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International Herald
Tribune and
Vatican
’s paternalistic blunder
by Valeriu Nicolae
On
1st of March the prestigious International Herald Tribune (IHT)
published an article under the title “
Vatican
seeks to catholicize
Gypsies”.
Probably well intended the article as well the press
release from the Vatican
are not just misleading and misinformed but could be easily seen as
offensive to Roma.
Despite
the fact that the term gypsy has a strong pejorative connotation for Roma
and non-Roma and is considered as politically incorrect the IHT and the
Vatican
seem to have no problems using it.
“Gypsies
are also known as Roma and live predominantly in
Europe
” can be found at the very beginning of the text. Arguably the similar
sentence “Niggers are also known as Afro-Americans and live
predominantly in the
United States
” would be rightly considered unacceptable by the editor of IHF or in
the exceptional case it would appear in any international or national
newspaper would start a serious public scandal and angry protests.
The
false stereotype of wandering Roma which is at the very base of many inept
scaremonger media products and policies against us, the Roma, is
unfortunately reinforced in the article which writes: “Since Gypsies are
spread out and often move around…”
Indeed
there are many people moving around in
Europe
but most of them are not Roma but rather high level politicians, European
and International public servants and business persons, many, whom will feel
offended if called Gypsies or targeted to be catholicized. The overwhelming majority of Roma in Europe
are settled for at least half of a century thing which one could expect
the Vatican
or IHT to know.
It
is regrettable that the Catholic Church can write such paternalistic
statements and one of the best international papers to publish them. I
wonder if the
Vatican
will seek to catholicize either one of the Canadians, English, Dutch, Jews
or Arabs which without doubt are seen by the
Vatican
also “by nature religious” the IHT will have a similarly “neutral”
article about it.
As
many others the Catholic Church needs urgently to realise that it can’t
go on treating us as some kind of sub-humanoid species unable to decide
what is good and what is wrong and in
permanent need to be steered towards what to do and how to do it.
The
Catholic Church should focus its efforts in combating rampant
anti-Gypsyism in
Europe
as it brilliantly addressed the Apartheid in South-Africa. It should also
make sure it spreads much better the anti-racist principles of
Christianity within its existing flock.
At
this very moment
Italy
,
Slovakia
,
Hungary
,
Austria
,
Czech Republic
,
Spain
and
Germany
all pillars of Catholicism in Europe are at the forefront of the rampant
and widely accepted Anti-Gypsyism in
Europe
. Roma continue to be in all those countries the most hated ethnic group
and often there is a majority of the population ready to openly express
intolerance against Roma.
The
Church has a major role to play in the social inclusion in
Europe
but colonial style paternalism is not the best way to do it. Consultation
with leading Roma intellectuals and personalities could in the future
avoid such blunders. The exclusion of Roma from the decision making
Catholic Church structures and Catholic Organisations is practically total
and should be a much better reason of worrisome than what Vatican sees as
the “competition” with the other religious “sects”.
This
domain is owned by Valeriu Nicolae and is different from the Romanetwork
e-mail list run by Valery Novoselsky
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