Saturday 29 October 2011

Are Gypsies twilight citizens?

   This article was published by the BBC History Magazine and is about social tension and media tension sorrounding Gypsies  in Britain. They are a minority in that country but the controversial issues about them has outweighted the size as a group.
   The British Government is discussing plans to deal with illegal settlement and antisocial behavior. Besides, there is a debate on how this group can improve their way of living.  But, the main conflict here is how the majority, in “settle” society has perceived their nomandic style of life.
   For most people, this group is the result of failure and social inadequacy, which means that they are viewed with hostility by the majority of the British citizens. For other people, Gypsies failed to “modernise”. The welfare state, based on taxation and insurance left this minority group unable to pay their way because they don’t have a permanent job.
   Some government representatives thought that the solution for their situation was to convince Gypsies to give up nomadic life. However, they resisted to such change and with the support of Civil Right movements the gained the provision of sites to live in. This controversial subject made many people be against this kind of support.
   In sum, some British citizens may agree on nomadic  behavior  some others may not, the thing is that Gypsies, for the time being, seems to be twilight citizens in Great Britain.

Victoria

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