Fortunately, it's not only Westernized hard-leftists who take up the issue. For example, the top civil rights NGO in Hungary dealing with Gypsy rights issues was founded by a rural conservative, one who was an MP with the MDF party in the first post-'communist' nationalist government.
I also note there is also East-West connection of the issue the other way. For example, the Hungarian parallel to that case of a ghetto mob attacking police with axes ended in death of the 'white' intruder, and members of the Gypsy family sought and gained asyl status in Strasbourg. Or the beggars, the beggar mafias (also portrayed in the Kusturica film Dom za vešanje / The Time of the Gypsies) are active in Western European cities, too. *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
Spain has one of the largest Gypsy populations in the world, competing with Romania and Bulgaria for first place depending on the estimates (source). It is interesting that Spain has no official race statistics (like France, the census does not classify people by race) and that in Romania and Bulgaria the number of gypsies in the census is much lower than "independent" estimates. Up to 2% of Spanish population is gypsy, and close to 5% in Andalusia (compareble to the proportion in Bulgaria).
Pretty much my only personal experience with Gypsies was of three children in my primary school. Other children considered them dangerous and more or less shunned them, and I had very little contact with them that I can remember. However, the power of socialization is such that I retain a measure of visceral mistrust just from being in the same school! Another experience which was common back then but no longer was of 'goat shows' where a family would go around and play music for donations while having a goat perform to the music.
In the 1980s Madrid had a severe shanty town problem, and there were vigorous efforts to house the inhabitants of these settlements. People used to [wrongly] assume that anyone living in these shanty tows was a gypsy, and resisted fiercely any attempt to relocate these people to their neighbourhood. When I was 13, many of my classmates and their families actually attended demonstrations to try to stop a notorious relocation project ("El Ruedo de la M30") which, to my knowledge, has not resulted in increased crime, integration problems, or depressed property values. But that didn't stop my I-am-not-racist-but neighbours. guaranteed to evoke a violent reaction from police is to challenge their right to "define the situation." --- David Graeber citing Marc Cooper
Well, that's better than the Czech Republic, where Gypsies were fined for not declaring themselves Gypsy in census.
and that in Romania and Bulgaria the number of gypsies in the census is much lower than "independent" estimates.
Same is true for Hungary. According to sociologist research I have seen, there are two reasons: some fear they would be registered as such and officially discriminated against, others don't want an ethnic identity and want to be recognised as members of the country.
In the 2001 census, 190,046 citizens identified themselves as some variant of Roma in general, 129,259 as culturally Roma, 46,685 as of Romani mother tongue, and 53,323 said they use the language in the family. Meanwhile, the median estimate is of some 350,000 Roma, the highest estimate is 1 million (out of 10 million citizens).
BTW, by ratio of total population, Slovakia is also in the top (most quoted estimate would be around 5%, higher estimates around 10% there too). *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
But now I've got to make a joke, a bad one preferably, because on topics such as this, which like Israel/Palestine diaries are traps for anyone getting too involved, joking is the easiest way to comment without commenting.
So I'd just like to say that the Czech Rep., Slovakia, Hungary, Bulgaria may have large numbers of gypsies in their population, but in France we have the best of the best, we have the Gypsy Kings.
ps: anything after the first sentence in my comment is not addressed to you in particular, DoDo
In France, gypsies, or gitans, are nicknamed in a somewhat pejorative manner "manouches". Administrative properspeak is "gens du voyage", which could translate as "the nomads" but is closer to "people that are into travelling". This is another one of these politically correct expressions, just like "personnes à mobilité réduite" (people with reduced mobility) is another one for handicapped people in wheelchairs.
All towns in France are required by law to provide parking spaces for gypsies, and seeing how a town goes about providing this space generally gives a good indication of what the mayor thinks of them. Sometimes the spaces are nice, near parks. But generally they are near garbage dumps, in floodable areas of land near rivers, etc. If gypsies do not like the arragement that is provided to them, they can't invade other areas as these are craftily blocked by towns (for example a height limitation horizontal bar will be placd at the entrance of another parking place in town to prevent caravans from entering).
In larger towns the municipality must caretake mobile education and doctors for gypsy youths.
In general, gypsies keep to themselves, but are widely distrusted, seen as thieves etc. A farmer who sees a gypsy group park near his farm will start blaming them if eggs get stolen from his hatchery. But not to them directly, to visitors, friends and family. Because no one is manly enough to challenge the source of one's prejudice.
Recently the town of Perpignan was the scene of street fighting between French Arabs and French Gypsies (I added "French" here because I frankly don't know why we should call them Arabs or Gypsies).
What else can I say? The cigarette brand "gitanes" may popularly convey French culture, but I can assure you that no one thinks of it as relating to the actual "gitans" (gypsies) behind the name.
The only thing I dislike about gypsies is the mess they leave behind them (litter etc) when they move on to the next town. But this is not something I direct specifically at them. Tourists do the same, drunken youths do the same ...
sidenote: do you know of anyone who worships Jesus as a Palestinian Arab?
I had Gypsy class-mates in elementary school too. One of them later (in the early nineties) became an anarcho-syndicalist, as reaction to some of his technical collage classmates turning skinheads. (He also seriously wanted to become an explosives expert, funny combination :-) ) *Lunatic*, n. One whose delusions are out of fashion.
