The proverb will stay with you: "Bury me standing, I've spent my whole life on my knees,." See "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and their Journey," by Isabel Fonseca, Alfred A. Knopf 1995.
For a narrative account of gypsy life, contemporary, from true life, this book is excellent, see review at ://www.shira.net/bookrvws/bury.htm. It is appalling in the cumulative impact of persecution in gypsy life over the centuries. There is no better introduction to the topic of current gypsy life - more below.
Scope. Gypsy groups are in any country where immigrants have moved. The culture(s) stress group unity and self-identification with taboos and norms they do not usually willingly share, and so have survived and declined assimilation. Yet - look at the cost of that survival, in terms of the impoverishment and persecution that others inflict on them. That says more about us than them. Learn a little. Do people travel because they are never allowed to stay anywhere. In some cases, yes. In others, the travel is part of the life. For others, settlement happened centuries ago, and has worked, reasonably. If abundance is what you enjoy, rather than what you have, who has life more abundantly. See what is happening in countries now:
Eastern Europe: Albania, Bulgaria, Romania, Poland-
Read the story of the experiences of Isabel Fonseca, in her book, "Bury Me Standing, The Gypsies and Their Journey," NY Vintage 1996. She lived with various groups, had her own translators, learned much of the language, researched history and records (the enslavement of Gypsies in Romania in particular was recorded in books not yet translated, in some cases).
Romania - a period of newspapers and other focus on the minority Gypsies, but the needs of the majority were so great, the minority again fell away, see p. 143. Government kept issue alive, perhaps as distraction from other issues. Civil rights issues. P. 143. Gypsies as "parasites against the socialist order." Read about the Czacky family, pp. 170 ff. Came back after being run off, status.
Hungary - Paper on "The Political Significance of the First National Gypsy Minority Self-Government, by Martin Kovats, UK at//www.ecmi.de/jemie/download/Focus11-2001Kovats.pdf; the role of Lungo Drom or the "long road" group, founded in 1990 by Florian Farkas, see "Race and Ethnicity, Critical Concepts in Sociology" ed.Harry Gouldbourne, a google book online, search for the Roma parliament.
Spain -"Practical Examples - Employability" at //www.google.com/search?hl=en&q=lungo+drom+Gypsy&btnG=Search
Customs referenced:
1. No euphemism, when someone mentally challenged. Physical disability same as mental. Life is life. Page 36: Candor not considered "brutal." "Among them it was recognized that truth in itself was not painful, only ignorance could bring suffering. Consequently, euphemism was eschewed -- except in (strenuously avoided) reference to bodily functions of any kind." See linguistic license granted to older women, and other use of idiom at p.59.
2. Many have no idea of the larger group of "gypsies" - even other Albanian groups. Little grasp of own history, even though their name in one instance meant "tent-dwellers." The past, unimportant. "As for the present, there was little to be said: there was no work, and they lived on the eggs of their ducks and their chickens, supplemented by the sunflowers and apricots that grew everywhere around." Page 75.
3. Dealings with outsiders restricted, to commerce. Like Jews, they worked for themselves in trade, not as employees of others, or in agriculture for wages. Page 98. The idea of their making a profit was threatening to others in the communist era who "under the communists, expressed their contempt or their despair by doing as little as possible in the jobs that were their birthright." Gypsies and Jews as migrant middlemen. But as to Gypsies, their work came to be valued, but they were also enslaved, like Blacks. Pages 98099.
3. Marriage - read at pages 134 ff, customs for separation, divorce, when permitted, how, and where the newly single or left woman goes.
4. Outsiders' reactions: the sedentary outsiders strongly against the itinerants, itinerant gypsies skilled at the Swindle, then moved on. No Gypsy would do fortune-telling for other Gypsies, only to get cash from outsiders ("gadje"). Hidden pockets in skirts, " 'Designed for stealing,'" Elena said admiringly." Page 137.
5. Governments settling Gypsies by force. See p. 167. Conditions of the new highrises, flats. Resulting deterioration of social life.
No comments:
Post a Comment