Unwanted in France, Unloved in Romania

[AzariLoveIran]

[Endovelico]

It's true we haven't treated the Roma very well throughout the centuries, but it is also true that most of them just do not want to be integrated. We represent a free hunting ground for them, they may rob us, cheat us, lie to us, without any remorse. They are fiercely loyal to eachother and despise everybody else. We either invent an "Israel" for them, dump them all there and forget them, or we integrate them, even if against their will, which could be a very complicated venture.

[Sparky]

.

[YMix]

I doubt a "Gypsrael" would work. Not sure these people could live without their "hunting ground".

[AzariLoveIran]

[jerryberry]

[YMix]

[Endovelico]

Newspapers announced that there had been confrontations in Northern Portugal between Romanian and Portuguese Gypsies. Maybe this will help us understanding that we can't speak of a single Roma people, which has been facing problems and discrimination in various European countries. Apparently Portuguese Gypsies do not see Romanian Gypsies as being part of their community, which could be a sign of a certain degree of integration.

[Ibrahim]

The amount of contempt for Gypsies is baffling to me. I've never seen a group of people so despised, and treated the way they are even in the current era. Their disproportionate suffering at the hands of the Nazis is also totally ignored and perhaps tacitly approved of.

Seems a bit much for pickpockets, but I can't claim to have had any experience with them.

[noddy]

Its the left/right split on crack, for all that is real and holy for one group - the other is low life selfish thieves.

Gypsies is just europes version of it - Im not aware of any nomadic gatherer people living in harmony with settled development people, at best its death by indifference, at worst its horror stories.

[noddy]

Australia has its own version with the aborigines.

They believe nature is for ermm, nature and humans must take lightly and move on so its still there next time.

It would be an impossible level of selfishness for them to consider a section of land "owned" by any one human, you would have to be extremely ignorant of the seasons and migratory patterns of the animals to even think its possible to split it up that way.

They know everything shuffles up and down the country with the seasons, following the rain - trying to stay in one place is just turning that place into a dust bowl.

Fencing it off is killing everything that should have been able to move through that area.

We are very clearly exploitive, selfish thieves.

[Endovelico]

[Apollonius]

[noddy]

[Apollonius]

Noddy,

There is an oustanding series of BBC documentaries called 'Wild Continents'. There are multiple parts on Europe, South America, Australia, Antarctica, and several on different parts of Africa and Asia. I've watched them all and the photography is utterly spectacular. You might remember the details better from a book, but this series does do a good job of showing how ecosystems work and gives you some fascinating insights about some of the inhabitants of our remarkably varied planet.



I saved the 'home continent' for last. The series on North America is actually presented in a radically different fashion from the others. Unlike the other programs, which focus almost exclusively on wildlife with rarely a human presence of any kind to be seen, the discs on North America set up an antagonism between Native Americans and Europeans right from the beginning and their ways of life are contrasted throughout, always to the detriment of Europeans, who didn't know how to grow their own food-- but were demonically trying to dominate nature, whereas Native people killed game-- but they were "respectful" towards their prey.

Other programs in this series would tell you, for example, something about the evolution of the armadillo or the lifecycle of penguins, this program gives us the Indian legend of how the chipmunk got its stripes and how the Native peoples of James Bay had knowledge of over four hundred "medicinal" plants (most of which, in reality, were effectively snake oil). The word "spirituality" came up so often I felt like I was in a church.



Because the BBC has such an impressive reputation, with some of its nature documentary like Blue Planet and this one and others winning many acolades, I was really struck with the outright jarring way in which the human element was emphasized so much in the 'North America' program, and the way in which is set up a cast of heroes and villains. Photos of bounty hunters posing in front of mounds of dead Buffalos were in black and white, as were all photos of all Europeans. All the stills depicting Natives were in full colour (although at least half were paintings by Europeans, beautifully executed in full Romantic style). For those of you who have read Guns, Germs, and Steel, this will all be familiar territory. No mention of the fact that most Native children died before the age of six, or that almost half of males who did survive into adulthood died by violence, usually as a result of the never-ending warfare between the various tribes. In most tribes there were only three professions: mother, warrior, and shaman. No word about the universal belief in sorcery and the outrageous methods used to avert it. Native peoples are responsible for the extinction, through over-hunting, of over two hundred large animals from mammoths and cave bears to giant birds. virtually the entire megafauna of the Western Hemisphere.



What really has me puzzled is why constant reference is made to Native spirituality in a science program? There are eight programs on North America and they all have this moral: the "white man" (their terminology) is more savage than the red. Really? Why do they omit every detail of Native life that we know of, including things like diet, life expectancy, relations between the various classes and groups, gender relations, property arrangements, the prevalence of slavery, war and, genocide, and so on, so that we can do a proper comparison?


In short, my reason for posting this little rant is to bring to people's attention an attitude which has been pervasive in the media for at least thirty years now, which is what I call Romancing the Indigenenes.

Whether it's Native Americans, Palestinians, Tibetans, or Australian Aborigines, there is by now and underlying assumption that these people were somehow more in touch with Nature and God than Europeans (or Israelis or Chinese or the English and the Irish), that they are Good, and if a little rough, Noble in their suffering at the hands of Colonizers, restless Aliens with dangerous ideas.

[Torchwood]

Ah, the noble savage - Rousseau has a lot to answer for.

Interesting that the romantic mindset only arose when man did truly start to have the mastery of nature, prior to that it was much too scary to romanticise.

[Colonel Sun]

[Ibrahim]

Various indigenous populations getting fucked over/supplanted but us property- law-and-shopping-mall types is a separate issue. I know as well or even better than most that North American Indians weren't saints, and I don't think they ever said they were, so pointing out that they were violent or whatever before whites showed up and destroyed their civilization isn't really informative or relevant. The same holds true, I expect, for Australian Aboriginees.


The Gypsies (and I know I'm using this broad term to describe a number of different groups) are something different again. They aren't an indigenous people who had a disastrous encounter with violent moderns. They are a people who live within the modern world but self-segregate from it. There are a few other examples of this. Various monastics, the Amish in North America, probably a few others that I'm forgetting.

Now, I understand some of the resentment towards Gypsies, as they do demonstrably have increased rates of petty criminality and some unpleasant family customs. What I don't understand is how these legitimate but comparatively minor beefs turn into total hatred of their as a "race," and the desire for their complete removal or even extermination. This included deportation, cultural genocide, or even literal ethnic genocide.

Not to say that people here hold that view, just that it is out there. I recall some people thinking this was back on FT or ATOL, such as Pastaneta, unsurprisingly.

[noddy]

There is alot of stupidity in the myth of the noble savage, and yes certain groups with a dislike for modern life take it to absurd places but as someone with a lot of "savages" in his family Im not that impressed with the "myth" of the european superiority either.

I made the first mistake in blurring the roma with the indigenous peoples - I dont intend to repeat that mistake and continue to blur so many different cultures under one perspective.

[Milo]

I have yet to see an actual commentary on the exact legality of the Roma expulsion. Not the sanctimonious drivel, all sanctions against criminal actions violate human rights, but exactly what law is France relying on to do this?

So, link below:

In July, dozens of French Roma armed with hatchets and iron bars attacked a police station, hacked down trees and burned cars in the small Loire Valley town of Saint Aignan.

The riot erupted after a gendarme shot and killed a French Roma, 22-year-old Luigi Duquenet, who officials said had driven through a police checkpoint, knocking over a policeman. Media reports suggested he had been involved in a burglary earlier that day.

Duquenet's family dispute the police version of events, saying he was scared of being stopped because he did not have a valid driver's licence.

The night before, there were riots in Grenoble after police shot an alleged armed robber during a shootout.

French President Nicolas Sarkozy called an emergency ministerial meeting, at which it was decided that some 300 illegal camps and squats would be dismantled within three months.

A statement from the president's office said the camps were "sources of illegal trafficking, of profoundly shocking living standards, of exploitation of children for begging, of prostitution and crime".

Dozens of camps have since been shut down. Those found to be living illegally in France are being sent home.

http://5no6.sl.pt

Ummm, what's the problem?

[Ibrahim]

[Ibrahim]

[noddy]

[Milo]

Well it appears that the grandstanding can be put aside now:

"The European Commission has lifted its threat of legal action against France, saying Paris has responded "positively" to its concerns about expulsions of Roma (Gypsies)."
http://goo.gl/Atb7

Are the expulsions being stopped... no.

Will this "directive" stop this happening again, assuming that's desirable... no.

In point of fact the commission's only long term, semi tangible response to this is stepped up efforts to integrate the Roma!

But I'm sure that many people feel very righteous after their faux rant of concern over this; and their tiny attention spans and facile moralities can safely ignore the reality.

[Ibrahim]