Gypsy girls' corpses on beach in Italy fail to put off sunbathers

[panzerfaust]

Source: Guardian UK

"Questions about the attitude of Italians to their Roma minority were again being asked yesterday after photographs were published of sunbathers continuing as normal with a day at the beach despite the bodies of two Gypsy girls who had drowned being laid out on the sand nearby

A civil liberties group said it had asked for talks with the authorities to shed light on the circumstances of the girls' death. The incident took place outside Naples, where a Roma encampment was burned to the ground this year after its inhabitants had been evacuated for their own safety...

...The civil liberties group EveryOne said it was unconvinced by reports of the incident at Torregaveta and asked whether there might be something more sinister behind it ... "Two young Roma would never have left their scant merchandise for 'a refreshing dip' in the waves. Two Gypsy girls would never have gone bathing in full view of everyone because of the modesty that is one of their distinguishing characteristics."



Read more: http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2008/jul/21/italy.race

---

Just another day at the beach...

[Heidi]

1. Very sad.

Anti-Roma bigotry is bad here in southern Switzerland, too.

ETA: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/europe/2293421.stm
http://books.google.ch/books?id=qvltaD1t0wEC&pg=PA71&lpg=PA71&dq=Roma+Switzerland&source=web&ots=PaAPSQ1w8y&sig=RPzVOr6hIGl-hH2NiZhICfehp3c&hl=en&sa=X&oi=book_result&resnum=9&ct=result
http://www.coe.int/t/e/human_rights/ecri/1-ecri/2-country-by-country_approach/switzerland/third%20report%20Switzerland%20-%20cri04-5.pdf

[ejbr]

2. Just a thought...

maybe these Italians are ajusting to the idea of going to hell when they die. You know, seeing misery all around them but making the best of things.

[mmonk]

3. The census part reminds me of the census here in the US since I'm

filling it out. My wife said it was obvious by the questions it was targeting immigrants.

[iamthebandfanman]

4. i think that kinda sentiment

is shared by alot of europeans.

i have a friend who moved here from portugal about 8-9 years ago, and he used to always joke about gypsies and hating them.
i never really got it cause hey, i dont think ive even ever met a 'gypsy'.
sad.

[zanne]

6. An Irish friend explained Gypsies to me this way...

They do beg. That's what they do for a living, and it's just as much work as any nine to five job. It's their culture and they've been doing it for thousands of years. You can take it or leave it, but nobody is forcing anybody to give them money.

[Name removed]

38. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[kath]

55. "deep-seated"

not deep-seeded.

Sorry. Grammar/usage Nazi attack. :-) Some days I can't help myself. ;-)

[panzerfaust]

61. Most Roma have adopted the religious superstitions of the ...

... countries that they live in.

So it would not be "... a prayer service for a {nasty, evil, worthless} pagan ...", but, more likely than not, for a Catholic. Moreover, pagans pray too, but apparently to the wrong god(s), so I guess that does not count.

Actually it would be a prayer service for two dead little girls.

Diami la protezione solare per favore, la mia parte posteriore è rosso.

[EFerrari]

62. So your "very liberal" European friends pity the Roma for not being Protestants?

There are several if not many cultures that don't distinguish between work and play in the way Northern Europeans do.

[Occam Bandage]

77. No, I'd think more for having a culture that encourages theft, begging, and swindling,

to the detriment of steady, honest, legal employment and schooling, thus condemning each new generation to a life of petty crime, and furthering racial stereotypes for all Roma, even those that do not accept the petty-criminal culture. It's hard to convince people that fear and loathing of Roma (or Irish Travellers, etc.) is "racist" when their entire experience with such people revolves around scams, panhandling, pickpocketing, and vagrancy.

[EFerrari]

79. I was talking about the kind of ethnocentrism, not racism, that expects

all peoples to conceive of "work" the way Protestants do.

Many Native American cultures, for example, make little or no distinction between what Northern Europeans call "work" and "leisure".

[roguevalley]

66. Tinkers in Ireland are not welcome. I remember them coming up

to me on a bridge and leaning against me as we scurried along moaning something I couldn't understand with their hand out. It was such a shock to me I still remember how almost numb I felt. It was nothing I had ever seen before. I had noticed them earler when a little boy just dropped his drawers and let fly with his mom stopping to wait for him. They camp all over the place and spread trash around, pissing off homeowners.

I don't know where Irish Tinkers come from but some believe that they were people displaced by land grabs by English invaders. I remember a while back that there were pushes to close a tinker camp that was helped by a priest and it was big news.

Its a strange life being a gypsy from the point of view of a non-gypsy but they have long been unwelcomed by folks over the centuries. They were burned in the holocaust. Very sad.

[Maeve]

89. Irish Travellers are not the same as the Roma

The Romani people are ethnically/racially different from other Europeans while the Irish Travelers are genetically indistinguishable from other Irish. But both share a dislike/distrust of settled folk, since settled folk usually try to force them away from their way of life.

The toilet habits you saw were fairly normal into the 18th century for many, even among the 'sophisticated"--Rousseau wrote of looking for a stairway when he needed to relieve himself. But they also keep to a cleanliness inside their homes that belies the mess they leave when they quite a camp--part of the reason they leave a mess is that when somethings are dirtied, they must be tossed away. (I have a friend who lived with the Travellers for some time.)

[ngant17]

76. My friend was ripped-off by a gypsy in Prague

when we were walking down a crowded downtown street, the gypsy apparently stuck a hand in her purse and grabbed whatever was convenient, we didn't even realize it happened until another person nearby told us what happened, he saw the whole thing behind us. We checked in the purse, we figured the gypsy probably only got some minor item, maybe a candy bar, nothing valuable like money, keys, passport, ect.

Gypsys have a bad reputation in many parts of Europe. They don't hold jobs and they don't fit into the rest of society. You can usually spot them out, they tend to be idlers, they have darker skin and they generally don't bother learning the national language(s).

[Fedja]

86. :/

I was ripped off by 2 whiteys in Arkansas. They demanded my car keys. I got out of there in one piece and with the car, lost my backpack in the commotion though.

Whiteys have a good reputation in many parts of the world. Most of them hold jobs and they don't let others fit into their society. You can usually spot them out, they tend to be idlers, they have fair skin and they generally don't bother learning about the cultures they share the planet with.

See what I did there? :P

:sarcasm:

The path to racism is paved by good int... err sorry, ignorance.

[uppityperson]

113. Indeed. Thanks for posting what you have.nt

[Fedja]

85. Aggressive and disruptive?

I fell more violated by white old men that steal billions than a hungry kid asking for change. Perspective is in order.

As for a lack of work ethic... Live a day in their shoes. Be born in Europe with a Roma face and skin. Earn your keep as soon as you're 6 years old. Speak a language noone else understands. Then tell me how the job interview went.

[Igel]

81. Well, a thousand years or so.

Depends upon when they left S. Asia, and what they did in SW Asia before they entered Europe.

Begging wouldn't have gotten them very far, as a people, in those days, unless there was something making them into a caste. But outside of S. Asia, there were no castes. They separated themselves, and that's usually mirrored by those they're living among.

Then there are the Irish Travellers. A different kettle of fish entirely.

[zanne]

5. We're not the only country with prejudice.

Other countries tend to keep their bias hidden. That's why it's so important to keep the subject of racism in this country out in the open. When it remains hidden, absolutely no progress is made. Whenever a conservative accuses me of bringing race into a conversation about politics, it's a signal to me to bring it up even more often.

[ensho]

31. yes, sexism is worldwide but racism is local

nt

[roguevalley]

67. we get a lot of shit in America about racism but Europe is not free

from the disease. Anti-semitism is huge there too. We all, all of us have a lot of work to do to see each other as brothers.

[SnohoDem]

7. A fascinating book about the Roma

if anyone cares:

http://www.amazon.com/Bury-Me-Standing-Gypsies-Journey/dp/067973743X/ref=pd_bbs_sr_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1216643788&sr=8-1">Bury Me Standing

[uppityperson]

53. Thank you, that is a good book. I wish media would use the correct term also

"Gypsy" is comparable to "n*". Rom, Roma is the correct word.

[Commie Pinko Dirtbag]

111. Damn, do I have to stop liking that Fleetwood Mac song?

I like it.

[Maeve]

87. thank you--just put it on my library reserves

I know more about the Irish Travelers than about the Roma and I'd like to broaden my understanding.

[sui generis]

8. So what were they SUPPOSED to be doing?

Wringing their hands, running in circles, holding a prayer vigil?

Italians are not Americans. Europeans in fact, are not American. I actually think our fake sentimentality is worse than any perceived evil here. In fact here's the test: can you think of ANY other reason people would not have left the beach? Maybe abandoning the bodies would have been judged just as harshly?

European television has no problem with nudity, and certainly no problem with showing the world as it is. It is awful that the girls drowned, but clearly from the story somebody tried to save them. I guess it couldn't have been an evil Italian.

What SHOULD they have been doing? Tutting and shaking their heads? We should not judge others by our own very lame yardstick.

[trumad]

9. Oh maybe cracking open some fine Italian wine just a few away...

No biggie--- just a couple of dirty gypsies.....

The only thing lame here is you.

[sui generis]

12. trumad you have known me too long

to fail to answer any question I posed.

No sir, you are the lame one.

In fact, let me add, I'm trying to be fair instead of pissing and moaning about how evil Thuh Eyetalians are.

If that's lame, then please fuck off.

[trumad]

17. Yes I do know you and I do respect you....

but come on---- eating lunch just a few meters from two dead corpses is just wrong.....That ain't an American thing....That's just a human being thing....

mho

[sui generis]

19. okay

I'll agree to that, sorry I'm a grump this morning trumad.

I think what got in my bonnett was the immediate assumption that it was some strange form of Italian Roma-hating ritual. Callous, definitely. I don't know about the rest.

[trumad]

20. I think the pic I posted down on 18 says it all...

It simply is not right....

[dothemath]

32. quick

Call the distance police. "A few meters ...." is just not acceptable as
a description of how far away one should be.

May I suggest 10 meters, depending on wind direction, of course.

[Name removed]

69. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[Name removed]

39. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[aspergris]

40. unless

you are a medical examiner, coroner, cop, firefighter, etc.

I mean if you are at a scene guarding a body, you still gotta eat!

Btw, the movie Snatch (guy ritchie director) has some gypsy characters, and they are intricately involved in the plot. Kind of gave me an insight into how the brits feel about them

[YOY]

57. British "Pikeys" are not "Roma" nor are Irish "Tinkers"

True Roma have East Indian blood and that can be seen easily.

[aspergris]

65. interesting thanks... n/t

[Fedja]

10. sigh

Indeed, we are not Americans. Europe, even though most European countries seem to quietly shun the Roma, is disgusted with the lack of reactions of those people. The Roma are a community, and as different and strange as we may find them, the two corpses were of 2 girls. 2 human beings.

They SHOULD have checked if the girls are alive or in need of help, contacted the authorities etc. You know, the human way of dealing with it.

[LeftishBrit]

13. Calling the emergency services perhaps?

Obviously there is some suspicion here of possible foul play. Not necessarily, but enough suspicion to be worth investgating.

No one is saying that Italians are 'evil'; but right at the moment, there is a significant problem of racism against gypsies and immigrants in Italy (the recently-elected Mayor of Rome borders on fascism). Europaean countries, including my own (Britain), do have problems with racism; it's not just a problem in the USA.

[AlphaCentauri]

33. I don't think italians let people die in the ER

there were 4 girls, 2 were pull out of the water alive and it took 1 hour for the authorities to get to the beach and pick the corps.

[BearSquirrel2]

41. What ????

Lifeguards went in and saved two Roma girls. If they were racist they would have let them all drown.

[LeftishBrit]

50. But did all the sunbathers realize this?

If I saw corpses lying around, I'd try to contact someone, even if it turned out to be unnecessary as someone had done so already.

Of course, the phenomenon of the 'unresponsive bystander' is a common one, so this *may* not reflect racism.

[AlphaCentauri]

104. there were two cases that in my opinion are worst than the italian case

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Ssz4gB7oemw

[BearSquirrel2]

59. Were those "Roma Blankets"

Were those "Roma Blankets" that prompted bystanders to have a racist reaction, or could they tell by the toes?

[alcibiades_mystery]

14. The treatment of the Roma in Italy today is a fucking disgrace

I say this as somebody who holds Italian citizenship (i.e., I have an EU passport issued through the Italian embassy). I am not "Italian-American." I am American and Italian. My father is to this day an Italian national without American citizenship. That said, the policies toward the Roma (and immigrant groups in general, particularly from Africa and Eastern Europe) the last five years has been brutal and despicable, with large majorities of non-Roma Italians supporting repression. This story must be read in that context, not in the "are they as sentimental as we Americans" line. It is true that Italian culture is different, and we should be on guard against equating it with American sentimentality, but neither should we romanticize it as somehow more mature. Specifically in the case of what have turned into near-apartheid policies regarding the Roma, the Italian state (and a goodly part of the constituency) has nothing at all to be proud of.

[sui generis]

15. We always want to believe the worst

Personally I think it's heartless, judging from the photo alone. Clearly the girls were dead and the drama of bringing them in had already unfolded.

Again I ask, What Should they have been doing? Should they have "left" out of respect, abandoning the bodies? I'm not defending them but I'm not going to accuse anyone either. I sense a story here that demands a reaction, meaning I'm feeling manipulated.

So I'm a dual national too.

I can tell you that "Roma" in Germany don't come with a stamp on their forehead indicating such. Everyone here presumes that everyone on the beach knew they were Roma girls. I wonder if that's true, and if not, what would that mean.

[Doremus]

16. Continue to eat, play, enjoy oneself ... when others have just lost their lives nearby?

Pretty freaking heartless.

My yardstick is human decency. What's yours?

[sui generis]

21. my yardstick is that there isn't just one yardstick

But clearly I have no human decency. Hope everyone feels better about themselves now.

Seriously though, in our culture we go ballistic over nipples on t.v., fuzz out asscracks, cover our eyes and go into paroxysms of shock and horror at the sight of a corpse.

I think that other cultures are a little less "protected" and maybe a little more practical. I can think of a couple of reasons those heartless people would be eating lunch there. Maybe there was an empty spot on the beach after the girls were brought in and they just sat down and started eating, not even aware what had just happened. I wasn't there - and the story seems to direct us at only ONE POSSIBLE explanation, which doesn't quite ring true to me.

I'd wait to judge until I heard the picnickers tell us what was going through their head.

[Kali]

42. does everyone stop and go into mourning when they drive by a car accident?

No you most likely go on about your business. Maybe talk about it at work or make a dramatic post on some internet site, but basically you just go on with your day. Why would we expect anybody else to behave any differently? How long can you stand around with your mouth hanging open? What exactly can your do for dead bodies as a bystander?

I agree the article is manipulative.

[panzerfaust]

64. No. If the situation is not controlled I STOP and help.

If the scene has been secured, I look to see if it looks as if they still need help, and if so, again, I STOP and help.

Dead body on a beach? I would stay with it until it was taken away.

I have seen too much of death to not mark its presence with humility.

[aspergris]

44. all your

europeans are better, more enlightened, schtick aside...

sitting and eating lunch on the beach near a corpse is (imo) disrespectful.

Is that a cultural thing? Sure, respect for the dead is cultural of course. It's "meat" so to speak. No person there, just their remains.

However, given that...

I used to be a beach lifeguard and thankfully, I only had one person die on the beach in my years there. However, NOBODY just sat down, chilled, ate their lunch, etc. while the body was on the beach. Btw, at one point I was a beach lifeguard at a nude beach (1/2 nude, 1/2 clothed), speaking of the nudity thang.

The thing that is bizarre to me is how long it took for them to come pick up the body. But maybe it's a very rural out of the way area, etc. and that explains the long delay. It does seem ridiculously long. I've surfed some very out of the way areas, and I can't think of any area in the US I have surfed where it would take that long for them to come get the body. Panama and Nicaragua spots, yes. We had to do our own stitches at one beach, it was so far out of the way

[Blue Diadem]

36. They don't clear beaches here when someone drowns although

I think most people will move to another part of the beach. Seeing the pictures of people sitting within view was disturbing.

I'd still like to know why the bodies were left unattended.

[hedgehog]

22. I think what happened may have been human nature. The lack of

any reaction didn't go over well with the locals:

"La Repubblica also expressed astonishment at the behaviour of those present"

and there was a similar incident not involving Roma a few years back:

"In August 1997, sunbathers carried on as normal after a man drowned near Trieste."

When faced with a situation with no rules, people don't know how to behave.

[Duncan]

23. Its not even a European thing.

I was on a beach in NC when a dead drowning victim was on the beach. So were many others, including the rescue folks and police. We were all feeling sick about it, but we did not leave or make overt movements to show our grief, and the drowning victim could have been any of us. A photo would have shown us all as a bunch of people on the beach. Calling that insensitive is ridiculous.

edited to add- now I saw a photo - it is weird that nobody is attending to the bodies.

[Cronus Protagonist]

54. Robbing them - like the gypsies would be doing

:sarcasm:

[roguevalley]

68. reminds me, this indifference, to the idiots in florida who complained

on the news about how cluttered their beaches got when dead Haitians began to wash up from an overturned boat. Indifference to the fate of others is a cancer of the soul. They should have waited until the two girls were taken away. Surfing shows me a depraved indifference to another soul's suffering. I don't care what anyone thinks about that. I am glad I have feelings.

[panzerfaust]

118. Lamely Sentimental Cardinal may not be Italian, or even European ...

"...Italians are not Americans. Europeans in fact, are not American. I actually think our fake sentimentality is worse..."

Glad to have that cleared up.

I am proud to say that I, for one, have long suspected that Italians might be Italian. This confirmation is so touchingly refreshing and clarifying. Truthfully, I must also admit that, especially after their failing to support Operation Iraqi Liberation, I am beginning to think that even the French may not be Americans either?!

Shocking I know - though not as shocking as all the fake sentimentality shown in this thread for a couple of dead kids left lying on a beach whilst people soak up the rays around them.

Even more (!!) shocking, some guy, who claims to be Italian, also claims to be bothered by this! What a lame yardstick - that of common human decency - he pathetically tries to invoke ...

...Crescenzo Sepe, the cardinal of Naples, condemned the attitude of holidaymakers, saying: "At times turning the other way or minding one's own business can be more devastating then the event itself.

"Another tragedy has struck at the heart of Naples, a terrible tragedy which the church has every sympathy for the victims and two precious lives lost.

"In those pictures you see their bodies covered by towels and in the background holidaymakers who appear more upset at the fact there view of the beach has been obstructed..."

"Condemned, devastating, tragedy, precious lives ..."

Guess the Cardinal Dude just doesn't get it - I mean, these bods were taking up a good spot on the beach! The Cardinal does not seem know that Italians are not Americans and seems to think that Europeans, even Roma, might simply be people. He does not realize, as you fortunately do, that Europeans are, or should be, too sophisticated to think that a couple of dead kids on a beach is no reason to not kick back there and chill.

Lord: The sophomoric provincialism of the man!


Incidentally, as best I can tell, no one has claimed that "Italians are Evil." What has been raised to question is if Italy is once again descending into the intolerant hell of Fascism in which there are Ubermensch, Mensch, und nicht Menschlich (Juden, Zigeuner, verkruppelt...). A land in which a couple of dead Zingaro bambini on the beach are nothing but an obstacle to walk around.

Darkness comes with the fading of the light - and the light in Italy is fading when dead children are treated with no more respect than flotsam washed up from the sea.

That's my view; but, then I'm just another lame, fakely sentimental, awkwardly simple, provincial American - who values both life and freedom. I'm sure I will get over both, when the New Order rises to Victory.

[Frank Cannon]

11. How did they know they were "gypsies"?

Just curious. Were they carrying membership cards?

I'm just wondering if this is a case of the usual callousness, as opposed to blatant racism.

[YOY]

117. You can tell with fullblooded Roma

They have Indian blood. They are very distinctively Indian looking at times and often dress distinctively. I don't know if the girls had the clothes one or were found nude though.

Many are a mix of European and that blood.

[trumad]

18. La deee da.......La deeee da......

[redqueen]

24. ...

...

[BearSquirrel2]

43. I suppose ...

I suppose peeking under the towels would have been more respectful. And perhaps these people arrived after the lifeguards had lain them out and covered them. For all a fresh bystandard could tell, it's just two people messing around at the beach.

[Nihil]

49. From that picture, I can't see what the fuss is about.

Two people lying on the beach with towels covering them (apart from
their feet). Big deal.

:shrug:

No activity, no police/ambulance/whatever presence, nothing at all
to suggest that there is anything wrong with the scene.

I think people are desperately trying to blow this up into some
kind of political event when it is simply a tragedy for the families
involved.

[panzerfaust]

60. True

It is possible that bodies lying around on a beach in Napoli are so common as to neither be unusual enough to provoke curiosity, nor thought tragic enough to deserve respect.

It IS odd, that the authorites would NOT be there, and just leaving them lying like dead dogs. In most countrys, at least the life-guards would still be standing there, as a mark of respect for the dead, if nothing else. Certainly in the USofA they would be surrounded by cops and medics to keep the curious back.

Even more intriguing, for me, is that I am soon to be attending a medical workshop in Italy - the anatomic cadaver dissections that were scheduled have all been canceled due to Italian 'concerns about respect for the dead.' Guess the meetings should just be moved to Napoli?

Like, its no big deal right - just a desperate attempt to make a normal everyday event into a political event - I mean this is perfectly normal behavior, something you would expect to see at your local beach - nicht wahr? Certainly, I do not see much mention of it on Italian news sites, but then, my Italian is non quello buon.

ciao

[roguevalley]

72. I don't think I would sit there pretending not to see the dead people.

I think I would have moved out of respect. but that is just me.

[Nihil]

108. Why do people persist in swallowing the media view instead of thinking?

> It is possible that bodies lying around on a beach in Napoli are so common
> as to neither be unusual enough to provoke curiosity, nor thought tragic
> enough to deserve respect.

Don't talk crap, you know exactly what I mean.

> It IS odd, that the authorites would NOT be there, and just leaving them
> lying like dead dogs. In most countrys, at least the life-guards would
> still be standing there, as a mark of respect for the dead, if nothing else.
> Certainly in the USofA they would be surrounded by cops and medics to keep
> the curious back.

I agree. In the UK they would either have been moved or one of those white
"scene of crime" tents put up to hide the scene. I think the Italian
*authorities* have questions to answer here but I'm not going to jump onto
the media bandwagon to slag off the Italian *public*.

> I mean this is perfectly normal behavior, something you would expect to
> see at your local beach - nicht wahr?

Strangely enough, people lying around on a beach *is* something I would
expect to see when I visit the seaside. People with towels? How unusual!

As there is nothing in that picture to suggest that anything is WRONG
(i.e., as I said earlier: no police, no ambulance, no fuss, no barriers,
no crowd or anything out of the ordinary that would suggest "tragedy")
then I would definitely *not* jump to the conclusion that there are two
dead bodies present. Given the number of posters on this thread that
*would* apparently see dead people everywhere, I start to fear for the
normal state of *their* beaches ...

[mina_seward]

25. I'm part Italian

so I can say that racism and bigotry is part of our culture, as I've seen it in my family, with friends or mere strangers on the streets, either here in the US or Italy.

Italians (and Spaniards too!) have little respect for and intense loathing of minorities, especially blacks. Even here in the the US, Italian landlords display their hate of minorities with pride. It's really astounding.

[WriteDown]

26. Not just Italians and Spaniards....

Also add in Germans, French, etc. Try being a Turk or Hungarian in Germany. You won't get a warm reception. Or if you're going to widen the scope, try being a Korean in Japan. May even be worse.

[aspergris]

46. try being ANYBODY but

japanese (ethnicity) in japan.

Japanese are famous for being equal opportunity racists. It is ingrained in their culture that EVERYBODY else is vastly inferior to them.

Great sci-fi action flick btw with a korean/japanese theme (what would have happened if Japan took over Korea)...

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0294252/

[Art_from_Ark]

93. Is this something you learned from experience

or something you picked up from old World War II movies?

But seriously, a lot of racial progress has been made in Japan, espcially since the 1980s when children having a Japanese mother and foreign father were finally given Japanese citizenship.

[aspergris]

115. I learned it mostly from Japanese

tourists and my japanese friends. Buddy of mine (white dude) speaks fluent Japanese. And Japanese tourists never suspect a white american speaks japanese. So, they say things in front of him that would make your skin crawl about "ignorant white people". What they say about blacks is much worse fwiw.

Nobody denies there has been racial progress in Japan. It is still arguably one of the most racist nations on earth.

2009 Lost Memories is an awesome movie btw.

Fwiw, I *love* Japan- food, movies, culture (some aspects- not the racism obviously), btw.

I'm just speaking of their racism.

[YOY]

27. Speak for your own family Mina. Mine is quite Italian and is not so.

My grandfather learned English from the Black kids in the neighborhood. He had black friends and co-workers. A few of them often ate at his house.

The only time he spoke negatively of Race was when he expressed his negative opinion of the large number of Southern African Americans who came up north in the 60s. He thought of them relatively as the ruiners of a community who were on the up and up at the time.

My family has inlaws of every color and a one of a different religion. We don't play the racism game.

[mina_seward]

71. your own words betray you

you grandfather calls blacks ruiners and he's no racist? hmmm interesting.

[YOY]

75. Knit pick elsewhere sweetcakes.

You didn't even read what I wrote. Just picked the piece that suited an insult to my dead grandfather. A man you didn't even know.

He said that Southern African Americans ruined things for the northern African Americans.

By the standards of his generation he was and always will be to me the kind of man who judged by actions and not by appearance.

Once again speak for your own family.

[Name removed]

105. Deleted sub-thread

Sub-thread removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[GeniusLib]

28. Disgusting

Last week, Silvio Berlusconi's new rightwing Italian administration announced plans to carry out a national registration of all the country's estimated 150,000 Gypsies - Roma and Sinti people - whether Italian-born or migrants. Interior minister and leading light of the xenophobic Northern League, Roberto Maroni, insisted that taking fingerprints of all Roma, including children, was needed to "prevent begging" and, if necessary, remove the children from their parents.

The ethnic fingerprinting drive is part of a broader crackdown on Italy's three-and-a-half million migrants, most of them legal, carried out in an atmosphere of increasingly hysterical rhetoric about crime and security. But the reviled Roma, some of whose families have been in Italy since the middle ages, are taking the brunt of it. The aim is to close 700 Roma squatter camps and force their inhabitants out of the cities or the country. In the same week as Maroni was defending his racial registration plans in parliament, Italy's highest appeal court ruled that it was acceptable to discriminate against Roma on the grounds that "all Gypsies were thieves", rather than because of their "Gypsy nature".

Official roundups and forced closures of Roma camps have been punctuated with vigilante attacks. In May, rumours of an abduction of a baby girl by a Gypsy woman in Naples triggered an orgy of racist violence against Roma camps by thugs wielding iron bars, who torched caravans and drove Gypsies from their slum homes in dozens of assaults, orchestrated by the local mafia, the Camorra. The response of Berlusconi's government to the firebombing and ethnic cleansing? "That is what happens when Gypsies steal babies," shrugged Maroni; while fellow minister and Northern League leader Umberto Bossi declared: "The people do what the political class isn't able to do."



http://www.guardian.co.uk/commentisfree/2008/jul/10/race.humanrights

[Indenturedebtor]

29. HOLY Yikes! Facism much? Yikes :( N/T

[redqueen]

Wow...

I knew the government was brutal... I guess that's something the public doesn't mind.

[redqueen]

30. deleted

[WilmywoodNCparalegal]

34. I'm an Italian citizen to this day

I am ashamed by this, but not all Italians are like this. I'm originally from northern Italy, from a multicultural and multiethnic city with a vibrant international university and Europe's first (or one of the first) gay rights organization. No one in my family is racist and no one would be so callous.

As for the Roma, I wonder how many of you writing here have been subjected to the aggressive begging tactics and/or have been pickpocketed. The problem is that a small minority of Roma people are very aggressive with their begging tactics and that children are used and instructed to pickpocket people (including tourists and the elderly). Also, while housing has been provided to many Roma people, some have chosen to live in cardboard or tent cities of their own. While this is no justification for what is taking place, I can certainly see how many Italians would be feeling a bit peeved.

[YOY]

37. I don't think too many here have actually been exposed to the Roma

I've been exposed to both the positive and negative elemants of the Roma. The problem is truly two-fold in that there truly is a negative element to their culture (and that negative element gives a bad name to them all) as well as the cultures they live in having an ingrained tendancy to distrust and distrimiate them as a whole.

Sadly, there seems to be little effort internally to rid themselves of that element as it spans hundreds of years just as the cultures around them have had hundreds of years to discriminate against them.

The organized begging, dancing bear gig (the cruelest thing I've ever fricking seen), and the occasionally downright medieval practices of many Roma are not helping their plight any more than organized hatred of them does.

[Nihil]

48. I think you are exactly right ...

... but also suspect that you will get flamed for daring to be honest.
:shrug:

[YOY]

56. I've been around them. I can think of the best and worst of the Roma.

The best being a young girl who did fantastic in school and that was proud of her heritage. She was distrusted by her classmates and left out purposefully despite being a friendly wonderful soul. I am sure she went on to higher education. She was smart, clever, well mannered, and well groomed and was so optomistic and had that joy of life that many of us would envy.

The worst being little kids purposefully wearing rags walking around the streets huffing glue from a plastic bag and begging at every opportunity. When begging an older Rom (always male) was wearing decent clothes smoking a cigrette and drinking a bottle nearby keeping an eye on things. All are unwashed and refuse to bathe due to medieval superstitions so the smell of unwashed human comes with the begging regardless of access to bathing water. That and the "dancing bear" are the worst...

Bears are trained to dance using Pavlovian training. The fiddle is played only when the cub is put on hot coals and shuffles to prevent burning it's feet. Even when not on coals the bear is conditioned to dance once it hears a fiddle playing. The bears feet are permanently scarred because of it. The metal nosering affixed to the bear permanently also isn't what I would call humane.

Once after being I asked for change I, as I was rather engrossed in a book I was reading at a cafe, asked them for change in turn. The kid gave me some with a smile! I always laugh at that...

[Prophet 451]

78. Know why we tend to distrust gadje?

BECAUSE THEY TRY AND KILL US! No, I am not exagerating even slightly, there are still pogroms going on in Eastern Europe right frickin' now. Sure, there are some among us who are complete gits or criminals, we're no more immune to that than anyone else but when no-one will hire you or buy your wares, you either steal or starve and we're too bust trying to not get killed, harassed, busted or hated on to have time to weed out our nastier elements entirely (and for the record, they are usually dealt with but dealt with internally, within the clan).

Look, I know what you're probably going to say here because I've heard it a billion times: Why don't we get rid of those nastier elements and then people would treat us better? Well, firstly, how many people would say that to a black man or a Jew or a Native American? Secondly, I'll be honest, you frickin' frighten us. We're not going to hand our miscreants over to the gadje because we're scared that means that either they'll never be seen again or we'll be held responsible for their crimes. Unfair? You bet but both sides have been stereotyping each other for so long that it's difficult to see your way past that and to be honest, we have a damn sight more reason to feel threatened by you than you do by us. The Italians have started routinely fingerprinting us now. The Czech Republic was forcibly sterilising us less than three years ago. We've seen this shit too many times over the years. We lost somewhere between half a million and two million in the Porajmos but no-one ever makes a fuss for us.

We have been embattled and persecuted in so many ways for so long that we have, in turn, become bitter and distrustful of all gadje society, you scare the crap out of us because we can never be entirely sure when you're going to start using us as a scapegoat again. That's not a fair view and I know it's not fair, I'm westernised enough to know it's not fair but it is very human.

EDIT TO ADD THIS: I say a lot of unkind things about America but here's something you guys can be proud of. Almost uniquely, the US has never systematically persecuted Roma. We get hassled by shitheads on a personal basis but you get that everywhere but in the US, the government has never tried to kill us or sterilise us, we've never had our children taken from us wholesale. The Kalderesh have been in the Americas since at least 1790 and they've never been singled out for persecution. In the US, people will hire us for honest work and the result is that there are very few ghettos and very few of us breaking the law. I don't know why but the US has always been more willing to treat us as humans and, for everything else I might say and will again, gods bless you for it.

[YOY]

96. It's been a while since I heard the "gadje" term. I didn't know you were Roma either Prophet 451.

All cultures have assholes. As I said, I've seen some of the best and the worst of the Roma in my travels and living abroad. I take pride in blending in when in South East Europe. I speak some of the languages, walk the walk and talk the talk. I've met the folks, only once nearly had my pockets picked (the heavy rubber band around the billfold...causes friction and always in the front pocket) befriended, taught, and have been begged to by different members of the Roma community. I'd like to think I talk from personal experience.

Please don't take my words as acceptance to any kind of prosecution, condoning of the pogroms, or bias on a personal or cultural level.

The hatred coming from modern Eastern Europe stems both from the ancient distrust as well as the modern fear of being "out-bred". I have heard the statement "There will be none left of us in two generations" from Romanians, Bulgarians, and Macedonians alike. I rather laugh off the statement as they assume the economic situation (which is getting better no matter how much they try to deny it) will continue and they will continue to only have one or two children apiece while many in the Roma communities have 10+ kids (poverty and forced ignorance.) I find it rather laughable personally but it echoes of the racists here when they grumble about blacks or hispanics. Poverty makes more kids. Nothing cultural there. Just poverty.

There is one solid thing I can say about the Roma communities in Eastern Europe that is decidedly and universally positive regardless of economic or "nastier elements" is that they are incredibly resistant to American fundies attempts to convert them to evangelical idiocy. It just fails outright. Really funny when it does that.

As I said both the Roma and the cultures that they live in have over a thousand years of distrust to overcome. It will take effort on both sides to do this.

[Prophet 451]

99. OK, I'm calmer now

I apologise to you because I'd just heard that the Italian courts have now said it's acceptable to discriminate against us, read your post, jumped to conclusions and you caught the brunt of my anger. I should know better and again, my apologies. Incidently, "gadje" is neutral, "georgeo" is the insulting version.

Poverty and ignorance pretty much covers it. The distrust and fear on both sides meant that Roma kids tended to not be educated. We're trying to change that and groups like Opre Roma are bringing pressure to bear but still, it's an uphill struggle.

What amuses me about the fundies is their indignation when they're knocked back. They've heard that we've always observed freedom of religion (which we have) and assume that means they only have to tell us about JAY-ZUS. Idiots.

[YOY]

116. No worries. I can see where the anger would come from.

It's easy to look at the Roma's plight in Europe from the States as a "1000 miles up" perspective.

I helped out a some PC voluteers in doing a little paperwork for a Bulgarian Camp for Roma girls once. Nice little project there.

http://www.campglowbg.eu/

and Prophet...I am Italian. I harbor no such hatred as the one you mentioned in your post below. Not all of us are asswipes.


Also further upstream it seems that I outed a FReeper. That just made my week.

[LeftishBrit]

110. Great post. Thanks for your perspective.

Roma people have been subject to huge discrimination in Europe; and don't even seem to have the defences that most other minorities get, shamefully as they are often treated. Maybe the one positive spin-off of Berlusconi's taking it to these extremes is that at long last the problem of racism against Roma will be recognized and dealt with to a greater extent.

Berlusconi and the Mayor of Rome should be taken to the Europaean Court of Human Rights.

[uppityperson]

52. "a small minority of Roma people are very aggressive" Thank you.

Yes, I have been subjected to aggressive begging tactics in Paris. Only been pickpocketed by some white guys though (in Paris also). Only ever beaten up by white guy also (in ND). And yes, I have been around Roma in a positive way also. One of my mentors (artisitic) is Rom and I have learned much from her.

Of course "some" have chosen to live in carboard or tent cities, same as "some" of all colors/ethnicities in USA cities have chosen to do the same. And no, Roma have not integrated themselves into many societies, same as native american/indians haven't done so in the USA either, living on reservations in shacks and all.

[Fedja]

83. Common misconception.

It's not about being Roma, it's called being pisspoor and hungry. The Roma are a modest migrant society, and have issues adjusting to the western lifestyle in the Europe of today. However, their petty crimes and begging are not done in malice, but out of desperation.

[Name removed]

112. Deleted message

Message removed by moderator. Click here to review the message board rules.

[uppityperson]

114. Bwahahahahahaha! Or were you serious?

It is their culture to be criminal, and they have access to plenty of social programs in Europe? Yeah, and it's blacks culture to be slaves too, right?

Some countries they have access to programs, others? No.

Speaking from experience of Rom friends.

[Blue Diadem]

35. I wonder why the authorities left the bodies

laying unsupervised and only partially covered. That bothers me more than the sunbathers staying around. Even in our country, people don't necessarily leave the beach, but I believe an area is cleared for the body until the proper authorities get there and the body removed. Personally, I would have at least moved to another area of the beach and not been so close.

It's terribly sad and shocking there is such prejudice towards the Roma people.

[spotbird]

82. Where were the families of the girls?

Why wasn't someone holding vigil until they could be properly moved?

[Blue Diadem]

88. This link was in another thread

snip: Authorities who attended to the Roma girls at the beach last weekend said they did not have any identification and were not on any local records. Police left the girls' bodies on the beach until they had located their families.

http://edition.cnn.com/2008/WORLD/europe/07/21/gypsy.reaction/?iref=mpstoryview

Extremely disrespectful to just leave them laying there with no one of authority watching. I've heard reports of 1 hr on upwards to hours before the authorities came to remove them.

[peacetalksforall]

45. Does it go to show the value of attending a Church of St. Franicis with pounds of gold

and living a life of prejudice. Italians are not unique in this.

In this country - raising up the voices to God in song in an all white northern European descended following or golfing at a club with closed membership of the same color and religion of descendents.

If we were sent here to learn, the only thing we can claim is that our conscious is being raised by electronic merchandise and services. The consciousness part is a good thing. We are very slow learners. All of us.

[crim son]

47. The indifference may not be due to anti-Roma sentiment.

I am trying to visualize myself enjoying the beach of the body of a certain president were washed up in the vicinity and I could not. Sounds to me more like indifference to human tragedy rather than anything more specific.

[ismnotwasm]

51. Those poor girls

Only 14 and 16. I don't know about the reaction of the Italians, I think in the US we'd be gawking and getting in the way, as well as somehow causing a traffic jam. I'm not so sure many of us here would behave much differently, but perhaps for different reasons. The article is implying that Italians have no respect for Gypsy life, so I'm assuming that if two young Italian girls drowned in the same way, the reaction of the crowd would have been different. I personally don't know.

Bottom line, the story is very, very sad.

[Prophet 451]

80. Italians don't have any respect for gypsy life

From teh Guardian (different article):
"" In May, rumours of an abduction of a baby girl by a Gypsy woman in Naples triggered an orgy of racist violence against Roma camps by thugs wielding iron bars, who torched caravans and drove Gypsies from their slum homes in dozens of assaults, orchestrated by the local mafia, the Camorra. The response of Berlusconi's government to the firebombing and ethnic cleansing? "That is what happens when Gypsies steal babies," shrugged Maroni; while fellow minister and Northern League leader Umberto Bossi declared: "The people do what the political class isn't able to do."".

Needless to say, we don't steal babies.

[EFerrari]

91. One minute, you're 14 and it's summertime and the next, you're a body

on the beach.

Terrible. :(

[deadmessengers]

58. A few observations:

A few observations on this, from a second-generation Italian-American, eligible for but not holding Italian citizenship, who speaks passable but broken Italian.

1) Italy is descending into fascism, and this is certainly consistent with that. I was in Milan back in February, during their last parliamentary election cycle. During my visit, I walked through a square a few blocks from the Duomo where a pro-Berlusconi rally was being held, and quite frankly, it scared the hell out of me. The tenor of that rally, the vibe, the things that were being said, they would not have been out of place in 1938. Berlusconi is Mussolini with a facelift and more hair.

2) The Roma have to deal with their own problems before shit like this will stop. My family and some of our friends visited Europe two winters ago. My wife's best friend is Roma, born in Hungary but living here in the US for about 20 years. While in Brussels, we were confronted by a young Roma woman begging, rather aggressively, on the street near the Grand Place. My wife's friend G said (more hissed than anything else) to this woman, with more hatred in her voice than I could have ever imagined her using, "You are the reason they hate us". The bottom line is that beggars and thieves are going to be, by their very definition, pretty damn low on the social totem pole. And, as long as you can walk down any major street in any large city in Europe and encounter swarthy women in brightly-patterned dresses begging for change, and small children who are exquisitely well-trained in the art of pickpocketry, the Roma are going to be ass out over there. And, the Roma who do not engage in those behaviors are fed up with being lumped in with beggars and thieves and being treated like shit just because they look like and are related to them - and this was the biggest reason why my friend G's family ended up here in the States. They pulled up stakes and came over here to start over with nothing, just to get a place where people don't spit at them on the street because of the fact that they look like Gypsies (most people here think they're Latino). It doesn't make the degree of persecution we've seen in the past (and what I fear that we're about to see in the near future) justifiable, but unless the Roma change, attitudes in Europe towards them won't, either.

3) Depraved indifference to human suffering isn't unique to Italians. We do it too, as evidenced here: http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2008/06/05/connecticut-hit-and-run-h_n_105443.html

[LanternWaste]

63. Bad form...

All other things being equal, it's such bad form. I would imagine that beach-goers would at the very least, leave the immediate area out of respect, honor and dignity-- but then again, respect, honor and dignity appear to be getting hoarded as we become more cynical about respect, honor and dignity, which is odd considering that we have an infinite amount of all three to give out...

:shrug:

[GreenPartyVoter]

70. I can't imagine having my playtime while two dead children lie nearby

:cry:

[LanternWaste]

73. I wouldn't be able to do it.

I wouldn't be able to do it, and I can't empathize with anyone who could.

Maybe we've simply gotten so desensitized to violence that a corpse on the beach would be "interesting" rather than "OMG!", though I hope not...

Weird, weird world we live in sometimes...

[LisaL]

74. Some of them probably didn't even know that the women

were dead. They look like they could be sleeping under the blankets.

[Nihil]

107. Don't go bringing logic & reason into this thread ...

... it's such a hand-wringing exposition of horrible Italian racism
that such things simply aren't appreciated here ...
:shrug:

[Fedja]

84. semi-offtopic

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P5V07-LHOAs&feature=related

The Roma anthem. Close your eyes and listen, and you might feel the centuries of their "European experience".

Music can say more than words, and I, for one, feel their pain. Systematic persecution for generations makes it almost impossible for one to escape the deadlock the society puts on them.

[rasputin1952]

90. There several tragedies in this story, the obvious being the girls

died.

Another obvious tragedy is that it appears few, if any care that are on or were going to that beach.

It is also a tragedy that both elements of either society appear to have any respect for the other. it takes both sides to accept the other as being human before any advances can be made to rectify the bigotry that abounds. Once that occurs, people can begin to assimilate into another culture.

I think the greatest tragedy I see here though, is that gets posted on DU, is a terrible story of misery and heartbreak, and yet, some can find ways to justify and even make light of the situation. Is this what we can become?

Most of us here, have in one form or another fought for the Rights and Human Dignity of Africans, Mexicans, Malaysians, and a host of other groups and societies...but somehow, we can find a way to make light of this, or in a couple of cases, try to explain it away as a "cultural thing".

Yes, there is tragedy all around us, and we are often touched by the these events, often heartbreaking, always sad. But the reality is, two young girls are dead, two girls that will never see daylight again...just as those who sit on that beach, or those who try to find ways to "justify" this, and especially, those who make light of this...have yet to see the dawn of their own lives.

[bitchkitty]

92. No way is this true - like the article

says, no Roma girl would ever, ever behave like that. I think they were murdered.

[Blue Diadem]

94. There are reports there were 4 girls, 2 were saved.

There are 2 survivors who would be able to tell what happened.

Perhaps the girls just waded into the water. It doesn't take much for a rip tide to sweep them off their feet.

[Prophet 451]

95. You misunderstand

Under our hygene and modesty laws, it is forbidden to reveal the lower body to strangers. That's why Roma women always wear long skirts or trousers and why you'll never see a male Roma wearing shorts. Even wading would entail rolling trousers (or skirt) above the ankles.

Of course, we'll have to wait and see what the two surviving girls have to tell us.

[Blue Diadem]

97. Oh I see. Would they perhaps have gone in

with their pants/skirt not rolled up? Would that be permissible? I ask because I just saw a news report today about Iraqi women wearing their burkas in the water to take the young children swimming. They are able adhere to their beliefs but are still able to enjoy the water. It's just a thought..I'm not familiar at all with the beliefs and laws of the Roma people.

edited to add: I'd like to thank you for your posts in this thread. I can understand the fear the Roma feel. Your post up thread enlightened me, I had to look up Porajmos, I had no idea that took place.

Edited again for clarification.

[Prophet 451]

98. That would be permissible

If the skirt/trousers were just left as they are, that's perfectly acceptable so I suppose they could have waded in like that although it would be rather impractical. Normally, we'd just slip shoes and socks off (exposing feet is fine).

Incidently, don't worry about the other two girls here. Accidental or unwilling exposure is a different matter entirely and no blame of any sort attaches to them.

[Blue Diadem]

100. I hadn't thought about that, but thank you for that assurance.

I'm concerned about the persecution of the Roma that is going on and it doesn't make it to our news. This is the first I'd heard about it.

I re-read my previous post and I wanted to clarify that I understand the fear the Roma people feel due to what they've been through..I said that really backwards in my post. I'm going to go edit that now.

[Prophet 451]

101. It's ok, I got what you meant

It barely makes anyone's news, to be honest. There's little political mileage in speaking for us and less money so people tend to look the other way. We're only gypsies, only Roma. For many, we don't count. We've learned that it's safer to escape notice.

[bitchkitty]

102. You know they probably won't talk to the police.

You would be more likely to know such a thing, of course, but from my experiences in Spain, they would have no reason to trust the police or government.

[Prophet 451]

103. Probably not

There's such a deeply ingrained fear and distrust of authority figures that the chances of the police getting anything useful are pretty small. If that's the case and if these girls were attacked, things will be dealt with. Let's leave it at that.

There's distrust on both sides and, as usual, it goes in circles. We don't trust teh cops because they often look the other way when we're in trouble or harass us themselves and teh cops don't trust us because we don't trust them. Then, there's the outright racists to deal with.

[bitchkitty]

106. In Spain, I got to know a few of the women

slightly, and one of the men who lived in the barrio in Rota, who knew my boyfriend. I once vouched for a woman when she was selling coins in a bar. She loved it when I told her she was asking far too little for the coins - she should ask double because the American I was sitting with could afford it and would pay. From then on, they always had a smile or nod for me.

I remember one, the above mentioned man's wife - she was exquisitely beautiful. During one the many festivals, they would have Flamenco dancing contests, and she would enter - a vision with long witchy black hair and huge dark eyes. She was surely more beautiful than anything Hollywood has to offer.

There was some thievery and such going on - it was a Navy base town. But it wasn't only Roma doing the thieving and for the most part, they earned their living with a weekly outdoor market. Sometimes a group would come through with horses and put them through their paces - those men could make those horses DANCE - it left an indelible impression on me, an image I've never forgotten.

Best of luck to you and yours - hopefully one day the world will hold all of us, without these ugly conflicts!

[entanglement]

109. European racism is of the unashamed, pseudo-scientific and probably incurable variety

with a lingering flavor of 1942 in it. With European nationalism on the rise, things will only get worse for the unfortunate Roma. In Spain, people will openly tell you that all people of African descent are 'monkeys' or the like (and they seem to believe it). In small Eastern German towns, mobs of skinheads beat anyone with dark-skin to a pulp with virtual impunity. (Civic authorities usually don't lift a finger to intervene). Russia experiences 50-100 Neo-Nazi attacks a month (everyone, from Jews to people of the Caucasus are considered 'cockroaches' fit for elimination). Polish and French soccer fans regularly make 'monkey' noises at Black soccer players. Of Italy, the less said the better - it is going the road to a fascist state as quickly as Bossi and Berlusconi can take it. Discrimination there is probably as bad as it was in the South in the 50s and I fear a pogrom against the Roma if things get worse.

The European ruling classes and the European media play a major role in stoking such hatred; it really helps them in times of economic uncertainty (such as the present time) to keep the working class distracted. They have been spewing poison against 'outsiders' for so long that significant numbers of Europeans have come to believe their toxic propaganda. And the historical record provides unambiguous proof of this: Europeans have no concept of tolerance towards anyone outside their narrow racial / ethnic / linguistic group, let alone an understanding of acceptance or assimilation (unlike the US). On the other hand, there is persecution, discrimination, rejection and outright violence, in some cases with the tacit support of governments.

So, please, all you supposedly 'progressive' European DUers, snap out of your state of complete denial.