I was in Amsterdam over the weekend and saw a program about the Roma living in Nieuwegijn (fairly sure it was Nieuwegijn, I came in 15 minutes after the start of the show).
It brought up some interesting points.
In shorts the story went that; There are around 500 Roma living there (total population about 20k people), and they lived there in peace and harmony for a fair while (15-20 years). They all live in houses as they were not permitted to live in mobile homes when they came there.
The peaceful situation has changed since one of the Roma was attacked (unprovoked) by a local group of kids. Since then there have been several "retaliations" (words of the journalist reporting on it) by the Roma on people directly, and indicerctly, involved in the attack and things have escalated since then and there is trouble brewing.
The council is now taking a hard "You either integrate or you bugger off" line and this has not really gone down well with the Roma whom want to continue to life their own life. They want to get along with everybody but don't want their traditions to go away (an understandable point of view IMO).
what did come out in this was that the 500 Roma who stayed there had a 100% unemployment rate. According to the Roma spokesperson none of them were in traditional gainful employment (working for a boss or running their own official business), all of them were on benefits and all of them were struggling while on benefits. they have massive rental arrears and all that.
They also mentioned that a Roma tradition is that the kids will be taken out of school when they are 14 or 15 years because, as one of the Roma parents said; "They have to learn how to take care of their family from that age and learn how to run a household", this would of course not help them find traditional employment and essentially means that, as a group, they would not "progress".
I found it interesting that he did seem keen on the idea (when suggested to him by the presenter) of his, now 11 years old, daughter one day becoming a lawyer or judge or something like that but he did not want her to stay in school after the age of 14 as "It is tradition that they get married when they are 14 and you do not break with tradition". (that tradition is one of the things now banned by the Dutch government apparently, I don't know if it was ever really permitted)
I was just wondering what your thoughts on this sort of situation was and what the situation in the UK was....would you say "Well, I've been struggling to make a living for 2 years now and have rent arrears coming up the wazoo so I'd best get myself a job"? How do you feel about this "They should get married when 14 and leave school at that age to learn other things" tradition?
You are obviously a very clever and articulate man and the lovely Mrs Red is of similar, admirable, ilk. (As were the Roma featured in this program. They all came across as intelligent, caring people who had a tough time finding a balance between being Roma and living in Dutch society)
Would you have considered having one of your daughters go to uni to become, say, a lawyer if she had said that that's what she wanted? Did your girls go to school until they were 18, or did they leave at a younger age?
I was genuinely fascinated by the program as I thought I had already picked up one or two things about Roma from your self and the fantastic books of your father but it turns out I know F all and find it rather difficult to see the point of view that these people were putting forward.
It is a bit baffling to hear of a 100% unemployment rate within a community, especially when they are all struggling to make ends meet. The "getting married at 14" thing, well that's not uncommon in many a culture really so I don't neccesarily have a problem with that but at what point should you let go of a tradition and say "It would benefit us as a community if our kids did go to uni "?
A bit of a warbling question, maybe but I thought I'd best ask before I forget and then really don't know what I meant to ask (I am sure there was more and maybe it will come to me but I'm dead tired now so might ask later)
Author