The article studies the war artifacts and military symbols, particularly bullets and tattoos, in Héctor Tobar’s novel about the Guatemalan civil war, The Tattooed Soldier (1998) and Salomón de la Selva’s testimonial poetry about World War I, El soldado desconocido (1922). Although the texts were written more than seven decades apart, the two authors’ treatments of these objects demonstrate ligatures between soldiering, disability, and the frailty of the Global North’s patriotism in Latinx narratives. They depict the effects of war on vulnerable bodies as well as the central value of the figure of the soldier. In his novel, Tobar builds on de la Selva’s poetic explorations, from the soldiers in the European trenches to the soldier turned immigrant. Their narratives capture how soldiers in global and local conflicts look for a sense of masculinity and patriotism, but instead expose the atomization and dark side of contemporary American cultures across borders. For both authors, war creates physical and psychological wounds that go unrecognized and for which the US is never held responsible. Tobar and de la Selva reveal war artifacts and militaristic symbols as original, tangible sites that expose this reality.

Introduction

This chapter reviews the strengths, achievements, threats and pitfalls facing Gypsy, Traveller and Roma (GTR) civil society, and the role GTR voluntary and community organisations have played in defending and enhancing the political and cultural rights of these marginalised groups. Drawing on historical and contemporary analysis, we explore the motivation, dynamism and tensions inherent in varied manifestations of GTR community activism and the struggles against, and impact of, assimilatory and discriminatory policy. Finally, we explore the way community bonds and diverse aspects of identity interplay in the growth of community activism and the survival and development of the sector, often against the odds.

The roots of the Gypsy, Traveller and Roma third sector

In 1966, the Gypsy Council was formed in the UK as a campaigning organisation. Among the leading catalysts was the non-Gypsy campaigner Grattan Puxon, who, prior to this, had honed his skills in community mobilisation in Ireland by working with Irish Travellers in a campaign centred on resistance to eviction. In both the UK and Ireland, a growing body of restrictions on nomadism and the breakdown in the symbiotic economic relationship between farmers and nomadic communities greatly diminished the supply of stopping places and scope for Traveller lifestyles. Hence eviction became a pronounced feature of Gypsy/Traveller life (Acton, 1974). As in Ireland, Puxon (through the Gypsy Council) helped thread a network of charismatic community leaders and extended families into a coherent campaign. The Gypsy Council presented a landmark moment, being the first formal national GTR non-governmental organisation (NGO) in the UK and indeed one of the first in Europe. The Gypsy Council was later weakened by disputes and fissures. Many of these centred on what role non-community members should play, debates about the value and danger of being linked too closely with services and centres of power and the tensions caused by charismatic leadership (Acton et al, 2014).

This chapter provides an account of the formation in the 1960s and development of the Gypsy Council and its successor organisations (Figure 2.1). Most accounts of the origins, trajectories and achievements of Romani organisations concentrate upon the story of how they interacted with state authorities and what result they had upon the overt policy and actions of the local and central state and, more recently, transnational organisations. Over the last 25 years narratives have been set within the banal discourse of the ‘NGO’. Although the phrase ‘non-governmental organisation’ appeared in the UN Charter of 1945 (in a rather different context), the acronym NGO was popularised only in the 1980s, through the abbreviation of the somewhat more euphonious acronym the ‘QUANGO’, or ‘quasi-autonomous non-governmental organisation’. That phrase, first used in 1967, was itself acronymised only in 1969 (Pifer, 1987), but was picked up by right-wing governments, such as the Heath government (1970–74) in the UK as the welfare state staggered under the twin shocks of the oil price rises and the rapid growth in the number of old-age pensioners and sought to outsource welfare provision to independent agencies that it nevertheless had to fund. Acknowledging that they were only quasi-autonomous, however, meant that the government was still held accountable for their performance. Neoliberal discourse swiftly dropped the ‘quasi’ bit, and reinvented government as the righteous, avenging popular regulator of the agencies that perpetually failed to manage the poor on the budgets they are given. The modern use of the term ‘NGO’ invites one to consider them only in relation to governments. How strange it is that at the very moment when the last major version of state utopian authoritarianism lost legitimacy in 1989, the neoliberal ascendancy was able thus to appropriate an inverted vision of the ubiquity of the state. Most of the Romani organisations bravely and ineffectually (according to some) taking grants across Europe to cover for the failings of the welfare state might better be termed ‘wholly non-autonomous fully funded non-governmental organisations’ (WONNAFFUNGOs).

The Gypsy Council, from its foundation in 1966 down to its local offshoots, and the two Gypsy Councils which dispute the title to be its legitimate successor today, have never been one of these WONAFFUNGOs.

Demographic figures depend not only on who will identify themselves, but on whom the statisticians are prepared to count! In Eastern Europe poor, dark-skinned residents of Gypsy ghettos are more likely to be counted than nomads or light-skinned businessmen, while in England, until the 1980s only nomads living in tents or caravans were counted. Not until 2011 did the UK's Census include an ethnic question, inviting individuals to identify as ‘Gypsies or Travellers’, and about 58,000 did so, 24% of them living in caravans (ONS, 2014). Only 12% were born outside the UK, and it is probable that most of these were born in the Irish Republic. It is understandable that very few of the East European Roma who have migrated here since 1989 would have identified themselves, since most regard the word ‘Gypsy’ as a bad term. Although we are aware of small numbers of intermarriages between Roma and Romanichals over the past century, it is probably wisest to make separate estimates of ‘Roma’ and the numbers of ‘Gypsies and Travellers’ (that is, Romanichals, Kale, Nachins, Minceir, Pavees and caravan-dwelling New Travellers).

The only recent serious attempt to work from the Census and other public data to make a minimum estimate of the number of Gypsies and Travellers in England is that of the then Irish Traveller Movement (2013). It compared the Census with the numbers revealed by local authority Gypsy and Travellers Accommodation Assessments (GTAAs), which in turn take into account the Department for Communities and Local Government biannual caravan counts. Both of these were likely to undercount a little, since they could be used to help determine local authorities’ site provision. The English local authority biannual caravan counts have been going since 1979, rising from 8,000 caravans to around 21,000, a growth that reflects both an increasingly reliable methodology and a clear natural population growth. In principle, the forward-looking GTAAs, developed as part of the last Labour government's regional planning strategies, sought to count all those living in caravans now or recently, or possibly desirous of living in caravans.

National

Friends, Families and Travellers – www.gypsy-traveller.org/

The Gypsy Council – visit them on Facebook

The National Federation of Gypsy Liaison Groups – http://nationalgypsytravellerfederation.org/

The Roma Support Group –http://romasupportgroup.org.uk/

Travellers’ Aid Trust – http://travellersaidtrust.org/

The Traveller Movement (formerly the Irish Traveller Movement in Britain) – http://irishtraveller.org.uk/

Traveller Solidarity Network – http://travellersolidarity.org/

UK Association of Gypsy Women – see NFGLG website

National Travellers Action Group – see NFGLG website

Walsall Gypsy and Traveller Forum – see NFGLG website

Worcester Gypsy Traveller Roma Partnership – see NFGLG website

Education, culture and history

Advisory Council for the Education of Romany and other Travellers – www.acert.org.uk/

National Association of Teachers of Travellers – www.natt.org.uk/

The Romani Cultural and Arts Company – www.romaniarts.co.uk

Romany and Traveller Family History Society – http://rtfhs.org.uk/

Travellers’ Times Magazine – www.travellerstimes.org.uk/

Local regional groups

Brentwood Gypsy Support Group

Canterbury Gypsy Support Group

Cardiff Gypsy and Traveller Project – see NFGLG website

Cheshire Gypsy and Traveller Voice – www.travellersvoice.org

Clearwater Gypsies (Sussex) – see NFGLG website

Derbyshire Gypsy Liaison Group – www.dglg.org/

East Anglia Gypsy Council – see NFGLG website

East Notts Traveller Association (ENTA) – see NFGLG website

Leeds GATE Gypsy and Traveller Exchange – www.leedsgate.co.uk/

Lincolnshire Gypsy Liaison Group – www.lglg.co.uk/

London Gypsy and Traveller Unit – www.lgtu.org.uk/

One Voice for Travellers (East) – www.onevoice4travellers.org.uk

Somerset Gypsy Liaison Group – see NFGLG website

Stableway Traveller Residents’ Association (London)

SPARC (North East) – see NFGLG website

Surrey Traveller Community Relations Forum – see NFGLG website

South West Alliance of Nomads – www.gypsytravellerhelp.org/

Southwark Travellers’ Action Group – www.staglondon. org/2012/03/05/southwark-travellers-action-group-stag/

TravellerSpace (Devon and South West) – http://travellerspacecornwall. org/

Legal advocacy

Travellers Advice Team – www.communitylawpartnership.co.uk/ourservices/ gypsies-and-travellers

Local authority liaison officers

National Association of Gypsy and Traveller Officers – www.nagto. co.uk/

International

European Roma Rights Centre – www.errc.org/

The Roma Education Fund – www.romaeducationfund.hu/

The European Academic Network on Romani Studies – http:// romanistudies.eu/

The European Roma Traveller Forum – www.ertf.org/

The International Romani Union – www.internationalromaniunion. org/

The Roma Virtual Network – www.valery-novoselsky.org