Journal of Post-Colonial Cultures and Societies

Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism Alan Ashton-Smith

Introduction The study of postcolonialism is now a global and all-consuming field, encompassing almost all cultures and drawing on countless histories. Elleke Boehmer notes that the subject of colonial and postcolonial literature would on a superficial reading seem to embrace the majority of the worlds modern literatures (1), and indeed, the postcolonial lens is one of the major outlooks with which we have come to view the contemporary world. However, some groups have not received in depth examination according to postcolonial terms, including the group that I wish to address here, the Roma1. Rather than attempting to rectify this omission by supplying an in-depth analysis of the concerns of the Roma as postcolonial subjects, I provide an overview of the approaches that might be used to study the postcolonial Roma. In an age of increasing globalisation, in which national identity is more fluid than it has ever been, the postcolonial subject can no longer be confined to the rigidly literal structure that it took in its earliest incarnations. It is now an appropriate time to consider the Roma in a

postcolonial context, because such an investigation has the potential to broaden the areas of both postcolonial studies and Romani studies. Before commencing this survey, we should consider the reasons the Roma have been overlooked by postcolonial studies. The most obvious reason is the Romas lack of a homeland. While Roma more often than not live in settled locations these days, they are traditionally a nomadic, diasporic race. Their presence is not confined to any

particular country or region; although their most concentrated populations are in Eastern Europe, they can be found in large numbers all over the world. 2 However, these groups
Roma are often referred to as gypsies, and while there remains debate about the acceptability of this term, there are many who self-designate as gypsies. However, Roma is considered to be the more empowering term, having been adopted by almost all Romani organisations, and therefore I feel this word is more appropriate than gypsy in an essay on postcolonialism. 2 The large Romani population in Eastern Europe means that this region will receive particular consideration in this paper.
1

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do not function like most migrant populations. While Roma worldwide identify as a single group, they have no home country. This means that they cannot be literally postcolonial. Since they do not have a territory, they have always been exempt from colonization, and are therefore in no position to react against colonialism in a typically postcolonial fashion. Another reason for their absence in postcolonial discourse is the lack of Roma texts that might be considered postcolonial. The text is generally very important in postcolonial studies, whether it be literary, cinematic, philosophical, or political. The Roma have limited access to most of these media, being largely illiterate: their culture places greater emphasis on the family unit than on formal education, so many young Roma do not attend school. This is an even more pronounced situation in areas such as Eastern Europe, where there is widespread discrimination, and those who seek education are often denied it. One recent issue is the Slovakian practice of placing Romani children in schools for the disabled, where the curricula give them fewer opportunities for educational development. In addition, it has been suggested that the Roma are

unconcerned with their own histories (Barany 205, Stewart 28); this puts them in an awkward position when they are considered from a postcolonial perspective, since to become postcolonial would require them to engage with their collective past. History has been an alien concept in Romani culture, says Barany, where the dead are rarely mentioned and seldom become the subjects of commemoration (205). Derek Hawes and Barbara Perez sum up the difficulties of engaging with the Roma as postcolonial subjects, drawing an effective parallel with the Jews, to whom the Roma are frequently compared: The very notion of Gypsydom is antipathetic to the creation of a coherent programme of action or campaign for recognition and respect for Gypsies in the modern world. There is no Zionist dream to act as the central unifying nexus like that which sustained the Jews throughout a 2,000 year diaspora. No religious faith or body of literature unites, through time and space, a Romany people; even the common language is a poor fragmented thing, long since degenerated to a crude patois, only of philological interest. (Hawes & Perez 144) Although this passage describes a lack of unity, many Roma would refute the idea that they are a disunited group. As I have pointed out, Roma generally identify as a single Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 74

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group no matter where they are based. Romani scholar and activist Ian Hancock has said that any sense of having once been a single people has long been lost, the common factor now being an awareness not of what we are, but of what all of us are not. Romanies are not gade or non-Romani people (Hancock 2002, xx). So there is a definite sense of the Roma as a unified group, even if what unites them is what they are not rather than what they are. Furthermore, there have been numerous recent attempts to overcome the lack of knowledge that persists concerning what exactly it is that makes the Roma a single group. There have been increasing instances of Romani activism, and the Roma Rights movement in the past few decades seeks to raise awareness of the culture and issues surrounding the Roma. Romani Organisations have been formed both globally and

specifically in Eastern Europe, and the number of these continues to grow (Barany 207). The development of such groups has been slow; they remain in their infancy, and the recent increase in Romani activism suggests that understanding of the Roma can only be expected to develop. The Romany World Congress has met six times since 1971, and has sought to promote the rights of Roma and their culture; the International Romani Union was founded at the second congress, in 1978. Meanwhile, the European Roma Rights Centre aims to combat racism and human rights abuse against the Roma and supports activism. At present, we are halfway through the Decade of Roma Inclusion, an initiative launched by European governments in 2005 with the aim of improving the status of Roma. It emphasises the importance of Roma participation to its success, and strives to engage with Romani organisations. These activities can be taken as reactions against the centuries of misrepresentation that the Roma have endured. The Roma have always fascinated

outside observers, who have been curious about their origins and way of life. Certain aspects of their culture, particularly music, dress, and folklore have been adopted by the inhabitants of every country that has a Roma population. However, other aspects, such as notions of hygiene and attitudes to work and money, have been regarded with disdain. This has resulted in a romanticised view of the Roma in which they are exoticized as

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mysterious strangers, but feared as thieves and magicians. A comparison can very easily be made between this treatment and Saids concept of orientalism. Just as the orient in Saids text is misrepresented in Western culture, resulting in a split between East and West, the Roma have been made to seem alien due to the manner in which outsiders perceive them. Postcolonial Origins Saids dichotomy of East and West is worth keeping in mind as we consider the origins of the Roma. Although these are not entirely certain, the general consensus among scholars today, based on linguistic and genetic evidence, is that they lie in Rajasthan, northern India.3 This makes the Roma a people from the orient who have migrated to the West. The motive for their initial migration from India is uncertain, but numerous suggestions have been posited. Ian Hancock believes that the Roma were a warrior caste, who were engaged in fighting the Muslim Ghaznavid Empire, which repeatedly invaded India during the eleventh century (Hancock 1999). According to Hancock, they began as an assembly of non-Aryans, who were considered by the Aryan castes to be expendable in battle, and accordingly were sent to the front line. As this army fought the invaders, they gradually took a westerly trajectory, and commenced their migration in this way. Ronald Lee goes a step further, although he dates the beginning of the diaspora to the same period. His theory is that some of the Indian troops defeated by the Muslims were incorporated into the Ghaznavid army, and then became involved in raids in regions further east, such as Armenia. Displaced from India, this group of captive refugees eventually began to take on an identity that differentiated them from both their conquerors and their ancestors. This marks another possible origin for the Roma (Lee). It is worth noting that if this theory is correct, then the Roma have foundations that can be considered postcolonial. Although they might initially seem to be a rootless people, they are in fact a historical example of a group that was threatened by imperialism. Having
For example, Ian Hancock (1991) claims that there has been no real doubt about an Indian origin for the Romani people for over two centuries, but Judith Okely (1993) is more sceptical.
3

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been colonized and conscripted by their invaders, this Indian group established themselves as an entirely new race, in a move that can be thought of as radically postcolonial. This would mean that we can view the subsequent migrations of the Roma since their initial movement away from India as a protracted postcolonial reaction. However, this is not the end of the postcolonial history of the Roma. Having moved gradually west, many of them found a new homeland in the Balkans. Here, many of them were enslaved. This seems to have begun almost as soon as they appeared in the Balkans; Angus Fraser says that the first mention of Gypsies in Rumanian archives occurs in a document issued in 1385 [...that...] confirmed the grant of 40 families of Gypsies (58), while Barany tells us that such sources can be dated as far back as 1348 (85). Meanwhile David Crowe stresses that the widespread slavery of the Roma that occurred for centuries in Romania set the precedent for that countrys particularly poor record of Roma integration, which persists to this day (61). In 1864, shortly after Lincolns Emancipation Proclamation in the United States, the Roma slaves in the Balkans gained what Fraser describes as complete legal freedom (226). As we are aware from responses to the Atlantic slave trade, slavery is very much associated with colonialism, and any reactions to slavery, both those that occurred before and after its abolition, can be taken to be postcolonial. This can also be applied to the Roma, and the Roma Rights groups that we have discussed are reacting to a history of subjugation that the Roma have endured. In the twentieth century, direct persecution of the Roma continued. One major manifestations of this, which is often overlooked, is the Holocaust perpetrated by the Nazis, which arguably marked the nadir of the Roma persecution that had already gone on for centuries. Although a number of historians and gypsiologists have begun to comment on the lack of attention that the Holocausts Romani victims have received, and attempts to rectify this deficiency have lately been made, the loss of Romani life that occurred is still generally treated as a footnote to the mass extermination of the Jews. This is in part due to literacy levels, and the fact that the Roma give little attention to their history. This means that survivors have been less likely to record their ordeal in

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writing, and their descendants have allowed it to remain in the past. As a result, the Roma Holocaust has been widely misrepresented and marginalised, and this may well be the opening to another chapter in the history of their oppression. This kind of systematic extermination is undoubtedly as severe as persecution of any race or group can be, but the end of the Second World War nonetheless brought a fresh form of oppression for the Roma. With most of Eastern Europe under Communist rule, the Roma who lived there were expected to conform to the expectations of this system. Accordingly, they were required to integrate, and any outward display of their particular culture was generally forbidden. Many East European Roma now pine for the greater stability that they were afforded during the socialist era, and while many were better off, it was at the expense of their distinct identity. Perhaps the most significant aspect of their identity that was revoked was their mobility; the communist policy concerning the Romas nomadism means that the fixed abodes of East European Roma have now become an established fact. This is in fact just one of many programmes of assimilation that have been enforced for centuries. Almost since their first arrival in Eastern Europe the Roma have been encouraged to settle, often in order that they could be taxed or enslaved. Angus Fraser notes that Maria Theresa, ruler of the Habsburg Empire from 1740-1780, passed a number of decrees aimed at removing the ethnic identity of gypsies so that they might be incorporated into the Hungarian race (157). Although these were not fully enforced Fraser remarks that, Had all the anti-Gypsy laws which sprang up been enforced uncompromisingly, even for a few months, the Gypsies would have been eradicated from most of Christian Europe well before the middle of the sixteenth century (131) they will have contributed towards bringing the roaming of the Roma to a halt. This drive towards forcing gypsies into settlement was finalised under communism. Attempts were made throughout the communist controlled countries of Eastern Europe to assimilate gypsies as far as possib le. Zoltan Barany states that Initially, at least, the communist regimes notion of assimilation appeared to be as simple as the application of the formula: (Gypsy) + (socialist wage-labor) + housing = (socialist worker) + (Gypsy

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folklore). Active initiatives towards assimilation began soon after the end of World War II: in Romania by the early 1950s the majority of nomadic Roma were settled (120), and most other Soviet controlled countries were not far behind. The techniques used to produce this situation varied from offers of accommodation and employment to outright bans on movement. The situation of the East European Roma today is a product of these efforts. The majority are sedentary and live in ghettoized camps in poor conditions. Poverty is ubiquitous and unemployment levels are extremely high. Integration with the wider community is minimal and persecution is rife. In many countries there is no support from governments, and discrimination from the authorities is also widespread. In Italy, for example, all Roma were fingerprinted in an initiative said to be an attempt to reduce crime; evidently, the same stereotypes about the Roma persist. Meanwhile, the growth of violent attacks carried by right-wing groups in Hungary continues with little to impede it. Even if postcolonial voices from the Roma community have thus far been few, this is surely a situation that invites consideration in the postcolonial context. The Roma as Perpetual Migrants As we observed previously, there have been various attempts to settle the Roma, some of which have been partially successful. Deleuze and Guattari describe such attempts as it might be applied to any nomadic group: We know of the problems States have always had with journeymans associations, or compagnonnages, the nomadic or itinerant bodies of the type formed by masons, carpenters, smiths etc. Settling, sedentarizing labor power, regulating the movements of the flow of labor, assigning it channels and conduits [...] this has always been one of the principal affairs of the State, which undertook to conquer both a band vagabondage and a body nomadism. (406) This passage applies nicely to postcolonial discussion. The State is the dominant power that exercises control over its subjects and organizes them into a workforce. The

imperial power will need to apply this principle to any territories it conquers, and any existing inhabitants of those territories. We can see this in Lees theory of the init ial diasporic roots of the Roma; having been conquered by the invading Ghaznavid Empire, they were conscripted into the army. Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 79

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The situation in Eastern Europe is less simple. Although the enslavement of the Roma follows the same basic trend, most important here is the idea of sedentarization. With the traditionally wandering Roma settled, they could be controlled more easily. In addition, animosity towards them means that there has often been a desire to present them as being fewer in number than they actually are. Since the ethnic origins of the Roma have been diluted over the centuries, it is their nomadism more than anything else that marks them out as Roma, so when this is rescinded their racial identity is removed and they are incorporated into the dominant group. However, to themselves they remain Roma, even though they have been displaced from any native land they had, and inducted into an imperial power. It is tempting to think of the Roma as perpetual migrants, who continually settle in new places, before moving on again and resettling. However, this is not the case, as we shall see if we consider Deleuze and Guattaris distinction between migrant and nomad: The nomad is not at all the same as the migrant; for the migrant goes principally from one point to another, even if the second point is uncertain, unforeseen or not well localized. But the nomad goes from point to point only as a consequence and as a factual necessity; in principle, points for him are relays along a trajectory. (419) The Roma might seem to occupy a place between migrant and nomad. They are often thought of as nomadic, even if this is no longer a common attribute; however, they may not always have been nomadic, since a starting point for their movement has been ascertained. But by using the above distinction, we can deduce that the continuous movement of the Roma clearly marks them out as nomads. This deduction finds support in aspects of their culture that seem intended as nomadic tools, notably the traditional caravan, a home which can easily be transported from one place to another. Deleuze and Guattari conclude that, the nomad can be called the Deterritorialized par excellence (421); whereas, the migrant moves from territory to territory, the nomad is completely detached from this pattern of movement, having no territory that they can claim as a starting or finishing point. This means that the travelling Roma is unmistakably nomadic. However, the Roma who has been sedentarized has been assigned a territory, and Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 80

Journal of Post-Colonial Cultures and Societies

therefore any further movement that he makes may be migration rather than nomadism. If he were to continue to move around, this subject would be re-entering the realm of the nomadic. But in order to leave the country that they have been assigned, contemporary Roma need to have passports and, consequently, nationalities. Rather than being nomads, these Roma are perpetual migrants, people who have been associated with a particular territory, but who choose to disassociate themselves from all territories. However, there have been suggestions that the Roma should have a fixed homeland, and early activists put forward the idea of a Romanestan. This is a utopian state intended as a territory that the Roma might inhabit and call their own. As I have mentioned, the Roma have often been compared to the Jews, and Romanestan would certainly merit comparison with Israel. This idea of Romanestan was most prominent in the 1930s, and was associated with the figure of the gypsy king, a construct intended to give the Roma greater credence among non-Roma. Vesselin Popov describe how: Initiatives were taken in search for territory for the state. In 1934 the newly elected Gypsy king Jozef Kwiek sent a delegation to the United Nations to ask for land in Southern Africa (namely Namibia) so the Gypsies could have their own state there. At the same time the alternative king Michal II Kwiek traveled to India in order to specify the location of the future Gypsy state (somewhere along the shores of the river Ganges). After his trip he began to support the idea that the state should be in Africa (namely Uganda) and traveled to Czechoslovakia and England to seek support for his idea. In 1936 the next king, heir to Joseph, Janusz Kwiek, sent a delegation to Mussolini asking for some land in Abyssinia (at that time occupied by Italy) where the Gypsies could have their own state. (438) Clearly, the proposal of Romanestan was doomed to failure. The inherently nomadic nature of the Roma means that containing them within a fixed homeland, even if it was one in which they had greater autonomy, would be akin to the ghettoization that they are already subjected to. However, Romanestan has not been a complete failure, as it does mark an early instance of Romani activism that sets a precedent for the organisations of the present day. Colonizing Culture Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 81 Elena Marushiakova and

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Whereas traditional postcolonial subjects have had their land settled, the Romani postcolonial subject is an inversion of this they are obliged to settle on the land of the colonial subject. The colonist of the rootless race does not have to travel in order to carry out their mission they force the people to settle on the land they already possess. So this is a colonization of people, rather than land. This can be related to postcolonial discourses concerning slavery, and such discourses can certainly be applied to the Roma. However, the form of colonialism that the Roma have been victims of is not only a conquest of physical individuals and their capacity for labour, but also an occupation of their culture. As we have seen, Roma culture has long been a source of fascination for many, and the Roma have been orientalised in a very particular way; the romance of a wandering lifestyle in a natural setting is at the heart of this. In her book Imagining the Balkans, Maria Todorova introduces the term balkanism, which she compares with the more established orientalism. Orientalism has had a tumultuous existence, she says, and while it still excites passions, it has been superseded as a whole. This is not the case in the Balkans (7). She goes on to argue that balkanism is not merely a subspecies of orientalism (8), partly because of the historical and geographical concreteness of the Balkans as opposed to the intangible nature of the Orient (11), and also because the Balkans have generally not been romanticised in the same way that the orient has: The Balkans, [] with their unimaginative concreteness, and almost total lack of wealth, induced a straightforward attitude, usually negative, but rarely nuanced (14). This is relevant here not only because of the substantial Roma populations that can be found in the Balkan region, but also because this perception of the Balkans as a less civilized place, which has something of the exotic about it but less of an appeal than the orient, sums up how we also perceive the Roma. Indeed, the large numbers of Roma who have inhabited the Balkans for centuries may have contributed to the way that the area is perceived.

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It is a balkanist view of the Roma that has resulted in the colonization of their culture: since the Roma, like the Balkans, are thought to be inhospitable and uncivilized, then it is only their more desirable cultural qualities that are adopted. These aspects have been romanticised for many years, as we can see in George Borrows writings on the Roma, which date from the mid-nineteenth century. His autobiographical novel Lavengro (1851) is an account of Borrows youth that devotes a considerable portion of its narrative to his interest in the Roma. This is linked to his interest in language (Borrow is reported to have learned many languages, and Lavengro is the Romani word for linguist), and his ability to communicate with them in their own tongue is presented as an important part of his good relations with them. It is likely that the adoption of an itinerant lifestyle that he describes was a very deliberate move by Borrow, but he presents it as though it was a state he fell into very naturally. Having struggled to earn a living in London by writing, he leaves the city as soon as he has managed to sell a book; subsequently he travels indiscriminately from place to place. After some time, he buys a wagon from a disheartened tinker and takes to the road. When he describes his attempts at taking up the tinkers trade, he writes in a mixture of English and Romani, and draws particular attention to this, saying that whilst I am making a horse-shoe the reader need not be surprised if I speak in the language of the lord of the horse-shoe Mr Petulengro (445).4 His adopted gypsyness is something he continues to emphasise when conversing with a Catholic priest who takes to visiting him in the wooded depression where he has set up camp. When the priest asks who he is, Borrow says: Do you know the name of this place? I was told it was Mumpers or Gypsies Dingle, said the man in black. Good, said I; and this forge and tent, what do they look like?
4

Petulengro is the Romany word for Smith.

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Like the forge and tent of a wandering Zigan; I have seen the like in Italy. Good, said I; they belong to me. Are you, then, a gypsy? said the man in black. What else should I be? (485) However, the priest is unconvinced by Borrow, citing his literacy and knowledge of Armenian as the reason he presumes him not to be Roma, but rather a philologist, who, for some purpose, has taken up a Gypsy life (486). Borrow is reluctant to admit that he is not Roma, as this would de-mythologize his way of life. While it is considered acceptable, and even romantic, for a Romani to be without fixed home or occupation, a non-Roma who lives in this way is a figure of disdain. In this we can observe the dual perception of the Roma there is disdain in this perception, but it is partially, though not fully, excused by romance. As such, it may be expected that itinerants who do not follow a conventional way of life might present themselves as Roma, in order to gain the excuse of romance. Another figure who became Roma in this way was the artist Augustus John. His fascination with the Roma was life long, and in common with Borrow, he had an interest in the Romani language a product of his friendship with John Sampson, who was writing a book on the subject, entitled The Dialect of the Gypsies of Wales (Holroyd 103). Eventually, John was to become so immersed in the image of the gypsy that he fabricated a her itage for himself, saying that, As for Gypsies, I have not encountered a sounder Gypsy than myself. My mothers name was Petulengro, remember, and we descend from Tubal-Cain via Paracelsus (Holroyd 27). His biographer, Michael Holroyd, summarises the impression that the Roma he encountered made on him: The tents, the wagons, the gaily painted carts and great shining flanks of the horses, the sight of the women with their children, stirred Augustus in a way he could not explain. [...] their extraordinary names, and the mystery and antiquity of their origins conjured up a world, remote yet sympathetic, to which he felt he should have belonged. (104) Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 84

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This colourful portrayal is clearly an exoticized view on the part of Holroyd, and Johns interest certainly seems to conform to such a perspective. The postcolonial reaction to this form of cultural colonialism has yet to occur. While some Roma Rights activists have attempted to de-mythologize the Roma and reclaim their culture, setting out the elements that are correct and placing them within their correct context, the low level of literacy amongst the Roma means that at present we are unlikely to see much postcolonial Romani literature. However, some non-Roma writers have attempted to provide the postcolonial voice for the Roma. Isabel Fonsecas book Bury Me Standing (1996) is an account of life in a Romani community in Romania, and rather than focussing on music and magic, includes the harsher realities. Garth Cartwrights Princes Amongst Men (2007) functions in a similar manner: although this book is specifically concerned with music, the romanticism of the traditional gypsy musician is kept to a minimum. However, the fact that these texts have been produced by non-Roma means that they risk being associated with less objective accounts. It seems that a truly postcolonial Romani literature cannot be produced by anyone other than the Roma themselves. Music as Postcolonial Text Although some manifestations of postcolonialism are closed to the Roma due to their lack of literacy, this does not mean that they are left with no outlet for their collective postcolonial voice. The area traditionally regarded as one of their strengths is music, and it is here that we can observe opportunities for Romani postcolonial discourse. Music is their primary form of cultural expression while there is little Romani writing, there is much music. Before we can consider this fully, however, we should note that even the music of the Roma, which was thought of as in innate part of their identity, has been the subject of colonialism. Amongst the Roma who were enslaved in the Balkans were musicians, who were made to play by their owners. Centuries later, Romani

musicians were made to play in concentration camps, before being killed themselves. And in the last twenty years, producers from the West have exported gypsy music from the Balkans and treated it as a marketable commodity.

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Reacting against the appropriation of their music are a growing number of Romani musicians who are at the centre of Romani postcolonialism. One good example is the Serbian band Kal, who not only continue the tradition of making music and entertaining people but also can act as a platform to highlight Gypsy issues (Cartwright 2009). Their music can be classified as part of the recent emerging Gypsy Punk genre, which uses elements from Romani music in a style that is indebted to Western punk. When Roma musicians adopt Gypsy Punk, we see a form of musical postcolonialism, in which the music of the dominant colonial power is subverted. Indeed, it is in new manifestations of Romani music, such as Kals Gypsy Punk, that we are most likely to find a postcolonial voice for the Roma. At the forefront of the Gypsy Punk scene is a band called Gogol Bordello, which is comprised of nine immigrants who came together in New York. Although none of them is strictly Roma, their lead singer Eugene Htz is part Roma, and is outspoken about their issues. Like Kals music, their music combines punk rock with traditional gypsy music, but it is not their music that is of most interest when they are considered in a postcolonial context. Htz has created a mythologized back-story for the band, which includes an imaginary homeland called Htzovina that can be treated as a mythical manifestation of Romanestan. The earliest references to Htzovina c an be found in Gogol Bordellos first album, Voi-La Intruder, which is explained in a New York Times article: Some songs on the album are based on a novella in broken-English verse that [Htz] wrote and lost on a computer, he said called ''Whispering of the Blood.'' Inspired by Bulgakov's classic of political paranoia, ''The Master and Margarita,'' Mr. Htz's work is the story of a man on the run in Htzovina, an imaginary Slavic country where the cruelly feudal 17th century merges with the cruelly chaotic 21st. (Sisario 25) This is an example of balkanism in action. Todorovas point that the Balkans offer an escape to a more primitive, almost medieval, culture is borne out in the mingling of the seventeenth century and the present day. Htzovina is a place where presumptions about the Balkans and the Roma are realized; the fictionality of the location draws attention to the falseness of such perceptions. Colonized Culture: The Emergence of a Romani Postcolonialism. Alan Ashton-Smith. JPCS Vol.1. No.2, April. 2010. http://www.jpcs.in 86

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Inside the cover of Voi-La Intruder is a map of Htzovina, surrounded by images that supposedly illustrate events taking place there. These are all portrayals of hedonism taken from photographs of Gogol Bordellos performances, and each is linked to the map by a line joined to a burning flame drawn somewhere upon it. At the centre of map, marked by a blazing log, is the capital city, Pizdetz. The image linked to this site is one of Htz, standing arms held aloft, wearing the mask of a goat. Another burning log is superimposed over his crotch. The word Pizdetz is a derivative of , the Russian word for cunt and Htz has said that it can be literally translated as cunt-kaput, but with a mystical overtone to it (Origins, Gogol Bordello Website). The idea that Htzovina is a vulgar, obscene place is thus reinforced, as is its mythical nature. But Pizdetz was also the name of a Lower East Side bar where Gogol Bordello played a number of gigs and began to gain fame. In common with so many fictional locations, Htzovina has elements that are strongly rooted in reality; in this case, however, the reality that provides the foundations is not exclusively Balkan or Roma. So a location in multicultural New York is relocated in a mythological Balkan state; the West is imported into the fictional East, but since Pizdetz is the actual, real place, the East is simultaneously imported into the West. This is an almost postcolonial appropriation; it is balkanism working in reverse, in which the fictionalised Roma territory is shaped by a West that is informed by genuine Roma culture. It is arguable that the Roma and East European culture that immigrants have brought with them to the West has been diluted by Gypsy Punk, and parallels can be drawn here with colonialism and Orientalism. The cultures of immigrants are in a sense colonized by Western culture. In the case of Gypsy Punk music for example, the music of the Roma and Eastern Europe is modified so that it is marketable to a Western audience. However, the fact that those doing the colonizing are immigrants themselves, who are in many cases colonizing their own cultures, means that postcolonialism is taken in interesting new directions. The image and function of the colonizer are both broadened, with immigrants adopting and adapting the colonialist role in a postmodern echo of colonialism. Therefore, even if Gypsy Punk is considered to be a postcolonial

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movement, a reaction to the persecution or oppression of certain cultures, it is a movement that functions in a colonialist manner, extracting the elements that it needs from other cultures in order to further its own cause. Gogol B ordellos prominent use of Romani music and culture can be taken as an attempt to undermine the pattern of imperialism; their work foregrounds the culture of the traditionally marginalised race. Conclusion The postcolonial voice of the Roma remains quiet, but the mobilization of the Romani people is increasing. Although their history is not often considered, when it is, we find much that calls for a postcolonial response. This is evidently starting to emerge, as the recent expansion of the area of Romani rights reveals. Although the textual outlets for Romani postcolonialism are limited, the growth of engagement with Romani issues means that these are likely to become more widespread. In the meantime, we can observe that the form popularly associated with the Roma, music, provides one opportunity to raise a postcolonial voice through experimentation with new forms. Biography Alan Ashton-Smith is a PhD candidate in the London Consortiums multi-disciplinary programme in Humanities and Cultural Studies at Birkbeck, University of London. Before arriving in London he gained a B.A. in English Literature and an M.A. in Studies in Fiction from the University of East Anglia. The subject of his Ph.D. thesis is the increasingly popular musical genre and cultural movement, Gypsy Punk, and its relationship with such diverse fields as music, immigration, language, mythology and Romani studies. Other research interests include Eastern European and Balkan studies, and many aspects of popular music and culture.

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