The Roma: between a myth and the future

Social Research, Spring, 2003 by Dimitrina Petrova

Who are the Roma? An Identity in the making.

UNTIL the early 1990s, few people knew the meaning of the term "Roma," but almost everybody had opinions about the "Gypsies." In the last years, however, the term "Roma," which is the ethnocultural self-appellation of many of those perceived by outsiders as "Gypsies," has come to dominate the official political discourse, at least in Europe, and has acquired the legitimacy of political correctness. Not all so-called Gypsies in the world today recognize themselves as Roma, and it is difficult to predict whether a broader identity will be constituted in the future to encompass the non-Roma "Gypsies." But at present, the political construction of the Roma identity has reached a stage at which the outsider identifications, such as Gypsy and Tsigane, terms still preferred in much of the historical, anthropological, and ethnographic literature, are considered undesirable due to the huge baggage of prejudice they carry.

Groups externally identified as Gypsies but not necessarily considering themselves as ethnic Roma include the Jevgjit in Albania; the Ashlkalija and Egyptians in Kosovo and Macedonia; the Travelers in Britain and Ireland; and the Rudari and Beyashi in Hungary, Romania, and other countries. The Sinti, who live in many European countries, particularly Germany, are sometimes subsumed under the Roma category (e.g., by Hancock, 2002: 34), and sometimes set apart from Roma (e.g., Marushiakova and Popov, 2003). Speaking the Romani language (Romanes) is not a necessary identity characteristic either: some communities that consider themselves Roma have actually lost the Romani language (the majority of today's Roma in Hungary, for example).

In the Romani language, the word "Roma" means "people" in the plural masculine gender, with a connotation of "us" as opposed to "them." Outsiders are referred to by the general term gadje (also a masculine noun in the plural). It is my impression that calling all "others" by one name, "gadje," is a strikingly frequent conversational practice when Roma speak with Roma. This frequent reference to a generalized "other" is generally not found in any other insider ethnic discourse. This certainly reflects a high degree of "us/them" opposition that has been historically reinforced by centuries of internalized oppression and isolation.

At first glance, it is quite amazing and even exceptional that over centuries of exclusion, marginalization, discrimination, and in some regions slavery and forced assimilation, the Gypsy groups have preserved strong elements of a common ethnocultural self-consciousness, which serves as one of the bases for the continuing construction of the Romani identity. In the course of one millennium, many ethnic identities in Europe have vanished without a trace. But in the Gypsy case, several factors have created a synergy to preserve the sense of belonging together. These include late arrival in a continent already populated by settled communities, the high degree of difference from European culture and society, and the ensuing structural social and political weakness of the Roma in European history. Attitudes and practices that reproduce the pariah status of the Gypsies are deeply entrenched anti-Gypsism and the systematic abuse of their human rights in the last few centuries, including widespread persecution and racial discrimination. These same factors can be described as the root causes of both anti-Gypsism and the survival of the Roma as one single--but not yet internally homogeneous--cultural identity.

It is also important to emphasize that, following the end of communism in Central and Eastern European societies (where the largest numbers of Roma are concentrated), new political dynamics are at work. In postcommunist countries we have witnessed the rise of racially based discrimination, exclusion, and marginalization of the Roma at the same time that the opposite forces of an advancing Roma rights movement are taking shape. These parallel tendencies undoubtedly fuel the construction and consolidation of a Romani ethnic identity and, more recently, of a "nonterritorial Roma nation" (Project on Ethnic Relations, 2001).

While the Romani ethnic identity is the basis of present-day emancipatory mobilization, it is difficult to say to what extent a shared consciousness of belonging together can be ascribed to the larger group of communities labeled by the external world as Gypsies. For example, in Albania, while the historic relatedness of the Jevgjit to the Roma is a subject of scholarly debate, the members of these two groups, seen indiscriminately as Gypsies by the surrounding majority, in fact consider themselves separate peoples and reveal negative attitudes toward one another. Similarly, in Kosovo, the Ashkalija reject an association with the Roma; but because they are perceived as Gypsies by the nationalizing Albanian majority, they were subjected to the same ugly ethnic cleansing as the Roma in the aftermath of the 1999 NATO war against Yugoslavia and the mass return of the Kosovo Albanian refugees to their homeland. In the countries of the former Soviet Union, certain groups are perceived as Gypsies (Tsygane in Russian) who are not Roma. Apart from the more established Ruska Roma and the other Romani groups who have been in the Russian empire lands for several centuries, there are also small groups of Sinti who moved eastward from Germany through Poland at the beginning of the twentieth century; Armenian-speaking Gypsies called Bosha who identify as Lomavtic; Asian Gypsies known as Karachi from the Caucasus (mainly Azerbaijan); Central Asian Gypsies called Lyuli (who also use the appellation Mugat) found in Tajikistan but who have intensely migrated to the large Russian cities in the last decade. In the complex history and geography of Gypsy identities, still in flux on the territory of the former Soviet Union, the Ruska Roma make up only one part--albeit the largest--of the Gypsy groups, connected by a common historical and cultural legacy (for detailed description, see Marushiakova and Popov, 2003; Demeter et al., 2000: 87-114).