THE GREEK AUSTRALIAN The oldest circulating Greek newspaper outside VEMA Greece JULY 2009 Tel. (02) 9559 7022 Fax: (02) 9559 7033 E-mail: [email protected] OUR PRIMATE’S VIEW THE IMMUNITY OF THE PRIVATELY-OWNED MEDIA (Part 1) PAGES 4/22 - 5/23 Greek quest for Marbles New Acropolis Museum is the embodiment of many Greek hopes for the return of the Parthenon Marbles. PAGE 10/28 New Acropolis Museum is a ‘treasure house’ From the heart; for locals and tourists made by the hands The opening of the New Acropolis Mu- exhibition hall will rank in importance The Stitches of the Heart exhibition held in seum heralded the beginning of a major alongside other great European muse- Brisbane in June, was a huge success. new era in Greece’s presentation of the ums, including the British Museum, the PAGES 18/36 - 19/37 ancient Acropolis and its monuments. Louvre and the Capitoline Museums. Make no mistake, this magnificent new PAGE 16/34 Mani: Rugged land of towering spirits This southern Peloponnesian region adheres strongly to tradition and keeps alive the memories of centuries past. PAGE 9/27 PAGE 17/35 JULY 2009 2/20 TO BHMA The Greek Australian VEMA This Day Swine flu is the dominant flu in Victoria New research claims that 99 per cent of Victorians who are down with the flu, almost certainly have swine flu. Head of epidemiology at the Victorian Infectious Diseases Reference Laboratory, Heath Kelly, says that of the 73 people IInn HHiissttoorryy who tested positive for influenza at clinics monitoring flu viruses during the last week of June, 99 per cent had the H1N1 virus. "It's amazing, swine flu has taken over the flu season," Dr Kelly told The Age. "If you've got the flu, you've almost certainly got swine flu." The research, published in an online edition of the Medical Journal of Australia, also showed the median age of Victori- ans with the virus was between 18 to 22 years. Australia has had 6353 laboratory-confirmed cases of swine flu with 13 deaths, including seven in Victoria. AAP July 20, 1969 Armstrong walks on moon At 10:56 p.m. EDT, American astro- naut Neil Armstrong, 240,000 miles from Earth, speaks these words to more than a billion people listening at home: "That's one small step for man, one giant leap for mankind." Stepping off the lunar landing module Eagle, Armstrong became the first human to walk on the surface of the moon. July 29, 1958 NASA created On this day in 1958, the U.S. Con- gress passes legislation establishing the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA), a civilian agency responsible for coordinating America's activities in space. NASA has since sponsored space expeditions, both hu- man and mechanical, that have yielded vital information about the solar sys- tem and universe. It has also launched numerous earth-orbiting satellites that have been instrumental in everything from weather forecasting to navigation to global communications. August 2, 1990 Iraq invades Kuwait At about 2 a.m. local time, Iraqi forces invade Kuwait, Iraq's tiny, oil- rich neighbor. Kuwait's defense forces were rapidly overwhelmed, and those that were not destroyed retreated to Saudi Arabia. The emir of Kuwait, his family, and other government leaders fled to Saudi Arabia, and within hours Kuwait City had been captured and the Iraqis had established a provincial gov- ernment. The same day, the United Na- tions Security Council unanimously de- nounced the invasion and demanded Iraq's immediate withdrawal from Kuwait. JULY 2009 The Greek Australian VEMA TO BHMA 3/21 Editorial The Acropolis is more than the Parthenon As the Acropolis and its monuments declare to the those in the British Museum for the past 200 years - only the Parthenon but also the Erechtheum, the Temple world, nothing makes a grander statement than a often overshadow the fact that the Parthenon may be of Athena Nike and the Propylaia, while many of its grand building. Thucydides, in his unforgettable chroni- the grandest but is not the only building on the Acropo- treasures are a lot older than the sculptures of the cle of the decline and fall of thens, noted that in the fu- lis. Classical era. The new museum will show the develop- ture people would look on the ruins of his city and con- The “Sacred Rock” as Greeks call it, has a history dat- ment of Greek sculpture by juxtaposing copies of the sider it greater than it was, while the ruins of its great ing back long before the Golden Age of Pericles, when absent pieces with treasures from other buildings and rival, Sparta, would make the Peloponnesian city ap- the ruins that we now see were built. And the natural- other eras on the Acropolis. pear less mighty than it was. Athens’s fortunes have ly fortified hill that allowed prehistoric tribes to settle The generous exhibition space will also allow a new waxed and waned at the foot of the Acropolis for more on this once-fertile plain has a long tale to tell. The appraisal of many overlooked masterpieces that were than 2,500 years and the rocky hill and its monuments saga of the missing Marbles is a chapter in that long in storage or cramped into the tight corners of the old have reflected this. story, one that will end when they return to join those museum. Free people celebrating their triumph over foreign in- in the New Acropolis Museum. For now, the missing The rock of the Acropolis is the touchstone of vaders built the Parthenon and its temples on the Marbles tell the story of the Parthenon during the long Greece’s fortunes. The New Acropolis Museum, built smoldering ruins that a Persian army had left behind night of the Ottoman occupation, when the Greeks after a delay of decades, is a declaration by the people after a debate on whether it would be best to preserve were unable to protect their treasures from destruction of this land that they honor their past not by crying over the ruins as eternal condemnation of the desecration or and theft. lost glory but by protecting it, displaying it in the best to push aside the past and build for the present - The shattered shell of the Parthenon underlines the possible way, and by creating a new public space that and posterity. vulnerability of a nation caught in endless war. The on- will change the way the city, its people and visitors in- The outcome of that argument was decisive in shap- going preservation works tell the story of mistakes in teract with the Acropolis and its treasures. ing our civilization - and in creating a heritage for past preservation projects and the effects of modern And the best way to get the missing sculptures back Greeks through the ages. The Greeks did many great Athens’s chronic air pollution. is to embarrass those who hold them by showing them things in philosophy, medicine and the arts but nothing The new museum highlights the missing Marbles’ ab- up as unwitting players in a story that is so much big- concentrated their achievements more than the build- sence by stressing where they would have been if they ger than them. ings and sculptures on the Acropolis. The polemics were here. This finger-pointing, too, is part of the sto- over the Parthenon and its sculptures - especially ry. But, as every visitor will see, the Acropolis hosts not Source: ATHENSPLUS Christian Witness in Secular Society doms, worked righteousness, obtained promises, consider spiritual pursuits but chooses instead to stopped the mouths of lions, quenched the violence sleep in, to watch television, to self-righteously of fire, escaped the edge of the sword, out of weak- mourn the death of celebrities and vow to himself to ness were made strong, became valiant in battle, change his ways in the future, when he gets around turned to flight the armies of the aliens... Others were to it. tortured, not accepting deliverance, that they might By PETER There is no simple solution to the increasing secu- obtain a better resurrection. Still others had trial of larism of our age. We have become our own god in MAVROMMATIS * mockings and scourgings, yes, and of chains and im- our own world, forgetting that everything in the world prisonment. They were stoned, they were sawn in is a revelation of the Creator - “The heavens declare two, were tempted, were slain with the sword” (Heb the glory of God; and the firmament shows His hand- “Go therefore and make disciples of all the 11:33-37) is not descriptive of all the saints who walk iwork” (Ps 18:2 LXX). We must step back from our nations, baptising them in the name of the the earth today because today we are confronted by blasphemous and egocentric ideals, remembering Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit, a ‘faceless’ persecutor known simply as ‘secular in- the story of the Tower of Babel, and submit to the teaching them to observe all things that difference’ and so today more than ever we are Will of the Heavenly Father, hearing and responding I have commanded you” (Matt 28:19-20) called to witness to Christ in the world. to His call to “taste and see that the Lord is good” (Ps In the relative safety of today’s society where all 33:9 LXX), to seek Him and His Kingdom and accept The Great Commission defines the role and re- creeds and confessions are ‘free’ modern man has our responsibilities to “take up our cross, and follow sponsibility of all Christians to be apostles in their ‘come of age’ and determined that secularism is not Him” (Mark 8:34).