Madonna booed
Posted on August 29, 2009
Filed Under East meets West | Leave a Comment
For years now, Madonna’s tours have stirred controversy, either because she chooses to make a statement on art by being strapped on a mirrored cross or because of her dance moves and the way she dresses. The other night, though, as the singer performed in Bucharest, Romania, it was something that she said that got a 60,000+ crowd upset: Madonna speaking on the discrimination of Gypsies in Romania, and Eastern Europe in general. Madonna was booed during the concert in Bucharest on Wednesday night when she urged the Eastern European crowd to be tolerant of Roma, otherwise known as the Gypsy population. The Roma have recently been the victims of targeted killings in Hungary, and they face discrimination in many parts of Europe. In an effort to bring attention to that, Madonna took a break from performing during her concert in Bucharest to say, “I’ve been paying attention to news reports, and it’s been brought to my attention that there’s a lot of discrimination against Romanies and Gypsies in general in Eastern Europe, and that makes me feel very sad,†she said. “Because we don’t believe in discrimination against anyone, we believe in freedom and equal rights for everyone, right?â€Â Sometimes, it can be deadly: In neighboring Hungary, six Roma have been killed and several wounded in a recent series of apparently racially motivated attacks targeting small countryside villages predominantly settled by Gypsies.
“There is generally widespread resentment against Gypsies in Eastern Europe. They have historically been the underdog,” Radu Motoc, an official with the Soros Foundation Romania, said Thursday. Roma, or Gypsies, are a nomadic ethnic group believed to have their roots in the Indian subcontinent. They live mostly in southern and eastern Europe, but hundreds of thousands have migrated west over the past few decades in search of jobs and better living conditions. Romania has the largest number of Roma in the region. Some say the population could be as high as 2 million, although official data put it at 500,000. That explains why the Roma musicians and a dancer who had briefly joined Madonna onstage got enthusiastic applause. And it also may explain why some in the crowd turned on Madonna when she paused during the two-hour show — a stop on her worldwide “Sticky and Sweet” tour — to touch on their plight. Thousands booed and jeered her. ”I jeered her because it seemed false what she was telling us. What business does she have telling us these things?” said Ionut Dinu, 23.
Madonna did not react and carried on with her concert, held near the hulking palace of the late communist dictator Nicolae Ceausescu. Some fans also showed support for her comments by applauding. Many Roma in Eastern Europe live below the poverty line, and in parts of Eastern Europe it has been common for some to show their hatred of the Roma by displaying the swastika and other Nazi symbols. Many Eastern Europeans have also bristled at any criticism of the way the Roma are treated in their countries, especially if it comes from someone who is not from that part of the world. As a visitor on tour from the United States, Madonna no doubt ran into that obstacle with the crowd in Bucharest.
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