This contribution was originally intended to be entitled ‘a ramble through the history of the Greeks’ because Greece itself and therefore Greek history meaning a history of Greece, is a relatively modern concept.

Greece as a nation state conceptually was formulated by Greek intellectuals influenced by the American and French revolutions of the late 1700s,

Therefore in dealing with earlier periods it is perhaps more reasonable to talk about a history of the Greeks or the Hellenes or the Pelasgians, or the Acheans.

If one notes pre- and classical history from Homer to the city states, one sees limited concepts of unity based upon very local identities such as those of the city-states such as Athens, Sparta, Corinth, Thebes and of course many of the Islands.

Remember, even that great historical example of the Ancient Greeks documented for us in the liliad by Homer, the Hellenes at Troy, a loose alliance under the leadership of Agamemnon was disrupted from time to time by conflict over ends and means.

They probably at the time thought of themselves as Acheans but there is a historical continuity and identity of them as Greek.

An Ancient Greek unity was achieved briefly by the Macedonian monarchs Phillip and Alexander particularly after the battle of Chaeronia but things reverted into somewhat of a chaos after Alexander’s death and the formation of empires by his Generals and others.

This continued until the conquests achieved by Rome and the formation by Constantine of the empire based on Byzantium but then 1423 led to the Ottoman conquest and the absorption of various elements of Greek communities and cultures into the Ottoman empire which held sway until 1821.

The period of 1821 to 1833 whilst it is celebrated or recognised as the revolution against the Ottomans was also a period of conflict where various elements of the Greek revolutionaries fought one another as well the Ottomans.

The Ottomans and their Egyptian allies were defeated at the battle of Navarino although it took a further five to six years for the formation of a Greek state in 1833.

The Greek state has of course had difficulty in developing and maintaining a stable political culture and has often been riven by internal conflict.

Rebellions and coups undertaken by different factions have been a significant element in the development of the Modern Greek nation state.

One should only also consider the events of 1916, the coups and dictatorships of the 1920s and 1930s culminating in the regime of the 4th August 1936.

Importantly one should too consider the events of World War Two and the struggles between ELAS and EDES and of course the civil war which lasted until 1949.

And even with the attempts of leading Greek politicians since the 1950s, a stable political culture has had difficulty in being maintained and sustained. Just recall 1967-73 and the dictatorship of the Colonels, the scars of which still bedevil aspects of the Greek polity.

This is not mean to be a plea for unity of Greeks although that is a recurrent theme whether in Greece itself or whether in the community of the Diaspora.

Indeed such communities have had more than their share of conflict over ends and means.

In this context I see the concept of unity as a chimera in the sense of chimera as an unfounded conception or alternatively a mere wild fantasy, these being the modem senses of the word.

Those that think of the Australian context should recall the various problems between the Greek Orthodox Church and the Greek communities in Australia and in fact the church schism which led to the formation of the Autocephalous church a body still struggling for recognition and validity, bearing in mind their recent negotiations with the old Calendrist Greek Orthodox Church in Greece.

The question really is, do we need unity and if we do what factors lead to unity.

George Papadopoulos is a respected community activist who headed the Victorian Multicultural Commission, Multicultural Arts Victoria and was a founding member of the Australian Greek Welfare Society.