Antiziganism

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“”The genocide of the Sinti and Roma was carried out from the same motive of racial mania, with the same premeditation, with the same wish for the systematic and total extermination as the genocide of the Jews. Complete families from the very young to the very old were systematically murdered within the entire sphere of influence of the National Socialists.

—Roman Herzog (CDU), Federal President of Germany, in 16 March 1997.

Antiziganism, also referred to as "anti-Romani", "anti-Romani racism", "anti-Romaniism" or "anti-gypsyism", is a form of racism that is directed against Roma, Sinti, nomadic and Yenish people that were stigmatized as "Gypsies" in wider society. Also known as Romanis (not to be confused with Romanians, citizens of Romania) or Roma people, they are perhaps one of the most persecuted peoples of this planet. Along with Jews, they were victims of a genocide that is lesser known than the Holocaust but just as real and cruel perpetrated, by the Nazis: the Porajmos (Romani, lit.: "the Devouring"). While it is good and necessary that the Holocaust is taught and talked about in mainstream media to demonstrate the consequences of generational hatred against Jews, unfortunately the fate of millions of Romanis exterminated by the Nazis does not receive as much attention that it deserves.

Who are the Romanis?

See the main article on this topic: Romani

Stereotype

Hateful poster by Swiss far-right party SVP/UDC posted on their Facebook page, which got them in legal trouble for inciting hatred and prejudice against Romanis. The full title of the poster is: "We say NO to transit spaces for foreign gypsies!"

Commonly known as "Gypsies", the term is considered offensive and inaccurate, due to the fact that it is derived from the conception that Romanis originated from Egypt (Romanis are Indo-European, from Northern India) and that the term is associated with criminality and foul behavior, a stereotype that hurts the Roma people within the society we live in. The stereotype of Romanis includes traits such as:

• Romanis being petty criminals.
• Romanis being drains on social welfare systems.
• Romanis being foul and engaging in littering, and public defecation.
• Romanis being child kidnappers.

History

Porajmos

Roma/Sinti woman in ca. 1936 being accosted by "racial scientist" Dr. Robert Ritter and a Nazi police officer.

Romani captives in the Belzec concentration camp, Lublin, Poland. 1940.

The Brown Triangle, a symbol used to mark Romani prisoners in Nazi concentration camps.

The Porajmos (coined by American activist Ian Hancock in 1990), also known as Samudaripen (initially conceived in 1970s Yugoslavia and recommended by French linguist Marcel Courthiade), also sometimes called Romani Holocaust, was the targeted and systemic extermination of Romanis under the Nazi Regime and its WWII Axis allies. Just like Jews, Romanis were conceived as an 'alien race' by the Nazis and such both of these groups were targeted and murdered by the National Socialists. Sometimes the destruction of Roma and Sinti were included in the Holocaust, while some interest groups discarded the idea that Romanis were targeted by Hitler; something which research has long been disproven. Hitler, as part of this set of "racial hygiene" policies, ordered the mass sterilization of Romanis and later would execute them in mass. Although Jewish survivors and their family members were eligible for reparations and received those for the horrific crimes by Nazism, the same right was denied to the victims of the Porajmos right after 1945. The plight of the Romanis as part of "The Final Solution" for some reason wasn't in the interests of the victorious powers of WW2 and thus, the "best deal" Romanis have gotten was to be recognized as "victims of fascism", despite the vocal outcry by activists and defendants. In a 2013 survey by the German anti-discrimination bureau, around 19% of those asked said they didn't know that the Roma and Sinti were persecuted and murdered by the Nazis.

After 1945

Europe

Swiss right-wing newspaper Die Weltwoche:
"The Roma are coming: Robberies in Switzerland". Someone might say that this is racist fearmongering?

• In 2009, Boyko Borisov, a Bulgarian politician of the conservative party GERB and then mayor of Sofia (capital of Bulgaria), claimed that the 1 million Roma (along with Turks and pensioners) living in Bulgaria are "bad human material" and "Bulgaria's greatest problem". This same politician would be elected Prime Minister of Bulgaria in the same year and later twice again in 2013 and 2017. He is the current Prime Minister, by the way.
• When the world was supposed to end in 2012, it sadly only ended with a disgraceful cover by the Swiss right-wing newspaper Die Weltwoche in which they depicted a brown skinned child (presumably Romani) pointing a gun at the camera, again trying to associate Romanis with crime and violent behavior.

Oceania

Although the Christchurch terrorist attacks targeted mainly Muslims (51 killed), Romanis were mentioned in the eco-fascist manifesto "The Great Replacement" by the Neo-Nazi murderer, stating: "The invaders must be removed from European soil, regardless from where they came or when they came. Roma, African, Indian, Turkish, Semitic or other. If they are not of our people, they must be removed".

United States

Fox News Hatemongerer Tucker Carlson on his White Power Hour (also known as Tucker Carlson Tonight), in "Scary Outgroup, Coming to America". Reminder: That's the cover of a story of 40 Romani refugees in Pennsylvania, not 40 billion.

Romanis are to this day still targets of immense hatred and prejudice. In the US, July 2017, several right-wing media outlets perpetuated racist stereotypes and lies about 40 Roma asylum seekers in California, a borough in Washington County, Pennsylvania. Originally escaping racism from Bucharest, Romania, they hoped for a better future in the "land of the free", going through Immigration and Customs Enforcement (ICE), an institution not known for being lenient or xenophilic. Based on reports by the Pittsburgh Post-Gazette, titled "Romanians seeking asylum are in California, Pa. as part of U.S. Immigration program.", right-wing media jumped on the opportunity to demonize this small group of people.

Foxnews.com:

"Immigrants defecate in streets, behead chickens, angry Pennsylvania residents say."

Breitbart:

"Pennsylvania residents protest Romanian immigrants ‘defecating and killing chickens’ in public."

The Blaze:

"Community outraged after feds move in Romanian ‘gypsies’ -- defecating in streets, trash in yards."

Gateway Pundit:

"Residents of Small Pennsylvania Town Outraged By Immigrants Defecating in Streets, Beheading Chickens."

Tucker Carlson Tonight:

"Well, in the last two months, several dozen Roma, more commonly known as “Gypsies” have been settled in California, Pennsylvania, by the federal government. The Roma are seeking asylum saying they suffered racism in their native Romania. Integration is not going well. According to residents, they have little regard either for the law or public decency. Citizens say they defecate in public, chop the heads off chickens, leave trash everywhere and more."

Infowars:

"Your kid gets kidnapped out of your backyard, big kidnappings all over Europe, and they find em with the gypsies, and even liberal groups just say 'Let em have your kid now, it's part of their' - it was in Italy, they actually find them with kids and let them keep em. 'Oh, they've had your daughter for three years, just let em keep em, and let the Muslims rape your wife too. It's okay, they only get probation.' Because it's liberal.

Rational for the article (not to be included in the future page)

Our purpose here at RationalWiki includes:

1. Analyzing and refuting pseudoscience and the anti-science movement;
2. Documenting the full range of crank ideas;
3. Explorations of authoritarianism and fundamentalism;
4. Analysis and criticism of how these subjects are handled in the media.

In order to fit the mission statement, each respective item could cover:

1. Nazi pseudo-science and unethical experiments on Romani people under a general umbrella of pseudo-scientific racism
2. Conspiracies and fearmongering about Romanis by racists
3. The causes and consequences of antiziganism in the past and today
4. Media coverage of Romanis

External links

• https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/education-situation-roma-11-eu-member-states
• https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2014/poverty-and-employment-situation-roma-11-eu-member-states
• https://fra.europa.eu/en/publication/2016/second-european-union-minorities-and-discrimination-survey-roma-selected-findings

Contrast between related articles

Roma vis-à-vis Anti-ziganism
Judaism vis-à-vis Anti-semitism

Judaism (redirect from Jews)	Roma
Theology	x
x	Terminology
Origins	x
x	Traditions
x	Stereotype
Religious denominations	x
x	Anti-ziganism
Ethnic divisions	x
x	Famous people
Holidays	x

Anti-semitism	Anti-ziganism
Origin of the term	Origin of the term
x	Romanis (should be short)
History	History
Prejudice	Stereotype
vs. Racism	x
Types	x
Zionism	x
Philosemitism	x