**Warning. Pictures below are explicit and could be disturbing**
When I first read the headlines to this piece of news, my first reaction of shock lasted for all of 5 seconds. The next 5 minutes was that of sadness...a deep sadness that made me wonder if all humans are capable of such inhumane behaviour.
The place is at a beach in Torregaveta, just north of Naples, Italy. Sunbathers and swimmers were enjoying a summer's day at the beach. 4 young girls who were gypsies (known to locals as Roma), walked the length of the beach to beg and sell trinkets to the tourists and sunbathers.
In many parts of Europe, gypsies are looked down upon as uncultured people who are a nuisance to the public. And you thought that only India had the caste system. In Italy, there is a deep hatred for the Roma as they have been associated with crime and begging. Many of these Roma are not Italian natives, but have come from Eastern Europe, seeking a better life.
Being children, these girls were drawn towards the ocean and started playing in it. However, 2 of the girls found themselves in trouble. These 2 girls went on to drown in the choppy waters. They were related to each other but were not sisters. They were aged 11 and 12. What was to come was worse.
As onlookers rushed in to save them in vain, they laid out their bodies on the beach and covered them with beach towels. And then the activities on the beach went back to normal. People continued sunbathing near the corpses. Others played soccer nearby. Families went on to have their lunches, all within metres from the 2 dead girls.
'It was surreal,' as quoted by one of the witnesses.
Our natural reaction is to condemn those holiday makers. But ponder a little longer, and you realise that it does not take much for us to be guilty of similar acts.
Ever walked in the subway stations in New York City? At some of the bigger stations, beggars line the walkways as they call out to you for alms. After a while, you become so numbed after seeing them day in and day out, that once when a beggar fell to his knees to beg in front of me, I deftly side stepped and continued walking.
Now, I am quite a kind soul. But that incident disturbed me for some time, even after 8 years.
How could I have been so immune to human suffering so quickly?
Hop over to some countries in South East Asia and you see kids begging in the streets. They come knocking at your car window, urging you to hand them some monetary gifts. Some women have resorted to borrowing babies from other mothers, to use them to paint a sadder picture to the passer-by. Locals advise us not to wind down the window to give any money to any of them, lest we end up having a whole street full of beggars barricading the car and the road.
Honestly, if I were one of the beggars, I would do the same! Anything to put food into my stomach.
I do not see myself giving money to all the beggars on the street. It might not be the wisest move. But my point is this --- does it affect you that people are begging, and that there are others more worse off than you?
Of course, the gypsy girls' death is causing an uproar in Italy, especially among the Roman Catholic Church and the politicians.
But then again, are we all fighting for justice or are we just hypocrites?
2 comments:
talk about disturbing....
First of all, the gypsies are known as 'Rom' or 'Zingari' in the local parlance. Roma is a city, otherwise known as Rome.
The deaths of these girls is a tragedy, but it is not the fault of the sunbathers that they drowned. The beach was packed in part because the sea was so rough that nobody was swimming. Indeed quite a few of those sunning themselves on the beach tried to help and brought two girls to safety.
The fact that some people stayed sunbathing is a little disturbing, but says more about the Italian's desire to bask in the rays of 'il sole' than it does about their attitude to the Rom. To be honest, if those drowned were Italian girls, I can imagine the reaction being the same - only that the media wouldn't report it.
We hear plenty about the poverty of minorities such as the Rom, but little about the poverty of native Italians who if they are lucky enough to work, work in precarious jobs paying paltry wages.
The Rom don't want to integrate with the rest of the society around them. Because of this they have little or no formal education and little or no chance of gaining any employment. That leaves them with the options of begging or crime, neither of which endear them to the country they have chosen to live in.
Plenty of newspapers are berating the Italians for their attitude to the Rom, but nobody for a moment questions the right of a people to move into a country, but live apart from its population, taking but rarely if ever giving, contributing nothing to the society but demanding acceptance.
The separateness of the Rom is not a product of racism, but it is more than likely the catalyst for racial tension.
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