[altis]

Spot on Osem!

We've spent many summer holidays cycletouring around eastern Europe. (There's no better way to discover the feel of a place.) We often noticed how the Romas were treated with suspicion and often despised. We visited Romania itself 3 times (beautiful country and friendly people) but even the friends we made there - who were particularly outward looking - told us to be very careful of them.

Not that we ever had any trouble. I particularly remember, while stopped at the roadside to fill up our water bottles, a Roma woman coming over to talk to us. We knew a bit of Romanian by then and managed some sort of conversation. She wore a huge red and black skirt and woven into her thick, long black hair were coins that she claimed were solid gold.

Possibly because they live at the margins of our society, they are forced to quickly take any chance that comes their way and often appear to be on the make. I guess this behaviour is so ingrained that, wherever they travel, it quickly wrankles with others. Especially with those who are already struggling to make a life at the edge.

Now, doesn't this sound like the way the Jews were treated? I keep saying we're brewing for another war.