8th of April: A Call for Unity!

8th of April: A Call for Unity!

  

Roma around the world celebrate this day in tribute of the first World Romani Congress held in Orphingon, near London in 1971.

Since 1971, decisions of the World Roma Congress largely shaped our struggle for dignity. Ever since, a moral high ground enshrined in those decisions elevates our determination to the cause. They present a transnational political code for future generations of the Roma people.

Since 1971, we are resolved to be called Roma. We stand up beneath the green and blue flag embellished with the red, sixteen-spoked chakra wheel. We sing a common anthem that echoes our history of determination to peace and unity. We speak Romanes, the language whose endurance is a living source of connection with our brothers and sisters all around the world. We are citizens. We are proud to be a Roma Nation. We commit to live together with other people and Nations in peace and mutual respect.

With these words in our hearts and minds, Roma world-wide could celebrate International Roma Day together in unity under the motto: United in Peace, Prosperity and Solidarity!

On 8th of April 2012, at 12:00 noon all the Roma around the world can unite through the flow of the rivers, seas and oceans. Let us gather at noon to cast flowers into our nearest river, sea, ocean. Let the spirit of the International Roma Day unite us!

A large group of Roma activists in Budapest will gather and cast flowers into the Danube. We call on all Roma to organize celebrations, cast flowers and share this information with others in order to initiate the unity of Roma in the world.

Organizing Committee, Budapest 8th of April

April 8, 2012

This post comes to us via ERIO's Weekly E-news update. OPES encourages you to consider now how you will celebrate 8 April, 2012. Consider organizing something within your community, organization, or school.

"8 April" Roma Nation Day Protests Against Anti-Gypsy Racism

FORTY YEARS after the lst World Romani Congress anti-Gypsy racism across Europe is at its worst. Not far from the London location of that historic gathering riot police armed with stun-guns recently stormed the barricades of the Dale Farm estate. That violent assault failed to break up the community and a hundred families continue to cling on to the land they own. Dale Farm is being gradulaly re-established through claims for illegal property damage, fresh planning appeals and a high court case which could force Basildon District Council to provide for those made homeless by their pitiless but unsuccessful 20 million euro ethnic-cleansing operation. The London Congress proclaimed the opening date 8 April to be Roma Nation Day. Over past decades it has been celebrated by several thousands of event in sixty countries, including India. They have been both festive and demonstrative. Occasionally they have gone off message by adopting such titles as International Roma Day and even, in the l980s, Cigandan. Most notable include that attended by President Kostunica of Yugoslavia at the junction of the Sava and Danube, when Roma victims of the fascist genocide were remembered. Big demonstrations have been seen over the years in Sibiu, Belgrade, Skopje, Prague and Budapest, and in German and Italian towns following forced deporations and destruction of camps. Attempts to link up the celebrations around the world under the theme of River Ceremonies brough about gatherings beside the Rhein, Adige, Ghaghar, Garonne, Vardar, Volga,Thames and a dozen other major rivers. There was too the 8 April Wave of Light commencing with the lighting of a candle by the Dalai Lama, visited by Prof. Ian Hancock. Another year the Millennium of the Exodus from India was remembered when veteran of the lst Congress Juan Ramirez reminded us: "We have to fight even harder today against injustice and racism." Because of the worsening situation - further murders in Hungary, relentless deportations by Germany and France, and brutal evictions in the UK, Italy and Serbia - the need for united action and protest has become ever more urgent.

UN HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE EVENT NEGLECTS FATE OF ROMA

This article comes to us via the Roma Virtual Network. It appeared on The Roma Buzz Monitor, located at http://www.romabuzzmonitor.net/2011/12/roma-must-be-included-in-un-holocaust-event/. Yet again, the UN ignores us, making a statement in their silence. We ask, as does Grattan Puxon, that you stand up on April 8 and claim history, claim your rights, and protest the world's indifference.

 

UN HOLOCAUST REMEMBRANCE EVENT NEGLECTS FATE OF ROMA

11/12/2011 – As announced by the UN it looks like the next international Holocaust Remembrance event will once again neglect to fully recognize the fate of the Romani people at the hands of Europe’s NAZI and fascists rulers.

This is particularly regretable at a time when intolerance against the 10 million Roma in Europe has reached a dangerous level. Roma are once more being beaten and murdered by neo-fascists on a daily basis, while entire camps and settlements suffer official clearances in the name of public order.

Among the most recent outrages occurred in the UK, where Prime Minister David Cameron gave his personal support to the eviction of some one hundred Romani and Traveller families from their own land at Dale Farm and other parts of the Basildon district in Essex.

Over the barricades at Dale Farm, stormed by British riot police firing 50,000 volt Taser stun guns, flew the flag of the United Nations – because the UN was protesting against this act of ethnic-cleansing.

Under Hitler’s New Order in Europe more than 500,000 “Gypsies” were exterminated on racial grounds, a large proportion of them children.

This was surely price enough to pay for a secure and honoured place to be assumed of right in the name of Romani victims and survivors in any Holocaust event

promoted by the world organization.

On Roma Nation Day, 8 April 2012, members of Romani associations around the globe will be holding rallies and demonstrations against the rise of “anti-Gypsy” racism, drawing attention to those who must now pay the price for wide-spread ignorance, prejudice and hatred through their exclusion and marginalisation on the outskirts of cities and town in 60 countries.

We request that the United Nations ensure that Roma representatives are invited to the Holocaust Remembrance on 27 January and that reporting reflect that participation.

We ask, moreover, that all stand up with us on Roma Nation Day 2012 to demonstrate opposition to racism of every kind.

Grattan Puxon

co-author

Gypsies Under the Swastika

former general secretary

International Romani Union.