{"id":40611,"date":"2010-05-01T21:59:32","date_gmt":"2010-05-01T18:59:32","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.palmografos.com\/?p=40611"},"modified":"2010-05-01T21:59:32","modified_gmt":"2010-05-01T18:59:32","slug":"vivvo-2161","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/?p=40611","title":{"rendered":"Are we in fact descendants of Ancient Greeks? – By Alfred George Kouris, OAM"},"content":{"rendered":"

<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Names of internationally distinguished Greek men and<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

women in the sciences, politics, business, the arts and letters<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

are reported and that\u2019s why we should be proud as a nation.<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

Many times though, various \u201cwell-wishers\u201d, who pretend to be<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

our \u201cfriends\u201d \u2013others because of envy, others because of<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

jealousy and others from hate and ethnic fanaticism- defame<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

us and cast odium upon us with various faults, amongst<\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

which the most usual description is that, we are not related to our ancestors! The Ancient Greeks…!<\/span><\/span><\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span>And this \u201cimpeachment\u201d <\/span>allows for much discussion and <\/span><\/span>many pages to be written for and against the issue <\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/strong><\/p>\n
Dr George Papanikolaou<\/strong><\/span><\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n
\"\"The above famous Greek doctor , is the best example that we are indeed related to our ancestors ! The Ancient Greeks !. He died 48 years ago and he is more famous than his descendant doctor Hippocrates. He was born in Kyme-Greece in 1883 and died in 1962. He studied medicine and anatomy in Greece and migrated to New York in October 1914 , taking the chair of anatomy in the University of Cornel. In 1945 his method \u201cPap test\u201d started to save millions of women all over the world from the cancer of the womb and still saves !..<\/span><\/div>\n

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\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

\u00a0<\/span><\/div>\n

<\/p>\n

That is why I am content to say, in defence of modern day Greek women and men, that on<\/p>\n

the one hand, our ancient ancestors became eternal for leaving us with the Parthenon, the sculptures and other magnificent artefacts, their philosophers, their heroes, their doctors, their pharmacists, mathematicians and so many other leading Greeks and Heroes of our most ancient history. Even modern day Neo-Hellenes do not come short of and are equally at the very top of their class in many categories: Sciences, the Arts, Letters, Music, Medicine, and Business and there are many heroes in the fields of Battles. As I have said, if I start naming names and including biographical notes, of Onassis, Maria Callas, Greek heroes of the Balkan Wars, of Eleftherios Venizelos, of World War I, and the latter, World War II, followed by the Greco-Italian War, and of the Battle of Crete, it would no longer be a letter. That is why<\/p>\n

<\/font><\/span>I am content to say only, that for these personalities, and our authors, poets and high ranking musicians, actors and one thousand and two other distinguished Greeks from Greece and abroad, contrary to what is being spread about us Neo-Hellenes purposely and tendentiously, we do not lack in anything compared to our ancient ancestors, neither personality wise, nor in infighting!Rightly or wrongly, we are one and the same! Neither better, nor worse!<\/p>\n

The occasion for writing this timeworn information, was initiated by mention of some<\/p>\n

community based compatriots\u2019 names here in Australia, who this month preoccupied the<\/p>\n

media that made them front page news. First of all, our own distinguished scientist and<\/p>\n

researcher, Vaso Apostolopoulou, as indicated by the facts, being that the vaccine that she<\/p>\n

discovered to fight off breast cancer in women will be brought out by an American<\/p>\n

pharmaceutical company in a few months and that it will be 100% effective. Congratulations Vaso! There is the example of the Greek community member who aspires to fly to Mars!<\/p>\n

There is also the example of the five young Greek students honoured by the Premier of<\/p>\n

Victoria, Mr John Brumby, for their performance in the VCE exams of the State: Daniel<\/p>\n

Kamateros from Viewbank College for his excellent performance in Visual Communication<\/p>\n

and Design; Helen Maniotis, a student of Greek Orthodox College St John\u2019s, for her excellent<\/p>\n

performance in Greek; Helen Pappas, a student at the Methodist Ladies College, who<\/p>\n

excelled in Design and Technology, and; Anna Spyridis from Mount Eliza Secondary College<\/p>\n

who excelled in Outdoor and Environmental Studies, and Constantine Tsanaktsidis from<\/p>\n

Huntingtower School who excelled in Information Technology. It is a great distinction that five<\/p>\n

of our own young Greek students excelled amongst the thousands of students in the State of<\/p>\n

Victoria who sat for VCE exams! Congratulations to them! Our own compatriot, Mr Arthur<\/p>\n

Synodinos, former Chief-of-Staff for 12 years to ex-Prime Minister John Howard, and<\/p>\n

honoured with the highest Order of Australia Medal on Queen\u2019s Birthday for his valued<\/p>\n

services to Australia is another name in the Greek community.<\/p>\n

This distinguished Greek-Cypriot, who for twelve years was the closest and most trusted<\/p>\n

associate of John Howard, as his Chief-of-Staff, voluntarily resigned from his position, before<\/p>\n

the recent Australian National Elections and took office as Executive Officer of the Merchant<\/p>\n

Bank, Goldman Sachs JB Were.<\/p>\n

I chose these distinguished fellow Greek men and women of Australia, in order to prove, that<\/p>\n

we, the Neo-Hellenes, are genuine descendants of our ancient ancestors. Even though these<\/p>\n

examples of the names I have given belong to different faculties, I purposely did this, so that I<\/p>\n

could make comparisons. I wanted to compare Vaso with Hippocrates; Icarus with our own<\/p>\n

compatriot who plans to travel to Mars! And to compare today\u2019s five young students of Greek<\/p>\n

background in Australia who excel in Letters, whilst ancient Greek youth who in order to<\/p>\n

\u201cexcel\u201d, had to ensure that they were not caught… etc.! The \u201cdon\u2019t air your dirty laundry\u201d<\/p>\n

proverb applies here.<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

I very much compare the popular Mr Synodinos with the honest and \u201cFair Aristides\u201d…!<\/p>\n

<\/span>I am satisfied to remain with our eight distinguished names here, without having to mention<\/p>\n

hundreds of other scientists, millionaire businesspeople and thousands of others within and<\/p>\n

outside of Greece, who excel and honour the Greek nation; a unique and an \u201cun-siblinged\u201d<\/p>\n

nation, that is small in population, but great in history and glory!<\/p>\n

<\/span>What better examples do we then want, to dumbfound all those who defame us by sayingthat we are not like our ancient Greek ancestors?<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/p>\n

ALFRED-GEORGE KOURIS, OAM<\/p>\n

Veteran Journalist, publisher and author<\/p>\n

Internet : http:www.angelfire.com\/ak\/kouris<\/p>\n

E-mail : alfredkouris@optusnet.com.au<\/a><\/p>\n

(Melbourne 3193 \u2013 Australia)<\/p>\n

<\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n

\u00a0<\/div>\n

<\/span><\/span>\u00a0<\/p>\n

<\/span><\/div>\n<\/h3>\n

<\/p>\n

concerned, as newspapers do not publish letters that are of some length.<\/span><\/h3>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Names of internationally distinguished Greek men and women in the sciences, politics, business, the arts and letters are reported and that\u2019s why we should be proud as a nation. Many times though, various \u201cwell-wishers\u201d, who pretend to be our \u201cfriends\u201d \u2013others because of envy, others because of jealousy and others from hate and ethnic fanaticism- […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[35],"tags":[75],"class_list":["post-40611","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-vivvo-category-35","tag-75"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40611","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=40611"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40611\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":137083,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/40611\/revisions\/137083"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=40611"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=40611"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.palmografos.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=40611"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}