Commentary
Treatment of Gypsies a Lesson for All
By William Loughborough
When the Nazis wanted test subjects for their gas chambers
and genocide efforts, they settled on persons with disabilities ("useless
eaters") and Romani people ("Gypsies"). 
According to Wikipedia: "During World War II, the Nazis
embarked on a systematic attempt at genocide of the Romanies. They were marked
for extermination and sentenced to forced labor and imprisonment in
concentration camps. They were often killed on sight on the Eastern Front. The
total number of victims has been variously estimated at between 220,000 [and]
1,500,000; even the lowest number would count as one of the largest mass
murders in history."
As recently as 2004, Romani women were systematically
sterilized in the Czech Republic; even today they face incredible official
near-genocidal regimes around the world. For example, in Italy last year, it
was reported that people cheered the deputy mayor of Treviso, Giancarlo
Gentilini, at a meeting when he said: "I want a revolution against Gypsies
… I want to eliminate all the Gypsy children who steal."
Eva Rizzin, a researcher who is Roma (a designation now
generally used as a generic term for the Romani people ) , has downloaded
Gentilini's speech on her computer. "I feel terrible when I listen to it," she
said. "If language like that were used against any other group, people would be
outraged."
Said Mario Marazziti, a spokesman for the human rights
organization Community of Sant'Egidio: "There is no national emergency ... What
is an emergency is that in the 21st century the life expectancy of a Gypsy
living in Italy is under 60 years of age."
Although “Gypsy” is frequently used
pejoratively, some Romani people embrace the term.
Many people stereotype Romanies as itinerant thieves who
read fortunes, play guitars and lure children into their fold. Most large
cities in Central and Eastern Europe have pockets of Gypsies who are well below
poverty levels and are systematically persecuted by the ruling society.
The Romani people have a very long history, but mostly it
has been full of Holocaust-like events. They first appeared in India in the 11
th century and by the 14 th century had immigrated to Europe, where they were
regularly enslaved.
According to Wikipedia: “They were subject to ethnic
cleansing, abduction of their children, and forced labor. In England, there
were hangings and expulsions of the Romani; in France, branding and the shaving
of heads; in Moravia and Bohemia, severing of ears of women. As a result, large
groups of the Romani traveled back east, toward Poland, which was more
tolerant, and Russia, where the Romani were also treated less heavy-handedly,
as long as they paid the annual taxes.”
How does this relate to Independence Today
readers? People with disabilities and those who champion diversity must band
together to resist efforts to separate others from mainstream society. Those
"others" include people with developmental disabilities or who use wheelchairs
or speak sign language or are labeled "defective" by those who are irrevocably
destined to join the disability community as they age.
Personally, I find it particularly strange that as I have
gotten into my 80s, I get favorable treatment (for example, never having to
stand for long on a crowded subway) and plaudits (such as people saying, "I
sure hope that I'm as sharp as you when I get to be your age") while being
forced to "retire" and widely ignored.
Whether one is considered "gifted" or "disabled,"
"handicapped" or "heroic," if the end result is exclusion, no good will come of
it for "us," "them" or society as a whole.
So when some official says things like, "Only a retard
wouldn't understand," we should remember what an attitude of "They're only
Gypsies, after all" leads to: genocidal holocaust and a threat to the survival
of our species.
We are not dealing with civil rights but with human
rights, which are always in need of active support.
William Loughborough of San Francisco's
Smith-Kettlewell Institute is a regular contributor to Independence Today . He
is involved in efforts to make the World Wide Web universally inclusive.
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