{"id":1392,"date":"2014-02-07T01:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-02-07T01:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/%20rroma.org\/07-02-2014-i-met-lucky-people-the-story-of-the-romani-gypsies-by-yaron-matras\/"},"modified":"2022-07-27T07:54:16","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T06:54:16","slug":"07-02-2014-i-met-lucky-people-the-story-of-the-romani-gypsies-by-yaron-matras","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/07-02-2014-i-met-lucky-people-the-story-of-the-romani-gypsies-by-yaron-matras\/","title":{"rendered":"07.02.2014 \u201eI Met Lucky People: The Story of the Romani Gypsies\u201c by Yaron Matras"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" class=\"MsoNormal\">Matras is a linguist and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tadvocates the rights of the Rroma. His new book \u201cI Met Lucky People\u201d, which was \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tpublished on 6th of February. According to the reviewer Katharine Quarmby, the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbook presents a heterogeneous, non-political view on the Rroma, their social \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\torganization, their language, their traditions and identity. A non-political \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tperspective is particularly desirable due to the polemical, un-objective debate \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tabout mass immigration from Romania and Bulgaria. However, the book is not \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tconfined to the presentation of alleged facts, but holds a mirror up in front \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof the readers and shows them how the widespread knowledge about the Rroma tells \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmore about the authors than about Rroma themselves: <em style=\"font-family: Arial;\">\u201cThe book [\u2026] makes a strong argument for his contention, that the way \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twe gadjes, or non-Roma people, talk and write about the Romani people reflects \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmore about us than reflecting their reality. This reflection is not a pretty \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tone.\u201d<\/em> Matras remind the persecution of the Rroma in Europe, and also in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tGreat Britain, where the author is based. The chapter on the language Rromanes \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfalls into the expertise of the author, as he is a linguist. Quarmby qualifies \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tas particularly compelling Martras\u2019 writing about the creation of myths and \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tidentities by the majority society. This topic has already been investigated in \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe German-speaking world by Klaus Michael Bogdal. Towards the end of the book \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\treview, the reviewer outs herself as also charged with prejudice, when she \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tindicates that the immigrant Rroma, British Rroma and Irish Travellers are said \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto only meet in scrap yards. She doesn\u2019t seem to have an awareness of non \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmarginalized, invisible Rroma living in Great Britain. Finally, Quarmby points \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tto the important question of whether it is appropriate that non-Rroma represent \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma people and to what extent this is practice is challenged by Rroma. Matras \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tis optimistic that Rroma activists, academics and writers are increasingly \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tquestioning this status quo (Quarmby 2014).<\/p>\n<ul>\n<li>Quarmby, Katharine (2014) I Met Lucky People by Yaron Matras, review. In: <em style=\"font-family: Arial;\">The Telegraph online<\/em> vom 5.2.2014. <a href=\"http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/books\/bookreviews\/10610029\/I-Met-Lucky-People-by-Yaron-Matras-review.html\" style=\"font-family: Arial;\">http:\/\/www.telegraph.co.uk\/culture\/books\/bookreviews\/10610029\/I-Met-Lucky-People-by-Yaron-Matras-review.html<\/a><\/li>\n<\/ul>\n<p style=\"text-align: justify;\" class=\"MsoNormal\"><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>Matras is a linguist and advocates the rights of the Rroma. His new book \u201cI Met Lucky People\u201d, which was [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_exactmetrics_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"fifu_image_url":"","fifu_image_alt":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[601,14,15,605],"tags":[65],"class_list":["post-1392","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-bulgaria","category-news-eastern-europe","category-news-western-europe","category-romania","tag-travellers"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1392"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":11078,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1392\/revisions\/11078"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1392"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1392"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1392"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}