by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
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
