Some say it was a thousand years ago that a group of people
from the Indian sub-continent began a westward trek that took them eventually
across almost the whole of Europe, and into Britain in about 1500. http://www.bbc.co.uk/kent/voices/romany_roots.shtml
On their long journey, they encountered enslavement, forced
labour, and attempted extermination by he Nazis.
Attitudes towards the Romany and other Traveller people in
this country remain at best ambivalent or stereotyped and at worst unashamedly
racist. An example of the most extreme racism, which absolutely refuses to see
the Romany person as a human being with feelings, family and a point of view is
the Dorset reaction to the annual migration through Bournemouth, Poole and much
of rural Dorset of groups of Travellers
following traditional patterns of migration in search of work.
On the 10th
August, the headline in the local press read, “We are doing all we can to stop
illegal camps, say councils”, and the leader of Bournemouth Council was quoted
as saying, “Our strict safeguarding, inhospitable attitude and better defences
should help residents feel reassured that we are doing absolutely everything we
can to ensure they are inconvenienced as little as possible.”
If this degree of hatred and intolerance were directed at
any other group in society, it would be widely seen as intolerable, and there
might even be prosecutions under equality laws.
As far as I could see, nobody except the Traveller community group Kushti Bok pointed out that, if there were no
legal sites, Travellers were bound to end up on illegal encampments. Or is this too logical for politicians
pandering to racist hysteria in the press?
The apparent good news that a temporary camp has been set up
is soon revealed, in the same story, as simply a ploy to give the police powers
they otherwise wouldn’t have.
All credit to Jenny Awford, who took the trouble to
interview the Kushti Bok director, one 66-year-old Romany woman and the chief
officer of Dorset Race Equality Council. Jenny’s headline was “Councils have “completely
failed us”, say travellers.
It’s not just the councils, though, is it? Where are the local community groups urging
the councils to provide refuse collections for temporary camps? If there isn’t any refuse collection, can you
really be surprised if rubbish is left behind?
Where are the human rights groups, arguing for everyone’s
right to have somewhere to sleep?
And, most shameful of all, where are the churches standing alongside the rejected outsider in compassionate solidarity? And where are the Christians pointing
out that every single human being is of infinite value, because we’re all made
in God’s image?
Jesus weeps.
No comments:
Post a Comment