Roma among World's Most Persecuted Groups
Sometimes Called Gypsies, Romany People Have Hard Lives
Apr 13, 2009
The absence of a written record makes it difficult to trace the origin of the Roma people. However, according to the 2002 book “We Are the Romani People” by Ian Hancock they share close relationships with the Banjara people of India and the Dom people of Central Asia.
Almost half of all Roma carry Y chromosomes of a haplogroup that is rarely found outside the Indian subcontinent, according an article in the September 14, 2005 issue of BioEssays. Linguists have also traced the Romany language, some of which resembles ancient Sanskrit, to similar tongues spoken in the Indian subcontinent.
The Roma are frequently and incorrectly called Gypsies in the erroneous belief that they came from Egypt.
Mystery Surrounds Roma Migration
The website Migration Information.org says, “Around the year 1000 (CE), an event in northern India, about the time of Muslim invaders, likely triggered their (the Roma) mass exodus. The precise event is still unknown, but the possible reasons include a conflict that resulted in the Roma’s persecution, a natural disaster, or even recruitment into a mercenary military.”
They moved slowly west and north; their trek can be traced from various words in their own language which they picked up along the way from Kurdish, Persian, and Greek.
They reached Greece early in the 14th century. Two hundred years later they showed up in Scandinavia, Russia, and the British Isles. Today, they are found throughout the world but their heaviest concentration is in south-eastern Europe. The European population is estimated at between six and eight million; worldwide, there may be as many as 12 million Roma.
Roma Have Been Persecuted for Centuries
For hundreds of years, the Roma have been among the most persecuted minorities in the world. According to Migration Information.org some European nations “dealt with the Roma by shipping them overseas, mainly to various Caribbean islands and the present-day United States. In the 1860s, Roma from Britain arrived in the U.S., but the largest wave of Roma arrived in the early 1900s.”
In 1697, and again in 1701, the Roma were declared “outlaws” by Leopold I, the Austrian emperor. In 1710, all adult male Roma were to be hanged without trial, and it was ordered that women and young men were to be flogged and banished. In Bohemia, their right ears were to be cut off; in Moravia, the left ear; in parts of Austria, they were to be branded on the back.
They were enslaved in what is modern Romania from the 14th century until 1863. Hitler’s Nazis murdered between 200,000 and 800,000 Roma in concentration camps, and the Soviet Union under Stalin treated them with almost equal cruelty.
Discrimination Continues Today
Marchevo in Bulgaria is said to be typical of the type of communities that the Roma are forced into today. The Economist reported on this ghetto on May 10, 2001, in the article “Europe’s Spectral Nation.” In Marchevo, there is one water pipe for the 400 residents, no sewer system, and no garbage collection. The people live under blankets and plastic sheets draped over branches hacked from a nearby forest. The most educated person in the community left school at the age of 15. “All those of working age are unemployed,” wrote The Economist. “Families survive on small welfare payments and on what they can forage. They have neither electricity nor gas.”
Roma Stay Separate to Preserve Their Culture
Much can be learned about the Roma at Romani.org. Their culture stresses the importance of Roma tradition, and strongly discourages mixing with other cultures; marriage outside the Roma community is not common. Many Roma women marry at the age of 12 or 13. Marriages are usually arranged by the couple’s parents to create alliances between families or clans.
Some groups still hold to the tradition of the bride price. This is a payment made by the family of the groom to that of the bride to compensate for the loss of their daughter; it also guarantees that she will be well treated by her new family.
A small number of Roma still follow the nomadic lifestyle of their ancestors, with many of them working as members of travelling carnivals and circuses. But, most Roma live in settled communities today.
At one website it is said that the British actors, Michael Caine, Sean Connery, Bob Hoskins, and Roger Moore have at least some Roma blood. One of Europe’s greatest jazz musicians, Django Reinhardt, was pure Roma, however, the burlesque entertainer Gypsy Rose Lee was not.
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