Once again the people of Northern Ireland have woken to a day of news that draws unfavourable attention to the country, this time highlighting the ugly issue of racism. Having lived here for six years I can honestly say that the people of Northern Ireland are the friendliest and most welcoming that I have met anywhere and what has happened over the past week does not represent the way these people are in general.
A community of 100 Roma gypsies in South Belfast – they are not Romanians per say as the media have described them – have been enduring a week of racist abuse at the hands of a bunch of ignorant thugs. This past 24 hours the abuse turned into attacks – the Roma’s were driven from their homes and taken to a local sporting complex for safety. Some of them are now considering leaving Northern Ireland and returning to Romania – personally I think they will head no further than mainland England – but I can’t really blame them. Small babies have been threatened, pregnant women have had bricks thrown at them…scum behaviour.
Right across the board these disgusting attacks have been condemned by the people here as the population are genuinely shocked. But at the same time you won’t go far here to find a person who has not looked at the Roma community with a fond eye. You also won’t go far, especially in Belfast, to find a street or location that does not have Roma women begging passersby for money. This tradition of theirs, and it is a tradition, has not made the Roma’s overly popular with the locals.
They are prolific in their activity; they stand beside you at ATM’s, approach you in carparks, outside shops, restaurants, nightclubs – one hand held out to you and the other clutching a mobile phone. To be perfectly straight the people here do not like it or accept it. To see these women standing outside nightclubs in the small hours with very young children begging or trying to sell you a wilted flower is quite an affront to a society not accustomed to street begging.
The people of Northern Ireland lived through great austerity during and after the war, through the sixties and seventies – they knew very hard times and if you could not buy food you grew it…and you only ate what you could grow. I am told however that to go out begging, no matter how needy you were, was simply unthinkable. The people in those times were too proud to do so - and now to be constantly approached by these newcomers who boldy ask for money at every turn…?
This nation is still evolving and for a country that had little to no immigration for so long - until recently - it is a very tolerant society. While nobody condones those attacks on those people it would help the Roma’s case alot more if they understood that what they do on the streets of Belfast is not an example of ‘good integration’. If the Govt is going to allow unchecked immigration here surely it is good policy to ensure that these people are given a better understanding of the local culture – and that they are more than welcomed to share the best of theirs.
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At last a sensible explanation and rational for the thuggish behaviour that the mass media fails to report.
Keith, the people here are adapting slowly but well to immigration – and thats a good sign because foreigners as a rule did not emigrate here before. It is not an exaggeration to say that there are many older people here who had never seen a black carribean person before until in recent times; or chinese for that matter!
Yes the people are angry at the abuse and attacks – but scratch the surface ever so lightly and you will find that the Roma people have not exactly been that popular though, until this past week, they were tolerated and people by and large were friendly to them. I have an idea that they had been begging in their local area – if this is correct it could explain in some way why they were targeted. The locals would have taken a very dim view of that. I would suggest the police and city council meet with these people as a community and make it clear that their begging activites are not accepted. It is only a small country with a small population and immigration here will have its obstacles – the people here are only just learning to get along with each other!
Hi from Romania.
These people are not Romanians, they are Gypsies and they have ALWAYS behaved like this since they came from India and settled in Est-Europe few good hundreads years ago (there are now some 2 millions of them in Romania, and another 2 in Hungary).
You will NEVER, EVER succeed in “integrating” them and changing their life style no matter how much good will, money and welfare you will throw to them.
We (Romanians) have not succeeded in 150 years since they were
“emancipated”. They do NOT WANT to. It is a disaster (petty and not so petty crimes, begging, refuse to go to school and become employed, etc.).
Don’t deceive yourself.
Hi Ovidiu, my first comment from Romania! Well, you have answered the question I have asked before and that is from where the Roma’s originate as they are darker skinned than the average Romanian. It is true that it can take generations to change traditions and habits and so they should be given every opportunity to become contributing members of society. Apart from the women begging here things looked kind of promising for the Roma’s – the men were employed selling newspapers at the traffic lights at major intersections and you would see them there all day in all weather which is not a job I would like to have to do. The always appeared friendly enough doing a very mundane job.
I hope that one day they can get on the straight and narrow and stay there if only for their childrens sake; none of us asks to be born into the culture we are born into and when it comes down to it at the end we are all doing the best we can with what we’ve got.
Oh come on! Do you think that the Roma people really want to ‘understand local culture’?
I worked in Romania for a little while in the 1990′s and the Roma had been living in that country for hundreds of years and had not ‘understood the local culture’ even of Romania their so called home country!
The locals (in Brasov) did not like or trust them and advised me to avoid them.
Begging is not the Romanian way, it is the Roma way – wherever they live.
I guess when you are never made welcome why should you bother to try…?
The Roma’s originated from India – as a Romanian contributor mentioned here earlier – from where they took the begging thing with them. Begging is big in India as well…
But to assume that every single one of them is the same…? all 2 million in Romania, all 2 million in Hungary and every single one that lives elsewhere in Europe…? I don’t know them all enough to make such a generalisation and neither do you. Whether they want to understand local culture or simply keep to themselves – as many other immigrants do when they land in a new country – we would be complete bastards if we did not at least give them a fair shot. Like it or not, and you probably do not, they are after all human beings. I would be very interested to know just what culture you yourself subscribe to…
Hi Wendy
I’m originally from Hungary and here is my impression on the Roma issue: They are the most disadvantaged group within society therefore it is easy to pick on them. People indeed hate them, despise them and want them to just disappear. Romas are discriminated against all the time but it is tolerated by the political class who would actually have the power to come up with a solution that works. They won’t though, because they wouldn’t gain votes from such a move.
There are Roma organisations encouraged and supported by the main political parties but some of their leaders’ integrity is compromised by being unable to account for government money. There is a saying among the Roma, that the Roma is the biggest enemy of the Roma and although I’m not one of them, it rings true.
have a look on this wikipedia link, although given the editorial process of wikipedia it lacks a certain level of accuracy http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Roma_people_of_Hungary
Oh, and the number of Romas in Hungary is about 500000, not 2 million a suggested by Ovidiu.
Thanks for that input Hettie. You also have the problem that is the ‘human rights’ issue; years ago the Roma were discriminated against openly and shunned – nowadays govts cannot do anything to interfere with their lifestyle beause it is their ‘culture’ and to do so violates their ‘human rights’. In short, if they want to beg, not send their children to school, etc, they can and nobody is allowed to do anything about it. This does not do them any favours in helping them.
You see it in the travelling community of Ireland – children living in squalid caravans beside the road, running wild and yet social services do nothing because it is their parents RIGHT to live as such.
You are correct though, they themselves must make the changes themselves.
‘Whether they want to understand local culture or simply keep to themselves’ I don’t think they ‘keep to themselves’ do they? Unless begging for other people’s money is keeping to yourself!
I spend a lot of time in Bulgaria (which borders Romania, for the geographically-challenged) and when I first went there I was shocked by the attitude of even educated people towards the large Roma minority there. My view was that it was simply ignorance and prejudice which caused them to think in this way.
Sadly, I was wrong. I’m not qualified to say whether the Roma there are despised because of the way they behave or behave in that way because they are despised, but there is no getting away from the fact that they regard “mainstream” society in Bulgaria as something to be plundered whenever they feel like it. If they are employed by well-meaning people (Bulgarian or foreign) their attitude is to do as little as possible since it’s easier to get money in ways which don’t involve actually working as such. Their culture is very different from what many of us would find acceptable, for example marrying very young girls to be sure they are virgins and then sending them out to “work the streets” as beggars, pickpockets or worse..
Unfortunately, many of them regard people with good and charitable intentions simply as weaklings to be exploited to the maximum – I suspect that they regard NI as simply another soft target and the UK’s “Welfare State”, such as it is these days, as Utopia.
It’s extrodinary naive of you to think that cultural sensitivity training will in any way change the Roma. Their objective is to beg, frequently agressively, to steal,and to abuse the welfare state. The Roma will bite the hand that feeds them,they will despoil the place that hosts them.Give them no succour or support,for they will sour the very milk of human kindness.
Why does the media refer to them as Romanian, it besmerches the name of Romania and causes confusion. They are a seperate trans-national people.For sure they are not welcome in Ireland.
Maybe it is naive of me but I was only offering a suggestion…right now there are not huge numbers of them here in Northern Ireland and going by recent events there probably is not likely to be. They all collect benefits and occupy council housing – surely at some stage during the signing on process they can be warned as to the dangers of them taking up their public begging here and how the locals will react to it…? I too criticise their activities as I have often been accosted by the women here and seen the numbers of them begging around Dublin; what they do certainly does muddy the landscape. So why do the authorities not do something about it…? because they will be accused of racism that is why.
Do so and the Nazi’s persecution of them in WWII will be thrown in your face – no government wants to risk that these days.
I do not know why the media constantly refer to them as Romanians – they are trying to create a racism issue as it sells and sensationalises. Once again minorities rule and the majority are expected to shut up.
Forgive the naivete as I am not European and never came across the Roma until I lived here…
I am from Belfast and my wife is from Romania. I have visited Romania many times and admire the wonderful culture and natural beauty it has, especially in Brasov. I also understand the truth and the difference between Romanians and Roma. Although I am disgusted at the attacks on the Roma, I can understand why – the aggressive begging and general antisocial behavior really did them no favors with local people here. I wonder where social services where when women with young kids were begging in the street and where the UK border agency was.
I am for all nationalities to come and live / work in Belfast, but the Roma offer nothing except to milk the system for all that they can get. I’m sure the conditions at the leisure centre where they were evacuated to was much better than the 27 to a house filth they were living in.
I am embarrassed for my wife that these parasites are here, damaging the image of Romania abroad, and am bewildered why the do-gooders are so blind as to the reason why they are here!!? I am also disappointed with the media referring to them as Romanian – this is an inaccuracy! And an affront to actual Romanians living and working in N Ireland.
So far we have not even been told where their children go to school – if they do at all that is. Watching them being moved into the leisure centre and carrying in all those boxes of donated food…they were all smiling from ear to ear.
Northern Ireland is coming in for a battering right now from all corners of the sanctimonious media, most of whom do not live here nor either in an area where the Roma’s dwell. Society is expecting too much of them; these are a nomadic people, it is ingrained in them to live in a makeshift dwelling for a few weeks – a month – and then move on and here we have authorities placing them in fixed housing and expecting them to adjust to staying put. Their lifestyle and tradition is based on temporary dwelling, begging for whatever, doing odd jobs, then moving on. When they are expected to settle in one place indefinitely what happens after they have exhausted their habits of begging locally…? normally they would move onto the next place but here in Belfast they were not doing that.
The situation was the same in Australia with the indigenous aborigines; a stone age (as little as 100 years ago for the most part) and nomadic people expected to adjust to a life they were never used to. Being in one place all the time, living in a house, shopping for food rather than hunting it… It does not suit the Roma just as it has never suited most of the Australian aborigines for a long time – in some cases it still does not. But tell the aborigines to hand back their council house, forgo their benefits and go back to living out under the stars and you are called a racist!
Personally I would like to see the condition of the housing the Roma’s occupied…it might shut up some sections of the media.
Sarkozy did the right thing by deporting them from France, no country wants them because they contribute nothing, steal whatever is not tied down and destroy wherever they briefly settle. The Roma’s do not belong anywhere, please don’t get romantic about this issue they are dirty, thieving people and I sincerely hope they stay well away from Northern Ireland.
Martin they are not all gone from Belfast I can assure you as I live quite near to a particular street where a large number of them have been housed, I wont say where exactly of course but lets just say that they have a good view of the Radisson?
I pass by their street every day and they are always milling about in the street in the same way as they are standing in that photograph above, an acquaintance tells me that there are up to 12 people crammed into one house alone that is designed for four, I wonder if the housing executive are aware of this? a lot of the local residents are fed up with the kids and women begging and I can see another situation arising in the near future. Some people just do not assimilate and romas are such a culture, if you want to call it that.
Interesting photo because I happen to recognise two people in it who most certainly have not left NI. The fat woman in the white cardie who is turning to face the camera and the guy in the centre with the blue cap, she sells the big issue in the city and he works at a manual car wash. They wont have gone too far despite being ‘targeted’ because the gravy train that is the UK is too good to leave.
Poverty, exclusion, racism, squezzed out of mainline education and no one will hire Roma people. Instead of screeching about their begging get active in dealing with their exclusion and build a caring and just society with Roma people. They are not gypsies they are Roma a very proud people forced onto the margins and evicted from all sides o European societies. Get to know them and their needs and understnad the huge exclusion issues they face everyday in health, education, employment , God made Roma people
And in order to do that they need to understand that their antisocial ways – the begging, the stealing – are not acceptable in most societies. They are people who are not geared towards settling in one place permanently, they are the one’s who must adjust and integrate and prove themselves first.
Wendy
I think you may be labouring under a misapprehension here: East-European Roma aren’t nomadic in any way and the only reason that some DON’T settle in one place permanently is because they like to break into and squat in someone else’s “place”. When they are eventually forced by the courts to leave, the house is usually just a shell – every centimetre of wire has been stripped out of the walls and ceilings, every last inch of copper piping has been chiselled out of the walls and floors, all the doors (and often the windows too) have been removed while even the basins and toilets have been dragged out to be sold.
Cath is obviously well-meaning but, equally obviously, she has no idea what she’s talking about. Roma aren’t marginalised – they refuse to take part in normal society and regard it as simply something to be looted and pillaged (especially when it comes to social benefits). They aren’t excluded from education – they see no need for it since the “social skills” they prize are ones which not only aren’t taught at school and university but which would lead most of us to be imprisoned. They aren’t excluded from healthcare but they usually prefer to let the local “wise woman” deal with medical matters until it becomes obvious that she can’t handle it, at which stage they’re happy to use the hospital system but then physically attack doctors and nurses if the patient dies because it’s too late to save them. It’s true that they are often “excluded” from employment but that is usually for a number of reasons: self-inflicted lack of education/qualifications; desire to get paid but not to actually DO any work; free-and-easy attitude towards who owns what.
Life is tough for most people in East Europe and there isn’t a lot of money about for the vast majority – you’d be appalled at how little most highly-educated people are paid, for example. They certainly don’t to employ someone who is untrustworthy, unqualified and unreliable. You may recall the Romanian Roma “outreach worker” who was recently jailed for running a gang in London providing fake documents to allow other Roma to claim huge sums in benefits – and all while she was being paid by a number of London councils to promote “Roma Rights”….(http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/uk-england-london-11347134)
Most Roma are perfectly well aware that their behaviour is not acceptable to most normal people but they simply don’t care. As one guy said to my father-in-law when offered a job looking after and picking grapes – “Why would I work for a bit of money when I can let you do all the work and then simply steal the grapes when they’re ready?” Bleeding-heart Liberals like Viviane Reding, the European commissioner for “Justice”, get very exercised about the “appalling” way in which Society treats these people but I haven’t come across any who actually have invited them to live in THEIR house or even in their neighbourhood…..
i think the dirty rotin roma gypsies are scum i would git so much plaser out of buring them all alive in there dirty stinkin shit pits of squats//vote propastion 587 destroy them all
An excellent and detailed social comment, “Paddy”. On the whole, I think I’d much prefer a house-full of Roma living next door to me than your good self…..
I see what you mean Seedy *but* I doubt that you would if you actually did…it is not that they are what ‘paddy’ claims but they have very anti-social ways. Thats why they have trouble wherever they go.
wendy you are thick as shit….what educational qualifications do you have??
With vocabulary such as yours I doubt you’ve even heard of them…
Laura, you are thick as shit yourself asking such a question. Or are you Roma scum yourself?