“Local residents up in arms at gypsy camp”. Thus began my first Roma story, a baby journalist reporting from a land of shrunken hopes and varied and variegated prejudices.
We didn’t mean it. We didn’t know any better. For us, these people were gypsies; people who seemed to delight in occupying the nearest piece of waste ground and burning tyres to their heart’s content. It wasn’t so long back that pubs had put out signs “No Blacks, Irish, Travellers or Dogs”. They’d managed to let the Irish and the Blacks in by then, and there were definitely a lot more mongrels hanging around their owners’ knees in the hope of a stale crisp or two. But the “travellers”? No, not welcome anywhere.
Nothing much changes. These past few months have felt like a wormhole into the past as I work with my colleagues to put paid to that old racism. The reason: Nicolas Sarkozy’s decision to send Roma back from France to Romania and Bulgaria; swiftly followed by a huge debate that has raged on in all corners of Europe.
One thing has changed though. My total, appalling, ignorance.
