Traditional Polish Gypsy wooden spoons

The carving of wooden spoons, for eating as well as for kitchen use, stirring woods, and an array of other wooden products (treen), including hay forks and many others, has always been a traditional craft occupation of the Rom Polska, that is to say of the Veshtike and Bergtike branches (pardon the pun), though by no means are those the only Romani groups that are engaged in this profession. Others, in other regions and other parts of Europe (and the world) also make such products, and many, just like the Rom Polska, have their own unique designs. In fact, the carving of spoons and other wooden products has been a big part of traditional Romani work.

Among the spoon carvers of the Rom Polska we find two different shapes of the spoon bowls as where the bowls of the Veshtike Rom are – predominately – round and, to some extent, fairly deep – those of the Bergtike are almost always an elongated fig shape, with the broad end facing the bottom of the spoon.

Among the Romanian Romani groups who carve spoons and other treen the bowl of the spoon is more egg-shaped and the point is forward, which among other carves the point would be backwards to the handle. It is often, by spoon carvers of non-Romani origin, referred to as the Roma spoon, but it is just one design and not an overly common one at that.

While the majority of the Rom Polska would use a large Stirring Wood (paddle kind of tool with a flat bottom edge) for stirring food in cooking and would never think of using a wooden spoon for this the Romanian Roma, on the other hand, do, and here just a very large version of their standard design with the pointed tip. My grandmother would have found that absolutely useless in cooking as such a spoon cannot reach the bottom of the pot and the sides, even those of a cauldron.

Some designs of the Veshtike and Bergtike are very unique even though similar spoons and utensils can be found in different cultures.

The design of the Veshtike Rom eating spoon, for instance, goes back well into the middle ages. It was traditionally worn in the hatband for men, in a leather “holster” around the neck for the children, and the women would have them in the pocket of their aprons. Everyone, not just in Romani Culture, would always have his or her own wooden spoon. I recently have seen pictures on the Internet, which I have unfortunately not kept, of Ciganos in Brazil having the same kind of wooden spoons in their hatbands.

The pocket spoon (though it rarely ever was in a pocket) for the children, and the larger ones later produced for the mountain shepherds, have a cousin in the so-called canoe or kayak spoon found among the Native Americans and the Inuit. This was one design that the Veshtike Rom took from the Bergtike, we are, after all cousins, where the bowl shape is different from those that they generally made, that is to say that is of an elongate fig-shape and not round, as is traditional for Veshtike spoons. It was the spoon for the younger children and instead of, actually, being in a pocket this spoon was suspended from around the neck on a cord in such a fashion that they did not have to take it off for eating and thus would less likely drop it onto the ground.

Then there is the Stirring Wood (I call it stirring wood for lack of a better name in English) which is common in both Veshtike and Bergtike tradition. The style and design of this one can also be found in different cultures and regions, such as Japan, China, India and (Southern) Africa. Generally the Stirring Aood is somewhat trapezoid in shape, at least the working end. It would appear that the Romanian Roma make a similar stirring tool though with a much more pronounced round handle. Having said that though, the very original Veshtike Rom version of the Stirring Wood did and does have a round handle similar to that of the spoons.

It is sometimes amazing that in regions and cultures so far apart a similar design of a tool has been developed.

From the trapezoid shape of the Stirring Wood the shorter Stirring Spatula developed – though it may have always been part of the range, so to speak – which was a favorite among people who were living a lot of the times out of doors, such as a mountain shepherds, who would have one of those, together with a serving spoon, their eating spoon and a butter knife, in their shoulder bag. Later this Stirring Spatula and the Shepherd's Spoon was something that people of the camping fraternity very much appreciated. Again, this spatula design can be found in other cultures far apart as well.

The traditional butter knife of Veshtike Rom design would appear to be another one where, in its original form, it has found its way to France as a butter/pate knife and spreader. Whether some of ours brought the design to France or whether is developed there independently I could not say and I will not even attempt to claim the credit for our People for this.

The so-called Shepherd's Ladle is another product that was produced in great numbers years ago but today is rarely made and that is because metal and plastic mugs have taken its place, even among the mountain shepherds, unless they are very traditional and prefer the wooden implements, as some still do.

The Shepherd's Ladle might be seen by some as a Sami Guksi, aka Kuksa, but it is different all together and is more like the Native American canoe cup. It is, basically, a short-handled small ladle which, probably, the Guksi once was as well, used to take water for a drink from a creek or a water butt. It was not and is not intended to be a cup for beverages of any kind and thus does not have a flat bottom, for instance. Neither did, in all honesty, the Guksi, originally; it only became it over the time, mostly in the last half century or so.

While, predominately, the carvers concentrated on making spoons and other household items of this nature, including bowls, trenchers, plates, rolling pins, dough bowls, troughs, and others, they also carved anything else useful from wood, and this included handles for tools – garden, farm and other – as well as tools themselves such as hay forks, rakes and, also, hiking sticks and such. Anything that could be carved out of wood or made from wood would be made, for own use and especially for sale.

Some carvers specialized in a particular range of products with some only making spoons of various sizes, for instance, other just bowls and such, while others made an array of different products, and the same still holds true today. The latter, that is to say making more than one kind of product, is a much better use of the wood for there are times when off cuts can still be made into something other. That is why I, as a carver, also, though they are in no way traditional, make chopsticks from thin straight twigs in a rural Japanese tradition. Firstly because there are people that would like to buy chopsticks and also and especially because otherwise those sticks would go to waste.

As indicated, for many carvers the making of what would be called hiking sticks or hiking poles today also was part of the work, whether for the shepherds, the hunters or foresters, or anyone else. You used and use what you can to earn a penny, as they say. The same goes for the making of clothespins, the so-called split pegs.

At Veshengro WoodWorks I, being said Veshengro (my Romani name), of Veshtike Rom background, from a family of spoon carvers and knife makers, am recreating those spoons and other objects as close to the traditional, though with one or two minor improvements in some cases, in order to keep the styles and designs alive. What pains me most is that I have no one who I can train up to follow this path, keeping those old designs going by continuing to make them.

All products are entirely crafted by hand using only hand tools and are intended for use rather than as a piece of art and each and every piece is unique as they are not sawn to a template but made, following the grain working only with hatchet, straight knife and spoon knife (hook knife) and such. So there will never be one the same as the other.

I am aware that my products are not cheap and I am making no excuses for this. Handmade cannot be ever cheap unless it is made by people being paid a pittance. A spoon can take several hours to make from start to finish and if prices would be according to the minimum wage – in the UK, which is still lower than in many other countries – they would have to start at 40GBP for an eating spoon.

2024 © Michael Smith / Veshengro WoodWorks

Divide and Rule by Language

The Gadje authorities will really love the Roma(ni) activist who continue the divide and rule agenda of basing Romani identity on language and the ability  to speak Romanes, more or less fluently. I assume many of them also make it then their version of the Chib, as some groups do, and all others, to them are not Rom.

That plays entirely into the hands of the Gadje doshman and removing from the People thousands if not millions of Amare Chel simply because, even though they know and follow the Culture, Traditions and Practices, are not able to rokker Amari Chib (properly). 

They do not appreciate the historical reasons why so many of Amare Chel have lost the ability to rokker Amari Chib properly or altogether. In Britain it was a hanging offense to speak the “Egyptian tongue”, as it was called, and almost the same is true for Spain, and also for those of ours in the Austro-Hungarian Empire under Maria Theresia. 

Furthermore the experience of Samudaripen also has done its part in many parts of Europe hence many young Sinti and Roma in Germany, Austria, etc., have lost the Chib or part of it. 

While it is true and could be said that Amari Chib is part of us and our Culture it is not the be all and end all of being Rom. Today any Gadjo or Gadji can learn the Romani Chib and many of them now rokker the Chib better, albeit often one particular dialect that has nothing to do with the region they come from, than many a Rom. More important to being Rom is the knowledge of the Culture, the Traditions and the Practices. But it seem that just because those activist often have no idea of the latter the peddle the former of being the Culture. 

It is also true that over the last decades of even half a century and more there have been books published from which any of us who have lost the Chib could have (re)learned it, albeit, once again, it may not have been the dialect of the group of Rom that we actually belong to. However, who has the time to do that when we have so many more important issues to consider, not the least of it the ongoing persecution of our People. 

Most of our Calon brethren in Brazil, for instance, do not rokker the Chib, not even those that are not originally Ciganos from Portugal or Gitanios from Spain, but even Sinti and Roma, who see themselves one with them, and who have been in Brazil for a century or a century of a half only, if that. They all speak just simply Brasiledo, that is to say Brazilian Portuguese, with then maybe a few Cale words interspersed. 

On he other hand, however, they live the Culture, the Traditions and Practices of Romanipen, though the spiritual aspects to some decree cloaked in Catholicism, daily. Shall we deny those millions, for million, for millions they are, they birthright just for the lack of the Chib? 

We have a problem, as I have said before, and the problem is us; in this case a certain number of activists.

Acts and talk such as theirs alienates those who know that they are Rom and have only known that but don't rokker the Chib and causes a division of the already fractious unity among Amare Chel. But that is exactly what the Gadje are looking for and those activists with those actions and talk of their play directly into the hands of the doshman. 

Maybe it is more than high time that we recognized the doshmane among our own ranks and eliminated them, regardless whether they are ethic Rom or Gadje; pretenders or those with a white savior syndrome. 

2024 © Michael Smith / O NEVO DROM

We are more than Samudaripen

We, the Romani People, are more than just, and I say the word just very loudly here, Samudaripen though when we see how the majority of the “leaders” behave and act than it would appear that then entire sum of the Romani Nation is Samudaripen and the remembrance of those awful events.

While those events, and the slavery in Romania and other parts of the Balkans, and also the enslavement of Rom from Britain, and other places, and their transportation to the Americas, should never be forgotten and stand as a reminder what the Gadje are capable of doing we must not dwell on, and especially in, the past.

The events of the past must remind us to remain always vigilant and that especially today where we are, once again under threat as a Nation by overt and covert acts. Some of those acts are coming even from those that are supposedly our own and our very own organizations, such as the ERRC (European Roma Rights Center) and it directors.

However, we need to look forward because only in looking forward can we recognize the danger that might be facing us and we must also move forward to create a better future for ourselves and our children and their children, and we must do this as a Nation, and not as just an ethnicity integrated and assimilated into the international working class, as some of our own – at least they claim to be of our Blood – would like us to end up and the Gadje definitely want us that way.

We are an ancient People, a Nation with an ancient heritage albeit with a history not written; which is not to say that it should not be written. But when written then it must be written by us. In fact, it must be written by us, and not just the history but especially everything about our true Culture, Traditions, Customs and Practices, spiritual, religious and others, and that now – says he who has a lot of material gathered but not put together as yet – before those who still know are gone for ever.

It is true that our history, as to origin and such, is lost in the mists of time but there are those of us, of the old ones especially, who know more than they think they know, and all of this must be put down on “paper”, whether real paper or just electronically, and that now. Our children and theirs must have something to be able to cling onto to enable them to continue the fight for the recognition as a Nation proper.

2024 © Michael Smith (Veshengro) / O NEVO DROM

The Romani People, a lost tribe of Israel?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Time and again this theory is being banded about that the Romani People are a lost tribe of the Jewish people and, for reasons unknown, a fair number will flock to this idea. An idea that is as fake as Gypsy kings and queens and all that jazz. The Shero Rom, Rom Baro, Baro Rom, or Sherengro and the Puri Dai never were kings and queens, as in sovereign rulers. The Puri Dai was Puri Dai simply buy being the eldest female of the group, which the Sherengro and his like were elected by the heads of the households and could “rule” only for as long as they supported him. Oh dear, I digressed again. I am good at that, I know.

I have had many an argument with the proponents of this fake story as to Jewish origin who go as far as claiming that there are the obvious signs as Gypsies do not eat pork – doh? – and that all Gypsies have their boys circumcised – sorry, pardon, could you run that by me again, but slowly. Neither of those points are true. While circumcision for the boys is practiced among some groups of Roma the rest do not have, and never have had, this practice. And as to eating pork or not eating pork that is a total non-runner for starters for that is often the favored meat among the Rom, regardless of which group.

Regardless of the absence of any kosher rules – though we do have our own rules – this story is being warmed up again and again and the proponents of it will not be told otherwise. They know better and go also as far as claiming that the Indian “origin” is made up by “false prophets” and all one can do is give up – at least at times – and leave them be.

In some quarters of the Rom, however, this notion of the lost tribe of Judah is gaining serious traction and that is rather a shame, aside from the fact that it is outright false.

We, the Romani People, are a People in our own right and while we may have intermarried with Jews as much as with others of the non-Romani population – in some centuries we were not permitted to marry our own – the Rom are not a “lost tribe of Judah” and it is certainly not something that the “Illuminati” are hiding, as claimed by some proponents of this farce.

© 2024

Veshengro WoodWorks

Traditional Romani (Gypsy) Spoon Carver

Traditional Rom Polska wooden spoons, stirring woods, and other wooden products made by Romani-Gypsy artisan of Rom Polska ancestry. Made in Britain from wood from sustainable sources and procedures. All products are made by hand using hand-tools only.

With the exception of chopsticks, which I also make, and also the occasional shamoji (rice paddle), all products are original Rom Polska, either Veshtike or Bergtike, in design and execution with some having undergone a slight design improvement, such as in the case of the butter/pate spreader “knives”.

I come from a family, from my mother's side, that's the Rom Polska side, of knife makers and spoon carvers and, seeing the amount of wood that was going to waste in the woodland and tree maintenance operations in park management I decided to pick up my tools again some years ago and follow, once again, the the footsteps of my ancestors, and to do my carvings in the traditional way in honor of my People.

Sure, I could have gone for other styles such as the Scandinavian, the English, the Russian, or, on the Romani side even the style of the Romanian Roma, but the Rom Polska style is what I learned as a Chavo (boy) and it just came back more or less automatically, and I also wanted to revive many of the old designs of my People.

Do the old crafts of our Romani People still have a future, some may ask. Well, they do and they can make money for the artisan as long as the marketing is got right, and that is where often the problem lies, also the pricing must not bee too cheap. They also should remain having a future for they are part of our heritage.

All my work can be purchased via the website and I ship worldwide. Shipping and handling cost depends on destination.

2024 © Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Integration into the labor market

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Time and again we are hearing this from the “activists”, that Rom need to get better integration into “education” and the labor market. 

What is the labor market in this case? In general, for le Rom, it means menial tasks that Gadje don't want to do and even the chances for well educated, as in having gone through the school system, though schooling does not equate education, Rom stand little chance – and yes, it is due to continuing discrimination – to find employment in the field that they have studied for. Then again, how many of Amare really want to work for a Gadje employer? 

As to the labor market, the capitalist slave market as we should really call it: where are the jobs with many countries having serious unemployment as it goes and the number of the unemployed in the Covid-19 p(l)andemic is rising daily with businesses going to the wall? So, where are the jobs going to come from for Amare when there aren't even enough for the Gadje? There won't be any unless they are the most menial ones. We have to create our own. 

Yes, we will have to create our own jobs by creating our own businesses and enterprises. We always have been doing this until not so log ago and always found a way of creating our own businesses of all kinds, from “crafts” over service industry, such as knife sharpening, to almost anything else. 

With the technology at our fingertips, literally, today the sales platforms for crafts and such can move into the virtual world, while still remaining also partly in the real world, through, maybe shops and markets.

And here is another suggestion: We have also not just been craftspeople but traders and still are and there is an opportunity here for those of the diaspora who are living in the richer countries to help those stuck in the poorer countries, such as in the East, but who are great craftspeople; namely trading in the goods produced. 

Baskets, wooden spoons, other wooden ware, cooper ware, etc., can and will sell for good prices in many countries in the “West” but the wares have to be gotten here. Yes, there is competition from China, Vietnam and such places but with the right kid of marketing and this is where the problem lies but also the opportunities come along. 

If trading with such products is done honestly, by the traders, then the producer can earn a good income and soon have his family in better condition than presently, unlike when a Roma spoon carver today sells a spoon for maybe the equivalent to 50 cents to a dollar and at the end the same spoon is sold for well over $50. 

Services, such as knife grinding, which would still be in demand would it be marketed properly, also can be done via an online presence, though the physical visit will still be needed. However, appointments can be booked via the online presence which, in turn, does away with the need for a hawker's license as one is not hawking, in the legal sense, but visiting by appointment, be that commercial premises or private addresses. 

What can the Gadje slave market, aka labor market offer us, except for bondage in return for a somewhat secure income, though that is only secure as long as the job is secure, and depending on what kind of job it is in today's world that security no longer exists. 

Trades, on the other hand, and even crafts, have much more of a future, even though some do not seem to be able to see that, than do such jobs in the Gadje slave market. When a child has learned a trade, be this crafts trade, so to speak, or trades such as carpentry, plumbing, roofing, and even computer repair, website design, etc., he or she, for why should a trade be done by the boys only, can immediately after “graduating” set up in business and earn an income, without having to worry about paying back tuition fees, as the college or university graduate will have to. 

In today's era it is staring to become “fashionable, for lack of another word, again – or at least so we all hope – to get things repaired again rather than throwing them away and that, hopefully, goes for knives and scissors and other cutting implements as much as for electric and electronic devices and thus the one who knows how to repair and service such things, and the servicing of small engines, will have, if he or she is good at the job, more work than they can possibly handle. 

But, the powers that be, inside and outside the community, wish to direct Amare Chave towards the labor market and studying even for high jobs. The problem is only that too many graduates are already chasing far too few jobs.

Nothing wrong with that if there is a well-paying job to be gotten at the end, for well-paying it will have to be in order to be able to service the student debt, and we indeed need our own doctors (oh, my, I am going to be excommunicated by some just for suggesting the medical profession), midwives, paramedics, lawyers, and what have you, but that still leaves the debt. 

But this is where the barvale Rom should come in, sponsoring those talented of Amare Chave to progress towards their graduation of medical professionals, lawyers, teachers and such who then, after completion are debt-free and can go on to serve the community in their capacities, because we need them in our communities. Professionals of that kind who understand the People, the Language and the Culture. 

The problem is, though, that I cannot see those barvale Rom, many of whom have gotten barvale on the backs of the chorore Rom, to help in this way. Can anyone else? I doubt it. But does it really need the barvale to help in this way? If but each and every one of us who can, out of at least 16 Million alone in Europe, not counting the Americas, would just commit €1 per month to sponsor a gifted Romani youngster to graduation in such professions we would be a long way towards having many Romani graduates who are debt-free and able to practice in and for the community. Then again that is as much an Utopian vision, I guess, as would be that some of ours would step up to help, directly, our abandoned Chave and those Chave otherwise in peril. But, hope is the last thing to die, as they say. 

2024 © Michael Smith / O NEVO DROM

And after the 8th of April, Romani Nation Day, what?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

On April 8 everyone was celebrating Romani Culture and all that, and in many instances it was being turned into a memory of Samudaripen again, such as by some organizations in Germany and Austria. 

We did celebrate our Romani Culture and various other aspects but what we really should be doing, aside from that, is bring together the Romani Nation,, so that this day has true value. 

But what are we doing now that this annual event is over for another year? 

Are we going to march forward, carrying our banner high, to claim the rights of our People or are we going to to be all more passive again, more moderate, more parsimonious, more temperate? Are we going to blend into the background again for another year in the hope that no one realizes that we are Gypsies, Rom?

I fear that the majority will be doing just that instead of fighting against Anti-Gypsyism and other discriminations and fighting for cultural autonomy and for the full and political recognition of our People, and that, I am afraid, includes many of the so-called “leaders”. 

At the day there are photo-opportunities and all that and the “leaders” stand there frantically waiving our flag but once the day is over they return to their cozy chairs and wait for the next conference where they can rub shoulders with the “great and the good” in politics or they cook up the next phantom projects so they can get some money into their own accounts again from donor sources.

We must not let them get away with it and also we, the People as a whole, must finally rise up and claim what is rightfully ours, namely Nationhood. 

The Romani Nation Day must not just become a Romani Nation Year; it must become a Romani Nation all the time event. 

And we must fight tooth and nail all and any attempt to lead us away from the aspiration of being a Nation, which we, as a People, anyway are and end up being directed, as some would like it, to merge into the international proletariat, the international working class, in what they would call integration. 

Integration, in the vocabulary of the Gadje, and many modern even Romani activists, has always equated with assimilation, into our People merging into the background and becoming part of, well yes, the industrial labor slave circus. In other words, ethnocide and many of our own are helping the Gadje in this endeavor. 

The battle lines have been drawn and everyone must now make a choise on which side they stand. Either you are for the Rom to survive as a People, as a Nation, or you stand with the Gadje in destroying us as a People, as an ethnicity. There are no bystanders in this. Bystanders, while not actively choosing to do so, support the Gadje in the destruction of our Romani People. We owe it to our children and their children to fight and win this war. 

2024 © Michael Smith / O NEVO DROM

Roma Passport

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Who do you entrust your data to? A private individual or some organization – no scrutiny or oversight as to how, aside from putting together the passport, your information is being used, and for what other purposes.

After all you are required to send in a photocopy of your own national passport. This is, in fact, a felony in many jurisdiction and countries around the globe.

There are, at present, at least three (3) individuals and organizations playing passport office. Would you trust this? I would not. Especially as this useless passport will cost around $100 each.

If this Roma Passport would be to give those Rom who do not have an official citizenship – and there are many of them – then I would welcome this idea, to a great extent at least – but as you are required to send in a photocopy of a passport that you already got, which means you have citizenship in this or that country, why would anyone want a document (and pay around $100 for such a toy) that is not going to be accepted at any time soon, if ever, by the Gadje border agencies, and other agencies.

For those Rom, and there are thousands of them, who do not have identity papers and thus are stateless such a document, if accepted by the powers-that-be, would make sense but otherwise it is just an expensive gimmick, expensive on several levels. And, the way it is, at present, that is all that it is. Nothing but a harebrained scheme, probably intended to make money for some.

We saw something something similar to this, I would suggest, years ago when Macedonian Roma refugees in Germany were promised UN passports, so-walled “white passports”, by a certain organization in Germany, against payment of 200 DM each, which never, obviously, materialized, as they could not. Many of the “victims”, alas, believed in those promises of those passports and that those would give them the right to stay in Germany and paid the money. They did not even believe people, Rom, from other organizations, who told them that this was a scam.

How many Rom will believe the story of those Roma Passports, whether issued by the IRU (or whoever else), as being legitimate identification and travel documents (which they are not and will and, with 99% certainty, never will be and become)? Quite a lot of those that are undocumented and thus they will sacrifice a lot to buy such a passport (if they can) which may get them into more trouble than not having papers at all. It is time to put an end to those scam merchants.

2024 © Michael Smith / O NEVO DROM 

Roma(ni) Homeland

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

This is another one of those weird and “wonderful” ideas on which effort, time and resources are being wasted. Effort, time and resources that should be used in much more important way where the matter is one of life or death. 

Autonomous regions and areas maybe but a homeland? 

A large autonomous region, possibly in the nowadays almost depopulated rural steppe of Russia, as long as it does not turn into a Pale, or similar areas in some other countries, including Brazil, might be one course to proceed but a homeland proper which might, nay will, mean displacing others is definitely not a route to travel. In other countries this could be autonomous areas – smaller than regions – but again a homeland proper, as in country, will for ever be a dream for when realized it will become a nightmare. 

Who would we like to dispossess, in the way the Zionists have done with the Palestinians, in order to set up our own country? Do we really want to make ourselves more unpopular that we already are? Also, a homeland means the need for defense.

The example of the Sorbs and Wends in Germany, who are a recognized minority in Germany and have something akin to their own parliament, the Domowina, may be another way but not a “homeland” as in country. 

All this, in the same way as the “Roma Passport” idea (more about that in more detail later), and others, just detracts and diverts attention, effort, and money away from issues that are of real importance and a matter of life or death, as said above. 

As far as the “Roma Passport” is concerned the question is who do you entrust your data and personal information to in this case and how secure, or not, for that matter, is that information going to be in whoever's database or filing cabinet it may end up? In addition to that those worthless “documents” will never be accepted by any Gadje agency. To believe otherwise is to live in cloud cuckoo land. 

© 2024 

Romani Nation Day

Phralale, Phenjale, Chavale... Latcho Dives... Sas Bachtalo... 

Greetings everyone on this our Nation's Day. 

Maybe, to begin with, we should consider why this day was started and why it is important. 

It was not started for us to simply celebrate who and what we are and wave our flag about and make some speeches and ask the Gadje for some crumbs from their table, or for a seat at their table, where they do not really want us anyway. 

Originally it was termed, or was to be termed, Romani Nation Day, a day celebrating the Nation of the Romani People. It was for us to stand together as a People, as a Nation, and show the world that we are indeed a Nation. 

This very concept is more and more threatened today, and not just from the and by the Gadje. Some of our very own, at least genetically our own, are telling us and the world that we should not aim to become a Nation but instead should rather merge into the international proletariat. Exactly what the Gadje want, namely to have us disappear as a People, as an Ethnicity. 

The most concerning aspect about the statement of this particular person, who shall remain unnamed, is the fact that he is also a director on the board of an organization, also to remain unnamed, that it purporting to be on our side and to be Romani run. 

Whatever the case, though, the fact is that no one can even say that there is no Romani Nation because Nation does not equal state (with land), as the Gadje have turned it to mean over the last hundreds of years, but Nation equates to People, hence the Canadian term of First Nations for the indigenous People of the Americas. Note the term Nations. 

If they are Nations then so are we, the Rom, a Nation, period. We may be scattered across the globe, Europe, the Middle East, Egypt and North Africa, the Americas, South Africa, the Antipodeans, but we are one People though with different groups, tribes, clans, and thus we are all part of that one Nation, the Romani Nation. 

Having a country, some land “to call our own”, is not a necessity for nationhood, for being a Nation, and neither could that ever work for us, as a People and Nation, because who would we wish to dispossess of their homes and lands? Anyone believing that there is going to be some plot of land, large enough to house even the low estimate of 12-16 Million Rom in Europe alone, is more than misguided. 

When we are looking at being a Nation – which we, in fact, as said before – are, being a People of one bond though separated by some small differences in cultural practices and variations of the language, in what could be seen as dialects, if we so wish, we must get away from the Gadje thinking, as we must in political terms as well. 

The Gadje way cannot be our way and when it comes to politics the Gadje system will for ever be skewed against us. We, as a People, as a Nation, must find and use a different approach and abandon the Gadje one. It does not and will never work for us. 

2024 © Michael Smith (Veshengro) / O NEVO DROM

N.B. I wrote this for April 8, 2024 and this also went as an audio message.