Representation - politics Background to this section Return to the Representation list The Roma have been marginalised to such an extent and for so long they still do not have any true broad representation. Indeed, the general characteristic of representation of the Roma has been that it has been taken up by often self-appointed individuals who, in exercising that function come to be proactive misrepresenters of the Roma. In short, the most significant problem facing the Roma is an active misrepresentation. Misrepresentation is particularly rampant on the part of local and national politicians who either explain away the "Roma problem" as being entirely the fault of the Roma and their culture while outstretching their hands for money to support them in the efforts to "help" the government "solve" the problem whilst with an intent to extent their ongoing and thriving "Gypsy Business" (see under "Discrimination"). The proactive misrepresentation of the Roma serves political, and personal interests in terms of status , advancing some creed and enrichment on the part of those who misrepresent. In social terms, such misrepresentation comes with enrmous medium to long term costs to the economies concerned (see "Economics"). Misrepresentation by national politicians and governmental representations, even those procuring funds to "assist the Roma", is normally based on a set of hoaxes (a hoax being a process of deceiving, taking in or misleading the listener). These hoaxes are discussed in this section because it is important for those who do not have direct experience with the Roma to be able to detect them. The principal hoaxes are statements to the effect that Roma: all speak Romani and have difficulty with mainstream languages do not value education children have high percentage of mental defectives child assessment are correct, they are undertaken by experts some mistaken classification of children have been made statistics are ill-defined because of data protection so the number of Roma in Special Schools is unknown and all others apply self-allocation tio ethnicity classes in the census so we do not know accurately how many Roma children are in Special Schools Roma children have no right to the Normative funding, the local authorities are not breaking the law by not spending it on the Roma children's needs children have difficulty socialising and communicating culture is unhygenic and unhealthy do not wash frequently enough genotypes contain a high percentage of mental defects genotypes explain their relatively short life span are well-represented and even have self governments "leaders/representatives" agreed to all existing arrangements, programmes and or projects don't understand money or can't handle money Each of these statements is indeed a hoax, they are untrue; bluntly, they are lies. These statements used to appear in documents. But during the last 5 years several individuals with direct field experience of Roma have openly attacked these hoaxes. So today it is a high risk stratgey to place any of them in documents since they can be easily discredited. The tactics have therefore been changed on the part of government officials. They restrict the use of these hoaxes, or lies, to be used in meetings and panel sessions where they can "sense" the make-up and therefore receptivity of the people present to such hoaxes. Depending upon those present in such encounters a more rigorous or more diluted presentation of the hoaxes is used. This is the current tactic in direct "negotiations" to plan programmes and get hold of funds. All of this occurs out of sight of the public and indeed the Roma and it is not reported. So aid agency desk officers, senior management and presidencies are entertained to these strings of hoaxes as a basis for motivating their agreement to government requests for funding. The subsequent strategy is to announce "success" in coming to "agreement" on such matters as programmes for Roma integration, equal rights, employment generation and education. However, the subsequent tactics used, on the ground, at project level, are to divert funds into largely dowgraded or useless activities or else into "associated" activities such as "deprived areas", "equality for women" and other activities not directly concerning the Roma. The money in other words is either destined for large mainstream activities or the "Gypsy Business". We expand on these hoaxes in this section as well as cover political representation. We have also included some old material on representation.