1.The Romanian government agreed on changing the term Roma to Ţigan, based on a recommendation from Romanian Academy and on the assumption that most of the European Union states are already using ţigan instead of Roma. They also justified their decision to use in all institutional papers the insulting term ţigan through a possible confusion Roma-Romani-Romanian. The government completely neglected the opinion of Roma representatives or the protests that were taking place this week against such a decision. This is an important issue: the term Ţigan has a strong pejorative connotation and was used for centuries to signify slave but also dirty, untouchable, criminal. It is a strong insult in non-Roma contexts. The Romanian government was aware of this and they acknowledged it in the recommendation of not using the term in a pejorative way.
2. The second news that I couldn't find in English and was quite popular in Romania is about a municipal councilor from Padova, Italy. Vittorio Aliprandi wrote on Facebook that he is disgusted by Roma people, that they make him puke and he wants to send them to concentration camps. After some reactions against his statements he "defended" himself by making it worse. After complaining that nobody can say bad things about Roma anymore, he defined Roma as nomads, thieves and breeders, people who don't want to work and who don't want to integrate. Oh, and for the camps part, he said that he was just joking. That should settle things for good.
this is his FB page
I am still intrigued by the lack of reactions but probably after the weekend something will happen. I am writing now about the romantic construction of Gypsy nomadism in 19th century Europe and I realize that those people were more respectful and coherent in their anti-Gypsyism than nowadays politicians. Nevertheless their ideas were put into practice in the most brutal way years later.
