Dale Farm et al

[AnneWiddecomesArse]

A continuation...

Blimey! sorry about that link... here's another.
dalefarm.files.wordpress.com/2011/09/ariel-scrape-yard-df001.jpg

I think whether they are an ethinic group or not is only relevant IF they are being treated differently because of their ethinic origins and frankly they are not! If it was a group of hardcore Christains, or Jewish people, or black or people who decided it was fun to all have pink hair.... Behaving like this the uproar wouldn't be here.
I live nearby we have another two local sites hovefields and cranfield that don't have have the issues, my dd goes to school with a child from one of those sites, and on the most is fine, obviously the mothers lack of education shows when she sent in both her dd's to preschool with chicken pox, allowing her other younger child to try to touch my then 6 month old baby whilst fully covered in the pox!!!!
Dale farm have had two years to find somewhere else to live, Prescott gave them two years, two years ago!
On the whole my experience of them on a personal level ok, wouldn't cross them, wouldn't use them for building work etc.... I've not been personally impActed.
However a friend was nearly rapes by one of the Dale Farm travellers, known to the police, police scared to pursue. He thieving is very annoying and a further waste of council tax when in the last two years the travellers have stolen hundreds of drain covers causing a risk to road users especially cyclists a s children. My neighbours fil had his koi fish killed as he would sell his land to them, they destroyed his garden broke into his house several times.
If they lived peacefully, didn't abuse the local area threaten people and tried to respect others (in there own comPound as they have made it let them do what they like to each other quite frankly!) if they stopped taking the piss and lived side by side I think people would have a lot more sympathy! Mine is lacking it is illegal they knew it they have to be moved on otherwise it sets a president for other groups to do so, and quite frankly if yu don't like he Uk law find somewhere to live where the law suits your needs...

Being considered an ethnic group is important when it comes to securing a voice for a community in policymaking, and accountability when it comes to public spending on the community, especially when many policy areas and budgeting can have a huge impact on the community.

Ireland's Travellers would like to know, for instance, what there is to show for ?70m allegedly earmarked for Traveller education.

The law doesn't suit the needs of the Travellers much anywhere, Butterscotch. The idea that Traveller communities can just up sticks and find somewhere else has surely been shown to be an illusion on this thread?

(Am a veteran of chicken pox parties where women actively tried to get their children infected)

I don't think the idea that these particular travellers can move on has been shown to be an illusion - though it would of course be difficult for them to remain in such a large group without returning to the properties they own in Rathkeale. But so what? Nobody is ensuring other ethnic groups can keep themselves segregated. Though some are choosing to arrange this all by themselves, without breaking any laws.

When you secure "a voice for a community in policymaking", whose voice is heard? That of the men in charge?

What do these people who speak on behalf of the travelling community actually want for their children, when it comes to education?

There is a fundamental issue that we will never agree on: I believe that everyone should have the same rights and responsibilities, regardless of any ethnic background.

Aye. Responsibilties. There's the rub.

Math,

however the travellers have been given a number of options sorry don't know how to do fancy links but here is another post by me:-

www.mumsnet.com/Talk/in_the_news/1295055-Travellers-again-info-for-those-who-live-near-Crays-Hill-Dale-Farm

They aren't going to be rehoused together, they have to be realistic, they have broken the law, and used the law and courts to drag this on and on for 10 yrs! they were given 2 yrs, to move on 2yrs ago...

There are articles in local papers about them asking for the council to either pay them to go (£2-6mil the reports vary) or buy the land back for £2mil.

IF the council do either of these options it sets a president, at the end of the day they bought some of the land, got retrospective planning for the part they owned, and then bullied (My Neighbour PIL is one of the victims) the way to buy more of the land, the poor local people who quite frankly have been forgotten in all this what about their human rights? to live in peace without inconsiderable neighbours? If it was a dodgy council estate they would have ASBO's against them! but no they are travellers so they have to be protected they have to be treated differently? Why do they have to be treated differently? because they don't pay taxes? don't regularly send their kids to school, but block places for people that want to send their kids to school?, abuse local people/shops/increase crime in the area, burn tyres n stuff?

Or the fact that they firebomb the fire brigade, that the fire brigade aren't allowed to attend site without a police escort (a mate was on the shout this happened) so much so they stopped the fire service from being able to potentially save a childs life, so a child died because of their precious pride and "ethinic" grounds sorry that is F* CHILD ABUSE!!!!!

I would do whatever I could to save my children, sorry the ethinic thing doesn't wash with me when they will let a child die, sick F*.

As per my x post, the police and local government are trying to avoid a big show down the police are saying it will be low key despite what the likes of the daily fail and the other such S* stiring inaccurate papers say its unlikely they will go in hammer and tongs...

And for the record, they have been offered housing (settled community type) as well as options of land in smaller groups so far they are unwilling to compromise, the council, police and local people have been more than patient with them, they need to be moved on, they knew they were doing wrong, more so the extras that arrived after prescott gave them the two years to move on!

I'm sure if they were in your local area causing the same trouble as here you would not want them either. In order to not have a reputation that proceeds them they need to when out of their "compound" lifestyle respect others and others property etc... ohhhh and the arguement about them having no money the Dale Farm lot ALL drive 4x4 or high end motors way beyond my means and me and my husband work full time in fairly decent jobs but because we pay taxes we can't afford luxuries like high end cars or holidays etc..

Not necessarily, personality, ability to articulate issues, and level of insight being varied.

It is important when dealing with the Traveller community to think a few steps ahead and try to make the effort to see things from their pov, or even well-meaning attempts to help can backfire and cause more problems than they solve.

The problems associated with male dominance in the culture were exacerbated in Ireland by the way the dole was administered -- the money was paid to the male head of household, despite the fact that families usually were more co-operative in terms of work and income generation until the 70s. Women got the children's allowance, a smaller amount, but not only did this mean that some men kept the dole for themselves, leaving the women and children to fend for themselves with the children's allowance and ask the man for supplemental money, sometimes the children's allowance books were kept in the hands of loan sharks. (In the suburb where I grew up, I have seen Traveller families taking their children's allowance and dole straight from the post office to the shop next door that was owned and operated by the postmaster, who would put his hand out for the cheque first and then give them a shopping basket).

Does insisting that children go to school, without taking into account the fact that older children are often roped into family work (scrap collection, etc) help or hinder the family? This is how the family sees the question. They live at subsistence level and education is something they can't afford to value for older children.

In Ireland, the idea that women and men would participate quite equally in income generation was one that didn't occur to those holding the dominant idea of the man as head of house bringing home the bacon and the wife, smiling and subservient, being taken care of financially by him; at the subsistence level, shared by the very small farmers of the west and the Travellers, women and men and children all participated in the generation of the family's income. Middle class values of the administrative classes sometimes do not translate into other people's lives very easily.

Engagement, not mutual ignorance, is the way forward.

"They live at subsistence level..."

Visit Rathkeale at Christmas, look around you at the ultra secure mansions, at the luxury cars lining the streets. This particular group, the one at Dale farm, are plainly not living at subsistence level, their teenagers are driving cars that cost more than locals' houses.

We've moved on from the 1970s, but I suspect that the voice Travellers have when it comes to policymaking is still the voice of the men in charge. So often "cultural sensitivity" means keeping women subservient.

When you say "They live at subsistence level" I'm assuming that your generalisation isn't intented to cover those who drive round in brand new (or nearly new) top of the range 4x4s ?

'They aren't going to be rehoused together, they have to be realistic, they have broken the law, and used the law and courts to drag this on and on for 10 yrs! they were given 2 yrs, to move on 2yrs ago...'

Is this reasonable? Or is this some other group's precious pride speaking?

'Irish Travellers: Race and the Politics of Culture' (University of Toronto Press) by Jane Helleiner, might help foster understanding of why provision of housing really has to take into account the Traveller preference for communal living, how Travellers tend to move around even to the point of leaving LA housing, how there are social strata within Traveller society, how inept and heavy handed policies can do more harm than good.

This report undertaken by the European monitoring Centre on Racism and Xenophobia can be read in full. Describes general policy of the Irish govt towards Travellers, the current anti-discrimination framework within which the govt and LAs now work, and describes Traveller culture, including the centrality of the family and the family abode in the context of income generation.

Despite the repeated (green-eyed?) references to the Rathkeale community and the implied and alleged affluence of Travellers in general, one quarter of Travellers in Ireland in 1999 lived without access to running water, toilets of rubbish collection services. Subsistence level isn't really the word for people living in such conditions.

Within Ireland there are three main Traveller representative groups:
Pavee Point
Irish Traveller Movement
The National Traveller Women's Forum

www.independent.co.uk/news/uk/home-news/ill-health-threatens-dale-farm-eviction-2351021.html

Surely, this won't delay things again! In a community this large-someone will always have some health issue or another at any one time!?

Math we aren't going to agree ......

but any other group of people breaking the law this is essentially what has happened if they were given two years too move on then they would have been uproar but because they are travellers they expect special treatment I'm sorry we can't keep indulging them in this behaviour because they are actin like two yr olds and throwing tantrums! 2 yrs is an exceptionally long time to move on if they were renting they might only get one months notice, they have engaged in criminal activity they have been given free legal advice by legal aid that you and I and other families pay our taxes and contribution to society have paid for, when they start contributing they have more rights but they can go as far as I am concerned. This sympathy for travellers is because they aren't on your doorstep trust me if you had the issues we hav locally you would not like it! Similarly if it was a group of immigrants people would be outraged.... at least most immigrants want to work pay they way...

The more these discussions go on the less sympathy o have if they paid their way/taxes contributed I'd feel more for them but as it is they don't - they are massively wastin tax payer money and it's about time they were brought to rights!

I worked for a large organisation with a focus on BME. We had a dedicated person claiming to be an expert on traveller/gypsy/roma rights and he would lobby for them.

At one stage I did ask him what's the difference between them and I was told under no circumstances to 'feck off' - as he didn't know.

Quite interesting.

To me roma are a group of people who originated from India - the rest are travellers from anywhere and I think that gypsies is a modern word? No idea myself.

giveitagoTo me roma are a group of people who originated from India - the rest are travellers from anywhere and I think that gypsies is a modern word? No idea myself.Try reading this here,Romany gypsies have been in England since at least 1515,not modern at all.

Erm - I meant the word gypsies and how it's used - not how long the people have been here.

I have availed of free legal aid myself and have absolutely no issue with contributing towards it. The law is just words on paper without legal aid provision and access to representation.

Most people who use free legal aid must qualify for it by dint of low or no income, therefore they generally are not contributing towards it in taxes. That's the point of free legal aid surely? It is available to those who could not otherwise afford legal representation and those people generally are not in a position to pay taxes either.

afaik, the Travellers have received legal aid from pro bono lawyers who are interested in their cause too.

Much of what has been said lately on this thread (references to Rathkeale and large 4x4 cars, free legal aid) smacks of begrudgery and envy.

Travellers want to work. They abhor poverty and love to flash the fact that they are not poor if they have managed to raise their standard of living (hence the weddings and the houses). Their lives revolve around income generation. Their concept of work is self employment and they work hard at whatever they do in that line. That is how they can afford houses and the cars they drive. They steer clear of paid employment where they are employed by others and even if they do casual labour they prefer piecework pay as opposed to a contract over time. Due to the fact that the kind of work most of them do can also involve young children or the entire family including women, the children often leave school without qualifications, so they are essentially not able to participate in the world of paid employment anyhow, and even as casual labourers often find themselves passed over in favour of individuals from less stigmatised groups. A friend from school married a Traveller man who had gone to school and then to college and had become a bank manager. He kept his Traveller identity quiet as he firmly believed it would somehow be used against him.

They don't actually want anything more from the state than anyone else gets. They prefer by far to provide for their own families. They want to see their children educated and have gradually accepted that this is necessary up to a certain point (a big improvement on their old attitudes). They want to see their babies live to see their 5th birthday. They want to have their families close around them, to see their children grow up and marry and get the best start in life that they can give them, and then have daily involvement in the lives of their grandchildren. Living in council houses or flats where they can't ply their scrap dealing trade (with the storing and cleaning and taking apart of old appliances, engines and machines that that often involves) or fit their often large families in together under one roof is not what they want. And they have that habit of seasonal travel, or travel on the part of young couples who first live close to one set of in-laws and then to the other for the early years of their married life.

Again, I have lived near Travellers. I have ridden my bike through their local camp and have seen them begging at my door many times. Living in Ireland means living with Travellers closeby from time to time. My Irish farming family has had experience of Travellers for generations, from the days when they were called tinkers, all the way through the era of 'itinerants' to Travellers. There is nothing in the description of the Dale Farm settlement that is news to me at all.

Giveitago the Irish Travellers are known in Irish as An Lucht Siúlta (Siúlta is possibly where the word Shelta the name of the Traveller language -- comes from [aka Cant, from Irish 'caint' = 'to speak']). They have been mentioned as early as medieval times in Ireland.

The Romani have been called 'gypsies' since they first arrived.

Math again we are going to disagree...again sorry.....

The cars/4x4's at Dale farm are all newer than mine, and mainly bentleys and range rovers so not cheap motors? agreed?

No green eyed monster business for me or anyone else i know about what they drive other than they are stolen and they have no tax/insurance often no license......what i find frustrating/annoying/upsetting is why are they allowed to steal motors (I couldn't and wouldn't on morale grounds) and drive them around again no road tax/insurance etc...... i don't quite frankly care aboiut the higher volume of deaths on the road with travellers, unless they are killing innocent people.

BULL travellers want to work, if they did they would be grafting and honest.... however that ain't the case really, my mum is a recruitment consultant I called her to check if any travellers have registered with them for work? ypu as I suspected NO!

If people want to work there is work there of sorts, before I get flamed for but not for travellers that is bull of the biggest kind, employment law is very clear, however lots of jobs require BASIC literacy.....IT IS NEVER EVER too late to learn so the they didn't get the opportunity when kids to learn basic literacy doens't wash loads of schemes available if they want to help themselves!!!

You see math I have no issue with anyone using legal aid - IF they have contributed (no travellers haven't), people are unable to contribute due to cirmanstance (e.g. disability not enabling them to work, erm not all a massive majority of travellers), other than that it is under 18's?

If you pay nothing to society you have NO right in mind to claim benefits/no intention of working (this goes for the work shy as well)/however if your circumstances mean you need benefits (disability), single parent (better off not working or workig less hrs than ft), or another geniune reason I have issue likewise with the claiming of legal aid....

However if you are just using and abusing the system yeah I have an issue and want to question why you feel your entitled to abuse the system?

As for the human rights brigade that go OT......or take interest in these cases you have to ask their motives? Is it to persue their career? or do they really care? if they do, do they know the horrificness of having a traveller community like Dale farm on the door step??

Quote from Math
"The law doesn't suit the needs of the Travellers much anywhere, Butterscotch."
It wouldn't suit my needs either, if I nicked things, broke into houses; drove a car (that was nicked in the first place (without insurance tax) and behaved outside the law. Actually the law does suit the needs; because the law is scared of them. They're too maverick; too outside the everyday culture.
What planet are you on Math ?
A recognised element of their culture is the early sexualisation/domestication of young women .

That in itself is a fucking disgrace; and how we; as educated women, aren't screaming from the roof-tops is beyond me.
Just because something is embedded in culture; doesn't make it " right ".
Slave owners regularly fucked their female slaves. It was "standard" practice
.
Young girls/Women brought up in this culture are indoctrinated and oppressed.
The very isolation on the fringes of society means that they are denied this knowledge and education.
A civilisation educates their Women; a ghetto supresses them.

Well you are clearly feeling very free to malign 30,000+ men, women and children here.

Maybe you would care to ponder the existence of anti-discrimination laws (no doubt there is a good reason why they exist that has nothing to do with the existence of discrimination or hatred, on an individual, corporate and government level?), the fact that insurance companies routinely refuse to insure Travellers, the fact that government has passed the Traveller buck to the LAs and the LAs are happy to kick the can down the road and play the eviction card, the fact that 90% of Traveller planning applications are refused, the fact that young boys also leave school in order to work.

Or maybe you prefer to hide behind a screen name and spew the sort of vilification of your fellow human beings that would be completely unacceptable even from the lips of Enoch Powell.

How can the girls of the Traveller community benefit when they are all being moved on, spat upon, and forced to literally circle the wagons around the community, to see themselves contra mundum and with some justification see the world and its values as a hostile army arrayed against them? Whether a good place or a bad place for them, ultimately the Traveller community is theirs, the only one they have, and I cannot see any Traveller girl forming any positive opinion of the rest of society or its values from observing the shameful treatment of the community?

It takes two to make a ghetto. Just because there are laws on the books including planning permission regulations, doesn't make them 'right', and your mention of slavery is a case in point. Yes, that was legal too.

Butterscotch, at the risk of repeating myself, you really need some sort of proof before you go about accusing people of grand theft auto.

PMSL at the thought of Travellers signing up with a recruitment consultant.

Either you can't read (a possibility given the standard of your writing here) or you are sincerely not interested in learning from the many links posted here by people who actually know something about the Traveller community, but they really do work, and again at risk of repeating myself, they prefer to be self employed, so maybe that explains their lack of contact with your mother and her recruitment consultancy. They worked and fed their families long before there was social welfare in Ireland and they have done so ever since too. They have survived since at least the 1100s including survival through the Famine. By working.

And FYI there are millions of Britons claiming all sorts of welfare and tax benefits who do not pay into the system even a fraction of what they take out if it's all added up, from healthcare to education to childcare subsidies. The average family with two children has already used up more than they will ever pay in just from having the babies and educating them for a few years.

"Either you can't read (a possibility given the standard of your writing here)"

Are you maligning people who aren't very good at reading and writing, Math?

Much of what has been said lately on this thread (references to Rathkeale and large 4x4 cars, free legal aid) smacks of begrudgery and envy.

I was one of the ones who posted about 4x4s
I couldn't give a flying stuff what car they drive (so long as it's taxed and insured etc), certainly no begrudgery or envy here. I posted it in response to YOUR claim that they were so poor they had a subsistence level living. If they can afford to buy flash 4x4s they have enough cash to live decently, so either they are NOT living at subsitence level or if they are they need to get their priorities sorted.

You still keep banging on about "the fact that 90% of Traveller planning applications are refused" but have yet to provide any evidence that they are refused because they are travellers, whereas someone from the settled community would have been granted PP for the same development.

There are also quite a proportion of the settled community would would like to live nearer to family members (some can't wait to move away I know!) but can't due to house prices/private rental costs/lack of social housing/lack of work in the area - ie they HAVE to live somewhere where they can afford to live/can work/there is housing available. It was always our culture to live near family - you don't need to go back that many years to when the majority of people died within a couple of miles of where they (and their parents) were born. Things change, people change, culture changes - we have to accept this change, but apparently Travellers can't change? Why?

I am commenting in ironic fashion on the standard of English used to malign 30,000+ people for their alleged lack of acceptance of social norms, based on evidence right in front of my eyes, PigletJohn. That is different from assertions here that that all Travelling people are busy stealing cars and hooring around the countryside killing innocent people daily.

If the make and model of cars they drive is not that important, then why mention it?

The 'subsistence level of living' applies to the general state of the Traveller community in its entirety, certainly to many in the Dale Farm community specifically. Subsistence refers both to their type of work (dealing on a wholesale level in commodities) and to the sort of income that is eked out by the majority.

Of course there are many Travellers whose lives are well below subsistence level from the income pov. These would be the one in four in Ireland who live on the side of the road, without access to running water, toilets, rubbish collection (the camp I was familiar with as a child would fit into this category)

BetsyBoop, I think if the courts accepted that 90% of Traveller pp applications are refused because of the identity of the people making the applications (see an earlier link), then so should you -- or do you only accept what the courts say when it comes to eviction of Travellers?

Would Travelers be applying for planning permission if they could not afford the sort of development applied for in the pp application? They may be semi literate but they are very sharp with money and not stupid. They are not asking anyone for free communal council-provided housing anywhere. Accepting council housing is for them, as it is for a lot of Irish people with country origins, a mark of shame (my grandparents' generation saw it as being akin to the workhouse). Their preference is for life with extended family close around, in houses or trailers that they themselves build or buy, on their own land (hence Rathkeale, Dale Farm). They want to do well for themselves and provide for themselves. They really should be the darlings of the Conservative Party because what they are trying to do is look after their own community, support the old, pay their way -- their very own Big Society in fact. (So ironic to see DC spouting on about them therefore). They have no desire to live beside people they fear, who would cheerfully burn effigies of them or worse. They want to live decently, in accordance with their own culture. The crux of the issue is the planning process that denies them the chance to stand on their own two feet.

As for adapting to change -- what has been the fate of the eastern European Roma who have adapted fast to the new European political scene, packed their bags and moved west? Welcomed with open arms, were they?

How come you have such in depth knowledge of the traveller community math?

I say traveller at this time (not gypsy or roma) as the ones I met near the dale farm at a car boot in spring were clearly white and giving my dm racist abuse.

Oh so what's the difference between eastern european roma and those who originate generations back from india.

butterscotch,that certainly was a vile post, if it was reported to Mnhq would have been deleted and if it had been reported to the police, you would probably be gettin a knock on the door from their diversity officer.