A race apart

Romanies are little understood either in east or west. Ian Hancock helps to redress the balance with We Are the Romani People
We are the Romani People by Ian Hancock

We Are the Romani People
by Ian Hancock
208pp, University of Hertfordshire Press, £9.99

On the day that Jeffrey Archer was sentenced, the BBC Ten O'Clock News reported with some glee that he had been driven off to prison in a van containing "a Gypsy accused of murder". Consider the furore had the newscaster said "a Jew accused of murder" or "a black". The scriptwriter would have been sacked.

The level of awareness of Romani issues in this country is 30 years behind that affecting other races. Many still fail to understand that "Gypsies", or more accurately Roma or Romanies, are a race at all. New-age travellers have confused the issue, leading some to think that being a Gypsy is a matter of lifestyle. The recent immigration of refugees from central and eastern Europe and their demonisation by the tabloid press has only exacerbated the misunderstanding.

Ian Hancock's book could not be more timely. Hancock is a British Rom who is now professor of Romani studies at the University of Texas. His book begins with a historical account of the origins of the Romanies, their flight from India around a thousand years ago, and gradual migration westward into Europe. It includes chapters on the significant historical moments in Romani history, including the mass killings of Romanies by the Nazis who, ironically, had no problem identifiying Romani people by race, and murdering them for it.

The Romani holocaust, or porajmos, is becoming better known, but few Europeans are aware that for five and a half centuries Romanies in eastern Europe were slaves. "In the 16th century, a Romani child could be purchased for 32p. By the 19th century, slaves were sold by weight, at the rate of one gold piece per pound."

In the later chapters, Hancock includes a rough guide to present-day Romani life, language, cookery and customs. There is a fascinating list of notables of Romani descent (Yul Brynner, Rita Hayworth and Charlie Chaplin I knew about, but Bill Clinton was a new one on me).

More could have been said about the desperate economic circumstances of many Romanies in central and eastern Europe, where some are living under conditions comparable to apartheid-era South Africa. (Meanwhile, our Home Office pays for British immigration officers to stand at Prague airport stopping people from boarding aircraft if they look a bit "Gypsy".)

In a section on Romani organisations, Hancock touches briefly on the particular problems of Romani representation to non-Romanies, or gadje. Some Romani academics and politicians now talk of creating a "non-territorial nation" and have petitioned the United Nations asking that Romanies be given a seat and voting rights in the UN general asssembly. The problem is how such representatives could be elected among the huge and often competing diversity of Romani groups.

Some traditional Romanies, for instance, consider any contact with the gadje for purposes other than subsistence as polluting. Any Romanies who cooperate with gadje political structures automatically disbar themselves from representing Romani people. But without such representation, the ignorance of the gadje will persist. This seemingly insoluble conundrum is worthy of a book on its own.

The University of Hertfordshire Press also produces other books on different aspects of Romani life and culture, including two autobiographies by Romani women. Ultimately, it is through such personal testimony that gadje will come to a long-overdue understanding of the realities of Romani life. We can only hope it will not take another millennium for that understanding to come about.

· Louise Doughty's novel about a Romani family in central Europe will be published by Simon & Schuster in April