Romanistan

Orhan Tahir on Pariahs, Outcasts, and Political Science

• Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens • Season 5 • Episode 4

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Orhan Tahir is a Romani lawyer, scholar and journalist, originally from Bulgaria, who has lived in Western Europe for the past 10 years. He is currently engaged as a PhD researcher in Political Science at the Heidelberg University in Germany. Orhan's focus is on the construction of "Gypsies" as an outcast "Pariah people" in European imagination in line with the Orientalist narratives of colonial India, and the impact of this concept on modern perceptions of Roma. He is among the first scholars in Europe to examine the situation of the Roma from the perspective of "caste" - a new approach still unpopular in European academia.

Orhan's LinkedIn

Our Romani crush is the artist and anarchist, Helios Gomez

Some information about enslaved African's language heritage https://wordscr.com/what-language-did-slaves-speak/

https://www.nps.gov/ethnography/aah/aaheritage/sysMeaningA.htm 

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Romanistan is hosted by Jezmina Von Thiele and Paulina Stevens

Conceived of by Paulina Stevens

Edited by Viktor Pachas

With Music by Viktor Pachas

And Artwork by Elijah Vardo

Jezmina:

Hey, romanistan listeners, we just wanted to put a note on the start of this episode that we are so concerned about America's fascism, and we know you are too. It is not possible for one person to solve all the world's or country's problems, but we all have our gifts and we all have our limitations, and we all have ways that we can show up to resist fascism. And all that matters is that you show up in some way, whether you got to lay low or whether you have an opportunity to be loud, it's all about your safety, but it's also about just doing the work, whatever that is that you can do. So we are in resistance with you against this fascist regime, against fascism all over the world, and we continue to fight in all the ways we can. So thank you for being here.

Paulina:

Welcome to Romanistan. We're your friendly neighborhood gypsies. I'm Paulina and I'm Jez. Wait, my cat. I have to get him out of here. He just got in here and he's making so much noise.

Jezmina:

Paulina has an orange cat too.

Paulina:

Oh great, oh my, my god, he's very lively, okay, and so we are here today with orhan tahir and we are so excited to introduce him. Orhan tahir is a romani lawyer, scholar, scholar and journalist originally from Bulgaria, who has lived in Western Europe for the past 10 years. He is currently engaged as a PhD researcher in political science at the Heidelberg University in Germany. Orhan's focus is on the construction of gypsies as an outcast pariah people in European imagination, in line with the orientalist narratives of colonial India and the impact of this concept on modern perceptions of Roma. He is among the first scholars in Europe to examine the situation of Roma from the perspective of caste, a new approach still unpopular in European academia. Welcome.

Orhan Tahir:

Thank you for having me.

Jezmina:

We're so happy to have you, and so we always start with our intro question Where's your family from? What's your visa?

Orhan Tahir:

question where's your family from? What's your visa? Yes, I'm originally from Bulgaria. It's a small country in southeastern Europe. I'm from a small town near the Black Sea coast. It's called Provadia, and my family comes from the community of Muslim Roma, or so-called Turkish Roma, where traditionally Romani language is spoken, but also Turkish language is widely spoken, so the new generations speak mostly Turkish, unfortunately. So this is my community, in fact.

Paulina:

We always ask this question and we get a lot of different answers depending on how you define the word. But do you consider yourself a rebel?

Orhan Tahir:

I have often been labeled by others as a rebel, but frankly, I don't see anything rebellious about speaking my mind openly and being myself, so I don't consider myself a rebel.

Jezmina:

I like the idea that it should just be normal to speak your mind and be honest about your feelings, Of course yes. We were wondering what was your first ever job and what inspired you to pursue this career path. You have such an interesting, dynamic career.

Orhan Tahir:

When I was a university student, my first real job was a postman. When I was a university student, my first real job was a postman. Later I started working in a human rights NGO and this is how my career began. Actually, I spent the last 20 years mostly in the human rights sector, in the NGO sectors, but also I have experience in the private sector. I used to work for a bank for some time, for private companies, as a lawyer, but mainly, my profile mainly is a human rights lawyer. This is what I have been doing.

Orhan Tahir:

I have done for most of my life, actually, and only recently I decided to go to academia simply because I couldn't find answers of many questions while working as a human rights lawyer. For example, I couldn't find satisfactory answers to the question of why Roma, after so many centuries, continue to be treated like second-hand citizens in Europe to be treated like second-hand citizens in Europe, and that's why I decided to start an academic career. I enrolled at the University of Heidelberg and decided to explore these questions myself, to look for answers, to search for answers myself instead of reading and accepting the answers already provided by others. So this is part of my career development, of my path of evolution, of spiritual philosophical evolution, and this is how I ended up in the academia, in fact, because I'm still looking, after so many years, for the answers of these questions.

Jezmina:

They're deep questions and it must be gratifying, after so long of working in different sectors where you are dealing with human rights, to look for some answers for yourself.

Orhan Tahir:

Yes, certainly, absolutely.

Paulina:

Can you tell us a little more about why you study Roma human rights crisis in Europe from the perspective of caste?

Orhan Tahir:

why I'm interested in the caste system as an explanation for the current situation of Roma. Since colonial times, actually since the 17th century, romani people have been described by some authors as pariah people. Pariah, similarly to the pariah people, or untouchables or Chandala they have different names are the people who are outside the Indian caste system. They were positioned outside the caste system. This is the outcast people, in fact, and some European travelers, scholars, missionaries are going to India compared Roma to these outcast people in India and they said well, we also have pariah outcast people in Europe. These are the gypsies. They are the same people and after so many centuries they haven't changed. They remain the same. They are dark-skinned, they are still Indians here in Europe, they are aliens, they are outsiders. And this was the explanation. And there were a long line of scholars writing reinforcing this notion, this idea, in European intellectual circles, in European academia. I think that this idea that Roma people are not simply different ethnic group but actually outcast people, completely different, still persistent. It's still widely accepted, reinforced, and I think that's why it's important to study this issue in detail, to see how this concept of pariah has been transferred from, appropriated, from India to Europe and why Roma people are still perceived as pariah people. There are even some scholars who use this concept even today, and in the beginning of the 20th century it was Max Weber who has popularized this concept in sociology and also in other fields of science, in other scientific fields. Basically, he said that the Jews were pariah people in the medieval times, in medieval times, and gypsies are pariahs still pariahs in modern times. So what happened? Why the Jewish people are no more pariahs but gypsies are still pariahs? What happened? What are the explanations, the historical reasons, what is the logic behind this? This is what I'm interested in and this is some something that is not very popular in Europe, in European academia. Basically, roma are not seen in this light. In Roman studies, in science, discrimination against Roma is basically not seen in this context of caste relations. But if Roma people are still pariah, as Max Weber, pariah people as Max Weber and some other scores claim, then who decides that they are pariah? Who makes them pariah? Who outcasts them? Because if you have outcast people, it means you have caste people, you have caste structures, caste structure, caste ideology that excludes these people and positions them outside the caste system. Then this, actually, my research, is not so much about Roma people, but about Europe as a system which obviously, obviously shares some elements from the Indian caste system, because there is not, for me, at least for me, there is no other explanation.

Orhan Tahir:

How is it possible that immigrants who recently came from Africa and Asia, like second and third generation of immigrants, can be much better integrated in European societies than the Roma people who have been in this continent for centuries? It's not just about ethnicity, it's not just about different ethnic groups or something like this, but this is something much more complex. It's much more complex because the Gypsies, roma people, are still considered as people from different, completely different dimension. It's something going beyond skin color, beyond ethnic identity, beyond anything like this, because even today, you have Roma people who are white, blue, with blue eyes, blonde hair, and they experience absolutely the same levels of discrimination as the dark skinned Roma people. At the moment that the people around them realize that they are gypsies, at the moment that their true identity comes up, becomes clear, they experience absolutely the same levels of discrimination, which means that it's not simply, it's not so simple, it's not like a color, it's not just racism, and that's why it's different from, let's say, racism against African Americans in the United States. It's much more. It's much more like, maybe, antisemitism. There are more similarities with antisemitism.

Orhan Tahir:

So that's why I'm interested in this issue and my research is about construction of Roma people, the image of Roma as pariah people, outcast people, in Europe and the impact of this concept on modern perceptions about Roma and the functioning of European political social system, because I consider it a system. Despite of the fact that there are different countries, different nations on the old continent, practically everywhere, roma are treated in a very similar way as outcasts, as pariahs, as people who don't belong here, people who, even after so many centuries, are ethnically, racially, socially, in every possible way different from the majority. In the very similar way, just like the outcast people in India, like Dalit people in India, like Dalit people in India. So similarities between India and Europe. How these ideas about caste system, about superior and inferior races, castes, how these ideas were appropriated in Europe in the colonial times and they are still alive in Europe. They are still here, they are still present.

Paulina:

This is what I wanted, to just add this quickly in for the listeners that may not, may not know, but I wanted to share with you. So for people that are also inside the community or people that are, you know, like mixed or assimilated they're not really, I guess, maybe here in here. I know, here in the us it's like that. I'm not exactly sure how it is in europe, but if you don't follow like the rules to kind of be in the community, like you know, I had an arranged marriage and stuff like that and I decided that I wanted to separate from the community, you're also outcasted, even from your own community. So like a little joke that we have is like here at Romanistan we're like the outcasts of the outcasts. So it's funny that you say that. I also did have one little follow-up kind of question for you.

Paulina:

The caste system still exists in the culture, just the way that you're explaining it. I know that in my community my muchwaya side of the family would always say like we're the best of the roma, like we're the most respectable, like that's why, like also that's why we had so many rules to like our head coverings and our long skirts and not showing and serving on everybody. And then my other side of the family, my galdara side was more like kind of like okay, yeah, we're gonna do this, we're gonna do that. Like they didn't really care that much and they were like oh, the Machuaya people think they're the greatest people. They would joke like oh yeah, the greatest people in the world Like is that the caste system within the culture as well?

Orhan Tahir:

According to some scholars, these are remnants of the caste system. Of course, some other scholars disagree with this idea. Some believe that this might be inherited from India, these internal divisions, because practically every community in India, even today, is very much internally divided. They are hierarchies, complex structures, endogamous groups. But it's also related to something else that after the arrival in Europe, the Roma dispersed everywhere and going to different geographical places, different countries, different regions, among other cultures, settling among other cultures, settling among other cultures. This also influenced and it's also contributed to these internal divisions, because people who live in Hungary are, more or less, you know they adapted to Hungarian culture. Others who went to Spain adapted to Spanish culture, more or less, and there are also regional differences. This also can be explained through the stratification, internal stratification, geographical dispersion of Roma. But I know what you mean in fact. But I will tell you something very curious I have.

Orhan Tahir:

I recently I did a DNA test in my heritage and what I found out is that I have relatives among people and some of them are close relatives among people from other groups which are very distant, even groups in Hungary, groups in Spain which are very distant from me, and normally my group don't intermarry to these other groups, especially when there are also these religious divides Christian, muslim but now you know, after taking the DNA test, I see that a couple of generations ago people were intermarrying people. There were marriages between these different groups. It was something going beyond this internal division. So I tend to believe that the internal division of Roma is a recent, I think more recent development. More recent development Because I'm a Muslim, my community, my group, is a Muslim Roma.

Orhan Tahir:

They are Muslim Roma, but I have relatives, I have third cousins, among Lovari people, lovari Roma from Hungary. I have cousins among Ursari, lingurari people who are Romanian speaking. So how was this possible? It was possible because, like 100 years ago, maybe, these divisions were not so, or 200 years ago the divisions were not so significant. And if our grandfathers, your grandfathers and my grandfathers meet, they will find much more similarities among themselves, between themselves, than we find among them, simply because they were not so integrated, probably as we are in the surrounding cultures, because we speak the language much better, we have many more non-Roma friends and we are much more integrated into this non-Roma environment in comparison to our forefathers.

Jezmina:

That leads really well into our next question, speaking of divisions and unity. We both really enjoyed your essay when Are Roma? Analysis of the Ideological Crisis in the Roma Movement we shared in our book and on the podcast before that. We adopted the name Romanistan because we love the idea of Romani people unified all over the world in a kind of like intangible nation, and we don't want to colonize any land, but we do want Roma to be represented like any other nation in the UN and the European Parliament and so on. So can you share your thoughts on what the Roma nation is or could be and why the ideological crisis of whether or not to identify as a unified nation is so contentious among some Roma?

Orhan Tahir:

Yes. On the first question are Roma a nation? I would suggest you to go to any of Central or Eastern European countries and ask the people from the ethnic majorities in these countries are roma a different nation, a different nation from your nation, or are or do roma belong to your nation? And I'm sure that the majority of them? If you ask the bulgarians, hungarians, czech people, polish people, they answer the majority of them they will answer the gypsies are different from us. Gypsies are not like us. Gypsies don't belong to our nation. Gypsies are different nation.

Orhan Tahir:

And when the people around you perceive you as a separate nation, but you insist, you deny this, you reject this and you keep insist on being somehow accepted, integrated, blended, assimilated into this other, this non-Roman nation, then the problem lies with you. You have a problem. It's not a problem of non-Roma. It's a problem of Roma Because after so many centuries, we have been able to preserve our language and identity, our language, culture and identity, unlike many other tribes, ethnic groups, communities that came to Europe but disappeared. There are hundreds of them. So, after so many centuries, after more than eight centuries, if you are still seen as completely different from the others, you have a choice you either feel ashamed and you beg being accepted by the non-Roma society, or you appreciate yourself and you start loving yourself and you embrace and celebrate your culture and your identity. So the ideological crisis we are witnessing is because so many people who are ashamed of their identity are taking leading positions in the organizations or are trying to become speakers of the community, or they are hired, they are endorsed, they are promoted in different structures, but these people don't love themselves. They don't love themselves Because if you love yourself, if you know your community, if you know your culture, you will never say that there is no unified Romani language. You will never pay so much attention to the internal divisions among Roma, because you know that we are all the same people, regardless of the geographical, religious, social and other differences. We are the same people and if you travel, if you visit different Roma communities, you will find out the similarities. You will find out a lot of similarities among them. Of course there are differences, but there, knowing our culture, learning our language, this is the part forward, because everything else is failing. All other ideologies, like other concepts or ideas about what should happen with Roma, are failing practically. You have unsuccessful decade of Roma inclusion in Central and Eastern Europe. You have unsuccessful projects and policies totally failing regarding the Roma community. And it's not because people, it's not so much because people are corrupted or people are bad or people are, you know, don't do their job so well. It's not because this.

Orhan Tahir:

The explanation is very simple. The explanation is very simple when you have two different nationalities, ethnic groups, ethnic communities and you try to merge them and you impose the idea that the one ethnicity should simulate the other, well, and it doesn't work because they don't want to accept you, then you cannot blame anybody. You cannot blame anybody. You cannot blame the majority. You cannot blame the majority, the people from the ethnic majority, because they have their free will and they also have a say. And when they say I don't like you, I don't like gypsies, I don't like to live with gypsies, to work with gypsies, I don't like to live with gypsies, to work with gypsies, to send my children to study with gypsies, what you do, this is the will of the majority and you have a democracy where the majority decides. And if this is the will of the majority, you can either keep blaming them and calling them racist or you can face the reality and be realists and say, ok, you don't like us, maybe we should look for another alternative, for another solution. We cannot impose on you, we cannot force you to love us, to like us, to tolerate us, against your will. It's very simple. It's like in the marriage, you know, in the marriage where the husband and the wife cannot live together and don't love each other and it's difficult for them to. You know what to do. You force them to stay together or you say, okay, you are free to follow your path, to separate, and so on. So these relations, inter-ethnic relations, are very similar to personal relations between people, you know, in a marriage or in a relationship.

Orhan Tahir:

So that's why I think that I don't see any problem with the concept, with the idea that Roma constitute a separate, a different nation. They have always been different, they have always been perceived as something different and I don't see any problem in the failure, the failing integration, inclusion strategies. Simply because you cannot force the people to accept you, they will become even angrier, they will hate you even more. This is what we see in Europe now, because a lot of people, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, are very angry that someone with the idea that they must accept the Roma people. They must live with the Roma people against their will.

Orhan Tahir:

So, instead of improvement of the relations between Roma and non-Roma, the result of this forced integration let's say imposed integration the result of this is the worsening, the deterioration of the relations of the people. It's like in a marriage where you force the people to live together against their will. They hate each other, they cannot look at each other, you know, but you force them and you say no, you will stay in the same house and you will sleep in the same bed, and this is what we have now in Central and Eastern Europe. And I think it's wiser if we become, if we start considering all these issues in a realistic way, in a constructive way, in a positive way, and we should start looking for other solutions. I don't want to blame anybody from the majority, but I also don't want to blame the minority, the remote people, for not being able to fully integrate and fully adapt to the culture that is not their own culture.

Paulina:

I think we see the normal consequences and the logical consequences of a failed ideology, failed policy, which was based on the idea that you must impose on people something against their will I guess I never really looked at it from that point of view, but, like, if we want something changed from the inside, we need to be solution focused and like, just focus on that specific issue. It's really interesting. Um, we're particular interested in giving equal attention to struggles roma face from within the community and from the outside. Would you like to share your observations on these two types of obstacles through the lens of your experience as a journalist, human rights lawyer, political science researcher and a member of the community?

Orhan Tahir:

Yes, of course. First of all, I think that the biggest problems, the biggest issues, are inside our own community. We need to solve our internal problems first, and I'm of the opinion that we have lost too much time on trying to convince the outsider, the people outside our community, that we are normal human beings. We have two legs, two hands, two eyes and so on. You know, to prove that we are normal, we are not aliens and so on, and this was a lost time and instead of this, I think we should focus more on our own internal divisions and internal problems and internal challenges, because in time, in time of crisis, this is what people do. You know, in time of crisis, families come together and sit on the table and try to solve the issues and try to look to find the solutions. You know when there is a trouble. So if we consider the Roma community as one big family, then I think it's logical, it's normal, to focus on these internal, to focus on these internal issues. We have ideological crisis.

Orhan Tahir:

We go through an identity crisis right now because a lot of young people who go through the mainstream educational system leave the system at the end with huge identity crisis At the end when they leave the school, leave the university, they have huge identity crisis. It's very difficult for them because very often they are isolated, they find themselves alienated from their own community. They find themselves unable to fit into the non-Roma community, the non-Roma mainstream. They very often face hardships like it's very difficult for them even to find a spouse, to get married, to make families, to create families, because it's very difficult, especially if they are Roma girls, because of the belief that after a certain age they are old and they are not so attractive, and so on. But we have these internal problems. I think there is now an army I would say an army of well-educated Roma people who experience huge psychological identity crisis and they don't know what to do and they feel very, very lonely, very misunderstood, and they feel very, very lonely, very misunderstood, and this is something that should be addressed, should be discussed among ourselves. We need to see how to help these young people to overcome this identity crisis. Very often it's also related to inability to find job, to find stable job. Many these are my observations many of the well-educated Roma people cannot find job despite their education, despite their degrees, because they are not so competitive or because of the discrimination, and they feel very unhappy, they feel very frustrated.

Orhan Tahir:

I have observed many cases like this, like, for example, a son asking his father okay, you studied so much, and how much you earn, why you don't work, why you don't work according to your education, but you work something else. And when the father says to his son son, you must study, you must go to university. And son ask him okay, must study, you must go to university, and so on, ask him okay, and what you have achieved, what you have done? Okay, you have the university degree, what you have done, how much money you earn monthly. These are very serious questions because practically, we have now a problem in producing intelligentsia, producing Roman elite, and we have only a very teeny group of Roma who are still able to somehow to thrive in the NGO sector.

Orhan Tahir:

But the NGO sector is more or less an artificial system because it depends on the funding of the donors and we now see shrinking of the NGOs. We now see that more and more of them experience difficulties in securing funding and finding money. And now you see this also in the United States after Trump took the power. And we have this also in Europe, in the European Union, because now the priorities are changing and the European Commission will redirect money from social funds, educational funds, funds for minorities, will redirect money to military industry, army and so on, because of the fear you know the problems with Russia, the war in Ukraine and so on because of the political developments. And I think this tiny, tiny layer, tiny group of Roma in the NGO sectors who have been able to find some job there and to secure some salaries, I think they are also now threatened. They are now insecure, they are now under pressure.

Orhan Tahir:

I'm not very optimistic about the future of the civil society sector here in Europe because of the political developments on the old continent, but what I think is that the Roma community should turn towards its internal sources, internal forces, internal. It should look for inspiration inside, because this is very important. Roman people have survived in Europe for centuries without social benefits, without scholarships, without projects, without secured salaries and secured jobs, and this was the strength of the community. So they were able, through the internal solidarity, to help each other to survive and they were very strong internal bonds, internal ties in the community, and if we want to survive to meet these new challenges of the changing world, we should do the same. In my opinion. We should turn to our internal powers, forces, sources, abilities as a community. We should reinvent, rediscover the strength of the Roma community.

Orhan Tahir:

The power, because for too long we have been repeating this mantra how weak, how poor, how incompetent, how unable to organize themselves Roma are. We have been constantly reinforcing this negative, negative sides, this negativism, because if you keep talking all the time at all conferences, all seminars, about negative things, you will get at the end, negative things and you will not win the sympathies of anyone and nobody will pay attention to you, because they say you are doomed. After so many years you still repeat the same things. You say we are discriminated, we are hated, we are persecuted, we are poor, we are uneducated. Okay, but this is not a winning strategy, this is not a successful strategy. It's loser strategy to keep repeating this and to ignore your strengths, to ignore your positive sides, your positive achievements, your internal power and strength as a community.

Orhan Tahir:

And this is what we should do now to turn the tide, to reverse this process of self-denial, self-hatred, self-blaming, self-marginalization, self-isolation, all of this, to return this thing, to reverse this thing and to show, to become more confident that, yes, we can do this by ourselves. We are strong enough. We can survive, we can do this. You know, this is like a psychological, like psychotherapy. This is what I think Roma people need now to start believing themselves, to start trusting themselves and to realize that nobody will help you. That's why, by the way, so many people are turning to the religion. They say nobody is helping me, maybe God will help me. I would go and ask God to help me now. But it's also part of this therapy, this process, psychological process of rediscovering your internal powers, because you know you believe in God and you know, if you follow certain rules, if you go to church, if you pray, if you are good Christian or if, in the case of Muslims, good Muslim, maybe you can become again a master of your faith again. You can, you know you can find the solution of your problems and this is, I think, very important and that's why I generally understand why people are becoming more religious in these times. Of course, this also happens. It's it's shortcomings, its negative sides, but in general, I see this as a positive development, because this is what all people need.

Orhan Tahir:

Faith, it can have quite different forms, you know. It can be faith in God, it can be faith in your own identity, in your own nation, but this is also a general process. I think, among the majority people, among the mainstream people, who feel in extremely vulnerable position, frustrated, disappointed, disadvantaged, even in the non-Roma majorities, they very often look for, you know, they need something to believe in, they need faith, they need spiritual, spiritual revival, spiritual growth, somehow. And different people find different ways. Of course, some people go to, you know, some people make different people make different choices. You know some people go to the far right, some people go to the far left, some people go to the church, but this is a general process, in fact. And spirituality I'm ending with this because I know you're also interested in spirituality, as far as I can follow your podcast spirituality is something that we have lost recently and this is something that we need.

Orhan Tahir:

This was part of our identity and that's why people Romani people, gypsy people were so much respected in the past. Because people were afraid of them, because of their spiritual powers, their supernatural powers, but it's a matter of belief, it's a matter of faith natural powers, but it's a matter of belief, it's a matter of faith. So that's why I think we can overcome this crisis, this ideological crisis, through rediscovering, let's say, our own spirituality, our own spiritual internal powers we have. It's nothing to do with money, nothing to do with material things. It's about spiritual things and I think the Roma community is extremely rich spiritually and young Roma people could be able to understand, to reach this spiritual wealth of their own community, to rediscover, to find it, to understand how rich the Roman people are. In fact, in these times of crisis, roman people are not poor. That's my opinion. Thank you.

Jezmina:

We really love talking about all of the Romani strengths that we have, like our cultural strengths, our practices, and when Paulina and I were thinking about writing you know, secrets of Romani Fortune Telling, we were thinking this is something that people already love and it's a way to fall in love with the Romani culture and learn more. And then you know Roma who want to learn more about. Maybe they didn't grow up with certain traditions and they wish they did, and so we just love this idea of how important it is to focus on our strengths. If you could give our culture, our community, our people, like a little pep talk or rundown of, like some of our strengths some of them came up already. You know our spirituality, our unity, but what would you say our greatest strengths are?

Orhan Tahir:

Well, this is something that I'm telling the students. Sometimes I also lecture, you know I also have sometimes, when they invite me for some presentations, some lectures. I say this to the young people there is something unique about Roma that for so many centuries, so many people were able to survive without having country, without having army, without having holy books, without having priest class, without having anything of this that helped others to survive in diaspora. So persecuted, hated, very often feared, isolated, marginalized Roma didn't disappear. And why they didn't disappear? Because they had very strong identity. They had very strong, you know, very high in fact, self-esteem. And that's very important, because imagine where you are when you are in this situation if you don't have strong identity and self-esteem, you will disappear. You will be either exterminated they will exterminate you, assimilate you, you know but this didn't happen. These Roma people were able to preserve their unique character, unique character, national, cultural character despite of all of this, and nobody else, nobody else, were able to do this. I will give you just a few examples. And you know, let's say let's start with the Roma slavery. So it will be also interesting for your American audience.

Orhan Tahir:

I think that the first historical records about Roma slavery in the Romanian lands, wallachia and Moldavia are from the 14th century. The first records about African slaves in what is today United States it was British colony at that time. The first records about arriving slaves on the ships is from 16th century, pardon, 17th century. So you see the Roman slavery. Why I'm saying this to you. The Roman slavery lasted much longer, from 14 to the middle of 19th century. It lasted much longer than the black slavery in America, african-americans of the African-Americans but this is something that people don't study in schools and, unlike the African-Americans Roma people, the Roma slaves were able to preserve most of them were able to preserve their language, their identity, their culture. You know something that Black people, african Americans, were not able to do. You know there is no African American language today in the United States.

Jezmina:

Hi friends, just popping in to clarify what Orhan was saying about language.

Jezmina:

So, because people who were enslaved from Africa came from a lot of different countries and places and spoke different languages and dialects, the linguistic landscape of slavery is a little complicated and the way that language has been preserved has mostly been through Creole languages and dialects.

Jezmina:

So, for instance, gullah, geechee, haitian Creole, louisiana Creole, and if you want to learn more about the ways that the languages of the enslaved people have become these Creole languages languages, you can check out a couple of websites that we liked. Npsgov has an african american heritage and ethnography page, and it's through the national park service actually, so there's a really interesting page on that. And then there's also a website, wordscrcom, and the article is what languages did slaves speak? Or maybe enslaved people would be a better way to say that. So if you want to learn more about this, uh, feel free to do a little research, but we just wanted to shout out that there has been language preservation, but because roma all spoke, you know the same language. It was a lot easier for us to preserve our language through slavery in this more concrete language, so fascinating episode.

Orhan Tahir:

Let's get back to it. And unlike the Jewish people I will make another comparison that might be interesting for the audience Unlike the Jewish people who had their polybooks, their synagogues, their priestly class, you know of rabbis, rabbis, and which helped them to survive, the Romans didn't have anything like this. We didn't have, you know, anything like this. And something very important, very interesting, is that practically Romani language was preserved only orally. It was not preserved in a written form, it was not written language. Well, the Jewish, practically the old Jewish language, was preserved in the holy books. It was written, but it was not oral language, it was not spoken language. So the spoken languages of the Jewish people were Yiddish. The main branches were Yiddish and Ladino, but Yiddish and Ladino are languages with less than 50% of original Jewish words. Yiddish is considered a form of a German language because it's mainly mostly German inside. Ladino is mostly Spanish. So in their oral languages, their oral languages, they were heavily influenced by non-Jewish languages, while in the case of Roma, you have over 50 percent of original Indo-Aryan Romani lexics. You know lexic words like basis, grammatical, lexical basis. Of course there are borrowings from other languages, but it's something unique that people don't, students don't learn in schools. They don't learn in universities.

Orhan Tahir:

So it's very important for, also for young Romani to know this that Romani language, romani culture and Romani identity were preserved by our ancestors in much difficult and challenging conditions. We didn't have all these things that the other had. You know all these things that the other had. Despite of this, our ancestors were able to, you know, to preserve this identity. And if this identity were so vital, so strong, so rich, why should we give up from it? Why should we give up from it? Why should not we preserve it? Why should not we develop it? It's very simple.

Orhan Tahir:

The problem is that a lot of, even among the Roma people, most of them don't know their culture, they don't know their history, their own history. So how can they be proud if they don't know all of these facts about their own identity? So, learning education in my opinion, the education is crucial, but Roma children and Roma youths should be educated not only in the history, culture of the majorities, but also in their own identity, in the history of their own history, in their own culture. Very, very important in my opinion. This is something that we need to think about and to work in this direction, as far as I can do anything. As far as I can, I'm trying to do something in this direction, but of course it requires a wider consensus, a wider mobilization around this cause, around this idea.

Paulina:

I actually think that leads us into our next question. Really nicely. We love the podcast Romotopia and we're going to steal a little question from them. What is your vision of Romatopia, our best possible existence and what does the road there look like?

Orhan Tahir:

I think that the answer to this question requires a wider debate among Roma people, because I think there should be a competition of visions about the future of Roma. There should be a wider discussion, and this is something necessary. This is something important especially now when, practically, we are witnessing the end of the old system, the global political system, economic system and so on. New players appear on the political scene. I think now is a crucial time for robot people also to analyze their own past. By the way, this year we mark 80 years since the end of the Second World War now in 2025, and eight years since the end of the war, and it's a very good occasion also for Roma people to make some kind of evaluation of what has happened. You know, what happened over these eight years, next eight years, because it's time, I think, for all people to start thinking in a longer perspective. You know, um, although this is not very typical for us, but we should learn how to, you know, think, and I will make a here an interesting connection. It's, it's, it's very, you know, I was.

Orhan Tahir:

I have always wondered about this. How was possible that r people? You know, in the past they were predicting the future of the others. You know, our ancestors were predicting the future right Through different methods, different ways. So maybe now it's time for us to predict our own future. Why not, you know, to try to foresee what awaits us in the next 10, 20, 30, 50, 80 years. And it's not something impossible, it's not something so difficult, because we already have a lot of information, we have modern technologies, we have all of these social networks and so on. So why not using them to predict our own future, them to predict our own future? So it's very difficult for me to give some kind of a clear vision, clear formula about the future of normal people, but I think okay, I hope that we are able to learn from the lessons, to learn some lessons from the past and to, let's say, to try to not repeat some mistakes from the past. Because I like this analogy Sometimes I'm using it also in my lectures that we Roma are like students who miss the history class, who always is not there in the most important lesson for the most important lesson, so like a dropout from the history class, and that's why we repeat again.

Orhan Tahir:

We repeat the same class. We cannot go to the next level. I hope that this could change, and now we have enough many educated people, well-educated people among Roma, we have historians, we have politicians, we have scholars and all kinds of people, and I hope that somehow our collective mind, our collective intelligence, will help us to create a better future for our children. Because this is, I think this is what I'm concerned about. As a father of two daughters, two wonderful daughters, I'm concerned about the future of my children. You know, when I see what's going on around me and that's why I think it's very important to think, you know, to try at least to try to secure a better future for the next generations.

Orhan Tahir:

You know this is our duty my opinion as people, as human beings, that's so beautiful.

Jezmina:

I love the idea of us predicting our own future, and we're such huge fans of Jules Le Pen and everything that they're doing with Roma Futurism, which feels like such an important artistic movement for us to really see ourselves in the future. So thank you for that. We are shifting gears to one of our staple questions, which is who is your Romani crush, which really just means who's a Romani person you admire and you would like to spotlight or shout out right now.

Orhan Tahir:

Oh, there is one very interesting person from Spain. His name is Helios Gómez. He was an anarchist, participant in the Spanish Civil War, but he was in the prison. He was a painter, he was a writer and then he survived. He survived the war and he wrote, by the way, at the end of his life, some very interesting texts about people which are not widely known. Um, but, uh, I, I like his. You know his personality. I'm not an anarchist, I don't share this views. You know ideology, political ideology, but uh, maybe, because, um, I'm, I'm, I'm drawing, you know drawing, since a this is my hobby, actually, I like drawing, painting, and also I find his personality very, you know, I think his life was very interesting, very dramatical, and he really liked his people, even in the prison.

Orhan Tahir:

He painted a very famous Actually, he painted the walls of his. What was it called? He painted inside the walls of his cell, prison cell with Roma people, and it's very famous. It's still preserved in Spain. You can see it, you can read about it. I forgot the name of that. It's something like a chapel, something called Gypsy Chapel or something like this. It's preserved and even in the. You know, even moments, you know, in his life. When he was in the prison, he, you know he was thinking about his people. He was painting you know this on the walls the life of his people. Actually, he preserved Roma people suffering like Jesus Christ, this idea, he made this association with the suffering of Jesus, of Mary and the child, all of this very powerful analogy, which is also important and that's why maybe I find him, you know, I find him extremely powerful image, powerful personality, and maybe more people should know about him and learn from him.

Paulina:

So how can people find and support your work and what do you have coming up on the horizon? Can people find and support your work and what do you?

Orhan Tahir:

have coming up on the horizon. Well, I'm busy right now with my PhD research and I'm very actually I would like to contact more people to maybe to create some kind of academic network of people from the academia, researchers who are interested in the topics of HOMA, paria, cast system, the intellectual and cultural exchange between India and Europe, and I'm very interested in communicating and exchanging ideas with other people working in the same field, and this could be people from the academia also, people from the field of art. You know culture. I would be happy if I'm able to. You know culture. I would be happy if I'm able to, you know, to reach more people with similar interests, similar research and intellectual interests in the future and also to discuss, of course, this is as a researcher. You know my capacity as a researcher, but in my capacity as a Romani person, I'm also interested in discussing with other people, other Romani people, different possible visions for the future, for our future in Europe, and not only in Europe but globally, because, after all, all Roma community is a global community and I think we should not be focused so much on Europe, because there are billions of Roma outside Europe, in the United States, canada, brazil, argentina, even in Africa, australia and many other places around the world. So we should start thinking of ourselves as a truly global community. Like we have cousins everywhere and it's time to you know, to discover our relatives, our cousins, to get in touch with them and to start, you know, a more active communication.

Orhan Tahir:

This, this is what I think, this is what I see as important to improve the communication between Roma from different countries and continents, and also to look, of course, to create alliances, to create partnerships, to find new allies among non-Roma people, because there are a lot of non-Roma people who are also, you know, somehow see themselves in Roma. Maybe they have something, some gypsy blood, I don't know, but I also face, I also see, I also see many normal people who are quite interested in in roman issue and are willing to help, willing to give a hand and, why not? Creating a broader, broader coalition for their partnership. You know, more partnerships and connections with people around are, you know, based on the spiritual, spiritual connection, spiritual power, because I really believe that the alliances should be built around the spiritual bonds that connect us, not so much on, you know, on the usual, not so much on the usual concepts and ideas, but spirituality, the spiritual advantages, cultural advantages of Roma. This is something I think this is our most important apto. It's not financial, it's not material, it's spiritual.

Jezmina:

That's beautiful. Thank you so much for coming on and speaking with us. What's the best way for people to get in touch with you? Do you prefer social media? Do you want people to email you?

Orhan Tahir:

My Facebook profile has been deactivated by Facebook administration for I don't know. They didn't like my posts, oh sure they've got lots of issues. Yes, but I'm available. I'm available at LinkedIn email, my email, and I think it's not so difficult to contact me. To find me on social networks.

Jezmina:

We'll put your LinkedIn in our show notes. Yeah, thank you. This was such a pleasure to speak with you and, yeah, what a joy to hear your thoughts. We really appreciate your time.

Paulina:

Yeah, thank you for your contribution to educating people inside and outside. I always feel like I just got super educated just now too. It's a lot and I feel like it's so needed, so we appreciate all of your work.

Orhan Tahir:

Thank you very much. I remain an optimist despite of everything. I'm an optimist about the future of our people. I also thank you for inviting me and giving me this opportunity to talk, to reach your audience.

Jezmina:

Oh, of course, we will join you in your optimism and do some fun things in the future.

Paulina:

I'll try to be optimistic.

Jezmina:

You are in your own way. Thank you. Thank you, thank you everyone, bye. Okay, bye.

Paulina:

Thank you for listening to Romanistan Podcast.

Jezmina:

You can find us on Instagram, TikTok and Facebook at Romanistan Podcast and on Twitter at RomanistanPod, To support us, join our Patreon for extra content or just donate to our Ko-Fi fundraiser, ko-ficom backslash romanistan, and please rate, review and subscribe. It helps people find our show.

Paulina:

it helps us so much you can follow jez on instagram at jasminavantila and paulina at romani holistic. You can get our book Secrets of Romani Fortune Telling online or wherever books are sold. Visit romanistanpodcastcom for events, educational resources and more.

Jezmina:

Email us at romanistanpodcast at gmailcom for inquiries hosted by Jasmina Von Tila and Paulina Stevens, conceived of by Paulina Stevens, edited by Victor Pachas, with music by Victor. Pachas and artwork by Elijah Barado.