Colum McCann: Travellers must talk and we must listen

I was at a literary reading a few years ago when a man stood up and asked me why I had bothered to write a book about the “gypsies.” He spoke with the thin accent of a man who would only put a pejorative lowercase “g” on the word. I asked why shouldn’t a novelist write a book about the Roma or the Travellers?

He proceeded to whip a list of adjectives out from the tight collar of his throat, and he applied them forcefully: secretive, immoral, dishonest, uncouth, nomadic, rapacious and predatory. I asked him if he would prefer that I wrote a book about the good folks at Anglo Irish Bank. Irony wasn't his strong suit. He huffed and walked away. I thought to myself that he moved like an advertisement for Nama: appropriating all the space around him, ready to sell it to an outsider.

No communities in Ireland have been as consistently tarred and feathered as the Travellers and the Roma. If a lie is repeated often enough it becomes the "truth." The man at the literary reading had created his own truth and he was sticking to it. He, like so many of us, had bought into the simplicity and ease of cliche. The tarring brush is so easily applied.

One of the true triumphs of Traveller and Romani life in Ireland in recent years is the culture’s ability to be tremendously resilient in the face of naked racism.

At the same time, the filter of sentimentality is often invoked and the exoticisation of the Roma and the Travellers is not something that can, or should, be taken easily. I had spent the best part of three years working on the novel and had come to understand the culture was as internally diverse as any other. The crux of the matter when talking about any culture is we must recognise the essence of intelligence is the ability to hold two or more opposing ideas at the exact same time.

Critical to the ongoing success of Pavee Point is the fact that for 30 years the organisation has had the ability to look from both within and without, clearly identifying the issues confronting not only Irish Travellers but amongst wider Irish society too, from the top of the political echelon to the smaller, more anonymous corners.

Ethnic minorities

Here are the the facts: the Travellers and the Roma are ethnic minorities. They are, and have been, subject to intense racism in Ireland. For us to move forward – as a thinking, vibrant democracy – we must acknowledge those two essential pillars and open the gateposts from there.

Clearly, the ability of Irish Travellers and the Roma to tell their stories is paramount to their dignity and survival. Equally it is profoundly important that the story be heard – otherwise the whole landscape will continue to be gate-locked.

A story without a listener is hardly a story at all. The stories must go back and forth: from Traveller to mainstream and back again. Within this context, story-telling is the precise crux of the matter – the Travellers and the Roma have a right to absolute self-determination, and they have to be involved in all decisions that affect the past, the present and the consequent future.

Empowerment

To be heard and to listen: this is a matter of proper empowerment. To catch contradiction and to destroy cliche is part of this transaction. Traveller life can be mundane. The Romani blood laws are not necessarily obeyed. The Traveller playwright can carve out the heart of non-Traveller society. The inside of a Romani house does not always sparkle. A Traveller fiddle does not necessarily tune itself. The Romani psychologist does not have to hide her skin. The Traveller doctor is not just a seventh son. That person begging on the corner has more resemblance to a banker than anything else. Let’s not forget that those who own the land do not necessarily love it. Life, as Pasternak has said, is not so easy as to cross a field.

Young Traveller activists are today making a mark. They are less and less afraid to stand up and say where they come from. They are instituting a new form of cultural memory.

At the core of all this – and what Pavee Point has strived to achieve for decades – is that all of us have to continue to make a more nuanced argument about ourselves and our relationship to one another. What we must do is learn to not just restore ourselves, but we must “re-story” ourselves too.

There are so many contradictory perceptions of Travellers in Ireland that unless we learn the twin values of telling and listening, it is likely we will remain mired in the very deep ditch of simplicity. This book picks up that dialogue.

A smidgin of understanding is worth a ton of judgments. Thirty years ago it began. Pavee Point looks to the past as a key to the future: long may it happen. In fact, long may it continue to begin.

Colum McCann is a novelist whose works include Zoli, a 2006 novel that explores the persecution the Roma faced during World War II. This piece appears as a forward to 30 Years of Pavee Point, a book of photographs by Derek Speirs.