...."This is not a place in general that Greek society cares to take a hard look at," said Panayote Dimitras of the group Greek Helsinki Monitor, who took foreign journalists to the Gypsy camps. "We have a tradition in Greece to say that Roma have a right to a decent place to live — but not next door to me."
At the garbage dump encampment, 26 families live in converted freight containers, normally reserved for victims of Greece's many earthquakes. They have cultivated small gardens in front of their makeshift homes, where lately they've been rigging car batteries and generators to televisions so they can watch the Olympics.
....Some Greeks claim Gypsies have turned to drug dealing and do little to assimilate and raise their esteem among the mainstream population.
"They've always lived in camps. They're nomads — these kind of people always complain," 25-year-old architecture student Theodoros Stephanides said as he sipped coffee in an Athens suburb.
........Most Greek Gypsies deal in scrap metal [Sports Illustrated]
Funny they should mention that:
- seven thieves stole an entire 13-yard bridge near the southern Bosnian town of Mostar, police said Friday.
Over several days, the group dismantled the metal bridge built during the Austro-Hungarian empire 150 years ago, transported the parts to a local junk yard and sold them, a police statement said.
While it all happened in a remote mountainous region, local villagers saw the thieves loading parts of the bridge into vans and alerted police last Friday. The seven men were arrested and are being held pending a decision by a prosecutor.
Without disclosing their names, police said the Gypsies, or Roma, sold the metal parts for $170. [AP]
It's enough to give Gypsies a bad name, although that is some tenacious pursuit of scrap metal.
There are parallels between how the Jews and Gypsies are portrayed and perceived: insular, refusal to assimilate, nomadic, beholden only to themselves, the Nazis reviled each for "impure blood." But then there are rather glaring differences too: the Jews' emphasis on law, education, achievement - no one ever accused the Gypsies of secretly ruling the world; in fact, they seem to be most resented for being a world unto themselves ... and that scrap metal thing.
Article comments
— go to most recent comments1 - jadester
it depends on the country, and the gypsies. Yes, there's more than one type of gypsy.
Here in England, i think only very few of our "gypsies" are the original kind, most are travellers of one sort or another. I have never met any firsthand, but what i have worked out is that some are fine, and some are assholes. Some of them, see, seem to think it's ok to move in to a public park (or sometimes private land), set up camp, trash the place and the immediate surroundings, then move on, without so much as asking. Hence, there are numerous occasions where local councils have to go through the motions of getting them evicted. these types of gypsies are a nuisance.
2 - Dawn
Call me a thieving gyp if you must, but I will take my impure blood over the bland void of Anglo-Saxon blah anyday.
Oh, and you best watch it, or I will put a hex on your white ass!
3 - Sandra Smallson
I fail to understand. I am probably being ignorant but I don't see how the gravity of discriminating due to colour or religion even can be viewed as of the same level as discriminating against gypsies/nomads, call them what you wish.
I agree with Jadester regarding the public nuisance of such people but then I am confused by Dawn's response. "White ass"?..are Gypsies of some particular hue, neither black nor white, that one knows nothing about? Aren't most of them white? Again, I apologise for my ignorance but I am trying to understand. Aren't they just human beings who choose to wander the earth and sometimes unfortunately wander the earth to the inconvenience of others?
4 - Eric Olsen
"Real" Gypsies, or Romani, are a specific ethnic group that originated in northern India and gravitated to Europe in the Middle Ages and have remained largely unassimilated ever since. This, and a set of values at odds with mainstream society is the source of the conflict
5 - Mac Diva
The core of the dispute may be that the Romany are at odds with capitalist society and its love of things. They are on the spiritual tip, if you know what I mean. The Rom are also insular. For example, an unassimilated Gypsy will not tell his true name to outsiders. So, Sandra, you can see how they would be on a collision course with most societies in the West.
6 - Eric Olsen
and that scrap metal thing
7 - Mac Diva
Which Europeans and Americans also have. The get really obsessed over gold. Silver, too. And copper. There must be something about metal.
8 - Eric Olsen
Yes, but I was also "subtly" referring to the Gypsies renowned penchant for theft
9 - Mac Diva
Again, and Europeans. Of land, even people.
10 - Mac Diva
Theft, that is.
11 - Eric Olsen
it's all a matter of scale, isn't it?
12 - JR
Given that the Europeans in question are still in Europe, I don't think they can be accused of stealing land.
13 - Eric Olsen
Ultimately the issue with the Gypsies is similar that that of any group that refuses to assimilate and affords lesser or no status to those outside the group (fundamentalist Islam). When the group's rules are notably different for insiders and outsiders, there is going to be conflict.
14 - Mac Diva
Sounds like Europeans, meaning white folks, again. Seems that your effort to say the Romany are somehow deserving of discrimination is doomed, Eric. In almost any measure of inhumane behavior, European and European-derived socities lead the pack. And greed? Don't get me started. It is perverse that you can't see that.
15 - RedTard
"In almost any measure of inhumane behavior, European and European-derived socities lead the pack."
MD, I see you took another chance to get your swipe in at white people. What did your mother tell you about stereotyping?
I will agree that whites(Europeans) are EQUALLY as bad as they come, but African tribal genocide and the Arab cleansing of black Africans in the Sudan is just as vicious. It takes some real heartless SOB's to massacre tens of thousands of people by hand with machetes. It proves that all people, regardless of the color of their skin, are capable of atrocities.
16 - Eric Olsen
I have done nothing but attempt to explain why the Gypsies are viewed the way they are by every society in which they dwell, or pass through as the case may be.
17 - Child of Nature
A true rom will never betray, destroy or willingly hurt another human.Their blood is pure and they are a very spirital race. In the beginning of all humanity the seven races took straws to see who would be first in the triology of life. Unfortunatly, the gypsey was last. Now in the year of 2006 it is their time and people will realise how they have wronged a nation of people. May the GODS be with them
18 - Child of Nature
A true rom will never betray, destroy or willingly hurt another human.Their blood is pure and they are a very spirital race. In the beginning of all humanity the seven races took straws to see who would be first in the triology of life. Unfortunatly, the gypsey was last. Now in the year of 2006 it is their time and people will realise how they have wronged a nation of people. May the GODS be with them
19 - Eric Olsen
interesting perspective CON - I hope thy get their chance, but they will have to choose to join the rest of the human race in order to avail themselves of the opportunity
20 - Nancy
Well, that's bullshit. If you google "Romany" & "Gypsies", you find some very interesting websites, including one run (so it claims) BY the Rom themselves, and several which cite grievances against them, presumably by those who have been their targets.
In any event, the Rom have made quite a rep for themselves, which they seem to have continued to maintain both in Europe & the US, for theft, fraud, and racketeering. Some of the biggest rip-offs of public funds have come at the hands of various Rom individuals & groups, so perhaps it's not surprising that when they come into an area, nobody exactly spreads out the welcome mat. They're NOT known for being good neighbors, or good citizens, or even for making an effort to be. Additionally, various governments have problems with the Rom cultural mores, which include marrying off girls to older men, frequently when the girls are younger than 16, and sometimes when they're as young as 10 or 12, "so the husband can bring [them] up right". This sort of thing, as mentioned above, also virtually ensures a cultural clash between the Rom & everybody else. There was a really interesting book published a few years ago by some guy claiming to be the grandson of a US Gypsy "king"; can't remember the name, but it was a good insight into Rom culture & thinking, which frankly reminded me a lot of the Mafia: very machismo culture, women more or less treated as property, defiance of law considered to be a sort of rite of passage as well as test of standing, core of 'business' revolving around various illegal schemes, etc.
21 - Eric Olsen
I would say that's the general line of thinking, Nancy - all I was saying to CON was that if it is indeed "their turn," they will have to make some systemic changes in order to rise to the occasion.
22 - Nancy
Oh, I was responding to CON, not you. The rest of the world shouldn't have to be the one(s) to make all the concessions.
23 - Eric Olsen
I agree Nancy, especially when your only interaction with the outside world is negative
24 - Mark Edward Manning
Some may hate the Gypsies just for their racial make-up - which is wrong. But the Gypsies do have a reputation for thieving, and in England there's a lot of resentment because they'll park their caravans in tranquil countryside, ruining it in the process, or move next door to a quiet village and stir things up with the locals. So they bring a lot of the resentment upon themselves.
25 - SFC SKI
The amazing thing about the is commment "But the Gypsies do have a reputation for thieving, ... or move next door to a quiet village and stir things up with the locals. So they bring a lot of the resentment upon themselves." Is that no matter what ethnic group you put in, it doesn't so bigoted or stereotypical.
Europeans don't have to face their prejudices, they can always point to the newest article about race relations in the U.S. and be self assuredly smug.