Europe Forced Roma/Gypsies Off Their Ancient Treks and Set Them Up For Failure

Their culture was different from those of settled folks. They were entrepreneurs specializing in iron-smitheries, lace and candle-stick making, basket-weaving, dealing in the animal that was sacred to them, the horse. Nobody can handle a horse the way a Lovara horse-dealer can. But most of all they were artists, dancers, singers, musicians, poets, actors and circus performers. They added joy to the often drab lives of many.

Their strength centered on absolute honesty and loyalty within the tribe. Their leaders were chosen because of intelligence and selflessness. Strict cleanliness rules surrounded their daily lives, rich with children. They watched with horror of killer war after killer war of the settled folks. A silent minority, they withdrew and moved on.

But the laws of the settled folks were rigid and strictly enforced. They allowed for no freely moving parts that did not belong. So little by little, these peace-loving nomads found their treks barred. They were pushed into areas nobody else wanted, hidden from sight. Here they were offered no schooling, in order to be branded as ignorant. No sanitation in order to be called dirty. No opportunity to make a living, so that theft was often the only means of survival, so that would mark them as thieves, or lazy.

The time has come to right these century-old wrongs. The Gypsy people are like all other people. They have their good and their bad. They do have different value systems. To them rich is not what you own, but what you share. Life is there to enjoy within the circle of those you love. Try and look at our world through their eyes: - the wars, the dictators, the inequality, the deterioration of family life, the obsession with worldly goods.

We, the non-Gypsies, should celebrate not destroy what is left of their culture. Stop persecuting the Roma people. They for one do not deserve it.

Europe Forced Roma/Gypsies Off Their Ancient Treks and Set Them Up For Failure

Their culture was different from those of settled folks. They were
entrepreneurs specializing in iron-smitheries, lace and candle-stick
making, basket-weaving, dealing in the animal that was sacred to them,
the horse. Nobody can handle a horse the way a Lovara horse-dealer can.
But most of all they were artists, dancers, singers, musicians, poets,
actors and circus performers. They added joy to the often drab lives of
many.

Their strength centered on absolute honesty and loyalty within the
tribe. Their leaders were chosen because of intelligence and
selflessness. Strict cleanliness rules surrounded their daily lives,
rich with children. They watched with horror of killer war after killer
war of the settled folks. A silent minority, they withdrew and moved on.

But the laws of the settled folks were rigid and strictly enforced. They
allowed for no freely moving parts that did not belong. So little by
little, these peace-loving nomads found their treks barred. They were
pushed into areas nobody else wanted, hidden from sight. Here they were
offered no schooling, in order to be branded as ignorant. No sanitation
in order to be called dirty. No opportunity to make a living, so that
theft was often the only means of survival, so that would mark them as
thieves, or lazy.

The time has come to right these century-old wrongs. The Gypsy people
are like all other people. They have their good and their bad. They do
have different value systems. To them rich is not what you own, but what
you share. Life is there to enjoy within the circle of those you love.
Try and look at our world through their eyes: - the wars, the dictators,
the inequality, the deterioration of family life, the obsession with
worldly goods.

We, the non-Gypsies, should celebrate not destroy what is left of their
culture. Stop persecuting the Roma people. They for one do not deserve it.

Persecutions of Roma/Gypsies Have Never Stopped, 1400 to Now. Why?

Unlike settled Europeans, who fought war after war over territories,
their own and those of their neighbors, all Roma ever wanted was to be
left alone. Instead of war they showed respect to the territories they
crossed, as well as the bigger animals that shared their living space.
They arrived into Western culture with a great variety of professions –
iron-forging, horse-dealing, basket weaving, lace-making etc., and of
course entertainment – music, dancing, traveling circuses with all kinds
of performing acts, fortune-telling.

So why the enduring hate? The reasons on the part of those who live a
settled life have been explained, examined, over and over again –
xenophobia, prejudice, misconceptions, the need to produce a scapegoat
to blame for their own times of trouble.

But what about the part of the Roma themselves? I personally believe, as
more and more open territory came under control, the professions the
Roma had travelled with for centuries became obsolete through
modernization, the Roma were forced into poverty and areas encircled by
the totalitarian law of Might is Right. By then, what had once been the
Romani way of survival was turning against them. Life in small,
traveling units, by then had resulted in division instead of unity, lack
of unity in turn made them vulnerable to attack, lack of opportunity for
work, forced them into petty crime (within their own culture, theft,
lying were considered high treason, and practically non-existent).
Instead of human rights, a Roma baby received brands that he or she
would never able to erase.

But I firmly believe a new day is dawning for the Roma people. I see,
that instead of withdrawing into invisibility at the onslaught of
persecution, as they have done in the past believing that only then they
could survive, Roma people are starting to unite. Modern type leaders
will start to emerge from their midst. They are starting to demand their
European birth rights, thereby exposing the hypocrisy of countries who
call themselves democratic. As they do so, idealistic non-Gypsies have
started to, and will increase in numbers, march along their sides in
support.

'Opre Roma' (Roma Rise) is becoming a reality.

The Standardization of American Fiction

Once upon a time, until roughly 60 years ago, those born to write,
lovers of reading, blessed with talent, embarked on this journey of the
mind in isolation. When in trouble, because that journey is fraught with
obstacles and pitfalls, they sought out other writers to share the agony
and the ecstasy, the hopes and the uncertainty, drawing knowledge from
the giants of the past who had paved the way, searching for hints to woo
and conquer that ultimate bride - THE READER. Once the fledgling novel
was hatched it was sought out by or handed over to publishers big or
small who cared, many had a vision. They took the new-born novel and ran
with it, along a lengthening path into the welcoming readership.

That path was bombed, made impassible. Now those born to write, lovers
of reading, blessed with talent are processed by those who teach to
write, who dictate the rules of 'how to' and 'when to, and 'what not
to'. An art form has turned into an academy. Writes the
"huffingtonpost.com: The academy is ruled by 'theorists' who consider
their work superior to the literature they deconstruct, and moreover
they have no interest in contemporary literature." And to finish the
newborn novel off, again writes "huffingtonpost.com: As for conglomerate
publishing, the decision makers wouldn't know great literature if it hit
them in the face." And last but not least, the coup de grace, same
source "And the mainstream reviewing establishment (which is crumbling
by the minute) validates their choices with fatuous accolades,
recruiting mediocre writers to blurb (review) them."

Want to know my personal opinion? WRITERS UNITE.

Often Art Succeeds Where All Else Fails

Once upon a time, alas by now a long time ago, when Gypsies or to be
correct the Roma people where still allowed to follow the nomadic lives
of their choice, there were those afraid of and maligning, rightly or
wrongly, strangers who entered their settled lives. But much stronger
than the prejudice against the Roma outsiders, were perceptions of
freedom and romanticism they inspired. Great writers depicted their
lives with love and longing: Pushkin, Tolstoy, Dumas, Marquez, and on
and on. But as the last of their ancient treks were barred and they were
pushed more and more into subhuman poverty and isolation, with their
freedom they soon lost their romantic sheen, leaving nothing but
misconceptions, lack of empathy, and downright racial hatred. By
contrast I have never met a person who personally knows the Roma people,
and who hates them and/or still harbors these misconceptions.

To reverse the increasingly one-sided negative image of this ancient
ethnic minority, I feel art is starting to play a dominant role. Fashion
shows with beautiful Roma women showing off their colorful and fluid
attires, movie and documentary film makers are and have been entering
the day-to-day of their lives and art. More than fifteen years ago, I
started research on my novel Dosha, flight of the Russian Gypsies. A lot
of my material came from the Russian Gypsy writer Mateo Maximoff, for
the rest I prayed that God give me the power to do justice to their
harmonious and rich culture. When I started, Gypsies in Western Europe
lived mostly in harmony within the majority that surrounded them. Then I
merely wanted to reveal the reality behind the myth. Now that an
economic downturn has stirred up renewed and deadly persecutions, I hope
my novel will highlight the inhumanity of their persecutors. Once again
humans are persecuting and killing fellow humans, the very act that
originally decided Gypsies to keep moving into the sanctity of nature,
and thereby remain outsiders to the human killer fields.

Save The Roma/Gypsy Children Of Kosovo

I was told by Roma in Kosovo, that their families had been settled in
houses, in villages for centuries there. They had jobs, they had small
business. They lost everything including many loved ones during NATO's
"humanitarian" bombings during the last Kosovo war. This in turn, with
UN troops looking the other way, was followed by the Kosovo Liberation
Army's and triumphant Albanians' vengeful campaigns of rape, torture,
random assassinations of Roma believed to have sided with the Serbs. The
surviving Roma were either expelled or forced to live on lead polluted
dumps.

One who I am honored to call my friend, Paul Polansky, a poet and tried
and true friend of Kosovar Roma, told me children are born with bleeding
gums and stunted growth on those dumps. He took several of them to
Germany for observation and possible help. Many other Kosovar Roma had
sought refuge in Germany. Roma children were born and raised there. Now
they are being forced to return to Kosovo, into an environment of
hatred, possible torture and death.

The Roma are like us. They love their children. Back them up by raising
awareness.

Political Invisibility Vs. A New Type Of Leader For Europe’s Gypsy/ Roma People

There are between 12 and 16 million Roma living in Europe. Increased
persecution coupled with an absence of legal protection and the most
basic human rights are pushing Europe's Gypsy people to protect
themselves the way they have for over 600 years – they withdraw into
invisibility. Their life-expectancy is low, the general health of many
is often poor, their children are discriminated in school or are not
obtaining formal education at all. They are murdered by fire-bombs in
their sleep, women and children openly attacked in the streets, and
newspapers, radios and television stations rarely direct attention to
Europe's latest episode of a holocaust that never really left.

It seems that Roma are waking up to the fact that a new type of leader
is needed for their people, one who unites, at least to the outside, the
many separate tribes. He has to be Roma, for Gypsies can only be lead by
one of their own. One who builds bridges across the ancient divide
between Roma and the majority population and starts chipping away at the
many misconceptions held rigidly by both sides. A leader like Martin
Luther King comes to mind, a man of faith and dedication, who believed
in using civil disobedience and other peaceful means to cross the racial
divide here in the States. I have known such Roma men: Mateo
Maximoff, a Russian Gypsy, living in Paris. He was a man of religion, an
evangelical pastor. He had reached across the divide, was backed by
friends on both sides. Gypsies then, up to 1999, the year of his death,
were doing relatively well in France. He was and still is well known by
Roma here in the United States. There are Roma like him right here in
the States, just as there must be in Europe too, Roma men of faith,
dedicated and selfless. Change has to happen, and it has to happen now.