Romanian Actress Battles Racism in Italy
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Peter Popham, Independent (London), October 10, 2008
As Italy struggles to contain a rising tide of xenophobia and racism, the largest and most despised minority in the country has acquired a glamorous standard-bearer. Like 1.2 million other residents of Italy, Ramona Badescu is an immigrant from Romania. The willowy actress and singer from Bucharest moved to Italy after the fall of the communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu in 1989 and is the closest thing Italy possesses to a Romanian household name.
Now Rome’s mayor, Gianni Alemanno, has made her his counsellor for the Romanian community’s integration. “I hope to become a bridge between the Romanians and the mayor,” she said. “Romanians here have many problems connected to work: more Romanians die at work sites than any other nationality.” Her first policy idea is to set up a free phone service in both languages to help Romanian migrants find information, residence permits and other practical information.
But some Italians have greeted the appointment with derision. “What does this bird know about what the Romanians in Italy get up to?” was one web comment. “She’s one of the privileged, she knows nothing about reality. . . . “
“It’s scandalous to give this job to a ‘lady’ who has no qualifications for the job. . . . ” wrote another .”Another nobody who has failed in showbiz and throws herself into politics,” sneered a third. “It makes me sick!”
Ms Badescu, who has a degree in commerce and economics, insists she is the right person for the job. “I’m an emigrant and emigration is never a happy act. It’s full of problems: you leave your family behind. You are hoping and dreaming of a better life, but when you arrive it’s very different from what you imagined.”
Italy’s attitude to immigrants was turned upside down last year after an admiral’s wife was murdered. A Romanian gypsy was quickly blamed and, amid a media witch-hunt, politicians demanded the mass expulsion without trial of undesirable foreigners. Romanians were the scapegoat of choice: Walter Veltroni, Mr Alemanno’s left-wing predecessor, said Italy had become “unlivable” since January 2007, when Romania entered the European Union.
With a growing number of crimes blamed on Romanians, Italians began to fear and suspect these hidden strangers in their midst. Clinching the prejudice was the belief that romeni (Romanians) and rom (Roma, gypsies) were one and the same. It has become an urban legend that all Roma are Romanians and vice-versa.
“The Romanians and the Roma are two completely different peoples,” Ms Badescu points out. “The crime reports have created this prejudice against an entire people. Now there are Romanians in Italy who are scared to speak their own language.”
  Ramona Badescu. Just another failed actress in politics? |
(Posted on October 10, 2008)
Comments
I thought the whole idea when you leave one country and go to live in another is to LEARN THE NEW COUNTRY’S LANGUAGE in order to assimilate. And yes, she is just another failed actress whom has ventured into politics. My guess is that her “personal assets” helped land the job for her.
Posted by at 6:58 PM on October 10
Just about all the sterotypes about Gypsies are true. When I was a Probation Officer we had lots of gypsy criminals. The worst thing is that they always brought their children along to rob and steal. Quite young children too, as young as 4. Some of them were getting welfare in 7 different counties as well as robbing and running con jobs.
In the 17th and 18th centuries Gypsies were accused of kidnapping British children to sell them to ship’s captains for sale to the slave plantations in the American colonies. Stupid liberal defenders of Gypsies claim this is an evil canard.
But it is true. One of the children kidnapped was Adam Smith, a Scotsh 5 year old who grew up and wrote a rather well known book, “The Wealth of Nations.” His parents hired a bounty hunter private detective who rescued the child after about 3 weeks of searching.
Just the fact that people were able to make a living rescuing children kidnapped by Gypsies for sale to the plantations tells you how widespread the practice was.
Maybe if the liberals take up the Gypsy cause they will forget about their Islamification of Europe plans for a while.
Posted by at 7:23 PM on October 10
“The Romanians and the Roma are two completely different peoples,” Ms Badescu points out. “The crime reports have created this prejudice against an entire people.
Sounds like America. The Italian liberals call Gypsy criminals Romanians. American liberals call black thugs “at risk youth.”
Posted by at 8:20 PM on October 10
Last time I checked, Romanians are white, albeit a mixed kind. The actress in that photo looks white to me. She looks pretty good actually. I’d love to have her as my neighbor. Whites shouldn’t be fighting other whites. I think this might be one of those situations where poverty can be the cause of failure. Maybe if western nations sent less money to Africa and more of it to places like this, the white world would be better off. I don’t know a whole lot about Gypsies, but I do know that there is a difference between them and other Romanians. Gypsies may have settled in Romania, but there origins are elsewhere. I’ve heard that their roots may be Asian. They are a wandering group that has run into problems wherever they go. They shouldn’t be confused with the local population. Italians would do good to remember that they’re not all fully white; and many of them became a source of crime when they immigrated to America, but today they’re pretty much fully assimilated. I think the racial differences between Italians and Romanians are very insignificant compared with others around the world. Romanians come from a cold inhospitable region that forms part of the border of the White World. Romanians were directly responsible for repelling Arab invasions into Europe centuries ago. They’ve earned their right to be part of the Western World. I would prefer a Romanian neighbor to a black one.
Posted by at 10:15 PM on October 10
The Schengen Agreement has had a lot of negative results, one of them was allowing massive population movements from Eastern Europe, namely the Gypsies who were traditionally centralised there. Now they plague Western Europe, robbing, stealing, and demanding money or else they will curse you or threaten to rob someone else because you didn’t help them out; in Italy the Italians joke that this is “Romani diplomacy”.
In general all of my dealings with Gypsies have been negative. On the other hand I found Romanians in general to be nice people, though a little backwards in some places, I suspect a lot of their prettiest women have gone to nearby countries like the Czech Republic to be models.
Posted by A. Windaus at 10:57 PM on October 10
“The Romanians and the Roma are two completely different peoples,” Ms Badescu points out. “The crime reports have created this prejudice against an entire people.
Too funny. She’s battling racism all right, but against her own people, not the gypsies.
Posted by at 4:44 AM on October 11
“As Italy struggles to contain a rising tide of xenophobia and racism,”
The London writer chooses to imply, in the first sentence, that the Italians are irrational and immoral for not embracing their growing ethnic and racial diversity. I’m amazed there are still British citizens that don’t see how their country is being destroyed by non-white immigration. Instead, news reporters like this one see massive non-white immigration into white nations as a benefit. I can understand an isolated country dweller having these views, but not a news reporter.
Posted by at 8:14 AM on October 11
I lived in Spain for several years, and they have one of the largest gypsy populations in Europe. They are well known for flamenco. They arrived in Spain around the time of Columbus, which means they arrived in eastern Europe around a century earlier. They are very proud of their “race” and strive to maintain a separate identity. Research suggests they came from India, and this is supported by the faCT THAT THEIR language, Romany, is very similar to Sanskrit. If you compare Indian dancing and music to Gypsy, the similarities are also striking. The actress Fairuza Balk is half gypsy.
Posted by Jacob at 9:36 AM on October 11
She is right. It sounds racist to say that Romanians and Roma are two different people but they are. The communists tried everything to make the Gypsies settle down, give up on their primitive customs and occupations, get an education and what not, they mostly failed. A small minority assimilated, the rest remained the same. They “contribute” generously to the crimerate in Romania itself. Mot Romanians are very hard working people who stay out of trouble in Romania itself and abroad.
As for learning the language, there is no other people in the world that can learn Italian faster than Romanians because there are no two languages that are closer to eachother. Romanian is closer to Italian than Latin is to Italian. I’m Romanian myself and have never learned Italian but I can read texts and understand most of them.
As for Spanish gypsies, from what I know they are different than other European gypsies, they are very assimilated and have contributed greatly to spanish arts and culture.
As a whole, it seems that the gypsies of western europe have adapted much better than those of the east.
Posted by Silvia at 11:33 AM on October 11
This reminds me how they put all hispanics in one group even though they’re comprised of different races.
Most white Hispanics don’t have to come to the U.S. because they are well off in their countries. The highest percentage of hispanics that do come here are the indian, black, and mixed race ones.
Posted by redrum USA at 1:11 PM on October 11
Jacob at 9:36 AM on October 11 wrote:
“Research suggests they came from India, and this is supported by the faCT THAT THEIR language, Romany, is very similar to Sanskrit.”
Linguistics can be tricky sometimes in determining the racial origins of a people, since entire populations can adopt a language over time with little genetic imprinting of the language’s original speakers.
Most Gypsies in Spain, called Gitanos, speak a dialect of Spanish with large numbers of Romani loanwords. Romani, in turn, has a number of Greek, Kurdish and Persian loanwords which suggests the ancestors of the Gypsies must have spent part of their time in the Anatolian peninsula.
DNA testings, however, show incontrovertibly the South Asian origins of the Gypsies.
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/121406693/abstract?CRETRY=1&SRETRY=0
http://lib.bioinfo.pl/pmid:15322984
During their sojourn in Europe, the Gypsies intermarried heavily with surrounding European populations (unfortunately).
http://www3.interscience.wiley.com/journal/119387752/abstract
Prisons in Spain are lousy with Gypsies! Gypsy women make up only 1.5% of the population overall, but 25% of the female prison population (of course that’s the White man’s fault).
http://www.eumap.org/reports/2002/eu/international/sections/spain/2002_m_spain.pdf
In spite of the significant amount of European DNA that has worked its way into their gene pool, the Gypsies, it seems, have kept some of the traits of their ancestors.
Posted by at 2:57 PM on October 11
I’ve had some experience with Gypsies myself. I used to live by a father-son (son with wife and child) team who operated a stolen car business out of their rental apartment. There are gangs of Gypsies that operate a stolen car ring between New York and Philly. These Gypsies had Caucasian features but were a little darker than Sicilians or Maltese. Actually, the wife was very light and young with piercing green eyes and flawless skin. She was very pretty. I wouldn’t have taken her for a Roma but she obviously was one or sold off to them. Now, I doubt they were married but I’ll use the term to differenciate between the old man and what I concluded to be his sinfully ugly spawn. Creepy, very creepy. I slept with my .45 nearby.
Posted by GetBackJack at 10:07 PM on October 11
This is not true at all that Romanian is closer to Italian than any other language. French is, then Catalan, then Sardo. Romanian is fairly close, but not the closest of all.
Wow, that Romanian lady sure is beautiful, huh? Come over here and advocate for my cause, baby.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 1:23 AM on October 12
“Romanians, kind of mix” - True: Romanians are a mixture of Dinaric and Alpin, with significant contribuition of Nordic,Baltic and Mediterranic Races.Italians are mainly a mixture of Mediterranic,Dinaric(the type of Julius Cesar)and Alpin with significant contribuition of Nordic…But the British are very “Pure”; only a mixture of Nordics, Alpins and Mediterranics…Besides,Gypsies came from India (but are now heavily mixed with Europeans)and Arabs never invade Eastern Europe(this was the Mongols and Turks). And “Italians not fully white”…Please, send your discoveres to the scientific community.Until now, Historians, Arqueologists,Geneticists, etç.. failed to found any significant contribution of non Caucasians in Italians. But they found 1% of “Black” genes in British(slaves that arrive in XVI century)…Much more than anything in Italy!…
Posted by at 7:51 AM on October 12
”As Italy struggles to contain a rising tide of xenophobia and racism…”
The usual suspects are incapable of giving a balanced account even though more and more people are seeing through their brainwashing propaganda. And more of the same…
”Italy’s attitude to immigrants was turned upside down last year after an admiral’s wife was murdered. A Romanian gypsy was quickly blamed and, amid a media witch-hunt, politicians demanded the mass expulsion without trial of undesirable foreigners”. - Illegal immigrant criminals, surely? ”Romanians were the scapegoat of choice: Walter Veltroni, Mr Alemanno’s left-wing predecessor, said Italy had become “unlivable” since January 2007, when Romania entered the European Union”.
Searching the internet to find that a 24-year old illegal immigrant had actually been arrested in a gypsy camp for the murder despite gypsy claims that ‘he’s not one of us’, it was interesting but not surprising to read the search results leader lines. ”Echoes of Mussolini” - ”SS” - Right-wing Fascists” - ”Racism and xenophobia” were typical of the headlines by the Marxist stooge so-called ‘journalists’ of the Western media closing ranks as usual to demonise white Westerners attempting to say enough is enough to the third-world rape of their countries.
Roumania was founded by the Romans as part of their Eastern Empire and its language is regarded as a Latin language akin to Italian with its peoples feeling a bond with Italy itself. The confusion between Romanians and Roma is due to the neo-Marxist EU(SSR) with its anti-discrimination laws now designating people as Roma who were collectively known as Gypsies in the vast majority of, if not all, European nations. These laws are just another Cultural Marxist/politically correct tool to bash European peoples with as they accuse them of the whites-only crime of racism.
Perhaps these ‘oppressed people’ should descend en mass to enrich such Socialist paradises as Cuba and North Korea. Or is the fact that such societies are exclusive and they would be rejected totally lost on our mainstream media brainwashers and liberal political elite.
As always genuine nationalist values are demonised and compared to Nazis and Fascists but not a word about is said about the Red Totalitarianism of Marxism that killed 100 million people in USSR and other Europe nations. This is because this Red Totalitarianism has never been brought to account and this same liberal/left media who control all news avenues to the public have the same ideological agenda now known as Cultural Marxism/political correctness.
Posted by at 7:54 AM on October 12
That is an interesting link, R. Lindsay. But it says that only Northern varieties [of Italian] are closer to French.
I found it particularly interesting that —
“Piemontese and Sicilian are distinct enough to be separate languages . Venetian and Lombard are also very different . Neapolitan is reported to be unintelligible to speakers of Standard Italian.”
“Possibly half the population do not use Standard Italian as first language. Only 2.5% of Italy’s population could speak standard Italian when it became a unified country in 1861.”
Posted by at 1:08 PM on October 12
“This is not true at all that Romanian is closer to Italian than any other language. French is, then Catalan, then Sardo. Romanian is fairly close, but not the closest of all.”
Robert, it’s true that French is also close and I know that first hand because I speak French also. I also understand some Spanish because of the Romanian (and maybe the French too). I still feel Italian and Romanian are the closest.
BTW, many years ago when I started learning English I was surprised by it’s similarity to Romanian (via Latin, of course). I always heard that English is a German language but it seems that it has more Latin in it than anything else. That’s how it feels anyway.
Posted by Silvia at 9:35 AM on October 13
BTW, I forgot to mention that years ago, every time I would visit Italy people would always look curiously when they heard me speak Romanian and many would approach and ask “what kind of Italian dialect is it? It sounds so familiar”.
Happened more times than I could count.:)
Posted by Silvia at 9:41 AM on October 13
“Neapolitan is reported to be unintelligible to speakers of Standard Italian.”
I don’t speak Italian. But when in Italy, I just speak Spanish. No problem! They understand me. And I understand them. (They assume I’m a Spaniard, which I find amusing.) Well, In Naples, that didn’t work. I just got blank looks. I remember a Neapolitan I met in Sorrento who told me (in English) that he couldn’t even understand other Italians.
Posted by ghw at 10:31 AM on October 13
“every time I would visit Italy people would look curiously when they heard me speak Romanian, and many would approach and ask “what kind of Italian dialect is it?”
……………………
My French professor once asked me if my family had come from Romania.
I said, no.
Well, he said, I spoke French with a Romanian accent!
Odd. I can only guess it’s because I had already studied Latin.
Posted by ghw at 3:44 PM on October 13
1:08 PM on October 12 wrote:
“Possibly half the population do not use Standard Italian as first language. Only 2.5% of Italy’s population could speak standard Italian when it became a unified country in 1861.”
I’ve read that was a major problem for the Italian Army during both world wars; something the multiculturalists should think about (if in fact, they could think).
I remember taking an Italian language course in college. In one class, the professor (who was from Sicily), asked one of the students (who was from mainland Italy) to read the lesson for the day. Here’s how that (humorously) went:
Professor: “Stop! What are you reading?”
Student: “The lesson.”
Professor: “No, I mean: what language are you speaking”?
Student: “Italian.”
Professor: “THAT’S Italian”?!? Where in Italy are you from”?
Student: “Bari.”
Professor: “Oh, you’re Barese! Well, I have a news flash for you: here we do not speak Barese. Here we speak Firenze.”
Posted by at 4:10 PM on October 13
Neapolitan is definitely a completely separate language. It’s probably split even more than that. Lucano - Northern Calabrese looks like a separate language. I also think that Barese is separate.
This is a great map showing all of the languages and dialects spoken in Italy.
Italian and French have 89% lexical similarity. That is very high. I think it’s only 77% for Italian and Romanian - not nearly as high, but still close.
The northern languages are Gallo-Italian and yes they are *even more* close to French and even Spanish and Portuguese than Standard Italian. They are a lot closer to Spanish and Portuguese than Italian is.
Northern languages are:
West Lombard
East Lombard
Piedmontese
Ligurian
Venetian
These are separate languages:
Sicilian
Neapolitan
4 kinds of Sardinian (all different languages)
I think Barese, Northern Calabrese and Tarantino are separate too.
English has about 25% lexical similarity with French. When the Normans conquered England, tons of French words went into English and a lot of Latin too. That’s what all the Latinate stuff you are hearing in English is. English is Germanic - that French is all just borrowings.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 6:17 PM on October 13
People on this site are becoming confused. Italy is a sovereign white country. The Italian people have a right to kick the foreigners out including other white tribes but especially the darker tribes. I saw East Asians and Africans on TV the other day protesting the Italian peoples’ desire to kick their foreign butts out. I applauded and can’t wait until it happens in America. I’ll be deporting them myself and feeling as though I am doing the Lord’s work in doing so.
Posted by Elrey Jones at 10:26 PM on October 13
Romanians beginning a new life in italia should be responsible for throwing all their cultural practicesaside and assimilating completely and indefinately in and for their new found country.
White Italians, even those from Austria, Germany, Switzerland, etc who maintain partial cultural practices in the North are becoming more and more perceptive of the importance of white genetics both historically, culturally, and technologicaly.
Eventually, one day I see northern italians pushing southward to drive the lower achievers otuward to bring Italia toward the final stages of replenishment and by that time relinquishing their former cultural heritages all togeather.
furtherfmore, as difficult as it may seem, both Romanians and Italians must come to grips with the realization that nonwhite races captured within white nations must follow white europeans for their own moral advancement if any type of advancement for Gypsies is to be achieved.
Only demographic seperation in the IT age can accomodate the advancement of Gypsies and other nonwhites.
Posted by PaganiZondaF at 12:17 AM on October 14
Hi Robert,
I think one of the reasons Romanian sounds so much closer to Italian than French is pronunciation! French sounds less “latin-like” than both those languages. The latin is more “visible” in italian and romanian.
If I remember correctly, there’s almost 30% latin in english and almost as much from german. BUT, there’s one thing one has to consider when judging the proximity of languages - out of the most common words, the words that are used most often by people daily and in writing, what are their origins and which are what? Just because many common words with german exist (in the dictionary or obsolete) doesn’t mean they are being used. I think that’s why English feels so latin to me.
I once read that a very learned person knows about 20,000 words (in English) and that on a daily basis, people use only a few thousand.
Posted by Silvia at 2:55 PM on October 14
Does anyone know why French pronunciation is so different compared those of the other Romance languages? Is it perhaps some long-lost Gaulish linguistic influence?
Posted by at 9:52 PM on October 14
I have been to Romania. Not one Romanian I have met has a favorable view of the tigani.
Posted by C.W. at 9:52 AM on October 15
French pronunciation comes from Gallic, yes.
The most commonly used words in English are mostly German I think. The fancier, more educated type words are more Latinate.
There is definitely a lot of Latin/French in English all right.
Posted by Robert Lindsay at 6:04 AM on October 16
Romanians are likely to assimilate well in the longer term as they culturally similar to Italians. It is better for Italy to obtain Romanians than immigrants from further afield.
The actress shown would not stand out in Italy. Italy is lucky if most of its immigrants are Romanian s most immigrants in some countries are far less assimilable.
Posted by at 7:30 AM on October 18