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... European Union is increasingly concerned about. The Unions greatest fear is that large numbers of Roma may move legally to Western Europe, increasing tensions there, following the accession of the Czech Republic and other EU candidate states. Some of the most shocking and well-documented cases of anti-Gypsy prejudice, however, occur within the EU itself, notably in Greece. A recent report by the Minority Rights Group-Greece catalogues repeated cases of police brutality, bureaucratic harassment and poor health care. Since 1996 Greek authorities have evicted Roma from five established settlements including a community of 3, 500 tent-dwellers who had been living in the same area near Thessaloniki for 30 years.
Nine other settlements have been threatened with eviction and Roma have become persona non great in many Greek towns. According the Greek Helsinki Monitor group: A rather awkwardly parked car owned by a Roma resulted in a municipal council decision of immediate expulsion of 300 Roma from the region on the grounds that Roma increase the criminality rate in the area. Roma have also been evicted from campsites near Athens in preparation for the 2004 Olympic Games. All unsettled confederations that live among settled peoples seem to become convenient scapegoats. So it is with the Roma, who have regularly been accused by the local populace of many evils as a prelude to later official and legal persecution. Their relations with the authorities in the host country have been marked by consistent contradiction.
Official decrees were often aimed at settling or assimilating them, yet local authorities systematically refused them the bare hospitality of a campsite. During the Holocaust the Nazis murdered an estimated 400, 000 Roma. French laws in modern times forbade them campsites and subjected them to police supervision, yet they were taxed and drafted for military service like ordinary citizens. Spain and Wales are two countries often cited as examples where Roma have become settled, if not wholly assimilated. In modern times the socialist countries of Eastern Europe attempted programs of enforced settlement to end Roma migration.
Traditionally the Roma have pursued occupations that allowed them to maintain an itinerant life on the perimeters of settled society. The men were livestock traders, animal trainers and exhibitors, tinkers (metal smiths and utensil repairmen), and musicians; the women told fortunes, sold potions, begged, and worked as entertainers. Before the advent of veterinary medicine, many farmers looked to Roma livestock dealers for advice on herd health and husbandry. Enmity against Roma, of course, is nothing new. It reached its most extreme in Nazi Germany when Roma were interned as members of a criminal underclass and between a quarter and half a million perished in concentration camps. Their suffering, known among Roma as The Devouring, or Porajmos, was finally and belatedly recognized by the United Nations in August when the UN's Committee for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination called for compensation for Roma victims of Nazi terror and deportation.
The UN announcement coincided with the first distribution of funds by the Swiss Fund for Needy Victims of the Holocaust/Shoa to Gypsy survivors of the holocaust in the Ukraine. Almost 4, 000 Ukrainian Gypsies received $ 400 each. Roma organizations, however, are also demanding an apology from Germany for the holocaust and have set up a fund for a memorial to those who died. So what does the future hold for one of Europe's largest, most diverse and least understood minorities? With growing tensions and renewed prejudice have come increasing demands for ethnic recognition and an assertion of the Roma's cultural identity.
At the end of July the fifth Congress of the International Romany Union (IRU), meeting in Prague, called for the Roma to be internationally recognized as a separate nation. The Roma community itself, however, is pluralistic and divided with distinctive European groupings including the Manouches of France, the Romnichals in Britain, the Gitanos of Spain and the Site of Germany and central Europe. Many Roma are physically identifiable by their dark, swarthy looks, yet assimilation has left some unable to speak Romany and contact with the wider Roma community has been weakened. Few, however, are completely accepted by society at large. There is also a huge gulf between the small educated elite and ordinary Gypsies. Varied external influences and dispersal across Europe and beyond have led to considerable variations in their culture and organization.
Historically, Roma have organized themselves on the basis of the extended family with elders taking decisions for the group. National or international organizations have often been dominated by three or four families, while the plethora of Roma groups has limited their political clout. Leading Roma organizations, however, are striving for greater unity. The long-established IRU is planning a new headquarters in Brussels to better coordinate Roma activities. At their July congress delegates stressed the importance of education by and for the Gypsy community. There is talk of Roma University to research and teach Romani and Roma culture.
Elsewhere Roma are seeking better access to existing universities. In Romania, for instance, young Roma of the Romani Criss organization have persuaded the government to reserve university places for Roma students. The proportion of Roma with university or college degrees in all post-socialist countries did not exceed 1 per cent of the adult Roma population. One tenth of them graduated from secondary school.
The corresponding numbers concerning education levels were much higher among the non-Roma majority in every Central and Eastern European country. Consequently, the majority of the Roma were unprepared to face the challenges of the labor market, and some of them remained functionally illiterate. Outcomes in other spheres of social policy towards Roma were also controversial. No doubt, during socialism, the level of Roma employment increased significantly, resulting in the expansion of contacts with members of the majority on an equal basis. Material conditions of the Roma improved and the differences in everyday lifestyles among Roma and non-Roma were reduced. On the basis of increasing similarity induced by the common fate of state socialism, a reduction of hostility against the Roma people was expected among members of the majority.
Attempts to reduce differences in social, educational and cultural status between Roma and non-Roma by coercion and avoiding Roma participation in the decision-making process often had negative outcomes. The efforts to accelerate the process of equalizing Roma communities with the rest of society activated a policy of social engineering which decreased indigenous abilities to cope with the problems in Roma families and communities. Under the pressure of forced assimilation part of the Roma subjects of state-socialist societies developed dysfunctional strategies of coping such as learned helplessness and striving for instant gratification. Some recent efforts at encouraging Roma education in countries bent on the notion of assimilation, however, have been badly received. In Greece, a recently initiated three-year program for educating teachers of Roma children has been criticized for providing books in Greek only when most Greek Roma speak Romani. Unlike similar education programs in other European countries, said the Minority Rights Group, the Greek one seems to undermine the Roma identity of the children.
Education, whether in Romany or the national language, is nevertheless seen as a key issue among Roma leaders. The problems experienced by Gypsies differ from one country to another and may require different policy solutions. Novel approaches to Roma exclusion may have to be attempted to overcome mutual suspicion. Czech political scientist, Alex Tommy, for instance, has proposed recruitment schemes which draft Roma into government administration and the police force, rather like the positive refreshment policies for African Americans in the United States. The position of the Roma in Europe today may be familiar to European Jews, once themselves caught between the culture of their birth and the national way of life. Unlike the Jews, however, Roma have no new homeland to turn to, no political muscle, and no financial clout.
Intellectuals such as Ian Hancock, nevertheless, argue that integration rather than assimilation is the way forward; that Roma can become part of society without surrendering their separate identity. An idealistic vision, if it is to become reality, will require a great deal of tolerance, work and understanding on both sides. The sociological discourse (both of the society and the experts) connects the Roma to the issue of poverty, so it is important to examine how society constructs images of the poor and of the Roma people. The research project enabled us to make a distinction between the group perceived as poor and different kinds of Roma group in terms of selected socio-demographic data. Three models were created in each country, each model taking into consideration two groups.
One of the two groups consists of people perceived as poor, and so this group is the basis for comparison. The other group in each model is the group perceived as Roma by some kind of criteria. In the first case those persons were included into the Roma group who were perceived as Roma in the screening but not in the survey. The interviewers did not know the respondents's elf-identification in the screening, but they knew it in the survey. In this case the interviewer accepts the respondents self-identification.
As a result, this group represents the markers of the majorities image of Roma that are important in categorization. Another feature of this group is that persons in it only occasionally had to face the label Gypsy and its consequences. Minority rights organizations are concerned that Poland, now EU member, has made no provision for Roma within its future plans. In short, they accuse the authorities of being involved in a millennium spring clean -- applying a fresh lick of paint to Poland's international image and sweeping the Roma issue under the carpet.
Members of a congressional human rights commission are upset with the response of the Slovak government to reports about forced sterilization of Gypsy women. In the UK, Roma from central and Eastern Europe have their initial applications for asylum refused point-blank. They are defined as being economic migrants. For many years, popular writers and even some scholars have predicted the assimilation of Gypsies. Early works claimed that Gypsy blood was gradually becoming mixed with non-Gypsy blood and that land and houses were tying them to civilization. More recent observers claim that European Gypsies are culturally deprived and that many Gypsies have disavowed their Gypsy heritage and become non-Gypsies.
I have found, on the contrary, that the modern European urban environment has encouraged Gypsy ethnicity in very specific ways. Among the European Gypsies there exists a culture that is vital and innovative, but that exhibits few signs of decline or assimilation, defined as the disavowing of Gypsy culture and the loss of Gypsy ethnic identification and institutions. The vitality of Gypsy culture is shown by how few Gypsy children disavow their heritage, how few Gypsies intermarry with non-Gypsies, how many Gypsies articulate distinct identity, institutions, and folklore, and how steadfastly they maintain the Gypsy / non -Gypsy boundary while innovating with cultural forms. Spain said that the Gypsy was of life and the importance of Gypsies attached to being able to move around the country and to move from job to job was incompatible with the life-style of modern developed industrialized States. The Governments plan to integrate Gypsies into society was not intended to destroy their traditional life-style, but to accommodate it within Spanish society.
The Gypsy community was undoubtedly one of the economically disadvantaged groups in the country and Spain had made special efforts regarding education, training, housing and social benefits. Although their ethnic origins were different, the Gypsies had never been regarded as a foreign ethnic group that had settled in Spain. Spain had recalled its ambassador from Pretoria in light of the recent tragic events in South Africa. Committee members pointed out that diplomatic and all other relations with South Africa had not been broken off, and hoped that the Spanish Ambassador would remain in Spain until apartheid ended. Regarding trade and other relations with South Africa, Spain said it gave no financial assistance for exports to South Africa and had no sporting links with that country. The presence of the Roma minority tends to evolve into a major source of tension in the post-socialist societies of Central and Eastern Europe.
The out-group image of the Roma is fuelled by hostile and malignant cognitive and emotional content. The application of the category Roma is very controversial, especially in Hungary and Romania. Perception of color of skin, speech, way of life and family name contributes to the construction of the Roma category. Categorization, however, depends on the country, and the nature of the encounter. Moreover, the tendency to self-identify with the Roma community is also far from universal in the three countries under study.
According to the three distinct versions of attributed Roma status in each country, three models of explanation were presented aiming to explore the determinants of difference between being poor and being Roma. Inconsistent ethnic categorization certainly is a function of the perceived ethnic character of the neighborhood. In the case of consistent out-group categorization which does not correspond with the in-group perspective, the people believed to be Roma are not only living in Roma neighborhoods but are subject to several social disadvantages such as low income, overcrowding and material deprivation. These people who deny being Roma are not only perceived to be Roma but they tend to be poorer than the non-Roma poor. The stigma of poverty, however, was shown to be related most in the case of those who were willing to identify themselves as Roma.
At the turn of the 21 st century Roma continued to struggle with contradictions in their culture. Although they were forced less often to defend themselves against persecution from a hostile society, some amount of distrust and intolerance continued. Perhaps the greater struggle they faced was the erosion of their lifestyles from urban influences in industrialized societies. Themes of familial and ethnic loyalty typified in Roma music helped to preserve certain beliefs, yet some of the younger and more talented exponents of this music were drawn away by material rewards in the outside world. Integrated housing, economic independence, and intermarriage with non-Roma were increasingly common. Bibliography: D.
Mayall. Gypsies-Travellers in Nineteenth Century Society, 1988 McDowell, Bart. Gypsies: Wanderers of the World National Geographic Society, 1970 Tomasevic, Nebojsa But and Djuric, Radio. Gypsies of the World, 1988 Romani.
org Home Page (web) Roma (Gypsies) in Prewar Europe (web) Original Research on Gypsies by Paul Polansky (web) Justin Burke. Anti-Gypsy Fervor Sweeps East Europe, (web)
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