Roma or Gypsy - the Romanians' problem

Image via Wikipedia/Meeting between the Romanian president (middle, left) and representatives of Roma organisations

A new round in the semantic clash from Romania regarding the Roma minority, was consumed a couple of days ago after the Government from Bucharest asked the MPs to accept changing the name of the community from Roma to Gypsy/Țigan. For the main Roma organizations, the name is having depreciative connotations. Other representatives of the community might consider it "normal". The main reason for the change - introduced in Romania at the beginning of 90s - is the possibility of a confusion between the name of the country - Romania - and the name of the community - Roma. (What about the capital city of Italy? Did anybody ask Berlusconi? Maybe not.) At the level of the authorities, the confusion was considered having negative impact on the country's image abroad, as the Roma are associated with a high level of infractionality. This linguistic make-up, dictated from up, will not change anything. At the end of the day, all are citizens of the same country, Romania. And not the name will change the image, but the behavior and the coherence in actions and the respect towards the international obligations assumed.