Today’s front page of the English edition of the Melbourne based Greek Australian newspaper Neos Kosmos, is another typical example of the way commercial community media organisations present news that relate to various aspects of community life, nowadays. It was not always like this, in the past…
Triumphant and celebratory, but never reflective and critical, is the way Greek Australian news, are presented to Greek Australian audiences, by Greek Australian commercial media interests. I presume the same goes with other communities…
Ok, the current Labor government of Australia, on the way to the May 3 federal election, is coming up with a few pre-election pledges to various Greek Australian community organisations. Apart from the announcements, the smiles and the photos though, how many people and community media, bother to come up with follow up stories and discussions regarding these pledges?
An indicative example is what happened with the 2022 pre-election pledges to the Greek Archdiocese of Australia ($10 million in Melbourne and $25 million in Sydney) and to the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne (GOCMV), the $1.8 million pledge that was to be given to upgrade suburban halls next to the churches of the Community.
As far as I know, the Archdiocese hasn’t received its promised grants, whereas, so far, we haven’t heard anything relevant and we haven’t seen any progress regarding the GOCMV halls/hubs… Why were the promised money not given?
Why the relevant organisations are not complaining, publicly?
Were there any strings attached to those grants? For example, did they have to be matched dollar for dollar, by the receiving Greek-Australian organisation?
Is it because our organisations can’t meet their mutual obligations, in terms of objectives, financial contributions and other state prerequisites that, the pledges remain just that, pledges? What is it?
Do we need, can we manage all these cultural and other centres, that community organisation boards announce, without being able or without having the means to fulfil these announcements?
Are we encouraging with our priorities and our practices, that is, with the way we run our organisations, the active involvement of a critical mass of Australians of Greek heritage, in order to keep the organisations, our constantly changing culture and identity, as well as the Greek language alive? Down Under?
Do the institutionally defined Greek-Australian microcosms discuss these issues? I don’t think so.
Do we have a big enough and critical enough public space in the institutionally defined Greek-Australian community? Personally, I don’t think so.
Are we on the march towards C P Cavafy‘s”‘ Poseidonian? I’m afraid so…
