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.
