Earlier this summer, the Greek Department of Foreign Affairs made available in its website the government’s updated Strategic Plan (referred from now on as “Plan”), for the purpose of eliciting input from the interested public.
The document is exclusively in Greek, and represents, as some commentators have noted, an improved, ambitious programmatic document of goals and policies to cultivate the relations between Greece, the historical homelands, and the various Greek diasporas.
The point of departure for this commentary is the following development: the publication of several responses engaging with the Plan in:
(a) the Greek and Greek Australian media;
(b) an online independent think tank based in Greece; and
(c) the Anglophone social media (Facebook).
Offering critical assessment and fresh insights, this important public intervention––though admittedly small in volume (it is produced by a mere two authors) ––leads me to frame this updated Plan in terms of what I call “diaspora public sphere.”
The public sphere: Some definitions
A public sphere consists of cultural fields such as the media, cultural and educational institutions, the arts, citizen groups, and think tanks among other entities in civil society.
In the broadest, normative sense, a public sphere cultivates reasoned argument, debate, deliberation, critique, and exchange of ideas. Seen as an agent toward the realization of democratic ideals, it is inclusive, featuring diverse perspectives and oppositional arguments.
It follows that the diaspora public sphere entails all the aforementioned fields which make diaspora the object of reflection. This is a transnational field. It includes, for example, sites such as academic writings about the diaspora in Greece, the media in Greek Australia, historical societies in Greek Canada, library archival collections and online journals in Greek America.
Although I am not a sociologist of the public sphere, I draw insights from the relevant literature because of its value, I believe, for deliberating on the Plan.
Institutional players in the Diaspora public sphere:
The fact that we discuss a governmental plan prompts us to consider the powerful institutional players operating in this sphere.
- A primary stakeholder of course is the Greek state, which has been a historical agent in seeking to regulate the meaning of the diaspora and harness its resources for geopolitical, economic, political and cultural interests.
- Supranational institutions such as the Greek Orthodox Church, which enjoys great power in some diasporas, are also involved. The Plan highlights, in fact privileges, the importance of this institution as an entity whose cohesiveness contributes to diaspora-historical homeland relations.
- The governments of the new home societies (United States, Australia, etc.) also operate in this field as key political agents, although they do not command much attention, if any, in the Plan.
Yet their exercise of vast power must be recognized, given their capacity––via policies, laws, and makers of public opinion––to mediate the extent, scope, and mode of diasporic affiliations of citizens within their own territory. Let us not forget that in the majority, diasporic people enjoy the rights and responsibilities of being citizens in their new homes. Therefore, when the Greek state addresses the diaspora, it addresses citizens of other sovereign states.
Diasporic cultural and educational institutions such as the Greek Orthodox Community of Melbourne & Victoria (Australia), and the Hellenic Heritage Foundation (Canada) among other major stakeholders.
Also at work are international and transnational cultural institutions such as the Niarchos Foundation which fund educational projects in the diaspora.
It is of interest that the Plan broadly mentions two of those entities, explicitly or implicitly, when it makes references to the Immigrec Virtual Museum funded by the Niarchos Foundation, and the Hellenic Heritage Foundation Greek Archives, connected with the Hellenic Studies Program at York. This represents a modest step foe a state-driven public policy to recognize projects producing knowledge about diaspora history.
Before I develop the issue of cultural production from a diaspora perspective, let me share briefly some thoughts about the public sphere. They will helpfully guide the analysis.
Insights about the public sphere:
Following Pierre Bourdieu’s field theory, the contemporary public sphere is conceptualized as a series of overlapping fields (the political, the economic [business], the academic, the religious, non-governmental advocacy organisations, journalism, the arts, among others) with each of these fields competing “to impose its particular vision of the social world on society as a whole.”
In this terrain the distribution of power is uneven. Some entities within each field have at their disposal a great deal of resources and cultural capital to promote their vision. Thus, a greater mass of commentators, “experts,” intellectuals, consultants, gatekeepers, and academics among other stakeholders may be gravitating (or implicitly coerced) toward promoting hegemonic narratives at the expense of the peripheral versions. In their support they stand to profit––economically, socially, and ideologically. Powerful and well-coordinated networks of the “publicity machine” will carry the dominant visions far and wide into the social fabric, blanketing the public sphere while relegating alternatives to the margins.
This poses a grave threat in the effort to achieve the normative ideals of a democratic public sphere: inclusiveness, spaces of intellectual independence for expressing critique and views opposing hegemonic views of the world, proposing alternatives.
Hence the need for powerful institutions which are committed to a better working of the inclusive public sphere. Achieving this ideal requires that the power of the institution put in place binding rules prescribing (and enforcing to the extent possible) inclusivity in the fields shaping the public sphere.
Readers can see the relevance of these ideas in engaging the Plan, namely the role of an institution (or coalitions of institutions) committed in building a diverse diaspora public sphere. This, in a context when, sadly, at least in Greek America, certain hegemonies blatantly violate the principles of the democratic public sphere (as they extol, ironically, the democratic inclusiveness of their home, the United States).
The importance of institutional counter-politics:
The awareness that the diaspora public sphere operates within power relations underlines the importance of participating institutions which espouse alternative, non-hegemonic visions. In other words, major reforms cannot be achieved via the input of diaspora citizens, recommendations in websites, assessment reports and reflective essays alone. It is vital for institutions to flex their negotiating muscle, so to speak, and put pressure on the government in promoting diasporic interests.
But what will the principles guiding the diaspora claims in the negotiation be? The interests about the diaspora are multiple and often contradictory, given that their conceptions of Hellenism and diaspora vary, often radically. Who defines them and on what grounds?
The plan and the Diasporic paradigm:
In the effort to tackle these questions we owe to attend the voice of those sectors of the diaspora who advocate their interests on the basis of historical and cultural *realities*. For some time now, diaspora Greeks, most audibly in Greek Australia, have been calling the Greek state (as well as diasporic organisations allied with government interests) to abandon their paternalistic attitude toward the diaspora. Instead, they demand recognition of each diaspora’s complexity, internal heterogeneity, historical and cultural specificity, cross-cultural negotiations, intercultural cross-fertilization, and syncretism. Their arts, music, scholarship, and journalism narrate these experiences and situations from a diasporic point of view. They ask to be seen as active agents in the production of a variety of Hellenisms––not the reproduction of Helladic Hellenism.
Rendering the alternative Hellenisms visible, leads to a “diasporic paradigm” of identity representations, which counters competing narratives (advocated by the state and a host of diasporic organisations) whose narrow and simplistic representations of the diaspora stifle, and in fact insult, diasporic people. (See, for example, the portrayal of emigrating Greeks as migratory birds, not people forced to exit the country due to political persecution or dire poverty.) The diasporic paradigm seeks to emancipate the diasporic peoples from the regulatory power of those who are reducing them into a cultural caricature.
The diasporic paradigm then offers a non-negotiable starting point for any institution (or alliance of institutions) entering the deliberations seeking to undermine the Helladic assumptions of the Plan, and in doing so reform it.
Though I am not a policy strategist, I have been thinking for some time about the conditions leading to action and policies toward a new diaspora imaginary. I share some thoughts bearing relevance, I believe, to our topic.
Historically, diasporas have been channeling vast financial resources, among others, toward Greece. The Plan, and its rhetoric of a two-way diaspora-Greece relationship, provides an opportune moment for the diaspora this time to ask the Greek state to balance this giving, and redirect resources in the service of the diaspora’s cultural vitality. This giving should not bind, as I will explain, those promoting the diasporic paradigm to conform to state (Helladic) narratives, compromising their self-determination.
Why should the state consent to this asking? It should, if it genuinely supports the future of diasporic Hellenisms. The state (and other powerful diasporic institutions sharing its reductive narrative) owes to accept and respect the “alterity” of the diasporas and their operation too as cultural centres of wide-ranging Hellenisms. In fact, it is presented with an opportunity to operate as an agent contributing to the making of a democratic diaspora public sphere.
The conversation about the Plan happens at a moment when the fields of culture, arts, and journalism in the diaspora public spheres are either weak (particularly in Greek America where hegemonic narratives have relegated the diasporic paradigm at the margins) or are receding in scale. This, when diasporas in the United States, Australia and Canada are increasingly diversifying and individuals experience their identities privately, outside traditional institutions.
Given that the future of Hellenism is at stake, the question of the “next generation” inevitably enters the deliberations. We know very little about the second, third, and fourth generations, but some evidence suggests that the next generation seeks new identity narratives speaking to their own tastes, needs, styles, circumstances, and interests. It is noteworthy that the third generation exhibits a higher interest in the arts, humanities, and social science as professional careers than their second-generation peers who, prompted by the trying circumstances of their immigrant parents, opted for more lucrative and “stable” career paths.
I am taking a cue here from my Greek American students who crave for interesting narratives exploring bicultural identities, linkages with the historical homeland beyond idealized and touristic tropes, migrant psychology, differences between Greek Americans and Greeks in Greece; cross-cultural and interracial dating; cultural ambivalences among the second generation; food as heritage and culinary fusions; family and ethnic history; diasporic arts; and intergenerational connections, tensions, and conflicts. As a college student majoring in Art and Media studies put it, “I often think my art is a way to bridge my two cultures and countries. I have learned to record memory, eyes and heart and camera wide open.”
Given the power of cultural expressions—music, song, storytelling, photography, dance, film, theatre, journalism, scholarship—to engage human beings, the making of a culturally exciting public sphere which produces and widely disseminates compelling (innovative, experimental, syncretic) diaspora narratives in tune with our times and the audiences it addresses, presents itself as a vital frontier for the future of Hellenisms in the diasporas.
To reiterate this point, as an “effective negotiator” might do: the relationship between the diasporas and the Greek state has been shaped by immense unidirectional flows of monies––in the form of investments, philanthropy, gifts and donations, Greek studies summer study programs, diaspora tourism, remittances––from the diaspora to the homeland. It is only fair for the diasporas to ask for balancing this economic relationship, asking the state to reciprocate and function as a guardian of a democratic (that is inclusive) diaspora public sphere. This means allocating state funds toward the revitalization of this sphere for the reasons I explained above. An uncompromising demand would involve supporting also those who are interested in exploring and expressing the diasporic paradigm without fear of losing funding, being fired, or marginalized. In other, words, there should be no state clauses compromising a diaspora’s freedom of expression, its self-determination.
How to produce the new generation of highly qualified thinkers, artists, researchers, story tellers, journalists? To inspire and motivate the (bicultural and often cosmopolitan) next generation, there should be investment in superb educational structures; the availability of grants and other financial incentives to promising undergraduate and graduate students in the arts, the humanities and social sciences to also carry Greek and Greek diaspora topics in their careers in in the broader society––say being Australian journalists, but also contributing to Greek Australian media.
In other words, the Greek state would be contributing financially in the making of the next generation of musicians, authors, performers, storytellers, researchers, artists, filmmakers who will be enjoying freedom for artistic and academic self-determination to produce compelling narratives toward the narration about the diaspora’s ever-changing Hellenisms. Diasporas are dynamic, involving cultural becoming, they cannot possibly allow their stifling by static narratives.
If this diasporic agency does not work (perhaps it is bound not to work due to anticipated resistances?), then stakeholders who invest in the value of the diasporic paradigm may consider joining forces, forming alliances across geopolitical boundaries, and creating coalitions, to empower their presence in the public sphere. Such a stance will require considerable energy and resources given the complexity of the situation. But the stakes are exceedingly high to afford to miss the prospect of making a difference. A new centre of cultural activism presents itself inviting engagement across the various diasporas and in the process transoceanic diaspora understanding.
Republished from: Neos Kosmos
Piece By: Georgios Anagnostou
*This story was originally published in the Immigrations–Ethnicities–Racial Situations Blog.