Re: in memoriam

There was a short piece on the plight of a "settlement" of Gypsies in Eastern
Europe, recently in the NYT.  Those who affirm nomadicity are the most 
threatened
of species in the contemporary world-system.  Ganesh Trichur.

Jozsef Borocz wrote:

> A brief commentary on the world system, post-state-socialism, economic
> restructuring, structural adjustment, the 'eastern enlargement' of the
> European Union, and "race".
>
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> In Memoriam
>
> Nepszabadsag, (Hungary's leading daily) March 4, 2003.
>
> by P.G.
>
> I did not know him; never met him, never talked to him. While he was alive, I
> knew nothing about him. His death shook me. His name is unimportant--his
> story is crucial. The time is now; the place is here. He was one of us.
>
> He was buried on the last cold Monday of the winter, one week after his
> death. He was 48 years old. At work he is remembered as a quiet, sickly man.
> A very diligent person, he was the jack-of-all-trades repair man in a small
> town high school in rural Hungary, member of the "auxiliary personnel". He
> was hired last summer, due largely to humanitarian considerations, and he was
> a very proud worker.
>
> The school management unit, established by the local municipality as a way to
> centralize maintenance of the district schools, is rumored to be laying off
> over 60 people these days. The technical-auxiliary personnel of the
> schools--it is hard to tell which of those designations is more
> humilitating--are employed by this unit. Or, rather: used to be employed. It
> was his turn on Friday to be told that that was his last day on the job.
>
> The cleaning ladies at the school say he was desperate. He could not
> believe he could find another job in his life. "This was the first place
> in my life where I was treated as a human being, where I was addressed as
> a fellow man," he argued.
>
> He was a Roma man. Divorced, living with his former wife and three children:
> the youngest is 10, the oldest is 17.
>
> On the third day he hanged himself.
> ________________________________________________________________________
>
> (English transl.: József Böröcz)