Build schools instead of creating a ghetto

The French President, Nikolas Sarkozy has reignited Xenophobic sentiments by expelling from France some Gypsies-Roma and their  families. Sarkozy has the strong support of the interior minister of Italy, Roberto Maroni, and Slovakia has taken a cue from France, but instead of expelling the gypsies, it has decided  to establish a kind of a Reservation for them.

A wall has been built in Mikhailovei - a  tiny town in Slovakia, to separate the gypsy region from the  rest of the town. The local authorities have strongly denied the charge of attempting to create a gypsy ghetto. Officials in the office of the mayor of the town, say that the wall is only a noise proof barrier and has nothing to do with nationalism.

It is not the first time that the village of the Roma has been screened off and isolated. Germany and the Czech Republic are also unhappy with the gypsy nomads. In September European interior ministers are meeting in Paris to examine the problem of migration and the issue of the Gypsies will feature prominently.  

"It is evidence that not everybody in Europe has equal rights," said Nadezhda Demetr, vice president of the International Union of Gypsies. "There are 18 million Gypsies in the world and 7 to 8 million of them live in Romania, Hungary, Bulgaria, Slovakia and the  Czech Republic, as well as in republics in the former Yugoslavia. Isolation and deportation will not solve the problems of the Gypsies."

"Mass education is the best solution," she says. "If the level of education of the majority of Gypsies is raised, there will be a visible change in the behaviour of the Roma."

The idea has long caught on as a school for Gypsies has been opened in the Novgorod region, and in the Russian capital, the Moscow Gypsy Theater called “Roman” - the only one of such in the world, is functioning. The Shukin Theater in Moscow runs a course for ethnic Gypsies once every five years. There are large horse breeding farms in the Stavropol and Leningrad regions, owned by Gypsies. There are successful businessmen, lawyers and scientists among Gypsies living in Moscow. Russia is successfully solving some of the problems of the Gypsies, and Demetr says that integrating the Gypsies into the society is the only right approach.