A typical encounter with a Western European: “Hi sir, could you please tell me how can I find this place?“. “Oh yeah, take the first right, then … which country are you from?“. “I’m Romanian“. The guy is looking confused at my blond hair and very white skin: “Oh, so you’re Gypsy! I thought you people must be darker?“. “No sir, not at all, Romanians and Gypsies are different races! And it’s generally very offending to a Romanian to be taken for a Gypsy! That’s because of their lifestyle and what many Gypsies are known for.”

A huge misconception in rich western countries is Romanians are essentially Gypsies. Even Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins propagate this disgraceful tabloid in their Left Behind series of novels: when someone asks about Romania, the country Nicolae Carpathia - the Robert Redford look-alike Antichrist imagined by the authors - came from, he says: “I thought Romanians must be darker“.

But where does this offending miss belief come from and whose role is to educate the rather ignorant people they make a huge confusion? Well, after so many years of living in the west, my feeling is that some deliberately want to maintain the myth, with no regard to what the reality is.

Demographics

According to the 2002 census, Romania has a population of almost 20 million, from which almost 90% are Romanians. There are also millions of Romanian living in other countries all over the world. Hungarians are the largest ethnic minority, with 6.6%. Gypsies make up 2%-9% of the population; by the official census 400,000, but it is possible more than two million live in Romania. What’s more, it looks like there is no Romanian town with more than 20-21% of Gypsy population.

So what we can say at most, looking at the highest possible estimate, is that only one out of ten people presently living in Romania, or declaring its nationality as Romanian, can be Gypsy! Compare these numbers with the Afro-Americans or Spanish people living in North America: I never heard people confusing Americans with Mexicans, or that Americans “should be darker“, because of their huge number of black people.

Reality is Romania is just one of the countries “blessed” (sic!) with a huge number of Gypsies, and I’m not picking-up here against the whole race. In fact, those people among them, who steal and are known for criminal acts, gave their own race a bad reputation, and this is very unfair to the millions of honest Gypsies, who live a decent life and are well known for their great contributions, especially in music, art and some other professions.

The large number of Gypsies living in Romania is partly due to the politics led by Ceausescu in the 70’s, who created incentives for them - or rather their gold - while most other countries were happy to wish them goodbye. But people also forget over one million Gypsies live also in US, up to 5 millions in Turkey, up to 750,000 in Bulgaria, over 500,000 in Russia, 800,000 in Spain, other millions in dozens of countries all over the world.

Gypsies

Confusion may also lately come from the similarities between the words Romanian/Romania and Rom/Rrom/Roma/Romani. This is because, by the 90’s, these last minorities claimed their right to no longer be known as Gypsies or Tigani - seen now with a pejorative connotation - but rather as Roms, or Rroma population. Romania and Roma have totally different origins and significations.

Imagine the consternation and indignation of Romanians all over the world, when we’ve been illustrated not long ago by the prestigious encyclopedic French dictionary Roberts by the picture at the left. It’s like Americans would be represented by photos with their homeless people or poor immigrants.

Gypsy peoples originate from a region in Pakistan. Their Rom (or Romani) language is close to the older forms of Indian languages, completely different from Romanian. Rom was one of the three tribes that left India, spent some time in Armenia and Persia, then moved into the Byzantine Empire, from which they dispersed into the Balkans - including the present territory of Romania - in 14th century.

Gypsies do not have a word for possess or private property, so it’s easy to understand why most of the world regards them as thieves. This is also why most Romanians hate to be associated in any way with Gypsies, because of their totally different nomad lifestyle, mentalities and bad habits. In fact, we don’t like to be associated with people who steal, it doesn’t matter their race or nationality. Well-educated Romanians recognize the value of their culture, music, and the fact that not all Gypsies are thieves. In fact, there is an identity crisis within the Gypsy community as well, many of them trying to take a distance from those who steal, and live a honorable life.

The racism and discrimination western countries often saw in the Romanians against their Gypsy minority comes from extreme actions and mentalities most educated Romanians try to disassociate from. But this is also a form of hypocrisy of these rich countries that - as figure of speech - throw the nuclear waste in someone else’s garden and then make them responsible for.

Romanians

Romania is named after Rome (Italy) - Romanus (”Roman”) from Latin - because both Romanians and their language originated from the Roman Empire, which conquered and practically assimilated people of Dacia two thousand years ago. Romanian language is closely related to French, Spanish, Catalan, Italian and Portuguese.

Compare the image before with what you’ll traditionally find (on the left now) in most Romanian villages, with people wearing folk costumes. And, for God’s sake, we’re seeing everywhere WHITE people, not “dark”, and only stupid ignorant racist persons could not see the difference.

You’ll never find Romanians in folk costumes on the streets in large cities. The image is almost identical with what you see in western European or American cities: teenagers wearing modern clothes and listening to rap, rock or disco. The somehow abusive presentation of Romanian lifestyle with their traditional folk costumes is exaggerated and just for tourists. It’s like presenting most Americans like cowboys, riding horses and yelling y-haaaa the Texan style on any occasion.

In fact, many American and Western Europeans are well-aware of this, because they often marry a nice-looking Romanian girl they got in touch with over the Internet. For their beauty, Romanian women come close to Russians and Scandinavians.

It’s true, because of economic problems and decadence spread all over the world, some are also known with a bad reputation. But the fact itself that most people from these rich countries find Romanian women attractive is incompatible with the misconception the same countries spread about the Romanians as being Gypsies.

Hypocrisy of the Rich

So why it’s still so much ignorance and misunderstanding of our major differences from Gypsy people? With all the information available, about our country, language and culture, are western Europeans and Americans so ignorant, or it’s rather the “I just like to think like this about Romanians” attitude? Hey people, I know you all like the myth of Dracula - that most Romanians find silly and stupid - with their hordes of Romanians Gypsy servants no Hollywood movie forgets to portray. I know that many of you work at the office with at least one highly professionally skilled Romanian. You may have heard about Nadia Comaneci and how Bella Karoly helped the American Gymnastics school. You may have listened to Numa-Numa and started to like the Romanian language just for that.

But while so many Romanians try to promote our true values through our individual efforts and hard work among your people, we have to quietly assist to so many denigrating images about us and our country, brought by your television, your silly Dracula movies, your books, your tabloids, your country leaders…

We’re portrayed either as Gypsies or discriminating the Gypsy people. CNN shows only Romanian orphanages and Gypsy homeless kids on drugs on the streets of Bucharest. And I truly don’t remember the last time I watched on the same channel an image with the millions of homeless people I see everywhere in America or a western country. It’s like the media is trying so hard to give us a house-made bad reputation. And for what?

If Tim LaHaye and Jerry B. Jenkins, in their Christian propaganda from Left Behind, picked-up on Romanians again, choosing - with no explanation whatsoever - the Antichrist as Nicolae Carpathia, a Romanian, it’s no big deal, you may say. But when well-educated authors give him a name that doesn’t even spell right in Romanian, when they insinuate in a book sold millions of copies all over the world that “Romanians are rather dark“, this shows not just stupidity and ignorance, but racism and total lack of respect for a whole nation.

My reaction here may seem exaggerated to you, due to the fact that I’m also Romanian. However, there is at least one American critic who have seen danger in introducing an Antichrist from Romania: “Once you’re picking any kind of nationality to be the Antichrist, you’re labeling that group.”

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Tags: gypsies, lahaye, left behind, racism, romanians
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