Come along for the journey

Come along for the journey
Aug 15 2008 by Alison Anderson, Perthshire Advertiser Friday

http://www.perthshireadvertiser.co.uk/lifestyle/arts-perthshire/2008/08/15/come-along-for-the-journey-73103-21533591/

TWO Perthshire women at the forefront of celebrating and preserving the culture of travelling people feature in events during this year’s Gypsy Arts Festival in Edinburgh.

Jess Smith from Crieff presents the world premiere of The Hardest Word in the Scottish Storytelling Centre on the Royal Mile on Wednesday, August 27, at 5pm. Tickets for this 30-minute performance are £5.

Written for Jess by UK playwright and Romany Richard O’Neill, ‘The Hardest Word’ is a moving monologue tracing the journey of a Scottish author to fulfill her promise to her dying father: to stop the hatred and prejudice directed towards the travelling people, their own people

To continue with the Traveller celebration, on August 29 at 7.30pm in Scottish Storytelling Centre, Jess and Blairgowrie’s Sheila Stewart MBE will sing a few songs, tell a few tales and lift their glasses to Duncan Williamson in an event entitled ‘Night of Fire’.

The Gypsy Arts Festival is funded by the National Lottery through the Heritage Lottery Fund to raise awareness and celebrate the Culture and Heritage of the local, national and international Roma/Gypsy and Traveller community.

The Festivals would not be possible without the invaluable support and advice of local Gypsy Traveller communities and their families.

Tickets from the website: www.scottishstorytellingcentre.co.uk

AT ROMA HOLOCAUST DAY, A CALL TO STOP NEO-NAZISM

AT ROMA HOLOCAUST DAY, A CALL TO STOP NEO-NAZISM

At a commemoration of the Roma Holocaust on August 2 in Budapest, Hungarian Roma leader Aladar Horvath appealed to the world to help stop the spread of neo-Nazi ideas in Hungary and Europe. He said that even though Hungary is a NATO and European Union member, racist violence threatens the Roma.

“State socialist systems transiting to capitalism have rejected the weakest, the people excluded from the society because of their social and racial backgrounds,” Horvath said. “The new system that emerged has not been able to keep up with its promises.” Instead the expected social inclusion, the poorest have become permanently unemployed and the Roma self-government has become “mock governance.” The most disadvantaged have been forced into slums, and their ghettos criminalize their inhabitants and intensify racial bias, a substratum of neo-Nazi thinking. “Gypsies may be hated even if they do not live in a ghetto, even if they are rich, even if they are assimilated,” Horvath concluded.

Bigotry Monitor: Volume 8, Number 33