Understanding the Lives of Roma (Gypsy) Communities

Introduction:

                 Romani also called Roma, an Indo Aryan ethnic group who traditionally lived a nomadic lifestyle. This is one of the largest and most diverse ethnic group in the world and completed migration history. The Romani are widely known by the Gypsies. The gypsies are said to have emerged more than a millennium ago in northern India, whence they began to wander westward throughout centuries into western Europe and the Middle East - and ultimately to the Americas. The Romani arrived in Europe around the 13th to 14th century. In present millions of Romani live on different continents, maintaining very different ceremonial practices at the same time adjusting to the surrounding cultures.  

                The features of Romani culture are the emphasis on the family, a close sense of community, music and oral traditions. Though the regional differences are great, a common linguistic heritage, the Romani language has its origins in Sanskrit and intertwines with all languages of the countries they have inhabited, music and dance are still the core of their culture as well as many European folk traditions and even the development of classical music are attributed to the influence of the Romani people.

                The gypsies have long been subject to wide spread discrimination, social exclusion and persecution. One of the most tragic periods in their history is known as Holocaust  : hundreds of thousands of Roma were uprooted by Hitler and his troops. Even nowadays, many Romani communities are marginalized. Genetic findings reveal that the ancestors of the Romani people originated in northern regions of the Indian subcontinent,  there were an estimated 10 million in Europe (as of 2019), although some Romani organizations have given earlier estimates as high as 14 million. Significant Romani populations are found in the Balkans and throughout Europe, with the highest proportions found in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia, Serbia and North Macedonia. In the European Union, there are an estimated 6 million Romani people.

International ethnic flag of Roma People

Culture and tradition of Romani people:

                Culture of Romani people is actually very interesting and this can be explained by the migration to other regions of the world and in particular to Europe. Due to this, their traditions are sort of a mixture yet they are a strong identity. One of the attributes is the importance of the family to them. Like, families are large and close knit and the elder are highly regarded. It is not only individuals who are usually involved in decision making, but family opinion. There are also other traditional rules of the conduct of individuals in their day-to-day life which are referred to as purity and respect, sometimes as marine.

                 Their culture is keen on music and dance. They are very expressive and their style has been influence in many ways including the one of the Flamenco. You will regularly observe the use of instruments such as violins and guitars and performances are so energetic.

                Traditionally many of the Romani people were nomadic and roaming in search of jobs. Despite the fact that many of these are established nowadays, that sense of mobility and flexibility is still a part of them. Metalwork, trading or performing were fairly typical occupations of the past. Romani people also have their own language which is originated by India  knows as Romani language. That is very nice  and cool because it depicts their origin. All  their culture is founded on family, music and tradition. Those fundamental concepts are not really universal, yet they are relatively brisk.

Lifestyle of Roma community:

                One of the largest ethnic minorities in Europe(the Roma community) has a history which is embraced with migration, discrimination, racism, and resilience. The Roma gradually spread across the world from the Indian subcontinent once they migrated for the first time to Europe around  1000CE to 1400CE.
                
                Roma are not a single group which follows uniformity, they are diverse in different streams such as linguistics, culture, social norms. Even though they are the largest population in Europe , they have been facing eternal marginalization since Holocaust period and are subjectively forced to strong pessimistic stereotypes.

                The lifestyle of Roma people is literally a mixture of struggle, resilience, and survival.
Understanding their lives and dwellings would get us to recognize both the injustice they faced and the enrichment of their environmental adversities. The Roma people are striving harder for inclusion as well as the discrimination against their community in today's society.

Reality and Stereotypes: The surface appearance versus The real truth

                The Roma(gypsy) community is one of the most misunderstood and widely discriminated and slaved merely based on the society's perception of Roma people. Moreover, they used to be seen as people with pessimistic stereotypes which often diminishing their nature of history and their cultural diversity. As a result of the pessimistic stereotype label on Roma people, they use to face lot of  adversities such as reaching out for jobs, residing somewhere with lawful documents.

                The idea that Roma people are often unwilling to work and nomadic has shaped the society's perspective in the form that is both inaccurate and harmful. Roma people used to live in settled communities, may or may not in urban and semi-urban regions. Despite the fact that Roma people were enslaved during the Holocaust, they were also being treated like refugees due to lack of residing legally which reinforced the false idea that Roma people prefer to remain nomadic. Roma communities have enlarged resilience, diversity, and constantly adapting nature.

                It is crucial to recognize how stereotypes reinforce false ideologies in their lifestyle.
It becomes quite easy to discriminate against Roma people when people already perceive them as  loafer or reluctant to work. This creates a loop stereotype(prejudice-exclusion-confirm),
which only broke through awareness with the brave confidence to reconstruct the held beliefs.

                Society can see the Roma community as people shaped by historical and complex social forces when we all get to know about the gap between the stereotype and reality which is merely bridged by our understanding on gypsy people's lifestyle and our own perception towards them.

A Roma family with a traditional Wagon.
image credit: Wikimedia commons(public domain)

Historical discrimination: History of exclusion for centuries

                 In  eastern Europe, Roma people had been enslaved for more than 5 centuries due to the severe discrimination and persecution in the middle of the Holocaust. This period of slavery had lasting effects on the Roma people's social and economic conditions still now. After the war, the discrimination towards Roma people did not end. They continued experiencing face exclusion from the main society, most of them were denied access to education, hospitality, and even basic amenities and conditions. In spite of this, Roma people's struggle is often overlooked in historical narratives.

                The struggles which were faced by the Roma communities when they're enslaved are rooted in history with the sense of nuance, the Roma people still remain one of the most disadvantaged groups in Europe. It has been reported that immense amounts of poverty, between jobs, and unhygienic conditions are still exist in Europe (most likely the Roma community), and they seem to be one of the most marginalized groups in Europe.

                The Roma people's experience on discrimination and slavery stands out the most in the history because of how deeply rooted in the exclusion period and also their experience  has been existed across all over the  different historical and political periods around the 17th century.

credit: BBC news, https://www.bbc.com/news/articles/c9vdkvj3844o

Relevance today: Why it matters today

                The Roma people are embraced by a lot of discrimination which means this does not only belong to the period of Holocaust, but also remains in today's society. This enhances the understanding of this concept and why it is quite important in today's society(which is also sometimes entitled as modern society). This would help today people's realization of Racism and also let our state laws have better efficacy on anti-discrimination laws.

                Roma people seldomly maintain their identity on culture as well as trying to integrate themselves in the modern society and their archetypes. At most of the times, Roma people used to feel adversity from different perspectives when they try to fit themselves into the main society. This discriminative perception towards the Roma people connects to the idea of an inclusive environment in a diverse world. Today people are more often starting off embracing multi-culturalism  and the living conditions which exist in other cultures or regions.

                If the current people get to know about the real history of Roma people and the struggles which are influenced by racism and discrimination, they scarcely ignore it, and they definitely speak up against these disparities. Learning about the Roma communities can really help us to achieve equality and justice in reality.

                The forgotten Holocaust is one of the main reason to have this history on today's community. Because, during 1939-1945 around 2.5 million Roma people were brutally killed by Nazi and their collaborators. It still remains to honor the history.

ROMA(GYPSIES): Beyond the Myths

                I thought that it would be easy to write on this topic of (gypsies) but it was like a reality check for me. As I have seen some groups of people who travel in caravans with their animals on my own, can you guess who those people are? Have you ever heard about the Banjara people of India? The connection between the European Roma (Gypsies) and the Banjaras of India is very well known because some of them migrated towards west between the 12th and 13th century and they both have extensive linguistic, genetic, and cultural research, which indicates that the Romani people are descendants of North-Western Indian nomadic groups, including the ancestors of the Banjaras.
                I thought I had only seen some versions of Gypsies in movies and some in real life. You know, the mystical traveler with a crystal ball or the "free spirit" dancing around a campfire because of movies like Hollywood or Bollywood but once I started looking at the actual history and the data from places like the World Bank or the FRA, you realize that the media version is basically a fairy tale that hides a much more intense and interesting reality.

A Forgotten Link Back Home: The Indian Connection:

                At some random class one of my professors was teaching us about roma(gypsies)  and the first thing that blew my mind was where the Roma actually come from. For the long period of time all the class students stayed in silence, some of them just guessed and I was also one of them. They saw these people arriving with darker skin and different customs and assumed they were from Egypt which is literally where the word "Gypsy" comes from but that was a total mistake.

                 Genetic and linguistic research has proven that the Roma actually originated in Northern India; they had started migrating in large numbers about 1,000 to 1,500 years ago, think about that for a second. Their journey must have been insane and adventurous, first they moved through Persia then the Byzantine Empire, and eventually into every corner of Europe, all while keeping their culture alive without a homeland to go back .

The Secret in the Language of Gypsies:

                The best part of this is the language (Romani), Even though this word is picked up from Persian, Greek, and Slavic languages over the centuries, the theme of it is still Indo-Aryan. If you speak Hindi, Punjabi, or Marwari, you’d actually recognize a lot of what they’re saying as I was looking at some word comparisons, and it’s like a hidden map of their history.

Eg:

 Brother: In Romani, it’s Phral,  In Hindi, it’s Bhai.

 Hair: It’s Bal in both.

 Snake:Sap in Romani, Saanp in Hindi.

 To eat:Kha in Romani, Khana in Hindi.

                Even after a thousand years of being separated from India, they still carry those original sounds and words in their mouths. This is why this is a "forgotten link" because so many people including a lot of Roma themselves due to lack of formal education were not told this history but it changes how you look at them. They are not just (wanderers) they are displaced people who have managed to hold onto their identity through sheer resilience for over more than ten centuries.

Cultural Traces of Roma people to India:

                We can see these "cultural traces" in their traditional music and even the way they view community. As we all know about the INDIAN culture because  there is this huge emphasis on the extended family and respect for elders that feels way more Eastern than Western. When you see a Roma brass band in the Balkans or Flamenco in Spain, you’re hearing the echoes of that long journey from the East. It’s a beautiful and complex history that we used to just ignore because (mysterious travelers) makes for a better movie plot.

Media & Representation: Romanticized but Misunderstood

                In today, we see those people asthe media has done this really weird and different thing where they have turned the Roma into a "vibe" or an aesthetic, In todays time we can see them in movies like Chocolate or The Hunchback of Notre Dame, and they’re always shown as these "free spirits" who don't care about money or rules.

                They Being called as "free spirit" sounds like a compliment, right? But in this context, it’s actually really damaging to some people. When movies show Roma people as people who "just love to wander," it gives society a reason to ignore why they might actually be on the move and repeating this again and again. Historically, they were not traveling because they loved the open road, they were traveling because they were literally banned from owning land or staying in one town for more than a few days. 

                By romanticizing their poverty as "freedom," the media makes it okay for us to look away from the real issues. We see a character living in a caravan and think, "Wow, so bohemian!" While the real family in that situation might be struggling because they don't have access to running water, electricity, or a legal place to park, it's very hard to believe because the media and the movies made us believe that those smiling are always happy and satisfied with this freedom which is not completely true.

Conclusion:

                 The features of Romani culture are the emphasis on the family, a close sense of community, music and oral traditions. Roma is one of the largest and most diverse ethnic group in the world and completed migration history. We understand that we have to get rid of the Discrimination against whomever not only the Roma people.

References:

• Council of Europe. Roma and Travelers. Council of Europe,https://www.coe.int/en/web/roma-and-travellers
• European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights. Second European Union Minorities and Discrimination Survey: Roma – Selected Findings. Publications Office of the European Union, 2016.
• Fraser, Angus. The Gypsies. Blackwell Publishers, 1995.
• Hancock, Ian. We Are the Romani People. University of Hertfordshire Press, 2002.
• Matras, Yaron. The Romani Gypsies. Harvard University Press, 2015.
• Open Society Foundations. Roma in Europe: Facts and Figures. Open Society Foundations, https://www.opensocietyfoundations.org
• United Nations Development Programme. The Roma in Central and Eastern Europe: Avoiding the Dependency Trap. UNDP, 2003.
• United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. “Roma (Gypsies) in the Holocaust.”
• United Nations Development Programme. The Situation of Roma in 11 EU Member     States. 2012
• https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_people
•  World Bank (2015):Roma inclusion in Europe: Priorities for reform. 
•  UNDP (2012):The situation of Roma in Europe. 
•  European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) (2020): Roma and Travellers in six countries.