The Roma Community of the CEEC

[beergal]

Atchoum and myself have a keen interest in travelling around Central and Eastern Europe and we thought it would be a good idea to dispel some of the common misconceptions of the Romani people such as “you cant trust or rely on gypsies”; “all gypsies are lazy and irresponsible” and “all gypsies are thieves” to help fellow Tpunker’s have a great experience of travelling around this area.

From a personal perspective I have lived in Hungary (Magyaroszág) for 4 months as part of an academic exchange plan. I have been working on my final year dissertation “ Development and empowerment of Romani women in Hungary” for the past 8 months and have gained valuable ethnographic and academic research. From my studies, as well as personal experiences I have learned that the Rom community in Central Europe is plentiful…plentiful in numbers…plentiful in poverty…plentiful in life. Many people believe that the Roma people are a lazy, uneducated group…this is not true! I have had the pleasure of becoming great friends with a Roma woman who is training to be a neuroscientist whose Roma friends include psychologists, lecturers and doctors etc. The Roma community are very diverse being the most disadvantaged of all ethnic minority groups living in this area, as well as suffering from the most extreme human rights abuses such as “coercive sterilisation of Romani women in the Czech Republic”.

Because of the xenophobic and racist perspective of many tabloid newspapers in Europe, harsh stereotypes have been created aimed at increasing the fears of the general public and travellers alike. The illusory correlation between Roma ethnicity and delinquency has been frequently implied in criminal reports/statistics, however, for many Roma because of prejudiced police members these are often false accusations and criminal charges. Police brutality against the Roma, particularly in countries such as Macedonia are not unheard of. Romani people have suffered greatly throughout Europe’s history. They are a minority group which can it can be suggested are “forgotten victims of the holocaust”

I would like to tell you about a conversation that I had on a recent trip to Kaposvár. I had gone along on a training session run by an NGO to a school to talk about multicultural education. The teachers were all very surprised that I was there, being that I was English. Through out the training session I had to sit there and listen while a female teacher explained to us that as a drama teacher she was shocked by some of the Romani children’s attitude to a class exercise. This class exercise was asking the children through role - play what they would be doing when they were older. For the girls they replied through drama “I will be at home looking after the children” and the boys “ I will be in prison or I will be a drunk”. For someone such as myself from a working – class western society I find this heart breaking. I can remember as a child the games I used to play, pretending to be a teacher, or a vet.

If anyone else has any more positive views about the Roma minority or questions feel free to post your comments….

[beergal]

I also wanted to include a few photo's that I have taken of Roma people

[tumblezweedz]

Thanks for the insight beergal.

I think a lot of the misconceptions are reinforced by the press coverage we commonly see, too - photos of sad looking women holding children or groups of men staring suspiciously at the photographer. But let's face it, those photos are intended to convey an impression, and not necessarily an unbiased one.

In Lithuania there is a small Roma community which suffers the same prejudice as those throughout the rest of Europe. I had the good fortune while there to see both a photo exhibition of "Roma in Lithuania" and an exhibition of art by Roma children, and both gave rare insight into the vibrant community life of this group.

The negative attitudes commonly expressed about the Roma today are little different than those expressed toward African Americans, Jews, Irish, Poles, etc at different times in history, and are equally bigotted, ill-informed, inappropriate and stupid.

[Esterina]

Great work Briley , beautiful pictures , and thanks for sharing with us.

I'm very busy at the moment, but I'll soon write a detailed post about my time in Eastern Europe with them. The short version for now (copied from another thread, yes, I'm lazy this morning) :

I spent weeks in Eastern Europe and never had problems with them. At the contrary, like Beergal said, the few I came to talk to were absolutely charming and respectful. It is true that the most visible are children-beggars, and sometimes they can be "persistant", but carry a fruit or cookies with you and everyone will be happy. Once, after I had given half of my sandwich to a child as I was waiting for the train, he after prevented the other children from begging to me ! I was under his protection !

Really, no need to worry about them.

[chelseafc05]

thanx for the insight guys

[mr-turisty]

Great post.

Your photos remind me of going to Spiss castle in Slovakia, myself and someone i met on the way got off the bus and wandered through the small community. The streets were dusty and totaly dead apart form a few kids playing. All of a sudden we were surrounded by loads of kids tugging at our sleeves. They werent after money or werent begging they were interested in our cameras and wanted us to take their pictures. They led us along the street to their cottages and their parents came out of the house and they were all wanting us to take their pics. One older teenage boy who spoke broken English told me he wanted me to send them to his family. After me taking loads and loads of photos of all the kids and all their relations we exchanged addresses and I promised id sent them the photos. I remember how happy the kids were with their huge smiles and laughtrer despite the poverty they obviously lived with.

Unfortunatley I was never able to send them my pictures cause some bastard stole my camera a few days later on the train.

[beergal]

camera's are great way of interacting with people its a shame you had your camera stolen as im sure those kids would have loved to have their photo's

Great story though!

[kingcrazylegs]

All I can say Bri is that its very inspiring, and I think you are doing a great job with it