EU Schengen: Romania and Bulgaria were denied entry

[Rainman05]

From the perspective of an Eastern European Romanian I shall say what I feel about the Schengen area and this development.

If I'm not mistaken this was the 2nd time we were denied entry to Schengen... or was it the first time and the other time was the fact that we were denied the adoption of the euro or smth along those lines.

This news is pretty old but I had decided to investigate and collect as much info as I could so I can make an informed opinion on the issue.

let me start off by saying that I don't mind this. Some people, especially politicians, were outraged or pretended to be and indeed... it may have some damaging effects on the Romanian economy, but not really. I understand why last time Belgium (or the netherlands) were opposed to Romania's and Bulgaria's entry into Schengen and why this time France vetoed the idea. And I agree. romania and bulgaria don't deserve to be part of schengen. Now regardless of the motivation for the repeal, whether the motives were legitimate... or whether there were less than honorable, it doesn't matter, RO and BG don't deserve to be part of the Schengen space or the eurozone (and yes, I know one doesn't imply the other, but I'm painting with a broad brush here). There is still a lot of work to be done and a lot of effort to be made on multiple levels.

As an individual citizen, I don't mind having to show my passport or my ID card when I cross the border from RO to Hungary. In fact, that's how it should be. I find that to be normal. I am used to having to carry ID on me the moment I leave my house so it seems fitting that the moment I leave my country I should have ID on me at all times. In fact, I wouldn't have it any other way.

However... if the EU is going to deny RO's and BG's entry in Schengen due to the fact that we're unsuitable... do tell me how you permit Hungary to continue to exist as part of the Schengen area. After all, Hungary is further down the crapper than both RO and BG in all perspectives. Economically, civil rights, democracy, etc.

I'm just feeling that there's a bit of a double standard.

Now on the matter of the gypsies. Before entry in the EU, Romania has been criticized that we don't know how to integrate our gypsies into Romanian society. In fact, for the purpose of joining the EU in 2007, the Romanian govt spend billions on welfare for the gypsy communities from all over the country. An investment that yielded NOTHING in return. no progress in their integration, no success stories, nothing. It was basically money thrown down the toilet. The housing projects made specifically for the gypsies in various cities... houses and apartments basically given to gypsy families for nothing, now, just 6-7 years later, look like they've been through a warzone. The school legislation has for almost the entire post-communist period been very favorable to gypsy minorities granting them special privileges including reserved seats that only they could occupy if they went to school. this has yielded no return in any manner. The fact that they had a gypsy king as representative of the gypsy minority since 1996 hasn't helped. the fact that gypsies have reserved seats in parliament hasn't helped. There was some controversy regarding the reserved seats during the late 90's but not anymore. For the past 10-12 years, there is no problem... or rather, the only problem is that the gyspies don't send their kids to school.

So now we come to today, 2013, and every single god damn month something about gypsies happens in Europe. Either they're being paid to leave from France or they cause problems somewhere... or they are involved in some criminal activity, or they migrate en mass to England for the olympics or some god damn ****ing thing happens. And thanks to political correctness and describing them as romani instead of gypsies, everyone draws the conclusion that all gypsies are romanian. Which is of course, untrue... only ~3% of the population of Romania is ethnically gypsy and by numbers, we have a very small gypsy community. There are more gypsies in the USA and Brazil then there are in Romania. Of, by % of population, Romania is higher than them. But here's the issue.
We've been criticized for our innability to integrate them, but when push comes to shove, nobody can. Not a single god damn country can drastically or significantly improve the gypsy situation in their own country so what do they do? They pawn them off to another country.

I'm just sick and tired of the cheap discussion. And again, I don't blame France for not wanting RO and BG in Schengen. That's fine, I agree for numerous reasons, we're not ready to be part of Schengen. I don't even blame the French for wanting to export the gypsies out of their own country. I get it, that's fine. But then don't ****ing come along and try and lecture Romania on it's handling of the situation when France, and for this matter, the EU as a whole, is unable to deal with the problem. If some EU nations finds the solution to make the gypsies lives better and succeeds, then it will be a model for the rest of us. But there is no solution. No easy solution. No complicated solution. No expensive solution. There is really, no ****ing solution.

And if there is no god damn solution, quit the yapping. There is no solution. No program or law that any nation can adopt that will make things better in any noticeable amount. So lets stop pointing fingers and yelling like morons and let's put the thinking caps on our ****ing heads and think about it.

As the scarecrow in Oz said: people with no brains can do an awful lot of talking.

 

[DDD]

I'm just sick and tired of the cheap discussion. And again, I don't blame France for not wanting RO and BG in Schengen. That's fine, I agree for numerous reasons, we're not ready to be part of Schengen. I don't even blame the French for wanting to export the gypsies out of their own country. I get it, that's fine. But then don't ****ing come along and try and lecture Romania on it's handling of the situation when France, and for this matter, the EU as a whole, is unable to deal with the problem. If some EU nations finds the solution to make the gypsies lives better and succeeds, then it will be a model for the rest of us. But there is no solution. No easy solution. No complicated solution. No expensive solution. There is really, no ****ing solution.

And if there is no god damn solution, quit the yapping. There is no solution. No program or law that any nation can adopt that will make things better in any noticeable amount. So lets stop pointing fingers and yelling like morons and let's put the thinking caps on our ****ing heads and think about it.

As the scarecrow in Oz said: people with no brains can do an awful lot of talking.

Gypsies are for some reason not a problem here. Just a border crossing ahead in Macedonia or Albania even and they become a problem there.

They sided with the Serbs during the war. Those who made atrocities went away together with Serbs to Serbia and north Dardania. The rest expected retaliation. It did not happen. They have been keeping quiet and integrating since.

 

[Rainman05]

Gypsies are for some reason not a problem here. Just a border crossing ahead in Macedonia or Albania even and they become a problem there.

They sided with the Serbs during the war. Those who made atrocities went away together with Serbs to Serbia and north Dardania. The rest expected retaliation. It did not happen. They have been keeping quiet and integrating since.

Not meaning to be disconsiderate to the war crimes of Serbia, but if serbian gypsies did enroll on the side of the serbs and fought in war, that's actually a step-up in terms of community cohesion for them.

At least in Romania gypsies never fought alongside Romanians in any of the wars we had. In fact, during WW2, our fieldmarshall had to lock them up in concentration camps because with all the men off to war, they were causing problems: stealing supplies from women and children, rioting, looting and attacking and murdering the elderly, women and children because the men were off to war. And historically, in the wars between the ottomans and wallachia, they would side with the ottomans... even though they lived in wallachia.

 

[DDD]

Not meaning to be disconsiderate to the war crimes of Serbia, but if serbian gypsies did enroll on the side of the serbs and fought in war, that's actually a step-up in terms of community cohesion for them.

At least in Romania gypsies never fought alongside Romanians in any of the wars we had. In fact, during WW2, our fieldmarshall had to lock them up in concentration camps because with all the men off to war, they were causing problems: stealing supplies from women and children, rioting, looting and attacking and murdering the elderly, women and children because the men were off to war. And historically, in the wars between the ottomans and wallachia, they would side with the ottomans... even though they lived in wallachia.

Yes same thing here. Gypsies fight along with the aggressor against natives.

But the thing is they are now silent because we did not retaliate against them. If this is the method that worked here (not sure if it is) why is it not working there as well? Did Romanians retaliated against gypsies after the wars?

 

[Canell]

And historically, in the wars between the ottomans and wallachia, they would side with the ottomans... even though they lived in wallachia.

Yes, those thugs have always been a pain in the ass. And the Turks knew very well how to use them demographically and politically. Divide and conquer!

 

[Rainman05]

Yes same thing here. Gypsies fight along with the aggressor against natives.

But the thing is they are now silent because we did not retaliate against them. If this is the method that worked here (not sure if it is) why is it not working there as well? Did Romanians retaliated against gypsies after the wars?

The gypsies were small fries. They were the pawns of the ottoman empire... maybe there was retaliation or not from a civic standpoint (how can you not hate, as an individual, the people who attack you and try and murder your family), but from an administrative standpoint, not really.

But after the 1400s, as ottoman presence expanded and consolidated in the balkans, and especially after 1453 when ottoman supremacy in the balkans was unquestionable, Wallachia (the romanian province that sadly fell under their sphere of influence) won wars and battles against the ottoman empire for independence rarely and for short periods of time. So Wallachia was basically a tributary nation and what was called by the ottomans "pashalac" (their version of vassal for non-muslim nations)for 80% of the time between XVth century up to the mid XIXth century.

Gypsies were marginalized in Romania due to how they behaved and how they behave. It's the never ending cycle of: a group of people stick together and don't engage with the population (or when they do engage, its most of the time bad)... the population start mistrusting them... because of the mistrust they exile themselves further... leading to more mistrust, etc.

During WW2 however, our fieldmarshall did put them in concentration camps and maybe a tens of thousands died but again, it was a response to the fact that they started looting and killing. If you're a soldier... how willing are you to fight on the frontlines if you hear that your family is not safe back home... not likely.

 

[rathi]

You are missing the obvious why Hungary gets special treatment. EU bureaucrats like to sit around drinking Tokaji while pretending they are Hapsburg royalty and they want to make it easy to import.

 

[Rainman05]

You are missing the obvious why Hungary gets special treatment. EU bureaucrats like to sit around drinking Tokaji while pretending they are Hapsburg royalty and they want to make it easy to import.

Technically speaking, the Habsburgs were Germans (austrians... they were emperors of Austria and the Holy Roman Empire before Austria became the Austro-Hungarian empire)

 

[alexa]

During WW2 however, our fieldmarshall did put them in concentration camps and maybe a tens of thousands died but again, it was a response to the fact that they started looting and killing. If you're a soldier... how willing are you to fight on the frontlines if you hear that your family is not safe back home... not likely.

and what is your excuse for Romania's treatment of her Jews?

Holocaust History - Murder of the Jews of Romania - Yad Vashem

and no doubt gays Jehovah Witnesses and so on

 

[Rainman05]

and what is your excuse for Romania's treatment of her Jews?

Holocaust History - Murder of the Jews of Romania - Yad Vashem

and no doubt gays Jehovah Witnesses and so on

I don't need an excuse.

 

[alexa]

I don't need an excuse.

You gave an excuse for the death of I think it was half of Romania's Roma. You feel no need to offer an excuse for the murder of your Jews. Interesting.

 

[Rainman05]

You gave an excuse for the death of I think it was half of Romania's Roma. You feel no need to offer an excuse for the murder of your Jews. Interesting.

I didn't offer any such excuse nor shall I ever offer one. Do show me where I offered an apology or anything that can be interpreted as an excuse. I explained what happened and why it happened.

 

[DDD]

I didn't offer any such excuse nor shall I ever offer one. Do show me where I offered an apology or anything that can be interpreted as an excuse. I explained what happened and why it happened.

Perhaps it is semiotics. Perhaps "explanation" was intended instead of "excuse?"

 

[alexa]

Perhaps it is semiotics. Perhaps "explanation" was intended instead of "excuse?"

The word explanation could also be give. However to give an explanation for rounding up and putting into concentration camps resulting directly in the result of the death of half of the Roma population of Romania, I would call an excuse or justification for their demise. Romania was a fascist country, murdering her Jews en mass at the same time. Rainman tries to justify the treatment of the Roma as painting them all as criminals deliberately targeting the young, women and the old. He used that to justify their being put in concentration camps resulting in the death of around half of them. Of course justification is not unusual among people with Ethnic Nationalist viewpoints. However I do not understand why he does not also excuse or justify the treatment of the Jews at the same time. If he legitimises the putting into concentration camps and subsequent death of the Roma, then what reason does he have to justify the mass murder of the Jews happening at the same time.

(Generally ethnic nationalists justify Jews being attacked and rounded up in Germany for instance because Jews outside Germany were calling for a boycott of Germany and so were apparently at war with Germany.) That is their excuse.

 

[Rainman05]

The word explanation could also be give. However to give an explanation for rounding up and putting into concentration camps resulting directly in the result of the death of half of the Roma population of Romania, I would call an excuse or justification for their demise. Romania was a fascist country, murdering her Jews en mass at the same time. Rainman tries to justify the treatment of the Roma as painting them all as criminals deliberately targeting the young, women and the old. He used that to justify their being put in concentration camps resulting in the death of around half of them. Of course justification is not unusual among people with Ethnic Nationalist viewpoints. However I do not understand why he does not also excuse or justify the treatment of the Jews at the same time. If he legitimises the putting into concentration camps and subsequent death of the Roma, then what reason does he have to justify the mass murder of the Jews happening at the same time.

(Generally ethnic nationalists justify Jews being attacked and rounded up in Germany for instance because Jews outside Germany were calling for a boycott of Germany and so were apparently at war with Germany.) That is their excuse.

See, this is where you either are willfully misunderstanding things or just don't know how to read properly.

I don't offer any excuse or justification for anything nor will I ever offer any excuses or justifications. I am just saying what happened. No embelishment, no modifications.

And the gypsies were criminals and they were put in concentration camps because of that because no soldier will fight on the frontlines if he know that his family is not safe at home. Why are you fighting on the frontlines? To protect your family and your people.

As for the jews, I don't even mention them. You brought them up. The majority of jews lived in Bassarabia, what is today Moldavia. Though some lived there for generations, the majority were brought in by the soviet union after Romania was forced to surrender bassarabia to them under threat of war. The reason the jews were brought in bassarabia was to replace the romanian population there since romanians were deported by the USSR, en mass, to Siberia and other such regions. Why? because the jews were more loyal to the bolsheviks. So when Romanian forces crossed into Bassarabia with operation barbarossa, most jews were executed under the premise that they were soviet sympathisers or spies. As for jews in romania... some got killed in pograms but most were put on trains, moved around the country for a few months and then put on boats and sent to palestine.

This is just history. I don't owe anyone any apologies or justification or excuses. There is no such thing as a pan-ethnic, trans-temporal guilt trip and everyone, and I do mean everyone, who enforces a pan-ethnic trans-temporal guilt mechanism is an idiot. People are reponsible for their own actions, and that's it. There is no ethnic nationalism here, you just choose to see it because you've been indoctrinated to perceive history as a pan-ethnic trans-temporal guilt mechanism and can't understand simple words that defy that indoctrination.

Perhaps it is semiotics. Perhaps "explanation" was intended instead of "excuse?"

He's not looking for explanations, he's looking for apologies or smth which ofc, I can't offer and will not offer. He's hardwired when talking about WW2 to talk about the jewish suffering of ww2, even when the topic is not about that. And there's nothing wrong with talking about jews during ww2, it's an event that we mustn't forget or ignore, but learn from it, but it bears no relevance on the current discussion.

 

[alexa]

See, this is where you either are willfully misunderstanding things or just don't know how to read properly.

Ah, the personal attacks rather than argument. The quote which I gave from you in post nine is definitely an excuse for putting Roma in concentration camps and their deaths

During WW2 however, our fieldmarshall did put them in concentration camps and maybe a tens of thousands died but again, it was a response to the fact that they started looting and killing. If you're a soldier... how willing are you to fight on the frontlines if you hear that your family is not safe back home... not likely.

http://www.debatepolitics.com/europ...ulgaria-were-denied-entry.html#post1062380022

I don't offer any excuse or justification for anything nor will I ever offer any excuses or justifications. I am just saying what happened. No embelishment, no modifications.

I disagree. You clearly offered an excuse for putting Roma in concentration camps resulting in their death which you justified on hearsay.

And the gypsies

They are not gypsies

were criminals

proof?

and they were put in concentration camps because of that because no soldier will fight on the frontlines if he know that his family is not safe at home. Why are you fighting on the frontlines? To protect your family and your people.

More hearsay.

As for the jews, I don't even mention them. You brought them up. The majority of jews lived in Bassarabia, what is today Moldavia. Though some lived there for generations, the majority were brought in by the soviet union after Romania was forced to surrender bassarabia to them under threat of war. The reason the jews were brought in bassarabia was to replace the romanian population there since romanians were deported by the USSR, en mass, to Siberia and other such regions. Why? because the jews were more loyal to the bolsheviks. So when Romanian forces crossed into Bassarabia with operation barbarossa, most jews were executed under the premise that they were soviet sympathisers or spies. As for jews in romania... some got killed in pograms but most were put on trains, moved around the country for a few months and then put on boats and sent to palestine.

This is just history. I don't owe anyone any apologies or justification or excuses. There is no such thing as a pan-ethnic, trans-temporal guilt trip and everyone, and I do mean everyone, who enforces a pan-ethnic trans-temporal guilt mechanism is an idiot. People are reponsible for their own actions, and that's it. There is no ethnic nationalism here, you just choose to see it because you've been indoctrinated to perceive history as a pan-ethnic trans-temporal guilt mechanism and can't understand simple words that defy that indoctrination.

and history which has not been integrated, worked on and made amends for tends to repeat itself. You still spout the slogans of the time

You excused Romania's part in the genocide of the Roma and Jews. Both have a similar history of persecution. For instance I noticed when reading on this some time a go that a date was pronounced when both Roma and Jews had to leave the UK or be executed. At times both were liked and wanted in Europe but then situations would change and both would be persecuted. On the whole I think we can say the persecution of the Jews in Europe has ended but the persecution of the Roma has still to be addressed and rectified.

Romania's Roma for instance have lived there for at least 700 years but untill 1850 they were your slaves. Clearly recovering from slavery is not easy but also this has caused people to question whether they are a nomadic people or whether rather they move because of persecution.

Do a search on Romania and the Roma and you come up with nothing but bad news. People trying to pretend they are not Roma to get some hope of a life, children afraid to go to school for the bullying, doctors refusing to treat them because they are 'dirty' and other things like the article I cam across where Roma had been evicted from some city and now had to live in the outskirts in ghetto/slum accommodation - they said they had lived there for twenty years, had been employed and had always paid their dues and not been involved in any stealing.

Stealing is the main excuse for Roma discrimination. If a person does not have enough to eat then stealing is just the sensible thing to do. If someone is not able to join in the society then some will find a way to find a counter culture - read 'how children fail' some time

The Independent has an excellent article here concerning the persecution the Roma face in Romania including being pushed out of decent housing as above, including

While some Roma are involved in crime (or, more often than not, forcibly trafficked into crime networks by organised syndicates, or pushed there by poverty), the reports rarely stop to ask why so many people are on the move. The simple answer is that Europe's Roma are trying to escape a new wave of oppression that has swept across Eastern, Central and Southern Europe. Unlike those who migrate for economic reasons, many Roma say they are seizing the opportunity to find a home without harassment. Those who fight for Roma rights make the argument that those who head to the West are as much political refugees as they are economic ones.

Persecution of Roma, who trace their lineage back to northern India but have lived in Europe for more than 1,500 years, is well documented. Alongside Jews, gays and the disabled, they were targeted by the Nazis for extermination. But while European views on Judaism, homosexuality and disability have come on in leaps and bounds in the past six decades, the attitude towards the Roma still drips with prejudice.

http://www.independent.co.uk/news/w...xtremist-rightwing-party-due-in-court-8850834.

He's not looking for explanations, he's looking for apologies or smth which ofc, I can't offer and will not offer. He's hardwired when talking about WW2 to talk about the jewish suffering of ww2, even when the topic is not about that. And there's nothing wrong with talking about jews during ww2, it's an event that we mustn't forget or ignore, but learn from it, but it bears no relevance on the current discussion.

Well for a start I am not a he and secondly I was interested to see if you would make excuses for our other historically persecuted people, the Jews, because making excuses for the persecution of one is not too different in my mind to making excuses to another. If countries do not recognise, attend to and change behaviour and attitudes which lead to the holocaust then they are likely to return.

You have said you like ethnic nationalism. It is true you do not have far right parties in Romania but according to the Independent that is because the whole of Romania politics is so racist there is no need for them.

In Romania the far right has been kept in check, but not for altruistic reasons. "There isn't really much need for extreme-right groups because you find racism and stereotyping in all the mainstream parties," explains Marian Mandache, head of Romani Criss, a Bucharest-based group that campaigns for Roma rights. "Roma face hardship, exclusion and discrimination in almost all fields of public life."

Last month, a small far-right group in western Romania proposed paying €300 (£254) to any Roma woman who came forward to be sterilised. Unusually, prosecutors opened a case against the group under the country's little-used hate crime laws. But earlier this week, the idea of forced sterilisations was lent a veneer of mainstream acceptability when the head of the National Liberal Party's youth wing, Rares Buglea, voiced his support for the idea on Facebook. In Baia Mare, a mining town in Romania's impoverished north, the mayor has been building walls around Roma areas – to the delight of the other residents.

link as above.

I remember once you coming on and making an over the top thread about how you had no empathy for someone who had murdered a Roma. Fair enough but I think most people would not expect anyone to express joy at murder based on ethnic hatred. I was interested though that you condoned and gave your support to other forms of abuse, racism, exclusion, verbal abuse and so on. There are many forms of violence. In Buddhism one of the most violent things you can do is exclude someone. Until Romania takes responsibility for the the harm she has done to the Roma while she enslaved them and refuses them opportunities, change will be unlikely and that does include looking at the past, what you have done and how you have or have not made amends.

When given the opportunity they do well. It is something the whole EU needs now to address and find a solution to as the Roma leave Eastern Europe and try to find safety and the possibility of building a future for their children after centuries of persecution. If you are typical of a Romanian you have not yet even begun to acknowledge the truth yet.

 

[Rainman05]

Ah, the personal attacks rather than argument. The quote which I gave from you in post nine is definitely an excuse for putting Roma in concentration camps and their deaths.

I shall address each issue but I had to cut your comment for cosmetic purposes. let's be civil and use numericals.

1) On the matter of me offering excuses. What do you think excuse means? because i feel we have a language divide between us. For me, excuse means to pardon something. to offer something for the purpose of achievement amendments. And offering amendments, or desiring a pardon, is not what I am doing. I am not "excusing" anything. I am just saying what happened. that's not excusing anything. I am not, and will never, offer any excuse for reasons mentions. So stop saying that i offered excuses as to what happened, because I'm not.

2) They are gypsies. Roma and Romani are PC terms which I don't care much for. Here, let me tell you something, when the gypsy king first declared himself as such, in 1996, he declared himself the gypsy king (regele tiganilor), not the king of the roma. That followed years later when he and his ilk decided it would milk more sympathy from the international community if they rebranded themselves.

3) Would you like me lend you some books regarding how gypsies looted and killed during WW2? I do have an extensive library you know. And I'm pretty sure I know more about the history of my country, and Europe for that matter, since I have spent quite a lot of time through historical documents and in museums. You won't find this in wikipedia buddy boy, it's not PC. And it's not hearsay that soldiers don't fight well if they know that the people they report to protect are in danger. There is nothing hearsay about it. People fight to protect their loved ones from danger.

4) This is in response to all the crap you wrote from the 3rd paragraph onward. the one pertaining to slavery, far right stuff and whatever crap you said you remembered about me. First off, how the hell do you think you can come in and try and lecture me on my country's history. You did a few wikipedia searches and some googling and now you think you're an expert? Let's address all the issues row by row.

4a) Slavery. The territories of what is today Romania had no slavery until the mid 1200s when the mongols came along. They occupied what is today Moldavia and eastern Romania and brought slavery with them. It was the mongols who first brought the gypsies as slaves and did slave trade. It wasn't like the gyspies came along free and independent and then they were enslaved in Romania. They were brought as slaves. Now starting from the 1400s the territories of Romania, particularly Wallachia which is southern Romania, also implemented slavery by full statute. This means that wallachians could also be slaves. The reason this happened was because Wallachia fell under the influence of the Ottoman Empire and with the few exceptions of limited periods of independence, until the mid 1800s Wallachia was, for 80% of the time, under the Ottomans' sphere of influence and had to play by the rules they dictated.

Now it's important to note that some kind of slavery did exist in the romanian territories before the mongol invasion and before the ottoman influence but it was called: Iobagie. The main differences are that "iobagii" had rights as much as the peasantry had them back then and they were bound to the land that they worked on. They were bound to the land, not the nobility who owned the land. So if another "boyar" would own a land with 100 "iobagi" in it, those people would work for him, not for the other nobleman. So it wasn't ownership of people, it was ownership of the land to which people were bound to.

Now slavery was abolished in the 1800s due to 2 motives.
1) the revolt at 1820 which ended a rather horrible period called the "phanariot period" in Wallachia. This basically restored a greater degree of autonomy in the romanian principalities of that time (wallachia and to some degree moldavia).
2) 1848. This was the famous year of revolutions which happened all across Europe, and romania is no different. It was after this that for the first time since 1600 that the Romanian principalities became both united and independent of all foreign influences, particularly the ottoman one with the election of A.I. Cuza. So what did Romania do after it gained it's independence and it's first union? Freed all the slaves including the gypsies and started the first integration programs, which had limited success. So Romanians freed their slaves the first chance they got. We're also among the first countries in the world to start programs specifically for the integration of the gypsies.

So you see. I don't expect people from abroad to know history of Romania. After all, it's not expected of them it's just a small little eastern european country. But I do take offense when someone comes in and tries to lecture me on my history which I know so well.

On the other point.
4b)Ethnic nationalism: I don't have any such ethnic nationalism in me more than the normal, natural amount. I do have no sympathy for people who kill other people and that includes gypsies since gypsies are people too (yes, they are people). Like the murder of the 10 or so gypsies in Hungary that someone posted about. Those people who killed those gypsies deserve to rot in prison. I would say death penalty but I don't agree with the death penalty. I don't view ethnic nationalism with the same amount of holywood induced indoctrination as people often do... I have a more calibrated approach to it. If you take that as a preference, then fine, but it's really not. It's just not an overhyped, piss in your pants at the sound of it approach.

4c) I don't see how buddhism is relevant here. Who gives a **** what buddhism is about.

4d) Politics in Romania. I regularly post threads about what is happening in Romania. I don't this in the belief that people take interest. I do this because this is a political forum and I feel that politics in Romania should be written about here too. I have a lot of hate and a lot of disappointment over what our politicians are and how they behave, but again, here you come, some guy who read something on the internet, and think you know something. There is no such thing as xenophobia or "hidden far right" in romanian politics. Our politicians are just idiots. There is no discrimination or whatever those idiots at some newspaper claim. You want proof? The gypsies have reserves seats in Parliament. They don't even need a political party to get them, they just do. Like they get a lot of privileges any other ethnicity doesn't enjoy. Any allegation of racism is very stupid indeed.
http://www.ipu.org/splz-e/chiapas10/romania.pdf

Special reserved seat provisions explain the success of demographically smaller minority groups in securing legislative representation.

Electoral mechanisms favoring minority representation

The IPU is an organization that takes a lot more interest than some loser working for the independent looking to make a big story.

 

[alexa]

Part 1


OK, this was a long time ago. I am only replying to this because on coming onto this forum I received private message from you demanding I did. Do not take that to mean I always will. I have very little time for forums now.

I shall address each issue but I had to cut your comment for cosmetic purposes. let's be civil and use numericals.

1) On the matter of me offering excuses. What do you think excuse means? because i feel we have a language divide between us. For me, excuse means to pardon something. to offer something for the purpose of achievement amendments. And offering amendments, or desiring a pardon, is not what I am doing. I am not "excusing" anything. I am just saying what happened. that's not excusing anything. I am not, and will never, offer any excuse for reasons mentions. So stop saying that i offered excuses as to what happened, because I'm not.

It may not have been in this thread but I am referring to when you said that the Roma were put in camps in WW2 for stealing and what else could they expect if they stole from people who were at war. You admitted many died. About half the Romanian Roma who were put in camps in WW2 died through this being done to them. You saying that this happened because they stole and what else could one expect when people were at war sounds like an excuse to me.

2) They are gypsies. Roma and Romani are PC terms which I don't care much for. Here, let me tell you something, when the gypsy king first declared himself as such, in 1996, he declared himself the gypsy king (regele tiganilor), not the king of the roma. That followed years later when he and his ilk decided it would milk more sympathy from the international community if they rebranded themselves.

and as I have already provided you with information to verify, the use of the term 'Gypsy' in Romania is a slur. It does not need to refer to a Roma - just to someone who is considered the lowest of the low and a thief. It is irrelevent to me what any apparent 'king' said. I was referring to you saying they were not Roma, they were gypsies when a) the word is not accurate and b) it has purely negative connotations in Roma - relating to a complete ethnicity and also to others who people only look down on - the term 'white trash' comes to mind. Words we use are important. Words create an imagine in our minds. In Romania the word 'gypsy' means thief, 'ner do well', the lowest of the low.

3) Would you like me lend you some books regarding how gypsies looted and killed during WW2?

The information on them looting came from yourself. The reality that up to half a million in total were killed can be found anywhere on the net.

I do have an extensive library you know. And I'm pretty sure I know more about the history of my country, and Europe for that matter, since I have spent quite a lot of time through historical documents and in museums. You won't find this in wikipedia buddy boy, it's not PC. And it's not hearsay that soldiers don't fight well if they know that the people they report to protect are in danger. There is nothing hearsay about it. People fight to protect their loved ones from danger.

This is irrelevant to what I said apart from it seems further justification for putting the Roma in concentration camps. I did spend some time reading about the Roma particularly in Romania. One thing I remember was questions as to why the young were not moving into a position of wanting to get them rights - for instance I read that in Romania Roma are paid only half what any other Romanian is paid for the same work. Now the reason suggested as to why the young to not feel moved to stand up for them was that in the school and university Romanian Youth are taught not so much to be critical but rather to follow the views of those who teach them.

4) This is in response to all the crap you wrote from the 3rd paragraph onward. the one pertaining to slavery, far right stuff and whatever crap you said you remembered about me. First off, how the hell do you think you can come in and try and lecture me on my country's history. You did a few wikipedia searches and some googling and now you think you're an expert? Let's address all the issues row by row.

It was a university paper I provided you with, not wiki. Here is the link again http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=etd Are you trying to tell me you are unaware of what the Roma went through during slavery and following it?

I suspect the Romanian's has some problem in accepting it's history and it's part in WW2. That is certainly what I have been hearing on the BBC's history Channel this week. Half of Romania's 800,000 Jews were killed in the holocaust. I seem to remember Romania killed the second highest number of Jews after the Germans. In a previous thread when I mentioned this, you simply said they were killed because they did not belong to your country.

4a) Slavery. The territories of what is today Romania had no slavery until the mid 1200s when the mongols came along. They occupied what is today Moldavia and eastern Romania and brought slavery with them. It was the mongols who first brought the gypsies as slaves and did slave trade.

From what I have read their are many guesses as what brought the Roma into Europe, that being one of them. It is irrelevant to this discussion. What is more important is the position of the Roma as a persecuted people, a position which has not yet been sorted out. If you were using them as slaves from the 1200's until 1864 and then released them with no compensation and still treated them as the lowest of the low, isolating them, indiscriminate killing and dispossession, then that is something which needs to be seriously addressed. I can remember really a very nice South African in the 70's telling me the black South African's were stupid. He failed to understand how poor education, bad treatment and lack of opportunities contributed to that. It is similar with the Roma.

It wasn't like the gyspies came along free and independent and then they were enslaved in Romania.
They were brought as slaves. Now starting from the 1400s the territories of Romania, particularly Wallachia which is southern Romania, also implemented slavery by full statute. This means that wallachians could also be slaves. The reason this happened was because Wallachia fell under the influence of the Ottoman Empire and with the few exceptions of limited periods of independence, until the mid 1800s Wallachia was, for 80% of the time, under the Ottomans' sphere of influence and had to play by the rules they dictated.

That is disputed. However even if they were slaves before, the responsibility lies on those who continue to hold them in slavery. Now you did not do that, your ancestors did. Most European countries have been involved in slavery. Yours however was more like the American form and went on for very much longer and when it ended they received no compensation. I seem to remember hearing American slaves got a small patch of land. The descendants of American slavery and got, at least in principle, equal rights in the 60's. The Roma have not yet received righting of such wrongs.

 

[alexa]

Part 2

Now it's important to note that some kind of slavery did exist in the romanian territories before the mongol invasion and before the ottoman influence but it was called: Iobagie. The main differences are that "iobagii" had rights as much as the peasantry had them back then and they were bound to the land that they worked on. They were bound to the land, not the nobility who owned the land. So if another "boyar" would own a land with 100 "iobagi" in it, those people would work for him, not for the other nobleman. So it wasn't ownership of people, it was ownership of the land to which people were bound to.

The Roma slaves had no rights. As I said in a previous article other Romanian's could become slaves for getting a Roma pregnant. They had no rights at all and were subject to torture and could be legally killed for the slightest reason.

Now slavery was abolished in the 1800s due to 2 motives.
1) the revolt at 1820 which ended a rather horrible period called the "phanariot period" in Wallachia. This basically restored a greater degree of autonomy in the romanian principalities of that time (wallachia and to some degree moldavia).
2) 1848. This was the famous year of revolutions which happened all across Europe, and romania is no different. It was after this that for the first time since 1600 that the Romanian principalities became both united and independent of all foreign influences, particularly the ottoman one with the election of A.I. Cuza. So what did Romania do after it gained it's independence and it's first union? Freed all the slaves including the gypsies and started the first integration programs, which had limited success. So Romanians freed their slaves the first chance they got. We're also among the first countries in the world to start programs specifically for the integration of the gypsies.

I am aware at the earlier attempt to free slaves but it was not until 1864 that slaves were freed and freeing people without any compensation hardly sounds like people trying to integrate them. I also remember reading that the freed slaves were subject to frequent random killings and so grouped together for protection. Assimilation requires offering protection, rights and opportunities. Here's some information on trying to integrate the Roma

There have been many policies regarding the Roma in Romania. In the Habsburg
Empire, coercive assimilation was intended by Maria Theresa‟s „Gypsy Decrees‟ 1758–73 ordering them to settle (and not leave their assigned villages without permission)while paying taxes and performing mandatory military service as well as services to churches and landowners. There was zero tolerance for Roma dress, language orleadership while children over five were sent to state schools and foster homes. The intent was to have the Roma settle down, raise families and most importantly pay taxes. The issues which the Roma were faced with in Romania were always downgraded to seem as miniscule and unimportant issues. Due to heavy data manipulation, Romania wanted to make it seem as if the Roma minority was small and therefore did not represent a problem. During the Ceausescu regime in Romania, it was evident that the communist favored coercive assimilation from the late 1940s onward. The lifestyle of the Roma was considered irreconcilable with the unified socialist nation that Ceausescu envisioned (Georgescu, 1988). Therefore, not only did Roma fail to benefit from the land reform of 1946, but the Romanian Workers‟ Party ( the Communist Party), which came to power in 1948, did not recognize the Roma minority. It was only in the 1977 census that the Roma were allowed to declare themselves as belonging to the Roma group(Turnock 2008)

http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=etd

So you see. I don't expect people from abroad to know history of Romania. After all, it's not expected of them it's just a small little eastern european country.

I would say you were right until the fall of the USSR and the internet. There is no difficulty now for anyone to gain information if they get interested. The bad treatment of the Roma is not limited to Romania. When I spent time looking into this I was disgusted. The other side of this is that all countries try to present to their population a view which they think is good. I have learned many things about my own country which I did not know till the internet became available. What is problematic now is not the past which cannot be changed but rather recognising the past and changing the present so that the Roma are treated like everyone else and have the same rights and opportunities. I understand that though Romania for a long time denied it's treatment of the Jews, it has made a little step in recognising that.

But I do take offense when someone comes in and tries to lecture me on my history which I know so well.

Then do not bring it to a debate forum or you will find your ideas will be challenged.

On the other point.
4b)Ethnic nationalism: I don't have any such ethnic nationalism in me more than the normal, natural amount.

You said once to me in a thread that ethnic nationalism could be good. From what I have noticed of your writing you appear to be that way inclined. However I have also read that ethnic nationalism is very strong in Romania so possibly when compared to some in your own country you are not so much.

I do have no sympathy for people who kill other people and that includes gypsies since gypsies are people too (yes, they are people).

Rainman, Rainman can you not see that your felt need to say this indicates involvement in monstrous racism. You feel and I have seen you in a thread say, it that your empathy ends when people murder. Anyone who supports murder is surely the most dangerous in any society. Why oh why do you feel a need to say you do not to support such things? The obvious inference is that you know people who do.

Like the murder of the 10 or so gypsies in Hungary that someone posted about. Those people who killed those gypsies deserve to rot in prison. I would say death penalty but I don't agree with the death penalty. I don't view ethnic nationalism with the same amount of holywood induced indoctrination as people often do... I have a more calibrated approach to it. If you take that as a preference, then fine, but it's really not. It's just not an overhyped, piss in your pants at the sound of it approach.

The killing mentality is WW2 mentality. Yes, you have made clear that you do not go along with that. However there is much further to go before we move out of ethnic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism sees one ethnicity as superior to another and gives them the privileges over the other ethnicities. The West has spent decades working on this while the East was engaged in Communism. The solution we came to was to give everyone the same rights and opportunities. I have recently come to think that the difficulty is because of communism. That you did not go through the changes we did. Both in Germany owning up and making amends for WW2 and all of us coming to terms with the harm caused by racism - and that starts long long before you consider murdering someone for it. That is WW2 and something we hope never to go back to. For the question of killing to even come up, the people need to have been dehumanised completely.

 

[alexa]

Part 3

4c) I don't see how buddhism is relevant here. Who gives a **** what buddhism is about.

well you haven't given the link so I cannot say what I was talking about. A lot of what Buddhism is about is ethics. I would hope most people would be interested in that. (However some Buddhists have forgotten their own teachings in places like Burma and Sri Lanka - like everything else it can be misused)

4d) Politics in Romania. I regularly post threads about what is happening in Romania. I don't this in the belief that people take interest. I do this because this is a political forum and I feel that politics in Romania should be written about here too. I have a lot of hate and a lot of disappointment over what our politicians are and how they behave, but again, here you come, some guy who read something on the internet, and think you know something. There is no such thing as xenophobia or "hidden far right" in romanian politics. Our politicians are just idiots. There is no discrimination or whatever those idiots at some newspaper claim. You want proof? The gypsies have reserves seats in Parliament. They don't even need a political party to get them, they just do. Like they get a lot of privileges any other ethnicity doesn't enjoy. Any allegation of racism is very stupid indeed.
http://www.ipu.org/splz-e/chiapas10/romania.pdf

I would disagree with you on what you say here. See the rest of my posts for more details. I also have read a fair bit on the subject as it interested and appalled me. Without question the Roma are the most persecuted people in Europe. It is time for that to change. P.S. I am a woman.

Now I have to rush to get on with my day.

 

[Rainman05]

Part 1

OK, this was a long time ago. I am only replying to this because on coming onto this forum I received private message from you demanding I did. Do not take that to mean I always will. I have very little time for forums now.

Be sure not to miss this reply again. Get back to it when u have time, but do get back to it.

It may not have been in this thread but I am referring to when you said that the Roma were put in camps in WW2 for stealing and what else could they expect if they stole from people who were at war. You admitted many died. About half the Romanian Roma who were put in camps in WW2 died through this being done to them. You saying that this happened because they stole and what else could one expect when people were at war sounds like an excuse to me.

So even if there are other quotes in regards to this issue, I will put all the things I have to say about this here, about deportation and camps, and make things clear. Nice and easy.

The gypies have never, ever, fought for anything worth fighting for in their lives. They never stood for a cause or for a motive. This is almost universally true.
Over the centuries, as Romanian leaders and kings (voievods and domnitor) fought for independence and freedom from the authority of one empire or another, namely the ottomans, the russians and the hungarians but before that, the mongol hordes, the gypsies never participated in any conflict on the side of the romanian people. They fought for no independence. No freedom. No nothing.
And I know you will say that they were slaves, but the truth is, the majority of gypsies were not slaves. They were free. They came into Romania with a nomadic, wanderer tradition, and most of them remained with the same traditions. This is why they are now where they are. Because only those gypsies that have been slaves, usually to the nobility, and they were in the minority, became more sedentary. The majority, wanderers.

Now during WW2 the youth of the country went off to war. This left the women, children, the elderly and the crippled at home.
The "gypsy problem" began after the war started when bands of gypsies started pillaging the citizenry.
You are now falsely, and fraudulously claiming many lies to be truth.

Comenius 1 History Project - The Gypsies in the History of Romania : Antonescu's Regime

25.000 gypsies out of a population of around 300.000 were deported to what is today: transnistria, which is a region on the far east of what is today Moldavia (trans-nistria means literally, beyond the Nistru river which is the river that borders east of Moldavia).

The Gypsies not rated dangerous or undesirable, that is the largest majority of the Gypsy population were untouched by the policy of Antonescu's regime. They did not lose their civic rights.

And this was done sensibly and quickly. The gypsies who did not cause problems were left to their own devices. Again, the gypsies did not serve in WW2. They didn't care to fight against communism and to restore the Romanian country to the correct borders. They only cared for themselves.

But even this measure was not met with great popularity in Romania.
Deportarea romilor în Transnistria - Wikipedia

While it is in Romanian, you can go to google translate and translate this:

Proteste și intervenții pentru salvarea romilor

Măsurile autorităților antonesciene împotriva romilor nu s-au bucurat de sprijinul populației. Români din diferite straturi sociale au protestat contra deportărilor și au depus eforturi pentru a salva familii sau persoane deportate. Au existat numeroase gesturi de solidaritate cu romii deportați, sau care erau în pericol de a fi deportați, din partea populației din satul sau orașul respectiv, exprimate prin memorii și cereri pentru readucerea lor în țară[14][15][16].
Casa Regală a protestat și a intervenit adesea pa lângă Ion și Mihai Antonescu pentru repatrierea romilor deportați. Regele Mihai I a refuzat să semneze ordine de deportare, iar intervențiile reginei-mame au fost tergiversateC.
Un exemplu al protestelor liderilor democrați este scrisoarea pe care Constantin I. C. Brătianu, președintele Partidului Național Liberal, a adresat-o mareșalului Antonescu, la 16 septembrie 1942, în care critica în termeni duri deportarea

It basically means:
Protests for the saving of the rroma.
The measures of Ion Antonescu were not met with support from the population [etc etc]... there were many gestures of solidarity [...]... The Royal House protested [...] King Micheal refused to sign the order for deportation (not that it mattered, he had no real power left, sure he had legitimate powers but not in truth since RO became a military dictatorship) etc.

So not only were less than a 1/10th of the gypsy population abused during the regime, and despite them not doing anything to benefit the war effort, they were left alone. Only those who were criminals and who were actively detrimental to the war effort were deported and jailed.

So your statements are BS.
Especially when you say this:

The reality that up to half a million in total were killed can be found anywhere on the net.

Do not trust what is on the net. Since there weren't half a million gypsies in all of Romania. How could half a million die if there weren't even as many? Stop lying.

and as I have already provided you with information to verify, the use of the term 'Gypsy' in Romania is a slur. It does not need to refer to a Roma - just to someone who is considered the lowest of the low and a thief. It is irrelevent to me what any apparent 'king' said. I was referring to you saying they were not Roma, they were gypsies when a) the word is not accurate and b) it has purely negative connotations in Roma - relating to a complete ethnicity and also to others who people only look down on - the term 'white trash' comes to mind. Words we use are important. Words create an imagine in our minds. In Romania the word 'gypsy' means thief, 'ner do well', the lowest of the low.

No it is not a slurr. PC crazies claim it is but they are idiots so why should I care what they have to say. For 700 years since they lived in this territory and in all of europe, they were gyspies. They aren't anything else now.

The information on them looting came from yourself. The reality that up to half a million in total were killed can be found anywhere on the net.

Link provided above... there is literally PLENTY of documentation out there. I can provide you with at least 2 books, one in english. I'll mail it to you. It contains actual documents from that era.

 

[Rainman05]

This is irrelevant to what I said apart from it seems further justification for putting the Roma in concentration camps. I did spend some time reading about the Roma particularly in Romania. One thing I remember was questions as to why the young were not moving into a position of wanting to get them rights - for instance I read that in Romania Roma are paid only half what any other Romanian is paid for the same work. Now the reason suggested as to why the young to not feel moved to stand up for them was that in the school and university Romanian Youth are taught not so much to be critical but rather to follow the views of those who teach them.

A lot of gypsies work on the black market. Everyone who works on the black market gets what he bargains for. The minimum wage law applies to all, so to say that they're LEGALLY discriminated against is again, BS. And the fact that gypsies don't send their kids to school (school is free, even university, and thye have preferential seats reserved to them) makes them unqualified for many jobs.

It was a university paper I provided you with, not wiki. Here is the link again http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=etd Are you trying to tell me you are unaware of what the Roma went through during slavery and following it?

Yes, a university paper from DePaul university.. a social science paper. Social science is a joke of a science and even if it weren't, it's one persons' opinions.
My engineering degree is worth more than whoever's PHD in social sciences. So if we have to knock educational levels, I win.

I know exactly what slavery was in Romania and as I said above, the majority of gypsies were free people. This is why they maintained their roaming cultural identity. This is why most haven't become sedentary. If the majority had been slaves, then they would have been sedentary and abandon their nomadic lifestyle, which they haven't.

I suspect the Romanian's has some problem in accepting it's history and it's part in WW2. That is certainly what I have been hearing on the BBC's history Channel this week. Half of Romania's 800,000 Jews were killed in the holocaust. I seem to remember Romania killed the second highest number of Jews after the Germans. In a previous thread when I mentioned this, you simply said they were killed because they did not belong to your country

.

The jews are an entirely different topic. I would debate you on it too gladly to knock out the falsehoods you have been fed, but we wouldn't have the time. So no comment.

From what I have read their are many guesses as what brought the Roma into Europe, that being one of them. It is irrelevant to this discussion. What is more important is the position of the Roma as a persecuted people, a position which has not yet been sorted out. If you were using them as slaves from the 1200's until 1864 and then released them with no compensation and still treated them as the lowest of the low, isolating them, indiscriminate killing and dispossession, then that is something which needs to be seriously addressed. I can remember really a very nice South African in the 70's telling me the black South African's were stupid. He failed to understand how poor education, bad treatment and lack of opportunities contributed to that. It is similar with the Roma.

Yes.. they were brought by the mongols and then further sent out by the ottomans in their conquests. It is not irrelevant, it is quite relevant. The majority were brought as slaves but some had useful traits. For instance, the gypsies who made their home in anatolia have been recognized as having good jewelry working skills. But the ones who got moved around with the ottoman armies and then left in the territories they conquered weren't.

That is disputed. However even if they were slaves before, the responsibility lies on those who continue to hold them in slavery. Now you did not do that, your ancestors did. Most European countries have been involved in slavery. Yours however was more like the American form and went on for very much longer and when it ended they received no compensation. I seem to remember hearing American slaves got a small patch of land. The descendants of American slavery and got, at least in principle, equal rights in the 60's. The Roma have not yet received righting of such wrongs.

I never claimed that I freed whatever % of the gypsy population had been enslaved (the majority were free, as I said before) nor that I enslaved them.
They weren't given compensation? what do you call the emancipation programs that were started immidatly after being given freedom?

And as I said before, they were slaves because Romania had slavery legal, well, sort of a slavery. And this was because we were under the influence of one of the major empires, Ottomans in the south, tsarist in the east, and the question of Transylvania is a whole different topic. Once Romania became a kingdom and became independent, slavery was outlawed forthwidth and emancipation programs were put in place, but they had limited success.
The Roma in Romanian History - Chapter III. Emancipation - Central European University Press

They were put to work as factory workers and given the chance to earn a living, some managed... a lot didn't. To those that were sedentary prior to the emancipation, they were given some property to live off of. And other programs.

 

[Rainman05]

Part 2

The Roma slaves had no rights. As I said in a previous article other Romanian's could become slaves for getting a Roma pregnant. They had no rights at all and were subject to torture and could be legally killed for the slightest reason.

Slavery by definition is a state where one has no rights. so saying: omg, slaves have no rights, is kinda redundant.

I am aware at the earlier attempt to free slaves but it was not until 1864 that slaves were freed and freeing people without any compensation hardly sounds like people trying to integrate them. I also remember reading that the freed slaves were subject to frequent random killings and so grouped together for protection. Assimilation requires offering protection, rights and opportunities. Here's some information on trying to integrate the Roma

Romania wasn't independent until 1848... and it wasn't really Romania until 1859. And it wasn't even a kingdom until after and we secured our independence from the Ottomans or the Tsarist empire. (Ruskies)

http://via.library.depaul.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1098&context=etd

I would say you were right until the fall of the USSR and the internet. There is no difficulty now for anyone to gain information if they get interested. The bad treatment of the Roma is not limited to Romania. When I spent time looking into this I was disgusted. The other side of this is that all countries try to present to their population a view which they think is good. I have learned many things about my own country which I did not know till the internet became available. What is problematic now is not the past which cannot be changed but rather recognising the past and changing the present so that the Roma are treated like everyone else and have the same rights and opportunities. I understand that though Romania for a long time denied it's treatment of the Jews, it has made a little step in recognising that.

I really won't talk about the jews no matter how much you try and bring them into the topic. If you want to talk about jews, we can do so in a separate topic.
The internet may have useful info but it is also full of crap so don't trust it all. Like I demonstrated above, in the first topic especially, it's BS most of what you read. Like half a milion gypsies died or whatever because there weren't that many gypsies in Romania.

Then do not bring it to a debate forum or you will find your ideas will be challenged.

Challenge them with some ground to stand on.

You said once to me in a thread that ethnic nationalism could be good. From what I have noticed of your writing you appear to be that way inclined. However I have also read that ethnic nationalism is very strong in Romania so possibly when compared to some in your own country you are not so much.

You have read a lot of things that aren't true or presented in a false light.
And I said that nationalism can be good in moderate amounts. I do not share the idea that nationalism is automatically evil. It's not. There is a good way to do nationalism and a bad way to do nationalism. Clearly, I'm not advocating for the bad way.

Rainman, Rainman can you not see that your felt need to say this indicates involvement in monstrous racism. You feel and I have seen you in a thread say, it that your empathy ends when people murder. Anyone who supports murder is surely the most dangerous in any society. Why oh why do you feel a need to say you do not to support such things? The obvious inference is that you know people who do.

When you have nothing left to say, yell RACISM and it's an instant win huh? I don't accuse you of being racist against Romanians even though you said so many lies, so don't accuse me of racism either.

The killing mentality is WW2 mentality. Yes, you have made clear that you do not go along with that. However there is much further to go before we move out of ethnic nationalism. Ethnic nationalism sees one ethnicity as superior to another and gives them the privileges over the other ethnicities. The West has spent decades working on this while the East was engaged in Communism. The solution we came to was to give everyone the same rights and opportunities. I have recently come to think that the difficulty is because of communism. That you did not go through the changes we did. Both in Germany owning up and making amends for WW2 and all of us coming to terms with the harm caused by racism - and that starts long long before you consider murdering someone for it. That is WW2 and something we hope never to go back to. For the question of killing to even come up, the people need to have been dehumanised completely.

There you again... talking about things you know nothing about.

I'm not going to say that since you don't live a post-communist country, you can't talk about communism, but communism is an ideology and it was implemented differently at different points in different countries. Some countries came out of it less scared, but still scars that will remain there forever... some with wounds so deep that they still hurt.
Now to put communism in the same branch as anything else, that really makes me angry because it shows people have such a poor, such a poor understanding of it that it boggles the mind.

 

[alexa]

Part 1/1

Part 1/1

So even if there are other quotes in regards to this issue, I will put all the things I have to say about this here, about deportation and camps, and make things clear. Nice and easy.

The gypies have never, ever, fought for anything worth fighting for in their lives. They never stood for a cause or for a motive. This is almost universally true.
Over the centuries, as Romanian leaders and kings (voievods and domnitor) fought for independence and freedom from the authority of one empire or another, namely the ottomans, the russians and the hungarians but before that, the mongol hordes, the gypsies never participated in any conflict on the side of the romanian people. They fought for no independence. No freedom. No nothing.

Are you now calling the Roma 'the mongol hourdes?':shock:

That is not true. Some were sent home from the army to be sent to the 'camps'. Others arrived home on leave only to find their family had already been sent and they were to follow. I think that is the only time they would have been free and hence in a position to go to war with Romania. I am imagining the others did still fight with other Romanians. It was only the nomadic ones and those they could find some way to describe as dangerous - for instance those who had a criminal record for stealing who were sent - possibly some more. I think there would have been far far greater slaughter of Romanian Roma if it had not been that the people of Romania - both the peasants with whom they lived and academics and journalists.

And I know you will say that they were slaves, but the truth is, the majority of gypsies were not slaves. They were free. They came into Romania with a nomadic, wanderer tradition, and most of them remained with the same traditions.

I have looked this further at this. 2/3rd's of Roma at this time were Nomadic. Their conditions were much better than those who were not. However they were not free and did not have rights and had to give taxes to those who owned them with whom they often spent the winter.

For the other third my reading tells me it was hell.

The history of Roma migration into Europe was abruptly brought to a halt for those Roma who arrived in the Romanian territories of the Southern and Eastern Carpathian Mountains. Roma who arrived in Wallachia and Moldavia in the second half of the 14th century were forced into bondage and slavery for five centuries, and their history was marked by a turning point comparable only to the enslavement of the Afro-American population in the United States.

“Gypsies shall be born only slaves; anyone born of a slave mother shall also become a slave …” stated the code of Wallachia at the beginning of the 19th century. Roma were owned by the Prince (as “slaves of the State” – “tigania domneasca”), monasteries and private individuals. Selling, buying and giving away whole families of slaves was common practice among the owners, who had unlimited rights over their slaves.

There is also evidence that the Roma enjoyed a period of freedom when entering Wallachia and Moldavia.

The hypothesis of an initial period of freedom for Roma is confirmed by a whole series of liberties granted to slaves by their owners. The most valuable of these were the freedom of moving about within the country (with nomads simply paying an annual tax to their masters), and the internal judicial autonomy mainly for nomadic communities.

.....

The existence of Roma slaves in Wallachia and Moldavia underwent the most spectacular reversals with changes in the masters’ financial situation. Selling slaves was the most convenient way of repaying debts or redeeming oneself from Turk or Tartar slavery. Slaves were good for anything, equivalent to any value, sold, given as wedding presents or dowries, gifted to the monastery so that the master’s name was mentioned during mass, and exchanged for animals or cloth trousers; should they fail to submit, “they should be beaten very hard”.

...Throughout the period in which Roma were enslaved in the two Romanian countries, they did not enjoy a legal status securing them minimum rights or protecting them during trials. The slave was not considered a legal person, but classed as the master’s property.

WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA

This is why they are now where they are. Because only those gypsies that have been slaves, usually to the nobility, and they were in the minority, became more sedentary. The majority, wanderers.

I suspect that what you are talking about here was that in 1864 they were they only people who received some compensation of land. By WW2 most were not living a nomadic life. By WW2 only 12% were still nomadic and many had achieved a lot, as artists, traders and intellectuals and had even formed their own union "General Union of Roma in Romania"

Now during WW2 the youth of the country went off to war. This left the women, children, the elderly and the crippled at home.
The "gypsy problem" began after the war started when bands of gypsies started pillaging the citizenry.
You are now falsely, and fraudulously claiming many lies to be truth.



Comenius 1 History Project - The Gypsies in the History of Romania : Antonescu's Regime

My sources tell me that this is not true. The 'gypsy problem'

The decade is the 1930's

During the same decade, however, the Roma became the target of some Romanian proponents of eugenics.

Drawing on the ideas of Robert Ritter, the intellectual mastermind ofthe Roma tragedy in Nazi Germany, these Romanian researchers considered the Roma to be a plague. In supporting their opinion, they argued that the Roma were socially peripheral paupers with high criminality rates. These self-appointed experts racialized the Roma and warned of the menace that the ongoing assimilation
of the Roma presented to the “racial purity” of Romanians.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/events/pdf/report/english/1.8_The_Deportation_of the_Roma.pdf

 

[alexa]

Part 1/2

(direct continuation from 1/1)



The thinking began in the thirties. You have hence been misinformed that it was a result of actions of the Roma during WW2. I do not deny though that they took to stealing in order to survive when in T.


They were deported to starve to death or be murdered on route 1 if they were nomadic or 2 if they were considered 'undesirable' for instance had a conviction of stealing. Now plenty of Romanians who were not Roma also had convictions of stealing so it obviously is not the reason they were deported and as I have said earlier the likely reason more were not sent to the camps was because of the protests from Romanian civilians themselves despite the ethnic Nationalism of the Romanian Government. They were part of the community and worked as craftmen and farmers and many had become respected in the arts, crafts and academia.

The reason for the Roma’s deportation was likely another: it was part of the Antonescu
regime’s ethnic policy.


Achieving ethnic homogeneity in Romania—by “transferring” the minority out of the country and bringing in Romanians from neighboring countries—was a genuine preoccupation of the Romanian government at that time. Effective measures were taken and documents were drafted to deal with this problem. The most important of these documents was the project of Sabin Manuiă, general director of the Central Institutf or Statistics, written in the formof a memorandum addressed to Marshal Antonescu on October 15, 1941. This memo took aim at all ethnic minorities in Romania. According to Manuilă, they should be subject to transfer agreements or population exchanges between Romania and different states. For the Jews and the Roma, who did not have a state of their own, the planned solution was the “unilateral transfer,”which actually meant sending themacrossthe border.

The territory where the Romanian government could do this was Transnistria. Thus, the partial deportation of Jews and Roma to Transnistria in 1941 and 1942 can be understood as elements of this policy of ethnic purification.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/events/pdf/report/english/1.8_The_Deportation_of the_Roma.pdf


It is true however that after they were deported, they were stealing food from civilians. Their choice was do that or die.

And this was done sensibly and quickly.

It certainly was done quickly. I understand they did not even have an opportunity to pack a bag, but sensibly only if you believe ethic superiority and racial genocide. It does seem to have been a strange situation. On the one hand people were forced out of their homes to let the Roma in and on the other hand their were dying from forced labour and hardly any food. Not all of course got good homes so possibly this was just to keep the 'races' apart that the Ukrainians were moved out.

“Nomadic and semi-nomadic Gypsies shall be interned into forced labour camps. There, their clothes shall be changed, their beards and hair cut, their bodies sterilised [...]. Their living expenses shall be covered from their own labour. After one generation, we can get rid of them. In their place, we can put ethnic Romanians from Romania or from abroad, able to do ordered and creative work. The sedentary Gypsy shall be sterilised at home [...]. In this way, the peripheries of our villages and towns shall no longer be disease-ridden sites, but an ethnic wall useful for our nation.”

WALLACHIA AND MOLDAVIA


I could put in the genocidal quote if you prefer. In reality they were used as forced labour and not provided with cloths or food for survival. Some survived through sneaking back to Romania frequently to be caught and sent back. Others survived through crafts, comb making seeming to be the main one and some survived through stealing food from their neighbours which obviously made their neighbours angry, though I think some helped them and stealing food to survive is nothing to do with a person's character. Indeed I found one letter sent to Romania by those in charge of the Roma which claimed the Roma and Jews were dying of hunger in mass numbers and and some Roma had taken to stealing food for survival against their normal ethics

The gypsies who did not cause problems were left to their own devices.

Like I said had it not been for the peasants and the elite in Romania it is likely that a total removal of the Roma would have happened. Funnily enough in Romania the same happened with the Jews. In some areas it was full send off to the concentration camps but in others not so.

Again, the gypsies did not serve in WW2.

That is not true and is widely reported

Those at the front or mobilised in the army were brought bck and sent with their families to Transnistria.

http://www.yadvashem.org/yv/en/about/events/pdf/report/english/1.8_The_Deportation_of the_Roma.pdf

They didn't care to fight against communism and to restore the Romanian country to the correct borders. They only cared for themselves.

Well if I or my people had been the subject of an extermination policy, trust me I would be most interested in my own people too - watching my back. This is one of the reasons give why Roma deny their ethnicity on forms census and others. The other being that if they can get away with not being thought of as Roma they have some chance of managing to make a life for themselves. I haven't yet looked about how they fared under communism in Romania but for most it was not great.

You can get an idea introduction of the situation of the Roma after WW2 in Easter European countries and Austria here



THE SITUATION OF THE CONCENTRATION CAMP SURVIVORS