Votanikos: Worldwide
Published by deviousdiva July 23rd, 2006 in Roma.This series of posts on the settlement in Votanikos has received an amazing response from people around the world via comments and email. At this point I want to make one thing very clear. I am focusing specifically on the community that I have actually visited. I am living here and had the opportunity to meet them. I wanted to bring a very personal reaction to the situation and to the problems that they face.
However, this is NOT an isolated case. This is NOT just happening in Greece. This is NOT just about what Greece is or isn't doing. This is NOT about the Greek people. This is happening all over the world. No government is doing any better than the one here. Many are worse. I have an enormous respect and admiration for the Greek organizations and individuals who are working endlessly to bring about change. I am planning a post on them as part of this series.
I got an email from someone in England today who is facing the exact same problem there. The British government is spending millions to bulldoze their homes rather than doing something to resolve their situation.
I am sure that there will still be some people who will see this series as yet another attack on Greece by a non-Greek. That is not my intention. What I am trying to do here is to highlight a serious problem that I have seen first-hand. A problem that is rarely written about or talked about.
For information about the issues facing these communities across Europe, please see the Balkan Human Rights pages and the European Roma Rights pages. If anyone has any other links for outside Europe or anything of interest on this issue, email them to me and I will add them.
Also, if anyone would like to share their experiences on this subject, please submit your writing via email.
A Victory for Roma Rights by deviousdiva on June 6th, 2008
Arson by deviousdiva on June 1st, 2007
Award by deviousdiva on December 5th, 2006
Thank you for writing about this. The Roma are the most maligned and despised of European nations and it’s really really really nice to see people learning more about them and bringing to light injustices done to them.
I showed this to my Greek neighbor (who speaks English) and she says that the Gypsies don’t want a place of their own. They are wanderers who just mess up one place and move on.
Now, I certainly don’t agree with her but this is a view I’ve heard before. That they (ROMA) (not Gypsies) are the cause of their own problem.
Edjumacation is the key to edjumacating the populace. As long as we have stereotypes with a negative image, much cannot be done to change the people.
Just like now everyone is so down on the Israelis for killing civilians without realizing that the Hezbollahs are putting their weapons in schools and hospitals and firing from those locations that have the most civilians. Shameful when Hezbollah brags about none of their soldiers being killed but don’t seem to care when the children are getting killed by bombs meant for them.
Anyways, good article…
zardoz says :
hey smitty ,, guess what,,
israel was in lebanon , over twenty years , and supposedly to
police their neighbor ,, and clean up whatever they had on their
minds,
,SINCE the last massacre at SHAMBRA AND SHATILA
in 1986,,
were genocide was performed by the state of israel
guess what ………..IT FAILED. !
So instead of weeping for the roma ,, and making parallelisms
think again ……………………….. for the hezbollah that
they are supposedly hiding weapons in schools
…………think very carefully
who youre trying to BULLSHIT ,,, in case you really dont know
heres a chance for you to maybe learn:
http://ifamericansknew.org/
in case you already know ,, youll agree with me that israeli
military hunter-killer groups are the best in the business
so if terrorists were the real problem ,, everything
would have been taken care of many years ago.
obviously this isnt the case ,, THIS IS A STRUGGLE OF MANY
PEOPLE TO STAY ALIVE AND A “”" S T R U G G L E “”"”"
to have a home and freedom and not be stepped on
bu the state of israel ,, or anyone else for that matter
TODAY the state of israel sent a very interesting
message to the rest of the world ,,
THEY KILLED IN COLD BLOOD ,,,,,,ON PURPOSE
UNITED NATION OBSERVERS …………….END STORY
ISRAEL IS ON ITS OWN
NOONE WILL CRY FOR THE STATE OF ISRAEL ANYMORE
BUT I WILL CRY FOR THE JEWS AND THE LEBANESE
THAT WILL DIE IN THE COURSE OF ACTION
BY THEIR ASS HOLE LEADERS
AND I FEEL HELPLESS TO STOP THIS .
MAY GOD HELP THEM ,, FOR THEY ARE ALL F__C__ED
BUT DONT BULLSHIT US…..OR YOURSELF
= ZARDOZ=
I replied to you Zardoz in the most current Diva post.