“Bury Me Standing” is a disillusioning book, disillusioning
about both Europe and the Gypsies. Fonseca seems to have organized the chapters
to ease us into the degree of perfidy Europe is guilty of in its treatment of
gypsies, from the simple discrimination familiar to students of
African-American history to the Holocaust (called the Devouring by the
gypsies).
What was disillusioning about the gypsies was how their freewheeling,
nomadic, romantic reputation was really a vast minstrel show. The real gypsy
culture involves child marriage, rampant illiteracy, and superstitions about
the uncleanliness of women. Their real poetry and music are things they keep
for themselves, while bear training and fortune telling are cons they pull on
us. The most free-wheeling aspect of their lives is a substitution among their
men for small time wheeling and dealing capitalism instead of professional
careers, and that only works out well for a minority of this largest of
European minorities. They aren’t even very nomadic, since the vast majority of
them have been settled for generations, only moving when forced to by violence.
What was disillusioning about Europe was the centuries long
mistreatment of these people. Linguistically they can be traced back to India,
but as a group were apparently first brought from Armenia as slaves for a
certain Vlad of Romania, the father of the Vlad who inspired Dracula. And like
most enslaved groups, they were vilified to justify the slavery. And ever since
they have been vilified as criminals, spies, or traitors to justify
discrimination to this day, even in countries that would never again dare do
the same to Jews.
My sweeping statements are necessary for the sake of
summarization, but Fonseca worked with an anthropological style, interviewing
gypsies all over Europe and even living among their families. Her approach was
more individual and thus more heart breaking than mine.
No comments:
Post a Comment