Florida: EVICTION OF GYPSY/ROMA FROM THEIR ONE-OF-A-KIND CHURCH

There I sit, long-time Gypsy activist, present at the latest episode of an 11 year old struggle to evict Roma Christians from their church in Broward county, the first all Gypsy church I had ever come across. Nor had I come across a Gypsy leader, this one a Roma pastor, who remained in place defending the rights of his people. In Europe Gypsies have been persecuted for the 600 years they have lived in Western culture, but, this is America, I proudly thought.

The half-circle of county commissioners, deciders of the fate of this very special church, sit on the elevated stage ahead of us and are still dealing with main county business - money money money - thrown back and forth like ping pong balls.

I happen to also be a survivor of and witness to Nazi persecutions, baggage that remains grafted to my brain. So now I am eyeing those in whose hands lies the fate of my religious friends. I have no reason to trust bureaucrats, for the Nazis within all the chaos and tragedies they caused remained superb bureaucrats, everything was done by the book, their book. So now I am eying this set of bureaucrats in front of me with caution. To my relief I note that they are of mixed ethnicity and gender. Seven, I remember, women, two men. White, Jewish, Black. I have 3 minutes to convince them of the symbolic value of this missionary church, its importance reaching way beyond Broward County, for once again, Gypsies, now known as Roma, are being openly persecuted all across Europe. My life has come full circle. So called to the podium, I speak of the renewed, “silent persecution” of Europe’s now largest, most vulnerable minority. How, this pastor is trying to recruit Roma missionaries to go teach Roma abroad to help themselves, the uniqueness of this church. That this is precisely what America stands for, a symbol of what raises us, Americans, morally above all other countries I know and have lived in.

Deliberations resume. The black man, new member on the board, starts speaking on the Gypsies’ behalf, but - backs away. Heigh, I think, he’s new on the block. The one white man, vice-mayor off (I believe) Broward county speaks up, hero of my soul, about the purpose behind the eviction now, there are no permits issued, the Roma are paying their bills, they are a positive presence in an area of rehab centers, looking industrial. So

Why?

The women speak up, misspeak. One young black lady says – falsely so – the Gypsies haven’t been paying their bills, and that she got this from channel 7. Which rightfully infuriates the Gypsy pastor, who has paid his bills, always, he has gone by the book, always. He is not allowed to speak, at first, because he’s not on the list. But then he talks anyway, he has proof of not being delinquent in payments or anything else, ever reminding them

This is a CHURCH!

Question is, I thought, would it have happened to any other church, temple, religious institution involving anybody else but GYPSIES, now called Roma?

Once again, presiding women take center stage: They want to get it over with, be done with it, enough already. Moneymoneymoney, that has changed hands, etc. etc. etc. Once again, flashbacks to my past, where you had a better chance arguing for your life with a fish in the ocean than with a German bureaucrat. So here too, I was horrified at the heartless reaction of these women of different ethnic backgrounds who had been given the power to make decisions of this importance.

Writing beautifully about empty, dysfunctional lives.

There are the easy reads, the romance novels, the blockbuster novels, the mysteries and other genres. So when writers like Jonathan Franzen and the, for me, newly discovered Kevin Brockmeier come along, as a fellow writer I admire their artistic honesty, the achieved mastery of their craft, and that they are able to entice the readership away from the type of writing that is meant, above all, to distract. They, Franzen and Brockmeier, do what literature is meant to do - reflect and thereby translate the lives most of us have created around our existence. Whereas Franzen’s characters seem actively to rise above their emptiness through frantic activities, Brockmeier describes the isolation and loneliness seen through often poetic, longing eyes. What I personally get out of reading their literature, is that the me-generation has left many of us with mostly that, the me alone.

Sonia Meyer, author
Dosha, flight of the Russian Gypsies.

Branded Thief - At Birth!

When I was fist asked, now years ago, to address a small group of people to talk about a subject I have now been writing about for over 10 years, namely to talk about Gypsies, Roma as they are rightfully called now, a matronly lady piped up from the back row asking “aren’t those the ones that steal?” Not once, but interrupting my initially rather academic talk, over and over again, with “aren’t they the ones that steal?” Until, I finally stopped my neatly prepared little talk and rather sharply retorted, “Have they ever stolen from you, personally, Mrs……?” The lady blushed, and I continued with my talk.

The other day in the dog park, I was talking to an educated gentleman, a cosmopolitan European about the present persecutions of European Roma, when to my surprise he started telling me how “these people pick a village clean”. Taken aback, and at this point passionately involved in the Roma cause, I asked him, “please tell me what you have personally witnessed along those accusations toward the Gypsy people!” The next day he approached me and said, “I personally have not witnessed anything of the sort, I guess I have fallen into the trap of repeating prejudicial beliefs.”

Now I want to go over to other side. Imagine yourself being born Roma. Two very close friends of mine, both highly intelligent, both evangelical pastors, both of them had not been denied the privilege of formal education, both self-taught and intellectual by nature. They talked to me about the pain of being dismissed as inferior, even criminal by birth - declared criminal without any justification.

One person close to me actually was pick-pocketed by Gypsy kids in the streets of Rome. I had to explain to him the why. Gypsies in Italy arriving from the Baltic states where they have a history of slavery and severe marginalization, are denied all rights, all possibilities to earn an honest living. The children learn how to steal to survive, because they cannot be thrown into jail. If the parents get caught, leaving their children behind, they will starve to death.

As I have written before, during the war, when food and shelter meant survival, I knew not one person who did not steal. I did. Even the Catholic declared that “Mundraub”, stealing food for survival was not a sin.

Branding a Roma thief at birth is to inflict a deep and lasting wound, a handicap that is hard to overcome. Here in America we have about a million Roma. On a recent radio interview my host remarked “One doesn’t ever read about them in the papers over here,” meaning criminal activity. “That’s because,” I said, “given only the slightest chance they are like everybody else. They are Americans first, Roma by inherited culture; a beautiful culture which I am trying hard to give justice to.”

Prejudice is a dangerous phenomenon. Prejudice can kill, it is killing Roma in Europe as I am writing this. Do not be a silent by-stander, stand up for human rights for all.

The Lure of the Open Road - The Spirit of Nomadism

Like the wild geese I love, come late Fall I pack up to migrate south - 1500 + miles by car. “Why don’t you fly,” a fifty-year young man asked me. “Because,” I said, “for one, I am taking my animals. “ Only 2 dogs now, versus the several horses, 2 dogs, 2 cats and one bonsai tree I used to load up and caravan to the South. “But most of all,” I added, “I love the open road.” Leaving all the unnecessary junk we all accumulate behind, taking only the strictly necessary and driving into change - of weather, of landscape, of people. My mind is wide open as to what lies ahead, the unexpected. It’s like turning your face into the wind and letting your soul fly.

I grew up nomadic. Because of our flight from the Nazis, by the time I was 7, I knew nothing but war and moving on, always moving on - leaving behind memories of massacres, killing fields, ambushes and round-ups. It almost felt as if by walking on you could bury the horror underfoot. So that, for a long time, I only remembered moments of beauty. To this day, the howling of the wolves sends goose bumps down my spine. For then, their howling reassured us that for the moment all was safe, that right then no strange intruder was lurking about. Then there were those moments after the bombs stopped falling, the shooting stopped and the life of the forest resumed in full force. I thought of those years as happy, maybe because I was too young to see beyond our own survival.

The horror started when the so-called “Peace” trapped me in the place where I was born – Cologne, Germany, the place where I was told I must now settle down. A place in ruin, a place foreign to me, infested with rats and crime, a place of defeat, where I had to fester amidst the true horror of it all now out in the open. I had survived the war in freedom, but would I survive the peace forced upon me in a place of entrapment with people I grew up to consider as my enemies. The hopelessness of the war’s aftermath would never quite leave me.

Roma/Gypsies in Romania have lived under hopelessness far greater than what I experienced. Enslaved until 1865, exploited and scorned ever since, when a United Europe opened borders that had confined before, those Roma followed the first sign of hope ever, only to be flung back into a misery greater than the one they left.

Open your hearts to these most vulnerable people who have been part of our Western culture for over 600 years. Unite in the demand for their human rights.

Photographs of Roma/Gypsy children in European shanty camps!

On my annual migration South, driving 9 hours a day, this time through pouring rain, the radio blasting tornado warnings, my eyes focused on the tail-lights of the slow moving cars and trucks ahead, what rose to my mind were the photographs of Gypsy children in those condemned Western European encampments. Here are these Roma, mostly from Romania, where they were enslaved until the late 19 hundreds, exploited and marginalized ever since. When a uniting Europe opened her borders, they followed what to them appeared like an opening to hope, only to be met by hatred and persecution, once again. No prospects of work, housing, health care, most of all no acceptance.

Yet, look at the photographs of these children. They look well dressed. Some little girls have ribbons in their hair. The round handsome little faces of some dark-haired, some blond children Roma children expectant, alert. They look loved, trusting next to their parents, their elders. Compare that to the slums of other poverty stricken peoples. And I wonder, are any non-Gypsies struck by this seeming impossibility, this incongruity?

To me, it comes as no surprise. That is because I have known Gypsies, now rightfully called Roma all my life. I know that to a Roma, children are God’s greatest gift, a gift to be nurtured and cherished. Even in Kosovo, where survival was from one day to the next, with nights full of threat, the children were watched over and protected above all.

These children, now chased from Free United Europe, like all children, deserve a better future, a future of equality at last. A six hundred years presence should guarantee them the same rights as other Europeans.

Help the Roma and their children. It will create a better world for all of us.

The Effects of Severe and Enduring Poverty on the Gypsy People

It is true. I have been mostly focusing on the positive side of Roma
culture. That is because this ethnic minority has been relentlessly
beaten down for so long. Their spirit, however, has never been truly
defeated. Their defense has been to withdraw into invisibility. This has
helped them to survive, as Gypsies, but the more they withdraw, the more
the problems they face keep increasing. And now the time has come to
make a stand, for the places to hide are disappearing like arctic ice.

I am not an academic, although I have read every piece of research I
could lay my hands on, and there were many. I am not a politician. I am
merely another human being, a writer, an elder with lots of life
experience, who happens to have love and respect for the Roma people.
Our paths have crossed since I was a child. I have known them in
different countries, of different tribes. I have known some while still
nomadic, those who grew up nomadic then settled down, those who have
been settled for centuries. I am fully aware of the seemingly
insurmountable problems they are facing, most of them not part of their
culture, but a result of extreme poverty. To name a few, in my opinion
of course:

1- Roma, especially in the Balkans and Eastern Europe urgently need a
new type leadership. Whereas, while still nomadic, their leaders were
chosen because of their intelligence and their selflessness, poverty
drives the bad apples to the top. Men often without scruples toward the
majority that surrounds them, but unfortunately not caring about their
own either. Exploiters, not humanitarians. No different from the Mafia
in Sicily, Russia, gangs in black ghettos, the drug lords in Mexico,
etc. That unfortunately is the dark side of humanity. That is no
different for Gypsies. Unfortunately, this does not just happen in the
poor camps, but higher up, where money destined to change living
conditions for the poorest Gypsies never reaches its goal.

2- Again I am optimistic about a new type of leadership for Roma. I have
found the type of intelligent, selfless leadership reborn in evangelical
Roma, who are leading their congregation back to the old values via
religion. One particular such Roma pastor stood up for his rights
against a strong Southern county and won. Roma leaders like him, with
love and understanding, lots of help from the majority that rules, can
lead those long suffering European Roma to truly integrate into European
majority life, without losing their own culture, which, to my mind, is
in Europe's interest to preserve. But only Roma can lead Roma.

3- The division among the different tribes. This has always been the
norm. Just like in war zones the partisans split off into smaller groups
to avoid detection and getting killed, so these 'eternal strangers' had
to travel in small groups to survive, else they would have appeared like
an invading army. This of course created different cultures. Now they
have to unite, at least in Europe to achieve an effective political voice.

4- The Roma women in Europe are emancipating. This is to my mind of
extreme importance. They have always been the preserver of their
culture, but they have done so as backseat drivers. As a woman I have
the highest respect for the Roma woman. They remind me of the women of
partisans who dragged their kids through warzones. Only to the Roma the
war has never ended.

The true integration of Roma into European majority societies will take
lots of understanding of the problems caused by poverty, patience and
willingness to help them overcome the results of centuries of
marginalization. The time is now to undo the harm done to the Roma people.

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.