By Jijo jacob: Subscribe to Jijo's RSS feed
August 28, 2010 3:41 AM EDT
Hundreds more of Roma were deported from France on Thursday despite widespread condemnation of President Sarkozy's Roma expulsion drive.
What comes to mind is the vivid image of the young, hunted and haunted, protagonist in Jerzy Kosinski's 1965 novel 'The Painted Bird' moving through Slavic villages in Eastern Europe fearing for his life all the time.
The novel is the deeply distressing tale of a young boy who is abandoned by his parents during the World War II and left to roam the war-afflicted region where his presence raises fear and reprisal among local communities.
The boy, thought to be Jewish or gypsy, suffers atrocious attacks and savage treatment from the people who fear his presence in their villages will attract the wrath of the German army.
The present-day visuals of the Roma deportation going on in France do not resemble the images of the young pariah in the Kosinski novel.
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But indeed the boy is still a striking metaphor for the homeless, classless, and apparently stateless, Roma people who attract scorn, denial and blame in places where they live.
Of course the hunted down Roma in France are getting support from human rights groups and humanitarian individuals from around the world.
However, that hasn't stopped French President Nicolas Sarkozy from meticulously implementing his plan to deport hundreds of Roma from the country.
Pressure, though, is mounting both domestically and internationally to halt the government's move.
Around 300 Roma people have been expelled from France since the government commenced its latest Roma deportation effort last week.
President Sarkozy had ordered the expulsion of illegal Roma people staying in France in July. He had said he was ordering the expulsion of Roma people who had committed offenses. He said their illegal camps and settlements would be dismantled.
Over the last week, France's Interior Ministry has been razing to the ground around 300 illegal settlements in the county, out of which 200 belong to the Roma.
The Interior minister has said these camps "are the source of "illicit trafficking, children exploited for begging, prostitution or delinquency."
According to Radio Free Europe, as many as 8,300 Romanian and Bulgarian Roma have been deported from France so far this year. A total of 7,875 had been expelled in 2009.
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