Simon Griffee
Design consulting, art direction, photography.

Europe’s Apartheid

Published 2008 December 28

Joakim Eskildsen (Marie Claire Italy interview, September 2008.):

bq.. “Also, Nea Zoi near Athens was a big surprise. Just outside Athens, some 3000 Roma live on an old garbage dump, totally in the hands of the authorities who do whatever they like to them. About every two months, their barracks are bulldozed by the municipality who in doing so, acts illegally, but since many Roma do not know their rights, and nobody protects them, this crime towards them can continue - all just next to Athens, the so-called cradle of Western civilization.

Maybe the biggest surprise is non-Roma often believe that the Roma like to live this way, and that it is part of their culture… Nobody wants to live like this, and it is not part of any culture, but the result of 500 years of anti-Roma legislation and separation.

Another surprising community was a rich community in Russia, who had cleaners in their house, and whose children play chess and the piano. If only the Roma are given the same rights and opportunities as everyone, they manage very well.”

See Joakim’s The Roma Journeys, the subject of the above interview, and also Peuple sans frontières from Polka magazine #3, novembre 2008 - janvier 2009.