| Roma (Gypsy) History |
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Historians agree that the Roma's origins lie in north-west India and that their journey towards Europe started between the 3rd and 7th Centuries AD - a massive migration prompted by timeless reasons: conflicts, instability and the seeking of a better life in big cities such as Tehran, Baghdad and, later on, Constantinople. Some of these Indian immigrant workers were farmers, herdsmen, traders, mercenaries or bookkeepers. Others were entertainers and musicians. To this day they retain their name and speak a language related to Sanskrit. From the time of their arrival in Romania Gypsies were the slaves of the landowners, only to be emancipated in 1851. The Gypsy way of life still leads to hostilities from the people of their host nations. Europeans regard "private property" as sacrosanct, whereas gypsies do not have a word for "possess", which gives rise to two incompatible ways of life and a continual problem of gypsies being regarded as "thieves" from the European's view. In each host nation gypsies appear to take on the religion, names and language of their hosts, but within the Rom they maintain their Rom language, names, music, customs and Indian looks. This tight community has meant that after some six hundred years there is still a large population of gypsies not integrated or assimilated with Romanians. Most Roma live in Romania (some 2,500,000), Bulgaria (800,000), Hungary (650,000), Slovakia (520,000), Macedonia (260,000), Greece, Austria, Germany, and Albania [1]. Despite superficial overtures of anti-racism laws, an intense racial hatred exists between the Gypsies and the native European societies. The majority simply stays in disease- and waste-ridden villages on outskirts of town for their short life spans. They have more than twice the birthrate of Europeans, who tend to have one child per mother, instead having anywhere from 4-9 children. Some countries have forcibly sterilized them even after World War II, including Cold War-Czechoslovakia and even modern Sweden [2]. Due to their low literacy, perceived stupidity (justly or unjustly), low life expectancy, high disease frequency, and hatred by the natives in the schools, local agencies and schools are not keen to encourage them to attend schools. In addition, the social rights of Eastern Europe are a far cry from the liberalism of America and Western Europe. Despite their hopes for social improvements, the natives still hate them, and can be seen yelling at them, spitting, attacking, pushing, or kicking trash or gutter water at begging Gypsies at all hours of the day in many nations from Italy to Moldova. Europe is far from the open and tolerant place that is often believed. In Romania, far poorer than Bulgaria, the Roma simply wander the streets, sleep on the sidewalk, bathe in rainwater puddles, defecate on the roads, and beg and steal from tourists and locals. The Roma can be seen lying down on the streets and in open doorways coughing and wheezing because of terminal diseases and weak immunities that come with their poor standard of living. Roma children and early teenagers can be seen walking around nude even after reaching menstruation age. Most have no shoes. The Roma are a tribal people, and carried many of the traditional customs, values, and religious beliefs of India with them. Their physiognomy is the same as that of North India: straight dark hair, darker skin, shorter stature, a broader skull, a long nose, and dark pigmentation under the eyes. Their non-European origin makes them an easy victim of discrimination and inter-ethnic conflict with native Europeans. The language Romani derives from Sanskrit and North Indian languages. They have no written language of their own, although foreign human rights groups have promoted a Latin- or Sanskrit-based alphabet in hopes of improved franchise. Reincarnation, polytheism, intense superstition and propitiation of gods, a strong hierarchy, and various forms of gods of Indian Hindu origin all are expressed among the Roma in great variety. One village may have a different set of religious or clan ethics than another only a few miles away. In Romania, they are often called the Țigani. The Roma include many tribes, including the famous Sinti (named after Sindh province in Pakistan) and the Kalderashi, greatly connected with criminal groups. Their use of superstitions and "witchcraft" drew a baseless parallel to ancient Egyptian mystics and their traditions. As a result, the Roma were often directly referred to as "Egyptians," hence [E]gypsies. They were often involved in "freak shows" and circuses with bears that gave them a very negative association. Their propensity for theft created the English expression "to jip" (to steal). The German term "Zigeuner" is today considered politically incorrect, but Germans still use it anyway. Although many Roma feign the religion of their host nations (Christendom), it is generally only a pragmatic attempt at survival and also in many cases a fraudulent appeal to Christian compassion to give them money (see below). The vast majority retains their traditional religions. At least 500 years ago (calculations vary), the Gypsies settled in Eastern Europe during the medieval period. Most avoided staying in the Middle East, likely due to its brutal persecution of polytheistic religions like that of the Roma, similar to their ancestors' experience in Muslim-dominated India. Most settled in what became Hungary, Romania, Moldova, Russia, Ukraine, Slovakia, Serbia, Bulgaria, and Albania. Small communities further traveled all over the rest of Europe. Most settled in dilapidated shanties, tent colonies, and ghettoes that were greatly secluded and segregated from the native populations, as is the case today. There was and remains almost no assimilation due to abstinent inter-cultural antagonism. Over the past several centuries of their nomadic settlement in Eastern Europe and the Russian Steppes, they have been treated as a bacillus or parasite and have even frequently been expelled, attacked, or even in the case of World War II, exterminated altogether. Their non-Christian nature made them an additional target for angry Christian mobs. It was not only the Germans who massacred the Gypsies along with the Jews and homosexuals; Hungary, Croatia, Slovakia, and Romania (all Axis nations) took the opportunity to put many of their Gypsies to death or do nothing to stop its occurrence. Figures for the number of gypsies killed during the holocaust range from 200,000 to a conservative 500,000. As gypsies could not read or write, many were not registered at the camps and if they were registered, a simple 'Z" was placed where their name should be. Most gypsies were either killed in transit or where they were captured with no record of their deaths. A more realistic number of gypsy deaths are between 1.5 and 4 million, 80% of the European gypsies, slaughtered at the hands of the Nazis. Gypsies are profoundly mistrustful of outside influences: understandable, when you consider the draconian drives, at least in eastern and central Europe, to assimilate them. Since the 18th century such measures have included the removal of Gypsy children into Christian institutions and homes (a practice continued in Switzerland until 1973), and, under the communists, the compulsory changing of Gypsy names. All in all, in any interaction with non-Gypsies, at home or abroad, they live in tense anticipation of ill will, bad faith, rejection and harm. If children are toughened by what they see, their parents may feel that this is appropriate training for an expected lifetime of hate directed at them. They are Europe's largest and fastest growing minority. The lives of Gypsies, since they left India at the beginning of the last millennium, has consisted of deportation and nomadism, homelessness and statelessness, interwoven with episodes of forced assimilation as well as incarceration and massacre. In Romania, where most of these recent arrivals come from, Gypsies were slaves for 400 years, until 1864 when slavery was abolished in Romania. You begin to see why defiance may be the characteristic most necessary to their survival, but also the one most annoying to others. As visitors, they would be much more popular if their desperation was not so demanding. It has seemed particularly to irritate people that they don't even bother to try to arouse our pity. And it's true, they don't ask for it and they don't want it. Meanwhile, across Eastern Europe, it would be hard to overstate the reflexive hatred people feel for them, even among otherwise nice, rational people. And yet, that non-engagement, their eternal separateness, has been the price of their survival. Popularly reviled by most Europeans, they are perceived as a tremendous source of social plight, theft, prostitution, drug trafficking, disease and petty crime. Growing human rights concerns are greatly conflicting with inextricable inter-ethnic conflict that has endured for centuries. The demise of the communist regimes in 1989 in Central and Eastern Europe was followed by an upsurge of anti-Roma violence in almost every country. Today, six million, out of the estimated 10 million, European Roma live in Central and Eastern Europe. Up to two million are to be found in Romania, whose established Roma slave markets horrified Western travelers until as late as the 19th Century. Decades of communism and the recent admission of Eastern countries into the EU seem to have made little difference to their history of exclusion and poverty. Most Roma families live in small shacks with no electricity or running water, and international institutions calculate that Roma poverty rates are up to 10 times higher than those of the majority population where they live, while their lifespan is 10 or 15 years lower. The Gypsies typically arrange marriage and at an extremely early age, often marrying as early as 9 and to a partner decades older, which has greatly inhibited any toleration by the native population of their culture. After the fall of the Soviet Union, the franchise and protection of the Roma again changed very little. Roma have theoretically enjoyed guaranteed and universal education in all Eastern European countries since the Communist era, although most drop out due to various reasons including alleged discrimination, a greater preference for serving the Roma villages of their birth, and the fact that most quit school as soon as they forced to be married by their parents (generally before age 16). As a result, most Gypsies are unemployed, uneducated, illiterate, and of no direct benefit to the economies or the job markets. Instead, the Gypsies are actually an economic drain, as the new EU-bound governments are expected to give free health care and a functional standard of living to the Roma who cannot produce it for themselves. This drain on already-impoverished Eastern European countries does not go unnoticed by the native populations that harbor intense hatred for Gypsies already. Local governments are reluctant to help them due to a perceived inability of their self-progression. The Gypsies themselves have proven unable to better their own living standards by adaptation and survival. With the growth of technology, Roma are being outpaced and further pushed to the boundaries. And with racism and nationalism growing in Europe at a time of dire economic bankruptcy that can seldom longer support the impoverished Roma communities, their future is as bleak as always. Sources:
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