The International Day
of the Roma is celebrated in honour of the first international meeting of
Romani representatives which was held just on 8 April 1971 near London.
Its initiators were in
particular Grattan Puxon and Donald Kenrick from England, the Yugoslavian
Romanies were represented by Jarko Jovanovic, and French Romanies, so-called
Manusha, were represented by Matéo Maximoff. Then Czechoslovak Socialist
Republic was represented by members of the Union of Roma-Gypsies.
The Romani Flag
The Romani flag
consists of two lengthwise strips; the lower green strip symbolizes the unity
of Romanies with the nature and the upper blue strip symbolizes their unity
with the heavens, in other words with the spiritual world, philosophy and such
like. The wheel in the centre of the flag symbolizes the migratory heritage of
Romanies and has its roots in the Indian red chakra wheel. It had originally
sixteen spokes and its red colour corresponds to the first chakra – the element
of the Earth.
The Romani Anthem
The lyrics of the
international Romani anthem "Gelem Gelem" were written by a Romany
musician and politician Zarko Jovanovic from Beograd who has been living for
years in Paris. The lyrics were set to a traditional Romany melody. The
interesting thing is that Czech and Slovak Romanies have their own anthem
"Čhajori Romani" which was composed in the concentration camp
Auschwitz. The international anthem was adopted as late as in 1990'.