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.

Jobbik – First they came for the Gypsy and now they also are coming for the Jew

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Jobbik, the more-or-less legal Nazi militia and party in Hungary, an EU member state, is now aiming, after having the Romani People made their first target, also for the Jewish population of the country (and elsewhere).

In the beginning, it would appear, the Jews took very little notice of the antics of the Jobbik group, seeing that their target were the Gypsy People and not the Jewish community. They should have known better.

The adage of “first they did come for... and I did not speak out”, etc. should have been a well-known factor and it was obvious that those people, whose aim is to create a Hungary for Hungarians and other ethnicities have no place in that scheme.

The interesting, almost laughable, part is that Hungarians are, in the main, a mixed groups of people anyway considering the fact that once they were part of the Austria-Hungarian Empire and thus most Hungarians not pure Magyars.

The same, in fact, is also true for the Romani People and anyone claiming to be pure Romani better checks once again. However, that is not the issue here.

It will be obvious that Jobbik's targets will also include ethnic Romanians on the Hungarian territory sooner or later and they might also go as far as wishing to take the areas of Transylvania and such “back into the Hungarian realm, as that area has a large population of Hungarians and was once part of the empire. It would not surprise me.

How it is possible for such racist fascist groupings to exist and operate in EU member states where, supposedly, beats me and the EU is not just failing the Romani People in its midst; it is failing all ethnic minorities.

Romani settlements and villages have been attacked, in Hungary, by Jobbik and its thugs and with local and state police looking on and doing absolutely nothing except, in a couple of cases, arresting Gypsies who decided to defend themselves against the fascist thugs.

It would appear that, when it comes to the Romani, the Gypsy, then the EU laws and conventions are not worth the paper that they are written upon and fascist thugs like Jobbik et al, and not just in Hungary, can do as they like.

There could be another explanation to this inaction by the authorities, whether in Budapest or in Brussels, and that is that those groups of fascist thugs are being used as a tool to enact etnic cleansing by proxy.

I rest my case and suggest, though, that the Rom and the Jew get together in this matter in order to defeat this menace...

© 2012

Decade of Roma inclusion is but an illusion

ROMA DECADE 2005 – 2015 INCLUSION = ILLUSION

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Much has been made of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, a decade that was ONLY for Roma (Sinti and others need not apply, which was discriminatory to start with) and ONLY for Roma living in Eastern Europe.

New well over half way though this decade all we can see is money wasted without anything to show for. So, where did the money go? It went into the pockets of Roma leaders and some Gypsyologists with which the authorities only were prepared to deal and virtually nothing, in any way, shape or form, ever reached the grassroots.

Instead of improvements to the conditions of the Roma in Eastern Europe, be that living conditions or their reputation in the eyes of the majority, things have gotten worse (as if they actually could but they did) and literal genocide on Gypsies all over especially Eastern Europe and discrimination continues unabated.

As far as Romani integration and inclusion the truth is that is has remained an illusion despite the millions of Euro that have been thrown at this project.

Much of that money has been wasted on one study after the other, one report after yet another and the bulk of the remainder was handed over, without any proper records and accountability, to Buli Bashas and other big wigs in Gypsy society, who appear to have only improved their own lot with that money.

It has to be said that to some extent – and I know that many will not want to hear this – a great many of Rom throughout Europe have only themselves to blame as to how they are perceived by the mainstream.

While it is true that Anti-Gypsyism exists in cannot be eliminated by order from governments and by screaming and shouting from the side of the Romani People.

Our own attitude, at least that of what would appear to be the majority of Sinti and Roma, towards non-Romani society and the open disdain we too often show towards mainstream laws and the Gadje per se is what is to blame.

A German proverb says: “Wie man in den Wald hineinruft to schallt es heraus” which, in the English, says “We reap what we sow” and this is very true indeed. We indeed reap what we sow here for if we treat the Gadje with disdain how are they to have any respect for us?

Both side are to blame, that is true, and there is no doubt about that, as we have nigh on always put each others' backs up with our attitudes towards one another  but when I hear the disdain with which Sinti and Roma alike treat Gadje then Anti-Gypsyism will continue, regardless of laws against it or whatever.

It maybe that we will have to make the first moves here instead of standing there and demanding that the Gadje give us respect (or else) and that they make the first move.

If we want to be treated with respect and “demand respect”, as a Rom proverb was translated by someone once, aside from the fact that one cannot demand respect; it has to be earned, then we (too) much change.

Integration is a two-way street too. Even if it is offered there are far too many Rom who refuse to do it by way of taking up paid employment if there is no other way to make a living. No, they then rather take money from the government in the way of unemployment benefit and welfare payments.

I know, as I said, that this is not what many are wishing to hear but the truth is and remains the truth.

Dosta penauas!

© 2012

German Sinti (Gypsies) and the Ostrich Syndrome

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

When, in summer of 2011 I wrote this article the response on Facebook and elsewhere was one of commendation for having pointed out the inherent dangers.

 

However, in response to the German translation of this article of last year, posted recently by a third person who requested this translation from me on German Gypsy forums, the attacks from German Sinti were that they would need to have hard evidence and proof (other than Russian media a wire service) before they are going to believe that this might be in the offing.

In addition to that there were serious attacks on my person, integrity and my intentions and it was a definite case of shooting the messenger because the message is not one that one wants to hear.

Once hard evidence and proof arrives, as to the aims of the EU appertaining to Europe's Gypsies as hinted to in my article it is, I am afraid to say, too late. The trains will then already be rolling east.

How harsh this may sound and indeed be, it is a fact. When the first resettlement transports are on the move traveling to their destination in the steppes of Russia and we have the hard evidence and proof it is too late to warn and even to do much against it. The preparations have to be made now to combat this when it starts and even before it does.

As the Good Book says, however, “there are none that blind than those who do not want to see and none that deaf than those that do not want to hear”.

Warning is all one can do, acting is what they have to do. We who have warned cannot be blamed that we have said naught as long as we keep warning.

One can, as it is said, a horse to water but drinking one can make it not.

© 2012

The brown menace is on the rise again

Fascism is once again rearing its ugly head in Europe 

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Fascism is once again rearing its ugly head in Europe and not one of the mainstream political parties appears to be prepared and willing to do anything about and against it.

Is it not high time to outlaw groupings and parties such as the NPD and BVU in Germany, the BNP and others in the UK, the Fronte National in France, and others of their ilk elsewhere in Europe? I think so.

Presently those fascists parties and their thugs rant and rave against foreigners and against Gypsies, regardless as to whether those are Romani from their own country or from abroad, and therefore none of the mainstream parties in those countries and in the EU seem to wish to do anything about them. Gypsies and foreigners have always been a convenient scapegoat in a crisis and are again.

We see a repeat of the 1930s when people did not speak and did not care that they came for the communists and socialists, the Gypsies, the so-called Asocials and then the Jews.

Martin Niemoeller was right that if we do not speak out when they come for the others there will be no one left to speak out when they finally come for the rest who wish to live free and think free.

While anti-fascists are persecuted, once again, when they demonstrate against marches and other activities by the brown menace, under whichever name, the fascists are allowed to continue to operate and, as we have seen in Germany only in 2011, the police and the security services actively work hand-in-glove with Neonazis.

After the “fall” of the Wall the German authorities banned and outlawed the Freie Deutsche Jugend (FDJ) (Free German Youth) and the wearing even of blue shirts remotely resembling the FDJ ones whether with or without the FDJ badge and also the Young Pioneers the Nazis were and are allowed to continue and even, instead of being banned and prescribed, allowed to form more and more organizations.

The brown menace is permitted to freely walk abroad and continue with its terror against foreigners, Gypsies, and all those that dare to stand against them, while communists and anti-fascists are being controlled and often prescribed, have their protest marches and demonstrations banned.

Although he meant it differently Heinrich Heine's sigh of “Dent ich an Deutschland in der Nacht so bin ich um den Schlaf gebracht” (If I think of Germany at night I am robbed of my sleep) it is rather fitting here and makes sense though.

But it is not just Germany where the brown menace is rising. It seems to be the case almost everywhere in the European Union and also outside of it in Europe and even Russia.

In Greece the brown menace has become active also now with the crisis of the Euro and of government in that country and their “militias” are roaming the streets challenging anyone that appears a foreigner to show them his or her ID card and if not Greek and especially if an immigrant they beat the people up.

We don't even want to talk about Hungary where uniformed fascist groups are attacking Gypsy settlements and murdering people, nor about Italy where recently soccer fans in a stadium called for a pogrom against Romani people, nor about the attacks against Sinti and Roma people in the Czech Republic and Slovakia, to name but a few countries.

Even in Switzerland right-wing groups, and some not even that openly fascist, are calling for the expulsion of all Gypsies and foreigners.

While, with the exception of Switzerland and Russia all those countries where we are seeing the problems rising are countries of the EU neither their respective governments nor the EU bodies are doing anything, especially not as far as the Gypsy People are concerned.

No surprise there really considering that, to all intents and purposes, EU representatives are contemplating the wholesale removal of all Gypsies on EU soil, by means to deportation to resettlement, to the steppes of Russia. Discussions with the Russian authorities have, apparently, taken place already also and it would appear that they are working with the EU on this.

Sounds familiar, does it? It is! We have been here before some 70 years ago and once again the voices are silent.

© 2012

Lady Gaga gone gaga...

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Lady Gaga - yes, she with the outrageous outfits - says she feels "Gypsy at heart". Another one who wants to join the club which is not a club.
 

Dear Lady Gaga, you cannot join us unless you were born one of us... 

I just wonder what all those wannabes would do if they encountered the real racism and anti-Gypsyism that we are faced with daily, especially those of us in places such as Hungary, Romania, etc.

http://www.eurasiareview.com/​20032012-hindus-ask-gaga-to-sup​port-gypsy-apartheid-issue-as-​she-feels-gypsy-at-heart/

http://www.indiablooms.com/​BollywoodDetailsPage/2012/​bollywoodDetails200312d.php

http://​www.entertainmentwise.com/news/​71905/​Lady-Gaga-Big-Fat-Gypsy-Popstar
 

As far as the Hindus (first link) are concerned could they please stop trying to "help" us. It is just someone having his own political agenda to make him look good.

Nazi terrorists murder Romani-Gypsy woman in Czech Republic

Is it all starting again?

by Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Prague, Czech Republic January 2012 : A Romani-Gypsy woman was killed by two racist terrorists in the capital of Czech Republic, Prague on January 10, 2012.

According to statements by people in the know those people belong to a racist Nazi terror organization and they have attacked homeless people and those of the Gypsy community before.

While this is, as said, not the first racist Nazi attacks on the Romani community in the former Czechoslovakia, and this recent attack is causing heightened tension in the two countries that once made up the CSSR.

Authorities seems to wish to play down the recent attacks against Romanies in the former CSSR, in both the Czech lands as well as in Slovakia.

As a Gypsy myself, who has relations that never came back from the Nazi camps and others who were broken in body and spirit there and through Nazi terror in general, I am very much concerned as to the happening all over the European Union, from France, over the Czech Republic and Slovakia and Hungary and even Germany.

Hungary's police has now been instructed by the ministries to keep conduct permanent surveillance on all members of the Romani minority in that country and it would appear that Nazi groups such as Yovik and others are given a free hand to harass Hungarian Gypsies wherever they are.

Are we seeing a return to the days of the 1930s and 1940s? It would appear to be so and, and I hate to say I told you so, I have been seeing the writing on the wall for some time to come as far as the European Union is concerned.

What we have to be concerned about, as a People, and here I am talking about the Romani People, and also those that do not wish to see a repeat of what has happened in the Nazi era and already before in places such as Germany and Poland.

If one would be a conspiracy theorist one could come to believe that the EU is operating a policy of ethnic cleansing by proxy. Is it?

© 2012

Czech Republic: Media say another inter-ethnic incident occurred in Varnsdorf on New Year's Eve

This is not helpful at all

TV Nova reports that police in the Czech Republic are searching for a group of young Romani people who allegedly assaulted three non-Romani people in the town of Varnsdorf on New Year's Eve, shouting racist slurs at them during the attack. Police are saying the attack was not racially motivated. Two of the victims were hospitalized.

A series of anti-Roma demonstrations took place in Varnsdorf several months ago as a result of similar media reports interpreting incidents of assault in the area as ethnically motivated. According to the latest information, a brawl in the nearby town of Rumburk last summer now seems to have been motivated by other concerns. 

More on Romano Vod'i here...

If our People continue behaving in that way - and yes, I do know there is racism leveled against ours all the time - it is not helping the cause at all and that is what counts.

Veshengro

Do politicians intentionally keep Roma in ghettos to absorb EU funds?

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

“I am sick and tired of politicians who intentionally keep Roma in ghettos to absorb EU funds, use money for other purposes, and eventually blame failed integration on Roma's alleged laziness and criminal behavior ...” said Mihail Georgiev, Chair of Board of Directors, organization "Romani Baht" (Sofia, Bulgaria), recently. And he is not the only one.

Now, the question then must be as asked above: Do politicians intentionally keep the Romani People in ghettos to absorb EU funds? And the answer, I must say, seems to be self-explanatory and it just seems to be thus.

However, not only the politicians of the various countries have found the Gypsy People, the Romani, in the ghettos a nice little earner; the community leaders have too.

There is a veritable Gypsy Industry out there and everyone who is someone is feeding at the trough, while the poor Rom in the ghettos have to eek out a living on the rubbish tips.

One only has to look at the villas of the self-proclaimed voivodes, kings and emperors, to see where the money is in Romaniland and then ask as to how they came by that money.

The money that is meant to help the poor Rom, whether in towns or villages, in the former Iron Curtain countries – for Romani groups from the West need not apply – never reaches those in need but drains away in the endless sands of the politician and leader desert. The EU has had to admit more than once when parliamentarians asked questions that they knew how much money had gone to Roma projects but had no idea as to what actually had been done with the money.

The other part of the Gypsy Industry are those that make money one the back of the poor Rom in different ways, while equally keeping them in ignorance. Language course, and other such things, are a nice little earner, as is the “standardized Romanes”, no doubt, but what does it benefit the choro Rom, the poor Gypsy? Kek! Nothing.

The poor Rom does not need standardized Romanes which is claimed to be needed for all Gypsies to communicate with one another because he has no time to learn it. The only ones who need this – by now – made up – language are the academics who get the research funding and the money for the books and courses.

It is politicians, leaders of the community, as much as Gypsyologists, whether Gadje or Rom, that like to keep the Rom just where they are, namely in the ghettos and poor.

© 2011

A little personal and editorial note

Sometime on October 14, 2011 in the morning local British time someone or some entity tried to and managed to successfully attack and access my Blogger account and to disable and in fact close completely - though but temporarily - the O NEVO DROM Blog. 

The system, that is Blogger, detecting an intrusion, then disabled the entire account with all my Blogs. I managed to get the account reinstated, including O NEVO DROM.

It would appear that somewhere along the line someone or some entity does not appear to be happy with what I am writing and especially it would appear as far as the Romani-Gypsy cause is concerned. The  question is but who and why...

Don't be just bricks and mortar blinkered, says Minister

Housing Minister to give more powers for communities to choose boats on water alongside bricks and mortar

 

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Housing Minister Grant Shapps urged local authorities on August 27, 2011 not to become landlocked in their quest to meet local housing needs – but to consider how new powers restoring local control over housing provision and planning can enable people to choose boats on water alongside bricks and mortar. 

Mr. Shapps said that more people than ever are choosing to make a boat their home and that boats with residential moorings could be an example of how unconventional housing can allow people to live in areas of the country where perhaps they couldn't afford to do so otherwise. 

And as new moorings could be eligible for the New Homes Bonus, the Minister said that there was a strong incentive for councils and communities to grant planning permission for more residential moorings. The money that they receive could be invested in new marina facilities or waterside recreational activities that everyone could benefit from, as well as being used to attract further private investment and drive the regeneration of the often-Brownfield land around parts of the country's waterways. 

Half the population live within five miles one of Britain's waterways and so not just those living on the water could benefit from the fresh injection of funding; water based recreation and tourism is thought to generate over £1billion for local economies, and supports 24,000 jobs. 

Read more here. 

© 2011

Gypsies targeted in west German arson attack

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

An apartment block housing Sinti and Roma families was the target of an apparent racial arson attack in the west German city of Leverkusen in the last week of July 2011 and prosecutors have, in fact, put a 5,000 Euro bounty on any information leading to apprehension and conviction of perpetrator(s).

Unknown assailants threw several Molotov cocktails into the ground floor apartment of the building, where a well-known Gypsy family of Leverkusen had their home.  Luckily the occupants managed to escape unharmed.

Witnesses have spoken of four perpetrators who drove off in a car and minibus.

Police do 'not rule out a radical right-wing background' in the fire-bombing of the four-storey building.

The apartment was totally gutted by the flames, however fire-fighters were able to prevent it from spreading to the rest of the apartments.

Germany has time and again witnessed brutal racist and xenophobic attacks in recent years as the center-right government of Chancellor Angela Merkel has
tried to downplay the problem.

Most of the racial assaults are committed by mostly young-Neo-Nazis who live in what used to be formerly communist East Germany.

The German government has been under fire for not really cracking down on far-right violence which is targeting mostly foreigners and leftist activists.

Young neo-Nazis feel more and more emboldened to commit hate crimes, knowing that police won't charge them with an offense.

Most of the suspects implicated in far-right crimes are juveniles.

Hate crime experts and sociologists have repeatedly stressed that Germany's political leadership lacked a clear and effective strategy to really combat neo-Nazi crimes.

It has to be said that this is nothing new and has been going on for years and years though in recent years attacks seem to have gotten more severe. One can but wonder as to whether the Neo-Nazi groups are being emboldened by what is happening in Hungary in the way that the Jobik and other groups get away with attacking Gypsies.

I must say that I have been – unfortunately – predicting firebomb attacks to be headed the way of our People and have, more than once, suggested that people took precautions, including of anti-firebomb curtains and such like.

Other, more active defensive actions, obviously, are not something that we, the Gypsy community, would ever be allowed to consider, unlike the Jewish community who can have their own guards, armed ones even, protecting homes, businesses, schools, synagogues, and such like.

One rule for the Gypsy and one rule for others, as per usual...

© 2011

Gypsies to be pressed into forced slave labor gangs

Gypsies (and those receiving welfare) are to be pressed into forced labor gangs, supervised by police and militias

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Hungary, June 2011: According to information on the wires Gypsies are to be pressed into forced labor gangs in Hungary in the very near future. Those gangs will be supervised by police and militias and are “to ensure that Gypsies (and welfare recipients) do some work for their money.”

This is not very far removed from the way that the Nazis talked in the 1930s when Gypsies were rounded up and sent to labor camps.

In the next three years, the government of Hungary says, it will create employment for 100,000 Romani Gypsies in the country, the majority of which are welfare recipients, at least those that live in the countryside. They are to work in “charitable” and “community-based” projects in return for the payments that they receive.

The payment of any further welfare monies will be made dependent on people working in jobs in infrastructure-important building projects, as well as in agriculture and forestry.

Apparently those workers, who will be to 95% be Gypsy, who will be forced to partake in this so-called “charitable” labor program, will also be lent out to business against a fee, which the government will collect. It would appear that Gypsy slavery is back and by government decree.

Hungary claims, at the close of its EU presidency, that the program of integration of Romani People in Hungary has gone well during this period. How and where I would like to ask for all that happened was that the Orban government allowed the likes of Jobbik and others to intimidate Romani Gypsies in their villages with the police standing idly by. If that is Romani integration then I do not want to see anywhere where that is not being done.

It is quite difficult to believe that the government of Hungary could introduce something that so closely resembles forced labor camps or forced labor battalions of Jews and other undesirables in World War II.

However, at a press conference it was announced that “we don’t want to keep the workers under surveillance. …We are talking about instruction, direction, organization. Placing 300,000 people into work projects is a complicated affair that needs exactly the skills policemen have.” So, this is all true.

Police officers, obviously, according to Hungarian government understanding, well placed to instruct and direct those workers in the tasks that they are going to be assigned to. I find that hard to believe that they are capable of anything by way of instruction and direction but are indeed well placed to keep the workers “in line”, making sure that they do not run away.

What, we must ask, will happen if anyone does run? Will he (or she) be shot? It certainly would not surprise me if that would going to be the case.

Remember, everyone, that Hungary, the country who is intending such actions is, in fact, a European Union member state and it would appear that the EU will do nothing at all here. Thus I am starting very much to believe that the rumors we keep hearing as to talks between EU and Russia as to relocating (all) Gypsies in Central Europe to the Russian steppes are true.

© 2011

Poverty in Romani settlements to become a tourist attraction in Slovakia

By Michael Smith (Veshengro)

Speculation has been circulating for some time that tourism in Slovakia could be developed around organizing visits to Romani settlements.

Now Petr Duda, Mayor of Veµká Lomnice, a village in the Tatra mountains, is planning to turn local Romani settlements into a kind of tourist destination and attraction and his doing his best to push the plan through in the nearby settlement of Nový Dvùr, where 1,600 people are eking out a living in abject poverty in total substandard conditions, without clean water or sewerage.

“This would be an organized tour of the Romani settlements here in Veµká Lomnice,” Duda explained to the Czech Radio news server Rozhlas.cz. “The reason is to get people to realize what kinds of conditions Romani people live in here. On the other hand, it could motivate the Romani people to improve their living conditions on their own.”

In other words, they are doing this in order to shame the Romani residents in those areas who also may not have the means to improve their living conditions. Therefore, instead of helping them to help themselves the Romani People in those areas are now being turned into a circus attraction by idiotic politicians.

I guess that the mayor is trying to find a way of making money from the misery of the Romani residents in the area and the problem is that there will be enough idiotic tourists, especially from abroad, that would want to visit such Third World conditions in an EU member state in the same way that they would travel to places in the Third World for the very same reason.

The most important question that we must ask, I am sure, is what eh European Union and the European Commission are doing about this idea? Are they going to make any attempt to put a stop to such exploitation of the conditions of an entire people?

© 2011

Is the EU about to ship all Gypsies in member states to Russia?

By Michael Smith (Veshengro) 

According to reports that were being circulated in Spring 2011 by Russian news agencies the European Union is in discussion with the government of the Russian state to do just that.

According to Tolkovatel.ru, the possibility of an agreement by which Europe’s Roma will be dispatched to the Russian Federation and possibly Ukraine was going to be the subject of upcoming discussions between the EU and the Russian Federation, a step France and several East European countries support but the Germany reportedly opposes.

The first public mention of this, Tolkovatel.ru said, was a “Komsomolskaya Pravda” radio program on April 12 when Roman Grokholsky, a leader of the Roma community in the Russian Federation, said that in his view, “Russia for economic reasons could accept [Europe’s Roma]. It is an enormous land”

Apparently European governments have concluded that is “neither technically nor economically” feasible “to deport all the Roma to Romania or Bulgaria as was done in the past: the sizes of these countries do not allow that and local nationalists are protesting ever more loudly against” that idea.

So, it would appear if the Russian reports can be believed that “behind the scenes” discussions are taking place between the EU and the Russian Federation to relocate all European Roma (for that read Gypsies, in my book, probably including all Sinti and Kale as well) to Russia.

This smacks of the creation of a new Pale, as once existed for the Jews of Eastern Europe, in the steppes of Russian, the Ukraine and Poland and also of the once Gypsy enclave of Transnistria, the place where the SS had a field day rounding them all up, as well as in Bessarabia.

When I said years ago that I could see the writing on the wall as to the true aims of the EU's Gypsy policy I was being told that I was paranoid and that the EU and its aims were good for us, the Romani People. I am now beginning to think that I am about to be vindicated if the stories coming from Russian sources are to be believed.

When we have “leaders” such as Roman Grokholsky then we certainly do not need any enemies, that is for sure. How much money is he being paid to play right into the hands of the authorities with his statements?

Let us all be watchful and ready to fight this.

© 2011