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by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Over 250 people packed a public meeting regarding plans for a caravan site for Gypsies.
The open meeting at Wybunbury Village Hall followed concern over a scheme for a five-acre caravan site in Wybunbury Lane at Stapeley, Nantwich.
The meeting was set up by residents who have formed the “Wybunbury and Stapeley Caravan Park Action Group” in a bid to fight the plans.
The group are objecting, saying the site has only ever been used for agriculture. They add there is a Site of Special Scientific Interest on the lane and nearby ponds have been noted as being the habitat of protected great crested newts.
I do not know why the worry as to the great crested newt. Gypsies never have been known for eating them; now hedgehogs, that is a different story.
During the public meeting, questions and views were offered from the Gypsy community as well as residents.
Romany-Gypsy told to “go back to where you belong”
Action group chairman Jimmy Rowlinson was challenged over the use of the word ‘Gypsy’ on flyers advertising the meeting by Romany Joe Smith, of Hunsterson.
Mr Smith said: “The meeting opened a lot of people’s eyes. I was asked to leave the floor after just one question and I was hissed and booed at.
“The fact they use the word ‘Gypsy’ just infuriates people. There were definitely undertones surfacing at this meeting as I was told to go back to where I belong. Well, I’ve lived in Hunsterson for 32 years and people like me and the residents there know who I am and where I came from and there isn’t a problem.”
Mr Rowlinson said: “The word ‘Gypsy’ was used on the flyers because the planning application referred to a ‘Gypsy Caravan Park’.
“The action group would be opposed to any application for development which affects the rural character of Wybunbury Lane.”
There are definite undertones in Britain now as well, in some areas at least, that see Romany-Gypsies as people who should go back to where they belong. Now someone please tell us where that be. We do NOT have a homeland but if someone would b e good enough to give up a piece – or should we cease some land like the Jews did? - we'd probably be happy enough to settle there. Then again, why should we and why should we even have to consider that?
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Once again Europe sees more or less organized Gypsy Hunts where members of the Romani People are being hunted like wild animals. This time in Italy and by fascist thugs with the authorities turning a blind eye. Or even, it might appear to, aiding and abetting the situation.
Once again, during an economic downturn, the Gypsy is seen as, and made to be, the scapegoat for the nation's ills and Berlusconi is exploiting it for all it is worth.
Italians still believe the myths of Gypsies stealing children and, it should not surprise me, as being the carriers of the plague, in the same way as they still believe, so I understand, the myths of Jews drinking blood, ideally the blood of Christian children. And this is Europe in the 21st century. One could be forgiven to think that we'd be in the Dark Ages still.
While so-called ethnic cleansing was supposedly going on in Kosovo against Albanians – and no such thing ever really happened, as the shoe was rather on the other foot – the European Union immediately had a rather big mouth and in the end intervened militarily.
When, however, there is real ethnic cleansing going on in an EU member state against the Gypsy minority, regardless of whether or not they are citizens of that particular country – they are citizens of one of the EU states – just some hot air is being waffled from one or the other special rapporteur and such kind of figure.
Then again, we must not forget that, aside from the fact that Italy is the father, basically, of fascism, it is one of the founders of the EU when it was still called the EEC, this same country also is advocating – with, it must be assumed, approval from Brussels, the erection of “solidarity villages” for Gypsy People well outside Rome, to enable the children to go to school and all that nice stuff, while at the same time the camps will be guarded by special anti-terrorist carabinieri and the “villages” are a minimum of, so I understand, 30km away from the nearest school.
What Italy is proposing there is concentration camps and nothing else, in the same way as the Czech Republic is, with Brussels not batting an eyelid, erecting Gypsy Ghettos. Welcome to the European Union, where all citizens are supposed to be free, as long as they are not Romani-Gypsy.
When will the time come that the Romani will understand that the European Union and its bodies is not the best thing since sliced bread for the Gypsy but is nothing but serious trouble.
The Gypsy Hunts that we are seeing presently in Italy could, unless the European bodies really are serious and do something about it, spread like wildfire through the countries of the EU, as anti-Gypsyism is rather rife in the great majority of countries, with the likes of Italy and Germany, not counting the new arrivals from the East, in the lead.
Then again, surprise? Not really, seeing that Italy and Germany both are the same countries where fascism had a very fertile ground, with Austria and Hungary, as well as Romania in addition to it.
Time for the Rom to wake up and to be prepared to defend themselves against such attacks, whether they be perpetrated against them by “just” thugs or with the express silent consent of the authorities, as it seems to be the case in Italy.
However, I assume that for simply suggesting a Romani Defense body of sorts I could be called up for incitement of violence while the real perpetrators would never be called. Therefore, I leave it to everyone's own decision.
Romani Nation Arise! You have nothing to lose but your chains!
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
New Pogroms against Gypsies in Italy (and soon elsewhere in the European Union?)
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
When I suggested that I was seeing the writing on the wall and could see new pogroms again Gypsies coming in the new Europe everyone told me I was being silly and that everything was so nice for us now and the EU was going to look after us having made us “ethnic” and protected.
Can you all see how well they protect our People?
I have heard Sinti in Italy saying, such as some of the Piedmontese, that the Sinti have nothing to worry about as this is only against the “bad” Roma, and all I can say to that is that they'd better have a close read of the poem by Pastor Niemoeller as to “first they came for the communists and I did not speak out because I was not a communist”, etc. for if we do not act now and I do mean ACT now against the attacks by whoever then Sinti will be next.
As to the protection of our People by the EU – all I am seeing is that rather anyone doing anything they all remain rather silent and that silence shouts to heaven.
We all know that while the Molotov cocktails were thrown at the camp in Naples the very Carabinieri stood by and watched. Surprise – NOT!
If Europe does not control the fascism in Italy NOW it will continue to spread across the entire region. When it comes to the Gypsy, Europe has not yet learned the lesson of fascism and anti-Gypsyism is rife all over the place without anyone in authority doing anything about it. The next destination is Romania, the Czech Republic, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Hungary, and then, and believe me it will happen, the rest of the European Union.
Let us not forget that in Hungary, one of the newer EU member states, the Arrow Cross has, basically, been resurrected and what does the rest of the European Union have to say about that? Very little to nothing.
One or the other more or less left-wing anti-fascist paper or broadcast channel speaks out against such happening but that is about it.
We must learn from others to fight for our rights and to stand up for them, rather than to go into hiding pretending to be Turks, or whatever; anything else but Gypsy. Anything else but Romani.
However, until the Romani People can stop fighting amongst themselves and the Roma stop thinking that they are better, which they are not, then we may get somewhere. Otherwise, maybe, the different groups have to go their own way and the Sinti groups, including the Romanichal and the Cale, all of which are NOT Roma, might have to do things for themselves alone. Not that that would be a bad idea, I am sure. None of the Sinti groups that I know, and none of their People, with the exception of some misguided souls, would ever wish to be addressed as “Roma”. They'd rather be called Gypsyp, Gitan, Cygan, or what-have-you; anything else but Roma.
While we are all Romani we are not all Roma and once we have actually gotten to that point then, maybe, we can actually get somewhere as to working together.
Mind you, we then would still have to overcome the latent laziness of the great majority of Roma in places such as Romania and Bulgaria, and the fact that they think that everything has to be done for them.
Until such a time that we can stand together in a proper way as Romani People, as the Romani Nation – and not the Roma Nation – then, and only then, will we be able to combat those attacks against us.
One thing we should not and cannot rely on and that is support from the Gadje. They never – with the exception of a small minority – have ever gotten over the anti-Gypsyism that is so ingrained in the psyche of the European person, and also those that went from Europe to other countries, such as the USA, Canada and even South America and other countries.
While Europe is more a problem as far as pogroms against Gypsy are concerned and, as I had predicted, they have started again and the USA and Canada may not be affected that way (who knows though if it may not spread to even there), the situation in the USA and Canada for the Romani People is not without problems either, and every time some scams are going around somewhere the warning by police that are issued will warn of “Gypsies”, at times even going so far as to say that, at other times such people are known as Romani or Traveller or Roma. And such things in this great country of freedom, as it likes to see itself.
Therefore, we the Romani People, must be aware and wary as to what is going on and we must be ready to act, but not to hide our ethnicity. If we keep hiding then we will never ever reach emancipation. We will remain marginalized and stigmatized, and also we will continue to be discriminated against.
We can do it but... first of all we need leaders that are prepared to lead without looking for financial, political or any other sort of gain and then... where are the soldiers...
I rest my case...
Until we, the People are prepared to stand up for ourselves and to do things for ourselves we are nothing and will never be nothing.
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Would the Roma movement disappear after George Soros? Is there someone else who will continue his mission? Have Roma organizations across the region understood the point?
The above are questions that have been raised recently by a Rom on some other place on the Web. And he continued to say that in his opinion, if we need to announce the messiah in the Roma movement that should be the initiator George Soros.
And the mission, he says, is passed on to Roma generations who continue their studies thanks to the scholarships, conferences, and seminars and the small fees they receive from projects.
The latter is more or less poppycock, in my view, as the seminars and conferences certainly have not and will not help the Romani cause one little bit.
However to the rest of what he said one can only say that, far from thinking Mr Soros to be the messiah of the Romani Movement and the saviour of the Romani People, would it not be a good idea if we, first of all, had a very close look as to who and what George Soros is. He is not, regardless what he and the OSI may claim, doing this out of the goodness of his heart. That is absolute bull dust, as the Australians would say. George Soros is a very shrewd operator and knows exactly what he is doing and he is using the Roman(ni) and the Decade of Roma Inclusion as a cover for other activities. When we uncover those we know what he is up to.
It is hard to believe, said the author of the open letter, the Rom mentioned, that the Roma movement is going to continue in the same manner after Soros, because an initiative needs self-sustaining internal initiatives. We neglect that because we are satisfied with what we have and what they give to us a good trait but not for a longer time.
This is where he has great insight and is saying what I have been saying for a long time, namely that the Eastern European Roma, especially the Vlax and the Balkan ones, (still) have a slave mentality, the “Uncle Tom” mentality that Ian Hancock once mentioned and that we have discussed previously. The attitude of being satisfied with the crumbs from the rich man's table and with the slave existence rather than to work themselves out of the quagmire.
But they are not prepared to do that and until they do so they are not worth even given any money or any other help to get on in the world. The problem is the People and their very attitude. They are not willing to get off their hands and get the finger out that is so deep inside themselves that their hands are nearly buried too, but they expect funds from European sources, from the UN, and from the likes of Soros for their self-advancement projects. More like money to be put into the pockets of the already filthy rich Buli Bahas, those self-made kings and emperors and tsars and exploiters of the People. Oh yes, and the Sinti in the West, such as in Germany and Austria have such exploiters too only they call them “judges”.
It is not just the Roma that sit on their behinds and nurse their fat bodies. No, the Sinti do the same, especially the so-called leaders, the “judges”, who hold sway in the same way as they be kings or emperors.
Those leaders talk big talk to the leaders of Europe as to this project for the advancement of the People and that, but very little if anything ever happens, whether among the Sinti in the West or the Roma in the East, not even with the Decade of Roma Integration. We are now many years into that decade and what has been achieved. I mean what has been achieved in real terms. I do not mean how much money has been wasted on stupid language projects and the establishment of the Romani Esperanto and such like. I mean what has been done to get the Roma, and Sinti, but then again the latter were never in the equation as the decade was ONLY for the Roma and then only for the Roma in Eastern Europe.
Still no one cottoning on as to what Papa Soros is doing. He is working, purportedly, for the Roma in the countries of the former Soviet Bloc – with the exception, as I can see it in Russia itself – and is getting very strong political influence in those countries, such as in Romania, Bulgaria, the former Czechoslovakia, and other former USSR satellites, as all his money for projects – which is, basically, given to the state where the project is, comes with strings attached. Strings that give Soros influence, political influence and power, in those countries. So, ask yourselves, “what is Papa Soros up to?” While he may be pretending to help the Roma he is, in fact, working on something entirely different, all the while using the Romani People as a front.
Can we ever get the Romani to do things for themselves and the answer here is that while this may be possible for those in the West, but even there it seems to be a very limited affair as they seem to be hellbent on calling Gadje do-gooders in again and again who usurp everything and then try to channel things the way they, the Gadje, think things should be, it seems to be very impossible with regards to the Rom in the East.
Self-help groups and livelihood projects are not rocket science and do not need people with degrees in writing and degrees in business studies. It needs members of the People who know what's what and what's needed and some of the People with vision. The only visions the majority, however, seem to have, are those induced by substance abuse, whether alcohol, drugs or the sniffing of glue. Even when someone from the People comes along and makes suggestions for self-help, even if this be only that they look after their homes better and fix leaking roofs themselves rather than getting everything wet and waiting for this or that charity to come along, no one wants to listen and has every excuse under the sun. And I am not just referring to Roma in the eastern European nations.
Then we have the great majority who, while being well aware of the fact that they are Romani will hide under different ethnicities, as I have said already so many times, and then those that, while they could get involved in assisting in self-help and livelihood projects as they have some spare cash or such, they also deny their ancestry in such instances.
The most important part of the Romani self-emancipation is learning from those who have done it, be those the American Blacks or the Native Americans or the Aborigines of Australia or the Maori of Aotore, and as they have done, remembering that they are Gadje, and do it without the White Man, without the Gadjo.
Human rights in Europe, thousands of strategies, documents and hundreds of Roma Decades are only slogans if you do not understand that you will need to learn to articulate yourself and especially no just use your voice but your own hands and heads to do the work instead of sitting their demanding this and that to be done for you.
Not only the Roma are at fault in this. No, the Sinti too, and the Romanichals in the UK too.
Therefore, instead of celebrating April 8, Roma Day, and to have all those lovely congresses and other gabfests, and to play this “Roma, Gypsy and Traveller History Month” in the UK – how can you in the first place do that as at least one of the groups mentioned there has not the same history and culture and do the Rom, the Gypsy? – the so-called leaders should work with the people and teach them how to raise their voices high enough when presenting their opinion for integration and against discrimination against Rom in Europe and elsewhere.
Then again, as I have said before, I someone of the People comes along with a vision or more than one vision as to way of emancipating ourselves and getting our own representation working he or she gets shot down in flames by the leaders and also by many of the People because that would be work to do things for themselves. They demand that the Gadje give them this, that or the other, but never seem to be able and prepared to do things for themselves. Even if you, as a Rom, do things for them; things that you have laid out money for and offer it to them, basically, for free they still are not prepared to take it up for, as I have been told myself on more that one occasion, they cannot believe that someone would be prepared to do this or that without expecting to be paid for it somehow. Therefore they always believe that somewhere, while one says that one does it for free, one gets money for it. I assume they do thus believe for they would never be prepared to do anything for the People for nothing.
No document, strategy, or policy is not a purpose of its own if its background does not represent the politics of power and might, supported by the voice of the PEOPLE.
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
News Release
Recently founded, IRMA, the International Romani Media Association is open to all Romani People working in the Media, whether in print, digital print or other.
IRMA is intended as an accredited body for those Romani journalists who do not get their primary income from their writing/media activities; those that other organizations refuse to accept into membership, and here especially the Bloggers of Romani origin.
Membership is open to all journalists. Editors, and other working in the Media who are of Romani origin/ancestry, be they full-blood, poshrat or didikai.
There is no joining fee and there are also no membership dues to pay though any donations are most welcome to help with the administration costs and the issuance of the photo ID cards.
IRMA aims, over time if not before, to be/become the NUJ equivalent for Romani journalists and other media personnel though the publications the individuals are writing for/working on do not – necessarily – have to Romani related or Romani owned.
Applications for membership in International Romani Media Association can be made via the web presence of the organization on MEDIA ASSOCIATION FOR ROMANI JOURNALISTS
News Release
Recently founded, IRMA, the International Romani Media Association is open to all Romani People working in the Media, whether in print, digital print or other.
IRMA is intended as an accredited body for those Romani journalists who do not get their primary income from their writing/media activities; those that other organizations refuse to accept into membership, and here especially the Bloggers of Romani origin.
Membership is open to all journalists. Editors, and other working in the Media who are of Romani origin/ancestry, be they full-blood, poshrat or didikai.
There is no joining fee and there are also no membership dues to pay though any donations are most welcome to help with the administration costs and the issuance of the photo ID cards.
IRMA aims, over time if not before, to be/become the NUJ equivalent for Romani journalists and other media personnel though the publications the individuals are writing for/working on do not – necessarily – have to Romani related or Romani owned.
Applications for membership in International Romani Media Association can be made via the web presence of the organization on http://rom-media.blogspot.com via the comments facilities, which are not public.
© International Romani Media Assoc – May 2008
Bluetooth leaves you open to intercept by anyone
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
If you are concerned about your civil liberties and privacy then it may come as a shock to you to discover that you may have, unwittingly, been allowing your phone to signal your every move to the great wide world, including your communications.
Bluetooth, which is, as most will know, a wireless link built into many mobile telephones, makes our movements trackable by anyone equipped with a PC and an appropriate receiver. And this means ANYONE, not just the security services and the police, if that would not already be bad enough. Anyone, as the word says, can listen in and track where you are if they have the right equipment.
Vassilis Kostakos at the University of Bath in the UK placed four Bluetooth receivers in the city's centre. Over four months, his team tracked 10,000 Bluetooth phones and was able to "capture and analyse people's encounters" in pubs, streets and shops.
Bluetooth is now more of a privacy threat than the more frequently publicised RFID chips, Kostakos says. "If people are worried, they should turn off the Bluetooth function on their mobile phones."
Not everything, as we can, yet again see, that is supposedly good for us, is so.
“Oh, but without my 'Bluetooth' I cannot make phone calls on the move”, I hear some complain. “Can we not just make those things safer?”
Well, we probably could and could add encryption, if you, the consumer, is willing to pay the high costs then.
What is wrong with safely stopping your car, motorbike or your bicycle, to take or make that call? Also, no call is that important that it cannot wait until you get to a safe location where to return the call or make a call.
If you are concerned about your privacy, as said, turn the Bluetooth function off. While it may be something that can and does make life easier it also, yet again, is something that can be used to invade our privacy and to spy on us.
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
In my opinion, but then most of your regular readers will know that already, practical recycling, that is to say, turning items of “trash”, whether discarded by yourself or by others, into usable goods, must come well before the commercial recycling.
Then again this kind of recycling also can make for the creation of, hopefully, saleable items, thereby becoming commercial, but not in the way of the commercial grand scale recycling of the reclaiming secondary raw materials is.
Champagne Cork Peg Board (Coat Rack).
This is a project that happened to result out of the fact that I once worked in a catering establishment where such corks were in abundance and they ended up thrown away after events and functions and, thinking that there might be a use for them though which I did not know at the particular time, I took a number of them with me to see what might come to mind some day.
One day then, without much thinking about it, a peg board come coat rack came to mind as I wanted to make one for some reason and I remembered the champagne corks. Having a board to hand it took but a few minutes, literally, to have a working peg board/coat rack to go onto the wall.
Ingredients:
- A number of champagne corks (real cork or pressed cork)
- Equal number of long wood screws (normal slot is better than Phillips)
- A nice wooden plank as a back board (this could be salvaged skirting, floorboard or from a pallet)
First of prepare the back board. This may mean, if need and you wish to do so, sanding and oiling (using vegetable oil), after having drilled the two holes that will be used as to wherewith to affix the board to the wall by means of screws. The rest, then, is a simple as ABC. Screw screw into cork slowly and precise into the previously marked peg locations and once they have all been screwed in – voila – one peg board or coat rack.
Apart from the screws (unless they be salvaged too – and this is possible) there should be no financial layout for this project. However, properly promoted, this could be something that a livelihood project could make.
Idea & Design © Michael Smith (Veshengro), 2001-2008
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Warwickshire County Councillor recently stated on the radio that, while the county was in need of more Gypsy site that those need to be properly built and properly controlled by the Council.
In other words, what the councillor is saying is “no Gypsy-owned and Gypsy-run private caravan sites”, as the one recently attempted near the former home of government minister Tessa Jowell.
While I would not condone the actions taken by the, apparently, Romany who have set up camp there and are building a caravan site it would appear that time and again this seems to be the message that is being sent out. If Gypsies (and Travellers) want to make their own provisions for sites of their own, even to such an extent of purchasing a proper caravan site as was, as I understand, the case with the Cordona family some years back in Bedfordshire, the authorities then go to all lengths to stop such private sites, even by claiming that a once 24/7 all year round residential trailer park becomes a “change of use” if it is turned into a Gypsy Caravan Site. Duh? So, in other words, when is a residential caravan site not a residential caravan site? When it is turned into a Gypsy Site, apparently. A brilliant excuse and move of goalpost.
The reasons behind this here appears to be to fulfill a quota now, once again, set by central government, namely to put up that and that many pitches for Gypsies and Travellers in an area, as now housing provisions for Gypsies and Travellers seem to have been made a requirement for councils again.
This means that council must provide a set number of plots and obviously do not want interference by the Gyppo here and do not want the people to set up their own sites. Where would we come to if we would allow that now? We would have no control of who lives there and we would get no rent income.
On a private site the council has very little, if anything, to say about who lives there, unlike on an official council site and, as I said, they have also no income from such as site by way of rent; only council tax. It is, however, in the main, I am convinced, a case of wanting to have control over the wayward Gyppo. Gyppo can't be allowed to do his own thing now. What would the world be coming to if that would be allowed.
A privately owned Gypsy site could, for instance, exclude Irish Travellers and therefore prevent the enforced mixing of the groups in an attempt to promote the false idea of a common traveller culture. There is no such things as anything in common as far as Culture goes between the Romani and the Irish Traveller. But this “common traveller culture” is all part of the bigger plan to remove the ethnic Gypsy from the statute book.
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
Livelihood Projects for the Romani People
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Before, and I know I have said that many times already, we even think of recycling, even practical recycling, that is to say making something “new” out of an item of “trash” we must think “reduce” and before that even “reduce”.
However, practical recycling should be something that should be thought about before we even go and put something into the recycling bin to be then going through a process of reprocessing and such.
Such practical recycling can be a possible source of income for the unwaged – the jobless – and kids even.
This kind of works has, in time past, always been a source – and the stress here is firmly on the letter “a” – source of income for Gypsy families.
Entire (Community) Livelihood Projects and Programs have been and are being set up around direct practical recycling, making goods for sale from discarded materials and items.
When we speak here of “practical recycling” we are not talking about gathering recyclables for resale to reprocessors and such nor of reprocessing recyclables into secondary raw materials but we are talking about using the refuse from which to make useful goods, for personal use, as gifts, or even, and especially so, for sale, like done by livelihood projects in a variety of countries.
While the majority of such livelihood projects are found in the developing world, that part of the world that, until not so long ago, was called the “Third World”, I can see no reason why something like that could not also work say in the UK, the USA, or such.
When, for instance, it comes to recycling advertising tarpaulin banners and such those too can be found in our countries and I am almost certain that here they go landfill site route and are not recycled.
Therefore, while there may not be such an ample supply of such tarps as there may be in the Philippines where Trashe Bolsas operates and maybe not of the same or similar large sizes, it would still be possible to work projects around reworking such tarps as are found in countries such as the UK into new goods, like it is done by Trashe Bolsas, but possibly smaller items, such as belt pouches, cellphone pouches, business card wallets, etc. The list, I am sure, is limited only by our imagination.
This is, I am sure, also one of many otherwise discarded materials that can be reworked in such and similar ways and manners and again it is only our imagination or lack of same that may restrict as to what can be reworked and how.
I am certain that, if we all look at trash in a different way and with different eyes as the majority of the population does then we could get a number of little industries started making goods that people will want to buy. Firstly, they want to buy those goods because of the fact that they are recycled and that they come from a self-help group but they should also want to do so because, especially, those goods are of high quality and are made locally.
For the Romani practical recycling such as this give the opportunity for many small industries where they can work for themselves and it is something where the entire family can get involved.
The making of bags and such from tarps, as done by Trashe Bolsas, for instance, is but an example. There are many other things that too can be recycled into saleable goods, from wire, over leather, to what-have-you.
As previously said, the only limit, I am sure, that will be there will be set by our imagination or the lack of it, whichever the case may be.
Now, let's open our eyes and our minds and get some self-help work started and let us, by such means, get away from the dependency culture and trap that seems to be surrounding the Romani.
© M Smith (Veshengro), May 2008
