Not welcome in Britain?
Anyone who has travelled in the Balkans and caught sight of the often strikingly beautiful women and virile men will know that Britain is often a source of confusion to visitors from that part of Europe. Not to put too fine a point on it, the unforgiving Balkan verdict is that too often British women are rather manly while their menfolk often seem effeminate, that is when they can be told apart. Of course drawing attention to such matters violates the canons of political correctness and is not on for any bureaucrat who wishes to rise as far as the brilliant Sir Jeremy Heywood.
By contrast, religion is big in Romania after the ravages of communism; well over 90% are believers in God and sitting on a tram, winding through the streets of Bucharest on a Saturday evening, I soon ceased to notice as the teenagers en route to the disco blessed themselves as some of the city’s numerous churches were passed.
Romanians are probably the least racist folk in Eastern Europe which is perhaps not saying a great deal. In communist times they got used to the numerous Third World students whom the dictator Ceausescu allowed in because he coveted their foreign exchange. Romania is one of the few countries in the region without a skinhead movement. Its people are bigoted in certain ways but colour is not usually a big issue for them. However, two groups are not well-esteemed: Muslims, because of the country’s lengthy experience of Ottoman control; and, in particular, gypsies because of their anarchic cheekiness and often disorderly approach to life’s everyday matters.
This clumsy attempt to deter fellow citizens of the EU from pursuing the British dream is bound to backfire. That world citizen Tony Blair actually turned up in the Romanian parliament in May 1999 and promised them that the gates of Europe would be flung open for them if they would help NATO in its confrontation with the Serbian ruler Milosevic over his ill-treatment of his Albanian subjects in Kosovo.
Britain owes the Romanians and unless it wants to walk away from the EU, it cannot stop these people coming, however great their numbers. My ancestors were part of a similar wave 175 years ago during the Irish famine and, if truth be told, it would have been better if many of them had continued to America given the problems that persist down to the present such as over the lack of toleration for Catholic schools. It may be just as hard for the gypsy portion of the Romanian diaspora to settle down as past problems in Glasgow’s Govanhill indicate.
Perceptive Romanians will realise that this is really no country for them at least in the long-term – unless, that is, Britain experiences a revolution, hopefully less bloody than the one Romania witnessed in 1989. The negative images of ordinary British folk in the publicity material devised by the civil service shows that the liberal gentry here despise their own people just as much as Ceausescu did his. Romanians should indeed pick Australia or Canada over Britain where the ordinary citizen still has more room to breathe than is the case here.
Tom Gallagher has been visiting Romania for almost a quarter of a century and has written three books about the country
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