Politicisation of Greek School events

Politicisation of Greek School events

The Greek School in Cardiff recently organised an event on Greek Language Day to celebrate the Rebetiko music genre. The event was organised in conjunction with the Greek Library in London which organised a similar event previously in Shoreditch. The event was broadly welcomed by the parents and I was indeed very happy to see that the School promoted such an important area of Greek popular culture. We have to recognise the fact that the format and content of the event was already in place by the Greek Library in London. Rebetiko is also a subject that A level students study, so it made sense to select it.

Rebetiko

The Rebetiko type of music is significant because it embodies the history of part of the working class in Greece during at least the first half of the last century. The main speaker, Leon Nar, gave an interesting talk explaining how the immigrants from Asia Minor brought the Rebetiko music which was full of Eastern influences to mainland Greece as well as the Greek islands. Rebetiko was then criticised and later banned by the dictatorship of Metaxas for these Eastern influences. It became an underground musical genre and then resurfaced in the working class neighbours of the cities with many of these Eastern influences gradually disappearing. An excellent reference work on the history of Rebetiko mentioned during the talk is Ανιχνεύοντας το Ρεμπέτικο (in Greek).

Live music

The audience was treated to live music by Vangelis and Stella - well known musicians in Cardiff and very much celebrated part of our community. This was the essence of the afternoon with each song prompting generous applause by the audience and in a couple of cases some dancing. The Rebetiko should not be seen as an area of academic discourse despite the fact that it is worth-studying. It is certainly not a subject area owned by bourgeois institutions. The Rebetiko as a tradition and culture absolutely belongs to the working class and the people that actually perform it. The performance is, I would argue, in some respects, more important than the collection of Rebetiko recordings. Rebetiko was a way of life and performing it gives us a glimpse of the life of the working class at that time. That experience is embodied in the delivery of the songs by the performers.

Contribution by Greek School A level students

The event also included a contribution by the A level students of the Greek School reading a text about the life of Roza Eskenazi and receiving a well-earned praise by the audience.

Politicisation

If that was all that went on that afternoon, I would (perhaps for the first time ☺) have written a completely positive blog post. However, it seems that the opportunity of a large audience was too much of a temptation and it was not wasted. The event was politicised and it was used for personal projection and political gain.

At the beginning of the event a video of a member of the European Parliament elected with the New Democracy party in Greece (this is the right wing, currently governing, party) was shown. This was at the invitation of the Greek School.

I will not make any comments about the attempt of that member of the European Parliament to greet the audience in Welsh, but I appreciate that they accepted to try.

I consider it completely inappropriate to use school events for political gain. I also consider it completely inappropriate that the Greek School in Cardiff invited the politician to send a recorded video with their greeting. There was absolutely no reason for that invitation. The recorded video did not add anything to the event, it was completely irrelevant to the Rebetiko music and it did not link to any of the material that followed. The only thing that the recorded message did was to satisfy New Democracy voters and upset the rest of the audience. Why did the School feel it was necessary to politicise the event? How is the Greek School in Cardiff linked with politicians in the New Democracy party and what implications any such links bring? We cannot thank or be grateful for such contributions when the New Democracy government (and every government before it) has never cared about the Greek School in Cardiff in any meaningful way. The School remains without a building and without teachers and it is only functional because of the financial contributions from parents and the good will of the teachers. It is embarrassing to showcase the hypocricy of politicians “supporting” and “celebrating” the work of the School when they have done nothing towards that direction. Inviting politicians to such events, inevitably raises questions over the contributions of the students. If there is political benefit gained through these events, then the students who contribute to the event, also contribute towards that benefit. We have a situation where a New Democracy politician who could not care less about our School is using hard-working students to project their political profile. It is unacceptable.

There was no need at all to involve any politicians, but even if we imagine that there was some sort of external pressure to show politicians on the big screen, then the least that the School could have done was to invite members of the European Parliament from all parties to send greetings to the event. Why was this not the case?

The next question to consider is this: if showing the politician’s recorded message on the big screen was no benefit for the event, who really benefitted? The politician and the New Democracy party benefitted for sure, as they got great publicity to a good diaspora audience. But who else? Maybe this is something that the School community needs to ponder about carefully. And those who truly benefitted should consider the ethical boundaries of using students for their own gain.

The Greek Leek