Tradition, Present In The Gipsy World

marginalizarea, cât şi automarginalizarea, ca reacţie derivată, trebuie tratate ca fenomene complexe, cu amplă derulare în timp, în plan social, fără a fi neglijate rădăcinile lor culturale, rasiale, psihologice, juridice şi politice. Astfel, marginalizarea apare ca o permanenţă a condiţiei sociale a tuturor rromilor din lumea europeană, indiferent de condiţia lor de robi fără drepturi şi speranţă sau nomazi rătăcitori prin lume. Este singurul fenomen ce caracterizează toate comunităţile rrome, fără excepţie. Rromii sedentari au fost marginalizaţi social şi cultural printr-un statut special, altul decât al majoritarilor, iar rromii nomazi au fost marginalizaţi prin prigoană, restricţii şi neincludere în viaţa socială. Automarginalizarea este doar un reflex nefast datorat permanentizării marginalizării şi necomunicării, realităţi ce au marcat viaţa comunităţilor rromani din România şi nu numai. Din cauza marginalizării permanente, mulţi dintre etnicii rromi au pierdut capacitatea de a se racorda firesc la context, ajungând să aibă o atitudine de reţinere faţă de acesta şi, prin neimplicare, să ajungă la automarginalizare. Se prefigurează, astfel, soluţia tratării cauzelor acestor fenomene şi nu a efectelor lor, aşa cum se încearcă astăzi în cele mai multe demersuri. În spatele a ceea ce se vede, există secole de istorie, tradiţie, oprimare, condiţii specifice de evoluţie, specific rasial şi cultural şi, în consecinţă, este riscant să te pronunţi asupra unor fenomene cu aşa o vechime şi continuitate, cunoscând doar aparenţele de manifestare a lor.

Bibliografie Achim, Viorel, Ţiganii în istoria României, Bucureşti, Editura Enciclopedică, 1998 Cherata, Lucian, Ţiganii. Istoric, specific, integrare socială, Craiova, Editura Sibila, 1999 Pons, Emmanuelle, Ţiganii din România – o minoritate în tranziţie, Bucureşti, Editura Compania, 1999

Prof. Dr. Grecu Elena-Alina, Secondary School Nr. 1 Costeşti, Argeș county

The Gypsy came to Europe as a nation united by language, culture and origin, but in small groups and spread over a large area. They had no political or military power, no religion of their own, or territory to identify with. Their dark skin and normal lifestyle created a negative image of the Gypsy in the minds of Europeans from the very beginning. They practiced fortelling as an occupation and used curses to take revenge, so they were associated with black magic - a particularly serious thing in the almost paranoid societies of the Middle Ages, regarding religion. However, they survived and retained their ethnic specificity, despite the social and political aggression to which they were subjected. Due to their lifestyle and discrimination, the gypsy did not

have much access to the judiciary and were unable to defend their rights or even express their views.

Among the possibilities of integrating the gypsy in the society is that of the cultural assimilation of this ethnic group. The question is whether or not it has a justification or viability in today's world. In the exclusive version, obviously, it has no viability. There is a natural phenomenon of cultural assimilation, partial ⁄ total, of a small number of individuals from the Roma ethnicity. The most exposed to the phenomenon are the more socially integrated categories of Roma, those in a permanent communication with the majority. In particular, fiddlers, blacksmiths, florists, etc., although they do not deny their belonging to the gypsy ethnic group, to a large extent, do not know the language of their own people and do not show any tendency to learn it. They educate their children in the spirit of Romanian culture and European values. This category of individuals has an advanced degree of Romanianization, although lower than that of relatives, but a full degree of social integration. If this category of people has a voluntary adherence to the culture of the majorities, it would be unfortunate to see, at the political level, the tendency of cultural assimilation of minorities. According to a report by the World Commission on Culture and Development, set up in 1991 under the auspices of UNESCO, people live "in a world where ten thousand distinct societies are found in about two hundred states." Throughout history, different types of ethnocultural communities have been classified under different conditions in existing political communities and state cadres, which largely determines their current situation, the nature of the problems they face and last but not least, the ethnopolitics strategy for which they opt, the relationship that the majority nations want to maintain. At the origin of ethnocultural plurality it is the fact that certain communities, which once formed active and complete societies from an institutional point of view, including with traditions of self-government, have been incorporated into a larger state. Incorporation usually took place, against their will, as a result of colonization, conquest, or cession of territory from one imperial power to another, but there are also examples in which incorporation occurred voluntarily as a result of federalization. There has already been talk of profound differences between gypsy culture, of Asian origin, almost primitive, unwritten, incompatible in many ways with the European one, evolved and refined. It is natural to ask to what extent, however, there are similarities and compatibilities between the two forms of culture. A compatibility worthy of emphasis, at the cultural level, is given by the system of ethicalreligious values, good-bad, existing both in the traditional gypsy culture and in the European one, through the religious chain. Thus, the gypsy, by tradition, believe in two principles: Del (the principle of good) and Beng (the principle of evil), but which manifests itself with equivalent potentialities in the surrounding world, unlike Christianity, where, although there are the same values, good is predestined to win. This resemblance, in the construction of the system of moral values, to both gypsies and Christians, made it possible for the gypsy to easily adopt the Christian religion with its entire structure of values and symbols. Here is a possible gateway to the compatibility of the two worlds. Of course, only through education can the gypsy be, in a first phase, made to accept, as an option, in parallel, the system of European values. In a second phase,

the values of this system will intertwine with the traditional gypsy ones, leading to a synthesis compatible to a high degree with the system of European values. Another concern in the gypsy issue, which has been talked about a lot in recent years, is the issue of marginalization and self-marginalization as realities of the gypsy world and, hence, the need to eliminate these forces of social life in which these minorities are involved. Approaching such a topic corresponds to a reality and a need and demands a professional, technical and efficient approach. Marginalization stands out as one of the most current and sensitive topics related to the gypsy world. This can be said because, frequently, this subject, being approached in total ignorance, consequently, the conclusions are distorted, inconsistent with reality and, therefore, dangerous for the social balance of any community in which there are gypsies. Both marginalization and selfmarginalization, as a derived reaction, must be treated as complex phenomena, with ample development in time, in social terms, without neglecting their cultural, racial, psychological, legal and political roots. Thus, marginalization appears as a permanence of the social condition of all gypsies in the European world, regardless of their condition as slaves without rights and hope or nomadic wanderers around the world. It is the only phenomenon that characterizes all gypsy communities, without exception. Sedentary gypsies were socially and culturally marginalized by a special status other than that of the majority, and nomadic gypsies were marginalized by persecution, restrictions, and non-inclusion in social life. Self-marginalization is just a bad reflex due to the perpetuation of marginalization and noncommunication, realities that have marked the life of gypsy communities in Romania and beyond. Due to the permanent marginalization, many of the gypsy ethnics have lost the ability to connect naturally to the context, ending up having a restrained attitude towards it and, through noninvolvement, to reach self-marginalization. Thus, the solution of treating the causes of these phenomena and not of their effects is foreshadowed, as it is tried today in most approaches. Behind what is seen, there are centuries of history, tradition, oppression, specific conditions of evolution, racial and cultural specificity and, consequently, it is risky to rule on phenomena with such antiquity and continuity, knowing only the appearances of their manifestation.

Bibliography Achim, Viorel, Gypsies in the history of Romania, Bucharest, Encyclopedic Publishing House, 1998 Cherata, Lucian, The Gypsies. Historical, specific, social integration, Craiova, Sibila Publishing House, 1999 Pon, Emmanuelle, Gypsies in Romania - a minority in transition, Bucharest, Compania Publishing House, 1999