LANDING ON MULTICULTURAL AUSTRALIA TARMAC

I embraced the public policy of 'Multiculturalism' when I emigrated to Melbourne January 1978 - aged nearly 15yrs, with my family. Whilst Mum and step-dad entered the manufacturing industries of outer suburban Clayton, my sisters and I took steps to aquaint ourselves with our Australian way of of life.

Kerribree Court was part of a new housing development and indicative of the ongoing arrival of New Australians: Unlike the Neighbours yet to grace our screens, there was one Anglo-Australian mum, dad with a truck and two kids, one Indian family, and 4 Greek families who worked in the sweltering factories. I'm sure there was an Italian family living there too. 

I was accustomed to migrant communities as I had grown up in a terrace-housing street filled with post-war Irish Catholic families, and at school my friends were from Jamaica, India, Pakistan, Germany and a few like me with roots going back into the Industrial cradle of the 'Black Country'.
The Conservative M.P. Enoch Powell was stirring up race hatred but I discovered the speech of Martin Luther King Jnr in my primary school library, so I shared his Dream.

The first hospitality I felt was from a Greek-Australian girl at Huntingdale High who invited me to her family home for a feast of fish caught by her father and friends. It was my first Greek Salad which would become my favourite for Aussie BBQ's.

It was a Saturday afternoon, my friend had already been to Greek School. Once the women had finished in the kitchen it was time to dance, chairs to the side of the living room and the hosts taking to the floor for the first waltz.


Unlike my freedom to roam, my classmate had to have a big brother chaperone before going to the Milk Bar! It was also accepted she might have an 'arranged' marriage, that is somebody approved by her parents. Of course the Greek boys of the neighbourhood who I sometimes hung out with at the local school ground at night smoking cigarettes and debating issues with, were absolutely in agreement this tradition of control with females wasn't over the top. Aussie girls were sluts and it was their duty to protect their second-generation women from corruption of "Skippy" culture.

It wasn't much different to many of the Indian and Pakistani immigrant communities in England. Everything was fine until the daughter wanted to define her own life without the law of the Patriarch. I've known so many lovely young women be rejected by parents because they have integrated with their new country.

Today it is women from Muslim countries who face conflicting values and strictures. 

In recent times I have learned how much the recently departed, former Prime Minister Gough Whitlam meant to Greek-Australians. The first was when my husband and I were in Athens, and our first night was greeted by a class mate who recognised me walking down ancient Plaka!

She had been living and working in Athens in publishing after completing her Archeology and Arts degrees at Monash University. Greek parents may have been strict but they supported their daughters in their pursuit of education (the closest I got to tertiary study was with my parents drinking Jugs of Beer at the Uni Bar at the Notting Hill Hotel).

link about my Greek sojourn:
 Huntingdale High students meet in Greece 30 years later


It was May 2010 when my Melbourne classmate and I started to talk about our lives, and asking about the regular protests taking place against public service cuts nearby I told her I was a Branch Secretary in the ALP. 
Her eyes shone. So many of the Greek migrants like her parents were passionate about Labor. Post-war emigration was huge under Prime Minister Chifley(and Calwell). Their hard work in corner shops and takeaways, agricultural labours and building meant a standard of living their own country couldn't provide.

The early memories of the 1972 It's Time campaign and the excitement of her parents and their friends for the election of Gough Whitlam was vivid.

Whitlam with Greek community Melbourne 1975


FAREWELL GREAT MAN -

27 Oct 2014

JOHN PYRROS FORMER greek community president remembers:

Edward Gough Whitlam - the man who championed multiculturalism during his time in power from 1972-75 - passed away early last week.

An icon in the eyes of many immigrants, Whitlam had an unprecedented love for the Greek culture, never before seen by an Australian prime minister.

That love, on most accounts, continues to be reciprocated within the Greek Australian diaspora.
George Fountas, who served as the president of the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria (GOCMV) from 1990 to 2008, described Whitlam as a "great man" and a "great leader" when he spoke to Neos Kosmos.

"He was against racism and he was so fond of Greece," he said.

"He was very fond of Greek history, and the Greeks - all migrants."

Fountas was involved with Whitlam in his post-political career. He explained that Whitlam served as the patron of Melbourne's Antipodes festival for "many years".

"He would attend the festival in Lonsdale Street every March and he was always speaking in favour of Greece.

"I remember once he was giving a speech at the World Trade Centre in Flinders Lane and he was talking about the Parthenon Marbles and Greek history, without having anything written down."

"He had sent me a card when they had the referendum in Australia (in 1974), written in Greek, saying 'long live Australian democracy'. (Zito Australiani Dimokratia)."

Fountas' sentiments were sounded throughout the country following Whitlam's passing. Both sides of politics paid their respects, including two prominent Liberal figures. In his column for the Herald Sun, former Victorian premier Jeff Kennett said:

"... my relationship with Gough Whitlam began because of our common respect for Greece, the Greeks and the desire to have the Elgin Marbles returned to Greece from Britain. Quite simply, we were Grecophiles. We met on many occasions, in particular on Greece's National Day March celebrations, March 26 [sic], during which Gough was received with something approaching reverence."

And the feeling was resonated in federal parliament on the day of his passing, when an emotional Malcolm Turnbull spoke about the strong bond Whitlam shared with wife Margaret, over 70 years of marriage. The communications minister said:

"If Gough is in Olympus, I have no doubt that he's there with Margaret ... in some respects one of the things we can be happiest about today is the fact that that old couple are no longer apart."

Whitlam has been, and will continue to be, a figure championed throughout Australia's Greek community.

A Whitlam snapshot:

July 11, 1916
born in Kew, Victoria.
22 April, 1942
marries Margaret Elaine Dovey in Sydney (they have four children).
1942-1945
serves in the Royal Australian Air Force.
1945
joins the Australian Labor Party (ALP).
13 November, 1972
delivers his 'It's Time' speech.
5 December, 1972
becomes Australia's 21st prime minister after leading Labor to its first election victory in 23 years.
11 December, 1972
announces the withdrawal of Australian personnel from Vietnam.
15 December, 1972
the Whitlam government announces a judicial enquiry into the legal recognition of Aboriginal land rights.
19 December, 1972
upgrades the Office of Aboriginal Affairs to ministerial level.
December, 1972
introduces the Equal Pay Case for women and ends conscription.
31 October, 1973
becomes the first Australian prime minister to visit the People's Republic of China, transforming Australia's trading landscape.
1 January, 1974
tertiary fees abolished.
11 June, 1975
enacts the Racial Discrimination Act.
12 June, 1975
enacts the Family Law Act, providing for the Family Court of Australia.
1 July, 1975
introduces Medibank.
16 September, 1975
Papua New Guinea becomes independent of Australia.
11 November, 1975
dismissed by Governor General Sir John Kerr and Upper and Lower Houses of parliament dissolved.
31 July, 1978
resigns his parliamentary seat.
21 October, 2014
dies, aged 98.

Source: Sydney Morning Herald and National Archives of Australia.

Member for Calwell, Maria Vamvakino continues the theme of Multi-cultural Melbourne directed by Prime Minister Whitlam.