… work in progress in social theory and cultural sociology

Whatever the truth behind the Greek “blonde angel” case (which even if true would be a single case, not a collective crime by the Roma as a community… and the un-truth of the Irish blonde-angel case is now established) – the way it has been reported (and not only by the likes of the Daily Mail!) is a worrying reminder of the currency that anti-tsiganist stereotype still has across Europe. Louise Doughty on the Guardian’s Cif brings it to the point:

This media reporting has to be seen within the context of a blood libel that has dogged Roma communities for centuries. The claim that Jewish people killed Christian children to have human blood for matzos at Passover was used to justify antisemitism throughout the middle ages; in the same way, the age-old myth that Romanies are in the habit of kidnapping white children entered popular folklore around the same time, and has persisted to the present day.

On the comment pages of the Daily Mail there are still plenty of calls to strip-search every singly Roma camp, just to be sure. I don’t recall similar calls in cases of abduction committed by white middle-class people – or did I miss something and people actually were calling for a razzia on all cellars of residential homes in Austria?