Arts, Romanian film, Aferim!

Aferim!  Film, from the Turkish meaning Bravo! --Romania. Topic: a fictional constable and his teenager son hunt for an escaped Roma slave, set in the 19th Century in Wallachia by Radu Jude 2015.  The expression is used for mutual congratulations among the hunters as the hunt progresses. Although not based on actual persons, the plot draws on historical record.

Award so far:  something called The Silver Bear, best director award, Berlin Film Festival, February 2015.  It is in the running as Romania's entry, best foreign-language film, the Oscars.  The former executive director of Romani Criss, that I understand is the "leading Roma rights organization" (most of the sites are not in English, so a search, so where is it located? recommends it for raising awareness. See New York Times, review 9/9/2015, Arts, at C1.  She is Margareta Matache.

Aferim! is not in our area film houses, and not in the library, but I found it online (free! so it says - is that a scam?) at http://www.fulltv.tv/movies/aferim-2015.html

Matache notes the 500 years of slavery in Romania, abolished in 1856, but it remains under rugs, no memorials, not mentioned apparently in history books, places like museums, and there are no memorials.  Mr. Jude expressed two goals for the film:  increase awareness, and highlight "second-class treatment of Roma today."  NYT.

Earlier films: 1923, Gypsy Girl in the Bedroom, lost except for some isolated stills.  Other directors: Cristian Mungiu, 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days,  and Beyond the Hills

Travel to Russia. Roma Resources. Moscow and St. Petersburg.

Update -- Return from Russia, see Russia Road Ways.

1. Many ethnic groups there, obviously, but difficult to get any information with the language difficulty and restrictions of a small tour -- and the bus.  Access available to Roma for us was only through taxi drivers: courteous, helpful, would set the record straight about the services available in the spotless tourist districts not given where they live.  That is also true at home.

Absolutely no way to determine ethnicity of anyone.  These photos of someone begging are just to show universality of the condition, and the humane response it sometimes gets.

 Poverty:  No way to know who we are seeing in that condition. Read Anthony Marra's Tsar of Love and Techno, for Russian poverty, span of years, also human inspiration. Review at http://www.nytimes.com/2015/10/08/books/review-anthony-marras-the-tsar-of-love-and-techno-stories-of-russia.html?_r=0

We were steered away from struggling areas, but saw transients, people begging, in the Metro. Again, no way to tell who they were, many appeared to be veterans, amputees.  Tourist areas are kept clear. 

Moscow Metro, as here, hat out for change. Got it.

Police: seen in pairs. Did not see a lone patroller.

Moscow Metro, police patrolling, as here

2.  Am exploring a timeline site for Roma: go to http://www.timelinesdb.com/listevents.php?subjid=562&title=Gypsies and search for Russia or other topic-- regret the use of the name.  There is only a 2006 entry on violence in Russia, but this site has not been used much.  Find the Index at http://www.timelinesdb.com/listsubjects.php?letter=G

3.  Useful search:  try Moscow Commission on Gypsies (since that was the word used in the timeline) and find several sources.  Try St. Petersburg Russia Commission on Gypsies (add that Russia to avoid going to Florida) and see an article warning tourists against gypsy cabs.  Not so.

Moscow Metro. People in need, see archway. Some help out, some not as they pass.

Metro. Built by Stalin as the People's Palace. See the Russia Road Ways site
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Travel to Russia. I am going to Moscow and St. Petersburg shortly, and ask for recommended Roma places, artists, culture focal points. Roma resources needed.  People, history, phonetic language assistance.

Resources so far include the European Roma Rights Centre at http://www.errc.org/article/roma-in-russia/1399d, and articles, University of Victoria, Holocaust, Re-Remembering Porraimos, at http://dspace.library.uvic.ca/handle/1828/6268/;  also The Roma and Russian Literature at Russia Beyond the Headlines at http://rbth.com/arts/2015/04/08/the_roma_and_russian_literature_centuries_of_association_45045.html;

  

Roma culture share in times of fracture. O.P.Joshi.

I have received some samples of the work of O.P.Joshi from India. He says, in part, "I studied Roma since 1974 and ater retirement I painted and Published cards on Roma,culture,traditions.dance,music,history.to make aware people about them, wish to send samples to you. O.P.Joshi" He approved my posting these, and I have made them close to thumbnail size. I have more and enjoy them very much.  To contact him, leave a comment here and I am sure he will see it.

It brings to mind history, cultures, see handy overview at Migrations,

Untitled 1, by O.P. Joshi, posted by permission

Untitled 2 by O.P.Joshi, posted by permission

Untitled 3 by O.P.Joshi, posted by permission

Untitled 4 by O.P.Joshi, posted by permission

Untitled 5 by O.P.Joshi, posted by permission

Untitled 6 by O.P.Joshi, posted by permission

Roma at Highlands NJ. Madame Stanley's Table

Twin Lights Historic Site
Lighthouse Road, Highlands NJ

Venerable communities recalled.  For me, growing up, summers in Highlands at my grandmother's cottage there, still able to place in my mind each piece of furniture: this one a particular favorite.

Roma table, Highlands NJ, Madame Stanley.

Madame Stanley and a group of Roma camped at Highlands, year after year.  They made furniture, among other occupations, and Grandma bought this fine table one for the front porch at her Portland Road bungalow.  Grandma and Madame Stanley:  good friends.

Next trip to the NY - Sandy Hook area, plan to visit the Twin Light Lighthouse, Highlands NJ.  The historical society has set up a Museum at the Twin lights.  This branch of the McConaghy-Scharfe gang is sorry not to have kept more from those days.   Historical Museum at Twin Lights. Twin Light. Historical Society.  On a clear day, we could see NYC.

Roma Religion. Charismatics Offering More Than Politics.

I.  Examine the facts; does Christianity, in some form; now enable the positive status of Roma; despite opposition of other 'Chriatians.'

What happens when a derided Christian community, Roma Orthodox, Pentecostals, Evangelicals, any branch, offer more in humanitarian results than those other Christians who brand them as inferior, not to be allowed autonomy, a permanent underclass..

Must Roma remain a permanent underclass?  Not if some branches of Christianity have a say, and they do. There remains a current strong following for Christianity among Roma, Romani, despite ongoing cultural rejections by traditional Western religions and groups who considered them less than truly Christian. And the numbers of the faithful are growing. Explore why, where. Start with a very Christian source, a moderate one, not automatically tilted evangelical, at Philip Jenkins' article, The church of the Roma, Christian Century, June 11, 2014/

• The focus of the Christian Century article is on this observations:
• That European Roma are "overwhelmingly Christian and becoming steadily more so."  
• That forms or Roma Christianity include the charismatic Christian groups, evangelicals, Pentecostals. 
• And this attraction is true despite historically profound persecution by 'mainstream' and 'deviant' European cultures, both; 
• Some 500,000 Roma were killed in the Holocaust, known as the porajmos, although precise numbers are reachable, given those simply killed and dumped into ravines and the like, before they even arrived as places like the extermination camps, where records were kept.  
• Others were sterilized, and numbers for all those out of the formal transport system, and who comprised the original larger population, are difficult to pinpoint, see http://www.history.ucsb.edu/projects/holocaust/Research/Proseminar/romaholocast.htm/  
• Rigid prejudices remain.  The scapegoat. 

II.  What is the practical, not necessarily spiritual, effect of Christianization through charismatic churches?

Why is this ongoing and increasing charismatic Christian participation important?

A. .  The attraction to charismatic Christianity is changing Roma culture in ways that their older adherence to orthodoxy did not.  The article notes that women enjoy greater emancipation, and education now. Participation in these Christian groups also teaches organizational and negotiation skills, as the groups proselytize, seek rights in their communities, train pastors to further the interests of the congregation. 

B.  Charismatic Christianity flourishing gives the lie to  those who say Roma are not Christian.  The Roma are doing for themselves better than other branches of charismatic Christianity did for them, is that so? Pentecostal Christianity offers skills experience.

III.  Why will traditional Western culture lost out to new approaches -- using Christian terminology..

A. Here is what the West does worst:  suspend judgment of a behavior until its cultural, linguistic, historical, personal surround is examined. And yet, the Common Law, underpinning the justice system of Western Cultures, traditionally applied maxims, or truths, of equity immediately after application of a law, to ensure that justice and not mere punitive retaliation resulted. See http://joyofequivocating.blogspot.com/search?q=maxims+of+equity

• Judging itself is morally precarious, as scholars of Jesus and some Christians would point out, see Matthew 7 at http://www.bartleby.com/108/40/7.html; but disregard of reasons for a behavior augments the evil, is that so.  
• When is the taking of a thing of value mere theft, to be punished mightily in the West; and when is it part of a cultural origin in a unity of give and take/ Does the perspective of the culture of the "offender", where sharing freely is the originator of the norm, and a taking where a needed thing is not shared, more acceptable than not.  Self-justifying? See  Romani law and culture, linguistic and behavioral angles

B.  With this huge disregard of basic justice and religious principles in the West, why would Roma continue to espouse Christianity?

Focus on sharing.

Try this:  Roma embody more Christianity than the Western usual Christians because their focus is on the sharing of all, the give and take, the sharing again.  See original linguistics:  to take, is not to steal necessarily, which is a random malicious gimme act.  To take is to show need, and self-help where someone will not share.  That is a general idea, now too far calcified in Western terms as thieves, but hatched in the Western crucible of Ayn Rand.  I have, I took, and I dare you to assert your need. Is that so?

Roma Music. Cultural updates - Start with Caravan of Thieves

Gypsy swing band.  Gypsy swing folk band is the full category, I understand.  One of my favorites among bands of that joy is Rattlesnake, a few years old but lasting, from band Caravan of Thieves -- visit http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=wwL6jdAkmSw

The more traditional music, see Romani music, Gypsy harps, group musicians,

Yenish Travellers. Blonde Angel as Celtic-Teutonic Yenish Traveller? Need Facts.

Blondes among the darker.

Why assume a crime?

Is the blonde angel Yenish? Maria and Greek Roma.

Update in light of comment, below. 

 As of 11/2/2013.  The child Maria's biological parents have been found in Bulgaria as the Greek Roma family who are raising her, had stated.  The identity is confirmed, and no crime appears to have been committed.  See http://abcnews.go.com/International/mystery-gypsy-girls-identity-confirmed-dna/story?id=20681522 . 

 In Ireland as well, no issue remains as to a blond child in a darker family there as well. See http://www.cnn.com/2013/10/23/world/europe/europe-mystery-girls/. 

Prejudices betray us, in the absence of facts.

1. An old issue now recurs. Alarms are raised about why darker skinned parents are raising a lighter-skinned child in their nomadic, or once-nomadic, Roma culture. Headlines:  the light-skinned child, the blond, blue-eyed one, might have been stolen. Take the child into protective custody, jail the parents! See http://www.usatoday.com/story/news/world/2013/10/21/greece-mystery-angel-girl-roma-gypsy/3142559/.

Might have been. The fever to feed a stereotype about racial hierarchy rules. No facts first, before painting the ending. The anti-minority mythology, the ancient libel about (once) Jews, and now Gypsies, grows.  Another such child has been found in a Roma family in Ireland, see http://world.time.com/2013/10/22/another-blonde-girl-removed-from-roma-family/   The Irish "Tinkers" are Travellers of, I understand, ethnic Irish background, see http://irishtraveller.org.uk/  And look Irish, not of Asian or other dark-skinned descent.  Still, smear.

Author Louise Doughty, with many books about Roma and Travellers, has risen to the current issue and called it, when it occurs as in the current fact-free zone, recurrent libel, see http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2013/oct/22/angel-kidnapped-by-gypsies-libel-replayed

2.  Roma or other nomadic groups are not alike. There are blondes like us. See an overview: Open Society Foundation, Voices, History of Gypsies, Roma, Travellers.  It has long been known that Travellers in the British Isles and elsewhere in Europe see themselves as separate from "Gypsy" or Roma groups also on the Continent.  Are the Travellers' origins Celtic, deep into Europe's own past, and not derivative from a migration from India.  Surnames can suggest a Romani past sometimes -- look at the Yenish, for example, in Ancestry.com.  Do a Romney and see the variations.

3.  Yenish, for example. Who are the fair-skinned nomadic peoples.  The Yenish Travellers, are among European nomadic peoples, even if now settled, and the Swiss response to them has been brutal.

3.1  Research.

Read academic papers on the topic, four submitted at the University of Greenwich, and one including specific mention of the tool of accusations of nomadic peoples' child abductions and state persecution responses against them generally (in Switzerland here) at  http://www.rae.ac.uk/submissions/ra1.aspx?id=58&type=hei&subid=1917, and all dating in the range of 2003,2004, 2005, 2006.

Find one such paper as a google book, The Role of the Romanies.  sections focusing on tales of child abduction and why they often seem to swirl about these wilfully maligned cultures, including the Yenish culture of Switzerland. for example, and other countries. , see Strike fear into hearts:  tell tales of child abduction, changelings, and target some group in need of, says the mainstream, control.

3.2.  Self-education.  The Yenish on film.  Listen.

Watch the Yenish in this Yenish film, so titled, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=k8Z3X7yTiDQ; and another at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UkqFB9S-Xok/.  Go down the right hand menu for more -- in America, anywhere.  I searched for Jeinesche Bond Letzebuerg, listed as the film's originator, and found nothing.   Here is a January 2012 long film, Die Letzen Freien Menschen, but in German, at http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Td8chodhYsQ.  Music, haunting.

3.3  Read Louise Doughty.  Novels help normalize lives.  Try Fires in the Dark.

4.  Journalists.  Study your topic.

This issue of how nations deal with cultures within it is not de minimis, to be swept under traditionally boundaried countries' rugs.

The overall issue is ethical, humanitarian, right to autonomy. Is there such a human right to autonomy, to be able to move about instead of staking out turf?  With origins in various mists, and beset by urban legends that serve to rouse the settled against them, how do they defend.  Is there a right to assumed innocence? Of course not. And any group builds in survival techniques so they can survive.  Can those be defused? The cases do need to be vetted; but why remove a child if the home is safe, minimal adequate care even, and the parents cooperating in place?  The stereotypic assumption of guilt in a minority again is frightening.

There is more to nomadic cultures than the one category, Roma, Romani, embraces.  Stories recur in European and other history as children of the road, many now halted, caravan families often forced into alien molds of forced settlement. A broad brush paints them as darker skinned, dark hair.

 Get us some facts before arousing stereotypes.  Knee-jerk police-types. Unless there is harm being done or likely to be done to a child, and so long as a flight risk is not feasible (make it so), leave the child with the parents while you investigate calmly, quietly, and then perhaps tiptoe away while the child sleeps, unaware. 
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FN.    Associations:

Nomadic peoples in Scandinavia.  Are they there?

I did see begging people on our recent improvised road trip (Norway Road Ways), but have no information on ethnicity, or whether they were migrants as any others might be, just that they were dark-skinned.  I cannot discern clothing styles with any confidence.

Housing.  I saw only one trailer settlement in Norway this year on an improvised road trip.  Trailers, mobile homes, in groups, are not commonly visible from the roadside.Are they there? The people in that park were not dark, but I did wonder what purpose it served, construction going on, dirt road in parts, there hidden 'way up on the summit of a moderate mountain at Kvam, a place the sign called the Peer Gynt Trailer Park.  Peer Gynt country, of course.

Curiosity, speculation without facts:  Are these or were these residents nomadic once and is this a "settlement" by the governmenr?  Or is this just senior housing (then why so far away, up a winding road, up up. Is it benevolent low-income housing open to anyone.  The people I saw were fair-skinned.

• There are Gypsies in Norway, do a search. In Norwegian, they were called the Sigoynere.  In Sweden, the Zigenare.  One motivation -- to make money, see http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=MILysXJHr1U/.  The narrators here appear to be of darker skin origin, not the Celtic-Teutonic who could blend in more easily physically. 
• And the cultural clashes are increasing, see http://frontpagemag.com/2012/bruce-bawer/a-gypsy-fiasco-in-oslo/  Roma had, of course, been included in the racial purity slaughters of WWII and before and stigma after, see Long Pursuit of Racial Purity, http://mondediplo.com/1999/10/11/gypsy

Roma: NYT asks -- Are Roma Primitive or Poor? Start your letters.

This marks yet another recent news coverage event regarding Roma. Deportations from some parts of Europe to others -- Romania, Kosovo, wherever.  Now the New York Times looks at a base concept for many in Europe who question whether Roma can or should be assimilated into the culture of the country of present residence, or will they, or should they.  Ethical, humanitarian, ethnic identification issues all.  The Times phrases the issue this way:  Primitive, or just Poor?  Go immediately to http://www.nytimes.com/2013/10/20/sunday-review/are-the-roma-primitive-or-just-poor.html?_r=0

Primitive?  Lesser beings?  Start your letters now.  This sounds like the old assessments of blacks in the United States -- are they "behind" because they are defective less evolved, or has our culture's keeping them in poverty by acts and omissions, made them an ongoing underclass, a poor class, undeserving of attention.

I am just returned with my son from an improvised car trip in Norway (our main site is Europe Road Ways for travel in Europe and other commentary).  Graphics are currently broken as I redo. Can you get it going?

Norway Roma.  In Norway I was aware of no Roma communities.  Please let me know what we missed.  We also saw no slums, but some individuals begging with Eastern European dress, usually women.  It is integrated racially in the industrial town areas by factories, and many, many black-other individual live throughout the country.  But Roma?  Please get back to me, in between your letters to the New York Times with your response.

Genome Roots: Roma from Northwest India

Roots, Branches. Genome Study Points to Roma Origins in Northern India 

Roots. Genome Study: Roma roots in Northwest India

These particular outgrowths are in Maine, but the concept carries: deep, unseen roots, wide branchings.

Consider again Roma roots. The similarity between Roma languages and languages in India is known. That suggests, of course, cultural origins. Now that connection has been buttressed as to a more precise location within India with a genome study by many contributors, see New York Times at Genomic Study Traces Roma to Northern India

Effect of outlawing nomadism. 

As you read the article, however, cringe at the treatment of the nomadic tradition of many Roma: "The marginalized group is still nomadic, often building illegal camps."  Illegal camps? Outlaw camp designation?

Make room for nomads. Why not make room for people to be nomadic in the first place, safe havens for encampments along the way, free of snide illegal-sniffing NYT reporters.  It is as though "illegal" -- once some law is passed -- ends the discussion of who has worth and who does not, whose practices have cohesive, deeply rewarding cultural roots, and which are not worth examining. 

Memorial to the Sinti and Roma of Europe Murdered in National Socialismolocaust Memorial, Germany

Extermination of Roma, Zigeuner, Gypsies

Bring back the term "Gypsies" as Univerally Recognizable - Use with Respect

Roma photographed, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Mauthausen KZ, Austria

Berlin.  High time. Finally, Germany acknowledges the hundreds of thousands of killed Romany -- Sinti and Roma -- in a new Holocaust Memorial.  See NYT at http://www.nytimes.com/2012/10/25/world/europe/memorial-to-romany-victims-of-holocaust-opens-in-berlin.html?_r=0.  Not all died in the killing camps, of course.  Many were killed in the woods, driven out, bodies in ravines. Jewish people came with written records of births, places; they could more easily be counted.

Crematorium, Mauthausen Concentration Camp, Austria

National Socialism:  That sounds like a euphemism.  National? A harmless word.  Socialism?  Many benefits to that, applied carefully and not exclusively.  Put them together and the horror of the Nazis is not evoked at all.  This is 50-60 years later than the events, two to three generations-worth. It should be clear by now that no one-approach will work anywhere.  See variations in political systems explained at http://dspace.dial.pipex.com/town/street/pl38/sect2.htm

For the most effective display of the history of Roma slaughter under the Nazis, go to Mauthausen, in Austria.

Memorial to Roma and Sinti at Mauthausen KC, Austria