Tuesday, May 20, 2008

Romani Face Difficulty in Europehttp://euobserver.com/9/26176

http://euobserver.com/9/26176 Never has there been more antiziganism, since the time of the Third Reich. The gypsies should have the right to live there lives in freedom. They're not hurting anything. So they should just be left alone.
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4 comments:

Unknown said...

When referring to the Romani people as "gypsies", it is always best to capitalize the "G" as the term denotes a world wide ethnic group and not a way of life. Consider the term as you would African, or Indian. Thank you for your consideration.

National Romani Anti-Discrimination Organization (NRADO)

May 22, 2008 at 8:09 AM
RedKnight said...

The reason why I do not capitalise "gypsie", is because I use "gypsie" to refer to a legal designation. Not an etno-cultural one. There are other groups of people, whom are also traditionaly vagrant. Like the Yenisch, and the Irish Travellers. In anglo-american law, these groups are considered to be "white gypsies". Romani refers specificly to the ethnic group which migrated from the Indian sub-continant, centuries ago. Also I would never capitalise african, any more than I would capitalise european. There are many nations within Africa. So I capitalise Egyptian, for example, but not african. I certainly meant no offense. Thank you for your comment.

May 23, 2008 at 5:26 PM
Vonnie said...

Hi redknight
Sadly for Romanies, as soon as someone uses the word Gypsy, be it with capital G or small g, and they are describing Irish travellers or some other group, and not Romanies, the public immediately point the finger at Romanies anyway, because it is so ingrained into society's minds that all Gypsies are Romanies. Most people don't have a clue what a real Gypsy Romani is. Romanies were originally called Gypsies and because they were forced to move through persecution the word became synonymous, mainly due to the romantic racist historians badly written books and the ill-informed media, with a "travelling lifestyle" so if you refer to Romanies as Gypsies, it should be with a capital G as that was the name originally given to, what is now the world's largest non-compact world-wide ethnic group. The only culture left without a country. The Jews use to be the other ones, but they have a country now. Because the word Gypsy is so blurred now, Romanies don't like to be called Gypsy anymore. More of the right info on Romani culture and history can be found on these Romani run web sites: www.rromaniconnect.org
www.radoc.net
And, just to add, Romanies didn’t migrate from India, They were for forcibly taken by the conqueror, Mahmoud of Ghazni in a series of invasions into northern India 1000 years ago.
Thanks
Yvonne

May 24, 2008 at 12:21 AM
RedKnight said...

Thank you for the information Vonnie. Yes I know that the Roma/Sinti perfer not to be refered to as gypsies. The origin of the word "Gypsy" came from the mistaken belief that they came from Egypt. There actually are many legends as to how they came to leave India, and travel through out the world. But whether or not they migrated willingly, or were vanquished, and exiled by an enemy force, they still haven't returned to India. As the Jews have returned to Israel/Palestine. And so the Roma/Sinti remain a nation within a nation. As to why I chose to use the word gypsy, as well as the more propper name Roma. When I write, I keep in mind the knowledge of my audience. Since I didn't think that most people knew about, or may even care about the people known as Roma, I used the more venacular term of gypsy, as well. And as I found out, using a common word, like gypsy, also makes it easier to be found through a search engine. I've never received so much feed back in all my time blogging. If I hadn't happened to use the word gypsy, I probally would have gone unnoticed, yet again. But now that my readership should all know all about the people's listed under the law as "gypsy", I will use the more specific names for the traveling groups.

May 24, 2008 at 12:12 PM

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