Being Foreign in a Country That Doesn't Know How to Deal With Foreigners

The Danish relationship with Everything Not Danish can at times be strained, to say the least. We all blame the weirdo right-wingers for saying absurd and maybe even racist things, but somehow seem to miss that it's not just the weirdo politicians. It's all of us, and a lot (too much) of the time. The latest thing around Aarhus appears to be that Eastern Europeans aren't let into nightclubs, solely on the basis of being Lithuanian, Bulgarian or whatever. Some of the people affected are furious, while others pull the ”it's private property so who cares and I'll just go somewhere else” argument, (even though there are some convincing arguments that it might be illegal. I don't know the giurispudence, but I'm fairly sure this particular way of discriminating guests won't hold in court.) But this is just the latest example of often tiny things that make people feel not welcome. How does it feel to be foreign in a country that does not know how to deal with foreigners and would rather have them go away so as not to think about them?

The romantic, nomadic Gypsies. In real life they're called Roma, and their life is not all that romantic

One of Shakira's latest hits is called ”Gypsy”.* It's one of her usual ”not saying much substantial” songs that she began writing after becoming widely popular. Regular story, something about getting hurt and getting over it. Some assumptions are made that Gypsies tend to get emotionally hurt by love more often than the rest of the population, and that their presumed continued nomadism can be compared to something as romantic as flying. However, what particularly caught my attention in the lyrics was the following piece:

”'Cause I'm a Gypsy
Are you coming with me?
I might steal your clothes
And wear them if they fit me
I don't make agreements

just like a Gypsy”

To summarise: Gypsies steal, and never agree to anything.

In this blog post I would like to investigate this assumption and some of the possible consequences it can have.

First of all, who are the Gypsies?