https://halva.proboards.com/post/3143
Colleagues,
On Friday December 12 (2025) the Steering Committee (of which I am a member) of the Aegina Active Citizens’ Association rejected my proposal for projection with the support of the Aegina Women’s Association but in the name of the Aegina Active Citizens’ Association, and prior to the annual celebrations in Aegina of the founding on 26th January 1828 of the modern Greek state, of a brief video https://youtu.be/V6GD_RrP02o
exposing the coincidental fact that 26th January is also the date when Western civilization came to Australia in the form of a British penal colony in what is now Sydney. As Australia’s national day the appropriateness of 26th January is now disputed, but in a manner which the majority of Australians clearly find degrading and insulting. In Greece, 26th January, the date when modern Greece’s assassinated first governor was sworn in and the modern Greek state established in 1828, is not officially recognized as a national day except, after years of lobbying by Capodistrias adherents and Aeginetans, it was recognized by presidential decree, as a national day “of local significance”.
The steering committee questioned the relevance in Aegina of references to Australia and was not convinced by the argument that the current relentless campaign of the Zionist Federation of Australia to silence and financially destroy the well-known Greek Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis (for twenty years the heart and soul of Greek-language broadcasting in Sydney) should be opposed actively from Aegina. Given that on the day of the steering committee meeting the Association was also being petitioned by local pro-Palestinian activists to protest the Aegina municipal council’s refusal to allow a local school to host a meeting in solidarity with opponents of the ongoing genocide in Gaza, it seemed appropriate that the Mary Kostakidis issue should be brought to the attention of these activists.
If any doubt remains about the priority that should be assigned in Aegina to events in Australia it must surely have been weakened by an incident that hit the headlines internationally the day after the Steering Committee meeting: www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2025-12-14/massacre-of-jews-at-sydney-s-iconic-bondi-beach-shocks-australia
Here is correspondence with the organizer of the pro-Palestinian meeting in Aegina:
Dear Laia,
Apart from the answer I gave you as a member of the steering committee of the Active Citizens, which I endorse, I would like to add a few personal comments as an anti-status-quo activist. It would be significant for the well-known Greek-Australian journalist Mary Kostakidis (who was the heart of Greek-language broadcasting in Sydney for twenty years), to be receiving some assistance from activists in Greece, particularly activists who are in solidarity with Palestinians.
And particularly when at this time there are incidents like that which occurred recently in the Australian Parliament.
www.bbc.com/news/articles/cz94pdkzqvwo
This campaign, which is being waged by a far-right-wing Australian, should be handled by progressive people and be known to progressive people everywhere.
This is not happening.
We are not doing well.
I plan to come to your function tomorrow, and I agree that it should be taking place at the first primary school.
W.H.
On 2025-12-12 07:38, Stratos Pantavos (deputy president of the Association) wrote:
Dear Laia,
We agree with your problematic.
We believe that the citizens of Aegina should be able to express their views in a democratic manner. We suggest that you should be presenting your views to all the associations of Aegina, and particularly those that have taken up the issue of the Health Centre so that a united protest movement can emerge with greater range and depth.
W.H. continues
Colleagues I participated in the function organized by Laia and her group on the subject of Palestine. I distributed information about Mary Kostakidis in Australia. I also spoke briefly about her but the audience was impatient to continue with their program and I wasn’t able to say everything I wanted to say. However, at the end Laia spoke of the request she had made to the Active Citizens’ Association and read the text she had sent us. I was obliged to ask Laia to read our collective reply to the meeting. She did not have the text with her, and neither did I. But she recounted from memory the substance of the message she had received from us. What she said was not significantly different from what Stratos had written.
So there it is.
W.
P.S. The shy young woman in Muslim attire that can be seen in the photograph reproduced in the Greek newspaper Kathimerini is an Australian politician in the country’s Senate. In the original video coverage she speaks quite loudly and vehemently in a broad Australian accent which seems ill-suited with her clothing (she is not, like Senator Hanson, engaged in theatre. How many women dressed in that way speak like that in public to an uncomfortable audience?). I think we would not like to see such scenes in the Greek parliament and would not like to see an entire legislative body reacting in such an intimidated, awkward and unworthy manner to the incident provoked by Senator Hanson’s play acting.
https://www.informationrights.org/take-action/stand-with-mary-kostakidis
We are writing with an urgent update on our campaign supporting journalist Mary Kostakidis. The Federal Court case brought against her is projected by her legal team to cost up to millions of dollars, and we need your help to reach 10,000 signatures on our open letter calling on the Zionist Federation of Australia (ZFA) and its CEO to discontinue the proceedings. Can you share the open letter with three friends?
Mary is facing Federal Court proceedings over two posts she shared on X/Twitter about Gaza, which the ZFA alleges contravene section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act 1975 (Cth). Mary’s supporters are deeply concerned that she has been targeted for her criticism of the conduct of the State of Israel, in a way they say that risks sending a chilling message to anyone expressing political views online.
“Anybody on Twitter or Facebook could be standing shocked before a Federal Court, going through all of the Facebook posts you’ve ever made to see whether they give context to a claim,” Mary’s lawyer Mark Davis has cautioned.
Due to the volume of material in dispute, commentators have noted that the Court may be asked to adjudicate on highly contentious issues, including: whether Hamas or Israel seeks the destruction of the other, to what degree Hezbollah is to be regarded as a terrorist organisation or a resistance movement, which accounts of the 7 October attacks are accurate, and whether alleged attacks on synagogues in Australia were motivated by antisemitism.
Mary’s legal team filed her defence in the Federal Court last week, and a case management hearing is expected to take place on 18 December, at which the Court is likely to set the timetable for the trial.
This case has the potential to set a far‑reaching precedent for how section 18C of the Racial Discrimination Act applies to political commentary and journalism, with serious implications for freedom of expression in Australia.
That’s why we are asking for your help to reach 10,000 signatures on our open letter before the next hearing in December.
Can you share the open letter on social media?
Comment from WH :
Some Artificial Intelligence insights on Palestinian Christians and the Palestinian Authority. halva.proboards.com/thread/1084/palestine (The corruption issue on the Palestinian Authority was mentioned by a speaker at Laia’s meeting.)
With the approach of the season of the functions in Aegina, Greece, in honour of modern Greece’s assassinated first leader Ioannis Capodistrias,
main.cse-initiative.eu/?p=1228
the time comes for proposing that on 26th January 2028 Greeks and Australians should together celebrate the 200th anniversary of the foundation of the modern Greek state and the 240th anniversary of the dawn, in Australia, of Western civilization, which emerged in Greece.
In the 21st century Western civilization is important as a basic element in civilization more generally.