Ah, when I am at it:
I am part Tatar (Turkish origin way back in the hsitory).
They were called Tattare in Sweden and generally not very popular around the village, they had dirty children whom no one cared for, they drank and had fights all the nights with knives.
My grandfather told me with pride that we had Tatar origin, yet my mom told me to not tell a living soul about it...
So, why this confusing messages?
The Tatar people had a similar culture to the gypsies, where the man were the "strong" and the woman should care for them selves and stay out of the way if married. They did not feel part of the local culture bad were far away from anything looking like their own.
I think these made a lot of youngsters, men in particular, gang up and create their own rules inducing respect in other peopel the only way they could, with noice and acting oppresive. We see this happen in other areas too, where parents have a hard time cooping and works two three jobs each to manage. The kids gets left at home and we get a similar problem.
Since "our" kids dress the same, we can not see them as a separate group, and it becomes a local society problem. But if they had there own culture and dressed their way, we would immediatly think all of "them" were the same. When in fact, it is just a few of "them" that makes up that image.
So, the problem in Romania is not the Gypsies, the Romer people. The problem is that a group of youngsters has been let to gang up and create their own little world, and this world has grown out of proportions.
