Walls Surround the Roma

[Ordie]

Walls, Real and Imagined, Surround the Roma

Martin Marencin for The New York Times
A wall that separates a Roma ghetto from the neatly manicured homes of gadzos, or white people, can be seen behind a Roma woman hanging her clothes out to dry.
By DAN BILEFSKY
Published: April 2, 2010

OSTROVANY, Slovakia — The gray barrier evokes the West Bank or cold war Berlin: a 500-foot-long, 7-foot-high concrete wall that separates a Roma ghetto from the neatly manicured homes of gadzos, or white people, on the other side.
Enlarge This Image

Martin Marencin for The New York Times
Alena Kalejova cleaned the muddy shoes of her daughter, Daniela.
“Why didn’t they use the money to help improve our homes instead of building a wall?” asked Alena Kalejova, 22, staring out of her freezing mud hut at the wall, erected with $17,500 of public money. A powerful stench from the piles of soiled diapers, cigarette butts and rotting food strewn outside wafted into her makeshift home, which lacks running water. Her sickly toddler, Daniela, lay motionless on a rusty cot.

Ales, a visiting 12-year-old neighbor, smiled nervously as the subject turned to the wall. “We can’t steal apples anymore,” he said, staring down at the dirt floor.

In this poor rural village in eastern Slovakia, as in much of the region, the Roma — who arrived on the continent from South Asia centuries ago — eke out an existence on society’s fringes. Blighted by poverty, alcoholism and unemployment levels of around 80 percent, many lack basic skills, the consequence, human rights groups say, of decades in which many Roma children have been sent to special schools for the mentally handicapped, regardless of their intellectual capacity.

The controversy over the wall, which was erected in October, comes as the global financial crisis is helping to fuel a regionwide backlash against minorities, including the Roma, as citizens look for scapegoats to help explain their economic woes.

Continued:http://www.nytimes.com/2010/04/03/world/europe/03roma.html?src=me&ref=world

Why would the Slovaks discriminate against its own citizens in such a manner? This is very shameful for a modern Europe.

[miguelencanarias]

The following is not addressed to you, Ordie, but to the author of the article:

Boo-fvcking-hoo. Get conned, robbed or abused by Romas or see first hand the disruption in our society that they bring, and your bleeding heart will suddenly understand how many of us decided one day that tolerance and understanding is supposed to be a two-ways thing, it has limits and that it is one thing to be reasonable and another to let others abuse your good nature endlessly.

[Kaapeli]

Why would the Slovaks discriminate against its own citizens in such a manner? This is very shameful for a modern Europe.

I wouldn't put the blame entirely on the Slovaks either.
We over here have given the Roma everything: Totally free schooling from preschool to universities, houses, homes, jobs, complete welfare with extra benefits... Even the Somalis picked up on this better than the Roma did even though they came from that hellhole in Africa...
One thing we can't do for the Roma is change their culture of half-nomadic freeloaders. They persist on not assilimating. They need to change themselves now. And I don't mean their dresses, language or customs, they can keep all those. But just go to school, picking up a job and quit doing crime.

[Ordie]

The following is not addressed to you, Ordie, but to the author of the article:

Boo-fvcking-hoo. Get conned, robbed or abused by Romas or see first hand the disruption in our society that they bring, and your bleeding heart will suddenly understand how many of us decided one day that tolerance and understanding is supposed to be a two-ways thing, it has limits and that it is one thing to be reasonable and another to let others abuse your good nature endlessly.

I find your statement ironic given that Gitanos (Roma) Culture is synonymous with Spanish Culture.

[Mu-Meson]

Oh Goody. Another sob thread about the Roma from Ordie.

http://www.militaryphotos.net/forums/showthread.php?173034-The-next-stop-for-the-Roma-Canada&highlight=roma

Ya know, there are more deserving minorities for your attention.

[miguelencanarias]

I find your statement ironic given that Gitanos (Roma) Culture is synonymous with Spanish Culture.

Really? and all Americans wear Stetson hats and cowboy boots, smoke large cigars and put longhorns on their car hoods.

[Ordie]

Really? and all Americans wear Stetson hats and cowboy boots, smoke large cigars and put longhorns on their car hoods.

Cowboy Up!!!

[miguelencanarias]

And let me tell you this: we used to complain about the local gitanos. That was until we received the first Romanian Romas.

[miguelencanarias]

I wouldn't put the blame entirely on the Slovaks either.
We over here have given the Roma everything: Totally free schooling from preschool to universities, houses, homes, jobs, complete welfare with extra benefits... Even the Somalis picked up on this better than the Roma did even though they came from that hellhole in Africa...
One thing we can't do for the Roma is change their culture of half-nomadic freeloaders. They persist on not assilimating. They need to change themselves now. And I don't mean their dresses, language or customs, they can keep all those. But just go to school, picking up a job and quit doing crime.

What Kaapeli said.

[BLUE THOR]

The reporter probably had his wallet nicked before he left.

winner p-)

notice that he didnt actually go around to a few huts the Roma area, only to the first hut and back out again...


When the neighbors erected metal fences to protect their properties, he said, the Roma stole those, too, selling them as scrap metal.

and they wonder why the community is walled in with concrete....

[Russianlynxy]

Notoriously nasty reputation I suppose is the reason.

Don't know about Slovakia, but here Roma (or here known as Tzigane) are often associated with drug market, underground organ market, abducting women, various scams on the streets.

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

I used to employ Slovak Roma and there not the worst people I have worked with by a long stretch and they are kind to fault I did notice the perception of the Roma varied amongst the other Slovaks the guys from the cities were very wary of them while those from rural areas and the Eastern Slovakia seemed to get on with them really well.

[Telmar]

The complexity of the Roma community has been a subject of discussion and action for many years.

It's a tough society, in which loan sharks prey on poorer Romas to pay them back using social money transfers such as child allocations. The Roma are trapped mainly by their peers.

The Roma do find it hard to be employed, especially by local companies, but benefit from employment plans from large (and often American) corporations such as US Steel in Kosice or Whirlpool in Poprad. The experiences they have with the Roma is positive. A friend of mine's personal secretary is also Roma and he considers her the best element in his company.

Unfortunately, Romas trapped in their backward and primitive culture have very little chance of getting out their villages, that are completely rebuilt every twenty years and fall back into decay a few years after because maintenance and planning are totally foreign to Roma culture.

[Connaught Ranger]

Notoriously nasty reputation I suppose is the reason.

Don't know about Slovakia, but here Roma (or here known as Tzigane) are often associated with drug market, underground organ market, abducting women, various scams on the streets.

Usually as a convieniant cover for the activities of the native population,

dont get me wrong there are those Roma involved in crime but they are not the only ones doing it,

they have become a convineiant scape-goat.

The Roma as a culture have varing degrees or levels of society amongst themselves,

always have and always will have, in some respects they are a mirror of our more "normal" society.

Connaught Ranger.

[zg18]

I watched Bosnian news before some time, it was about Roma's in Sarajevo. City built 20 houses and give them for free to Roma community, now all houses are basically just walls because floors , pipes, kitchen etc. ,everything that can be used used has been "chopped" and sold for scrap metal or sold in local markets. That kind of behavior is exactly why i don't feel sympathy for their problems , they don't want to work but live on social aid and smuggle , they have to change first.

[Kiiski]

I once had a near-fatal encounter with a member of this ethnic group. Unable to pick a fight with me he stabbed the next person he ran into.
Rapid response from emergency services and sheer luck (number one hospital of the country less than a mile away) saved the persons life.
Turned out that the assailant was 12 years old. Incidents such as this are not uncommon.

Asking a very experienced person in the social services for the reason for such behaviour, I got a laconic reply: "They have been marrying one another for so long"

Articles such as this tend to be written by people who do not have first-hand experience with the group they are writing about.

[Dercius]

And let me tell you this: we used to complain about the local gitanos. That was until we received the first Romanian Romas.

x2
Even local gitanos complain about Romanian Romas

[gazell]

This has happened in several other countries as an isolated measure. People are desperate and take to desperate measures in an effort to try and protect their property and families or their environment even.

We have nails and the likes scattered around to prevent vehicular access, big trenches dug, shall have soon portico and all, like in the middle ages. All that just to protect forests and fields of crops.

[California Joe]

They really seem to be a feral type people. They sh*t where they eat, they destroy free housing, refuse free educations, resist all assimilation into normal society, they move into people's gardens, they squat in houses that are being rennovated and try to claim ownership, they lament the lack of opportunistic thievery all the while claiming they are being repressed and discriminated against. They're like ticks.

[BLUE THOR]

They really seem to be a feral type people. They sh*t where they eat, they destroy free housing, refuse free educations, resist all assimilation into normal society, they move into people's gardens, they squat in houses that are being rennovated and try to claim ownership, they lament the lack of opportunistic thievery all the while claiming they are being repressed and discriminated against. They're like ticks.

Pretty much sums them up, however, If you apply the same methods to this problem as you do to a tick problem on your dog, you'd probably find yourself in the Hague....

[miguelencanarias]

Didn't somebody open a thread some time ago about some Romanian Romas in the UK who broke into a house being renovated and refused to leave when the family who owned the house returned, claiming ownership?

[Mr Gently Benevolent]

Didn't somebody open a thread some time ago about some Romanian Romas in the UK who broke into a house being renovated and refused to leave when the family who owned the house returned, claiming ownership?Yeah it happened down South somewhere and it was an article culled from the Daily Mail, trouble is its your local band of dreadlocked crusties that do most of the squating but its always the ethnics that get on the front page these days. Can any of the UK bods remember when the press was telling us the great unwashed crusty mass was going to defile our very way of life in good old Blighty.

[Stefan850]

They really seem to be a feral type people. They sh*t where they eat, they destroy free housing, refuse free educations, resist all assimilation into normal society, they move into people's gardens, they squat in houses that are being rennovated and try to claim ownership, they lament the lack of opportunistic thievery all the while claiming they are being repressed and discriminated against. They're like ticks.

That's all true and there's more to it.

Said Balic, guy who was President of the Roma World Organization for I think 3 mandates during the 70's and 80's, a very influential person etc was from my town, Nis.
http://www.yuromcentar.org.rs/osnivac_eng.htm

He was always a part of this cities elite, so is his son now but he never "sold out", always talked about Roma problems defended them, didn't run away from his heritage, as far as I know, he was a good, respectable man, in short someone any community would be lucky to have and to be represented by.

Anyway, his grandson was my high school friend, two years younger then me (also gypsie/roma), a very nice guy, he was one of my good friends there and I was always shocked by how much problems he had with other Gypsies. All the Roma population here basicly hate there guts instead to be grateful, I defended him a couple of times because they always used to come to our school in packs, tease him like he is some sort of "traitor", push him around say stuff like "are you ashamed that your like us, do you hate what you are, you are a pussy", provoke him and then beat him up real bad. As I said I defended him a couple of times, got my ass kicked really good once :) but god only knows how many beating that poor guy got because of who's grandson and son he is.

That hate Roma people have for that family goes even so far that they have broken the gravestone of Said Balic, my friends dead grandfather.

Whenever I run in too a Roma discussion I always think of that family and the hate Roma people have against them instead of gratitude since they always did and still do there best to help them.

[seraosha]

Really? and all Americans wear Stetson hats and cowboy boots, smoke large cigars and put longhorns on their car hoods.

Wait...you mean folks don't?

[Kaplanr]

He's describing Kinky Friedman.

[0rphie]

They really seem to be a feral type people. They sh*t where they eat, they destroy free housing, refuse free educations, resist all assimilation into normal society, they move into people's gardens, they squat in houses that are being rennovated and try to claim ownership, they lament the lack of opportunistic thievery all the while claiming they are being repressed and discriminated against. They're like ticks.
I absolutely agree with CJ and the given definition. Defining the problem is the first step to a solution. Having said that "the solution" is not going to be simple or pretty.

[gazell]

I absolutely agree with CJ and the given definition. Defining the problem is the first step to a solution. Having said that "the solution" is not going to be simple or pretty.

The solution is mostly quite simple though: carrots and sticks. Forget democracy and human rights bullocks, they misunderstand.

Secondly the church, they know, what they are doing.p-)

Then we are only left with a percentage of those seriously engaged in caste culture.

[gazell]

'In Ostrovany, 1,200 of the 1,786 residents are Roma, a fact that critics of the wall say makes a state-financed barrier separating the majority from the minority all the more unjust.'

This is a pearl of the many wisdoms of the article.
1 - most commonly the minority needs protection and that's not the gypsies here
2 - they never paid any **** all into this state financing they seem to think is for them

[0rphie]

The solution is mostly quite simple though: carrots and sticks. has been tried, never worked.

[gazell]

has been tried, never worked.

It did. The Romungros/Karpathian gypsies/Hungarian gypsies, whatever they are called here and there, first line of migrants usually are not much trouble at all.

Gypsy is a collective of course of a lot of different folks...

[therifleman]

I spent quite a bit of time living in Spain and encountered these people on almost a daily basis, especially in the south it seemed. Many, if not most of them really are scummy and a blemish to such a beautiful country. They will lie, cheat, and steal on most occasions. A lot of able bodied males who are more keen on snatching cameras from tourists than making an honest living. CJ put it accurately calling their existence feral.

When Franco was around there was none of this nonsense going on but as everyone knows, laws have changed and have become more accommodating for the "better" I suppose.

[miguelencanarias]

When Franco was around there was none of this nonsense going on but as everyone knows, laws have changed and have become more accommodating for the "better" I suppose.

Far from being a Franco admirer (quite the opposite), I miss the times when Gypsies were scared ****less when they saw a tricorn looming up in the horizon (a tricon being the distinctive headgear of the Guardia Civil). In those days, they knew that if they crossed the line, they would fall down the stairs at the police station. Repeatedly.

[1Cie GevGn]

Maybe if they stopped being such criminal thieving bastards, they wouldn't get a wall build in their face.

Too harsh?

[gazell]

I find your statement ironic given that Gitanos (Roma) Culture is synonymous with Spanish Culture.

I find your statement ironic, given that American culture is synonymous with Spanish culture.


Maybe if they stopped being such criminal thieving bastards, they wouldn't get a wall build in their face.

Too harsh?


Nah, they just need to take a health walk now to get at the goods.

[Tank34]

I spent quite a bit of time living in Spain and encountered these people on almost a daily basis, especially in the south it seemed. Many, if not most of them really are scummy and a blemish to such a beautiful country. They will lie, cheat, and steal on most occasions. A lot of able bodied males who are more keen on snatching cameras from tourists than making an honest living. CJ put it accurately calling their existence feral.

When Franco was around there was none of this nonsense going on but as everyone knows, laws have changed and have become more accommodating for the "better" I suppose.

Main problem not nationality but the style of life that ignite criminal activity and young ones do not have chance to halt this because of society there they live. In Soviet union with a strict goverment policy many of them become normal citizens with normal life of course with lose of part of they culture.

In modern world it is would be very difficult task. At least in Russia they social strcture create benefical envivorment for narco business, this lead to very unpleasant relations with other peoples. No one likes drug traders and peoples like to generalize.

[Jobu]

Walls Surround the Roma

They're probably stealing the bricks.

[MichaelF]

The solution is mostly quite simple though: carrots and sticks.

More like: sticks and sticks.

Ditto for the Travellers.

[California Joe]

There are groups like this everywhere, Roma or not...they are insular by nature, criminal by trade. The "travelers" that inhabit the southeast US seem to trace back to Irish tinkers.They cruise the highways in RVs and pickups, they don't have social security numbers, they don't vote or have normal addresses... They do nothing but scam old women over home repairs and driveway sealing and have strange betrothal ceremonies for their 5 year olds etc... They are just an example of that type of gypsy mentality.

[West Texican]

Romani constitute about .1% of the US population so odds are that most Americans have never met a Gypsy and are probably lying if they said different. That being said, my first girlfriend was a Gypsy, her name was Jeannie.

[miguelencanarias]

I still remember the first time we saw Romanian Gypsies in the Canary Islands, begging at red traffic lights. This activity in itself was not totally new for us, of course, since our local deadbeats were doing it from time to time, although keeping a very low, respectful and tolerable profile. What came as a deep shock for us was the Romanians' methods: they (almost invariably children, specially young girls) would become extremely aggresive and threatening to any driver who wouldn't give them anything, from hitting doors, hoofs and roofs to punching people through open windows and spitting in their faces. In those days inmigration was a totally new phenomenon for us and we were still trying to adjust, filled with ideas of multiculturalism, tolerance and all that stuff.

Needless to say, after some time of getting verbally abused, poked and spat upon, our view towards Romanian Gypsies changed radically. It didn't help to see them giving all the money they collected to adults in a nearby van. Or the massive use of (drugged?) babies by begging women squatting in the street.

Well, if not being happy about this whole deal is being a racist or a xenophobic prick, then I guess I am.

[Robert.V]

Well, if not being happy about this whole deal is being a racist or a xenophobic prick, then I guess I am.

You ain't though.

[Russian_dude]

Almost collided with some roma/traveller idiot, who on a deserted road pulled into the road right in front of me. Already they are soiling the road etc.

[gazell]

More like: sticks and sticks.

Ditto for the Travellers.

As diserved, of course. It won't work otherwise.