Interview

INTERVIEW WITH THE AUTHOR

This interview was conducted in late-March 2005. Garth was, after a sojurn through the American south West, back home in Peckham, south London, and musing over the beauty of the Romanian Gypsy musician Gheorghe Radulesco’s cymbalom playing. When I inquired as to who this Radulesco was - I didn’t recall his name coming up in Princes Amongst Men – Garth confessed to knowing almost nothing about him, having recently found a second hand album of his in a San Francisco record store. As Princes Amongst Men celebrates, amongst many things, much beautiful music made by musicians almost completely unknown to Western listeners the mysterious Mr Radulesco appeared a good starting point for our conversation.

ALASTAIR MUCKLOW: That’s Gheorghe Radulesco I can hear playing in the background now?

GARTH CARTWRIGHT: Right. He plays cymbalom with beautiful precision, his touch is so sure, fabulously melodic yet never overplaying. Quite eerie too, his sound, it’s that sense of a spirit world I also find in Dona Dumitru Siminica and Romica Puceanu’s music. There’s something about the classic Gypsy music cut in Romania during Ceausecu’s reign, it’s akin to the blues cut in the Mississippi Delta across the 1920s and ‘30s, there’s a heightened artistry no one else touches. And if I hadn’t been sifting through a bin of second hand East European albums and come across one on the French label Arion from 1980 called The Gypsy Cymbalom by Gheorghe Radulesco with the Muteni Gypsy Violins I would be still be ignorant of him today. He’s not mentioned in the Rough Guide To World Music, there’s nothing about him on the net other than a few second hand albums for sale and I’ve never found him on any compilation albums of Gypsy or Balkan music. Yet he’s a master musician.

ALASTAIR MUCKLOW: But you overlooked him when writing the book?

GARTH CARTWRIGHT: Totally. Didn’t know he existed. I’m now going to have to ask friends in Romania if they know of him. Some of the musicians surely will. I wonder if he’s still alive. My girlfriend has literally just arrived back from Texas today with a CD she found of him – recordings from the same time on the same Axion label – and she didn’t even know I was listening to him so that’s synchronicity of sorts. Anyway, her CD states he was born in Bucharest in 1941 so he could still be alive. I’m sure I’ll be able to find something about him and if Princes goes into reprint build him into the Romania chapter.

AM: Was that the abiding factor behind writing Princes, to draw attention to these great musicians that remain overlooked?

GC: I wouldn’t say it was the abiding factor. I’m not sure what the abiding factor was. I definitely wanted to celebrate the brilliance of Balkan Gypsy music but I didn’t want to write a book simply for people with a taste for Gypsy music. I always aimed to write from a broad spectrum, bring these people and their community alive. Music is the link that keys these people to the West, the gift they possess that we see as positive as opposed to all the negative associations people tend to make with Gypsies.

AM: Is music what got you interested in the Gypsy community?

GC: To some degree, certainly. And I’ve got to admit it was music that allowed me to enter their communities and make contact with certain individuals. Without the fact that I was writing on their music for British publications I certainly never would have had the opportunities to meet so many fabulous people and to spend time in their mahalas. If I was just another backpacker passing through I’m sure they would have still treated me cordially – the Roma are a gentle people, despite what urban myths may suggest – but as I was writing on them and they understand the value of good publicity then they truly made me welcome.

AM: You just used the term ‘Roma’. Throughout the book you tend to describe the musicians and their communities as Roma but the music is described as ‘Gypsy’. Why the two terms?

GC: That’s not the easiest question to answer but I’ll try. OK, Tito’s Yugoslavia was very accommodating towards the Roma communities in its borders and this increased their self confidence, lead to the establishment of a small Roma middle class. These people, while trying to define themselves, started using the term Roma because they were tired of all the negative associations that go with the word Gypsy. Also, as they point out, Gypsy is a title conferred by Europeans on the first Roma to arrive in Europe a thousand years ago as they mistakenly believed them to have arrived from Egypt. While Roma is the term many of the Gypsies in Serbia and Macedonia now use to describe themselves it’s not exclusively so and I’ve encountered many Roms who still prefer the term Gypsy or Tzigane simply because they shrug off the negative associations conferred upon the word and see it as the label the world has embraced them with. In Romania, which is a terribly racist nation, the government actively discourages the use of Roma as they think foreigners will mistakenly imagine the name of the nation comes from an association with the dreaded Tzigane. So very few Rom use it there. In Spain, France, the UK, places where the Romany language has largely died out, it’s not used either. And just as the Romanians fear it may be mistaken for their nation’s roots many people would misinterpret it as being a citizen of Italy’s capital. So it is a difficult one. I hope I’ve accommodated both views but I’m aware some of the more militant Roms will dislike the book because it has Gypsy in its title.

AM: You’ve already come across some criticism?

GC: Well, Dragan and Dushan Ristic, the two Serb Rom brothers who lead the band Kal, always act outraged if I ever use the word Gypsy in their presence but I always then point out that their CD has plastered across the cover “Gypsy Music From Serbia”. And they produced, designed and distributed the album themselves. No one else had anything to do with that cover. They admit that’s because the world music market consumes Gypsy not Roma music and I think that’s another point: Gypsy music is a growth area in world music which is the arena the musicians I’m writing about exist in, for the West at least. Roma music is not a factor. So if you want to be called a Roma rather than a Gypsy, fine, but don’t dis Gypsy if you are happy to promote yourself as such for fun and profit.

AM: Can you see a time when the word Roma replaces the word Gypsy in the common vocabulary?

GC: Not replaces because there is no Roma Martin Luther King or Malcom X out there promoting the cause to a wide public. But to the liberal, educated public I can see it coming into more use when they talk about these people. In Germany at the moment they are building a monument to the Roma who were murdered in the Holocaust and there’s been quite a heated debate as to whether the monument should be one for Gypsies or Roma or Sinti (the name of the largest German tribe of Roma). It’s good to have the debate out in the open and if the Roma do ever become a more organised political force then they can decide for themselves. But for now The Gipsy Kings remain the world’s most popular Gypsy music band and they see themselves as Gipsy. Roma is not a word in their vocabulary. So don’t expect a rapid change.

AM: You prefer to use the word Roma?

GC: As I don’t want to offend people I tend to ask what term they use to define themselves. Rom/Roma means ‘man’ or ‘person’ in Romani and I tend to believe has only really been adopted in the last century as a form of ethnic definition by the Roma. This has resulted from the whirlwind of European nationalism which has gathered strength over the last two hundred years – especially in the Balkans where the championing of Greek freedom from Turkish rule set things on fire so all ethnic groups have been forced to adopt a title, Under Ottoman rule you were seen as either Muslim or non-Muslim. I’m sure the Roma were still largely treated as outcasts by the Ottomans but what they called themselves I don’t know. When they left the land mass we now call India a millennium ago I imagine they referred to themselves by tribal names as nationalism as we see it now would not have been so forceful in shaping one’s thinking. Actually, that really answers my previous question– in much of Romania and Bulgaria, where you tend to have more traditional Roma communities, they still define themselves more by tribe or caste – Kalderash, Yerlii, Rudara etc – rather than as Roma or Tzigane. And I imagine that’s how it was under the Ottomans and whoever else ruled the regions they lived in. As for Gypsy, it’s a word that comes loaded with positive and negative connotations. As we speak The Sun and The Daily Mail are whipping up hatred of Gypsy Camps and using all the negativity they can imply goes with the word. Yet Gypsy is also employed as a description of a freedom loving, very creative people who never start wars or get involved in political or ethnic conflict. I’d argue that the name should be promoted as the title of a people who have been a positive force in European and New World history – even if Roma does enter the common language across this century Gypsy is not going to be a name that fades away so let’s challenge the racists by, first, not letting them use it as a slanderous term and, second, celebrating Gypsy culture for all the good things it has brought – and continues to bring – into our world.

AM: You mentioned the ‘Gypsy Camp’ scare which is being used to whip up fear and loathing in middle England; what can you tell me about this situation?

GC: To be honest I possess only a slight knowledge of the British Gypsy community. I’m aware of their arrival here (thought to have been the 15th or 16th Century) and the persecution they often endured and how they still celebrate annual horse fairs in Appleby and Musselburgh. I’m aware that the Romani language became something of a secret language employed by, among others, criminals and gay men in times past as the police obviously didn’t understand it. But all this is just information I’ve picked up from reading and talking to other UK observers. I have much closer links with Balkan Gypsy communities than any in the UK. To try and answer your question, firstly, a lot of the people who are called Gypsy by the tabloids are not in any way related to the Roma. They’re largely descended from Irish tinkers. The history of the tinkers is too complex to go into in any depth here – the term tinker comes from many once working as tinsmiths – and there appears to be a huge variety of theories about them. The general one is that they were Irish peasants who were made landless some time ago – perhaps by the great famine, perhaps earlier, and ended up living a somewhat nomadic lifestyle. Yet recently academics have started to argue that these people we call tinkers are an ancient people who are last surviving remanants of a pre-Celtic Ireland as they have their own distinctive language called “Cant” of “Gammon” – some academics think this language is descended from a pre-Celtic Ireland which goes back more than 3,000 years. Others dispute this but acknowledge that the tinker community goes back to medieval or Tudor times. Many have come to mainland UK – as have millions of non-Tinker Irish over recent centuries – and some have kept travelling. Originally many would have been travelling and working as seasonal workers. Today, with cheap East European labour fulfilling that role, I’m not sure if many travel for work or simply out of habit. Some of these Irish travellers have adopted the term Gypsy to describe themselves so, in that sense, yeah, the tabloids are describing Gypsy camps when they go on about caravan sites and all their problems. The best book about the Irish Gypsies is King Of The Gypsies by Bartley Gorman (Milo). Gorman was bare knuckle champion boxer. He acknowledges the term Gypsy was first given to the Asian Romanies on their arrival in Europe and then writes “In a broader sense, a gypsy is anyone who lives the gypsy lifestyle and adopts their wandering ways, habits and appearance. Most Irish travellers – the background from which I come – are not Romanies but they are still gypsies.” Fair play to him – I’m not going to argue with a bare knuckle fighter! – but it does add to the confusion surrounding the name. Perhaps we should be pushing for Roma to be universally recognised for all those of Romani descent and Gypsy left to be used for anyone who wanders. The debate will go on and on and on.

AM: And the tabloids, how do you feel about their demonising of Gypsies, whether Irish or Romani?

GC: It’s atrocious. The UK is a civil society and most everyone, both in media and everyday life, is aware that demonising of people because of their ethnicity or religion or skin colour is a wretched, primitive thing to do. But Gypsies, Europe’s largest minority, are still allowed to be kicked around. Why? Because they have so little political power and legal representation. There’s no way today you could demonise other minorities in the UK in the way the Gypsies are – there would be outrage, sackings, public apologies. There’s just so much hatred in those papers – do you remember when the new member states were about to join the EU and the same rags were warning of a Gypsy invasion from East Europe? A Gypsy invasion aiming to suck the blood out of the UK’s health and social welfare systems? Well, tens of thousands of Poles and other new EU member states have arrived here. They’ve arrived here to work and you never hear any serious complaints about this. They’re serving you in bars and painting your house. But as for the Gypsies? They either did the same and got jobs or simply didn’t come. Probably a mixture of both. But as for this invasion of bludgers, it never happened. Do you hear the Sun and Mail apologising? Hell no.

AM: You travel a lot. Is this what got you initially interested in the Gypsies? And do you ever refer to yourself as “a bit of a Gypsy”?

GC: First off, no, I never call myself a Gypsy. I tend to dislike people using it as a romanticised term for their own wanderings. When I do hear it used in this way it just strikes me that the speaker is very ill informed. I mean, the majority of Romani in Europe have not been nomadic for decades. Or centuries in many cases. As for my love of travel, well, it got me into Eastern Europe in the early-1990s and I was interested that these dark skinned people existed yet I never met them – they didn’t serve you food or work in hotels or any other job where you might normally meet the locals. And the locals I did meet often were disparaging of the Gypsies when I asked about them – disparaging in that ignorant manner that shapes racist views. I have a tendency to go against the status quo so this only made me more interested in these Gypsies. At the same time great films by Kusturica and Tony Gatlif were being released, as were fabulous albums by the likes of Taraf de Haidouks and Kalyi Jag, so I encountered East European Romani culture this way and that really got my interest going.

AM: Why is their such racism towards the Gypsies across most of Eastern Europe?

GC: Ignorance. And the fact that across the world societies have always found it easy to pick on minority groups in their midst. East Europe has been colonised countless times across the centuries by invaders from Asia, Russia and Western Europe and this sense of oppression has meant that the fair skinned Europeans who have lived in those nations for centuries have tended to pick on their minorities, the Gypsies and the Jews. After World War 2 most of the Jewish communities had been murdered or emigrated so only the Gypsies remained to be picked on. It’s worth noting that Tito’s Yugoslavia, the most liberal and forward thinking of East European communist states, practised greater tolerance towards its Roma than anywhere else. Nations like Romania and Bulgaria were ruled by truly totalitarian communist-nationalist governments and these states still possess an unpleasantly strong degree of loathing towards their Roma. Bad government tends to create bad values amongst the citizens. Also, if you are angry at the corruption and poverty in your nation – as many Romanians and Bulgarians are today – it’s much easier to lash out at a minority than look at how your own people have failed you over and over again.

AM: You mention chasing a beautiful Czech elf who described Gypsies as “dirty and dangerous”. Did you get to the bottom of her loathing?

GC: My Czech ex was a nice woman who didn’t consider herself a racist as she had nothing against the people of African and Asian origin she met in London. But almost no people of African and Asian origin lived in Czechoslovakia. She had never met a Gypsy in her life but had unquestioningly inherited the general loathing of Gypsies that continues to characterise Czech and Slovak society. I’m sure if she had gone to school with Gypsies or worked with Gypsies she would have altered her attitude. But the Czech and Slovak Republics remain very segregated societies. It’s very sad. Vaclev Havel said when he first became President of Czechoslovakia in 1989 that the nation’s treatment of its Gypsies would be a litmus test of their civil society. Sixteen years on I can’t say I hold great faith in Czech or Slovak civil society. I wonder what Havel currently thinks?

AM: We’ve been talking largely about music and politics – are these the main thrusts of Princes Amongst Men?

GC: They’re integral to it, sure, but I tried to write Princes as a travel book that takes the reader through the Balkans and introduces them to nations and people they consider very foreign, very mysterious. Let’s face it, most British people have a far greater idea of, say, Brazilian or Thai society than they do Macedonian or Bulgarian. And almost no idea of Romani culture. If you find the book an entertaining read that opens your personal horizons to the people we call Gypsies and the lands most of them continue to live in then I believe I’ve succeeded. If you only read it for musical information or human rights information then, OK, I don’t believe you will be disappointed, there’s a lot of new information in the book. But Princes is not written as an ethnomusicolgoical text or a political pamphlet. It’s my magical mystery tour through four striking, beautiful, contradictory, poor, difficult, friendly, frustrating, ancient yet developing nations. And my guides for this tour were the Romani people. Very few Westerners have ever asked them about their lives, music and opinions – I wanted to give them the chance to express themselves while I got to hear some of the most fabulous music on the planet.

AM: And did you get to hear much fabulous music?

GC: Music so good, so fresh, so imaginative that it’s almost unbelievable. I had the time of my life in the goddam Balkans! I hope Princes conveys that. You know, that I had the most fun you can have with your clothes on.