Gypsies, Travellers & Roma under Bigger Tory Guns

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 11:36am

‘UK Johnson government launches anti-Gypsy/Traveller/Roma measures’, Paul Bond, wsws.org, 28 December 2019

“Among the repressive legislation in the Queen’s Speech of Boris Johnson’s Conservative government are racist measures targeting Gypsy, Roma and Traveller (GRT) communities.

The proposals for the Police Powers and Protections Bill include: “Potential measures to criminalise the act of trespassing when setting up an unauthorised encampment in England and Wales, and the introduction of new police powers to arrest and seize the property and vehicles of trespassers who set up unauthorised encampments.”

At present unauthorised encampments are a matter of civil rather than criminal law. The change is aimed at faster dispersal. The pro-Tory Daily Mail enthused that it “could give police more power to break [encampments] up instead of local residents having to wait for councils to take action.” [snip]

“Without enough authorised encampments, the proposal to allow police to seize Travellers’ caravans—their homes—and destroy their property would effectively criminalise the existence of GRT communities.” [snip]

“The proposal to criminalise trespass and give the police greater powers to seize property and possessions was first floated by Home Secretary Priti Patel early in November. Her consultation outlined the proposals on criminalising trespass and making it illegal to stop alongside or on a road. It also outlined proposals that the police could force Travellers to move to a transit site in a different county, rather than locally, as now. It also proposed banning Travellers from the local authority area for one year rather than the current three months, which would serve to cut off access to homelessness support.

Patel resorted to familiar racist tropes, referring to “reports of damage to property, noise, abuse and littering.” The charity Friends, Families and Travellers (FFT) noted that this focused on “the behaviour of a minority, yet tar[s] all Gypsies and Travellers with the same brush.” If this were truly Patel’s concern, FFT pointed out, there is already ample legislation to tackle it. Two-thirds of police forces contacted by FFT said that lack of adequate site provision was the real issue.

Patel’s proposal to make it a criminal offence for Travellers to stop anywhere without prior permission clearly criminalises a whole ethnic group. She sought to give police power to seize the vehicle of “anyone whom they suspect to be trespassing on land with the purpose of residing on it.” She said she wanted to “test the appetite to go further” than her predecessor Sajid Javid’s proposal to “lower the criteria… for the police to be able to direct people away from unauthorised sites.” The police would be authorised to intervene in the presence of two vehicles rather than six, as now.

In 2011, Patel herself acknowledged, “There are not enough authorised sites. If travellers had authorised sites they wouldn’t need illegal sites.”

FFT, commenting on Patel’s consultation, explained, “Criminalisation of trespass would not make unauthorised encampments and nomadic Gypsies and Travellers disappear; it will however compound the stark inequalities experienced by Gypsies and Travellers and raise serious questions about compatibility with human rights protections.” [snip]

“According to the government, money is available to councils to develop authorised sites, from the £9 billion Affordable Homes Programme. No councils have done so since that programme began in 2016. The government has also made £2 million specifically available to help councils “crack down” on unauthorised encampments, indicating where their true priorities lie.

Demonisation of Travellers and Gypsies has resulted in a spate of racist violence and attacks. Caravans were set alight on Traveller sites in Leicestershire and Somerset this year. Recent council discussions in Lincolnshire have been accompanied by threats to firebomb any new site.

Anti-Gypsy racism is endemic within the Tory party. Last year, one council chief in the West Midlands, Mike Bird, called Travellers “parasites” who cause “misery and mayhem.” In 2014, Berkshire councillor Alan Mellins was suspended after saying that Travellers refusing eviction should be “executed.”

Three years ago, Tory MP Gary Streeter called for Travellers not to be classed as a vulnerable ethnic minority. The press have often evaded accusations of racism by not capitalising Gypsy or Traveller, claiming they are not racial terms. Streeter called Travellers “intruders,” likening them to Genghis Khan.” [snip]

“Anti-Gypsy racism and legislation must be opposed. They are the thin end of a wedge of more general repressive measures confronting every layer of the working class.

This is underscored by the overlap with the anti-Semitism witch-hunt launched against Labour under Jeremy Corbyn seeking to defame and criminalise anti-Zionist opponents of Israel’s repression of the Palestinians.” [snip]

“More than half a million Gypsies were murdered during the Holocaust.”

From thoughtco.com’s  ‘European Roma (“Gypsies”) in the Holocaust; the Story of Some of the Forgotten Victims of the Nazis’, Dec. 4, 2019

A Brief History of the European Roma

“Approximately 1,000 years ago, several groups of people migrated from northern India, dispersing throughout Europe over the next several centuries.

Though these people were part of several tribes (the largest of which are the Sinti and Roma), the settled peoples called them by a collective name, “Gypsies,” which stemmed from the (false) belief that they had come from Egypt. This name carries negative connotations and is today considered an ethnic slur.

Nomadic, dark-skinned, non-Christian, speaking a foreign language (Romani), and not tied to the land, the Roma were very different from the settled peoples of Europe.

Misunderstandings of Roma culture created suspicions and fears, which in turn led to rampant speculation, stereotypes, and biased stories. Many of these stereotypes and stories are still readily believed.

Throughout the following centuries, non-Roma (Gaje) continually tried to either assimilate the Roma people or kill them. Attempts to assimilate Roma involved stealing their children and placing them with other families; giving them cattle and feed, expecting them to become farmers; outlawing their customs, language, and clothing; and forcing them to attend school and church.

Decrees, laws, and mandates often allowed the killing of Roma people. In 1725, King Frederick William I of Prussia ordered all Romas over 18 years old to be hanged.

A practice of “Gypsy hunting” was common—a game hunt similar to fox hunting. Even as late as 1835, a “Gypsy hunt” in Jutland (Denmark) “brought in a bag of over 260 men, women, and children,” writes Donald Kenrick and Grattan Puxon.

Though the Roma had undergone centuries of such persecution, it remained relatively random and sporadic until the 20th century when the negative stereotypes became intrinsically molded into a racial identity [<a great WEB DuBois link], and the Roma were systematically slaughtered.”

The London Gypsies & Travellers website is here; on Twitter.

The Friends, Families and Travellers website is here.

The Traveller Movement (A national leading charity working in partnership with Irish Traveller, Gypsy and Roma communities challenging discrimination and promoting inclusion) on Twitter

(cross-posted from Café Babylon)

Tags: 
resistance under opppresssion; criminalizing roma
gypsies & travellers
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Submitted by Lily O Lady on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 12:30pm
Lily O Lady's picture

head again. Dispossessing people who provide a scapegoat and distraction while even more evil dealings go on behind the scenes.

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"The object of persecution is persecution. The object of torture is torture. The object of power is power. Now do you begin to understand me?" ~Orwell, "1984"

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 1:00pm
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@Lily O Lady

and some of tories claims that it's all to cause them to 'assimilate' into the Greater Culture'... all of which reminds me of 'educating the first american children: 'nits make lice', godless heathens must be sent to christian boarding schools to learn english and the bible cut off their hair, and be Good Amerikans'.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 12:52pm
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we have most in common
first litmus test with eouros
Like gypsies?
simple

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question everything

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 1:05pm
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@QMS

i've always found gypsies and roma...enchanting, too. as one of the Twitter accounts noted: the first recyclers evah! (repairing broken things, selling them for pittances: the Tinkers in their horse-drawn carts).

thanks, amigo. gotta say i was surprised to find myself writing about this subject though...
a different sort of war, i guess.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 1:32pm
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@wendy davis
others' perspective on freedom
of thought and movement
an indicator
where one stands
in strange lands

thanks for being here

good luck

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 2:08pm
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@QMS

and thanks for the poetry.

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Submitted by QMS on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 2:30pm
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@wendy davis @wendy davis
just how expressions come out
now that the mind is gone
kinda relief inna way
got lost getting here
lost the wife and other stuff
along the way here

good luck

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 4:06pm
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@QMS

as in: she's crossed to the other side? well, at least your mind thinks in poetic form...simple, to the point.

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Submitted by boriscleto on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 2:17pm
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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Submitted by QMS on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 2:29pm
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@boriscleto
still trying
it's why we roam
truth

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 4:04pm
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@boriscleto

and i'm so glad you'd known it and have brought it.

(the wiki)

"Ewan MacColl dedicated an entire album to the lifestyle of Gypsies in his 1964 album The Travelling People. Many of the songs spoke against the prejudice against Roma Gypsies, although some would also contain derogatory remarks about "tinkers", which is a word for Irish Travellers.

He wrote "The Ballad of Tim Evans" (also known as "Go Down You Murderer") a song protesting capital punishment, based on an infamous murder case in which an innocent man, Timothy Evans, was condemned and executed, before the real culprit was discovered."

what a rare and wonderful human being; thank you for introducing us to him, boriscleto!

i dunno, soome say 'gypsies' is also a slur, but many travellers seem to use it.

i'd also found this hard, hard, read:

Known as the "Tinker Experiment", it saw members of the travelling community placed in specially provided huts, far from the rest of society, in a bid to break them into joining the rest of the population and effectively kill off their culture.
.................
He said: "A programme of eugenics saw Gypsy Travellers separated out on racial grounds for removal from Scottish society. This marked a top-down, concerted approach, designed to eradicate a specific group of people.

"I think that quite a striking analogy can be drawn between our treatment, almost colonial
in aspect, especially the level of subsequent denial, and that of the aboriginal people in Australia. The extent of that institutional racism is most clearly illuminated in the response from central government in Scotland, which has been described as 'wilful blindness' on the part of the ruling elite."
..................
The genesis of what became known as the Tinker Experiment in private government circles began just over a century ago. In a deputation to the Secretary of Scotland in 1917, it was claimed that "with kindly treatment, tinkers could be reclaimed and brought into line with ordinary civilisation".
........................
This was an attempt to measure what was called at the time in the press as the "Tinker Problem", and then solve this problem by assimilating travellers into mainstream Scottish society by threatening to remove their children into care.

By forcing them to send their children to school for a set number of days, the gypsy families would have to settle in permanent accommodation as governments and local authorities recognised that the families had a close bond with their children."

substandard shacks. no plumbing, but asbestos...

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Submitted by boriscleto on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 5:08pm
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@wendy davis It was on his third album, also the album he first covered Go! Move! Shift!.

He did a lot of covers of British folk singers...especially in the early years...

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" In the beginning, the universe was created. This has made a lot of people very angry, and is generally considered to have been a bad move. -- Douglas Adams, The Hitch Hiker's Guide to the Galaxy "

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 5:14pm
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@boriscleto

again, thanks for the introduction to him and to ewan. and for your sig line, too, lol.

guess time will tell how far the tories will go routing them all, although their are a few QCs helping their cause/s.

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Submitted by lizzyh7 on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 5:47pm

at this type of shit, taking people's possessions, as if that solves a homeless problem, I can't help but be disgusted by the willful stupidity. Turn law enforcement on homelessness in a land where one day it could be you, perhaps forced out of your home and lucky enough to have an RV, roaming around trying to find a place to park. And willfully giving government power to take everything you have because you want poor people out of your sight. For fucks sake.

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 6:03pm
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@lizzyh7

and while i hadn't thought of RVs, i'd seen mainly small metal caravans pulled by trucks, this photo shows we may both be right. (hardly winnebagos, though)

but regarding recent court cases:

LGT is being represented by lawyers specialising in Gypsy, Traveller and Roma rights: Marc Willers QC and Tessa Buchanan from Garden Court Chambers and Chris Johnson from Community Law Partnership.

The judgement could have major implications and stop other councils from taking similar action. Over the past two years, 37 local councils in England have taken out similar injunctions, threatening all Gypsies and Travellers with fines and imprisonment if they camp within their boundaries.

“The injunctions don’t solve anything,” says Debby Kennett, LGT’s Chief Executive. “They simply push Gypsies and Travellers to stop on the roadside in other areas. Continual evictions cause greater hardship for Gypsy and Traveller families on the roadside – encouraging public prejudice, disrupting their family life, threatening their health and wellbeing and preventing access to education, work and services.”

“There are alternatives to injunctions. We simply want councils to consider their lack of site provision for Gypsies and Travellers and negotiate with families instead of making them into criminals.”

“We firmly hope the judges in this appeal will uphold the earlier judgement. This would uphold basic human rights, and recognise Gypsies and Travellers’ nomadic way of life and their long history in London boroughs.”

LGT is urging local authorities to use the negotiated stopping approach, which has been proved to reduce costs to councils and improve the lives of Traveller families. This week LGT publishes an important new report exploring the potential of negotiated stopping approaches in London. It concludes that negotiated approaches allow local authorities to meet their duties, decrease the social costs for the Gypsy and Traveller community, lead to savings in public spending and improve community relations."

they're also struggling for health care and other related issues in many venues, as well.

thanks for reading and caring, lizzyh7. always oppressed and immiserated classes nder capitalism, aren't there? same shit for the muslims under genocidaire narenda modi now, and he's looking to decrease the surplus population, as well.

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Submitted by lizzyh7 on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 6:44pm

@wendy davis those on the road in the US called "Nomadland", can't remember the author. It goes into some stories of senior citizens in this country who are homeless for one reason or another and how many have taken to the road. That's where my RV reference comes from. It also discusses how many of them work seasonally for Amazon under some sickening program, CamperForce, if I am not mistaken, and talks about how many use the time they're not working to recover from working for Amazon. Good book, and definitely an eye opener on how easy it is to fall through the cracks in our ugly capitalist society. It's also one reason I refuse to use Amazon, although Bezos himself gives one plenty of good reasons....

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Only a fool lets someone else tell him who his enemy is. Assata Shakur

Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 8:50pm
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@lizzyh7

Nomadland: Surviving America in the Twenty-First Century
 by Jessica Bruder

From the beet fields of North Dakota to the campgrounds of California to Amazon’s CamperForce program in Texas, employers have discovered a new, low-cost labor pool, made up largely of transient older adults. These invisible casualties of the Great Recession have taken to the road by the tens of thousands in RVs and modified vans, forming a growing community of nomads.

Nomadland tells a revelatory tale of the dark underbelly of the American economy—one which foreshadows the precarious future that may await many more of us. At the same time, it celebrates the exceptional resilience and creativity of these Americans who have given up ordinary rootedness to survive, but have not given up hope.

i'm a major fan of irony, lol: one can buy it at amazon.com! prolly amazon prime offrs it w/'no shipping costs'; gotta love it, lizzy.

bezos is a scourge on the planet, giving worker bees wristwatches that tell management how fast they're working and where they are every moment they're 'on shift' (who knows,maybe off-shift as well...) richest man on the planet, but at least he owns the Washington Post now.../s multi-billionaires do what they do...as though (sociopathically) programmed for it. was he beaten and/or humiliated as a kid to be so consumed by 'power and wealth' now?

polish/swiss (i'd first typed 'viennese') psychologist alice miller might posit: yes.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 9:45pm
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and while this isn't what i'd been looking for as per on of the twitter account, it will do just fine, as it's glorious! thank you all for your contributions and for caring.

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=CZqGvM4GRVo]

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Submitted by on the cusp on Wed, 01/01/2020 - 10:14pm

Gypsy caravans stopped their horse drawn wagons in the fields in front of my home when I was 3 and 4. The sheriff monitored them, my parents paid them to repair various pots and pans. My brother was allowed to sit by their fire and watch them sing and dance.
They are outright despised or at least discriminated against in about 30 countries I have visited. The guide in Romania showed us their "village", said do not buy from them, they sell junk. They did have permanent dwellings there. Greece is particularly intolerant of them. And Spain.
I did look out my bed room window, see their camp fires, did get to listen to the music. To his credit, the sheriff was not a dick. We furnished their horses water.

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Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 8:46am
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@on the cusp

thanks for sharing it. where were you living at the time? so good to hear that the sheriff hadn't been a dick, and that you watered their horses and appreciated them so much. ; )

the banner photo on FFT on Twitter shows breathtakingly beautiful wagons, really home as art.

now i only kicked up 'gipsy kings' with an I on youtube, so i hope this is right. in your honor:

[video:https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=UqpWSVIPWmc]

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Submitted by on the cusp on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 11:08am

@wendy davis

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by wendy davis on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 11:56am
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@on the cusp

well i'm sure as hell envious. hope those were the right gipsy kings.

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Submitted by on the cusp on Thu, 01/02/2020 - 9:20pm

@wendy davis Now, listen to them kill Volare, and you will be forever hooked.

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"We'll know our disinformation program is complete when everything the American public believes is false." ---- William Casey, CIA Director, 1981

Submitted by wendy davis on Fri, 01/03/2020 - 7:25am
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@on the cusp

the list on youtube; i promise i'll listen soon. just now i'm totally sucked into the current war on iran that trump and friends will regret. OMG.

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