As I wrote a few days back, Italy has taken measures to extradite European Union citizens who have been involved in criminal activities here. The Italian law enforcement spotlight has been shining heavily on those from Romania, and the police have been rounding up Romanians by the dozen in preparation for having them sent back to Romania.
I’ve noticed that the press here has been becoming a little confused, and it is evident that they are not really sure of the difference between Romanians and the ‘Rom’. Just to make matters more confusing, which indeed they are it has to be said, both Rom and Romanians come from Romania! Indeed, one may think that ‘Rom’ is a diminutive form of ‘Romanian’, but this is not the case.
Just in case someone was wondering, the ‘Rom’, who hail from Romania, are really a nomadic gypsy type population, whereas ‘Romanians’ are those from Romania, who, in the main, are not nomadic gypsies. In fact, the ‘real’ Romanians regard their ‘Rom’ counterparts as being something of an unwanted underclass, and Romanians do not really like to be associated with the ‘Rom’. I told you it was confusing.
It becomes worse. Both true, shall we say, Romanian illegal immigrants, and the Rom live in favella type encampments, found, as far as I believe, throughout Italy, but I’m not sure that both Rom and Romanians can be found living side by side in the same shanty towns. Whilst the Romanians are quite recent immigrants, many of the Rom have been in Italy for a long time.
Around Milan, the Rom, not the Romanians, are well organised and raise funds through busking, cleaning car windows, and begging. They, the Rom, are not averse to a little fund raising petty crime either, as anyone who has seen the groups of unkempt kids carrying newspapers and surrounding tourists in an attempt to remove wallets, cash and cameras, will know. I have seen these people in action, and while she was with our son, even my other half was approached, (nothing happened, Cristina is very streetwise) – but this incident illustrates that these little gangs don’t solely prey on tourists. Most travel guides contain warnings about these nasty little gangs. Well, these gangs are part of the Rom network.
‘True’, Romanians have become involved in petty, and more serious crime, but not as a result of falling in with the Rom, at least I do not believe so. In general Romanians come to Italy in search of a better life, whereas the Rom just come here to live and operate as they always have done, in other words, as gypsies. As you may appreciate, distinguishing between these two groups that have the same places of origin can be a little mind boggling at times. Hence the confusion in the some of the Italian press.
The enforcers of law and order on the other hand, are not attempting to differentiate between Rom and Romanians, and are doing their level best to use the recent government initiative to round up and send home both Rom and Romanians. Both are now personae non gratae as far as the Italian authorities are concerned.
With regard to Italians in general, I think it would be true to say that both Rom and Romanians will not be missed particularly. Although this whole thing must be making the lives of the honest established Romanians quite difficult.
We shall see how long this extradition initiative endures, but, as is often the case here, the enthusiasm, if you can call it that, of the authorities will probably wane in a few months time, and it is probable that both Rom and Romanians will creep back into Italy. Back to square one.
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I heard about the Rom issue in one of the Radio Due podcasts. As you said, the Italian media itself is confused. The radio host was interviewing a Romanian maid about the differences between Rom(s) and Romanians- Now I haven’t been to Italy but I know a gypsy when I see one- The Romanian maid expressed her prejudice toward the Rom and how they are not considered as Romanians back home. According to her, soon after the communist regime fell, the Roms have been the cause of turbulence in Romania. It’s just a shame that the entire Romanian community is feeling the heat.
Thanks for the post
I should also point out to your readers that the Romanies are originally from India and moved to Europe in the Middle Ages and may be differentiated from The ‘true’ Romanians-as you put it- by their darker features.
Zied,
Thanks for your comments on this confusing issue – I assume that you are Romanian.
I should highlight that to make matters a little worse, the correct term for ‘Rom’ is, apparently (BBC website) ‘Roma’ in English, a word which is even closer to ‘Romanian’.
But one thing I did not point out in my post above, and that my other half mentioned to me, is that not all ‘Roma’ are from Romania, which makes associating ‘Roma’ with Romanians even less accurate.
Alas though, many, including the press in Italy, do not really know this, but non-Roma Romanians are still being confused with Roma, whether or not they come from Romania, and all Romanians are ending up with a bad reputation as a result.
Yes, the whole situation is horribly confusing, and non-Rom/Roma Romanians are suffering the most as a result.
Kind regards,
Alex
Alex,
Actually I’m not even European. I reside in the States. I’ve always considered these groups “Gypsies” or “Zingari” maybe that’s what your partner means. The “Rom” term is new to me, and had to google it after I had heard the abovementioned interview on RadioRai- Which led me to your interesting blog that I’ll be revisiting soon to see what else I can learn from you.
Thanks,
Hi Zied,
Thanks for your reply. So, you are from the States. How come this Rom thing interests you?
Before living in Italy, I had not heard of the Rom thing either, but I did know about gypsies, although where I come from, the UK, gypsies do not appear to come from the Rom population. However, in Italy most of the so-called gypsies are Rom, although I am prepared to be corrected on this, as it is really only my impression. I’m not sure whether the Rom gypsies are to be found in other European countries.
Glad to hear that you find my blog interesting. If you do manage learn something, let me know. In fact, let me know if you don’t, too!
Thanks for dropping in.
All the best,
Alex (also known as ‘admin’, by the way)
good job in distinguishing between Rom (gypsies) and Romanians. As a Romanian, I really appreciate that people stop to think abt these problems and not just put a ‘stamp’ and let the situation be. True, I’m having second thoughts abt traveling to Italy for a while though [what Romanian wouldn't?]
Thank you for making the difference between Romanians and Gypsies clearr. They should not be called “roma”, but gypsies.
Also, you should also write about the 1,000,000 Romanians working in construction. 1% of italy’s GNP comes from them, and indeed, everything built in Italy in the last 10-15 years was done with Romanian sweat.
What’s up with Italians wanting to extradite Romanians… which are the same people? It’s gypsies (Roma) who are the cause of most troubles (in BOTH countries actually) and who are INDIAN!!! They are not european!! I guess Italians are turning on their own people now……
So all this anti-romanian crap that is going around is ridiculous! Gypsies aren’t even romanian, they live all throughout europe and a lot of them happend to live in Romania but they’re clearly NOT white!
Rom=gipsy;romanian are the people of Romania,the white people and not the dark skin whitch are gypsy;is very easy to understand..they are an etnic group from Romania..there are a lot of etnic groups in Romania(Hungarians,germans etc)but the most different one(because not from europe bue indians)are the gipsy;so people..please.,.when you see a drak skin person who’s saying that come from Roamania..that’s means that the person is gipsy!grazie…Romanians=Dacians…….Gypsy=indians=nomads
Let’s look at history a bit.
The true ancestors of the Romanian people were the Dacians (as Fly said) – Decebal, Burebista, Zalmoxe are a few notable names. The Dacians were a mixture between Tracs and Gets (indo-europeans that migrated to central and eastern-europe).
Now, the Dacians and the Romans (the people of the Roman empire) – Traian is a notable name – formed the Romanian people we know today (the process started somewhere in the first century before Christ if i remember from history class correctly).
The nomadic Roma people (gypsy, gitan, tigan, rom) came to this country a lot later. But not all gypsy people are Romanian, This is a problem that keeps coming up. When people find out you’re Romanian they say.. “ah.. so you’re a gypsy”.
There are gypsy people in Span, France, Italy, Bulgaria, Romania, Hungary and in most countries of eastern Europe. Romania is not the land of the gypsies. Italy have their own, Bulgaria have their own, even Spain have their own gypsies.
The one thing i hate about all this extradation of gypsies from France and Italy is this: before Romania was accepted in the EU, we were called racist and intolerant and we were asked to create special social-integration programs for the gypsies in our country. So we did. Then, after Romania entered the EU and the border gates flew open, many gypsies went to western european countries to steal and beg (things they did, and still do, here in Romania). What’s happening now? The french government is paying 350 euros per gypsy to send them back to Romania. For a lack of a better word i’d say this is bribery!
And what do the gypsies do? They come to Romania with a smile on their face and say “well the french government paid us to come on vacation in our country. we are going back to France next week”
So who is racist and intolerant now?
Don’t get me wrong. NOT all gypsies are robbers and beggars! I guarantee that. But the truth is that most of them do these things and Romania is blamed for it like it’s some sort of motherland to the gypsies. IT’S NOT!
I’ve made my point.
Thanks for reading it.
Stefan
Bucharest, Romania
To understand the situation is not easy at all.
I’m concerned for the confusion that the name ROMA can create for a person that doesn’t know anything about this ethnic group. Has nothing to do with ROMANIA and ROMANIANS, that extract their roots from ancient ROMAN empire that has conquered the ancient country named DACIA, inhabited by DACIANS, a group of ancient TRACIANS from the Balcanic peninsula. The gypsies come from today’s INDIA and PAKISTAN, brought to Europe as slaves by barbaric and nomadic people from Asia, the last of them being the TARTARS in the 14th century. Most of those migrators have been defeated by the romanian population that actually defended the entire Europe. Today’s western Europe would have looked a lot different if the romanians would have just stayed hidden to wait for the migration waves to pass. The OTOMAN empire (turkish) has also brought them to romanian principalities during the period of semi-occupation in the 17-18-th centuries. Usually they were owned by land lords and churches, yes, the church had slaves. They were treated well, mostly as people that cannot leave their owner and village, but their exploitation was hardly what the african slaves in US has suffered. They never have been hard workers, but mostly good at hand-crafting and music. After their emancipation and release from slavery in the 1856-1864, they never considered to integrate and become full members of the communities where they lived, preferring to pose in victims.. and wander from place to place and living by the good will of the communities they visited. Also the romanian society has seen them as sub-humans and the feeling has perpetuated since then. But now, 150 years later, their feeling is a constant grudge against the romanian population that once had them as slaves. The fact that romanians only received them as slaves from the migrators that passed through their lands is a minor detail overlooked by a population with no education.
The Gypsy community in Romania is the most irresponsible population from the civilized world, if we consider Romania as part of civilized world. It lives “around” the romanian society, inside or among the romanian society if is for its benefit (social protection, health care, etc, although none of the gypsies or barely few report income, contribute to health care, pension, or do any kind of lucrative activity), and outside the society if it’s about abiding the law, that’s discrimination and racism. It’s a very convenient position, “I respect the law if it’s in my advantage, if it’s forbidding something, I don’t like it, I’m discriminated”. This happens for 150 years, since the gypsies where released from slavery in 1856-1864. The romanian laws are the same as any laws in EU, in fact they are aligned more thoroughly with the EU laws since Romania has become full EU member. Nonetheless, for gypsies this is irrelevant.
Their way of life is still in 1800, while the law enforcement in Romania lacks behind EU policies and is inefficient. Since romanian economy has major problems and the living cost is very high compared to the income, or in other words “there’s nothing left to steal or beg from a poor population”, a part of the gypsy population has fled the country for Italy and Spain, countries that welcomed immigrants for the last 6-8 years, under the pretense of racism and discrimination. The government pays a monthly allowance for any child until the age of 18, small indeed – 10 euros, also pays a monthly allowance to the mother until the child is 2 years old, which is 85% of the average salary for the last 6 months of employment, limited to a maximum 1000 euros, or a fixed amount of 150euro if there was no employment. What else can the government do? By the age of 18, a gypsy girl can have as many as 3 kids and gets 160-170-180 euros each month. It’s not a lot of money, but the thing is that those money will never be payed back to the system by the mother or by the father, because they will never work and pay taxes. The responsibility to pay those money falls on the shoulders of the rest of romanian taxpayers.
The gypsies are very prolific, averaging 8 children per family, with no prospects for raising them, while the rest of population is averaging 1.2 kids. It’s not their concern how those kids will be raised and you have a typical example here. Their customs require to marry young, no age limits here, to secure family relations. There are cases where kids are married or “promised” before they are even born. How educational and healthy for a child’s mind is to live with the idea that is “married” and the play buddy is actually the spouse? How psychologically healthy can be to have sex at 8-9 years old? I’m not a psychologist or psychiatrist here, but it can’t be good. One social behavior is uncontrolled rage and violence, seen frequently at young male gypsies. There are also some reports of “rebellion” among the gypsy children that go to school and understand a little different the ancient customs. One case was in the media recently, when the 13 years old bride refused the groom because she did not like of love him, while the groom had its heart melted for another girl in the community, but it was willing to respect his father’s wish to marry the girl, although weeping inside.
They have some kind of tribal “legal system”, where oldest and respected members of their community assemble in a council and rule some cases of conflict in their community (it’s called STABOR). Officially it’s not recognized by romanian authorities.
There is another category of gypsies besides those poor, the rich ones, involved in crime. Their living standard is very high, exceeding the living standard of 90% of the romanian population. They drive the most luxurious cars “Made in Germany” and have no less than 3-4 cars per family. Think about 100k+ euros cars, full option Audi Q7, BMW series 7 and so on. They have houses that resemble the chinese pagodas and castles, with 30 bedrooms, but enlist for social protection at the city hall, since they have no official income. Right now the city halls are receiving the applications for heating subvention for people with income bellow a certain limit, and they are the first to apply. If they are refused, based on their apparent and visible assets’ values (houses and cars), then is racism.
The romanian state is week, overwhelmed by corruption and incompetency of its politicians, by sterile political disputes among the politicians that pursue only one goal, political power through economical power. The budget money are simply leaked through “friendly” companies owned by politicians. All in all, the prospects are very bad and the gypsy population’s condition is the least of the concerns for romanian government, but is big fuss in european community. It’s not that the government doesn’t want to help, the gypsies do not want to be helped, because it involves something that is frightening for them: WORK.