European elections: Eastern Europe's gypsies have borne the brunt of hate-fuelled campaigns by Right-wing extremist parties. »
Posted By gamahuche 5 months ago in NewsDozens of families have been firebombed out of their homes in at least four countries and police have said the violence has been triggered by electioneering.
Mobs have been responsible for attacks on gipsies, who define themselves as Roma and are a distinct ethnic group with a long history of persecution in Eastern Europe.
Natalka Sivakova, a two-year old Czech girl is fighting for her life in an intensive care after three petrol bombs were hurled through the window of the family home in mid-April. The attack was blamed on members of the Workers Party, one of two extreme Right-wing parties competing for seats in the European Parliament. It's competitor, the Czech National Party maintains close ties to the BNP.
Similar attacks have also taken place in Hungary, Slovakia and Bulgaria. Gypsy leaders have warned that the atmosphere is the most hostile since Adolf Hilter sent gipsies along with Jews and homosexuals to the extermination camps.
Read Full Story at telegraph.co.uk »
994 Views Share Story 53 Comments Report
Submitted By:
gamahuche
"I would rather be a square peg than fit in a pigeon hole" -
an essay which won me the "Lamb Essay Prize" at the Religious ...
RSS Join the Discussion
+ Add CommentComments So Far: 53 (view all)
-
-
100%
cowboygrandpa5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
FTA:
Reply
"While most of Europe has failed to notice the rising tide of election related violence in the East, Canada has warned it faces a refugee crisis as a result. Canadian Prime Minister Stephen Harper said he was considering withdrawing visa free access from Czechs after the number of gypsies claiming asylum soared to 853 last year, from just 78 the year before."
That number may seem small in quantity. Less than one thousand. But the percetage of increase is astounding !!!
It would seem the gypsies are being targeted for racist and political reasons. -
-
-
100%
Natureboy5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Fascism and hate have returned with a vengeance in many east European countries. Poland was damned near sanctioned by the EU for their neo-fascist renaissance. Ethnic minorities, homosexuals, teachers, all the usual suspects are being persecuted.
Reply
-
-
100%
Charlson5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Unstable, disgruntled, resentful people turn to scapegoats to release their venom and hate. This becomes a big problem when you let it fester and continue without a concerted effort to identify, arrest, and prosecute all responsible. If the populace passively condone these violent actions, then you get organized violence against the unfortunate scapegoats. Then the problem isn't isolated, it's community sanctioned.
Reply -
100%
gamahuche5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I had to take yet more time out for work :( :) before I'd even got the story launched properly.
Reply
This is a scandalous situation - perhaps not AS bad overall in the Czech lands as in some of the other countries but bad enough - and like in regard to many such issues there are differing levels of discrimination in different regions. The areas of greater all-round poverty and unemployment are the most tense, the ones most likely to have organised neo-nazi activity taking place AND, naturally, are also the hardest areas for people who are effectively at the bottom of the hierarchy to have any hope of getting jobs..
Since the Roma do hold that position the idea of "lazy, shiftless people who don't want to work and have lots of kids" is very "saleable" to those who need someone to take out their own frustrations on.
Compounding this is the scandalous situation that in many areas and communities Roma children are automatically sent to "Special Schools" - the only "white" children who attend these are developmentally disabled or otherwise highly challenged.
Paradoxically this is sometimes with the connivance of Roma parents because they went to those schools themselves and imagine - perhaps corectly - that their children may feel happier or "more at home"..
Job discrimination exists on all levels - its quite rare even to find a Roma waitress, let alone a Post Office or Bank employee.
In general the plight of the Roma is more severe in Slovakia than in the Czech Republic. I don't have much experience further afield but imagine that Romania would also be very tough. -
100%
gamahuche5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
How many Roma friends do I have personally?
Reply
To be honest, not many!
The world's don't mix and that's a two way street..
My partner had a Roma boyfriend for a while and his - rich! - family didn't want him to mix with a white girl..
However I employ a seasonal worker most years, through a special programme of the Labour Office, for a job that demands a lot of contact with the public and also with foreign visitors and the very best employee that I ever had, whose hand I always kiss when we meet on the street, was a Roma lady called Julie. I would have loved to have kept her for ever but the system didn't permit that and nor did our budget allow me to hire her directly. But she got a good job anyway.
The work that Roma are most likely to be doing is casual labouring jobs. A couple of years ago they dug up the streets of the whole town and laid new drains. I never have seen a job of that kind done better, more rapidly and never ever saw anyone leaning on his shovel.
So much for don't want to work!-
100%
alakazam5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
I know a few persons of American Black Irish descent...many are Roma. I have done fair business with many to mutual gain.
Reply
They have their own way of doing things but they are straight with those who are straight with them.
They work...and whatever they do they do well.
It's a scapegoat thing going on against them.
I do not like it Gama...it's not right.
-
-
100%
gamahuche5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
To lighten the atmosphere let me point you to two VERY different Roma musicians..
Reply
One still lives here and is definitely "old-style"; the other emigrated to the US a few years ago - after having visited there many times and having become something of a darling of the "underground"..
First Vera Bila at a very special concert at the National Theatre for then President Vaclav Havel:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=XsISafy89bs=PlayLis...
and here is Iva Bittova, who established quite a name for herself in the US before moving there. This is one of her oder numbers.. and here is Iva Bittova, who established quite a name for herself in the US before moving there. This is one of her oder numbers..
OOPS - I'd better move it to the next msg or risk a spamremoval..-
Neutral
hyperbola5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Interesting gama, but very much a local adaptation of Roma culture!
Reply
Probably the best known Roma (Gitano) music is Spanish Flamenco, which spread throughout Latin America. It is still a source of cross cultural creativity!
Lágrimas Negras (Black Tears)
Bebo Valdés y Diego "El Cigala" interpretan "Lágrimas Negras", del disco del mismo título. Paquito D'Rivera invitado en saxo alto, Javier Colina en el contrabajo y Piraña en el cajón.
Imágenes de los ensayos y la grabación del disco.
Videoclip dirigido por Carlos Carcas.
www.youtube.com/watch?v=FdSjI1gQJmU -
Neutral
hyperbola5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Here is a more "traditional" version of spanish gitano (roma) music.
Reply
Diego El Cigala-part one
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=KJvvOzFyjyw
-
-
100%
gamahuche5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=oPOZ4Klmfuk
Reply
I guess this is before she moved away..-
-
100%
alakazam5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Watu_HuqTik
Reply
Roma music..the scene is dark but that's the music.
-
-
-
100%
jimdoze5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
"Sophisticated" Europe has, for centuries, been a hotbed of extremism. Over the last century, it took the forms identifiable as left-wing and right-wing extremism. Countless millions of lives were shortened because of it, including that of hundreds of thousands of Americans.
Reply-
0%
hyperbola5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
In the past 30-40 years, american imperialism has killed or help kill over 10 million people all around the globe. Perhaps you should worry about the crimes of our own country first.
Reply
Crimes Against Humanity From Ford to Saddam
Now that both Gerald Ford and Saddam Hussein are dead and buried, the question of how they will be remembered here in the United States arises. ...
...On the surface, it makes sense to judge the two men in such divergent ways. After all, an Iraqi court convicted Hussein of a crime against humanity for ordering the deaths of 148 Shiite villagers in Dujail. While the court was of the kangaroo variety, there's no doubt that the Dujail massacre was only one of many atrocities he oversaw while ruling Iraq. Gerald Ford, to the contrary, was never even indicted for any such crime.
But this distinction, it turns out, reflects a double standard for judging similar conduct. If we do not limit our analysis of Ford to his role as a U.S. "statesman," and instead examine his behavior through an internationalist lens similar to that employed to judge Saddam Hussein and concerned with crimes against humanity, we find that Ford, too, was responsible for mass murder-in East Timor. .... On Dec. 6, 1975, Ford and Henry Kissinger, his secretary of state, were in Jakarta, Indonesia to meet the country's dictator, General Suharto. ....
...Over the almost 24 years of Indonesian rule, Democratic and Republican administrations alike provided invaluable diplomatic cover and billions of dollars' worth of weapons, military equipment and training, and economic aid to Jakarta. For such reasons the truth commission report characterizes U.S. assistance as "fundamental" to the invasion and occupation, and calls upon Washington to apologize and pay reparations to East Timor.
...While Ford had the luxury of forgetting-an example of what we might call imperial privilege-the people of East Timor are condemned to remember: they will live with the physical, social, and psychological effects of the horrific war and occupation for decades.
According to the 2006 UNDP report, 90 out of 1,000 children there die before their first birthday; half the population is illiterate; 64 percent suffers from food insecurity; half lack access to access to safe drinking water; and 40 percent live below the official poverty level of 55 cents a day. Meanwhile, a study conducted by the International Rehabilitation Council for Torture Victims determined that about one-third of East Timor's population suffers from post-traumatic stress disorder. (10)
This is a legacy for which we should remember Gerald Ford, just as Saddam Hussein will justifiably be memorialized for his role in crimes against humanity.
http://www.counterpunch.org/nevins01062007.html
-
-
100%
Poulenc5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
The human need to margenalize and/or eliminate the perceived "other" is depressing indeed.
Reply
We in the US can see this depressing reality writ extra clearly as the hated group in this case--gypsies--is so "foreign" to us, not part of our own system of descrimninatrion.
I mean, why hate a gypsy?-
-
100%
willottica-245 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Based on gama's accounts above. I think it may be a similar reason to why people have hated Jews. They make the rest of us look bad.
Reply
It seems that the culture includes an incredibly strong work ethic; when they work, they work hard. After being told, "why can't you be more like ____" enough times, a resentment might start to fester.
It's just a guess, but would make sense based on what little I know of both cultures.
-
-
100%
Poulenc5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Willottica, I believe that the need for (irrational) prejudice and discrimination is deeply rooted in individual psychology.
Reply
Briefly, very briefly, I'd say the major dynamic has to do with individual insecurity/fear of helplessness; the need to scapegoat or lay blame to prevent/assuage any threat to one's sense of "order" and need for "control."
To prop oneself up by defining oneself as distinct from..well, Jews, blacks, Hispanics, Chinese, the Irish, Italians, Mexicans, gays, Muslims, gypsies, etc. Take your pick. -
-
eezzbeatComment removed: Hard Banned
-
0%
Icantwait5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
My Fellow Americans: Gypsies are thieves, con artists, and low lives. You can buy anyone of their 10 year old daughters for a few bucks. They should be hated. They should be eliminated. They are a burden to society. However, those liberals that spend all their time behind their computers, copying contrary responses from the White House Smut Staff, to sensible American Concerns surely will defend the Gypsies. Every single country they have lived in, visited, or wandered across despise them. They are dislike, hated, despised by ever normal human being on the Planet Earth. Perfect followers for President Obama. I know The Mitchells. The Real American
Reply-
100%
alakazam5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Dude...even though it may not profit a bit to tell you why you are wrong. I will.
Reply
Does any of this ring a bell?
"By the beginning of the early eighteenth century, Habsburg rulers threatened nomadic foreign Roma with branding, torture, and execution if they were caught. Such policies changed during the Enlightenment, particularly under Maria Theresa (ruled 1740–1780) and her son Joseph II (ruled 1780–1790). They adopted new policies designed to force the Roma to assimilate into Habsburg society; this included kidnapping Roma children, who were then placed into foster Catholic homes."
Your rant sounds equally insane.
You want the state to take children away from parents or just kill them outright?
Consider yourself henceforth MY opposition.
...A Real American. -
100%
Opre5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Wow. My grandparents are Roma from the Czech Republic. Both of my parents are Roma. I am Roma. My grandparents came here and worked their asses off just to make ends meet. My parents have worked their whole lives and put my brother, sister, and I through college. My brother is a speech pathologist, my sister a veteranarian, and i'm in medical school. What a bunch of scumbags we are. You seem much more educated. Everyone should definitely wipe us out; but you can stay! You're obviously quite valuable.
Reply -
-
100%
gamahuche5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Actually people like this are neccessary to as exemplars of the dark underbelly of the human race.
Reply
Just that having been identified it would be best that they be palced in a zoo, where all could marvel at the deformity of which the human race is capable.
Oh and OF COURSE you'd be permitted to throw rotten vegetables to/at it and even to poke it with sticks.
-
-
100%
Poulenc5 months ago
This comment is below the standard viewing threshold View It »
Congrats, icant, you've got the mentality--plus prejudiced nomenclature--in short, the bigotry of all haters down pat.
Reply
Substitute "Jews" for "gypsy's" and you're a card-carrying Nazi ("...They should be eliminated. They are a burden to society....Every single country they have lived in, visited, or wandered across despise them.")
Please, see and hear yourself--and hold your evil tongue. -
HomerJS49Comment removed: Abusive
More News
LA Times
A story of shock, chaos and bravery unfolds in Ft. Hood shooting
Historic healthcare overhaul passes House
Afghanistan government says foreign officials are interfering
Unemployment rate rises above 10% ; Obama signs jobless benefit extension
Jason Rodriguez : Shooting at downtown Orlando office building leaves 5 hurt, 1 dead
Add a Comment
Sign In With Your Propeller Account
Please keep your comments relevant to this story.
To create a live link, simply type the URL (including http://) or email address and we will make it a live link for you. You can put up to 3 URLs in your comments. Line breaks and paragraphs are automatically converted — no need to use <p> or <br /> tags.