Identity and Discrimination: an approach of the Gens du Voyage

Tuesday was an extremely intense and diverse day (as we already had many) and it was hard to find a proper way to tackle as many issues as possible. All the people we met, from Sarah Carmona to Xavier Pousset, including Ghislaine Durand, Hubert Julien-Laferrière, Nasser Zaïr and people from the Gens du Voyage community, were all having different prospective of who the Roma are, what should be done for them, what they have to do/change among their own community(ies) and way of life. All these issues are not easy ones to tackle and as Xavier Pousset rightly said it is time for French Roma people to decide how far they want to maintain their current way of life considering the rapid evolution of society as a whole. They are the only one able to make these choices and to control them. For once, these decisions and evolutions must not come from the mainstream society.

This led me to introduce the key question of my today’s blog post: How Roma people, through the example of Gens du Voyage that we have approached more deeply, could deal with their complex and diverse identity(ies) and get organized so as not to be any more these second-class citizens they are in France, and in Europe?

In this question I mentioned two crucial elements that were the most repeated and striking things for me: the issue of identity and the one of discrimination.

Starting with identity, Sarah Carmona told us that it was composed by the language, the history and the memory to which someone refers. In the case of the Roma, if language seems not to be that tricky as they share the Romani language (and some derivatives dialects), their history and memory are put into question. Being based on a perpetuated oral tradition, Roma peoples’ memory is over represented in the construction of their identity and history, on the contrary, has gradually being built by the mainstream society, dispossessing Roma from their own story and consequently from a part of their identity. Talking about theory, the “dead knowledge” concept of André Gorz refers directly to that and the Pygmalion Syndrome that Sarah has explained us is then extremely relevant, meaning that Roma behave the way they are expected to by the mainstream society. We must also ad that in the French context, as identity always has to be contextualized and historicized, it is even more complicated to talk and discuss the Gens du Voyage identity as France does not reckon its minorities as minorities. Even among the Roma themselves we have observed differences in the way they define themselves. For instance, Sarah told us that she is Roma, Gitane, Kali and Canastera-latero and that she uses either one term or the other depending on the person she is talking with. Ghislaine on her side firmly asserted that she was first and foremost French and that she was a Roma only in a second time. As for her, there is no need for her to claim that part of her identity as the French Republican model reckons everyone as equal in rights. Even if it remains conceptual, Romanipen, that is to say the way of being a Romani through an historical trace (exodus from India throughout Europe), common values and a shared linguistic background, seems to consider the various key aspects of the common identity of the Roma community (at large).

As for the discrimination topic I have as well many points to rise, so I will try to keep it short! From what I already knew and what we have heard and seen today I consider that we were confronted again to the harsh reality that French citizens are definitely not equal. Some are better citizens as the others as they fit in the mainstream framework. From the privilege game we have been playing the first day, I considered myself as privileged because I am a white atheist girl, having educated parents, coming from an upper middle-class background and having no other origins than French. Today, I realized that having been raised up in a sedentary family was also a privilege in the French society (and in most of European countries as apart from France and Ireland it is not even allowed to have a nomadism way of life in the rest of Europe): no traveling pass to carry on, no restriction to vote, no mandatory areas to stay, no suspicion from the neighbors when moving into a new district or the security guard when going to the supermarket, easy access to education, housing and social services…etc. The Gens du Voyage communities are not living within the French society, even though they are French, but alongside it. Some would say “yes but it is their own choice, they could settle down and live in houses if they wanted to”. Sarah told us that it was not inherently part of their culture, while Xavier Pousset said that even those who have been settling down are still thinking of travelling, that it is always in their mind. Whatever song we listen to, I believe that we always have to respect peoples’ habits, way of living and traditions. In the case of the Gens du Voyage some improvements have been made. We may consider halting areas as being part of the answer or at least as showing a certain political will to deal with Roma issues. Of course it is highly discriminatory not to allow this people to travel and stop by freely and to gather them in dedicated areas, outside of the cities, hidden from the people’s looks, where they can stay usually up to nine months. On the other hand, Roma themselves admit that it is better to do their laundry in a washing machine than in the river and to have access to water and electricity, especially during winter time. Everything is not perfect and even among the Roma themselves there is not a unique point of view on this issue as it is their entire way of life that is to be questioned.

Before expressing my stand point I just wanted to make a comment on Hubert Julien-Laferrière presentation of the program headed by the Grand Lyon with this city in Rumania. The main argument was this mainstream idea of “co-development”: building houses with electricity in Rumania so that they do not feel the need to come to France. First, they are mostly coming to find a job and make some money, which is absolutely not the need addressed by this program. Second, it is refusing their right to move freely as all the other European citizens that trying to prevent them from coming to France (I just want to point out the fact that it is exactly this “co-development” program that justify so many abuses in the implementation of European immigration policies). Third, the Rumanian Roma communities have barely been consulted and do not participate at all in the implementation of this project. It might be a “solidarity” and “subsidiarity” based project, it has nothing of a sustainable and ethic one.

Coming back to my point, I think that through the past few weeks I have realized how unfair, not to say dangerous, not recognizing french diversity and minorities could be. I would definitely advocate for Roma to affirm themselves and their identity in the public sphere. People are afraid of what they don’t know. The Gens du Voyage in France and the Roma community in general have to struggle to find a space to be listened to in the public sphere. Things are gradually evolving and are meant to evolve even more with people like Sarah being from a generation that seems to be keener on defending the Roma identity. But not only the Roma themselves have to consider their way of life and how they portray their future in the French society, but also the French society and authorities have to be reminded that the Gens du Voyage are entirely part of France. This second-class citizen status has to be ended and awareness risen on both sides.

There might be even more things to say about these issues but I did not mean to write an essay neither a book, so feel free to comment, challenge, question my points!!

Barbara J;