by Valeriu Nicolae / 11.08.04. Translated by Joanne Richardson.

Source: Indymedia Romania

> “Gypsies are not Romanians” – a very widespread idea in Romania.

The problem is not that the Roma don’t consider themselves Romanians, since the overwhelming majority of us do identify ourselves as Romanians. The problem is that you – that is the mass media and the greater part of the Romanian citizens who hallucinate that there exists such a thing as “pure ethnic” Romanians - consider us to be non-Romanian.

Starting from a truly false dichotomy – “you are either gypsy, or Hungarian, or Jew, or you are Romanian” – which is imposed upon public opinion by politicians who are paranoid or at best stupid, Romanian society has associated the word “gypsy” with a powerful social stigma through the many stereotypes it stubbornly promotes.

In case you are convinced that you have no problems with a racism that has become commonplace in Romania, especially since you have “gypsy” friends or you grew up with “gypsies” (the kind of foolish remarks most used when trying to show a “tolerant spirit”; although the claim of being “tolerant” is the first step towards racism and xenophobia) - well then you should have no problem if some foreigners mistakenly consider you to be a gypsy especially if you happen to be a little suntanned.

In this case “hey gypsy, how are you doing” shouldn’t offend you or unleash a powerful defensive reaction. And neither should the epithet itself.

> “Gypsies are gypsies and ’Roma’ is one of their inventions after the revolution” – a Romanian journalist.

This makes it sound as if we have no right to be using the word “Roma,” which has always been in our own Romanes language, but should instead be using a word which is more familiar to you and which associates us with the great majority of the crimes, thefts, rapes, and acts of violence which proliferate in Romanian mass-media.

And to top it off, instead of being happy to be called “stinking gypsy” and those other similar nicknames such as “crow,” “gypsy-boy,” “darkie,” “gypsy princess” which clearly pinpoint the ethnic identity of criminals and allow anyone who reads the news to identify the “enemy”, we also have the effrontery to want to be Roma.

To be consistent you should try identifying the ethnic identity of each of the persons whom you write about, and since the Nazis excelled at doing this, you should follow their example and make a thorough research back to everyone’s great-great-grandparents. In which case in all probability many of you would not be able to sign your articles as Romanians.

The idea that there is an international conspiracy to associate Romania with Romanestan (this is what the country of the Roma would be called) leaps over a minor detail, namely that in this case it would be easier to believe that “Roma” (the capital of Italy) is the target of this conspiracy.

> “Gypsies steal.”

It would be ridiculous to deny that Roma steal. They do it, just as Romanians, Europeans, Americans, Africans, and all other people in different nations do it. The problem is that in Romania they are the most visible and this is thanks to the professionalism of those in mass-media.

I know this will be disappointing for you, but no one can prove that the Ceausescus, the Bobis, Vantu, Bivolaru, and dozens of others who have been the principal protagonists of thefts amounting to sums that are difficult to conceive of were gypsies. It is true that the newspapers associated the phrase “as if they were gypsies” with these names and that it is probable that these people (as the great majority of Romanians) could be tainted with some gypsy blood.

The fact remains that the biggest thieves Romania has ever had and still has today come from the elite that governs the country of which the absolute majority is non-Roma.

The fact is that riding the mass transit system for free (and bribing conductors), bribes at the mayor’s office and for every public service, the failure of taxidrivers to give you change, and the various “borrowings” from the workplace are so well-ingrained in the functioning of Romanian society that they no longer appear to be what they really are (THEFTS) and they tend to escape the attention of the Romanian journalists. It is worth considering all these facts before speaking about “gypsy thieves.”

> “Gypsies are mentally handicapped and they don’t like school” – my teacher from high-school.

“Do you know of any research that has proved that gypsies would have better results in school if they were given a more welcoming educational environment?” – journalist

The fact that they grow up in very poor families, the fact that they are isolated, the fact that the parents of “Romanian” children move their children from classes in which there are “gypsies” or don’t send them to schools where there are known to be larger “gypsy” proportions, creates a vicious circle from which Roma children find it difficult to escape. This is the same situation faced by very poor families in isolated villages or anywhere else. The lack of a family-school transition especially for children who speak Romanes language at home, makes their adaptation in school extremely difficult (since they don’t speak or understand Romanian at the same level as their schoolmates who come from Romanian speaking families).

And considering that the educational atmosphere teaches them that “gypsies” are violent, idiots and thieves doesn’t make school a very attractive prospect either for Roma children or for their families. Several cultural heroes promoted by the Romanian educational curriculum have been guilty of killing, torturing, deporting or racist discrimination against “gypsies.”

> “The gypsies live off other people’s backs”

During a period of 500 years, while the Roma were slaves belonging, in the greatest proportion, to the Romanian Orthodox Church (an institution in which Romanians have a lot of trust and which has never raised the issue of public apology or recompense), their masters lived off their backs. When they arrived on the actual territory of Romania the Roma were enslaved for the simple motive that their skills were vital to the economies of villages.

Undoubtedly there are also Roma who trick and live off the backs of others.

I’ve never heard of billionaires who go to pick up their social welfare checks. Usually these waste their time much more efficiently by obtaining tax reductions or grace periods on loans for huge sums, which you end up paying for in taxes.

Cotroceni Palace was implicated in a scandal about cigarette trafficking at the end of the 1990s, there are now scandals of corruption totaling billions of dollars surrounding the parliament and the government. Those who are in the parliament, the senate and the executive government are the ones who rob you and are the ones who profit the most living of your backs. And unfortunately it is not the “gypsies” who voted for them or promoted them in the mass-media.

> “Gypsies are antisocial and destroy their dwellings” – mayor of Piatra Neamt

I am sure that many of you are familiar with houses and apartments where Roma are living without thinking for a moment that those who live there are “gypsies.” For no other reason than the fact that they look just as normal as any other house or apartment in Romania.

If you never went inside, I invite you to pay us a visit. Dirty, disorganized, irresponsible people and barons with dubious tastes exist everywhere just as they also exist among the Roma, but this does not mean that it is a genetic trait or a matter of ingrained tradition. Poverty, lack of education and opportunity are the main reasons for the disaster taking place in the peripheral ghettoes in Romania. Not ethnic origin.

> “Gypsies have bad manners – they are all fiddlers and brawlers” – one of my former bosses.

In a country which has always found itself in the midst of poverty and which has always been under totalitarian regimes, during which (like during communism) lies and theft were means of survival, it is very difficult to speak of morality and ethics. If you are not convinced look around you at all the abundance of ass-kissers and self-interested flatterers in Romania.

Like all groups that are marginalized and poor, the Roma tried to find means of surviving, and one of these has been music. A small number of them are fiddlers and in general their profession is not something to be envied. The fact that they spend a good part of their time in bars means that they adopt the model behavior of their surroundings.

> “Gypsies like to live in isolation and they are united among themselves, unlike us Romanians”

There is a large number of Roma who live among you. There is a good likelihood that at least some of your friends and colleagues have close relatives who are Roma.

As one of the most discriminated and scorned groups in Romania, it is understandable that those who have managed to have a normal social life sometimes hide or deny their ethnicity, and that the others have a tendency to live among those who are like them because this protects them from the social stigma of being “gypsy.” Just like the Moldavians from the Banat region stick together because of the many things they have in common and because they are discriminated by the others, so do the Roma.

The unity of the Roma is as much of an aberration as the unity of Romanians. There is a very large diversity among groups of Roma who have interests that do not coincide, and as a consequence there are also conflicts among them.

There is no sense in which the Roma constitute a unity; their belief that the “gadjii” (non-roma) are united against them seems to be a much more credible fact considering all the surveys which tell us that more than 80% of Romanians believe that the “gypsies” are criminals.

> “Gypsies do not want to be integrated or to work or to live in a civilized way like us Romanians” – a radio broadcast

Are you sure that you are capable of accepting to work together with Roma and to consider them equal? Are you prepared to give up your convictions that “Romanians” are entitled to have priority to workplaces and that you should have the exclusive right to make decisions in your “own” country. In the event that you are, then, according to surveys, you are in a very small minority.

If you offer Roma the possibility to work and to live with you and to be equal members of Romanian society, you might have an unexpected surprise.

I am sure that you all consider it absolutely normal that Romanian citizens speak Romanian. There are several million Romanians who speak Hungarian, Romanes, or Idis. How many of you have tried to learn a few words in their languages to try to understand them a little better?

And maybe it would be interesting to start discussing exactly which values are being promoted by Romanian society and what we understand by “civilization.” The Romanian Orthodox Church was one of the principal supporters of the fascist Iron Guard movement and of General Antonescu (who is guilty for the deaths of tens of thousands of Roma and Jews). If the Orthodox Church is, as many people believe, the backbone of Romanian civilization, then it is difficult to demand that the Roma should become “civilized.”

> “The gypsies are damaging the image of Romania in Europe”

The most recent report of the European Commission about Romania says absolutely nothing in the first 28 paragraphs about the Roma, but instead brings to the surface the almost total corruption of the structures of Romanian society. In fact, a Europe with a post-colonial and post-Nazi past which has been responsible for the deaths of millions of people as a consequence of ultranationalist theories has a very small interest in any real improvement of the lives of a group which has no political representation and which lacks any serious economic potential to make it sufficiently interesting to the EU. The hypocrisy of Europe has been one of the major factors in the genocides that took place in Rwanda and ex-Yugoslavia. Until the moment of a crisis of large proportions, Europeans will be content to be silent. The best example of this is the fact that Slovakia, a country with a very bad record as far as the suppression of the rights of minorities are concerned, became a member of the EU on May 1.

Our image in Europe is damaged by the corruption, nepotism, shameful arrogance and stupidity of our “Romanian” representatives.

— original source (in Romanian): http://www.erionet.org/SterotipuriR.html