MARCH 2007 2/30 TO BHMA The Greek Australian VEMA Letter to the Editor SUPPORT FOR ARCHBISHOP’S VIEW ON MULTICULTURALISM Dear Editor then to support the unChristian assault on Yet our people number very few amongst the rich cultural diversity that has made the lists of Australian honour recipients, I read with great interest our Archbishop’s Australia so well respected around the members of Boards of Directors, ap- statements on multiculturalism in different world. pointees to government boards and such... newspapers including VEMA and in partic- Our Archbishop has rightly sought to stem due to the Anglo Saxon Celtic nature of ular his response to “attacks” on multicul- the tide against such assaults but sadly the Australia that some in politics errantly turalism by Prime Minister Howard and his rest of the community including our own defend. government. has failed to jump up and support him Archbishop Stylianos is right to defend Sadly, these attacks do not appear to be Hellenes have lived in Australia from multiculturalism but it is time that this com- isolated and at a recent Human Rights con- shortly after the First Fleet arrived, some munity lead was not standing out front all ference, Barry Jones stated that he believed 200 years. My own great grandfather alone. firmly that a major attack on multicultural- arrived in the 1920s and over the years 29 March 1973 ism was on the way. countless numbers of Hellenes have settled U.S. withdraws from Vietnam Perhaps worse, the number of high profile in Australia and helped to make it a great Ange Kenos ethnic Australians who appear now and nation. Niddrie VIC Two months after the signing of the Vietnam peace agreement, the last U.S. combat troops leave South Vietnam as Hanoi frees the remaining American pris- 17th-century icon identified oners of war held in North Vietnam. A previously unidentified 17th-century icon depicting scenes from the saint's life. America's direct eight-year intervention in of John the Baptist kept at a parish church in According to Konstantina Skarmoutsou, the Vietnam War was at an end. In Saigon, Kranidi, southeast of Nafplio, has been director of the 25th Ephorate of Byzantine some 7,000 U.S. Department of Defense attributed to Emmanuel Tzanes (Bounialis), Antiquities, Tzanes' work points to his "ded- civilian employees remained behind to one of the most significant Cretan religious ication to Byzantine tradition and the bor- aid South Vietnam in conducting what painters of the second half of the 17th centu- rowing of elements from Italian Renais- looked to be a fierce and ongoing war ry. The icon was discovered during restora- sance". Some 120 known works by Tzanes with communist North Vietnam. tion work. have survived, half of which bear his signa- 30 March 198 "This is the first time that the icon has been ture. President Reagan shot officially registered, complete with painter, Following a thorough study and restoration date and signature details," Culture Minister by specialists, the icon will be returned to its On March 30, 1981, President Ronald George Voulgarakis told the press on place of worship in Kranidi. Reagan is shot in the chest outside a February 28. Washington, D.C., hotel by a deranged Dating back to 1646, the 1.22x1.03 icon, Athens News drifter named John Hinckley Jr. which is now protected by bullet-proof glass, The president had just finished addressing was cased in silver in 1760. In it, the ascetic A Greek Orthodox priest passes by a newly a labor meeting at the Washington Hilton figure of John the Baptist - portrayed stand- discovered religious icon of John the Baptist Hotel and was walking with his entourage ing - is framed by 12 miniature illustrations dating back to 1646 to his limousine when Hinckley, standing among a group of reporters, fired six shots Ancient Sparta's warriors at the president, hitting Reagan and three Neolithic settlements of his attendants. White House Press unearthed Secretary James Brady was shot in the return home for Persian war epic head and critically wounded, Secret in northern Greece Service agent Timothy McCarthy was shot in the side, and District of Columbia policeman Thomas Delahaney was shot in the neck. After firing the shots, Hinckley was overpowered and pinned against a wall. 31 March 1889 Eiffel Tower opens On March 31, 1889, the Eiffel Tower is dedicated in Paris in a ceremony presided over by Gustave Eiffel, the tower's designer, and attended by French Prime Minister Pierre Tirard, a handful of other dignitaries, and 200 construction workers. Archaeologists in northern Greece revea- In 1889, to honor of the centenary of the Nearly 2,500 years after they marched off whelming Persian odds at Thermopylae, and led recently they have uncovered traces of French Revolution, the French govern- to certain death in one of history's greatest based on a comic book series by US artist prehistoric settlements, some dating back ment planned an international exposition last stands, the warriors of ancient Sparta Frank Miller, the film has drawn criticism in 8,000 years. and announced a design competition for a were back in town recently for a final fight Greece for portraying the ancient Spartans as The settlements were unearthed in a monument to be built on the Champ-de- before the home crowd. bloodthirsty berserkers. region surrounded by four lakes - Mars in central Paris. Out of more than The film's heavily fictionalised approach, Vegoritida, Heimaditida, Petron and Zazari 100 designs submitted, the Centennial Wielding spears and heavy shields, the war- which shows the Spartans battling wild - between the towns of Kozani and Florina, Committee chose Eiffel's plan of an open- riors rampaged through a new Hollywood beasts, giants and fang-toothed men has also 160 km west of Thessaloniki, archaeolo- lattice wrought-iron tower that would epic on the Battle of Thermopylae - the stand raised objections among Greek film critics, gists said at the end of a three-day annual reach almost 1,000 feet above Paris and that blunted the Persian Empire's invasion in who called it a "video game" that debases one archaeology conference in Thessaloniki. be the world's tallest man-made structure. 480 BC - to the amazement of modern of Western history's key battles. Excavations, which began in September Eiffel, a noted bridge builder, was a mas- Spartans watching a special premiere of the "The Spartans face not the army of Xerxes 2003, have yielded 53 clay figurines, stone ter of metal construction and designed the movie in this small Peloponnese town. that we knew until now, but monsters that tools, fossilised lentils as well as traces of framework of the Statue of Liberty that "Okay, the Spartans are portrayed as vi- seem to spring from the Star Wars universe small moats around what appeared to be had recently been erected in New York cious, but they were warriors after all," said and werewolf movies," wrote Eleftherotypia primitive dwellings. Harbor. Sparta Mayor Sarantos Antonakos. daily. Some 24 Neolithic settlements have been "I was afraid the movie would turn us into a "What, no Godzilla?" scoffed Ta Nea daily. discovered in the area since 2003 laughing-stock ... but it has no historical The film's about the Battle of Thermopylae The first traces of human settlement in errors," he told AFP. .. the stand that blunted the Persian Empire's Greece date back to at least 40,000 BC Titled 300, after the small contingent under invasion in 480 BC. AP King Leonidas of Sparta that faced over- 300 opens nationally in Australia on April 5. MARCH 2007 The Greek Australian VEMA TO BHMA 3/21 Editorial A dangerously charged climate expresses the general discontent of the rest of society about the But this is just one aspect of the problem. The rest involves unreliability and inefficiency of our political system and its a growing group of youngsters attracted by violence. By Stavros Lygeros institutions. Surges of violence cannot be curbed through police meas- The atmosphere is very heavily charged, the burden of ures alone. In the 1960s, the USA saw a massive surge in crim- In transforming a crisis into a spectacle, it is inevitable that youngsters’ anger very heavy. Opinion polls may show that inality, chiefly triggered by black residents of major cities. television channels will elevate the self-styled anarchists who ruling New Democracy enjoys a comfortable lead but the sit- President Lyndon B. Johnson said the solution was not to have been clashing with police over the past few weeks into uation is far more fragile than it seems. Even those fed up with arrest all poor blacks but to create a black middle class, to give protagonists. demonstrations and violence believe the government is partly them prospects. After all, these hooded anti-establishment protesters have all to blame and demand that it take the crisis in hand rather than This is what Greek youngsters lack. the necessary qualifications for a great career in our television allow forthcoming elections to influence its actions. In a society which dreams of large jeeps and country hous- democracy. They are faceless, dark, destructive, reckless, We are experiencing a unique sociopolitical crisis which will es, the youngster who feels he will never have these things gets tough fighting, with no political platform or ideological restric- spin out of all proportion if someone is seriously injured or mad. Post-junta cliches tell him that no one gets anywhere on tions and with a real zeal to vandalize all that is sacred. They killed in the increasingly violent protests. merit. In despair, these youngsters embrace a mythical status are, without a doubt, the bad guys.