Talk: The Great Battle or General Gypsy Prise
Talk: The Great Battle or General Gypsy Prise
On Tuesday, July 16th we had the conference The great shake, or general gypsywith Ricard Valentí of the Rromanipe’s Association and President of the National Platform for the Roma Rights; and Paqui Perona, a social mediator at the Foundation. Both are part of the gypsy community of Barcelona, and are recognized activists. Valentí, originally from the Gràcia district, and La Paqui de la Mina, provide two looks that complement each other to draw the historical, social and cultural landscape of the gypsy town in the peninsular territory.
First of all, we learned from Ricard the historical framework where the events of the great shake occur: as before that the Roma population was living in the towns and cities, carrying out tasks and trades, being part of the community. And how, because many were no longer nomads, they were easily captured and engulfed, with the aim of their systematic extermination. Later, Paqui provided a more current look, pointing to the consequences that are still present, giving the point of view of the feminist gypsy woman and her insubmissive character. Both speakers broken down the various forms that the gypsy has taken and adopted to our culture and social life: from artistic reappropiation to direct discrimination or symbolic violence within everyday language, where the word gypsy, according to the RAE, is synonymous with a thief. We also made retrospective of the Gypsy community of Gràcia and the mine; its differences mainly caused by the ghetto of the second and the loss of opportunities and rights that derive from this.
At the end, his impressions and experiences were discussed with the audience around the topics covered in the talk.
