by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The dark clouds of racism and xenophobia and of fascism, once again, gather over Europe and the actions against the Romani People in many countries of the European Union is ample proof of that.
We had hoped, like Viviane Reding of the Council of Europe said in her condemnation of the actions of the French government against Gypsies in its country, that those scenes would be a thing of the past; of the darkest times of the history of Europe.
But, alas, as I have been predicting for years, the past is coming back to haunt us because we never buried it properly.
When it comes to us, the Gypsy, all the legislations and all the talk of equality and all that jazz are nothing but empty words. To the powers that be and the majority of the Gadje per se we are and remain but the dirty Gypsy.
Now, in the economic climate of the Great Recession, the Gypsy is made to be the scapegoat for all of society's ills. The Gypsy takes away jobs, the Gypsy does this and the Gypsy does that. I am waiting when we are being accused, once again, of poisoning wells, carrying the Plague and being spies for the Turks or whoever.
While I am the first to admit that there are bad apples in the barrel of the Romani People that are involved in criminal activities, from low-level to very serious stuff, this does not mean that every Gypsy is a thief or even a child-trafficker.
However, the way the governments of many European Union member states behave it will be community punishments for those few that are involved in crimes. This is the same what happened under the Nazis in Germany and elsewhere. And the EU does what? Precisely...
In fact, to all intents and purposes, it is beginning to look as if we are seeing “ethnic cleansing by proxy” here in many of the EU member states on the European mainland. This is worrying and scary at the same time.
In Switzerland anti-Gypsy xenophobia is spreading too, but then again it was in Switzerland where Gypsy children were routinely stolen from their parents and placed in institutions and sold as slaves to farmers well into the second half of the twentieth century.
Is the entire European mainland about to go mentally deranged once again as far as the Gypsy is concerned? It would appear thus. And the world had thought that that was all behind us.
For years I have been saying that I could see the spectre of anti-Gypsyism of the Nazi kind rising in Europe again and that I could see the EU as, more than likely, having a part in such persecutions even and everyone thought me to be out of my mind. Looks like my fears are coming true, unfortunately.
And what do our “leaders? Where are the IRU and where is the ERTF? Conspicuous by their silence and this silence is really deafening and it proves where they really stand and what really counts for them; power and money. The People are but a means to an end for them.
The grassroots let it happen too and are lethargic as always. If we do not make a stand now then we deserve no better than to be seen as a People as scroungers and whatever else.
While we may be Stini or Cale and not Roma we are, nevertheless, all Romani and hence cousins and that alone should make us do something but...
So keren?
© 2010
The dark clouds of racism and xenophobia and of fascism, once again, gather over Europe and the actions against the Romani People in many countries of the European Union is ample proof of that.
We had hoped, like Viviane Reding of the Council of Europe said in her condemnation of the actions of the French government against Gypsies in its country, that those scenes would be a thing of the past; of the darkest times of the history of Europe.
But, alas, as I have been predicting for years, the past is coming back to haunt us because we never buried it properly.
When it comes to us, the Gypsy, all the legislations and all the talk of equality and all that jazz are nothing but empty words. To the powers that be and the majority of the Gadje per se we are and remain but the dirty Gypsy.
Now, in the economic climate of the Great Recession, the Gypsy is made to be the scapegoat for all of society's ills. The Gypsy takes away jobs, the Gypsy does this and the Gypsy does that. I am waiting when we are being accused, once again, of poisoning wells, carrying the Plague and being spies for the Turks or whoever.
While I am the first to admit that there are bad apples in the barrel of the Romani People that are involved in criminal activities, from low-level to very serious stuff, this does not mean that every Gypsy is a thief or even a child-trafficker.
However, the way the governments of many European Union member states behave it will be community punishments for those few that are involved in crimes. This is the same what happened under the Nazis in Germany and elsewhere. And the EU does what? Precisely...
In fact, to all intents and purposes, it is beginning to look as if we are seeing “ethnic cleansing by proxy” here in many of the EU member states on the European mainland. This is worrying and scary at the same time.
In Switzerland anti-Gypsy xenophobia is spreading too, but then again it was in Switzerland where Gypsy children were routinely stolen from their parents and placed in institutions and sold as slaves to farmers well into the second half of the twentieth century.
Is the entire European mainland about to go mentally deranged once again as far as the Gypsy is concerned? It would appear thus. And the world had thought that that was all behind us.
For years I have been saying that I could see the spectre of anti-Gypsyism of the Nazi kind rising in Europe again and that I could see the EU as, more than likely, having a part in such persecutions even and everyone thought me to be out of my mind. Looks like my fears are coming true, unfortunately.
And what do our “leaders? Where are the IRU and where is the ERTF? Conspicuous by their silence and this silence is really deafening and it proves where they really stand and what really counts for them; power and money. The People are but a means to an end for them.
The grassroots let it happen too and are lethargic as always. If we do not make a stand now then we deserve no better than to be seen as a People as scroungers and whatever else.
While we may be Stini or Cale and not Roma we are, nevertheless, all Romani and hence cousins and that alone should make us do something but...
So keren?
© 2010
