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Roma Issues

DeviousDiva

Firstly, a big thank you to everyone at Feministe for the opportunity to guest blog here. I was thrilled to be asked and am looking forward to adding my two-pence worth to this community for the week.

Secondly, I just need to explain something. I have just moved house in the past two weeks and have no phone or internet connection at the moment. I normally research and write “live”, so this is a different experience for me, writing posts and then having to travel to a wifi hotspot to post. I am not sure how much time I will be able to spend online each day so if there are any comments, they might go unanswered for a day. I hope no-one will be offended by that. I wish it could be different but that’s the way life goes…

Thirdly, a short introduction. I am Devious Diva or DD. I chose to use a pseudonym for good reason. I blog about human rights issues in Greece, the country that has been my home for the past 13 years. Ordinarily, this should not be a problem but Greece has been slow to accept its racism and xenophobia (in fact, any of it’s shortcomings) because it seems to still want to revel in its glorious past. This has led to a number of nationalists finding me and making it pretty unpleasant at times to even turn on the computer, let alone blog. I have also been outed recently. Full name and my well-known occupation posted all over nationalist sites here. Scary stuff. Most of it has died down except one persistent overgrown schoolboy who keeps trying to keep the silliness going. Anyway, enough of all that. You can read up about it on my blog if you like.

Over the last year or so I have been blogging about the Roma communities here in Athens, specifically those living in Votanikos in the very centre of the city. My first visit had a profound effect on me and led to further meetings and much writing. I was angry. I still am. What prevented the Roma Series from being a pointless exercise in blogging was that people began to take notice. I am not claiming that I started the ripple of interest in Roma issues here in Greece but I have been part of it and it inspires me to keep writing about this largely ignored and abused community.

Everyone has been evicted from Votanikos and are scattered to wherever they can find a scrap of land, but I will be following their plight and writing about it as soon as I know more. I hope you will read the Roma Series and leave your comments, impressions or suggestions either here or over at my place.

More from me tomorrow (hopefully)

10 thoughts on Roma Issues

  1. Thank you, thank you, thank you for going and seeing and being and writing.

    I don’t even know what else to say. I feel ashamed commenting, because I’m not Roma, and can’t even begin to imagine their experience. It’s a subject that’s very close to my heart, however, so all I can say is thank you. So few people even know, let alone speak about any of this. I’m so sorry for how you’ve been treated.

  4. oh, it’s you! i really enjoyed reading part of your series on Roma issues. my family is Romanian, so I was raised to think that tiganii are ruthless criminals who want to eat our precious white nationalist babies. or something. i never even realized i was racist towards them until a non-eastern european friend of mine pointed out that it was irrational. and reading your posts really gave me insight into how they are oppressed in eastern europe. so uh, i just wanted to say thanks. 🙂

  5. Very powerful stuff. I had no idea the Roma were so oppressed.

    As a Greek-American, I’m curious—how does the average Greek rationalize this? Probably with a lot of bushwa about “thieving Gypsies,” Albania collaborating with Mussolini (which it didn’t), or God knows what else.

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  7. Are the only non-greek speaking kids in Greece Roma kids? Seems like Greece would have to have some kind of GSL or bilingual ed for immigrant kids.

  9. Blogging about Roma issues? Awesome. Good for you. I actually work on Roma-related human rights issues in BiH, and yes, the conditions Roma are forced to live in pretty much everywhere in Europe are abominable, but in the EU there are absolutely no excuses for governments not addressing the terrible treatment of their Roma citizens.

    With the political system in BiH designed to marginalize people who aren’t Bosniak, Serb, or Croat, the Roma are a minority among minorities, by *far* the worst off group in a country where a great many people are struggling just to make it from one day to the next. And it’s even worse for Roma in Kosovo, and Roma refugees from Kosovo.

  10. Thank you to all who commented.

    To answer your question, Bitter Scribe, the vast majority of people here ignore the Roma communities here or use the strange rationale that they want to live like that so we should just leave them to it. Greek kids are often told that if they are naughty the Gypsies will take them. And of course there is the usual “criminal” ‘thieving” “barbarian” accusations flying around. The majority of people are just not interested in their plight.

    Hi Hector B. The majority of Roma here are Greek so their children speak the language. The ones at Votanikos are Albanian hence the double racism directed at them. The children there have been unable to attend school for the reasons I wrote about in the series under “Education” so they often don’t speak Greek very well. However, it is not only Roma kids here who have Greek as a second language. There are a couple of “special” schools for children of immigrants but they are far from special. The teachers here are not trained to work with Greek as a second language and the ones who have trained elsewhere are far and few between. I hope this answers your question.

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