by Michael Smith
Pope Benedict XVI has defended the actions of his predecessor Pius XII during World War II, saying the pontiff spared no effort to try to save Jews.
However, Pope Pius XII has long been accused by Jewish groups and scholars of turning a blind eye to the fate of the Jews. While that may be true there seems to be definitely more than just a neutral position when it comes to the Romani victims of the Holocaust who, like the Jews, were singled out for destruction because of their Race.
The Romani, or Gypsy, People were already being earmarked for genocide – in Germany – as far back as the time just after WWI. Where was the Church, Catholic and Lutheran then and during WWII? Silent if not complicit.
Pope Benedict said that Pius had intervened directly and indirectly but often had to be "secret and silent" given the circumstances.
Pope Benedict said he wanted prejudice against Pius to be overcome. Well, this is rather great from a German Pope with a questionable record during the Nazi time.
Pope Pius was rather very active, and so was the entire Vatican, and this is a fact, in helping German industrialists and worse still SS, Gestapo, and others of the hierarchy, escape with false or Church passports to South America and such locations.
Pope Benedict even seem to go as far as suggesting beatification – and may the gods help us all – of Pope Pius, claiming that Pius showed "courageous and paternal dedication" in trying to save Jews.
Pope Benedict said: "Wherever possible he spared no effort in intervening in their favour either directly or through instructions given to other individuals or to institutions of the Catholic Church.
Pope Benedict said the interventions were "made secretly and silently, precisely because, given the concrete situation of that difficult historical moment, only in this way was it possible to avoid the worst and save the greatest number of Jews".
Pius was the pontiff from 1939 to 1958 and the Vatican has begun his beatification process.
This stinks of an attempt, a very blatant one, of rewriting history by the Vatican – something they appear to be very good at. The only member of the Catholic Church who ever really stood up for the Jews in the concentration camps – note please that no one ever stood up for the Gypsy – was Father Matthias Kolbe. The rest were rather conspicuous with their silence and their “non-interference”.
Many Jewish groups criticised him for not speaking out against the Nazis, who killed six million Jews.
Pius should be even more criticised for being part of allowing the perpetrators of the heinous crimes against Jews and Gypsies to escape justice by issuing them passports to escape, often in disguise as Catholic clergy, to South America where, as we all know, they not just simply hid. Nay, they continued the work for the Nazi organizations, whatever name they chose to operate under.
When it came to the Gypsy no one of the Churches and no one of the populous, whether in Germany or Poland or elsewhere, helped the Gypsy. In some parts of the occupied territories there were groups of Gypsy partisans or Gypsy groups in the partisans and they seemed to have been the only ones that had some cover. In Poland the good Catholic farmers and burghers pointed out Gypsies to the Nazis, whether those Gypsies were settled and integrated or not, instead of helping them.
To make Pius a saint, or even to beatify him, would be the greatest injustice the Church could do to itself and its standing and the world. But, then again, I doubt they care as long as they can create another saint.
The Catholic Church and the Lutheran Church – I cannot say about the Orthodox, whether Greek or Russian, in this matter – have a lot to answer for to the gods as far as their inaction is concerned with regards to the persecution of the Romani, the Gypsy, in the Nazi era, as well as before and after. All we have seen from the church was in action of it was not actual cooperation and the cooperation still goes on to this very day in certain instances, such as the deportation of the Roma refugees from Macedonia in Germany back to Skopie and other parts of Macedonia some years back.
It remains only one way for the Rom and it is time the Gypsy People understood that and that is “Ourselves Alone”.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Romanies who feel threatened should seek help at home - Minister
by Michael Smith
Yoy! Yoy! Yoy! What can one say to that?
The Romanies, from the Roma communities and other Gypsy groups, who seek asylum in Canada should not conceal their real, particularly financial reasons of their departure from the Czech republic, by alleged persecution, Human Rights and Minorities Minister Dzamila Stehlikova has said.
While the fact that a number of the Gypsies fleeing from the Czech Republic wish to also improve themselves economically and one or two may be simply economic migrants the majority, in the same way as those that fled from Macedonia some years ago into Germany or those from Kosovo. However, the same is used there with regards to sending them back to the countries whence they are being persecuted.
The Minister should be ashamed of herself but then again, I assume she would not know what being ashamed even means, in the same way as Minister Cunek and others in the former Czechoslovakia, as well as in many other EU member states. Italy here comes to mind especially too.
Minister Dzamila Stehlikova said after a meeting of the Government Council for Romany Community Affairs that the Romanies who feel threatened in the Czech Republic should first look for help of state bodies, the council and NGOs.
Seeing the way the Czech police and other authorities in that country persecute the Romanies themselves and certainly from the way that attacks are never properly prosecuted and followed up and the perpetrators never have to fear any real retribution – at least not from the side of the state – I certainly doubt that going to the state for help would do the Rom of the Czech Republic no good at all. Their only option is to leave the country as refugees.
Czech Roma's interest in acquiring asylum in Canada has markedly increased over the past months.
Obviously this reflects very badly on the image of the Czech Republic as far as human rights are concerned in the eyes of the world and hence the Minister has to come up with stupid comments such as the ones that she has made.
Stehlikova said 466 of them applied for asylum in Canada from last November until mid-July.
Canada might reintroduce visas for Czech citizens if the border of 500 applications were crossed, Stehlikova said, adding she is not afraid of this for the time being, however.
Canada re-introduced visas for Czech citizens in 1997 after it lifted them for a short period, in reaction to a high number of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic, primarily Roma.
In the 1996-2000 period, 1677 people with Czech citizenship applied for asylum in Canada and 962 of them were granted it.
The government council wants to prevent further outflow of Roma by supplying them with information on their rights and defence opportunities in case they feel threatened by the majority population or by clerks and the police.
Stehlikova will visit Canada in October where she wants to meet Romani asylum applicants as well as Canadian officials.
One can only assume that she has a hidden agenda for meeting the refugees themselves. I assume we all remember well the times when British police and border agents were based at Czech airports, working hand-in-glove with the Czech authorities, to prevent Romanies from the Czech Republic travel abroad, especially to the United Kingdom.
Oh, but the European Union is good for the Rom, so we are being told. Good? In what respect?
She said she also wants to invite the officials to the Czech Republic to see for themselves that Czech Romanies do not need to fear for their lives.
Macedonia and others did the same with regards to the Roma from those countries with the German government and even the German Protestant Church, the Evangelische Kirche, worked hand-in-glove then with the German authorities, primarily in the Rhineland, to “repatriate” the refugees back to Skopie and such places. One can but assume that the Minister here has the same ideas in mind as far as the Rom currently in Canada are concerned.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Yoy! Yoy! Yoy! What can one say to that?
The Romanies, from the Roma communities and other Gypsy groups, who seek asylum in Canada should not conceal their real, particularly financial reasons of their departure from the Czech republic, by alleged persecution, Human Rights and Minorities Minister Dzamila Stehlikova has said.
While the fact that a number of the Gypsies fleeing from the Czech Republic wish to also improve themselves economically and one or two may be simply economic migrants the majority, in the same way as those that fled from Macedonia some years ago into Germany or those from Kosovo. However, the same is used there with regards to sending them back to the countries whence they are being persecuted.
The Minister should be ashamed of herself but then again, I assume she would not know what being ashamed even means, in the same way as Minister Cunek and others in the former Czechoslovakia, as well as in many other EU member states. Italy here comes to mind especially too.
Minister Dzamila Stehlikova said after a meeting of the Government Council for Romany Community Affairs that the Romanies who feel threatened in the Czech Republic should first look for help of state bodies, the council and NGOs.
Seeing the way the Czech police and other authorities in that country persecute the Romanies themselves and certainly from the way that attacks are never properly prosecuted and followed up and the perpetrators never have to fear any real retribution – at least not from the side of the state – I certainly doubt that going to the state for help would do the Rom of the Czech Republic no good at all. Their only option is to leave the country as refugees.
Czech Roma's interest in acquiring asylum in Canada has markedly increased over the past months.
Obviously this reflects very badly on the image of the Czech Republic as far as human rights are concerned in the eyes of the world and hence the Minister has to come up with stupid comments such as the ones that she has made.
Stehlikova said 466 of them applied for asylum in Canada from last November until mid-July.
Canada might reintroduce visas for Czech citizens if the border of 500 applications were crossed, Stehlikova said, adding she is not afraid of this for the time being, however.
Canada re-introduced visas for Czech citizens in 1997 after it lifted them for a short period, in reaction to a high number of asylum seekers from the Czech Republic, primarily Roma.
In the 1996-2000 period, 1677 people with Czech citizenship applied for asylum in Canada and 962 of them were granted it.
The government council wants to prevent further outflow of Roma by supplying them with information on their rights and defence opportunities in case they feel threatened by the majority population or by clerks and the police.
Stehlikova will visit Canada in October where she wants to meet Romani asylum applicants as well as Canadian officials.
One can only assume that she has a hidden agenda for meeting the refugees themselves. I assume we all remember well the times when British police and border agents were based at Czech airports, working hand-in-glove with the Czech authorities, to prevent Romanies from the Czech Republic travel abroad, especially to the United Kingdom.
Oh, but the European Union is good for the Rom, so we are being told. Good? In what respect?
She said she also wants to invite the officials to the Czech Republic to see for themselves that Czech Romanies do not need to fear for their lives.
Macedonia and others did the same with regards to the Roma from those countries with the German government and even the German Protestant Church, the Evangelische Kirche, worked hand-in-glove then with the German authorities, primarily in the Rhineland, to “repatriate” the refugees back to Skopie and such places. One can but assume that the Minister here has the same ideas in mind as far as the Rom currently in Canada are concerned.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Roma Summit: a Milestone on the Road towards a Structured Dialogue?
Brussels, September 15th, 2008 – Tomorrow’s European Roma summit is an especially welcome initiative of the European Union: for the very first time a large number of Roma representatives has the occasion of meeting European decision-makers at the top level. Throughout the day, Roma, civil society, national governments and European institution leaders will work together to find an effective way to tackle the persistent discrimination that Roma still face everywhere in Europe.
At the same time, we hope the Summit will not be just a ‘fig leaf’ placed over the lack of concrete action which is needed to promote inclusion of the most deprived and largest minority in Europe. The Summit must instead be the first brick in the foundation for a solid and consistent European Strategy for Roma. We cannot wait until the next Roma pogrom springs up, alarming once again the decision-makers around Europe because they did not make a political response: a European Roma Strategy is needed now!
We also want to underline the need of a constant dialogue between Roma and the authorities from all levels. Here, we insist that all policies targeting Roma should be developed and implemented with the real participation of Roma themselves. The European Commission and Member States should build a more effective and steady relationship with Roma civil society. Roma can not continue to be passive observers of initiatives which concern them.
Finally, we hope that the results of the Summit will reinforce Roma related content within the Social Agenda. The EC policies towards Roma compiled in the Staff Working Paper are too weak when compared to the deep state of exclusion and discrimination experienced by Roma. In order to make it stronger and truly respondent to the real needs of the Roma minority, the European Commission should take the lead by adopting a European Roma Strategy and share its responsibilities with Member States. We hope the Summit will not be just another meeting, but the beginning of a concrete and effective action towards Roma inclusion.
Source: ERIO
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At the same time, we hope the Summit will not be just a ‘fig leaf’ placed over the lack of concrete action which is needed to promote inclusion of the most deprived and largest minority in Europe. The Summit must instead be the first brick in the foundation for a solid and consistent European Strategy for Roma. We cannot wait until the next Roma pogrom springs up, alarming once again the decision-makers around Europe because they did not make a political response: a European Roma Strategy is needed now!
We also want to underline the need of a constant dialogue between Roma and the authorities from all levels. Here, we insist that all policies targeting Roma should be developed and implemented with the real participation of Roma themselves. The European Commission and Member States should build a more effective and steady relationship with Roma civil society. Roma can not continue to be passive observers of initiatives which concern them.
Finally, we hope that the results of the Summit will reinforce Roma related content within the Social Agenda. The EC policies towards Roma compiled in the Staff Working Paper are too weak when compared to the deep state of exclusion and discrimination experienced by Roma. In order to make it stronger and truly respondent to the real needs of the Roma minority, the European Commission should take the lead by adopting a European Roma Strategy and share its responsibilities with Member States. We hope the Summit will not be just another meeting, but the beginning of a concrete and effective action towards Roma inclusion.
Source: ERIO
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The Romani People's Mokadi Law is right after all – proven yet again
by Michael Smith
Many Gohja believe that if some piece of food falls onto the floor and has been there for five seconds or less – the so-called “five second rule” - it can still be eaten and is entirely safe. They also believe that the Romani Mokadi code's rule of throwing away food that has fallen on the floor and not eating it is superstition and such.
However, yet again, much as with the case of not having dogs and cats indoors, science has proven that our Ancient Ones were right in the first place. There is no safe time with food falling on the ground.
It is probably not safe to eat anything that has been on the floor for even one second. In a recent experiment, food scientists contaminated several surfaces with Salmonella. They then dropped pieces of bologna and slices of bread on the floor for as little as five seconds and as long as a whole minute. In the five seconds, both the bread and the bologna picked up an alarming 1,800 types of bacteria. So unless sterilize someone's floor is sterilized and I mean sterilized on an hourly basis it is not safe in any way to eat anything that has fallen onto the floor. The same applies for anything that your shoes may have touched, too.
So, once again proof that the Mokadi Code given to us by our Ancient Onces is as valid today as it was in the days of yore. Hence, once again, we should live by it still and continue to do so.
What is the most amazing part, in my view, is that our Old Ones knew this without having the science to prove it. We do have, I know, all the means of sterilizing cutlery and such like so they do not, maybe, have to be thrown after having accidentally fallen onto the floor or the earth. Food, however, is a different kettle of fish, so to speak, and this does not just apply to fish, and with the food poisoning bacteria it can pick us to quickly by falling on the ground it just is not safe to eat anything that has thus fallen and come in possible contact with contamination.
We can now but wonder how much else is in that ancient knowledge transmitted to us via the old codes, such as the Mokadi Law, which science will, sooner or later, prove to be right and valid still to this very day. Very good reason, methinks, to keep living by it.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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Many Gohja believe that if some piece of food falls onto the floor and has been there for five seconds or less – the so-called “five second rule” - it can still be eaten and is entirely safe. They also believe that the Romani Mokadi code's rule of throwing away food that has fallen on the floor and not eating it is superstition and such.
However, yet again, much as with the case of not having dogs and cats indoors, science has proven that our Ancient Ones were right in the first place. There is no safe time with food falling on the ground.
It is probably not safe to eat anything that has been on the floor for even one second. In a recent experiment, food scientists contaminated several surfaces with Salmonella. They then dropped pieces of bologna and slices of bread on the floor for as little as five seconds and as long as a whole minute. In the five seconds, both the bread and the bologna picked up an alarming 1,800 types of bacteria. So unless sterilize someone's floor is sterilized and I mean sterilized on an hourly basis it is not safe in any way to eat anything that has fallen onto the floor. The same applies for anything that your shoes may have touched, too.
So, once again proof that the Mokadi Code given to us by our Ancient Onces is as valid today as it was in the days of yore. Hence, once again, we should live by it still and continue to do so.
What is the most amazing part, in my view, is that our Old Ones knew this without having the science to prove it. We do have, I know, all the means of sterilizing cutlery and such like so they do not, maybe, have to be thrown after having accidentally fallen onto the floor or the earth. Food, however, is a different kettle of fish, so to speak, and this does not just apply to fish, and with the food poisoning bacteria it can pick us to quickly by falling on the ground it just is not safe to eat anything that has thus fallen and come in possible contact with contamination.
We can now but wonder how much else is in that ancient knowledge transmitted to us via the old codes, such as the Mokadi Law, which science will, sooner or later, prove to be right and valid still to this very day. Very good reason, methinks, to keep living by it.
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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European Commission OK's Italy's treatment of Gypsies
European Union gives blessing for Italy's Roma fingerprint scheme
by Michael Smith
The European Union has basically told the Berlusconi regime in Italy that their actions against the Roma (and Sinti), the Gypsies, in the camps in Italy is fine by them and Berlusconi states that he always was certain that the EU would clear his government's actions as regards the Gypsy menace.
A Commission spokesman said Brussels was satisified that in conducting a census of Roma gypsies in camps as part of its crackdown on street crime since coming to power in May, the Berlusconi Government was not seeking ''data based on ethnic origin or religion". The controversial fingerprinting programme had the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way".
Well, did anyone think different? Yes, I know, the majority of the Rom in Europe and elsewhere had put their hopes in the EU and some, I guess, still do and I hate to say that I told you so, but I did. The European Union is the greatest danger befalling the Gypsy People in Europe since the Nazis.
This is making the fear that I have that this in Italy – and actions against Rom in other parts of the European Union – is a stalking horse as to what is in store for our People in Europe under the EU leadership at present.
The fingerprinting of minors was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' the statement from the Commission said. On press photos, however, that have been seen by this author and others the stains of the fingerprinting ink is clearly visible on the great majority of all children, including, so it would appear, toddlers.
Mr Berlusconi said the scheme was intended not only to stop gypsy children begging and stealing but also to help Roma people to integrate by drawing them into the Italian health and education systems. Mr Maroni said illegal Roma camps were being dismantled so that "those who have the right to stay here can live in decent conditions".
There are an estimated 160,000 Roma gipsies in Italy, nearly half of whom were born in Italy and have Italian citizenship. The rest are mainly illegal immigrants from the Balkans and Romania.
Obviously, because all of those actions by the new Duce's regime are so benign many Roma who are legal citizens of Italy have been forced to flee into Austria from the regions of South Tirol, for instance.
We are having a problem and no one wants to realize it and our problem as a People does not lie simply with one EU member state, in this case Italy, for it is not just in Italy that official anti-Gypsy actions are taking place. Our problem is with the European Union per se, as it would appear that those anti-Gypsy actions are the new policy coming our way.
I must say that I have been seeing this writing on the wall for a very long time and have written about it and issued warnings and everyone called me a scaremonger and worse even. What worries me most is that it would appear that my predictions have been right and in a way they are worse that what I thought.
The European Commission has now, basically, given the green light to all EU member states to enact their own anti-Gypsy measures under the various guises that they will be using. France is already playing with a number of ideas, as are the former Czechoslovakia and others.
Would this happen if those being the target of those measures would be Jews, whether or not involved in (small) criminal activities? It would not, of that we can all be more than certain. But, yet again, no one cares because the victims are but dirty Gyppos and as far as the great majority of EU member state citizens are concerned Gypsies are worth less than animals, even wild animals that might decimate flocks, such as wolves. While they will go to all lengths to protect such they are happy that Gypsies are being targeted by government and vigilante actions alike.
The fingerprinting and the other measures, such as the bulldozing of the “illegal” camps are 'not discriminatory' and the census is in line with European Union law, the EC said. Jesus wept! It is? What chance have our People got then for protection? None, let's face it.
We, the Rom, must learn to protect ourselves. But then again, the problem is that those in trouble there just could not possibly get off their butts to do anything themselves.
While I, in general, do not have much time for any of the churches it must be said though that, after initial silence, the Vatican seems to have found its voice.
The Vatican urged the EU to carry through on the public commitments they had made to safeguard ethnic minorities like Gypsies.
EU states should treat Gypsy communities as they would other institutions, Msgr Agostino Marchetto, head of the Vatican department that deals with migrant and traveler issues, told Vatican daily l'Osservatore Romano.
''This 'institutionalisation' brings with it the advantage of spurring EU states to become aware of the EU programmes that have been approved,'' Marchetto said at the end of the World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Gypsies in Freising, Germany.
While the Cardinal's statements are very heartening there is a problem with them and that is that the EU commitments are on paper only and they have no intention of honoring them as far as we, the Rom, the Gypsy, are concerned. In fact, everything points to just the opposite, namely that we are being targeted yet again for some assimilation program with which they hope to eliminate the “Gypsy menace”.
We would do well to remember that the police offices for the combating of the Gypsy menace still exist under a variety of guises in a number of European Union member police forces and also the over-regional and international units. Not much has changed in Europe for we, the Rom, since the time of German and Italian Fascism.
Time we did things ourselves.
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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by Michael Smith
The European Union has basically told the Berlusconi regime in Italy that their actions against the Roma (and Sinti), the Gypsies, in the camps in Italy is fine by them and Berlusconi states that he always was certain that the EU would clear his government's actions as regards the Gypsy menace.
A Commission spokesman said Brussels was satisified that in conducting a census of Roma gypsies in camps as part of its crackdown on street crime since coming to power in May, the Berlusconi Government was not seeking ''data based on ethnic origin or religion". The controversial fingerprinting programme had the sole aim of ''identifying persons who cannot be identified in any other way".
Well, did anyone think different? Yes, I know, the majority of the Rom in Europe and elsewhere had put their hopes in the EU and some, I guess, still do and I hate to say that I told you so, but I did. The European Union is the greatest danger befalling the Gypsy People in Europe since the Nazis.
This is making the fear that I have that this in Italy – and actions against Rom in other parts of the European Union – is a stalking horse as to what is in store for our People in Europe under the EU leadership at present.
The fingerprinting of minors was only being carried out ''in strictly necessary cases and as the ultimate possibility of identification,'' the statement from the Commission said. On press photos, however, that have been seen by this author and others the stains of the fingerprinting ink is clearly visible on the great majority of all children, including, so it would appear, toddlers.
Mr Berlusconi said the scheme was intended not only to stop gypsy children begging and stealing but also to help Roma people to integrate by drawing them into the Italian health and education systems. Mr Maroni said illegal Roma camps were being dismantled so that "those who have the right to stay here can live in decent conditions".
There are an estimated 160,000 Roma gipsies in Italy, nearly half of whom were born in Italy and have Italian citizenship. The rest are mainly illegal immigrants from the Balkans and Romania.
Obviously, because all of those actions by the new Duce's regime are so benign many Roma who are legal citizens of Italy have been forced to flee into Austria from the regions of South Tirol, for instance.
We are having a problem and no one wants to realize it and our problem as a People does not lie simply with one EU member state, in this case Italy, for it is not just in Italy that official anti-Gypsy actions are taking place. Our problem is with the European Union per se, as it would appear that those anti-Gypsy actions are the new policy coming our way.
I must say that I have been seeing this writing on the wall for a very long time and have written about it and issued warnings and everyone called me a scaremonger and worse even. What worries me most is that it would appear that my predictions have been right and in a way they are worse that what I thought.
The European Commission has now, basically, given the green light to all EU member states to enact their own anti-Gypsy measures under the various guises that they will be using. France is already playing with a number of ideas, as are the former Czechoslovakia and others.
Would this happen if those being the target of those measures would be Jews, whether or not involved in (small) criminal activities? It would not, of that we can all be more than certain. But, yet again, no one cares because the victims are but dirty Gyppos and as far as the great majority of EU member state citizens are concerned Gypsies are worth less than animals, even wild animals that might decimate flocks, such as wolves. While they will go to all lengths to protect such they are happy that Gypsies are being targeted by government and vigilante actions alike.
The fingerprinting and the other measures, such as the bulldozing of the “illegal” camps are 'not discriminatory' and the census is in line with European Union law, the EC said. Jesus wept! It is? What chance have our People got then for protection? None, let's face it.
We, the Rom, must learn to protect ourselves. But then again, the problem is that those in trouble there just could not possibly get off their butts to do anything themselves.
While I, in general, do not have much time for any of the churches it must be said though that, after initial silence, the Vatican seems to have found its voice.
The Vatican urged the EU to carry through on the public commitments they had made to safeguard ethnic minorities like Gypsies.
EU states should treat Gypsy communities as they would other institutions, Msgr Agostino Marchetto, head of the Vatican department that deals with migrant and traveler issues, told Vatican daily l'Osservatore Romano.
''This 'institutionalisation' brings with it the advantage of spurring EU states to become aware of the EU programmes that have been approved,'' Marchetto said at the end of the World Congress on the Pastoral Care of Gypsies in Freising, Germany.
While the Cardinal's statements are very heartening there is a problem with them and that is that the EU commitments are on paper only and they have no intention of honoring them as far as we, the Rom, the Gypsy, are concerned. In fact, everything points to just the opposite, namely that we are being targeted yet again for some assimilation program with which they hope to eliminate the “Gypsy menace”.
We would do well to remember that the police offices for the combating of the Gypsy menace still exist under a variety of guises in a number of European Union member police forces and also the over-regional and international units. Not much has changed in Europe for we, the Rom, since the time of German and Italian Fascism.
Time we did things ourselves.
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), September 2008
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German Neo-Nazis target Hindus For using Swastika
Neo-Nazis are marching through the largest immigrant district in Berlin - Neukoelln on 23rd August 2008, targeting their venom at the site of a new Hindu temple. They claim that Indian symbolism on the new Hindu shrine attacks 'German' culture, because the ancient Indian emblem of the swastika will be used.
It is an irony of the most loopy proportions that ignores the fact that the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol which was hijacked by the Nazi Party as its' official emblem in 1919. It is incredible then that the neo-Nazis themselves do not perceive this 'foreign symbol' as an attack on their fragile identity and may even use it during the march in their racially perverse version of ancient German folklore and pagan beliefs, which actually have a great deal in common with present day Hindu values, than with the genocidal, racist and xenophobic ideas of National Socialism.
It is also worth remembering that community of Indian descent which keep to certain Hindu ideas despite having resided in Europe for centuries. Treated since their arrival as marginalised untouchables, this community was targeted for extermination by the Third Reich: the Roma or Gypsies.
HHR Calls upon the German authorities to take immediate action against groups promoting xenophobic and racist propaganda against its minorities.
Source: Hindu Human Rights – Serving Hindus Worldwide
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It is an irony of the most loopy proportions that ignores the fact that the swastika is an ancient Hindu symbol which was hijacked by the Nazi Party as its' official emblem in 1919. It is incredible then that the neo-Nazis themselves do not perceive this 'foreign symbol' as an attack on their fragile identity and may even use it during the march in their racially perverse version of ancient German folklore and pagan beliefs, which actually have a great deal in common with present day Hindu values, than with the genocidal, racist and xenophobic ideas of National Socialism.
It is also worth remembering that community of Indian descent which keep to certain Hindu ideas despite having resided in Europe for centuries. Treated since their arrival as marginalised untouchables, this community was targeted for extermination by the Third Reich: the Roma or Gypsies.
HHR Calls upon the German authorities to take immediate action against groups promoting xenophobic and racist propaganda against its minorities.
Source: Hindu Human Rights – Serving Hindus Worldwide
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URGENT CALL FROM SULUKULE, ISTANBUL
This is an open letter on behalf of the Romanies in Sulukule, Istanbul, Turkey
Dear Friends,
Despite all our efforts, internal and international reactions and solidarity, demolitions in Sulukule, Istanbul, the most ancient Roma neighborhood in the world, started once again on August 28th, this time at 6 am in the morning much crueler and inhumane, without any warning before.
The next day, in spite of the wide reactions from the NGO’S and Turkish media, Mustafa Demir, the Mayor of the concerned municipality, Fatih, declared that this fatal “urban renewal project” will go on and the land will be handed to TOKI, the public construction company as if nobody was living there. He also announced they have signed contracts with all inhabitants, owners and tenants except 70 owners. And this is not the case, as you will see below.
In June 25 2008, Istanbul Governorship Human Rights Council Chairmanship
had announced the situation at Sulukule alarming, calling attention to the
unsanitary conditions of the residents and the danger of all rubble and
debris left over from previous demolitions, for people and specially children
of Sulukule (Attachment 1). Fatih Municipality took no notice of the Human
Rights agenda at Sulukule. Instead it seems that the Mayor is determined to drive out Sulukule inhabitants, no matter at what humane cost.
We, as members of the Sulukule Platform, ask that the Fatih Municipality should immediately:
*Stop the demolitions until an alternative project is produced on the basis of a participatory model.
*This alternative project must take into consideration the tenants who want to remain in Sulukule, most of whom have been living among the rubbles, as they don't have any other option. No alternative housing has been proposed to them till now.
There are 2 groups:
-The first group consists of those tenants whose right to house ownership in one of Mass Housing Administration's housing project sites has been recognized by the Municipality. However, many of these right holders have not been entitled to housing since there is no room left for them in Tasoluk. Even though the municipality assures that those tenants who couldn't be accommodated in Tasoluk will be sent to Kayabası (another mass housing site) construction in this location have not even begun. This effectively leaves many families homeless. In total there are 100 families of such status.
-The second group of tenants has not even been considered as right holders from the very beginning. At the beginning of August, these tenants applied to the Fatih Municipality, demanding their entitlements. As of now they are still waiting for an official response. There are 200 families in this second group.
In short, currently there are 300 families in Sulukule, who do not have any place to go. Moreover, the recent demolitions have been carried out so hastily and carelessly that the municipality demolished not only the emptied houses but also the homes of the families who belong to the groups mentioned above. The bulldozers ended up destroying even the homes of people, who signed a contract with the municipality waiting to move to their new homes in Tasoluk. (None of the right holders have yet received their keys for their homes there)
Finally we must add the 70 families (mentioned also by The Mayor Mustafa Demir in his declaration of August 29th) who are owners that refused to sign a contract with the municipality.
All of this adds up to 370 families which means that more than 1500 people have no place to go, even in the determined exile lands, Tasoluk or elsewhere. And this without mentioning that those who singed any kind of contract with the municipality or sold their homes to the speculators have been obliged to do so by fear of becoming homeless and because no other option has been given to them.
We demand that:
* All those who were tenants in the year 2005 when the project was announced must be accepted as right holders without any discrimination. So far the determination of the right holders by the municipality has been totally arbitrary.
*Public service provision in Sulukule must go on until the last inhabitant leaves. Currently, around 2000 people are living among the rubbles of the demolished houses for months, which pose major risks especially for children. The rubbles must be removed urgently. There is no water, no electricity and phone lines in some parts of the neighborhood are cut off. No sanitary precautions are taken. Rats and all kind of pests have infested the neighborhood threatening the public sanity.
All of these public service duties, which are also mentioned in the Istanbul Governor's Human Rights Report must be fulfilled very urgently by the Municipality.
*The new academic year begins on September 1st for primary school students. Children of Sulukule cannot attend schools neither in Sulukule nor in Tasoluk. They cannot do so in Sulukule, because their homes are either demolished or will be demolished soon. And they cannot go to school in Tasoluk, because they are not allowed to move to those houses yet. Thus, their right for education is being violated. And next week the secondary schools will start and it will
be the same for Sulukule youth.
Please show your reaction in solidarity with Sulukule Roma people by calling the authorities to stop demolitions and urging an alternatif project…
Viki Ciprut
In the name of
Sulukule Platform
Dear Friends,
Despite all our efforts, internal and international reactions and solidarity, demolitions in Sulukule, Istanbul, the most ancient Roma neighborhood in the world, started once again on August 28th, this time at 6 am in the morning much crueler and inhumane, without any warning before.
The next day, in spite of the wide reactions from the NGO’S and Turkish media, Mustafa Demir, the Mayor of the concerned municipality, Fatih, declared that this fatal “urban renewal project” will go on and the land will be handed to TOKI, the public construction company as if nobody was living there. He also announced they have signed contracts with all inhabitants, owners and tenants except 70 owners. And this is not the case, as you will see below.
In June 25 2008, Istanbul Governorship Human Rights Council Chairmanship
had announced the situation at Sulukule alarming, calling attention to the
unsanitary conditions of the residents and the danger of all rubble and
debris left over from previous demolitions, for people and specially children
of Sulukule (Attachment 1). Fatih Municipality took no notice of the Human
Rights agenda at Sulukule. Instead it seems that the Mayor is determined to drive out Sulukule inhabitants, no matter at what humane cost.
We, as members of the Sulukule Platform, ask that the Fatih Municipality should immediately:
*Stop the demolitions until an alternative project is produced on the basis of a participatory model.
*This alternative project must take into consideration the tenants who want to remain in Sulukule, most of whom have been living among the rubbles, as they don't have any other option. No alternative housing has been proposed to them till now.
There are 2 groups:
-The first group consists of those tenants whose right to house ownership in one of Mass Housing Administration's housing project sites has been recognized by the Municipality. However, many of these right holders have not been entitled to housing since there is no room left for them in Tasoluk. Even though the municipality assures that those tenants who couldn't be accommodated in Tasoluk will be sent to Kayabası (another mass housing site) construction in this location have not even begun. This effectively leaves many families homeless. In total there are 100 families of such status.
-The second group of tenants has not even been considered as right holders from the very beginning. At the beginning of August, these tenants applied to the Fatih Municipality, demanding their entitlements. As of now they are still waiting for an official response. There are 200 families in this second group.
In short, currently there are 300 families in Sulukule, who do not have any place to go. Moreover, the recent demolitions have been carried out so hastily and carelessly that the municipality demolished not only the emptied houses but also the homes of the families who belong to the groups mentioned above. The bulldozers ended up destroying even the homes of people, who signed a contract with the municipality waiting to move to their new homes in Tasoluk. (None of the right holders have yet received their keys for their homes there)
Finally we must add the 70 families (mentioned also by The Mayor Mustafa Demir in his declaration of August 29th) who are owners that refused to sign a contract with the municipality.
All of this adds up to 370 families which means that more than 1500 people have no place to go, even in the determined exile lands, Tasoluk or elsewhere. And this without mentioning that those who singed any kind of contract with the municipality or sold their homes to the speculators have been obliged to do so by fear of becoming homeless and because no other option has been given to them.
We demand that:
* All those who were tenants in the year 2005 when the project was announced must be accepted as right holders without any discrimination. So far the determination of the right holders by the municipality has been totally arbitrary.
*Public service provision in Sulukule must go on until the last inhabitant leaves. Currently, around 2000 people are living among the rubbles of the demolished houses for months, which pose major risks especially for children. The rubbles must be removed urgently. There is no water, no electricity and phone lines in some parts of the neighborhood are cut off. No sanitary precautions are taken. Rats and all kind of pests have infested the neighborhood threatening the public sanity.
All of these public service duties, which are also mentioned in the Istanbul Governor's Human Rights Report must be fulfilled very urgently by the Municipality.
*The new academic year begins on September 1st for primary school students. Children of Sulukule cannot attend schools neither in Sulukule nor in Tasoluk. They cannot do so in Sulukule, because their homes are either demolished or will be demolished soon. And they cannot go to school in Tasoluk, because they are not allowed to move to those houses yet. Thus, their right for education is being violated. And next week the secondary schools will start and it will
be the same for Sulukule youth.
Please show your reaction in solidarity with Sulukule Roma people by calling the authorities to stop demolitions and urging an alternatif project…
Viki Ciprut
In the name of
Sulukule Platform
LANDMARK RULING FOR GYPSIES AND TRAVELLERS
The other week the House of Lords allowed an Appeal by Mr William Doherty against a Possession Order granted to Birmingham City Council for his eviction from the site on which he has lived for some 20 years. The Council had stated that they wished to refurbish the site and that this would not be feasible with Mr Doherty and his family remaining there. No alternative offer of accommodation was made. In December 2004 the High Court awarded a Possession Order to the Council and did not allow Mr Doherty to defend the matter on the basis that domestic law provided no proper security of tenure for Gypsies and Travellers on local authority sites. All the Council had to do was to properly terminate the licence and then obtain a court order without having to rely on any facts or allegations. In December 2006 the Court of Appeal refused Mr Doherty’s initial Appeal but this decision has now been overturned by the House of Lords.
Firstly, the House of Lords made it clear that they found the exclusion of Gypsies and Travellers on local authority sites from the protection of the Mobile Homes Act 1983 to be incompatible with the terms of Article 8 of the European Convention (the right to respect for private and family life and home). But for the fact that the Government are on the cusp of changing the law by now including local authority Gypsy/Traveller sites within the provisions of the Mobile Homes Act, the Lords would have declared UK law inconsistent with the Convention.
Secondly, the House of Lords quashed the possession order made against Mr Doherty and have sent the matter back to the High Court for Mr Doherty to have the opportunity of presenting a defence to the possession action. This defence will involve the hearing of oral evidence and the assessment of the proportionality of the decision to seek eviction. Mr Doherty’s solicitor said: “It is hoped that the Council will now reconsider their initial decision to seek possession action against this family. The decision will have wide ramifications not only for Gypsies and Travellers on local authority sites but also for others in dire housing need.”
Mr Doherty was represented by Jan Luba QC of Garden Court Chambers in London, as his Senior Counsel, by Alex Offer of Park Court Chambers in Leeds as his Junior Counsel and by Chris Johnson of Community Law Partnership Solicitors in Birmingham as his Solicitor.
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More Romanian Roma fingerprinted, but at home
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
Romania now seems to be itself going down the road of fingerprinting and recording the Romani People within its own borders – those that, primarily – are its own citizens.
Apparently the reasons given are the same as in Italy, that is to say, that they claim that this is being done in the name of crime prevention. So, in the eyes of the Romanian authorities, as in those of the Italians, being Gypsy equates, automatically, with being a criminal. In Romania itself, so it would appear from reports, the very word Roma to the general population equates with thieves and worse.
To all intents and purposes we are seeing a re-run of the 1930s Nazi anti-Gypsy policies taking hold all over the European Union and surrounding countries.
Discussions on whether Yul Brunner or Elvis Presley was Gypsy or the creation of a standardized Romani Language are not going to help the besieged Gypsy People in mainland Europe one iota. Other measures must be employed there. What good is a standardized Romani Language to the Rom that are being persecuted? About as useful as you-know-what on a boar.
All I can see is a complete re-run of the 1930s as regards to Anti-Gypsy-ism, How long until countries such as Germany and Austria, as well as France, start registering and fingerprinting the Romani-Gypsy on their territories, within their borders, foreign ones and citizens alike? I hate to say this but... I am sure this is not far off.
And while all this is happening our “esteemed leaders”, like Nero while Rome burned, fiddle.
On top of that the general Gypsy world population too seems to be in a total state of apathy and even denial – it could never happen here they all seem to say and think – as far as the suffering of their Romani brethren in the various European Union member states and some outside the EU, such as the Ukraine.
Solidarity amongst the Rom seems to have gone entirely out of the window. Or was it just a figment of the imagination and it never ever really existed?
If we, the Gypsy, the Sinti and Roma, in countries not – AS YET – affected by such measures do not stand by our Romani brethren that are affected then when it comes to us there will be no one left to speak out. The Gadje will not stand up on our behalf – the majority certainly not – not even the Jews who like us ones suffered pogroms.
How long will we stand by and let it all happen with the apathy of “I am alright, my family are alright... that's all that counts”? We all can do something and we all must do something somehow somewhere.
We have only ourselves and we Gypsy everywhere must stand – even if only at a distance, for those that cannot be there – with those of our People that are being persecuted and that suffer.
Ourselves Alone!
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Romania now seems to be itself going down the road of fingerprinting and recording the Romani People within its own borders – those that, primarily – are its own citizens.
Apparently the reasons given are the same as in Italy, that is to say, that they claim that this is being done in the name of crime prevention. So, in the eyes of the Romanian authorities, as in those of the Italians, being Gypsy equates, automatically, with being a criminal. In Romania itself, so it would appear from reports, the very word Roma to the general population equates with thieves and worse.
To all intents and purposes we are seeing a re-run of the 1930s Nazi anti-Gypsy policies taking hold all over the European Union and surrounding countries.
Discussions on whether Yul Brunner or Elvis Presley was Gypsy or the creation of a standardized Romani Language are not going to help the besieged Gypsy People in mainland Europe one iota. Other measures must be employed there. What good is a standardized Romani Language to the Rom that are being persecuted? About as useful as you-know-what on a boar.
All I can see is a complete re-run of the 1930s as regards to Anti-Gypsy-ism, How long until countries such as Germany and Austria, as well as France, start registering and fingerprinting the Romani-Gypsy on their territories, within their borders, foreign ones and citizens alike? I hate to say this but... I am sure this is not far off.
And while all this is happening our “esteemed leaders”, like Nero while Rome burned, fiddle.
On top of that the general Gypsy world population too seems to be in a total state of apathy and even denial – it could never happen here they all seem to say and think – as far as the suffering of their Romani brethren in the various European Union member states and some outside the EU, such as the Ukraine.
Solidarity amongst the Rom seems to have gone entirely out of the window. Or was it just a figment of the imagination and it never ever really existed?
If we, the Gypsy, the Sinti and Roma, in countries not – AS YET – affected by such measures do not stand by our Romani brethren that are affected then when it comes to us there will be no one left to speak out. The Gadje will not stand up on our behalf – the majority certainly not – not even the Jews who like us ones suffered pogroms.
How long will we stand by and let it all happen with the apathy of “I am alright, my family are alright... that's all that counts”? We all can do something and we all must do something somehow somewhere.
We have only ourselves and we Gypsy everywhere must stand – even if only at a distance, for those that cannot be there – with those of our People that are being persecuted and that suffer.
Ourselves Alone!
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
What are we doing?
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
While there are real pogroms happening in European Union member countries, against Roma and Sinti; while in Italy the authorities have declared a national state of emergency over the Gypsy camps and have called out the Army; our esteemed “leaders” and academics are busy on Internet forums discussing as to whether Yul Brunner or Elvis Presley was or was not Gypsy.
Although the research into such persons of note who may have had or may have Romani bloodline and may even have followed the Way to some extent, is a valid one at the right time, presently is not that time.
It is certainly clear to me that there is little that we, who are not in Italy, or in Brussels, can do as regards in standing side-by-side with our Roma and Sinti brethren who are being persecuted, whether in Italy or in Hungary, or the Czech Republic, or elsewhere, or to annoy every EU official that we can lay our hands on until this madness is being stopped, we should discuss, at least, as to whether and what we may be able to do.
In addition to that there are the Romani refugees of the various groups in Kosovo in the IDP camps that are facing, soon, yet another bleak winter and something could and should be done for them. And then there are Romani children that need school exercise books and pencils, toys and clothes, and whatever else.
But, it would appear, that researching and discussing whether this or that public figure or personality, alive or dead, was or is Romani is much more important. One can but guess that this is easier than the other issues. Talk about priorities being all wrong.
It is therefore no wonder that the Romani People have so far gotten nowhere as yet as to any form of nationhood, not even a virtual one.
Forcing everyone to accept the title of “Roma” is not going to do it and nor does a standardized Romani language. This is all just something for the experts to play with.
Unity cannot be forced and no one can be coerced into any sort of unity; you do not get one on such a basis. It would be better then that those that do not see themselves as Roma, like the majority of the grassroots Sinti – no Astroturf there – and Romanichals, and other Romani, would have a confederation of their own that then might co-operate with the likes of the International Roma(ni) Union but not be a full part of it, under the false term “Roma”.
While we are all – with the exception of those that are not – Romani-Gypsy we are simply not all Roma. Which part of the word “not” do those who are constantly advocating the use the term “Roma” for all Romani-Gypsy do not understand? It is not that difficult, it it now. Then again, some seem to be educated so far beyond their capacity that they just cannot grasp the obvious. But, I digressed again.
While unity under the false title of “Roma” cannot be forced, solidarity does not and should not depend on any acceptance of the term. While, personally, like many Sinti and Romanichals, I cannot and will not accept the term “Roma” as an ascription of myself, I still feel for my Roma brethren of the Romani People. But there is not even a solidarity anywhere. Everyone is to busy discussing things that are at this moment entirely irrelevant.
Why does it seem so important to discuss, at this moment in time when there are much more pressing issues at hand for the Romani People, as to whether Yul Brunner, even though he seems to have claimed in his lifetime that he is of Gypsy descent, lives the life, or others of who it is said that they are Rom do or did?
Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.
However, let all of look at how we can help those Rom, of whatever group, that may be less fortunate than ourselves. Each and everyone of us, in their small or larger ways, I am sure, can do something.
I, for one, use this here to hopefully rattle some cages and wake some people up to what is important and what rather not at this time.
Food for thought I should hope...
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
While there are real pogroms happening in European Union member countries, against Roma and Sinti; while in Italy the authorities have declared a national state of emergency over the Gypsy camps and have called out the Army; our esteemed “leaders” and academics are busy on Internet forums discussing as to whether Yul Brunner or Elvis Presley was or was not Gypsy.
Although the research into such persons of note who may have had or may have Romani bloodline and may even have followed the Way to some extent, is a valid one at the right time, presently is not that time.
It is certainly clear to me that there is little that we, who are not in Italy, or in Brussels, can do as regards in standing side-by-side with our Roma and Sinti brethren who are being persecuted, whether in Italy or in Hungary, or the Czech Republic, or elsewhere, or to annoy every EU official that we can lay our hands on until this madness is being stopped, we should discuss, at least, as to whether and what we may be able to do.
In addition to that there are the Romani refugees of the various groups in Kosovo in the IDP camps that are facing, soon, yet another bleak winter and something could and should be done for them. And then there are Romani children that need school exercise books and pencils, toys and clothes, and whatever else.
But, it would appear, that researching and discussing whether this or that public figure or personality, alive or dead, was or is Romani is much more important. One can but guess that this is easier than the other issues. Talk about priorities being all wrong.
It is therefore no wonder that the Romani People have so far gotten nowhere as yet as to any form of nationhood, not even a virtual one.
Forcing everyone to accept the title of “Roma” is not going to do it and nor does a standardized Romani language. This is all just something for the experts to play with.
Unity cannot be forced and no one can be coerced into any sort of unity; you do not get one on such a basis. It would be better then that those that do not see themselves as Roma, like the majority of the grassroots Sinti – no Astroturf there – and Romanichals, and other Romani, would have a confederation of their own that then might co-operate with the likes of the International Roma(ni) Union but not be a full part of it, under the false term “Roma”.
While we are all – with the exception of those that are not – Romani-Gypsy we are simply not all Roma. Which part of the word “not” do those who are constantly advocating the use the term “Roma” for all Romani-Gypsy do not understand? It is not that difficult, it it now. Then again, some seem to be educated so far beyond their capacity that they just cannot grasp the obvious. But, I digressed again.
While unity under the false title of “Roma” cannot be forced, solidarity does not and should not depend on any acceptance of the term. While, personally, like many Sinti and Romanichals, I cannot and will not accept the term “Roma” as an ascription of myself, I still feel for my Roma brethren of the Romani People. But there is not even a solidarity anywhere. Everyone is to busy discussing things that are at this moment entirely irrelevant.
Why does it seem so important to discuss, at this moment in time when there are much more pressing issues at hand for the Romani People, as to whether Yul Brunner, even though he seems to have claimed in his lifetime that he is of Gypsy descent, lives the life, or others of who it is said that they are Rom do or did?
Let those who are without sin cast the first stone.
However, let all of look at how we can help those Rom, of whatever group, that may be less fortunate than ourselves. Each and everyone of us, in their small or larger ways, I am sure, can do something.
I, for one, use this here to hopefully rattle some cages and wake some people up to what is important and what rather not at this time.
Food for thought I should hope...
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Racism and discrimination remain problems for Gypsies in Europe
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
In a recent interview with Deutsche Welle the head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma said that not enough is being done to root out the causes of prejudice in Europe. He said that many Sinti and Roma integrate by denying their ethnicity.
The sad thing is that Brother Rose is so very right when he says that “many Sinti and Roma integrate by denying their ethnicity” this is not just thus in Germany. It is the same in other countries too, even those where, theoretically, according to common beliefs, your origin does not really matter.
The fact is that the majority of Romani People that integrate into the “host” society do so by denying and concealing their ethnicity. This is not just true for those that – for a lack of a better term - “deep integrate, e.g. those that end up in high positions in places of work, in politics, in the military and the police, and in show business and sports, but other do the same.
As soon as they live in a house and integrate in that way they begin got deny their ethnicity, and this is also true in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. Again and again I encounter members of the Romanichals in the UK and when, because of their names, for instance, the question is raised as to whether they are Gypsy, whether they are Rom, they will, invariably, reply “no, we are not Gypsy – our grandparents were but we are not – we live in a house”. Whether in this case it is full denial of ethnicity or just ignorance of the fact that Gypsies, that Rom, are an ethnic groups and Race is a different question.
In Germany amongst the Sinti (and Roma) we can also find that they deny to neighbors in the places where they live that they are Sinti (or Roma) and claim to be Italian, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, and such like, and they, for that very reason give they children Mediterranean-sounding names like Angelo, Antonio, Giovanni, and such like. As I keep saying, Mario Mettbach sounds real Italian or Spanish – NOT! This denial of ethnicity starts simply already when going for an apartment as, even in Germany, there is often the attitude and I know of several Sinti who have even been told this by the municipal housing authorities, “while we must house you we do not really want any Gypsies”. So, it is not really surprising that the denial takes place but... too many also seem to lack pride in their background and roots.
The concealment of ethnicity by so many Sinti and Roma who are integrating into society to some degree is also not surprising really as most non-Gypsies only have one image in mind when the word Gypsy is mentioned and that is begging children and pickpockets and such. There is no positive image of the Sinto and Rom in the mind of the non-Gypsies in the same way as the Sinti and Roma.
Instead of being held up as an example as someone who has achieved high position without denying his roots even, senior CID officer Guenther Weiss of CID Kehl/Rhein is being called an outcast because of his job.
Even the fact that this or that actor, artist, or sports personality, such as soccer player, is Gypsy is being played down or not even mentioned. Without positive models how can our (young) people have pride to go to achieve something.
In the interview Romani Rose said, and we quote here verbatim: “At the moment we are experiencing a frightening development. The most recent events in Italy make that clear. The measures taken by Berlusconi's administration in declaring a state of emergency and other steps are a clear breach of the EU Treaty. Sinti and Roma are EU citizens. The causes of the problems lie with municipal Italian government that allows slums to arise. When a few thousand people without any chance of improving their lot in life live on the edge of the city in indescribable conditions, it naturally worries the population. But latching on to the problem and using it in an election campaign as the Lega Nord did by using minorities to make the majority of people feel afraid -- that's something I hadn't thought could still be possible in Europe.
The Italian parliamentary president has made general, racist comments aimed at Sinti and Roma. That would be unimaginable in Germany. Discrimination and racism exist here too, but abusing the difficulties facing a minority to turn people's attention from other issues is something I think has been made impossible by 60 years of dealing with our history.”
I am afraid that Brother Rose lives in “cloud cuckoo land” if he believes that it could not happen in Germany what is happening in Italy. Far from it. We already have had the firebomb attacks of some years back for which, I believe, to this very day the perpetrators have to be brought to justice and rumor has it that the police knows very well who did it. Surprise? NO!
I am also in no way surprised that the fascists parties – and shame on the for Czechoslovakia for even permitting them – and shame also on Germany for allowing the likes of the NPD and the DVU and other neo-Nazi organizations – in the Czech Republic and elsewhere are calling for the rounding up and deportation of all Gypsies “back” to India.
Germany can just as quickly also become a dangerous place for Sinti and Roma as has Italy and other countries. To think otherwise is being complacent. We must be pre-armed as regards to this and be prepared to fight it.
The Gypsies in Germany have been integrated for 600 to 700 years by now, even though some may have travelled still until recently permanently even. Some, however, have been integrated and integrating ever since those days.
Being integrated, however, often means that the Gypsy People lie about their ethnic affiliation because they think that they will be able to evade the deep set stigmatization. The same is also true in the United Kingdom as in other countries of western Europe, as well as the Americas and the Antipodeans. The evil spectre of anti-Gypsyism is everywhere, it seems.
The problem is that the pictures of anti-Gypsyism are still very much alive, even in our modern era, or suddenly more so even with Internet and all that, and the Gypsy is still being portrayed, as we know from the issues in Italy, as snatchers of children, as thieves, beggars and worse, and while we have our fair share or rogues and criminals – but which group has not – the majority of our People just want to be allowed to to live without being hounded from pillar to post.
All of this that forces the Romani people to live in anonymity even though they are involved in all aspects of life – everything from politics to sports.
It must be our goal to bring about a climate that they can talk about the minority they are a part of without fear of discrimination or reprisals in any way, shape or form. However, personally, I sometimes think that, as far as we, the Gypsy, are concerned, this will never be possible, regardless of what term we may ascribe to ourselves, whether Gypsy, Sinti, Roma, Romani, or Traveller. The non-Gypsy general public will continue to have the negative image of us, as a People, as a Race, as people of non-achievers, of thieves, beggars, and such like, unless we can present them, and our People, with positive images, such as the previous mentioned CID officer.
Anti-Gypsyism was not invcented by the German Nazis; it has always been part of the German and European psyche, it would seem. But while the Nazis did not invent anti-Gypsyism it, nonetheless, was what led to their program of annihilation of the Romani People.
Anti-Gypsyims must be fought against wherever it raises its head but that means that we must identify ourselves as Gypsy – something many will not be prepared to do.
It cannot be permitted any longer that ethnicity is mentioned as far as Gypsies are concerned whenever any kind of crime is being committed, as happened recently in Britain with the Johnson clan of burglars. The ethnicity as Gypsies was stressed again and again by the media and the police and courts. This is something that would never ever be permitted to be done in conjunction with Jews, Muslims or whatever other ethnicity. Gypsies, Romani, on the other hand, always seem to be fair game here.
Not so long ago we have had an incident where a car was stolen via a ruse of a test drive and the victim, the showroom owner, described the perpetrator as Gypsy “because he had a Gypsy accent”. Sorry, a what accent? There is no such thing as a Gypsy accent in the UK or elsewhere. We all here speak the different local dialect, or not, as the case may be. But none have a Gypsy accent as there is no such thing. However, both police and the media ran with that.
In Germany, as well as in the United States, police reports still routinely state “Gypsy” in the description in one way or the other and the police departments in many US states even issue warnings for people to beware of Gypsies in the neighborhood and such.
This in democratic countries where generalities based on ethnicity just cannot be permitted in democratic constitutional countries and states. It does, however, happen again and again, and even and especially from the side of the law and law enforcement agencies. The Interior Minister of the Third Reich, Frick, ordered that non-Aryans' race be emphasized in court sentencing and modern Germany and other countries should behave different but do they? The answer, in my experience to this is a firm NO.
Anti-Gypsyism in Europe and elsewhere is far more widespread than – despite the fact that we would have other deny this – anti-Semitism. When it comes to ant-Gypsyism a far more open form of rejection seems to be accepted and acceptable to most members of the general public. When it comes to anti-Semitism the consequences quickly become more serious, at least in countries such as Germany, and rightly so. But the Gypsy can be attacked, in all manner of forms, and persecuted and discriminated against and very few people as much as bat an eyelid.
Not so long ago discriminatory comments were made by the deputy director of the association of German detectives. In an association publication he said the Sinti and Roma felt they could "live off the fat of the affluent society" and took "persecution
during the Third Reich as legitimizing for theft and social parasitism."
While some politicians in Germany have distanced themselves from this statement, such as the premiers of Bavaria and Brandenburg, Beckstein and Platzeck, the prosecutors, however, saw it as covered by freedom of expression. Would they have been able to do that had the statement been about Jews? No, they would not. There is, in Germany, and elsewhere in the EU, one law that governs all others and there seems to be one law that governs the Gypsy and as far as that law is concerned the Gypsy remains “free as a bird” nigh on.
To this very day the attitudes of the German police of the Nazi era and before – let us face it that this did not just start at 1933 – prevail in the German police and the court system. Hardly surprising though considering that the majority that trained today's older police officers and judges were none others but those that served the Hitler dictatorship.
Everything just carried on after 1945 as it did before, at least as far as the Gypsy is concerned.
So, where does that leave us as far as the European Union and our status is concerned as a minority within the Union. It leaves us in the same position as before. Wait until they go the same way with the term “Roma” to which everyone wants us to subscribe, as they did with Gypsy in Britain. Then, suddenly, there is no more ethnic group, and in one foul swoop there is no more protection. Bingo!
Do I have a far too bleak vision of the future for the Romani-Gypsy People? I do not think so, I am afraid to say. I basically predicted that things were going the way the are going in Italy many years ago – only no one wanted to believe it then. Unless we stand up and be counted and let the world see that we are a Nation amongst nations and that we have more decent people amongst us than rogues, then, and only then, will we get somewhere.
I know that we may need unity for that but, and here comes the but, that unity cannot be under a name that not all can subscribe to, namely the term “Roma”. In addition to that the attitude of the Roma against those that are not Roma also would have to change first, the attitude that they will call an Sinto or Calo a Gadjo, a non-Gypsy.
While unity is, obviously, something that one needs to be really recognized as a People, this cannot be achieved in such a way. We cannot get anywhere under those conditions for, while some of the big chaps may be happy to play along, the majority of the grassroots would never stand for that, and rightly so.
So, how to we proceed?
In order to get unity of some sort it may be necessary to create a second pole. That is to say a body for all the non-Roma groups of Romani, a sort of Confederation, that then could, maybe, work, on an equal footing, with similar bodies of the Roma.
Dosta penaua!
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
In a recent interview with Deutsche Welle the head of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma said that not enough is being done to root out the causes of prejudice in Europe. He said that many Sinti and Roma integrate by denying their ethnicity.
The sad thing is that Brother Rose is so very right when he says that “many Sinti and Roma integrate by denying their ethnicity” this is not just thus in Germany. It is the same in other countries too, even those where, theoretically, according to common beliefs, your origin does not really matter.
The fact is that the majority of Romani People that integrate into the “host” society do so by denying and concealing their ethnicity. This is not just true for those that – for a lack of a better term - “deep integrate, e.g. those that end up in high positions in places of work, in politics, in the military and the police, and in show business and sports, but other do the same.
As soon as they live in a house and integrate in that way they begin got deny their ethnicity, and this is also true in the UK and elsewhere in the English-speaking world. Again and again I encounter members of the Romanichals in the UK and when, because of their names, for instance, the question is raised as to whether they are Gypsy, whether they are Rom, they will, invariably, reply “no, we are not Gypsy – our grandparents were but we are not – we live in a house”. Whether in this case it is full denial of ethnicity or just ignorance of the fact that Gypsies, that Rom, are an ethnic groups and Race is a different question.
In Germany amongst the Sinti (and Roma) we can also find that they deny to neighbors in the places where they live that they are Sinti (or Roma) and claim to be Italian, Greek, Spanish, Turkish, and such like, and they, for that very reason give they children Mediterranean-sounding names like Angelo, Antonio, Giovanni, and such like. As I keep saying, Mario Mettbach sounds real Italian or Spanish – NOT! This denial of ethnicity starts simply already when going for an apartment as, even in Germany, there is often the attitude and I know of several Sinti who have even been told this by the municipal housing authorities, “while we must house you we do not really want any Gypsies”. So, it is not really surprising that the denial takes place but... too many also seem to lack pride in their background and roots.
The concealment of ethnicity by so many Sinti and Roma who are integrating into society to some degree is also not surprising really as most non-Gypsies only have one image in mind when the word Gypsy is mentioned and that is begging children and pickpockets and such. There is no positive image of the Sinto and Rom in the mind of the non-Gypsies in the same way as the Sinti and Roma.
Instead of being held up as an example as someone who has achieved high position without denying his roots even, senior CID officer Guenther Weiss of CID Kehl/Rhein is being called an outcast because of his job.
Even the fact that this or that actor, artist, or sports personality, such as soccer player, is Gypsy is being played down or not even mentioned. Without positive models how can our (young) people have pride to go to achieve something.
In the interview Romani Rose said, and we quote here verbatim: “At the moment we are experiencing a frightening development. The most recent events in Italy make that clear. The measures taken by Berlusconi's administration in declaring a state of emergency and other steps are a clear breach of the EU Treaty. Sinti and Roma are EU citizens. The causes of the problems lie with municipal Italian government that allows slums to arise. When a few thousand people without any chance of improving their lot in life live on the edge of the city in indescribable conditions, it naturally worries the population. But latching on to the problem and using it in an election campaign as the Lega Nord did by using minorities to make the majority of people feel afraid -- that's something I hadn't thought could still be possible in Europe.
The Italian parliamentary president has made general, racist comments aimed at Sinti and Roma. That would be unimaginable in Germany. Discrimination and racism exist here too, but abusing the difficulties facing a minority to turn people's attention from other issues is something I think has been made impossible by 60 years of dealing with our history.”
I am afraid that Brother Rose lives in “cloud cuckoo land” if he believes that it could not happen in Germany what is happening in Italy. Far from it. We already have had the firebomb attacks of some years back for which, I believe, to this very day the perpetrators have to be brought to justice and rumor has it that the police knows very well who did it. Surprise? NO!
I am also in no way surprised that the fascists parties – and shame on the for Czechoslovakia for even permitting them – and shame also on Germany for allowing the likes of the NPD and the DVU and other neo-Nazi organizations – in the Czech Republic and elsewhere are calling for the rounding up and deportation of all Gypsies “back” to India.
Germany can just as quickly also become a dangerous place for Sinti and Roma as has Italy and other countries. To think otherwise is being complacent. We must be pre-armed as regards to this and be prepared to fight it.
The Gypsies in Germany have been integrated for 600 to 700 years by now, even though some may have travelled still until recently permanently even. Some, however, have been integrated and integrating ever since those days.
Being integrated, however, often means that the Gypsy People lie about their ethnic affiliation because they think that they will be able to evade the deep set stigmatization. The same is also true in the United Kingdom as in other countries of western Europe, as well as the Americas and the Antipodeans. The evil spectre of anti-Gypsyism is everywhere, it seems.
The problem is that the pictures of anti-Gypsyism are still very much alive, even in our modern era, or suddenly more so even with Internet and all that, and the Gypsy is still being portrayed, as we know from the issues in Italy, as snatchers of children, as thieves, beggars and worse, and while we have our fair share or rogues and criminals – but which group has not – the majority of our People just want to be allowed to to live without being hounded from pillar to post.
All of this that forces the Romani people to live in anonymity even though they are involved in all aspects of life – everything from politics to sports.
It must be our goal to bring about a climate that they can talk about the minority they are a part of without fear of discrimination or reprisals in any way, shape or form. However, personally, I sometimes think that, as far as we, the Gypsy, are concerned, this will never be possible, regardless of what term we may ascribe to ourselves, whether Gypsy, Sinti, Roma, Romani, or Traveller. The non-Gypsy general public will continue to have the negative image of us, as a People, as a Race, as people of non-achievers, of thieves, beggars, and such like, unless we can present them, and our People, with positive images, such as the previous mentioned CID officer.
Anti-Gypsyism was not invcented by the German Nazis; it has always been part of the German and European psyche, it would seem. But while the Nazis did not invent anti-Gypsyism it, nonetheless, was what led to their program of annihilation of the Romani People.
Anti-Gypsyims must be fought against wherever it raises its head but that means that we must identify ourselves as Gypsy – something many will not be prepared to do.
It cannot be permitted any longer that ethnicity is mentioned as far as Gypsies are concerned whenever any kind of crime is being committed, as happened recently in Britain with the Johnson clan of burglars. The ethnicity as Gypsies was stressed again and again by the media and the police and courts. This is something that would never ever be permitted to be done in conjunction with Jews, Muslims or whatever other ethnicity. Gypsies, Romani, on the other hand, always seem to be fair game here.
Not so long ago we have had an incident where a car was stolen via a ruse of a test drive and the victim, the showroom owner, described the perpetrator as Gypsy “because he had a Gypsy accent”. Sorry, a what accent? There is no such thing as a Gypsy accent in the UK or elsewhere. We all here speak the different local dialect, or not, as the case may be. But none have a Gypsy accent as there is no such thing. However, both police and the media ran with that.
In Germany, as well as in the United States, police reports still routinely state “Gypsy” in the description in one way or the other and the police departments in many US states even issue warnings for people to beware of Gypsies in the neighborhood and such.
This in democratic countries where generalities based on ethnicity just cannot be permitted in democratic constitutional countries and states. It does, however, happen again and again, and even and especially from the side of the law and law enforcement agencies. The Interior Minister of the Third Reich, Frick, ordered that non-Aryans' race be emphasized in court sentencing and modern Germany and other countries should behave different but do they? The answer, in my experience to this is a firm NO.
Anti-Gypsyism in Europe and elsewhere is far more widespread than – despite the fact that we would have other deny this – anti-Semitism. When it comes to ant-Gypsyism a far more open form of rejection seems to be accepted and acceptable to most members of the general public. When it comes to anti-Semitism the consequences quickly become more serious, at least in countries such as Germany, and rightly so. But the Gypsy can be attacked, in all manner of forms, and persecuted and discriminated against and very few people as much as bat an eyelid.
Not so long ago discriminatory comments were made by the deputy director of the association of German detectives. In an association publication he said the Sinti and Roma felt they could "live off the fat of the affluent society" and took "persecution
during the Third Reich as legitimizing for theft and social parasitism."
While some politicians in Germany have distanced themselves from this statement, such as the premiers of Bavaria and Brandenburg, Beckstein and Platzeck, the prosecutors, however, saw it as covered by freedom of expression. Would they have been able to do that had the statement been about Jews? No, they would not. There is, in Germany, and elsewhere in the EU, one law that governs all others and there seems to be one law that governs the Gypsy and as far as that law is concerned the Gypsy remains “free as a bird” nigh on.
To this very day the attitudes of the German police of the Nazi era and before – let us face it that this did not just start at 1933 – prevail in the German police and the court system. Hardly surprising though considering that the majority that trained today's older police officers and judges were none others but those that served the Hitler dictatorship.
Everything just carried on after 1945 as it did before, at least as far as the Gypsy is concerned.
So, where does that leave us as far as the European Union and our status is concerned as a minority within the Union. It leaves us in the same position as before. Wait until they go the same way with the term “Roma” to which everyone wants us to subscribe, as they did with Gypsy in Britain. Then, suddenly, there is no more ethnic group, and in one foul swoop there is no more protection. Bingo!
Do I have a far too bleak vision of the future for the Romani-Gypsy People? I do not think so, I am afraid to say. I basically predicted that things were going the way the are going in Italy many years ago – only no one wanted to believe it then. Unless we stand up and be counted and let the world see that we are a Nation amongst nations and that we have more decent people amongst us than rogues, then, and only then, will we get somewhere.
I know that we may need unity for that but, and here comes the but, that unity cannot be under a name that not all can subscribe to, namely the term “Roma”. In addition to that the attitude of the Roma against those that are not Roma also would have to change first, the attitude that they will call an Sinto or Calo a Gadjo, a non-Gypsy.
While unity is, obviously, something that one needs to be really recognized as a People, this cannot be achieved in such a way. We cannot get anywhere under those conditions for, while some of the big chaps may be happy to play along, the majority of the grassroots would never stand for that, and rightly so.
So, how to we proceed?
In order to get unity of some sort it may be necessary to create a second pole. That is to say a body for all the non-Roma groups of Romani, a sort of Confederation, that then could, maybe, work, on an equal footing, with similar bodies of the Roma.
Dosta penaua!
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Pretenders
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
No, this time I am not talking about those that pretend to be Romani, who pretend to be Gypsy, often with the stupid idea that they have been Gypsies in a previous life, or that they are a free spirit, or simply for wanting to play Gypsy on Renaissance Fairs. Nor am I talking about those that want to be Romani for some other strange reason.
What I am talking about this time is those Romani of different groups than Roma pretending to be Roma, describing themselves as Roma, and such like for a place amongst those Gypsies that are always touted by the experts as the be all and end all of all Gypsies.
Why do Romanichals want to be Roma?
We have this phenomenon with educated Romani academics who have their origin amongst the Romanichals of Britain and more so even amongst the ordinary ones.
The obvious reason for so many ordinary Romanichals having begun, in some places, to call themselves “Roma” is due to the “work” of some of those academics, and other who appear to be educated way beyond their capacity and capability, who pedal the notion that all Romani groups are but tribes and subgroups of the Roma.
The truth is that while all Roma are Romani not all Romani are Roma and I, for one, would rather be called a Gypsy in English or a Zigeuner, Tsigan, Gitan, etc. in other vernacular languages than to be regarded as a member of the Roma.
As far as I have learned from many Rom of different groups, that is to say those from the Romanichals, from the Manush, the Sinti per se, and also those that are not Roma from Eastern Europe, they too would rather be called anything but Roma. While many of the Sinti in Germany, for instance, do not want to be called Zigeuner, again because some people have made this word, falsely, into a “bad word”, but they do not want to be called Roma. Others in other countries are quite happily using the vernacular equivalents to the English “Gypsy” rather than Roma, but those with what appears to be a hidden agenda keep pedalling the false notion, that all Romani are Roma. Dordi!
If one could now but put the finger on the reason as to why this notion is being continued to be pedalled in this way we might be a lot wiser as to this and one could then educate the People and the world at large in a much better way. Alas, however, those pedalling those lies are hardly going to tell us why they do so.
All that can be said is that while those claim different the truth is that while all Roma are Romani not all Romani are Roma. Period! Dosta!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
No, this time I am not talking about those that pretend to be Romani, who pretend to be Gypsy, often with the stupid idea that they have been Gypsies in a previous life, or that they are a free spirit, or simply for wanting to play Gypsy on Renaissance Fairs. Nor am I talking about those that want to be Romani for some other strange reason.
What I am talking about this time is those Romani of different groups than Roma pretending to be Roma, describing themselves as Roma, and such like for a place amongst those Gypsies that are always touted by the experts as the be all and end all of all Gypsies.
Why do Romanichals want to be Roma?
We have this phenomenon with educated Romani academics who have their origin amongst the Romanichals of Britain and more so even amongst the ordinary ones.
The obvious reason for so many ordinary Romanichals having begun, in some places, to call themselves “Roma” is due to the “work” of some of those academics, and other who appear to be educated way beyond their capacity and capability, who pedal the notion that all Romani groups are but tribes and subgroups of the Roma.
The truth is that while all Roma are Romani not all Romani are Roma and I, for one, would rather be called a Gypsy in English or a Zigeuner, Tsigan, Gitan, etc. in other vernacular languages than to be regarded as a member of the Roma.
As far as I have learned from many Rom of different groups, that is to say those from the Romanichals, from the Manush, the Sinti per se, and also those that are not Roma from Eastern Europe, they too would rather be called anything but Roma. While many of the Sinti in Germany, for instance, do not want to be called Zigeuner, again because some people have made this word, falsely, into a “bad word”, but they do not want to be called Roma. Others in other countries are quite happily using the vernacular equivalents to the English “Gypsy” rather than Roma, but those with what appears to be a hidden agenda keep pedalling the false notion, that all Romani are Roma. Dordi!
If one could now but put the finger on the reason as to why this notion is being continued to be pedalled in this way we might be a lot wiser as to this and one could then educate the People and the world at large in a much better way. Alas, however, those pedalling those lies are hardly going to tell us why they do so.
All that can be said is that while those claim different the truth is that while all Roma are Romani not all Romani are Roma. Period! Dosta!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Towards a European Social Agenda also for Roma
Statement of the European Roma Information Office (ERIO)
The European Roma Information Office (ERIO) welcomes the “renewed” Social Agenda launched by the European Commission on July 2nd 2008, which aims at addressing the challenges of socioeconomic changes taking place in Europe. The fact that over 78 million people are living in poverty in Europe proves the urgent need of re-shaping and implementing more effective policies and legislation for eliminating social exclusion and poverty. Since its establishment, ERIO has been calling upon European institutions and national governments to undertake urgent measures to fight social exclusion faced by Roma. Here, it should be stressed a wide range of studies give account that social exclusion and poverty among Roma is much higher than within the majority society.
Nevertheless, the priorities set up in the “renewed” Social Agenda are drafted in the assumption that Europeans and people residing in Europe, are living in a society of full employment. Constraints of the globalised free markets, which lead to systemic unemployment and the social consequences of this, are not taken into consideration. Those key areas are not oriented to address the needs of people systematically excluded from the labour markets and from accessing social benefits. Furthermore, children do not belong to the labour market and can not be targeted through such policies. The needs of disadvantaged ethnic minorities, as Roma, people living in poverty and especially those living in extreme poverty, are not addressed by the Social Agenda. There is no focus on how these people can access adequate employment, self-employment and social benefits and services which come easily to others.
The European Roma Information Office believes that the new Agenda for a social Europe should be based on a human rights approach, specifically on promoting the societal framework conditions for the full exercising of socio-economic rights by all people living in Europe. The social meaning of the original Lisbon Treaty should be re-affirmed in the renewed Social Agenda.
Read more here
ERIO has also developed a Fact Sheet on the renewed Social Agenda to raise awareness among Roma communities on EU developments in the social policy field. ERIO calls upon Roma and Roma rights organisations to advocate for the implementation and improvement of the renewed Social Agenda at national level.
FACT SHEET on The Renewed European Social Agenda
Source: ERIO
<>
The European Roma Information Office (ERIO) welcomes the “renewed” Social Agenda launched by the European Commission on July 2nd 2008, which aims at addressing the challenges of socioeconomic changes taking place in Europe. The fact that over 78 million people are living in poverty in Europe proves the urgent need of re-shaping and implementing more effective policies and legislation for eliminating social exclusion and poverty. Since its establishment, ERIO has been calling upon European institutions and national governments to undertake urgent measures to fight social exclusion faced by Roma. Here, it should be stressed a wide range of studies give account that social exclusion and poverty among Roma is much higher than within the majority society.
Nevertheless, the priorities set up in the “renewed” Social Agenda are drafted in the assumption that Europeans and people residing in Europe, are living in a society of full employment. Constraints of the globalised free markets, which lead to systemic unemployment and the social consequences of this, are not taken into consideration. Those key areas are not oriented to address the needs of people systematically excluded from the labour markets and from accessing social benefits. Furthermore, children do not belong to the labour market and can not be targeted through such policies. The needs of disadvantaged ethnic minorities, as Roma, people living in poverty and especially those living in extreme poverty, are not addressed by the Social Agenda. There is no focus on how these people can access adequate employment, self-employment and social benefits and services which come easily to others.
The European Roma Information Office believes that the new Agenda for a social Europe should be based on a human rights approach, specifically on promoting the societal framework conditions for the full exercising of socio-economic rights by all people living in Europe. The social meaning of the original Lisbon Treaty should be re-affirmed in the renewed Social Agenda.
Read more here
ERIO has also developed a Fact Sheet on the renewed Social Agenda to raise awareness among Roma communities on EU developments in the social policy field. ERIO calls upon Roma and Roma rights organisations to advocate for the implementation and improvement of the renewed Social Agenda at national level.
FACT SHEET on The Renewed European Social Agenda
Source: ERIO
<>
Europe 2008 – A Rerun of Europe 1938!?!
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
If some Gypsy who was alive in the 1930s would happen to return to the Europe of 2008 I am sure he would be forgiven to believe he is still in 1938 with the exception that we now have computers and such.
Xenophobia and especially Anti-Gypsy-ism is now higher than it has ever been since World War II, it would appear, and as far as the Gypsy is concerned it is business as then, nigh enough.
Nowadays the problem is that with all the electronic IT infrastructure, biometrics and all that, and ID cards that can be tracked – where they are in use already – that our People have even less a chance.
The collaborators are also still the same, as we can see in the Italy of Il Duce 2, e.g. Silvio Berlusconi, such as the Red Cross.
Aside from Italy we now have a right-wing political party in the Czech Republic calling for all Gypsies in that country to be rounded up and expelled “back to” India.
What is the European Union doing? Nothing, for this is all, as far as I can see it, an overture for more to come by the European Union member states and the European Union proper as and when they get their will of becoming a “proper” federal union. The issue with making all Gypsy People and also non-Gypsy Travellers into Roma, in the same way as the term Gypsy has been abused and doctored in the United Kingdom where the ethnic status is being removed from those Romani that are sedentary now on government or private caravan site and in houses while those, of all backgrounds, that travel about at all times and call themselves Travellers, whether Irish, English, Scots, and even New Age Travellers, are termed as ethnic Gypsy. As, on the other hand, the travelling by caravan and the living along the site of the roads and such is, basically, a felony now in British laws and illegal those too will, sooner or later be forced to settle down. And, when there are no travelling “Gypsies” anymore then you no longer have an ethnic Gypsies – in law – and therefore no Rom who is being persecuted for Race can call upon racial protection. This is ethnic cleansing by another way and name.
How long until the selfsame calls that are now being heard in Czechoslovakia and Hungary for the Gypsy to be “sent back” to India will be heard in other European countries, especially of those in the European Union?
It seems that the emerging countries of the East, those who are just about coming out of the era of communism and communist dictatorship have the greatest of problems as regards to tolerance towards the Rom, and this problem seems to be greatest in the countries such as the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Romani and Bulgaria.
In addition to that, obviously, we already have the call and actions in fascist Italy of Silvio Berlusconi where currently a census is being taken of all Gypsy and all possible data, much like in the days of Hitler in Germany, are being taken.
It would appear that, despite the international calls, and how serious are they really, the trouble for the Rom is not over in Italy as yet. Rumors have it that a register of all Gypsies living in all camps is going to be taken and I am certain that that will include the Sinti then in addition to the Roma.
The plan is also, to it have been said, to level the majority of all the (illegal) Roma camps in and around the major cities.
Welcome to the Third Reich ala EU.
The question for us as the Romani People, the Gypsy, on not just an Italian or European Union level, is what are we going to do? Anti-Defamation organizations and such like will hardly help here and neither will letter writing and complaints to the Italian and other embassies or the European Union HQ.
Hence the question... so kerena? Too many sit there thinking that it is not going to affect them and their families, ever. And I am not just speaking here about those that may sit in safety of the USA, Canada or Australia. There are those in EU countries that are not part of mainland Europe of the Gypsy People that have the attitude that nothing can happen to them so they could care little. Some do care, I know. Too many, however, just say that it can never happen here so why worry and others even say that as they are born-again Christians and that Jesus will not allow that to happen to them and if al the Rom in those countries would but become Christians then they too would all be safe. I rest my case.
Again... so kerena?
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
If some Gypsy who was alive in the 1930s would happen to return to the Europe of 2008 I am sure he would be forgiven to believe he is still in 1938 with the exception that we now have computers and such.
Xenophobia and especially Anti-Gypsy-ism is now higher than it has ever been since World War II, it would appear, and as far as the Gypsy is concerned it is business as then, nigh enough.
Nowadays the problem is that with all the electronic IT infrastructure, biometrics and all that, and ID cards that can be tracked – where they are in use already – that our People have even less a chance.
The collaborators are also still the same, as we can see in the Italy of Il Duce 2, e.g. Silvio Berlusconi, such as the Red Cross.
Aside from Italy we now have a right-wing political party in the Czech Republic calling for all Gypsies in that country to be rounded up and expelled “back to” India.
What is the European Union doing? Nothing, for this is all, as far as I can see it, an overture for more to come by the European Union member states and the European Union proper as and when they get their will of becoming a “proper” federal union. The issue with making all Gypsy People and also non-Gypsy Travellers into Roma, in the same way as the term Gypsy has been abused and doctored in the United Kingdom where the ethnic status is being removed from those Romani that are sedentary now on government or private caravan site and in houses while those, of all backgrounds, that travel about at all times and call themselves Travellers, whether Irish, English, Scots, and even New Age Travellers, are termed as ethnic Gypsy. As, on the other hand, the travelling by caravan and the living along the site of the roads and such is, basically, a felony now in British laws and illegal those too will, sooner or later be forced to settle down. And, when there are no travelling “Gypsies” anymore then you no longer have an ethnic Gypsies – in law – and therefore no Rom who is being persecuted for Race can call upon racial protection. This is ethnic cleansing by another way and name.
How long until the selfsame calls that are now being heard in Czechoslovakia and Hungary for the Gypsy to be “sent back” to India will be heard in other European countries, especially of those in the European Union?
It seems that the emerging countries of the East, those who are just about coming out of the era of communism and communist dictatorship have the greatest of problems as regards to tolerance towards the Rom, and this problem seems to be greatest in the countries such as the Czech and Slovak Republics, Hungary, Romani and Bulgaria.
In addition to that, obviously, we already have the call and actions in fascist Italy of Silvio Berlusconi where currently a census is being taken of all Gypsy and all possible data, much like in the days of Hitler in Germany, are being taken.
It would appear that, despite the international calls, and how serious are they really, the trouble for the Rom is not over in Italy as yet. Rumors have it that a register of all Gypsies living in all camps is going to be taken and I am certain that that will include the Sinti then in addition to the Roma.
The plan is also, to it have been said, to level the majority of all the (illegal) Roma camps in and around the major cities.
Welcome to the Third Reich ala EU.
The question for us as the Romani People, the Gypsy, on not just an Italian or European Union level, is what are we going to do? Anti-Defamation organizations and such like will hardly help here and neither will letter writing and complaints to the Italian and other embassies or the European Union HQ.
Hence the question... so kerena? Too many sit there thinking that it is not going to affect them and their families, ever. And I am not just speaking here about those that may sit in safety of the USA, Canada or Australia. There are those in EU countries that are not part of mainland Europe of the Gypsy People that have the attitude that nothing can happen to them so they could care little. Some do care, I know. Too many, however, just say that it can never happen here so why worry and others even say that as they are born-again Christians and that Jesus will not allow that to happen to them and if al the Rom in those countries would but become Christians then they too would all be safe. I rest my case.
Again... so kerena?
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Euro MP of Roma origin basically OKs Italy's fingerprinting of Gypsies
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The Hungarian MEP of Roma origin, always acclaimed to be the “first” Gypsy MEP (which she is not), Livia Jaroka, basically OKed the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy.
She said that this was being done with good intentions and that the fingerprinting will help Roma integration.
Now what can one say to that bar that with such people of our own in politics the Romani People do not stand a chance. Former MEP, to whom the honor falls of having been the first Romani MEP, Juan de Dios Ramirez Heredia of Spain, who is still a member of the Cortez, I understand, publicly condemned the actions of the Italian government as fascist and racist. What is it, though, with this woman?
Has she never spoken with those of our People who lived through the Holocaust or has she never read any of the accounts of those who have experienced the nazi persecution of the Gypsy? Apparently not. It was the same actions were the overture to that which in the end led to the murder of half a million to a million and a half of Gypsies in Europe.
But Blood alone, and this proves it once again, does not a Gypsy make. Being raised in the Culture and Traditions probably counts a lot more even. The proof of this is those adopted children that were and are not Gypsy by Blood and Race but but by having been adopted and raised as Rom by Rom are probably more tatcho than some that may be Rom by Blood but that being all.
While I do not know Livia Jaroka nor her upbringing she does seem to lack the feeling for all Gypsy People though, judging by her statements that have been treported in the press and elsewhere.
Maybe the fact that Livia Jaroka herself is a member of the center-right group has something to do with her take on the fascist regime of Silvio Berlusconi doing this fingerprinting and data collection for the benefit of the Roma.
Anyone got an alarm clock for this lady? She needs a wake up call for sure.
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
The Hungarian MEP of Roma origin, always acclaimed to be the “first” Gypsy MEP (which she is not), Livia Jaroka, basically OKed the fingerprinting of Gypsies in Italy.
She said that this was being done with good intentions and that the fingerprinting will help Roma integration.
Now what can one say to that bar that with such people of our own in politics the Romani People do not stand a chance. Former MEP, to whom the honor falls of having been the first Romani MEP, Juan de Dios Ramirez Heredia of Spain, who is still a member of the Cortez, I understand, publicly condemned the actions of the Italian government as fascist and racist. What is it, though, with this woman?
Has she never spoken with those of our People who lived through the Holocaust or has she never read any of the accounts of those who have experienced the nazi persecution of the Gypsy? Apparently not. It was the same actions were the overture to that which in the end led to the murder of half a million to a million and a half of Gypsies in Europe.
But Blood alone, and this proves it once again, does not a Gypsy make. Being raised in the Culture and Traditions probably counts a lot more even. The proof of this is those adopted children that were and are not Gypsy by Blood and Race but but by having been adopted and raised as Rom by Rom are probably more tatcho than some that may be Rom by Blood but that being all.
While I do not know Livia Jaroka nor her upbringing she does seem to lack the feeling for all Gypsy People though, judging by her statements that have been treported in the press and elsewhere.
Maybe the fact that Livia Jaroka herself is a member of the center-right group has something to do with her take on the fascist regime of Silvio Berlusconi doing this fingerprinting and data collection for the benefit of the Roma.
Anyone got an alarm clock for this lady? She needs a wake up call for sure.
© M Smith (Veshengro), August 2008
<>
Immigration policy must be based on human rights principles and not only on perceived security concerns
Press release - 558(2008)
Italy: "Immigration policy must be based on human rights principles and not only on perceived security concerns", says Commissioner Hammarberg presenting a special report
Strasbourg, 29.07.2008 - "Concern about security cannot be the only basis for immigration policy. Measures now being taken in Italy lack human rights and humanitarian principles and may spur further xenopohobia,". With these words, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, published a report based on his special visit to Rome 19 and 20 June. The visit took place following a series of anti-Roma and anti-Sinti protests, which were occasionally very violent, and the rapid adoption or preparation of legislation, which notably aimed to introduce further controls of the freedom of movement of Roma and Sinti, the criminalisation of irregular immigration and additional restrictions on immigration.
The Commissioner voiced strong concern at the "security package" that appears to target Roma immigrants, and at the declaration of states of emergency in three Italian regions. "Roma and Sinti are in urgent need of effective protection of their human rights, including their social rights, such as the right to adequate housing and to education" he said. "Adopting the state of emergency and providing greater powers to the "Special Commissioners" and the police is not the right approach to deal with the needs of Roma and Sinti populations." In forwarding his Memorandum today, the Commissioner expressed his serious concern at the expected extension of the state of emergency to the whole territory.
Mr Hammarberg also criticised the decision to criminalise migrants' entry and irregular stay. He sees this as a worrying departure from established international law principles. "These measures may make it more difficult for refugees to ask for asylum and is likely to result in a further social stigmatisation and marginalisation of all migrants - including Roma," he said.
Commissioner Hammarberg also noted with grave concern that Italy had forcibly returned migrants to certain countries with proven records of torture. Referring in particular to the case of a Tunisian citizen expelled by order of the Minister of Interior, under the law on emergency measures to combat terrorism, Mr Hammarberg again opposed such decisions taken on the basis of diplomatic assurances. He also recalled that when individuals facing deportation have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, states must comply with any request by the Court to suspend deportation pending its examination of the case "The right of individual application is a cornerstone of the European system of human rights protection." he said.
Finally, the Commissioner urged the Italian authorities to proceed promptly to the establishment of an effective national human rights institution, in order to reinforce the system of protection in the country.
The report has been submitted in draft form to the Italian government which in turn responded with comments. The full reply from the government is appended to the final version of the Commissioner's report. It is available on the Commissioner's website.
<>
Italy: "Immigration policy must be based on human rights principles and not only on perceived security concerns", says Commissioner Hammarberg presenting a special report
Strasbourg, 29.07.2008 - "Concern about security cannot be the only basis for immigration policy. Measures now being taken in Italy lack human rights and humanitarian principles and may spur further xenopohobia,". With these words, the Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg, published a report based on his special visit to Rome 19 and 20 June. The visit took place following a series of anti-Roma and anti-Sinti protests, which were occasionally very violent, and the rapid adoption or preparation of legislation, which notably aimed to introduce further controls of the freedom of movement of Roma and Sinti, the criminalisation of irregular immigration and additional restrictions on immigration.
The Commissioner voiced strong concern at the "security package" that appears to target Roma immigrants, and at the declaration of states of emergency in three Italian regions. "Roma and Sinti are in urgent need of effective protection of their human rights, including their social rights, such as the right to adequate housing and to education" he said. "Adopting the state of emergency and providing greater powers to the "Special Commissioners" and the police is not the right approach to deal with the needs of Roma and Sinti populations." In forwarding his Memorandum today, the Commissioner expressed his serious concern at the expected extension of the state of emergency to the whole territory.
Mr Hammarberg also criticised the decision to criminalise migrants' entry and irregular stay. He sees this as a worrying departure from established international law principles. "These measures may make it more difficult for refugees to ask for asylum and is likely to result in a further social stigmatisation and marginalisation of all migrants - including Roma," he said.
Commissioner Hammarberg also noted with grave concern that Italy had forcibly returned migrants to certain countries with proven records of torture. Referring in particular to the case of a Tunisian citizen expelled by order of the Minister of Interior, under the law on emergency measures to combat terrorism, Mr Hammarberg again opposed such decisions taken on the basis of diplomatic assurances. He also recalled that when individuals facing deportation have applied to the European Court of Human Rights, states must comply with any request by the Court to suspend deportation pending its examination of the case "The right of individual application is a cornerstone of the European system of human rights protection." he said.
Finally, the Commissioner urged the Italian authorities to proceed promptly to the establishment of an effective national human rights institution, in order to reinforce the system of protection in the country.
The report has been submitted in draft form to the Italian government which in turn responded with comments. The full reply from the government is appended to the final version of the Commissioner's report. It is available on the Commissioner's website.
<>
Fingerprinting of Gypsies legal and not racist, says Italian government
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The Italian government, despite mounting “pressure”, on an international level, has declared that the fingerprinting of all Roma and Sinti in the various camps in Italy is not racist and the it is well within the law.
Whatever the world opinion may be, as far as Italy and the Berlusconi regime are concerned they do no wrong.
What we must consider here is that, in all honesty, under the Italian laws it appears to be not illegal, nor racist, now, to do his fingerprinting of all Gypsies, as Italy's highest court has, on Berlusconi's behest, declared that all Roma and Sinti to be criminal elements, regardless of age, and has nigh on declared them “outlaws”, much as the German term of “vogelfrei”.
The Berlusconi government invokes that court decision and refers to it and stands by it, no matter what.
The Italian Red Cross continues with its cooperation in this fingerprinting and data collection exercise. Much akin to the actions of the German Red Cross in the time of the Third Reich.
The entire affair smacks so much of what the Nazis did to the German Gypsies, and those in the occupied territories, that it is extremely worrying, in such a way in that I, as a Veshtike Rom of whose family many members have been murdered in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, for no other reason than that of Race, of being Gypsy, am very concerned as to our People in the EU.
Are we headed in the same direction, yet again, in today's Europe, especially the Europe under the European Union “control”? It would appear to be so and no one really is going to do anything about it – so, at least it would appear – and this simply, as far as I see it, because it is “just” Gypsies that are the victims here. Were it Jews or Moslems I am certain things would have been done a long time ago.
Alas, we know anyway, we are but dirty Gyppos and according to the Italians (and other countries in the EU?) we are nothing but criminal elements, including the children, in the same way as our People were regarded by the fascist Germany. Obviously nothing has changed.
It is time that the Romani People worldwide realized that the Gadje bodies, in the main, are going to do nothing whatsoever that will really benefit us, as individuals and especially as a People, as a Nation. All they do is what will benefit them in controlling us. Time, and I know I keep saying this, that we did things for ourselves. Ourselves Alone!
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro)
<>
The Italian government, despite mounting “pressure”, on an international level, has declared that the fingerprinting of all Roma and Sinti in the various camps in Italy is not racist and the it is well within the law.
Whatever the world opinion may be, as far as Italy and the Berlusconi regime are concerned they do no wrong.
What we must consider here is that, in all honesty, under the Italian laws it appears to be not illegal, nor racist, now, to do his fingerprinting of all Gypsies, as Italy's highest court has, on Berlusconi's behest, declared that all Roma and Sinti to be criminal elements, regardless of age, and has nigh on declared them “outlaws”, much as the German term of “vogelfrei”.
The Berlusconi government invokes that court decision and refers to it and stands by it, no matter what.
The Italian Red Cross continues with its cooperation in this fingerprinting and data collection exercise. Much akin to the actions of the German Red Cross in the time of the Third Reich.
The entire affair smacks so much of what the Nazis did to the German Gypsies, and those in the occupied territories, that it is extremely worrying, in such a way in that I, as a Veshtike Rom of whose family many members have been murdered in Auschwitz and other extermination camps, for no other reason than that of Race, of being Gypsy, am very concerned as to our People in the EU.
Are we headed in the same direction, yet again, in today's Europe, especially the Europe under the European Union “control”? It would appear to be so and no one really is going to do anything about it – so, at least it would appear – and this simply, as far as I see it, because it is “just” Gypsies that are the victims here. Were it Jews or Moslems I am certain things would have been done a long time ago.
Alas, we know anyway, we are but dirty Gyppos and according to the Italians (and other countries in the EU?) we are nothing but criminal elements, including the children, in the same way as our People were regarded by the fascist Germany. Obviously nothing has changed.
It is time that the Romani People worldwide realized that the Gadje bodies, in the main, are going to do nothing whatsoever that will really benefit us, as individuals and especially as a People, as a Nation. All they do is what will benefit them in controlling us. Time, and I know I keep saying this, that we did things for ourselves. Ourselves Alone!
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro)
<>
We have come out on behalf of the wrong side
When the forces of the United Nations and the European Union/NATO arrived in Kosovo as “peacekeepers” the leading officer, a Brit, remarked something like “Oh my God! We have come out on behalf of the wrong side”. He had realized that the world had been lied to by the Kosovo Albanians.
There was no ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Kosovo Albanians, against the Muslim population of Kosovo, from the side of the Serbs. On the contrary. The shoes, in fact, was on the other foot. It was the “ethnic” Albanians of Kosovo that were doing the ethnic cleansing against Gypsies and also against the Serbs. Their aims was – and still is – a Kosovo for Albanians and in due course the aim is to incorporate Kosovo into a “Greater” Albania. A dream for the Albanians in Kosovo as well as the Albanians of Albania, this “Greater” Albania.
The Kosovar Albanians' aim was to get all Gypsies and Serbs out of “their” Kosovo and then the Serbs were having none of it and retaliated, with arms, against the armed aggression, the Kosovar Albanians of the Muslim faith called “foul” and called onto the world for help, claiming to be the victims of ethnic cleansing.
Though nothing could have been further from the truth the world, at large, bought into that lie and sent out forces against the Serbs in Kosovo.
The ones that suffered most in this ethnic cleansing from the sides of the Albanian Kosovars are the ethnic Gypsy, whether Roma, Egyptians, or Ashkali. They were driven out from their Mahalas and are still in IDP camps.
Those camps, run by UNMIK, are contaminated with lead to such a degree that children and also adults are dying from the effects of lead poisoning or are becoming severely brain damaged. UNMIK is well aware of this bu will not resettle those Gypsies.
All UNMIK is prepared to do is to send the Gypsies back to their old Mahalas – that are still in the hands of the Albanians – and as soon as they return there they are beaten up and shot at again.
What is the United Nations' game as far as the Romani People of Kosovo are concerned? And I am talking here about the initial backing for the Kosovar Albanians as well as the treatment of the Gypsy People in the IDP camps inside Kosovo, as well as the fact that only due to UNMIK's insistence that Kosovo is not dangerous for the Gypsies that none of those have been accepted as official refugees with a right to remain in any of the countries they fled to; those that did not end up in the camps.
The commander of the peacekeepers at his very arrival in Kosovo realized that they had come out to support the wrong side but why is no one doing anything about it?
Why? Because those really only affected, aside from the Serbs, that everyone is trying to hit on the head as well, it would appear, ever since the incidents in Bosnia, are the Roma, Egyptians and Ashkali, that is to say, the “dirty Gyppos”.
The UN is, in fact, aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing of the Gypsy People from Kosovo and their own settlements within that country. What is the agenda?
Food for thought...
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
There was no ethnic cleansing perpetrated against Kosovo Albanians, against the Muslim population of Kosovo, from the side of the Serbs. On the contrary. The shoes, in fact, was on the other foot. It was the “ethnic” Albanians of Kosovo that were doing the ethnic cleansing against Gypsies and also against the Serbs. Their aims was – and still is – a Kosovo for Albanians and in due course the aim is to incorporate Kosovo into a “Greater” Albania. A dream for the Albanians in Kosovo as well as the Albanians of Albania, this “Greater” Albania.
The Kosovar Albanians' aim was to get all Gypsies and Serbs out of “their” Kosovo and then the Serbs were having none of it and retaliated, with arms, against the armed aggression, the Kosovar Albanians of the Muslim faith called “foul” and called onto the world for help, claiming to be the victims of ethnic cleansing.
Though nothing could have been further from the truth the world, at large, bought into that lie and sent out forces against the Serbs in Kosovo.
The ones that suffered most in this ethnic cleansing from the sides of the Albanian Kosovars are the ethnic Gypsy, whether Roma, Egyptians, or Ashkali. They were driven out from their Mahalas and are still in IDP camps.
Those camps, run by UNMIK, are contaminated with lead to such a degree that children and also adults are dying from the effects of lead poisoning or are becoming severely brain damaged. UNMIK is well aware of this bu will not resettle those Gypsies.
All UNMIK is prepared to do is to send the Gypsies back to their old Mahalas – that are still in the hands of the Albanians – and as soon as they return there they are beaten up and shot at again.
What is the United Nations' game as far as the Romani People of Kosovo are concerned? And I am talking here about the initial backing for the Kosovar Albanians as well as the treatment of the Gypsy People in the IDP camps inside Kosovo, as well as the fact that only due to UNMIK's insistence that Kosovo is not dangerous for the Gypsies that none of those have been accepted as official refugees with a right to remain in any of the countries they fled to; those that did not end up in the camps.
The commander of the peacekeepers at his very arrival in Kosovo realized that they had come out to support the wrong side but why is no one doing anything about it?
Why? Because those really only affected, aside from the Serbs, that everyone is trying to hit on the head as well, it would appear, ever since the incidents in Bosnia, are the Roma, Egyptians and Ashkali, that is to say, the “dirty Gyppos”.
The UN is, in fact, aiding and abetting ethnic cleansing of the Gypsy People from Kosovo and their own settlements within that country. What is the agenda?
Food for thought...
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
Gypsy Nation, Arise!
by Micheal Smith (Veshengro)
Arise from the low status where you are being kept by the Gadje but also by exploiters within our own ranks and by laziness, as in the case of some, and made-up laws, as is the case with other.
“Yes! We Can!” shall and must be our slogan and our watchword
“Ava! Ame Shai!” Let nothing prevent us from achieving full potential as a Nation, as a People, as families and as individuals.
Far too many, not to say the great majority, of Amare have the “No Can Do” attitude and sometimes it would seem as if it be actually a “Don't Want To Do” attitude.
Others seem to make it their life's work to work the welfare system wherever it can be done. If they would but expend that time, energy and skills on “proper” work they'd really be able to liberate themselves and would not need state assistance; crumbs, like an Uncle Tom, from the White slave master's table.
So many also work the system while doing their own “self-employed” work of whatever kind. They steal from others doing than and it is not only Gadje they steal from but also from those of the People that do work within the system and pay their way.
We must have a new approach to living in this world and while we may want to be apart – something that I completely am in agreement with – we also have to follow the laws of the countries that we live in and if that means paying taxes then so be it. No one likes paying taxes, neither the Rom nor the Gadje but... the accusation from the Gadje to the Rom is always that we, the Rom, steal from the system and that we do not pay taxes – even if we do. We must not give them more ammunition still.
Back to the attitude and to liberation.
Ava! Ame Shai! We can do it. We can help ourselves. We can have our own co-operatives and our own livelihood projects, our own schools and homeschool circles, to raise ourselves up.
But this will only ever work if our People change their attitude. The attitude of “the world owes us a living”, as well as that of “no can do”.
I see too many of ours, especially those in the former Irin Curtain countries, but not only there, where the men sit around all day drinking, smoking and playing cards, while the women and children are sent out begging or stealing or scavenging on the refuse tips. This cannot and must not continue.
Also, the settlements must be cleaned up and made respectable, this also applies to the railer sites in Britain and the USA, even to the official government operated ones in the UK, if we want to be able to advance ourselves. Always there is the talk about how great our laws are as to cleanliness, which they indeed are, but should they not also translate at least to some degree to our immediate surroundings outside out kenna or trailer. A little garden, even in containers, can go a long way, also on government sites.
But, then again, it would appear that the majority do not want to do anything else really – despite the stories the tell the media – and do not want to better themselves. All they seem to want is to be idle and have the welfare state take care of them. Some are so lazy – yes, lazy – that they have leaky roofs at the houses with water coming through everywhere but they cannot, possibly, get up onto that roof and fix it. They wait for some Charity to come along and fix their roofs, their guttering, their drainage, and everything else. Self reliance; what is that? That at least seems to be their attitude.
This attitude is not only found, I would hasten to add, amongst the Roma in the East. Nay, such laziness and dirtiness can also be found, and here I feel physically sick for I have seen some of it, amongst the Sinti and the Romanichals, the latter here in the UK as well as, and especially, in the USA.
We can do it. Honestly, we can. All we need to have is the will and the wish to do it. The wish, the desire and the will to help ourselves and the will to raise ourselves up, as individuals and also and especially as a People.
Dosta penauas!
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
Arise from the low status where you are being kept by the Gadje but also by exploiters within our own ranks and by laziness, as in the case of some, and made-up laws, as is the case with other.
“Yes! We Can!” shall and must be our slogan and our watchword
“Ava! Ame Shai!” Let nothing prevent us from achieving full potential as a Nation, as a People, as families and as individuals.
Far too many, not to say the great majority, of Amare have the “No Can Do” attitude and sometimes it would seem as if it be actually a “Don't Want To Do” attitude.
Others seem to make it their life's work to work the welfare system wherever it can be done. If they would but expend that time, energy and skills on “proper” work they'd really be able to liberate themselves and would not need state assistance; crumbs, like an Uncle Tom, from the White slave master's table.
So many also work the system while doing their own “self-employed” work of whatever kind. They steal from others doing than and it is not only Gadje they steal from but also from those of the People that do work within the system and pay their way.
We must have a new approach to living in this world and while we may want to be apart – something that I completely am in agreement with – we also have to follow the laws of the countries that we live in and if that means paying taxes then so be it. No one likes paying taxes, neither the Rom nor the Gadje but... the accusation from the Gadje to the Rom is always that we, the Rom, steal from the system and that we do not pay taxes – even if we do. We must not give them more ammunition still.
Back to the attitude and to liberation.
Ava! Ame Shai! We can do it. We can help ourselves. We can have our own co-operatives and our own livelihood projects, our own schools and homeschool circles, to raise ourselves up.
But this will only ever work if our People change their attitude. The attitude of “the world owes us a living”, as well as that of “no can do”.
I see too many of ours, especially those in the former Irin Curtain countries, but not only there, where the men sit around all day drinking, smoking and playing cards, while the women and children are sent out begging or stealing or scavenging on the refuse tips. This cannot and must not continue.
Also, the settlements must be cleaned up and made respectable, this also applies to the railer sites in Britain and the USA, even to the official government operated ones in the UK, if we want to be able to advance ourselves. Always there is the talk about how great our laws are as to cleanliness, which they indeed are, but should they not also translate at least to some degree to our immediate surroundings outside out kenna or trailer. A little garden, even in containers, can go a long way, also on government sites.
But, then again, it would appear that the majority do not want to do anything else really – despite the stories the tell the media – and do not want to better themselves. All they seem to want is to be idle and have the welfare state take care of them. Some are so lazy – yes, lazy – that they have leaky roofs at the houses with water coming through everywhere but they cannot, possibly, get up onto that roof and fix it. They wait for some Charity to come along and fix their roofs, their guttering, their drainage, and everything else. Self reliance; what is that? That at least seems to be their attitude.
This attitude is not only found, I would hasten to add, amongst the Roma in the East. Nay, such laziness and dirtiness can also be found, and here I feel physically sick for I have seen some of it, amongst the Sinti and the Romanichals, the latter here in the UK as well as, and especially, in the USA.
We can do it. Honestly, we can. All we need to have is the will and the wish to do it. The wish, the desire and the will to help ourselves and the will to raise ourselves up, as individuals and also and especially as a People.
Dosta penauas!
Ava! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
Current plight of the Gypsy in Italy has strong echoes of Mussolini and Hitler
by Michael Smith (Veshengro)
The compulsory fingerprinting of Italy's Gypsy population is the latest example of the country's increasingly repressive attitude towards minorities, especially the Roma and Sinti, the Gypsy People and are an ominous reminder of the policies of the former Fascist dictator.
The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.
It was the only way, he told a parliamentary committee, for Italy to guarantee "to those who have the right to remain here, the possibility of living in decent conditions."
For this purpose the Roma, all Gypsy – those with Italian nationality and those without, EU citizens and those from outside the Community – will all have their fingerprints taken.
And the rule will even apply to Gypsy children – for reasons that to many of Mr Maroni's supporters must have sounded obvious: "to avoid phenomena," as he put it, "such as begging". The new measures, he said, were indispensable "in order to expel those who do not have the right to stay in Italy".
For anybody not swept up in the wave of anti-Roma fury, the campaign has a strong whiff of Mussolini and Hitler about it.
The task of counting and identifying the residents of Italy, citizens or otherwise, who happen to belong the most despised minority in Europe is, in fact, already under way.
Giovanna Boursier, an Italian journalist, found one small camp where the count had already taken place on the furthest southern outskirts of Milan. "There is not even a bar where one could ask the way," she wrote in Il Manifesto, "but once you scramble up a hill you see the roofs of the huts. There are about 10 of them, along with the caravans, dotted around the outskirts, under flyovers and high-tension wires. Around 40 Roma lived here."
In one camp the police arrived at dawn, woke everybody up, surrounded the camp and flooded it with lights and then went from home to home, demanding identity documents and photographing them. All the residents were Italian citizens. It made no difference. "This wasn't a census," protested a Gypsy by the name of Giorgio. "This was an ethnic register."
According to information the police numbers in the big cities have been augmented by up to 3,000 troops for this “security emergency”. All I am seeing here, however, is what I predicted some years back; government operated anti-Gypsy pogroms with unofficial backing of the European Union while on the surface the lawmakers speek out against it.
The basic problem of Roma is widespread in Europe: housing, health, education, employment, political representation... But for a long time in Italy the Roma have been a symbol of something that is unwanted.
The Nazis and the Fascists used the same methods of singling them out in the 1930s. It's not surprising that they are frightened.
I also have to add to that that our People, I am sure, have all the right to be frightened with regards to this ethnic profiling and register that is going on in Italy, and by force. What next and where next is my question.
Some 1.6 million Gypsies died in Germany and elsewhere during the Holocaust, a proportionately greater genocide than that suffered by the Jews.
It is a fact that there were concentration camps for Gypsies in Italy during the Fascist period, and it is also a fact that thousands of Gypsies died in them of hunger, cold and over work. Now Italy is about to repeat the performance, it seems.
Camps have also bee proposed not so long ago for the Romani People of Italy. They were called “solidarity villages” and I am sure, seeing how they help with the fingerprinting and profiling, the Italian Red Cross would certainly help there too.
Time w edid a few things ourselves, methinks.
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
The compulsory fingerprinting of Italy's Gypsy population is the latest example of the country's increasingly repressive attitude towards minorities, especially the Roma and Sinti, the Gypsy People and are an ominous reminder of the policies of the former Fascist dictator.
The Interior Minister, Roberto Maroni, a leader of the rabble-rousing Northern League – close allies of Silvio Berlusconi on the government benches – has explained his next step in his assault on the "emergenza di sicurezza", the "security emergency": fingerprinting all Gypsies.
It was the only way, he told a parliamentary committee, for Italy to guarantee "to those who have the right to remain here, the possibility of living in decent conditions."
For this purpose the Roma, all Gypsy – those with Italian nationality and those without, EU citizens and those from outside the Community – will all have their fingerprints taken.
And the rule will even apply to Gypsy children – for reasons that to many of Mr Maroni's supporters must have sounded obvious: "to avoid phenomena," as he put it, "such as begging". The new measures, he said, were indispensable "in order to expel those who do not have the right to stay in Italy".
For anybody not swept up in the wave of anti-Roma fury, the campaign has a strong whiff of Mussolini and Hitler about it.
The task of counting and identifying the residents of Italy, citizens or otherwise, who happen to belong the most despised minority in Europe is, in fact, already under way.
Giovanna Boursier, an Italian journalist, found one small camp where the count had already taken place on the furthest southern outskirts of Milan. "There is not even a bar where one could ask the way," she wrote in Il Manifesto, "but once you scramble up a hill you see the roofs of the huts. There are about 10 of them, along with the caravans, dotted around the outskirts, under flyovers and high-tension wires. Around 40 Roma lived here."
In one camp the police arrived at dawn, woke everybody up, surrounded the camp and flooded it with lights and then went from home to home, demanding identity documents and photographing them. All the residents were Italian citizens. It made no difference. "This wasn't a census," protested a Gypsy by the name of Giorgio. "This was an ethnic register."
According to information the police numbers in the big cities have been augmented by up to 3,000 troops for this “security emergency”. All I am seeing here, however, is what I predicted some years back; government operated anti-Gypsy pogroms with unofficial backing of the European Union while on the surface the lawmakers speek out against it.
The basic problem of Roma is widespread in Europe: housing, health, education, employment, political representation... But for a long time in Italy the Roma have been a symbol of something that is unwanted.
The Nazis and the Fascists used the same methods of singling them out in the 1930s. It's not surprising that they are frightened.
I also have to add to that that our People, I am sure, have all the right to be frightened with regards to this ethnic profiling and register that is going on in Italy, and by force. What next and where next is my question.
Some 1.6 million Gypsies died in Germany and elsewhere during the Holocaust, a proportionately greater genocide than that suffered by the Jews.
It is a fact that there were concentration camps for Gypsies in Italy during the Fascist period, and it is also a fact that thousands of Gypsies died in them of hunger, cold and over work. Now Italy is about to repeat the performance, it seems.
Camps have also bee proposed not so long ago for the Romani People of Italy. They were called “solidarity villages” and I am sure, seeing how they help with the fingerprinting and profiling, the Italian Red Cross would certainly help there too.
Time w edid a few things ourselves, methinks.
AVA! Ame Shai!
© M Smith (Veshengro), July 2008
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