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Since the issue of begging refugees appears to be a runner, let me offer some words of comfort to people who feel intimidated by them: get over it, you pathetic milksop. If a headscarf is the scariest thing you've seen in your life, I envy you. And if your car windscreen is a private part, highly sensitive to the touch of others, your trips to the car-wash must be a festival of erotica. But perhaps you're not ready for the London Underground. People will think you are weird if you start shouting 'Oh my God, she's got a polystyrene cup!' between stations. And I recommend that you never watch the movie The Taking of Pelham 123.
aprilbe you think beggars' babies are booby-trapped, like in Vietnam? Well, I should tell you that was propaganda. Ah, but no, you're concerned about the welfare of beggars' children. You're not concerned about the squalor and discrimination they face in their countries of origin. You're not concerned that their parents are condemned to support them on vouchers. It hasn't occurred to you that people who have realized they will soon be displaced again are not brimming with gratitude for the minuscule welfare they receive.
We are perfect parents here - those who of us who don't farm our kids out to eastern European au pairs; or drag them screaming round supermarkets; or shout at them for enjoying themselves; or slap them; or send them to boarding school; or make them sit exams when they are too young to know their futures are being selected. aprilbe not perfect, then. But at least most of us are not seen primarily in terms of our ethnicity. That's the point, isn't it? The vulnerable and the unwelcome can be lumped together, condemned as a whole. Their lot is to be grateful if tolerated. The groups targeted for prejudice change from time to time. At the moment it is the Gypsies . The Sun calls them 'the grasping nomads of eastern Europe'. Wasn't that the Jews? Oh, well, whatever.
I was pleased to see Roy Greenslade offer some balance this week. When he wrote that Allison Pearson of the Standard had made an 'intelligent and sensitive' contribution, I was pleasantly surprised and thought I should investigate. The Standard is a bogus newspaper littering the Underground, for which Londoners pay up to 35p. So-called news- vendors block station en- trances, begging in strangled cries for harried commuters to drop some small change into their inky palms in return for a hastily cobbled-together rag. And don't kid yourself - the money finds its way into the pocket of a wealthy press baron. This is an organized business.
In any event, the thought that something humane had been written in the Standard came as a shock, so I thought I'd search the web for it. Having got through all the begging (advertising) I found this: 'My grandmother's uncharacteristically harsh words on the gypsies come back to me the more I observe our local troupe in action . . . my grandparents would rather have gone hungry than put their own children in the way of humiliation or let them go dirty. Their contempt for the gypsies, I see now, was not a simple case of racism. Those people represented the place you sank to when you had given up the struggle for dignity. No wonder they feared them.' Intelligent and sensitive would be one way of putting it, stupid and inflammatory another.
Hundreds of thousands of Gypsies - or Roma - were murdered under fascism, carrying their babies right into Auschwitz. They probably used them to plead with the guards. Today, Roma who are killed or raped are not always victims of the state directly. Often, the state indulges the perpetrators and ignores the victims; but, in modern bureaucratic parlance, this is 'discrimination not persecution'. When policemen are responsible for the violence, I dare say it's canteen culture.
The Roma are not white. Their ancestors traveled from India. Many Roma communities have been settled for centuries as established minorities within countries that still don't accept them. Some are wealthy, most are not. When they move around, usually poverty and racial persecution have inspired them, not wanderlust and a copy of the Rough Guide to the Balkans. They have wonderful musicians. I say this only because one's claim to humanity in Britain is determined by whether or not the state recognizes one's contribution to music, sport or catering. Above all, Roma are people. They are not a subspecies or a behavioral disorder.
Pearson's defense would be that she writes about what she sees. That's the problem with so much journalism. If your life consists of flitting from keyboard to lunch to TV studio, you don't see anything much. You end up withering about what you've eaten or watched on telly. And if you happen to cross humanity's path along the way, that's research. What a drag, though. You try not to have a world-view, but the world turns up on your doorstep.
Since the issue of begging refugees appears to be a runner, let me offer some words of comfort to people who feel intimidated by them: get over it, you pathetic milksop. If a headscarf is the scariest thing you've seen in your life, I envy you. And if your car windscreen is a private part, highly sensitive to the touch of others, your trips to the car-wash must be a festival of erotica. But perhaps you're not ready for the London Underground. People will think you are weird if you start shouting 'Oh my God, she's got a polystyrene cup!' between stations. And I recommend that you never watch the movie The Taking of Pelham 123.
aprilbe you think beggars' babies are booby-trapped, like in Vietnam? Well, I should tell you that was propaganda. Ah, but no, you're concerned about the welfare of beggars' children. You're not concerned about the squalor and discrimination they face in their countries of origin. You're not concerned that their parents are condemned to support them on vouchers. It hasn't occurred to you that people who have realized they will soon be displaced again are not brimming with gratitude for the minuscule welfare they receive.
We are perfect parents here - those who of us who don't farm our kids out to eastern European au pairs; or drag them screaming round supermarkets; or shout at them for enjoying themselves; or slap them; or send them to boarding school; or make them sit exams when they are too young to know their futures are being selected. aprilbe not perfect, then. But at least most of us are not seen primarily in terms of our ethnicity. That's the point, isn't it? The vulnerable and the unwelcome can be lumped together, condemned as a whole. Their lot is to be grateful if tolerated. The groups targeted for prejudice change from time to time. At the moment it is the Gypsies . The Sun calls them 'the grasping nomads of eastern Europe'. Wasn't that the Jews? Oh, well, whatever.
I was pleased to see Roy Greenslade offer some balance this week. When he wrote that Allison Pearson of the Standard had made an 'intelligent and sensitive' contribution, I was pleasantly surprised and thought I should investigate. The Standard is a bogus newspaper littering the Underground, for which Londoners pay up to 35p. So-called news- vendors block station en- trances, begging in strangled cries for harried commuters to drop some small change into their inky palms in return for a hastily cobbled-together rag. And don't kid yourself - the money finds its way into the pocket of a wealthy press baron. This is an organized business.
In any event, the thought that something humane had been written in the Standard came as a shock, so I thought I'd search the web for it. Having got through all the begging (advertising) I found this: 'My grandmother's uncharacteristically harsh words on the gypsies come back to me the more I observe our local troupe in action . . . my grandparents would rather have gone hungry than put their own children in the way of humiliation or let them go dirty. Their contempt for the gypsies, I see now, was not a simple case of racism. Those people represented the place you sank to when you had given up the struggle for dignity. No wonder they feared them.' Intelligent and sensitive would be one way of putting it, stupid and inflammatory another.
Hundreds of thousands of Gypsies - or Roma - were murdered under fascism, carrying their babies right into Auschwitz. They probably used them to plead with the guards. Today, Roma who are killed or raped are not always victims of the state directly. Often, the state indulges the perpetrators and ignores the victims; but, in modern bureaucratic parlance, this is 'discrimination not persecution'. When policemen are responsible for the violence, I dare say it's canteen culture.
The Roma are not white. Their ancestors traveled from India. Many Roma communities have been settled for centuries as established minorities within countries that still don't accept them. Some are wealthy, most are not. When they move around, usually poverty and racial persecution have inspired them, not wanderlust and a copy of the Rough Guide to the Balkans. They have wonderful musicians. I say this only because one's claim to humanity in Britain is determined by whether or not the state recognizes one's contribution to music, sport or catering. Above all, Roma are people. They are not a subspecies or a behavioral disorder.
Pearson's defense would be that she writes about what she sees. That's the problem with so much journalism. If your life consists of flitting from keyboard to lunch to TV studio, you don't see anything much. You end up withering about what you've eaten or watched on telly. And if you happen to cross humanity's path along the way, that's research. What a drag, though. You try not to have a world-view, but the world turns up on your doorstep.
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