Annually since 1987, the Greek Australian community in Melbourne, through the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne and Victoria, manages to bring to Lonsdale Street, the historical heart of Hellenism in Victoria, tens of thousands of Greek Australians and their friends, along with the political leadership of Australia, Victoria and Melbourne.
Twenty seven years down the track, the Lonsdale Street Festival, as it was officially called this year, has become part of the cultural, societal, and political landscape of the wider Australian community in Melbourne.
The diverse Greek Australian community, a community of just under 400,000 people according to the last census, in a land of more than 23 million people spanning more than 200 different cultures, has managed, through this street festival, to convey a political, symbolic and cultural strength that many other ethnic communities in Melbourne and in Australia can only envy.
The bipartisan appraisal of the contributions of the Australian community of Greek descent to this great land of the south, the public recognition of the contributions of Hellenic culture to the western world by the leadership of the land, even if it sounds hollow or over the top sometimes, has immense political significance.
The Lonsdale Street Festival and its ‘crowds’, along with the appeal of the celebration to the wider community, is evidence to all those decision makers in all walks of life that we still behave and respond as a community, which still has notable numerical strength that might influence political and business outcomes.
The turnout at the festival in Lonsdale Street every year ensures that we can lobby more effectively as a community, in order to advance our causes for our elderly, for our newcomers, for our country of origin.
The presence of the Australian leadership every year at the festival reflects the importance of the community and the inroads that it has managed to make in many sectors of our wider society.
The artistic and cultural display of the community during the weekend on the two stages of the street festival, the hosting of musicians from other cultures, for example Italian, the hosting of quality concerts and artists from Greece such as Domna Samiou, Nikos Papazoglou, Eleftheria Arvanitaki, Nikos Xidakis and Giorgos Dalaras, to name just a few from the twenty-seven year history of the street festival, have all become part of the annual life and of the annual expectations of quite a few Melburnians of Greek and other origins.
Displaying en masse a positive public presence in the heart of Melbourne once a year, building a 15-storey Community Tower at the corner of Lonsdale and Russell Streets, parading at the Shrine of Remembrance in order to celebrate Greek Independence Day every year in March, dancing at Federation Square in order to celebrate the sister relationship between Thessaloniki and Melbourne, are all events of cultural, political and symbolical importance for the Greek Australian community and the wider society as well.
Yes, in a street festival, including the Lonsdale Street Festival, you will find elements of folklore, simplicity and kitsch, but this is to be expected in a paniyiri and in any case, this doesn’t negate the much more important positive outcomes of this celebratory weekend.
Of course, once the celebration is over, and until next year, we must not forget the many struggles that we have to fight and win away from the limelight, if we are to continue to have political, economic and cultural clout as a community. First and foremost amongst these fights is the continuous presence of Greek language and culture in the education system of Australia, starting from the state school system and continuing with the community and the private sector.