Who knew Europeans have so much in common with uppity crackers?
Madonna gave a concert in Romania at the end of August and got sounded boo’d for making what should be a rather life-affirming declaration which had nothing to do with her musical inclinations:
“It has been brought to my attention … that there is a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in Eastern Europe,” she said. “It made me feel very sad.”
Thousands booed and jeered her. A few cheered when she added: “We don’t believe in discrimination … we believe in freedom and equal rights for everyone.” But she got more boos when she mentioned discrimination against homosexuals and others. “I jeered her because it seemed false what she was telling us. What business does she have telling us these things?” said Ionut Dinu, 23. (Yahoo News)
That about sums up Romania so let us turn to the Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno has a two-part column on what it means to be Roma in today’s bright shining star of modern liberalism which characterizes the Czech Republic.
KLADNO—It is the first day of school. The children are well-scrubbed and neatly dressed. Some, the littlest and most excited, have their mothers in tow as they wait at the bus stop.
The bus pulls in. The doors fold open. The driver glares.And forbids them from boarding.
“I don’t take gypsies.”
Moms, incensed, start to yell. Kids, confused and frightened, begin to cry. The driver, unmoved, slams shut the door and the bus rumbles off, leaving youngsters stricken and adults seared with shame.
Many of these children have just had their introductory lesson in what it means to be Roma – reviled and excluded – in this so-civilized country.Ask the question: Why did 2,869 Czech Roma wash up at Toronto’s Pearson airport between Oct. 2007 and June 2009, seeking asylum as alleged political refugees? Here is an answer: Rust-belt Kladno – birthplace of NHL star Jaromir Jagr – a mining eyesore 25 kilometres northwest of cosmopolitan Prague, where gypsy children are unwelcome in public schools and on buses, where families live upwards of 10 to a single room in a dilapidated tenement building on the hardscrabble edge of town. A single water meter serves nearly 700 residents. Toxic asbestos insulation oozes from the walls. It was this address – a one-time meat-packaging plant known as Masokombinat – that was fire-bombed by skinheads last year, though fortunately the projectiles landed in a clump of bushes out front. Unlike, say, the Molotov cocktail assault in April on a Roma home in the town of Vitkov that left a 22-month-old girl with burns to 80 per cent of her body.
These are not isolated incidents. In Czech towns with a heavy Roma population, in the gypsy ghettos of Prague, violent attacks against the ethnic minority have escalated alarmingly in recent years. Right wing groups and the anti-immigrant political parties that feed on Roma resentment are on the march across all of Europe, most especially in former Iron Curtain countries.
But of course, the Czech Republic defenders, in a case of the most twisted racial logic plead the Roma want to live like this and that old stand-by – The Roma bring it on themselves. Part Two is carried here and while Canadians can feel smug that no school bus driver’s job in Canada would be safe after shutting the doors on a child based solely on the child’s ethnicity; the Canadian government effectively shut the door on those Roma’s who seek a life in Canada without fear of persecution. Same shit, different day – or – prohasar man opre pirende – sa muro djiben semas opre chengende”.
Well, they don’t have enough Jooz now, so they have to make to with Roma folks…
Yuck. I meant “to make do”, of course.
Funny you bring that up, I once asked one of the really old ones who had been born from the time of the wagons why Romani were so hated. He explained when Avram came out of the city of Ur the Rom protected his family and travelled with them, hence, the Rom are cursed to suffer whatever fate the world bestows on the Jews. Just imagine the outrage if the Rom claimed a homeland! Although, I know for a fact they would make far nicer neighbors than say – the Syrians.
Ask Rosie, where she heard about that incident with the bus driver. It is a fish story made up by a local Gypsy woman, and poor Rosie – as a true naive liberal ninny – swallowed the bait.
Kalderaš and Lovari have been here for decades. There is a big difference between the Romanichal and the English Travellers – who are not Roma. Your article dated Nov 2009 deals with the current influx of Roma children, children who haven’t even been in the country for a year. Of course, what school wouldn’t struggle with a large group of ESL children and very few translators able to help? But here’s a crucial difference; we won’t send the children enmass to go to school for the mentally infirm based solely on their ethnicity. Your ignorance is readily apparent and your bigotry has no place on my blog. The only reason I have let your comments stand is to showcase the very typical bigotry found among the Czechs and Slovakis. Go spew your bile somewhere else.
I have heard Rosie di Manno described as many things but never as a ‘true naive liberal ninny’. You could try saying that to her but I suggest you cover your balls before you say it. Your ignorance is readily apparent and your bigotry has no place on my blog. The only reason I have let your comments stand is to showcase the very typical bigotry found among the Czechs and Slovakis. Go spew your bile somewhere else.