The recent failed auction of the Pontian Community of Melbourne building has brought to the fore an issue that is sure to dominate a wider debate in the coming years: what to do with the various Greek cultural associations whose memberships are dwindling and whose assets fall into disuse.

For academic and historian Anastasios Tamis it is a debate that must be held now to secure the future of the Greek Australian community.

“This is a very important issue and community leaders need to think seriously about the issue because over the next 10 years there will be few left of the first generation of Greek migrants who came to Australia (from the 1940s to 1980),” Prof Tamis told Neos Kosmos.

At a conservative estimate, he said, the value of the properties held by Greek associations in Australia was worth many hundreds of millions and this figure excluded Greek Orthodox churches and the properties of historic communities in the state capitals. Prof Tamis said in countries like Argentina, Venezuela, Chile and New Zealand which had drawn Greek migrants before the Second World War, the properties left behind by the associations whose members had died, were either abandoned or confiscated by the tax authorities.

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Quoting figures derived from the Australian census, Prof Tamis said that last year the average of the first generation of Greeks who came to Australia was 83 years old. Of the total figure two per cent were born in the 1910s; 20 per cent were born in the 1920s; 53 percent were born in the 1930s; 20 per cent in the 1940s and four per cent in the 1950s.

“Many will pass away and what will happen to the association buildings and facilities?”

He said the associations which were created to keep social cohesion among members who were drawn from the same region of Greece, for members to find an outlet for common grievances and to ensure that young people would find perspective marriage partners within the narrow community of the association.

By 1995, the reasons for the creation of these associations had subsided – the last significant arrival of Greek migrants to Australia ended in 1980.

“Organisations such as the Greek Community of Melbourne are pan-Hellenic and are not tied to brotherhoods or associations or regional chauvinisms and will be able to re-structure to attract new (and younger) members as (the Greek communities) have done in the United States, Canada and Argentina,” Prof Tamis said.

In Australia, he said, the second generation of Greek migrants had been too busy consolidating itself professionally and economically, but the third and fourth generation were interested in tracing their ancestry roots and would come back to the community. But he said it was important that there was a plan for the future of the community.

“The Greek and Cypriot communities developed in Australia without a middle class driving them. Members were drawn mainly from agrarian and working-class roots and some were from commercial backgrounds but they all worked hard to educate their children. It is how we have survived (as distinct community) unlike the large German and Dutch communities in Australia,” said Dr Tamis.

He said the issue of the dwindling memberships of the variety of associations and brotherhoods within the Greek communities was something that had to be dealt with now despite the suspicions raised particularly over the fate of the assets of these organisations which in time were fated to disappear.

“Only (Greek Orthodox) Church organisations and organisations that are funded by federal or state money such as old age homes, welfare organisations and schools are likely to survive. All the others will perish,” Prof Tamis said.

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He warned that unless the community became more united, less antagonistic and developed a cohesive plan for the future, much more will be lost.

“In 1980, I proposed that all properties should be united under one entity and administered by the wider community. In Melbourne I proposed to divide the city into four regions of the Hellenic community. Each section could use the assets to secure an annual income of up to $15 million that would cover the costs for staff and projects to develop and deepen links with the Greek community.

“We need to come up with a 20-year programme that will include setting up child centres for Greek families, proper bilingual pre-school centres, youth clubs, sports clubs and academies so that the community develops a dependence on these services,” said Dr Tamis.

“The Greek community is now attending more memorials than weddings. The community is dying, not ageing.”

♦ Prof Tamis is the author of the three-volume “The Greek in Australia” and is also the president of the Australian Institute of Macedonian Studies.