ΓΙΑ «πλαστογράφηση της ιστορίας» κατηγορούν τον Ελληνισμό της Μελβούρνης οι αυτοαποκαλούμενες «Μακεδονικές» οργανώσεις (Macedonian Community Council of Melbourne & Victoria Inc., World Macedonian Congress Australia και World Aegean Macedonian Congress).

Με αφορμή δημοσιεύματα της εφημερίδας μας για το Φεστιβάλ «Δημήτρια 2019» έστειλαν επιστολή στον «Νέο Κόσμο» όπου, ούτε λίγο-ούτε πολύ, κατηγορούν την ελληνική παροικία ότι «κλέβει» την πολιτιστική τους κληρονομιά.

«Η ελληνική παροικία και το χρηματοδοτούμενο από την Ελλάδα Φεστιβάλ “Δημήτρια” και οι εκδηλώσεις για την αδελφοποίηση Μελβούρνης-Θεσσαλονίκης παραχαράσσουν τη μουσική, τα έθιμα και τα κοστούμια του Μακεδονικού λαού» γράφουν μεταξύ άλλων.

Χαρακτηρίζουν δε το Φεστιβάλ «Δημήτρια» ως «απόπειρα πολιτιστικής γενοκτονίας» ως απόπειρα της «παράνομης» όπως λένε «Συμφωνίας των Πρεσπών».

Στην επιστολή τους αναφέρουν ότι μετά την Συμφωνία των Πρεσπών η Ελλάδα κάνει ό,τι είναι δυνατόν για να μονοπωλήσει τον όρο «Μακεδονικό» και οι ηγέτες της παροικίας μας παραπληροφορούν τις αυστραλιανές Αρχές για την «πολιτική γενοκτονίας που εφάρμοσε η Ελλάδα σε βάρος των Μακεδόνων».

«Ακόμα και τα τραγούδια μας τα έχουν κλέψει και τα τραγουδούν με ελληνικά λόγια» αναφέρουν, ενώ σημειώνουν ότι στη γλώσσα τους «η Θεσσαλονίκη λέγεται Solun».

Υποστηρίζουν ακόμα, ότι «ένα μέρος της Μακεδονίας τελεί υπό ελληνική κατοχή» και ο όρος «Σλάβος» που χρησιμοποιούν οι Έλληνες για να τους χαρακτηρίσουν, είναι προσβλητικός και γίνεται συνειδητά και γίνεται «για να ξεκοπούν από την πολιτιστική κληρονομιά της Μακεδονίας».

Η ΕΠΙΣΤΟΛΗ ΣΤΗΝ ΑΓΓΛΙΚΗ

Ο «Νέος Κόσμος» δημοσιεύει το πλήρες κείμενο της επιστολής τους στην Αγγλική και ζήτησε από την Παμμακεδονική και άλλους ομογενειακούς φορείς να τοποθετηθούν επ’ αυτού.

Εννοείται ότι θα επανέλθουμε επί του θέματος.

«Subject: WMC-A & MCCMV & WAMC Response to Neos Kosmos on Racism

The Macedonian Community Council of Melbourne & Victoria Inc. established in 1988, World Macedonian Congress Australia and the World Aegean Macedonian Congress have met over the weekend following disgust from the Macedonian Community of Victoria.

The Melbourne Greek community and the Greek government co-funded Dimitria & Sister-Cities Festival in Melbourne are guilty of cultural misappropriation with the unacknowledged and inappropriate adoption of the Macedonian customs, Macedonian music and Macedonian traditional costumes of the Macedonian people. The festival loosely masks itself as a sister city celebration between Melbourne and Thessaloniki which is named Solun in the Macedonian language and was once the epicentre of Macedonian history, Macedonian culture and the Macedonian struggle of Ottoman era revolutionaries.

The Macedonian Community Council of Melbourne and Victoria Inc. openly condemns the festival, as a brazen act of attempted cultural genocide. As a follow-up to the maligned, unratied and illegal Prespa agreement, the Greek government is using every opportunity it has to commandeer the word ‘Macedonian’ in a move reflective of its expansionist agenda and Human Rights abuses of the early and mid-20th century. Melbourne’s complicit Greek community leaders have decided that the quickest and easiest way to mislead the Australian public about its historically condemned acts of ethnic cleansing and genocidal territorial acquisitions is to adopt the cultural differences between Greeks and ethnic Macedonians as ‘regional differences or anomalies’ in Greek culture, completely and utterly offending Australia’s Macedonian community in the process. Unlike cultural exchange, in which there is a mutual interchange of cultures, the cultural misappropriation is part of a deeper power play ‘dynamic’ in which the dominant Greek community are now claiming ownership of the Macedonian culture, a minority who have suffered human rights abuses as well as being systematically and historically oppressed by the Greek government.

Moreover, the government in Athens and their subservient Greek community leaders here in Australia have managed to do it in a way that members of the Macedonian community find highly undesirable and completely offensive. Traditional Macedonian songs are being sung with lyrics translated into Greek, traditional regional Macedonian dances formally dismissed as expressions of ‘slavic culture’ are being rebranded as Greek and ‘formerly slavic’ music is being played over the top of Greek dances.

This bastardised version of Macedonian heritage is being served up to uninformed local Greeks and the Australian public at the hands of the Athenian government for political gains, rather than as an expression or understanding of true Macedonian culture. Australia’s Macedonian community finds the pretense staggering and the backflip from the Greek community about its disdain for everything formerly ‘slavic’ as they chose to term it, is blatantly transparent and offensive.

The term ‘Slavic’ has been traditionally used as an offensive reference to non Greek culture by the Greek government in an attempt to differentiate between the Macedonian peoples’ culture from the Republic of Macedonia and that of Macedonians who originate from the region of Macedonia occupied by Greece.

The term is highly offensive to Macedonians because of its divisive connotations and historical inaccuracies.

The Macedonian Community Council of Melbourne and Victoria Inc. call on the Australian Greek community to reject this Macedonian cultural misappropriation. Not only in the interest of the cessation of future politically based community tensions in the Australian landscape, but to also halt the dilution of whatever cultural model the Greek community have constructed for themselves in Australia up to this point.

We request that Greek community leaders cease the constant blatant discrimination towards the Macedonian people and respect the Human Rights of Macedonians as a sovereign and independent people in the interest of a harmonious co-existence in Multi-cultural Australia.

We have requested that Australian politicians and Victoria’s Multicultural Commission respect the sensitivities of the Macedonian community surrounding this issue and support the Macedonian community in the face of ever increasing and rampant disrespect from influential figures in Australia’s Greek community. We have requested that Australian politicians and Victoria’s Multicultural Commission support the Macedonian community’s cultural festivals and gathering’s in order to help celebrate Australia’s diversity without fear or favour, to help dispel the fear of ongoing racial discrimination felt by the Macedonian community at the hands of perceived ignorance or political opportunism and expediency.

World Macedonian Congress Australia
Macedonian Community Council of Melbourne & Victoria Inc. Established 1988
World Aegean Macedonian Congress».