Gypsies, Roma and the European Union

Fair use quotes from this opinion article by Colum McCann, author of "Zoli," a novel roughly based on the life of Gypsy poet, Branislawa Wajs, see Gypsies, Roma, Romani and "Zoli":

Mr. McCann speaking to a Slovakian -- "But when I asked him about contemporary issues of sterilization, school discrimination and burnings of Romani houses in his own country, he said without rancor, 'Of course, yes, but they're just Gypsies.'

"Malice is sometimes another name for silence."

And another, not depriving you of the interest in reading the whole:

"Yet so much about Romani history is still wrapped up in a willful forgetfulness. It is not that Europe or America doesn't care — dozens of conferences and non-governmental agencies confront the "Roma question" each year, and 2007 promises to be a bonus year.

"But the prevailing attitude still echoes the old Slovakian joke: 'What is small, dark, filthy and knocking on the door?' The answer is not just the future, but the past as well."

Mr. McCollum, if your understanding of copyright excludes these as fair use, just let us know. We are not crooks. Does anyone understand copyright?

The High Tatras

Small range, high mountains, alpine, on the border with Poland. This was taken from the Polish side because we wanted to cross the border before dark and did not stop before.

See park at //www.earth-photography.com/Countries/Slovakia. From Spis Castle to Levoca then across the border and mountains to Zakopane PL, hiking and ski resort area.

Gloria Steinem: Cages.

On the side of an ordinary 2-lane road, in the middle of unsettled country, not even farms, lovely nowhere special, no town nearby, and a side road, packed gravel, off to the left, no building in sight, just the road going on and on. Sign "Sex Farm."

Trafficking? See gvnet.com/humantrafficking/SlovakRepublic; see also www.slovakspectator.sk/clanok.asp?cl=22040; and www.protectionproject.org/slovakia.doc .
And the sign in English. For the convenience of the patrons.

No way out - a tradition in the west and east. See Levoca post for this 1600's Women's Cage of Shame, for control and disposition of the witches, the scolds, the independent, the healers, the simpleminded, or simply one side of an equation.

Gloria Steinem has the right cause here. Thank you. See onpointradio.org/shows/2006/12/20061207_b_main.asp. I did not stop and get out to take a photo because you never know, and we are on our own, but the sign and the road are there.

Courses on it now. Look up the University of Vilnius, Lithuania, "Women on Margins in Europe 16th-20th Centuries," and that uses Lithuanian, British, German, French historical examples: "...interactions between economical, political development and women's lives...." See Gender and Culture in the menu at the top. Courses in this are now common, example //www2.sewanee.edu/academics/catalog/departments/womens_studies.

Levice - Roma (gypsy ethnic groups)

All the Roma. Where are they?

You see them literally on the run, or trying to make themselves small, or on the sides of roads, heads usually down, and shanty town areas off to the side, obviously derelict and not part of the commercial and residential areas just around the bend. Ghettoized, reports the Christian Science Monitor, at www.csmonitor.com/2003/0103/p04s02-woeu.

Read about their plight at www.slovakia.org/society-roma. The second largest minority. The same complex of conditions that run with poverty here - illiteracy, illness, crime. The Czech Republic has anti-immigration policies against them. Universal issues, human need, human rights, human backlash.

Anecdote on the dehumanizing of neglected groups. Parked my car up a ramp toward an old ruin, without seeing behind me that a family had a push-pull cart with car tires (for long distance walking), the mother pushing it and children behind. Now no way for them to get on the sidewalk, thanks to me. Run back. Get in the car. Gesture! Call out to wait! No way. Heads down, they were instead already in the busy road, where they all could have been hit; to me, it seemed they never even considered that someone would actually move a car for them. Marginalization. Its long term effects perpetuating.

Read the debate here. www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?ChapterID=674&CountryID=21&ReportID=212&keyword=. See also www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=servis/z_en_2004_0038; and the British Helsinki Human Rights Group on the topic, including addressing immigration issues, at www.bhhrg.org/CountryReport.asp?CountryID=21.

Novel: "Zoli," by Colum McCann, about a Roma girl born in the 1930's, with a theme that to reveal cultural matters is to betray secrets and the silence needed for self-preservation, preservation of freedom. See review NYT 1/8/07 by Richard Eder.

See Gypsies, Roma.

Levoca - The Cage of Disgrace

Since 1271, after the Tatars, Levoca has been a splendid center of commerce and culture. It is the place where Slovaks protested assimilation into the Hungarian empire group in the mid-1800's, and where the Slovak national anthem was first heard. See www.slovenskyraj.sk/vylety/levoca/en.


It is also the town of the Cage of Shame, or the Cage of Disgrace. But the photo album at the site does not even refer to it.

I will. The Cage of Disgrace where uppity women were put. Or those whose actions otherwise did not suit those on top. The independent, or simple-minded, or healers.

There, on the top of a column, is a memorial to mom and a child clinging to her.

And, to the other side, the cage itself. Iron. No way out.

It is also discounted here with just a passing reference. tanap.sk/levoca.

Half the world is women, or more than half, and we are interested. Punishment for moral crimes? See See www.itisnet.com/english/e-ce/e-slovakia/e-levoca/e-s-levoca. Like what, and where are the guys.

Look up Malleus Maleficarum, the Inquisition guidebook, "The Hammer of Witches," that spread all over Europe, with vestiges in the witch hunts in colonies. See http://www.malleusmaleficarum.org/; then add Levoca, and suddenly all the entries are in Slovak. Look up the Malleus itself, from 1486, at www.sacred-texts.com/pag/mm/.

This is no mere moral turpitude platitude. This is part of the full-fledged witch purge that devastated healers and independence. But the issue of witch-burnings, why and who benefited, is complex and needs careful thought. See www.summerlands.com/crossroads/remembrance/_remembrance/malleus_maleficarum.

How far in the past is all this. Beyond my ken. Start on this area of persecutions of any group and for which reasons, pun intended.