OPINION

Staying in touch with the mother country

Bravo Nikos Konstandaras for your commentary in Kathimerini English Edition on Saturday April 12. It is so refreshing to read an editorial that is in content and tone so honest and sincere and reflective of a newspaper whose policy it is to inform and to promote dialogue that is diverse and that reaches out to the Greek diaspora. I am a Greek Australian Canadian currently living in British Columbia, Canada. While on vacation in Athens and the Aegean last summer, I bought and read the Kathimerini English Edition as often as I could. This enabled me to communicate with the many Greeks I met on meaningful social, political and cultural matters (despite my appalling facility with the language). I talked and argued and laughed with cabbies, storekeepers, cigarette kiosk vendors, casual acquaintances in cafes, restaurants, on buses and on ferries, on beaches and at the ancient outdoor theaters. Because I was able to demonstrate an informed interest in their affairs (and my experience with the Greeks is that they are a very politicized and passionate people regardless of party allegiance), I was received with much good will, good humor and tremendous patience. For this I am indebted to eKathimerini. Thank you. From the moment of my return to Canada, I stayed in touch with the affairs of Greece through the Internet edition of your paper. The eKathimerini, along with other European and Middle Eastern sources that I am able to locate on the Internet, provides me with a more balanced perspective of the US/British invasion of Iraq. Most of the mainstream North American media (television, radio, print) is incredibly chauvinistic. CNN dominates the images and news of the war through its «embedded» journalists. The news is totally controlled and sanitized; isolated, fragmented sounds and images broken by meaningless commentary-babble and interjections by retired war generals or other voices of «military authority.» At times it is difficult to distinguish between the war, a sports event, or a video game. But not so with the Canadian Broadcasting Corporation. I take this opportunity to commend the CBC for its fair and even-handed reporting. Information was, and continues to be, consistently drawn from a great variety of sources: independent and «embedded» reporting; ordinary folks and specialist authorities – military, political, historical, medical et al; Iraqi immigrants in Canada and Iraqi civilians through the bombing of their cities. And again I return to you, Kathimerini and all its staff. I congratulate and celebrate you. Honesty. Sincerity. Integrity. Dialogue. Debate. Never fearing the polemic. There is little that can match the startling clarity and beauty of the canary’s song wherever and whenever it is heard. God willing it will never be silenced. MARIA ROBERTS, Canada.

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