What was that novel from back in the 70s, The Camp of the Saints?
50 years later...dystopia is today.
Do you think that 85% of the Spanish give the other 15% a bad name?
Gypsies have been in Europe since the Middle Ages. If they were part of the modern flood of third-worlders you would have a point, but they aren’t. They were indeed a “Camp of the Saints” phenomenon, but from back in the days of absolute monarchs and Inquisitions.
They are, by now, part of the deep structure of European society and culture.
Its a very interesting to examine the influence gypsies have had on European arts and society. In the course of their hundreds of years as wanderers all over Europe they were the principal entertainers most of the Euro peasantry saw on a regular basis.
Consider this bit out of Bizet’s “Carmen”. The “Chanson Boheme” - its about gypsies - sometimes referred to as “bohemians” in France.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=eHRfVSz0gj4&pp=ygUgZWxpbmEgZ2FyYW5jYSBjYXJtZW4gZ3lwc3kgc29uZyA%3D
Brahms - “Hungarian Dances” - a riff on gypsy violins.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=O192eo9zbT4&pp=ygUYYnJhaG1zIGh1bmdhcmlhbiBkYW5jZSA1
And then there is Spanish flamenco, and everything that came from that. Flamenco is a gypsy-moorish fusion style.
Their influence in popular music especially has been profound. There is probably more “gypsy” than African in everything we hear today.
Are they a good thing, on balance? I’d say no, but they are by now a very established, inextricable part of Euro culture.