RITUALS: GIFTS TO THE GODS

 

The Hellenic Museum of Melbourne’s most recent exhibition, Rituals: Gifts for the Gods, is not merely a curated display of antiquities, but a contemplative pilgrimage through the spiritual psyche of the ancient Greek world. It is an eloquent testament to the sacral imagination of a civilisation that perceived the divine not as an abstraction relegated to distant heavens, but as a living, breathing presence interwoven with every facet of mortal existence. With unerring precision and deep cultural empathy, the exhibition maps the arc of ritual practice from the Minoan epoch to the Hellenistic age, revealing not the detritus of a bygone religiosity, but the luminous thread that binds the ancient with the modern, the sacred with the secular, the individual with the cosmos.

What emerges is a vision of ritual not as a fossilised rite or performative gesture, but as a sacred grammar through which the ancients negotiated their place in an ordered yet mysterious universe. Each artefact, each fragment of votive expression, is imbued with the breath of supplication, the tremor of fear, the serenity of faith. As Sarah Craig, the Hellenic Museum’s visionary CEO, affirms, the exhibition compels us to recognise that the yearning for ritual is not a culturally bounded phenomenon, but a deep-seated human instinct: one that transcends ethnicity and epoch, and invites us into the shared sanctity of human experience.

In the Greek cosmos, the sacred was not encountered solely within the columned grandeur of temples or the solemnity of public festival. It was born in the flicker of a household flame, in the whispered prayer, in the libation poured to unseen presences at the crossroads. Ritual was the breath of life itself: a sacred choreography through which order was sustained and chaos transfigured. This exhibition renders visible that metaphysical intimacy: the conviction that the gods dwelled not apart from the world, but within its very substance, within the home, the grove, the city, and the body.

The visitor is drawn first into the world of the Minoans, where divinity was encountered through the fecund rhythms of nature. Here, ritual was an invocation of renewal, inscribed upon the earth itself: performed in subterranean caves and lofty peak sanctuaries, in open-air altars and labyrinthine palatial courts. The divine was female, serpentine, vegetal, and cyclical: manifest in priestess and bull, in double axe and spiral. It was a vision of sacred continuity that enfolded life, death, and rebirth into a single, sacred breath.

As one moves through the Mycenaean and Archaic landscapes and into the Classical period, the divine order expands in splendour and complexity. The Olympian deities assume their majestic thrones, and the cultic apparatus of the polis rises with solemn beauty. Yet the exhibition, in its profound insight, does not linger on the splendour of processions or the magnitude of temples. Instead, it draws our gaze to the votive: small, intimate, and often crude, where the true pulse of faith is felt. These are the artefacts of the common soul, whispered into clay or marble with trembling hands, left in the sacred precinct as silent appeals for mercy, for healing, for hope.

These votive offerings, in the form of figurines, libation vessels and inscribed tablets, speak with quiet eloquence of a society in which the sacred was not removed from the pain and joy of the flesh, but was responsive to it. Each object represents not merely a transaction with the divine, but a revelation of the inner topography of the devotee: the longing, the vulnerability, the recognition of forces beyond human ken. Here, ritual becomes not only an act of reverence, but also, of self-disclosure.

Among the most affecting are the anatomical votive: terracotta and stone effigies of limbs, eyes, breasts and other body parts, dedicated to Asklepios, the god of healing. These votives bear witness to a theology of suffering and restoration, to a sacred economy wherein pain is transmuted through ritual into meaning and grace. They are at once acts of beseeching and proclamation, tokens of affliction and testaments of deliverance. Their mute, fragmentary forms speak volumes about the human desire not only to be healed, but to sanctify suffering, to place it in relation to the divine.

It is in these offerings that the most startling continuum is revealed, one that spans millennia without interruption. For these anatomical votives, far from relics of a vanished age, find their modern analogue in the τάματα still lovingly placed before icons in Orthodox churches today. Crafted from silver or tin, these contemporary ex-votos, depicting eyes, limbs, infants, or entire human figures, are identical in function and intention to those of antiquity. They are prayers made flesh, expressions of a faith that refuses to fade. The exhibition thus permits the viewer who is aware of both traditions to make a connection that will facilitate them beholding an unbroken line of devotional expression that transcends Time itself.

This juxtaposition is not merely aesthetic. It reveals both the stubborn durability of ritual form, and the capacity of sacred gesture to adapt and endure across seismic shifts in theology, polity, and cosmology. In these artefacts, one perceives that ritual is not the province of dogma, but of the human spirit itself, a vessel for the eternal needs of hope, gratitude, and connection. The shape changes; the impulse remains.

As an exhibition, “Rituals” is also attuned to the public dimensions of ritual in its civic, social, and psychological roles. In ancient Greece, rituals were the fabric from which society was woven. Festivals such as the Panathenaia or the Dionysia were more than acts of collective worship: they were affirmations of civic identity, instruments of cultural memory, and mechanisms of intergenerational transmission. Through such rituals, citizens participated in the mythic past and affirmed their place in the communal order.

A reconstructed domestic altar featured in the exhibition speaks powerfully to the intimate spaces in which sacred time unfolded. It gestures to the often-overlooked agency of women in sustaining ritual life within the oikos: tending to hearth deities, guiding children through rites of passage, and honouring the dead. In these quiet, private spaces, ritual was no less potent; it was the axis upon which the rhythm of family and cosmos turned.

Equally, ritual served as a balm in times of existential uncertainty. In moments of illness, transition, or misfortune, the Greeks of old did not turn inward, but outward: toward ritual gestures that transfigured fear into supplication, chaos into cosmos. Purification rites, oracular consultations, and sacrificial offerings constituted a symbolic architecture through which the inscrutable could be rendered bearable. Ritual, in this context, was not ceremony: it was salvation. Those of us for with transplanted memories and experiences of our ancestral villages will instinctively sympathise and understand.

What the exhibition ultimately reveals is that ritual is not a cultural embellishment but an ontological necessity. It arises from the human compulsion to order experience, to locate suffering within a moral and metaphysical framework, to enact the sacred in the midst of the profane. It is through ritual that we come to terms with finitude, with longing, with the mystery that undergirds existence itself.

Thus, Rituals: Gifts for the Gods surpasses its immediate thematic remit to articulate a broader, more urgent truth: that ritual is the foundation upon which all cultures, all identities, all human communities rest. As Sarah Craig observes, the exhibition is not an insular act of cultural self-regard, but a gesture of inclusion; a bridge between times, peoples, and faiths. In a world beset by fragmentation, alienation, and dislocation, the exhibition offers a luminous counterpoint: a vision of continuity, of shared humanity, and of transcendent connection.

It is within this expansive humanistic vision that the Hellenic Museum finds its highest purpose. It is not a mausoleum of antiquity, but a crucible of dialogue, a sacred space where the legacy of Hellenism is neither fossilised nor fetishised, but interrogated, reimagined, and made relevant to the living concerns of the present. Through exhibitions such as “Rituals”, the Museum offers the Greek diaspora and the populace at large, the opportunity to situate themselves within the continuum of a civilisation whose rituals, though ancient, remain urgently contemporary.

For those of us living at the confluence of memory and migration, Rituals: Gifts for the Gods becomes something more than an academic exercise. It becomes a mirror through which we glimpse ourselves: fractured, searching, and yearning for meaning. It invites us to retrieve what has been forgotten, to name what has been unspoken, to craft out of fragments a coherent self, or at least, to recognise those fragments, disparate and often unintelligible as part of a multi0faceted and infinitely complex whole. In this sacred encounter between artefact and identity, the Hellenic Museum performs its most vital work: enabling us to reconstitute our place in the world, not as displaced inheritors of a fading tradition, but as conscious participants in a living, breathing cultural ethos.

In summoning the sacred past into the present moment, the exhibition reminds us that we are never severed from our origins: that the gods we honour, the invocations we intone, the rituals we perform, endure within us, awaiting remembrance. And in remembering, we become whole.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 7 June 2025

THE MELANCHOLY OF THE POLITICIAN

 

"Despite their promises at the last Election, the politicians had not yet changed the climate"  Evelyn Waugh, 'Love Among the Ruins' 1953.

Giorgio de Chirico, one of my favourite artists, painted “The Melancholy of the Politician in 1913. A metaphysical masterpiece that explores themes of isolation, alienation, and the human condition. Using a unique blend of classical architecture, everyday objects, and distorted perspective to create a dreamlike, almost surreal atmosphere that evokes a sense of unease and mystery, he poses the question: just how much of a politician can you be in a polis bereft of citizens? The statue of a politician looms large over an empty square populated by the silhouette of a person. Is this also a politician, one who seeks validation by the petrified and the departed? Or a citizen, vainly looking for someone to vote for?

It is exactly this scene that I envisaged when I came upon a most animated friend passionately handing out leaflets on my way to the ballot box, a few weeks ago. I thought I would provoke him by refusing to take his leaflet. To his question as to why I was refusing direction, I pointed him gently in the direction of doyen of the Greek Enlightenment, Iosipos Moisiodax, who asked in 1761, as I did at that moment:

"And what benefit does the state expect from a politician who regards custom and legality indifferently as one and the same thing: who has neither learned, nor shows any desire to learn, what is law, or what is polity?"

 

My friend persisted, extolling the virtues of the candidate he was tasked with spruiking, and desperately cajoled me into at least tarrying in order for him to complete the entire sales pitch, but I was having none of it. Instead, I referred him to the Ancient Greek tragedy “Hecuba” where, commenting on Odysseus intention to sacrifice her daughter Polyxena to the spirit of Achilles, even though Hecuba has saved Odysseus’ life, the Trojan Queen rails against: “these politicians who cringe for favours from a screaming mob and do not care what harm they do to their friends.”

 

By way of riposte, my friend demanded that I show him which daughters were sacrificed by his party, in order for this to form the basis of my argument, arguing that I was talking excrement. I shrugged his copronymic assertion aside, reminding him of when, returning to his native Tarsus philosopher Athenodoros had his front door smeared in excrement by partisans of his rival Boethius, Athenodoros wrote: “One may recognize the city’s illness and disaffection in many ways, and particularly from its excrement.” We are after all kin of the Modern Greek αγανακτισμένοι.

 

This in no way dampened my interlocutor’s fervour. He wanted to know what my political philosophy was, in order, as he maintained, to prove to me that his candidate was aligned with my views. This is an easy task, for such views as I may hold are best expressed by the queen of political activism and dissidence, Lysistrata, who Aristophanes quotes as proclaiming:

"If you had any sense, you would handle all your affairs in the way we handle wool....

First of all, just like washing out a raw fleece, you should wash the sheep-dung out of the body politic in a bath, then put it on a bed, beat out the villains with a stick and pic off the burrs; and as for those people who combine and mat themselves to gain office, you should card them out and pluck off the heads. Then card the wool into the work-basket of union and concord, mixing in everyone; and the immigrants, and any foreigner who is friendly to you, and anyone who is in debt to the treasury, they should be mixed in as well.... and then make a great ball of wool, and from that weave a warm cloak for the people to wear." Even back then, Lysistrata was proud to be Union.

 

The shadows were lengthening, like those in De Chrico’s empty, windswept square, and still the candidate, who I was asked to wait for and meet, and not materialised. As we waited, we mused at how gerontocratic Greek community politics is, as compared to Australian politics where renewal is the norm. My friend, of a conservative bent, considered that as our ancient forebears were wise and that wisdom comes with age, the origins of our gerontocracy must lie therein. I disagreed vehemently. In closing his argument as to why old men should remain active in politics, Plutarch digresses, explaining why certain statues of Hermes are designed the way they are:

“That is why representations of Hermes showing him as an old man are created with no hands or feet, but with erect member: the intimation is that there is little need for physical vigour in old men, but they should have, as is fitting, a fertile and productive reason.” This then is the reason why so many elderly members of our community hang onto their positions in brotherhoods with such tenacity and insist on playing politics. It also explains why many Australian contenders in the game tarry longer than they should in search of the elusive fourth term. It helps with their love life.

 

When the candidate did arrive, at the very end of the day, there were few people to greet him with a cheer. One of his supporters uttered the un-Australian political war-cry “Booyah” which left me completed gobsmacked. Enquiring as to why I was so visibly moved, I confided in my friend that that the American exclamation used to express triumph "Booyah!" actually comes from the Souliote War Cry "Boowah!" and we have Lord Byron's poem "Song to the Suliotes" to prove it:

“Up to battle! Sons of Suli

Up, and do your duty duly!

There the wall — and there the Moat is:

Bouwah! Bouwah! Suliotes!

There is booty — there is Beauty,

Up my boys and do your duty.”

 

Best election campaign theme song since “It’s Time,” if you ask me.

 

I didn’t speak to the candidate. Crisp, clean and eminently a poster boy for Anglo-Saxon vitality, I sidled inside the polling booth, therein to perform my democratic rites. Emerging from the sanctum of the polis, I did not deign to respond to my friend’s entreaties to reveal for whom I had voted, by advising him instead that in 2016, in voting for the President of Lebanon, a Lebanese MP wrote "Zorba the Greek" on the ballot. It was noted (in accordance with the power sharing arrangements between religious groups in Lebanon) that Zorba was a Greek Orthodox Christian, while according to the Constitution the President must be a Maronite (Catholic) Christian. A true but bizarre story.

 

Inspired by the Lebanese politician and suffering the malevolent after-effects of a rather contrary democracy sausage upon my digestive system  as commensurate to the quality of the argument I had advanced with to friend previously, I considered those who would do away with the right to choose altogether and caused to be posted the following piece of frivolity upon my social media page:

“In breaking news it has been announced that in order to effect the necessary cost-cutting needed to bring Australia back from the brink of financial collapse, the Australian Labor Party is merging with the Antiochian Orthodox Church.

Since its prelates are appointed directly from Antioch, Syria (a place infinitely more accessible than Canberra) rather than having politicians be elected, elections will henceforth be abolished. Instead, the victor will be popularly acclaimed with the words “Axios!” pronounced with a lisp.

This will save Australia billions in puerile advertising costs, cheesy photo shoots and will achieve Economies of scale and efficiency as politicians dispense with the need to pretend to listen and claim they care about the electorate.

Electorates will be abolished and replaced with parishes. The first order of business will be to excommunicate the Trumpet and his Patriots and reconcile with the Greens but only on Palm Sunday and Saint Patrick’s Day.

Given that Dutton comes from the Greek άδυτον, a holy sacred place where one may not enter, he will be excluded from the running.”

It was only when reading Tacitus that night that I recalled that acclamation by “Axios” is a process infinitely fraught with danger. Long associated with approbation and acclamation, ἄξιος is the only word the Roman general Gnaeus Domitius Corbulo uttered when in arriving at Cenchreae, the port of Corinth, messengers from mad emperor Nero met the general and ordered him to commit suicide. Undaunted, he strode forward to accept his fate, and fell on his own sword after exclaiming, "Axios!"

Best stick to ballots and preferences, albeit in desolate squares, after all.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 31 May 2025

ΠΑΠΟΥΤΣΙ ΑΠΟ ΤΟΝ ΤΟΠΟ ΣΟΥ

 

Honestly, the goings on of the Ministry of Culture of the Hellenic Republic make a person with the future of the race at heart despair. I mean serious, imagine getting stroppy with ADIDAS ^TM  simply because the good people headquartered in Herzogenaurach, Germany, had the inspiring idea of placing a colourful drone shoe above the Parthenon.

I remember as if it were yesterday, being ten years of age, warming my hands in front of the spit at an aged family friend’s nameday, and being approached by an older boy, who asked: “Hey, do you know what ADIDAS stands for?”

Had I been just a few years older, I imagine I would have advanced the opinion that they stand for the proletariat seizing control of the means of production so that the production of commodities is done away with, but instead I shrugged my shoulders. Moving close to my ear, the boy whispered in a hoarse voice: “All Day I Dream about S*x.”

“Rubbish,” boomed a voice from the other side of the spit, the purple face of his uncle contorted in various hues of inebriation. “It stands for “All Day I Dream About Soviet Union.” Crushing his stubby in his enormous proletarian fist as easily as he would crack the knuckles of the petit bourgeoisie, he then raised that fist in comradely salute and fixed us with a glare that would brook no opposition. I never did sum up the courage to illuminate him, when I found out years later, that ADIDAS is actually an acronym for the name of the company’s founder, Adolf "Adi" Dassler.

Viewed from this perspective, one could never accuse for Minister of Culture Mendoni of mendacity, in responding to the drone shoe with such fury. Not so long ago, another Adolf tried to stamp his jackboot on our sacred rock. Now this Adolf is trying to plant his sneaker upon it. Seriously though, the warning signs were all there, had we bit paid attention. Take the Adidas trefoil design, which apparently stands for North America, Europe and Asia, the continents or at least the markets of said land masses, that Adolf presumably seeks to conquer, subdue or at least peddle his product in. It was only a matter of time before his cohorts arrived to press us all under his athletic foot. After all, did not Adidas recently drop their marketing slogan for twenty years: “Impossible is Nothing” (a prescient warning to us if there ever was one that anything is possible, even the appropriation of the Parthenon), to the even more ominous “You’ve Got This,” no doubt referring to the Acropolis, its environs and all ticket sales therein?

While pundits and politician cry foul, something more sinister and profound is going on here and if the good people at the Ministry of Culture had just heard famed film director Yiorgos Lanthimos out, rejecting his recent application for filming rights to the Acropolis, they would have realised that the future of the world is at stake. For in Bugonia, his in production film, Lanthimos purports the tale of two conspiracy-obsessed young men who kidnap the high-powered CEO of a major company, convinced that she is an alien intent on destroying planet Earth. This, we are told and are expected to believe, is Science Fiction. And yet that is exactly what they want you to think. The truth is, that there are two CEO’s of two major companies vying for World Domination under our very noses and we are completely oblivious.

By now, you have probably guessed the identity of one of them. As to the other, consider this: What is the name of the temple to the right of the Propylaea at the entrance of the sacred precinct of the Acropolis? Ten ADIDAS vouchers to those of you who answered “the temple of Athena Nike.” Yes, NIKE. And I ask you gentle reader, have you ever heard or read about any Greek government, its officials, employees, assigns, clients or general hangers on make a gesture of at least the slightest disapprobation at this blatant infringement of our trademark and gross violation of our intellectual property by company b? You will not find one reference to such a protest anywhere, I promise you. For Pericles’ sake people, just do it.

So if it is not the violation itself that incenses the Hellenic populace, for we have already taken sides surreptitiously in the turf war of the alien companies, one which Lanthimos in his audacity threatens to disrupt, one can only deduce that the offending component in the whole story must be the shoe. For this at least, there is ample cultural evidence. Traditionally, to show the sole of one’s shoe to someone was a sign of the grossest disrespect, which is why one never sat with their legs crossed on a chair in front of one’s elders and betters. Here we have not just a whole sole but an entire shoe resting upon us. Then there is the revolutionary saying: «Παπούτσι από τον τόπο σου κι ας είναι μπαλωμένο» (a shoe from your own land, even if its is a patched one), a powerful Trumpian protectionist tariff increasing call to arms if there ever was one, which in breach of European Union regulations, tells Adolf to go stuff his shoe where the Sun of Vergina does not shine, since the Greeks have their own local shoe industry, even if this is comprised primarily of leather sandals in tourist kiosks on the Cyclades and tsarouhia for Manasis’ Froura in Melbourne.

But one defies one’s European masters at one’s peril. After all, were they not the ones who in the recent crisis μας έβαλαν τα δυο πόδια σε ένα παπούτσι? And when the people rose up as one and voted resoundingly NO in the referendum against the TROIKA’s bailout conditions, did they not proceed να μας πατήσουν τον κάλο? And of course, one needs to consider what our response had been had the shoe been on the other foot, although it must be said that while Greeks did have imperialistic proclivities before being taught the error of their ways, you never saw a Byzantine emperor plant his imperial porphyry buskins on the public edifices of any of its vassal states. Κλέφτες με ποδήματα, all of them, I say, and instead of protesting against Adolf, verifying the old adage: «γλώσσα παπούτσι, μυαλό κουκούτσι» perhaps we should be grateful that our overlords «δεν μας δίνουν τα παπούτσια στο χέρι» exiling us beyond the lands of the Union where we shall abide in sparsity and austerity, «με μισό παπούτσι.»

Of course the corollary of all this may just be that dear old Adolf in planting his sole upon the soul of our nation, is actually trying to pay us a Teutonic complement, which is why I rail at the overreaction of the Greek Minister of Culture. In positioning his shoe upon the columns of the Parthenon, is he not telling us that the very foundation of his foot-cladding philosophy is based upon ancient Greece, to whom he owes all? Furthermore, pundits who look into these things closely with the numerologists in Velopoulos’ Ελληνική Λύση Party, reliably inform me that the shoe actually does not rest upon the temple itself but rather, being comprised of drones, hovers above it at the conceptual point where the entasis of its columns meet, suggesting that all things will inevitably converge and it is futile to resist. (That by the way I am reliably informed by my astrologer, will be ADIDAS’s marketing slogan for 2026 and they have applied for it to also be adopted by the 2028 Los Angeles Olympics Apparently, they are a shoe in).

If after this length disquisition, you are not convinced and instead of welcoming Adolf with open arms, have maintained your rage and your enthusiasm, console yourself at least in the knowledge that our people have from times ancient developed a tried and true traditional method of dealing with interlopers, foreign and domestic. Τους γράφουμε στα παλιά μας τα παπούτσια.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 24 May 2025

HYDRA IN WINTER

 

Just imagine, if you will, that you could read a humorous version of the Pentateuch, written by a particularly witty in-law of a descendant of Abraham, who peppers her pages with an innumerable quantity of puns and allows you to join her as she retraces the steps of the patriarchs.

This is exactly the experience you are presented with when called upon by author Shelley Dark to sojourn with her in “Hydra in Winter.” Her narrative technique is one which co-opts you and makes you complicit in her journey of discovery, compelling you to trust her as your guide, by the simple act of turning the page. She disarms you, not in the least by calling you “buddy,” but also because her lucid, chatty, effortlessly accessible prose allows the ready to transcend time, space, season, and even Greek pronunciation, for which she displays remarkable aptitude.

The author of the recently published “Hydra in Winter,” is on a biblical mission. If Genesis traces the journey of patriarch Abraham from Ur of the Chaldees to the Promised Land, whence we all come, spiritually or otherwise, “Hydra in Winter” is also a Testament, attempting to trace the journey of one of our own community patriarchs from his homeland of Hydra, to Australia. Shelly Dark is perhaps best placed to do so, because her husband John, is a direct descendant of Gkikas Voulgaris, also known as Jigger Bulgary, one of the seven first Greeks to arrive in Australia, having been transported here in 1829 after a conviction for piracy.

The author’s attempt to trace our illustrious common ancestor’s journey back to its source in Hydra is an inspired one, not in the least because in doing so she puts her finger on the nub of our own ontopathology when it comes to our founding fathers and our identity as Greek Australians. On the one hand our national narrative renders our pirates as heroes: bold men who sailed the seas on a quest to liberate and defend their nation, defeat their enemies and compound their foes with feats of ingenuity, audacity and downright genius. On the other hand, Greek-Australian scholars have taken issue with a discourse that appears to grant their compatriots a convict heritage. It is after all, before the story of the seven pirates was widely known, an absence of criminality that comprised one of the elements that differentiated us from the dominant group’s narrative. Consequently those scholars point to efforts to present the seven pirates as convicts as symptomatic of a tendency of the ruling class to cast aspersions upon our pedigree, seeking to transfer to us, their own identity, possibly in order to make us complicit in their violent seizure of indigenous land and the assumption of its sovereignty. Is this then the original sin that is common to all of us?

Happily, Shelley Dark does not deal in the abstruse and the obscure, although hers is a pen that is as meticulous in recording details as it is in defying stereotypes. Hers is not the travelogue or indeed the journey of the tourist, peddling tired tropes about bouzouki, tzatziki and retsina and indeed on many of her inspired asides, she expertly is able to open-heartedly play with the expectations and deep seated cliches that accompany a westerner’s  (and not a few latter Greek-Australian generation’s ) understanding of Greece, (her quip about breaking plates, but not the ones off the wall, is a case in point). Instead, the cajoles us to accompany her to not touristic-Greece: Hydra in the off season, which far from being a sun-drenched paradise is icy cold, and where almost everything is shut. This is the real Greece, inhabited by real people and this place, as desolate as Ur itself, is the topos in which Shelley’s drama will unfold.

The narrative charmingly unfolds in andante prose, a walking pace to accompany our own steps as we explore the hibernating island. We learn that half the island is related to the Voulgaris clan, which has played a significant role in the Greek Revolution. Along the way, we also meet some remarkable elemental characters who assume Titanic proportions in the way that appear to inhabit in complete harmony with their surroundings, are inscrutable, incomprehensible and unpredictable but nonetheless, are warm-hearted, generous, omnipresent and willing to provide advice, hospitality and assistance.

In true Indiana Jones style, Shelley Dark’s exertions form a backstory in itself. She and the reader explore every nook and cranny of the island, which is rightly called Hydra since like the mythological creature of same name, (and let us not forget that the Lernaian Hydra was killed by Heracles – which coincidentally or not, was the name of Voulgaris’ (alleged) pirate ship) each of her lines of inquiry give rise to another three, as she searches for a lost book that contains the history of the Voulgaris Family.

The reader conjures in vain for a dusty, weighty tome,  silver clasp securing its many secrets. Instead, the object of the quest is “The Boulgaris Family of Hydra,” written by Ioannis Papamanolis in 1931. After a series of misadventures, the book is found exactly where it as supposed to be on the island for after all the Truth is not only out there but also lies within, in both sense of the word and much more can be learned about a story from its construction and the motivation behind its construction than from the events related themselves. Especially so, since the book mentions a Damianos Ghikas whose life and times seems to mysteriously mirror Ghikas Voulgaris’ own, though they predate his by a few decades…

Along the way, the author traverses another path of discovery, that of discovery of the self, something that seems to be uniquely the preserve of the visitor to a land whose completely unself-conscious native inhabitants have been born without an inner monologue. The climax of the novel where the author proclaims: “I hear the whisper of the Greek Chorus on the waves almost as if the island is speaking to me: “She stood in the shadow of a pirate, yet she found the outline of her own,”  is as profound as it is side-splittingly funny, coming as it does after a heavy earlier dose of pirate jokes.

For it is this that makes “Hydra in Winter,” a singularly unique and endearing book: It’s quirky, quintessentially self-deprecating and ironic Aussie humour. The text is literally dripping with quips, asides, wry observations and eye-wringing dad jokes. This is an author who loves a challenge, will test herself to the utmost and still in Antipodean fashion, refuses to take herself seriously. Consequently, she is a boon travel companion: knowledgeable, positive, entertaining and completely free from the psychological baggage that often afflicts the more emotionally vampiric fellow traveller that one may chance upon during one’s travels and from whom the only escape is to shut the book. Fascinatingly, she freely admits to being as afraid of us as we are of her.

By contrast, “Hydra in Winter” is a real page turner and if Shelley Dark, in searching for Ghikas has come to realisation that she is an aspiring novelist, she had better drop the adjective qualifying the noun with due speed and urgency. Tantalisingly, her story ends with a cliffhanger – after all her sleuthing and archival work on Hydra, leaving us high and dry (if you’ll pardon the pun), inviting us to come with her to the place where the Original Sin of our community took place: the island of Malta where the trial of Ghikas Voulgaris for piracy was held and where he was convicted and sentenced. Knowing what I know both about the trial and the history of the Greeks of Malta, I can’t wait.

Ultimately, “Hydra in Winter” causes us to reflect upon the traditional differences in the way people understand history. Shelley Dark enters into a world of people who can tell you in intimate detail what happened to Alexander the Great over two thousand years ago but for whom the details of their family just a few centuries ago is completely obscure. Perhaps there is some solace and security in the historical amnesia that seems to frame our perspective. Nevertheless, with Bertrand Russell’s “In Praise of Idleness” as her inspiration, Shelley Dark engages in writing as being “about the sheer, ridiculous fun of making things up and calling it work.” And we are all the richer for it.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 17 May 2025

FROM DELPHI AND ULURU

 

My first question, when comparing Melbourne academic Dr Christos Fifis’ latest publications, a poetry collection entitled “From Delphi to Uluru” and the second edition of his “With Lyre and Knowledge: An Overview of the Poetry of Yannis Ritsos", was this: How are both of these connected, given that the author chose to launch them concurrently in Melbourne on Sunday, 6 April.

At first glance, it can be argued that there is an interest in geography in the works of both poets. In the case of Dr Fifis’ work, Delphi and Uluru are constants for two separate cultures that he tries to connect, or reconcile. Both serve as central axes that support the entire world. In the case of Delphi, this location was considered in times ancient, to be the navel of the earth, its central point. According to the Souda, Delphi took its name from Delphine, the she-serpent (or dragon) that inhabited that location, who was killed by the god Apollo. Thus, the initial process of rendering this spot sacred, involved a struggle, a sacrifice and a death.

It is worthwhile also, when considering Dr Fifis’ attitude to location, to recall the ancient Greek myths about the founding of the Oracle of Delphi. Zeus, in his attempt to locate the centre of the Earth, launched two eagles from the two ends of the world and the eagles, starting at the same time and flying at equal speed, crossed paths over Delphi area, thus determining where the hearthstone was to be placed.

Uluru is also a focal point where the divine and the human converge, and there are several myths associated with it: The first myth tells of snakes that waged many wars around Uluru, marking the rock. The second tells of two tribes of primordial spirits who were invited to a feast, but were distracted by the beautiful Sleepy Lizard Women and did not turn up. By was of retribution, the angry hosts sang to life an evil mud sculpture that assumed the form of a dingo. A great battle ensued, which resulted in the deaths of the leaders of both tribes. The earth itself rose in grief over the bloodshed as a bulge, and became Uluru.

We observe two things, a process of pain, slaughter, sacrifice, rivalry and their dialectic perhaps marks the development of the entire world. There are also notable differences which are ultimately cancel themselves out: Ostensibly, Delphi now belongs to history. It is finite. It is a part of our cultural heritage, but in reality, it plays no role in our lives, nor does it influence or determine the way in which we understand our identity. However, it belongs to the place where we derive our origin, of which we are indigenous. It is our place, and consequently, ours is the right to forget it.

Uluru, by way of contrast, an identifying mark and symbol of the indigenous people of Australia, does not belong to those indigenous people. It is located on occupied land. Until recently, it had another name, given to it by colonialists who violently seized the land from its rightful owners. Of course, it is these colonialists who define our attitude to this monument. The indigenous people are called upon to participate in a kind of performance of their culture and beliefs, one that responds to the needs and ideology of the ruling class of the conquerors, thus legitimizing the crime of conquest and, paradoxically, making the vanquished accomplices in this violent act. By focusing their attention on the exotic, on the representational, are they cultivating a kind of amnesia around the events that transpired?

Delphi has also been colonised, not in the least by its sack by the Goths in the early Byzantine era. Yet there are also other commonalities with Uluru. Have not Western imperialists and colonialists appropriated ancient Greek civilization, considering it their own? Here in Australia, where our community actively participates in the maintenance of this amnesia, are we not considered, rather than as a group of Australians who have played an important role in the development of this country, instead, as descendants/symbols of an ancient tradition that has nothing to do with our reality and our presence here?

It is for this reason, that the employment of the term Uluru by the poet Christos Fifis constitutes a revolutionary act, an act of resistance against the status quo that imposes  historical and social amnesia, simply because he dares to say things exactly as they are. It is an act of truth, intertextually in dialogue with Ritsos who wrote: “Well, my children, I am now thinking of finding a word to fit the stature of freedom.” Finding the right words to sum up this truth is an act of revolution, an act of freedom.

Returning to Delphi it wis worthwhile seeking to evaluate its continued relevance to the poet, even as an ossified location. One could posit that this is that embedded within its creation, and underpinning the entire world, is an act of evil. This is directly referred to in Dr Fifis’ poem "The Dark Dragon of the Century". In Delphi, the dragon was the Delphine. However, the poet informs us that the terrible dragon has had various names throughout the centuries: The Plague of Athens, the Black Death and so many others. Perhaps the main concern of the collection therefore to is a quest to identify this “dragon,”  to work out how confront it, and indeed, how to articulate a discourse of resistance.

How does the poet Fifis articulate his discourse: simply, amicably, reflectively, in the style of a Ritsos who is convinced that there are some constant, Ulurus  that remain outside the world of decay, to emerge in defiance at the injustice of the world: “I don't need to shout for them to believe me, to say: "Whoever shouts has justice on his side". Justice is with us and we know it. And no matter how softly I speak to you, I know you will believe me.”

Dr Fifis writes in his poem "A Ballad for the Australian Killed in the Battle of Crete" that he "confesses that he writes a multitude of words, for a silent Australian." Evidently, he gives a voice to those who cannot, for whatever reason, speak for themselves. He awakens them, even from the torpor of death and empowers them.

 

With a colossal vision bestriding both Australia and Greece, the poet Dr Fifis draws his inspiration from the travails of everyday life, the timeless flow of Greek history, especially our own local community history, our social struggles, especially those of the progressive wing of the Greek community, and he begin to composes poetry, lending to his poetics the characteristics of his own life that can be summarized in one word: the search for and articulation of truth. Yannis Ritsos did something similar. Like Dr Fifis, he sought to "find those words that take on the same weight/In all hearts/On all lips/So that we may call /a fig, a fig/ And a kneading trough, a kneading trough.”

In his poem "The invaders came dressed in the sheepskins of peace" Dr Fifis echoes this broad aim, proclaiming: “Poetry should shed light on the facts! It should not put us to sleep! We should not parrot these things!"

As in the case of Ritsos, for Dr Fifis, the spiritual and social awakening of humanity, its integration into the progressive community, the ferment within contemporary social struggles, and the conviction through the socio-cultural events that he observes, are what constitute a source of inspiration and, if nothing else, signal his hopeful belief that we must create a better tomorrow.  This is evidenced in his poem: “The struggle is continuous,” dedicated to the memory of Plutarch Deligiannis, which concludes: “His thought frequently raises the question as to how young people will read memories and vision on their own and correctly.” This of course reveals two of his concerns - the struggle but also, and this is simultaneously connected to Delphi and Uluru, how to retain memories and how to understand them correctly. The concept of “correctness” of course, opens up an entirely new discussion, because as the dark dragon of the ages says in Dr Fifis’ poem, “During such periods, the quacks, the frauds and so many other false prophets who know everything multiply.”

In keeping with his aim of retaining lore, the second half of Dr Fifis’ collection is a narrative of his own “walkabout” within ancestral places within Greece. In it, he reflects upon the history, legends and traditions of the places he visits, in a manner akin to the Indigenous Songlines, articulating his own pathways of knowledge, his own "Dreaming Tracks," that crisscross his poetic world, linking sacred sites and conveying stories of creation, culture, and navigation to the reader.

The process of transcending the divine and delving into the chthonic is replete with romance in Dr Fifis’ poetics, to the extent where the undertones of some of the poems are clearly erotic. They are inspired by the love for humanity that underlies the poet's consciousness and dialectics. And this is clearly evident in the poem “Coperti”, which suggests that our journey can be a game, it can resemble a scene in play where one enters and the other leaves, but it is this friction that creates memories, that fuels hopes, that sculpts love and creates a new world, one that is evoked with great skill, and even greater humanity, in this remarkable collection of poetry.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on 

TRADEMARKING MACEDONIA

 

A few months ago, the Preston Lions Soccer Club, most of whose members are culturally affiliated with Greece’s northern neighbour, recently registered “PRESTON MAKEDONIA S.C” as a trademark with IP Australia. Publication of the acceptance of the trademark took place on 8 April 2025 and the application is currently in “opposition period,” during which time, interested parties are able to lodge objections. There are currently interested parties who are in the process of determining the form their objections will take.

The basis of the trademark relates to the provision of “Goods and Services,” namely: “Class 25: long sleeve tee-shirts; long-sleeved jumpers; tee-shirts; sport shirts; sports uniforms; articles of clothing; clothing for sports; sports garments; sportswear; clothing, footwear and headgear; footwear and headwear; T-shirts; shirts; raincoats [jackets]; trousers; sports hats and caps; hats; beanie hats; scarfs; track suits; training suits; jogging suits; track pants; tracksuit pants; soccer boots; soccer cleats [shoes]; soccer cleats [boots]; soccer bibs; soccer shirts; soccer jerseys; soccer tops.

 Class 28: soccer goals; sporting articles; sporting articles and equipment; footballs [soccer]; balls for playing soccer; soccer goal nets; gloves for soccer goalkeepers; shin guards for soccer; knee pads for soccer.

Class 41: arranging of sports events; arranging and conducting sports events; organising sports events; sporting activities; sporting and cultural activities; providing sporting facilities; providing information about sporting and cultural activities; sports club services; providing training facilities; provision of sporting competitions; providing sports competitions.”

Significantly, there is an endorsement on the application which reads as follows: “The applicant has advised that the English translation of the Macedonian word/phrase MAKEDONIA appearing in the trade mark is MACEDONIA.”

In other words, and despite the provisions of the Prespes Agreement, this soccer club seeks to abrogate to itself, the word Macedonia, one which historically has been associated with an ancient Greek kingdom, and which since those times, has fuelled the fires of nationalism in the Balkans. It should be noted that despite decades of activism by the Greek community, Australia recognises both a “Macedonian” language and a “Macedonian” cultural affiliation.

The news of this application has caused unease in many sections of our community. There is fury among those who cast blame upon the Australian government, believing that because IP Australia, the trademark regulatory authority is a federal body, it is somehow linked to the whims or views of the ruling party. This, by the way, is not the case. There is consternation among those who believe that since Macedonia is a region of Greece, Greek diplomatic officials within Australia should be at the forefront of any acts of opposition to the registration of the trademark. Others, point the finger at our community institutions for what they perceive to be their complete disinterest in the matter. Some ire is being pointed at the key stakeholder, the various Pan-Macedonian Associations of Australia.

The truth however, is that the situation is somewhat more complicated than first appears. The strongest basis for challenging those trademarks would likely fall under Section 43 of the Trade Marks Act. This would involve showing that the marks should not have been approved for registration due to an inherent meaning or impression they convey that could mislead or confuse the public. However, this is not the easiest argument to prove and would require compelling evidence to show how the use of that name could realistically deceive or confuse the general public. A task for the lawyers if there ever was one.

And here is the nub of the problem. There are other trademarks that have been registered that contain the word “Macedonia.” “Best of Macedonia” is a media entity culturally affiliated with Greece’s northern neighbour. “T Tikves Belvoda Vineyards” contain in their trademark the words: “Product of the Republic of Macedonia.” There are currently, in Australia, no registered trademarks that contain the word Macedonia that are associated with Greeks or Greek culture. So how can we argue confusion? Indeed, why should Australian courts be the arbiters of an issue they do not understand and do not care about?

The only Greek affiliated trademarks containing the words “Macedonia” were registered by the Pan-Macedonian Association of Melbourne in 1994. It contained a logo of the head of Alexander the Great, accompanied by the words: “Hellas Macedonia.” That trademark was due for renewal in 2009. The renewal fee was not paid and consequently, the trademark was deregistered. Before that, the same Association had registered as a trademark the Sun of Vergina, accompanied by the words: “Hellas Macedonia.” That trademark was due for renewal in 1999. The renewal fee was not paid and the trademark was subsequently de-registered.

 The rule of thumb with logos, symbols and contentious terms is “use it or lose it.” We complain vociferously when we see the Star of Vergina on a red background being flown by those culturally affiliated to Greece’s northern neighbour on the grounds that this constitutes theft of a Greek symbol. Yet when it is suggested to us that we should fly that flag, because it is ours, we scoff, scowl and howl in derision, for rather than taking back what is ours, we have in our subconscious, come to believe it belongs to them, and have grown to hate the sight of it, let alone use it.

The same applies within the field of sport where ethnic politics comes face to face with a ruling class that does looks down upon expressions of ethnic identity in a sphere that forms an important part of the dominant culture’s national narrative. If teams are to be taken seriously, and indeed progress to the highest leagues, ethnic in origin teams are given to understand, they must divest themselves of their ethnic accoutrements and baggage, and assimilate. Our major Greek teams have engaged wholeheartedly in this process dictated to them from above, considering that the future lies within a deracialised paradigm that will prove lucrative, and not cost them their original core of members.

It is for this reason that my team, South Melbourne FC, founded 66 years ago, was directed by Soccer Australia, along with clubs all over the country, to change its emblem and name in an attempt to move soccer into the Australian mainstream and away from direct club-level association with its migrant roots. In compliance with this directive, it removed the Greek flag from its logo, and then the word Hellas from its name, adopting in its stead, the term “Lakers,” until faced by legal action from the L. A Lakers in America. Sadly, these re-imagings did not enable our beloved club to enter the A League. It seems we have not yet reached the requisite level of de-racification. What it did do however, was cause a committed membership to rally around the club in order to ensure its continued relevance and survival.

Similarly, Heidelberg United, was founded by Greeks from Florina as the Alexander the Great-Melbourne Soccer Club in 1958. While it its logo bears Alexander the Great with a starburst that resembles the Sun of Vergina emanating behind him, with him bearing a shield with a similar Sun of Vergina bursting behind a soccer ball, the club has distanced itself from directly referencing Alexander the Great, renaming themselves Heidelberg United and making no mention of their founder’s place of origin, Macedonia.

These clubs do not wish to play ethnic politics. They are not interested in using their resources in order to advance the historical narratives of Greece, or indeed to be a vehicle for the maintenance of the Greek identity. Instead, they want to concentrate on expanding their membership and, understandably enough, on the game itself. The fact that they have been able to do so, and still retain their traditional core of fans speaks to the fact that the Greek identity and the Greek community is infinitely more flexible and pliant than a bunch of slogans, signs and flags. Nonetheless, a void is inevitably left, that others might fill.

Preston’s attempt to trademark the term “Macedonia,” is thus a retrograde step that does not appear to be in keeping with the times or the prevailing social conditions in this country. It is a move that belongs in the nineties rather that the second decade of the new millenium. While it may satisfy its fans in the short term, it remains to be seen if re-branding oneself as an ethnic ghetto will ensure the viability of that entity, especially given that the club will have to play with its peers and drag its own version of identity politics into a game that has left them behind.

We need to think seriously about the wisdom of choosing to engage on such a dubious playing field of their choosing and whether a more nuanced and strategic approach is required. In the meantime, if we are serious about emphasising the Greek identity of Macedonia, we might want to think about employing the term more often, being more vigilant in portraying the Hellenism of Macedonia and waving the odd flag. Until the next IP challenge that is.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 3 May 2025

LEGISLATING REMEMBRANCE.... BY OMISSION

 

On Christmas Eve 2024, a presidential degree of the President of Greece, published on 14 January this year, brought into effect a series of laws around appointing 6 April, as the day upon which “Remembrance days events for the Day of Thracian Hellenism are to be organised.”

It is unclear what exactly that means. When one reads on, one learns from Article 1 of the abovementioned decree that: “The 6^th of April of each year  is appointed as the Day of Thracian Hellenism.” We also learn that: “Remembrance events will have a pan-national character and will be held throughout the country.” Just how a day that specifically invokes Thrace will have a “pan-national character” is not explained. What is made clear however is that such events that will take place, are restricted solely within the boundaries of the Greek state. They thus do not apply to our communities in the diaspora.

Up until now, the presidential decree is quite silent on what exactly it is that Greek citizens are supposed to be remembering on April 6^th. However, article 2 by contrast, sets out in detail just how the unnamed events we have no idea we are remembering, should be remembered. “The commemorative events to which representatives of Thracian organisations and bodies, include a general decoration with flags and illumination of public buildings, the holding of doxologies, the making of speeches, and the laying of wreaths in regional electoral seats.”

If you want to do anything else, you need not apply, save that the decree goes on, almost by way of afterthought, to concede that “In the framework of the abovementioned events, conferences and events by cultural groups within Thrace or the rest of Greece may be held, along with talks in schools at all levels.”

If Greek legislation applied to Greek cultural groups within Australia, imagine the ferment of excitement at these news. Imagine the disputes as to who would co-ordinate the events, which buildings would be festooned with flags, which would be illuminated, which ideologically sound speakers would be invited to give an address and of course, which Dance Groups would be invited to participate, and which would be excluded.

The good people at the Hellenic Parliament have already foreseen the fracas and have acted to nip it in the bud. Consequently, Article 3 of the decree prescribes that “the programme of events will be determined by the relevant regional administrator.” No room for discussion here.

For a long time, 6 April has been commemorated as a day marking the genocide of the Greeks that took place in the region of Thrace. Strangely, the word “genocide” is not mentioned at all in the Presidential Decree, nor is any other terminology employed that would shed light on the significance of April 6^th. We can only speculate why this would be the case. However, making mention of what exactly is to be commemorated or remembered is important for two main reasons: Firstly, how can we expect to take seriously an afford due solemnity to an event that the Greek Stare either neglects or fears to name? Is not the refusal and/or omission to clearly describe such an event tantamount to an insult to the memories of those who [insert description here if you dare] – that is, if it is the suffering of the Thracians that we are supposed to be remembering?

Secondly, delineating the precise nature of the event to be commemorated is important because it provides valuable context by which we can evaluate the extent to which the prescribed forms of commemoration are appropriate. For example, if it is the Genocide we are remembering, then arguably, a doxology within a church is completely inappropriate, given that doxologies are thanksgiving services generally performed in order to celebrate felicitous events, such as the liberation of regions of Greece. National calamities, on the other hand, are times for reflection and for mourning where memorial services, mnymosyna, are much more fitting. During such times, it is also more fitting that rather than bedecking public buildings with flags, as if celebrating a national holiday, that such flags as are flown, are done so at half-mast. But then again, I am not the relevant regional administrator and have absolutely no say in the matter whatsoever.

There are of course three days within the Greek calendar that ostensibly commemorate the Genocide: 6 April in relation to the Greeks of Thrace, 19^th May in relation to the Greeks of Pontus and 14 September in relation to the Holocaust of Smyrna. In contrast, the Armenians, who lived throughout the length and breadth of the Ottoman Empire have only one commemoration date that covers the entire bloody two decades within which the Genocide took place: the 24^th of April. There is no genocide day of Van, genocide day of Harput, of Sivas or of Zeytun. Instead, the Genocide is labelled Armenian, and it is considered as something relevant to all Armenians, not just those who come from or are descended from those who come from the areas in which it was perpetrated.

Similarly, the Assyrians, a people who were traditionally spread over a large geographic area covering modern day Turkey, Iraq, Syria and Iran, and who are split into different linguistic groups and Christian denominations, have only one unified date to remember the many bouts of genocide visited upon their people, as recently as a few years ago: August 7^th.  They don’t refer to the Syriac genocide, the Aramean Genocide or the Chaldean genocide. Instead, it is a unifying event that is supposed to serve as a rallying point for an entire nation that is still yet to achieve emancipation.

Evidently, the same cannot be said about the Greeks. In Australia, and in many other countries in the world where the genocide has been recognised, it has taken years of painstaking work to explain that there was only ever one Genocide, perpetrated in different areas at different times, and that this Genocide was directed at Greeks as a whole, there being no differentiation of or understanding of regional identities. Through such grass-roots campaigning, the various victim communities have also come to the realisation that one genocide cannot be separated from the others, that the root causes, motivations and modus operandi of the perpetrators were the same, which is why the three victim communities nowadays reference the “Armenian, Assyrian and Greek Genocides,” to officials and all other interested parties.

Despite the practice as it relates to discussing the event with the broader community, unlike the other two victim communities, within ours in Australia, the Genocide does not always act as a unifying event. Instead, it is met with general indifference by the broader community, punctuated only by the perfunctory appearance of a few representatives of community organisations at yet another interminable wreath laying event organised by the Pontians, whose preserve the commemoration is widely held to be. In this delineated space, “ownership” of the Genocide reverts by default and through no fault of their own, to the Pontians, and it is known as the Pontian Genocide, or the “Genocide of the Greeks of Pontus,” no doubt to distinguish it from the Genocide of the Armenians in exactly the same area. The events of Thrace or the rest of Asia Minor, have in years past, barely rated a mention, for in a fragmented community such as ours, it is expected that each regional group will look after its own interests, and that no other group should abrogate to themselves that privilege. Despite this, the impetus to refer to the Genocide as “Greek” rather than as “Pontian,” “Thracian,” or “Asia Minor,” comes from the Pontian community itself, and the Pontian community has in recent years commemorated as belonging to the same overarching crime, the harrowing events that took place both in Thrace and Asia Minor, exemplifying just how complicated identity politics of this nature can be among a people who apart from conceding that their common ancestors are Pericles, Alexander the Great and Kolokotronis, seem bent only on emphasising what divides them, rather than what unites them.

The events surrounding the Genocide as it played out in Thrace are not well known and if the official recognition of the 6^th of April as a day of remembrance will assist in promoting increased knowledge of that sad chapter in our history, then this comes as a welcome development. However, this development is much diminished if those establishing the day of remembrance have not the perspicacity or courage to name the event they expect the Greek people to commemorate. The whole cause of Genocide recognition is also diminished if the official appointment of three separate dates to recognise a single overarching crime leads to fragmentation, insularity and an inability of the disparate tribes that coalesce around the commemoration of each date to understand how they interrelate. Let us hope this is not the case.

DEAN KALIMNIOU

kalymnios@hotmail.com

First published in NKEE on Saturday 26 April 2025