What Everybody Ought to Know About Gypsies/Roma.

by Jason Surguine on August 28, 2009

People are recently becoming interested in the Roma (also commonly referred as Gypsies). Good. I figured it wouldn’t be too long before the English speaking world took notice of this unique race of people, since I encountered the Roma quite a bit while I was living in Hungary.

Yeah, I said race, not culture. It’s true. And believe it or not, they have nothing to do with Egypt (where the Gypsy name came from). According to Wikipedia, the Roma/Gypsies, “… are an ethnic group of Europe tracing their origins to medieval India.”

And now they’re everywhere. Sources say up to 10 million Roma exist throughout the world. The biggest populations are throughout Europe, especially Eastern Europe (including Hungary) and Anatolia, Southwestern Europe and Southern France, we even have a few populations in the Americas.

They have their own language. About half of them are speak it full time, but when two Roma from completely different areas of the world meet, they can start speaking Roma.

They’ve been crapped on throughout history. Like many ethnic minorities, there are tons of atrocities that range from countries banning their language and music from being used in public, women being sterilized as part of a state policy (to reduce their population) to the Nazis in WW II marking them for extermination and/or concentration camps (with an estimated 220,000 to 1,500,000 deaths).

They’re fantastic musicians. If Franz Liszt and Johannes Brahms took notice of the Roma music, there must be something to it. Throughout Eastern Europe, everyone refers to that great Gypsy Music (even if they don’t like the people. You’ll hear wonderful comments like ‘I don’t like Gypsies, but man, their music is great!’). Jazz musicians may recall a certain awesomeness that is Django Reinhardt.

They’ve been linked to crime. Here’s where the movies and pop-culture is partially right. While many Roma are portrayed as fortune tellers, even more are portrayed as outlawed, pick-pocketing thieves. Honestly, this is kinda true. I had my phone stolen by a gypsy while living in Hungary. A Bulgarian professor wrote an article stating the ‘Roma should be confined to ghettos because they do not assimilate, are culturally inclined towards theft, have no desire to work, and use their minority status to ‘blackmail’ the majority’… which leads me to my next point:

They’re still being crapped on. Even today, throughout Eastern Europe (yup, including Hungary) Roma are often live in low-class ghettos, are subject to discrimination in jobs and schools, and are often subject to police brutality. Roma children are forcibly segregated from normal schools.

Even in Italy, more than the fact that their Pizza is awful, it was declared a national emergency that the Roma population represented a national security risk and that swift action was required. The Roma are accused with responsible for rising crime rates in urban areas. Simple math shows that the Gypsies in Italy have a total of 0.3% of the population (one of the lowest proportions in Europe) so… that’s unlikely. Even more scary: ‘In July 2008, the Italian government began fingerprinting all Roma, including children, whether or not they are Italian citizens. The government claimed fingerprinting would cut crime, avoid children being used for begging and help identify illegal immigrants for expulsion.’ What year is it again?

Western Europe doesn’t get off the hook either, bad stuff happens to the Roma even in the UK, Ireland, Denmark, Germany, and Norway. There is even a definition for hating on the Roma now (which I can’t possibly pronounce) called Antiziganism.

They have some help. In 2005, the Decade of Roma Inclusion started up. The initiative of twelve European countries hope to improve the socio-economic status and social inclusion of the Roma minority across the region. It’s been roughly 4 years and they’ve accomplished a few things, but nothing amazing has happened… yet.

They have nowhere to go? You may find several similarities to other ethnic minorities throughout history. The Jews of course come to mind, but before you even mention it, a major difference lies in that even if Roma were given their own country (you know, like we did with Israel), none of them would want to go there. Maybe.

Wikipedia stuff:

Roma