Bringing
Romani issues into the Australian
classrooms
By
Adam Bruin
Furthering the commitment to developing an
awareness of an issue within the classroom, is challenging some of the deep
seated ideologies held by both the community and curriculum development writers
in Australia. From a global Human Rights perspective, attention is usually
drawn to human rights abuses that occur in developing countries, or indeed any
nation outside of the West. Human rights abuses within both Eastern and Western
Europe are largely ignored. Specifically referring to the situation faced by
the Roma diaspora in Europe, there is an obligation to include Romani perspectives
in history. Currently, the curriculum content in Australia does not
specifically address the non-Jewish victims of the Holocaust. Whilst
homosexuals and those with disabilities were also experimented on and murdered
in the death camps, the Porajmos, or Roma Holocaust has been largely ignored by
both historians and the international community.
Whilst from a social justice point of view
it is necessary to acknowledge the Roma Holocaust, it may be difficult to
convey how the inclusion of other content relating to Romani people will enrich
the Australian curriculum. In October 2013 the story of Maria, dubbed the blue
eyed blonde angel by international media, became the focus of a global
investigation and inflammatory media coverage that drew attention to the ingrained
prejudices of the non-Roma community towards this ethnic minority. Victim to
the false perception that Gypsies steal children, the adopted parents (who were
eventually proven innocent) were accused of abducting the young girl based on
the fact that she had fair skin and they could not produce official documents
relating to her adoption. Subsequently, there was an international response
which saw neighbours informing local authorities of fair skinned Roma children
living with dark skinned parents, which resulted in more children being removed
from their families for DNA testing. This blatant disregard for human rights
was eventually queried by Australian media after they were contacted by the
Romano Sinti Community Association of Queensland. In order to address the
broader education of the community with regards to Roma history and the
stereotype of child stealing, President of the Romano Sinti Community
Association Yvonne Slee, engaged in both radio interviews and providing
information to journalists for online newspapers. This resulted in a number of
very positive articles that helped to shed light on both the reality of the
Roma situation, and the false ideology that Gypsies steal children.
In order to link this theme back to an
Australian context, obvious parallels can be drawn between the Anti-Roma laws
of Europe and the assimilationist policies of the Australian government towards
Indigenous Australians. The cultural fable of Gypsies stealing children is
based on the perceptions of the European community when Roma families liberated
their own children from state or foster care and went into hiding. Given the
moral superiority Europe seems to assume within the global community, the fact
that children are still being removed from their families based on race and
ethnicity is a controversial issue worthy of investigation. In the broader
context of education in the global community, it is worth critiquing the
attitudes of the developed world with regards to the human rights of ethnic
minorities. Given the lack of understanding of the history and culture of the
international Roma community, this topic deserves particular attention in the
international community.
You can find this article on http://www.sintiromanicommunity.org/and
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