Fifth gypsy murder in Hungary

[Jaga]

THOUSANDS of Hungarian gypsies attended the funeral yesterday of the latest victim in a series of murders that have stoked ethnic tensions and prompted fears that far-right extremists are waging a bloody secret war against the country's largest minority.

Jeno Koka, 54, was gunned down last week in the courtyard of his home as he set off to his work in a factory.

Mr Koka's shooting brings the total of murdered gypsies to five in less than a year, and police suspect the killings are related. Matching DNA samples were found at some of the scenes.

"These are professional killers," justice minister Tibor Draskovics said. "Neither the police nor I will rest till we have caught them."

The clinical execution of Mr Koka – a single shot to the heart – implies, police say, that the murderer had firearms training, so inquiries include the armed forces and even the police.

But so far the only leads are that the killer, or killers, may use a black car, and live in Budapest, as the murders have taken place near a motorway.

Gypsy rights groups have accused the authorities of complacency when it comes to protecting gypsies, or Roma as they are known.

The killings have raised tensions between the country's gypsies, who make up 6 per cent of the population, and the Hungarian majority.

Relations between the two groups deteriorated in February after the murder of one of the country's leading handball players, allegedly by a gang of Roma, outside a nightclub.

Far-right groups launched a wave of anti-Roma demonstrations, and rights groups believe attacks on gypsies have risen.
news.scotsman.com/world/Fifth-gypsy-murder-raises-ethnic.5220259.jp

[pieter]

Jaga,

I believe this is not only a problem in Hungary, but a problem in
more Central- and Eastern European countries.

Gypsies are hunted down, discriminated and attacked in the
Czech republic too! And ofcourse Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia.

Pieter

[tuftabis]

Though Wittgenstein's later works were less austere,

... a fact not always noted is that Wittgenstein in fact created two theories on the same problem.

Pieter, sorry I didn't answer earlier, I couldn't connect to this forum before the long weekend we are enjoying in Poland, and then I left to enjoy it.


Sorry about the events on Queen's Day....

[redneck]

Being a non-European and too lazy to Google, Who exactly are these "Gypsys" anyways?

Why do people wish to kill them?

[Pawian]

May 1, 2009 16:08:41 GMT -7 pieter said:

Jaga,

I believe this is not only a problem in Hungary, but a problem in
more Central- and Eastern European countries.

Gypsies are hunted down, discriminated and attacked in the
Czech republic too! And ofcourse Slovakia, Ukraine and Russia.
Pieter

What about Poland? ;D ;D

Fortunately, such killings don`t happen here.

But there are tensions. Gypsies have a very bad reputation. According to social polls, they are at the very bottom of the list of desired neighbours. In fact, living next to them is a very tiring business, I know a lady who has to and she complains a lot.

Gypsies are nomads by tradition but most of them were forced by authorities to live in cities. They don`t accept the rules of this life, hence the co-existence and cohabitation with them is hard because they tend to view other non-gypsy people as aliens suited for sucking and taking advantage off.

The stereotyped opinion is unfavourable for gypsies: they don`t want to work, they don`t send their kids to schools, and when they do, they soon drop out, they live in poverty and make a living by stealing. Also, another stereotype belief which holds strong is that begging is their main occupation, especially after more Romanian gypsies arrive to Poland and take up begging.

[pieter]

May 3, 2009 9:49:03 GMT -7 tuftabis said:

Though Wittgenstein's later works were less austere,

... a fact not always noted is that Wittgenstein in fact created two theories on the same problem.

Pieter, sorry I didn't answer earlier, I couldn't connect to this forum before the long weekend we are enjoying in Poland, and then I left to enjoy it.


Sorry about the events on Queen's Day....

Ludwig Wittgenstein

Ludwig Wittgenstein is one of the most influential philosophers of the twentieth century, and regarded by some as the most important since Immanuel Kant. His early work was influenced by that of Arthur Schopenhauer and, especially, by his teacher Bertrand Russell and by Gottlob Frege, who became something of a friend. This work culminated in the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus, the only philosophy book that Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. It claimed to solve all the major problems of philosophy and was held in especially high esteem by the anti-metaphysical logical positivists. The Tractatus is based on the idea that philosophical problems arise from misunderstandings of the logic of language, and it tries to show what this logic is. Wittgenstein's later work, principally his Philosophical Investigations, shares this concern with logic and language, but takes a different, less technical, approach to philosophical problems. This book helped to inspire so-called ordinary language philosophy. This style of doing philosophy has fallen somewhat out of favor, but Wittgenstein's work on rule-following and private language is still considered important, and his later philosophy is influential in a growing number of fields outside philosophy.

[pieter]

Wittgensteins life seems to have been dominated by an obsession with moral and philosophical perfection, summed up in the subtitle of Ray Monk's excellent biography Wittgenstein: The Duty of Genius.

Wittgenstein studied mechanical engineering in Berlin and in 1908 went to Manchester, England to do research in aeronautics, experimenting with kites. His interest in engineering led to an interest in mathematics which in turn got him thinking about philosophical questions about the foundations of mathematics. He visited the mathematician and philosopher Gottlob Frege (1848-1925), who recommended that he study with Bertrand Russell (1872-1970) in Cambridge. At Cambridge Wittgenstein greatly impressed Russell and G.E. Moore (1873- 1958), and began work on logic.

The result of his thinking on logic was the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus which was eventually published in English in 1922 with Russell's help. This was the only book Wittgenstein published during his lifetime. Having thus, in his opinion, solved all the problems of philosophy, Wittgenstein became an elementary school teacher in rural Austria, where his approach was strict and unpopular, but apparently effective.

By 1949 he had written all the material that was published after his death as Philosophical Investigations, arguably his most important work. He spent the last two years of his life in Vienna, Oxford and Cambridge and kept working until he died of prostate cancer in Cambridge in April 1951. His work from these last years has been published as On Certainty. His last words were, "Tell them I've had a wonderful life."

The point of Wittgensteins Tractatus was ethical. In the preface to the book he says that its value consists in two things: "that thoughts are expressed in it" and "that it shows how little is achieved when these problems are solved." The problems he refers to are the problems of philosophy defined, we may suppose, by the work of Frege and Russell, and perhaps also Schopenhauer. At the end of the book Wittgenstein says "My propositions serve as elucidations in the following way: anyone who understands me eventually recognizes them as nonsensical"

Most of the propositions and questions of philosophers arise from our failure to understand the logic of our language. (They belong to the same class as the question whether the good is more or less identical than the beautiful.) And it is not surprising that the deepest problems are in fact not problems at all.

Ludwig Wittgenstein

[pieter]

Diagnosis and Wittgenstein's theories of language
Kevin Barraclough

This short discussion paper will examine the applicability of Wittgenstein's two theories of language to understanding the nature of diagnoses.
It can be argued that ‘the diagnosis’ is the elemental concept of clinical medicine.1 Without it little analysis is possible, and such analysis as is possible slides around uncertainly among arguments so metaphysical as to be meaningless. Diagnoses are the hooks on which we hang all of medicine.
As a newly qualified doctor I believed not only in the utility of diagnoses but also in their objective reality. The patients on the ward with a prolactinoma, heart failure or clinical depression had those conditions. Their illnesses were as real as their pyjamas. Indeed, as a student of medicine, those patients were defined by their diagnosis.
As I progressed in medicine my view of the nature of ‘the diagnosis’ changed.
The first realisation on the ward round was that the definitive diagnosis was made by the doctor at the apex of the pyramid of authority. The consultant neurologist's diagnosis of ‘ice-pick headache syndrome’ was the gold standard. There was nothing to measure it against. This was diagnosis defined by authoritative opinion.
The next realisation was that the biological variation of disease and people means that diagnostic labels sometimes have limited meaning. What exactly do we mean when we make the diagnosis of ‘heart failure’ in an 84-year-old with multiple comorbidities, each of which affects her biochemistry, organ function, response to treatment and prognosis? 2 The question becomes particularly pertinent when the label carries with it a requirement to be treated according to protocol in order for the practitioner to meet externally set targets.
The last realisation was of the huge and potentially distorting power that comes with legitimising illness. Giving ‘disease status’ to a person's suffering confers social advantages (and sometimes psychological risks) and is an immensely powerful process. In its most frequent and benign form it is manifest as the patient who always has ‘sinusitis’ or ‘flu’ rather than a head cold. More infrequently, but more seriously in its consequences, it is manifest in the proliferation of unexplained clusters of symptoms with authoritative diagnostic labels — myalgic encephalitis (ME), multiple chemical sensitivity, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD). If anyone doubts the legitimising power of these diagnostic labels then let them try stating in print that these ‘diagnoses’ do not have an objective existence and then wait for the response.
Diagnoses are, in the end, merely classifications. They are not meant to establish absolute truths. They are practical ways of grouping medical phenomena in order to allow comparisons and promote understanding. 3 The social advantages that come with a ‘medical label’ for our misfortune often distort this essential truth.
However, this minimalist idea of diagnosis as classical taxonomy over simplifies the process and potentially ignores key elements. Professor Dinant in the Oxford Textbook of Primary Medical Care defines a disease as a set of closely related symptoms with a specific aetiological background, a plausible physiological pathway, a predictable natural history and the need for a specific therapy. 4 This definition certainly covers illnesses like hypothyroidism or the fractured femur. It fails, though, to capture such loose entities as fibromyalgia, mechanical low back pain or chronic fatigue syndrome. The definition does not acknowledge that diagnoses are made within the structure of a society and have value judgments implicit within them. This is particularly apparent with psychiatric diagnoses. Thus soldiers from the Boer War were cowards, soldiers from the First World War had conversion hysteria and those from the Vietnam War had PTSD. 5
Wittgenstein was concerned with the relationship between language and the ‘real’ world of objects and emotions. His analysis of the relationship of language to the external world has many analogies with the relationship of diagnosis to illness.
In the early part of his professional life Wittgenstein developed the ‘picture theory’ of language. He believed that there were ‘atomic propositions’ in language which mirrored the structure of reality. Language thus described an independent reality and, indeed, the structure of reality could be inferred from the structure of language. Wittgenstein believed, however, that only ‘fact stating’ language could be said to be meaningful. He believed that all philosophical problems (and many personal ones) arose because people used language in circumstances when it had no meaning. He was advocating a highly technical and restrictive use of language to avoid error. ‘Of that which we cannot speak, thereof we must be silent.’

6 This theory is analogous to the biophysical model of a diagnosis. In this form a diagnostic label mirrors some biochemical or physical process that leads to malfunction of the organism. Some doctors believe, like the early Wittgenstein, that serious errors arise when we stray from this formal discipline and create ‘woolly’ diagnostic categories that do not mirror biophysical reality.
Wittgenstein wrote his first work — the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus — while in the trenches on the Eastern Front in the First World War. 7 With typical Wittgensteinian humility he believed he had solved the problems of philosophy with this work. After the war he gave up philosophy, gave away his massive inherited fortune, and became a (bad) primary school teacher in rural Austria.
When he returned to philosophy in Cambridge in 1929 his thinking was dramatically different. Wittgenstein had come to believe that language did not represent a reality ‘out there’ but was an instrument or tool woven into human practice. In the Tractatus Logico-Philosophicus he believed that the meaning of language came from its logical form. His later belief was that language is an elastic, social, and sometimes ambiguous structure that necessarily defies simplistic definition because of its scope and complexity. Language's meaning, he believed, is defined by how it is used in daily life rather than by any logical structure that underlies it. It is meaningless to look at language divorced from the society within which it takes place. Wittgenstein had shifted from believing that language reflected reality, to seeing language as a metaphor for reality. It is in its very messiness and adaptability that Wittgenstein believed the essence and power of language lies.
I believe that there are useful analogies between Wittgenstein's theories of language and the nature of diagnosis in medicine. Arguments about the existence and definition of diagnoses like ‘ME’ and ‘PTSD’ have striking similarities between themselves, 8 and with the philosophical problems of existence and definition that preceded Wittgenstein.
A diagnosis of a fractured femur is different from a diagnosis of depression in both content and form. The attributes that make each a ‘diagnosis’ are very different. Errors can arise if we use the same tools (of evidence-based medicine, for example) to analyse these entities as though they have objective reality and commonalities as ‘diagnoses’. For example, diagnoses that are more ‘biosocial’ than ‘biophysical’ are more meaningful when applied to a class of patients than to an individual. We are potentially just as much in error if we say that ‘chronic fatigue syndrome (CFS)’ does not exist, as if we say that ‘ME’ has the same attributes as a disease as mumps encephalitis. It maybe helpful if we, like the later Wittgenstein, recognise that our categories of ‘diagnosis’ are more complex entities than mere mirrors of an external biophysical reality.
A diagnosis is, in the end, defined by its utility in both medicine and society rather than by any formal categorisation. Attempts to ‘define away’ loose diagnostic entities, such as post-traumatic fatigue syndrome or ME, fail to make explicit these social and utilitarian aspects of ‘the diagnosis’. However, it is equally unhelpful to treat iron deficiency anaemia and CFS/ME as though they are the same type of categorical entities.

[pieter]

Dear people,

The xenephobia against and discrimination of Gypsies has differant aspects and historical roots in Europe. First of all the Gypsies differ from Caucasian (white) Europeans by race and culture, because the colored Gypsies originally came from Northern-India. Their Roma and Sinti languages are linked to or rooted in Hindi an Indo-Aryan language, or a dialect continuum of languages, spoken in northern and central India (the "Hindi belt"). The Gypsies came to Europe in the early Middle ages.

Since they never integrated or assimilated in the local European populations amongst whom they lived they kept an autonomous culture, a culture which was rooted in their Nomadic way of life. All over Europe Gypsies have had experiances with hostile local native European peoples. In Holland, Germany, France, Poland, Czech republic, Slovakia, Hungary and Rumania they are seen as untrustworthy, people who used a confidence trick or confidence game to get the money of the people they cheat on. By many Europeans they are seen as thieves, annoying dirty beggars, bad luck if their camps are set up near a local neighbourhood, Village or town. So they are not only discriminated in Central or Eastern-Europe, but all over Europe. In Spain for instance the Gitano's, Spanish Gypsies who invented Flamenco are heavily discriminated.

Gypsies are talented musicians, gypsy women can dance and sing, and in the past
they had traditional professions like tinker, blacksmith, salesman and professional
musicians at weddings, funerals and parties.

This is the music I grew up with in my parents houshold, because my father loved
Hungarian and Rumanian gypsy music, and there were Hungarian and Rumanian
gypsybands in the Netherlands back then, like the Mirando's, Gregor Serban,
Lajos Veres and the Rosenberg Trio. My father had many records of them.

Tata Mirando - Latzso Daijo
(WARNING: watch your ears, lower the volume setting)



Gregor Serban


Hungarian Gipsy Orchestra - Czardas


Nello Jaroka (In a Dutch garden party)


Rosenberg Trio (Dutch Gypsies)


Django Reinhardt - Minor Swing - Hot club the France


Russian Gypsies


Spanish Gypsy flamenco song


Pieter

[tuftabis]

The article from Warsaw Business Journal comes right on time, and excellently summarizes both the nature and the real extent of the problem in Poland.


The invisible minority

27th April 2009
The Roma people are a little-known quantity in Poland. Stereotypes abound, but the Roma community - 40,000 strong by some estimates - is only loosely integrated with Polish society. So where do the stereotypes end and the truth begin?

A report published last week by the European Union Agency for Fundamental Rights (FRA) assesses the way members of the Roma community are treated in the CEE region. The report sheds light upon the state of discrimination against the minority in the region – an issue which few are willing to actively address.

Research for the report was carried out in May-July 2008. As many as 60 percent of Roma in Poland answered “yes” to the question, “Have you been discriminated against over the previous 12 months?” The areas of everyday life in which they felt discriminated against include the workplace, “at a cafe, restaurant or bar,” and “by healthcare personnel.”

One of the main problems is that members of the Roma community are stereotyped as thieves or beggars. “Stereotyping is very common in all societies. The truth is that there has been no proper government campaign to combat this kind of thinking in Poland,” Aleksandra Amal El-Maaytah from Amnesty International Polska told WBJ.pl

Vicious cycle

The fact that Roma and non-Roma live in separate neighborhoods and attend different educational institutions makes things all the trickier. “The segregation happens 'naturally,' so to speak, but leads to further problems with [lack of] integration with the non-Roma community. Many non-Roma know the Roma only from music and dance festivals or from the street,” Amal El-Maaytah commented.

This, the expert said, leads to discrimination, especially towards the younger generation. “Having been discriminated against in school, many Roma do not receive the education they deserve. Later on they have [fewer] chances of getting employment. Not being employed means not having access to healthcare and housing etc. This is a vicious circle.”

Despite all of this, Roman Chojnacki, chairman of the Polish Roma Association in Szczecinek, believes that the Romani community in Poland, which is estimated at 40,000 members, fares better than the communities of other countries, but that “does not mean that everything is OK.”

In a report written last year to the European Roma and Travellers Forum, an international Roma organization, Chojnacki wrote that a heated debate rages over the closing down of so-called “Romani classes” within the Polish education system.

“The experts and a large part of the Romani society are convinced that [there] is no use in [the existence of] such separate classes,” Chojnacki said. If such classes were to be fazed out, children of all backgrounds, both Roma and non-Roma alike would be able to integrate better, and this would hopefully reduce discrimination.

Just criminals?

Members of the Roma community often struggle with the stereotype that they are involved in criminal activities. “Despite our efforts, [the] mass media, when [reporting the] committed crimes, still reveal the perpetrator's nationality, which is forbidden by law,” Chojnacki said. He added that this approach builds additional prejudice towards Romani people.

Moreover, when they themselves are the victims of a crime, Roma are unlikely to seek help from the police. According to the FRA report, around 33 percent of respondents claimed to have been victims of crime over the previous 12 months. Most Roma – around three-fourths – who were the victims of crimes like threats, assault or “serious harassment” did not report the crime to the authorities.

“Many Roma believe that there is no point in reporting acts of violence to the police,” Amal El-Maaytah said, “because they will not handle the case properly. However, without letting the authorities know about cases of discrimination, [the authorities] ... cannot do much.”

From Warsaw Business Journal by Roberto Galea

www.wbj.pl/article-45301-the-invisible-minority.html?typ=ise

[kaima]

Thank you all for posting the articles. It is good to keep current on events and attitudes of peoples.

Mine are perhaps common experiences of a traveler with occasional contact with Gypsies, more not. When I do see the occasional Gypsy beggar I look around and can almost always find their protector off to the side, nearby. When 3 Gypsies in a car behind me blinked their lights as if to talk to me, I pulled into the next town for the opportunity, rather than along the lonely road side. They just drove on past.

I must admit to prejudging by appearance; the proof seems to come in the telling of walking into a Japanese village restaurant. I weighed hunger and curiosity against the lone waitress & three customers already inside - what I took to be a businessman, a tradesman, and finally a bum. Not surprisingly all turned out to be fine people and we got along fine with my 5 words of Japanese (plus two I dared not use), and their understanding of "fish" and "rice" and "beer".

What do Japanese have to do with Gypsies? My tendency to judge by appearance despite any ideals we may wish to advertise.

Kai

[justjohn]

May 3, 2009 18:11:08 GMT -7 pieter said:

Dear people,


Gypsies are talented musicians, gypsy women can dance and sing, and in the past
they had traditional professions like tinker, blacksmith, salesman and professional
musicians at weddings, funerals and parties.

This is the music I grew up with in my parents houshold, because my father loved
Hungarian and Rumanian gypsy music, and there were Hungarian and Rumanian
gypsybands in the Netherlands back then, like the Mirando's, Gregor Serban,
Lajos Veres and the Rosenberg Trio. My father had many records of them.

Tata Mirando - Latzso Daijo
(WARNING: watch your ears, lower the volume setting)



Gregor Serban


Hungarian Gipsy Orchestra - Czardas


Nello Jaroka (In a Dutch garden party)


Rosenberg Trio (Dutch Gypsies)


Django Reinhardt - Minor Swing - Hot club the France


Russian Gypsies


Spanish Gypsy flamenco song


Pieter

Pieter,

Thank you very much. I grew up with a lot of this music also. Never thought I would love it so much.

Here is a group I believe you will enjoy.

www.violinamusic.com/biography.html