A powerful horse pulls a brilliantly colored cart through the streets of a hamlet, passing a grocery store, a post office, and other businesses. A dark-skinned guy steers the horse while a dark-skinned lady sits beside him. Both are clothed in vibrant, flowing outfits that complement the color of their wagon. They don’t mind that locals have gathered to see and mock them.
Children approach the horse to stroke it and place flowers in its mane, but their parents hold them back and warn them to remain quiet. This is not a quaint notion. In regions like England, where Romany or Gypsy people roam from village to hamlet, they are often undesired and viewed with mistrust. A dramatic blend of romantic sequences of carefree gypsies and realistic scenes of rejection and dread.
Gypsy definition
A gypsy is a member of a South Asian ethnic group that has always been on the move. They live in Europe and North and South America and speak Romani, a language related to Hindi. A gypsy is a hunter-gatherer or free-spirited individual whose public demeanor and style of life are akin to historical gypsies.
Nomadic Work and Ancient Roots
Gypsies were considered to have originated in Egypt at first, but they originated in India. Historians have investigated how they spread around the globe and how prejudice followed them everywhere they went. Due to tyranny, these communities keep together, marry, and follow their customs.
Some of these customs include caring for the elderly in your community and being close to your family throughout your life. Gypsies are recognized for performing unusual things that cannot be done elsewhere. Some of them include fortune reading, metal tool repair, horseback riding, and putting on performances.
Gypsy mistreatment
European countries have enslaved, banished, imprisoned, and slaughtered Romani people. Several European nations used their legal systems to discriminate against Roma, making it impossible for them to own property or find permanent employment. Gypsies were often evicted from towns and forced to roam, making it difficult for them to settle down and interact with people from neighboring towns.
They were unable to attend school because they lacked birth documents. On July 31, 1944, during World War II, when Nazi horror was at its height, the Germans began demolishing the Zigeunerlager at Auschwitz-Birkenau. This was the darkest period for Roma massacres. There were several Roma fatalities.
Auschwitz was not the only site where Roma was gassed and murdered on purpose. Roma individuals were shot to death in various regions of Eastern Europe. Several Christian churches were also brutal to gypsies in the past. Romany children were often removed from their families and raised by better-off Christian foster homes.
This was a lawful manner to conduct things from the early 1700s until a little over 50 years ago. In 1926, an organization in Switzerland was formed to remove Romany children from their families and alter their names. Pro Juventute is still active in Switzerland, and they didn’t stop kidnapping victims until 1973.
Gypsy Romani Religions
There are billions of Gypsy and Romani people all over the globe. They are of many faiths, including Christianity. They also have many superstitions from their culture, and they often blend pagan and Christian beliefs, such as believing in charms, amulets, imprecations, ill luck, and ghosts. Gypsies make every effort to be clean during rituals.
For example, Romani women must adhere to stringent hygiene regulations. They must be virgins before marrying, and there are various restrictions on what a woman can and cannot do during her period and after giving birth. Since a woman menstruates, the lower portion of her body is considered unclean, and pregnant women are also considered dirty.
After giving birth, a woman should throw away everything she touches. Such regulations and demands are similar to those of many legalistic religions and a few laws in the Bible’s Old Testament. For seven days after her menstruation, a woman is ceremonially unclean.
How Should Christians React to Racism Against Gypsies?
According to the Bible, everyone is a sinner separated from the One Holy God. Only Jesus, the Savior, can reconcile God and humanity. We are not rescued by following stringent laws or performing rituals. Instead, we are saved by God’s grace, which we receive when we trust Jesus Christ.
Racism and prejudice against the Roma, Gypsy, and Wanderer populations in the United Kingdom is blasphemy against Christ, according to clergy who spoke out against institutional racism in early 2019. The Synod committed to resisting bigotry against traveling communities, assisting them, and lobbying local governments to provide them with greater land.
It said this was due to individuals denying their common humanity, whether Gypsies, Jews, Greeks, enslaved or free people, Scottish, English, Irish, Welsh, or Arsenal supporters. This is why racism, in any form, is so destructive. They not only ignore our common humanity, but they also offend God