Cause for Pause >>> The Roma

Introduction

On the home page, and more here to be posted are poems chronicling the new wave of attacks on the Roma in Ulster, now that its not kosher to attack Catholics for being Catholic anymore...

One of Europes most percecuted minoritites, the Roma have suffered and still do to this day, from work to being murdered an-masse in the holocuast. Slandered as being of a criminal mindset as a people from the mists of time, they have been ept in ghetto areas, forcibly settled and their language banned in nations such as Spain.

These are a gentle people, and while they have their rough element, which is quite visible, that is a feature of all groups who find themselves at the bottom of society, from the Italians in America, to the Irish in Glasgow 100 years ago.

Noted for their music, they have been entertainers in varios fields, and suffered under Romania as slaves up to their liberation in the latter half of the 19th century, after which many fled the Romanian lands giving rise to the Vlax Roma.

Their suffering came to a climax under Hitlers Germany, where the "Porriamos", or holocuast as we would know it, came to the fore. An unknown number of Roma died, well above 250000 depending on your definition of Roma, as many Roma themselves see settled Roma as not being of their people any more.

Their persecution did not stop there, for after the war and under communism a forced settlement called "The Great Halt" in Germany served to further ghettoise them as they were often settled in areas with little work, and when their children went to school they were often segregated into schools for the mentally handicapped, a practice that is current in areas of the former Czechoslovaia and Bulgaria to this very day, even under membership of the European Union.

These people have suffered far more than my fellow Irish did under the United Kingdom... do they retaliate by bullit and bomb? No... they do as Christ asks us all to do in the face of adversity - turn the other cheek to those who persecute you.

Maybe it is us who can learn from them, no?