Discrimination against Roma and Sinti communities continues to be a major
problem across Europe. But the "gypsy" inspired music of world-famous Balkan
musician Goran Bregovic is breaking down stereotypes.
DW: Mr. Bregovic, you say you are from the Balkans, but don’t call yourself a
Serb or Bosnian.
Bregovic: It’s because I’m not enough Serb to be a Serb, not enough Croat to
be a Croat, not enough Bosnian to be a Bosnian guy. I’m from a very mixed
family, but it’s more like my emotional choice than ethnic. You know, when you
loose your homeland you understand that your homeland is not any geographical or
political territory; it is only an emotional territory. So my emotional
territory is this territory there, it doesn’t matter if I have to show my
passport few times.
You work with musicians from the Roma and Sinti community. Why is that?
If you’re a musician in that part of the world you are doing a gipsy job,
that’s the way it is. I remember my father was a colonel in the Yugoslavian army
and when I brought home my first money from a gig, he told me, "You are not
going to do this gipsy job!" But I consider myself one of them.
So, what is a "gipsy" for you?
It has the same metaphorical value for me as a cowboy. It’s somebody who
doesn’t have the same gravitation with the others. And then you know there are
quite lot of modern things that are very "gipsy." Thinking of today, not of
yesterday or of tomorrow – that’s a gipsy idea. Then also this idea of going
away [on vacation] in July or August. Suddenly everyone becomes gipsy for a
month. So in every one of us there is a gipsy that is waiting to wake up
sometimes.
