary hero Kolokotronis’ presiding over the slaughter of Jews and women and children after the siege of Tripolitsa, and his 1822 despatch to Ignatios, the Metropolitan of Ungro-Wallachia, demanding money for the restoration of the fortress at Nauplion in the following terms: “You’re to send it to me without fill. If you don’t, I’ll be at war with you, war without mercy, war without end, and I’ll leave it to be carried on by my descendants,” are overlooked. Best to stick to a version of the benevolent, kind and visionary warlord instead, rather than accept the premise that people’s characters are complex and often contradictory.

 

Alexander is Great because he makes us Great. As such it is incumbent upon us to obscure those of his deeds such as the slaughter of the Branchidae, the murder of Cleitus and the mad march across the Gedrosian desert that suggest a more nuanced view. If Alexander is Gay, then all of us are Gay, something that obviously sits uneasily with those for whom heterosexuality is a prerequisite of heroism, validation and Hellenism. This phenomenon is particularly acute in the Diaspora where we inevitably seek recourse to historical figures that have traditionally been lauded by the cultures of our “host” countries in order to assert legitimacy within their national narrative, often forgetting or not realising that the aforementioned narrative has evolved beyond our point of reference, espousing or privileging completely different moral codes or modes of behaviour.

 

Whether one sees in Alexander a precocious youth, a military genius, a unifier or subjugator of Hellenism, a homosexual or a pansexual, a drunkard, a philosopher, a visionary, or all of the aforementioned, one thing is certain: more than a historical figure, he is a brand and an icon. And as far as icons go, you can’t go past the statue in the photograph accompanying this article of Alexander the Great on Danforth Avenue, Toronto in Canada, proudly holding aloft a Streets Golden Gaytime Cornetto. Now that, dear reader, is heroism personified.

 

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 16 March 2024