I would like to present here some thoughts about the fundamentals of the Romani identity and also about the group identity, in general. I begin with an inquiry about what happened with our ancestors when they left the Indian Subcontinent (since a closer look on the Romanipen and on the contemporary knowledge about the Desi of those times shows that something happened in that moment). The Dharmic-specific relative purity rules, dealing with the relations between castes, stepped back or were temporarily replaced (if our ancestors came from more local castes) by a set of absolute purity rules regarding the correct behavior of the Romani people and their relation with the others. Later, when the Romani population grew in number in certain regions, the relative purity rules reappeared (confined only among Roma) as a result of the emergence of the Romani castes. They started to be used together with the absolute purity rules. The latter define what is Romani and what is not Romani, presenting the identity as something global, while the former define the role of a Romani group as a specialized part of a complex society. The latter define who are the Roma, while the former define what do groups of Roma, what is special about them.

Absolute purity rules

As far as it is known nowadays, by the 11th century, there were no Dharmic people employing absolute purity rules. Such rules present the rest of the mankind as those who do not share our identity. The stress of the relative purity rules is on the other specialized groups from the same culture, while the rest of the world (those belonging to other cultures) is something subsidiary, not very preoccupating (the usual historical approach, until now, of the mankind). The identity is only presumed, not defined from the point of view of a multicultural world, by considering the people from the other cultures.

In this sense, the Romani absolute purity rules rather resemble the Jewish purity rules and approach to express the identity. This is also one of the reasons of those who support the idea that the Roma are the descendants of the Ten Lost Jewish Tribes, who allegedly spent some time in the Indian Subcontinent and afterwards emigrated back in the West. Obviously a shallow conclusion, since our worldview is fundamentally Dharmic, just by remembering that our usual approach is by relativization, not by upholding one specific direction, way of action, defined by certain details. Devel is certainly not a jealous God, understanding very well the possibility of an infinity of simultaneous possible ideals. This resemblance at the level of the absolute purity rules is replicated by some Romani groups' individualization of the Zhidova (Jews) as a better defined group among the Gaje (non-Roma).

In fact, in what consists this resemblance? Both of the ethnic groups recognize everybody as a human being with a personal culture, who can be either one of our people (Rom, Jew) or one of the others (Gajo, Goy). They maintain purity rules of the demeanor, also they can live as a minority in a society without losing their identity. They have a clear vision about how one of them should behave. Those who do not conform themselves to the rules may be declared impure (marime, herem) and expelled from the community. In general, the identity is not considered as something obvious, pre-definite, but as an objective fact, very concrete and concerning. It is known that it may be wasted any time if not respected accordingly, generating discussions about the correct ways of expression (materialized in an organized manner of assimilating novelties). As a result of this focus, the creolization, the emergence of regional differences (as the time passes) is relative and also there may be assimilated cultural features from other local cultures without threatening the very identity. On the other hand, groups with separated historical evolutions, if they develop differences in the manner of assimilating novelties, they tend to end up in disputing each other the identity. These resemblances are rather about asserting and keeping alive the groups’ identity in a multicultural world, creating a safe space for its expression, but not really defining what the substance of the identity is.

Then, another question appears: why these two groups have this set of purity rules? My approach was to study the moment of their departure from the homeland, since this seems to be the time when these rules appear. It is not known a similar multicultural vision among the people from the initial areas and, in fact, it is likely that such rules appear when the presence of people belonging to other cultures becomes impressive. However, it was not the first or the last time when a group of people emigrated, becoming a minority in another cultural area. Specific conditions of these two cases were that the homeland was a conflict area, undergoing major political and social changes at the moment of the departure. Thus, in the first case, by history, it seems there were more groups of proto-Jews that left Mesopotamia. Those who knew Abraham as forefather emigrated after the fall of the third Sumerian dynasty from Ur (about 1950 BC). The group Bene Jacob emigrated after the destruction of the Mitanni state (about 1275 BC). They became a marginal population in Canaan, later also in Egypt, known a Habiru (more about this exonym at Names of the Romani people). The proto-Roma left the Indian Subcontinent at the beginning of the 11^th century. In those years the northern part of the Subcontinent was invaded and laid waste by the Muslims under the leadership of Mahmud Ghazni. In this circumstance, various groups of Desis arrived in Anatolia, where they crystallized as the Romani ethnic group.

My preliminary view points out that they came from countries in chaos. A civilization needs a stable political organization to make possible its expression. In this organization the individuals gain a meaning, a value, positive or negative. The war is reserved only for the outsiders or for internal repression. If the political chaos appears, the civilization, its structure dies not disappear, only the external appearance (including the political leadership that previously assured its coherence) becomes disputed, unsettled. However, it remains as potentiality in every individual who grew up in that culture. Then, when the order appears again, usually only some appearances are changed, but the nature of that society remains the same. To put it differently, a former continuity of expression fell, but another “underground”, unnoticed continuity ensures the resumption of a new coherent expression.

In the Romani and Jewish cases, the groups that arrived among foreigners had their culture as potentiality, they did not bring with them a continuity, a stability to relate to, ready to give them a meaning proceeding from the individual’s education. That is why the conditions became unusual for these bearers of a civilization without structured expression. They could not integrate in the new society by dispersion or as an… let’s say “usual” ethnic group, which believes in its own external appearances, thus prone to assimilation as a minority. This is because it could not be a continuity to make the passage between the two ways of thinking. They should create first a stable expression of their worldview, from which it could eventually begin to make an opinion about the people from the local culture, fact impossible at that moment.

It is noticeable that the other “classical” means to relate to the foreigners also could not work:

-they could not integrate them in their own culture, because they arrived on the territory of a complex society, also self-assured and confident in their own achievements: Indian Subcontinent and the Abrahamic (Christian and Muslim) world, Mesopotamia and the Syrian, Canaanite and Egyptian areas;

-they did not have the power to integrate in a military manner the natives in an own structure;

-they could not go home, because at that moment adverse political forces ruled it. In the Romani case, where there is more information, it is possible that they considered themselves as survivors that have to fend for themselves, without a hope to see the revival of their civilization in their homeland. As Alberuni, a contemporary witness wrote, “Mahmud utterly ruined the prosperity of the country and performed such wonderful exploits, by which Hindus became like atoms of dust scattered in all directions”. It would not have been easy at that moment to foresee the continuity of the Desi culture in South Asia, from the point of view of somebody from North-West.

Therefore they continued to be themselves, they could not cease to be themselves, even when they could not manifest self-confidently in the way viewed as normal by their education. The consequence is the mooting of the absolute nature of the external appearances, they could not identify with them, they could not construct anymore a self-image from them. On the other hand, the substance of the identity, usually the starting point of a new structure when the political chaos ends, is perpetuated as the object of their attention, a radical change in the manner of thinking.

It is revealed the fact that these appearances actually did not have the value ascribed before, only the group gave them that meaning. And, very important, it becomes obvious that the external appearances not stemming from the Ego, those which remain after the collapse of the previous worldview, still have a sense, an internal coherence, as they continue to exist without the former meaning. They are revealed too as external appearances, but also in their case it is clear that they are produced by a background substantial identity, which may be different from the personal one. This includes also other people’s demeanor. It becomes intelligible that their life has a sense in the way they understand it, therefore in the world there are possible more thinking manners. This means that everybody is a civilized human being and the term used for those who have other identity (Gaje, Goyim) recognize structurally the cultural existence of the others.

Then every deed may have more meanings. Therefore, in both cases, the solution was to prescribe purity rules to assure the accomplishment of the deeds through the meaning of the personal culture. From here arise also the other features mentioned at the beginning. Also, if the substance of the identity is the object of the attention and perception, then it results that an assertion of the identity in the broad society cannot be done by the former customs. I remark that at the beginning there was no solution for this. If the rest of the people from the new areas where the Jews and the Roma lived would not have been concerned about the worldview of these two minorities, then this would not have been a problem either. But usually they were misunderstood by the majority, because they did not construct anymore a self-image (in the previous manner) good to present to the others. Hence, the false perception that the Roma and the Jews have something to hide, while in fact it is disagreement with the prevalent manner of self-presentation. Many times, the others, not understanding this fact, unaccustomed with gaps in their worldview and with a multicultural world, tend to caricaturize them malevolently, ultimately to deny their humanity: Nici salca nu e pom, nici ţiganul nu e om (“Neither the willow is a fruit tree, nor the Gypsy is a man.”) or -Pe cine ai īntālnit pe drum? - Un om şi un jidan. (“-With whom did you meet on the road? –With a man and a Jew.”) (1). Many times this denial of humanity was the preliminary step to attempts of filling their gap by exterminating these minorities.

In the meantime, the Jews, with a longer history, found for them a form of expression and assertion in Moses’ revelation, promoting the new idea of the Abrahamic monotheism (later a starting point of Christianity and Islam). Actually, the Roma should be compared with the Jews before Moses, when the communities’ life was focused on the families and the personal relations. The latter is/was the usual source of legitimacy for the affiliation (while in the Jewish case, the Moses’ revelation managed to establish the Jewish identity in a written, objective form, thus broadening its possibilities of expression, beyond the immediate environment, the personal relations that tend to be localized both as a geographic area and as a knowledge field).

Usually, for a group that emigrates from a stable cultural area, the integration goes in two directions, the official one of the person’s/group’s perception of what is happening and the unheeded one of the contact with the reality. The expression manners of the new territory’s natives are included in the immigrants’ thinking proceeding link by link from their initial outlook (the continuity I presented before). Whether these novelties are accepted or rejected an important thing happens: they are known and practiced (voluntarily or involuntarily, in a positive or a negative manner) because the minority status determines them to be part of a society that mostly lives according to these local civilization fundamentals. Since the attention is focused on the external appearances (eventually on their preservation) it is less visible for the immigrants that they change their initial identity with another one. It is not given an answer about what is really my culture and what is not. Because of too much confidence in the external appearances of their identity they don’t see how they gradually lose it.

Then, according as through their deeds they become a part of the local society, all their lifestyle (even if outwardly it may look like in the homeland) is assimilated in the identity of the local majority, it is focused on it and it becomes understandable through it. The attempts of preservation or revival (if they exist) of the original culture’s appearances become less and less vivid, turning towards casteism or sectarianism. For the first generation, who felt at home the meaning that the unheeded identity gave to those deeds, the change may be tolerated by remembrance. But for the next generations, these external appearances gradually become senseless customs. The transformation happened conversely to the case of the Roma and the Jews: there was a continuity of group expressions, but the identity was changed with another one, which did not give them any sense, generating an overlap that could not stand.

I use to compare the two situations with Ferdinand Magellan’s world circumnavigation and a contemporary travel by plane. When Magellan’s crew arrived back in Spain they were surprised to find that their calendar missed a day, it was a day before the European calendar. They did not do any visible mistake, they kept it carefully. However, as in many other cases, not everything that is true locally is true also on a larger scale. They did not notice that moving westward, the more they traveled during a day, the shorter the day was. The decrease of the days being of a few seconds or minutes each, in their three years of journey, they did not become aware that a full circumnavigation westwards supposes losing a day. This may seem illogical form a static perspective, but, if there are static people to compare to, the bigger truth cannot be avoided once undertaking such journey. If there are no comparisons available or they are avoided/rejected, those who traveled may continue to believe in their inaccurate vision about time. A contemporary trip by plane makes obvious that the time zones are changed, it becomes clear from the very beginning what is changing in the personal/group perspective and what not, determining the travelers to redefine themselves according to the more comprehensive truth.

Evidently, without proper historical information or an irrefutable logical conclusion, these presentations of how it happened remain an opinion. But I consider it as a good introduction about what it happened, a more definite issue, because the results, the absolute purity rules as an expression of an “obviously me” approach to identity, can be observed in the contemporary Romani and Jewish populations.

Absolute purity rules may be observed also at the Japanese people, rules that keep the people connected with the real identity beyond any particular details. My preliminary understanding is that the Yayoi culture brought by people from the mainland Northern Asia around the 4^th century BCE imposed easily a different set of externally visible appearances, but they did not really root out the local fundamental social fabrics of the previous Jōmon culture and of the populations emigrating from the Southeast Asia. The witnessing of this mismatching overlapping and of the naturalness of the same external features when employed in the mainland (mostly the state Goguryeo and its offshoot Baekje) changed the vision about the role of any external appearances. The real identity, as compared to the identity of the mainland people became the focus of the attention, subsequently all the deeds being done from its perspective.

There did not appear usual diachronic political threads creating authority from a certain set of details. When the rulers of the Yamato clan started to unify the territory, they knew how to impersonate the very abstract idea of the political Thread beyond any particularities, they filled an indisputable position in the newly created fabric of the Japanese society and, the same as in the Jewish case, as particular events of the history unfolded, they and the people understood more and more the subtleties, the finesses of this social position. The important difference from the Jewish historical experience is that in the Japanese case, as a result of the clear geographical isolation, there was not necessary to clarify publicly “who we are as compared to the rest of the World”. The World is there, the people are always interested in what is going on there, they always make the difference between what stems from their identity and what not, thus assimilating any novelties and not becoming assimilated, but there did not appear a clarification of their position in the World. On the one hand, it did not appear such a meaningful public statement as that expressed by Moses, on the other hand, there were avoided the seemingly inherent self-limitations imposed by any such public statement that aims at a position in a World with a static, localized mindset.

The Imperial House of Japan (together with the spiritual concept of Kami-sama) rather reminds of the Devel of Romanipen, as filling an indisputable position in the social fabric of a certain group of people. However, for those stepping out, they can’t be of much help, both for the Japanese outside Japan and for Roma among non-Roma. Meaningful social relations tend to occur only among interlocutors who know what they are talking about, in the absence of symbols ready to be opposed to anyone. Well, this means also that such communication is not hindered by such self-restrictive subsidiary symbols. In both cases, in the absence of such symbols, there appeared many popular theories (in Japan named Nihonjinron after the Second World War) trying to explain what is special about these people.

As the time passed, it became obvious that there is a difference between authority and power, as the Imperial institution could continue its thread without the latter. The public aspect of this institution expressed also this view, lacking interest in showing-off, while fulfilling the duties of such a social position. The Emperor is the impersonation of the fundamental Japanese identity, he is not addressed by the name given at birth (this is not used), but just as Tennō (translated in English as “Emperor”), the Imperial family has no family name, there are no such details (needless probably to add that there did not occur changes of dynasties as it is usual in other empires or kingdoms). Keeping also in mind that, after the Second World War, according to the Constitution, he is not even the head of the state (but habitually he is treated as such), technically one may think that he is a nobody, while in fact this is the nature of the Japanese social fabric, focused on something invisible from a static, localized view.

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(1) Romanian sayings from Imaginea evreului īn cultura romānă, p. 421, by Andrei Oişteanu, Humanitas, 2004

Relative purity rules

The example of Magellan’s voyage can be applied also to the contemporary mankind, it seems to define well the modern age. The mixing of cultures that happened in the last centuries at a slow pace created a worldwide relativization of the self-identification with the external appearances. The localized visions about the Self and the Universe became relative. What previously was “unquestioned, undisputed me” stepped into an uncertain area with all kind of influences, determining the search for a more clear definition about “who is really me”.

The previous traditional positions, static and local, could not be maintained anymore, thus, the modern people embarked in a journey, a quest for the real identity in the other Planet Earth, that one created by the minds of the people. They started to travel and explore the continents and the islands of the mental notions, to review them step by step in order to organize and codify a new geography of the identity. This supposes the exploration of any mental territory met, until an impression appears about it, impression good to be added to this modern geography. They keep a single direction, helped by the rapid pace of the technological and social changes (which supports the belief that every movement is another conquest of a piece of time, that every time something new happens). The prevalent belief is that the realm of the mental notions is a flat one, that the identity explorers may go further indefinitely in codifying the Self and the World, because this is how it appears to a localized view (the same as it was the belief about our planet Earth, for a long time in the human history). However, as the time passed there came out more and more signs that the new territories continuing to appear in front of the modern self-colonizers were already explored before. At a first glance, it is not easy to see this, because only the interpretation matters, and the infinity of possible approaches of the imagination makes less likely to give every time the same interpretation.

And, unlike in the cases presented above of the assimilating minority and of Magellan’s crew, there is no population to compare to, to give them the idea that their static outlook does not suit this modern world. Thus the rounds of the mental circumnavigations succeed each other unnoticed, every time estranging them further from the identity, by not respecting the local time zones. Using the comparison from the article Romani identity, the patching of an initial fabric, after some time becomes a continuous patching of a collection of sewed patches, an improvisation that keeps tearing. On the one hand, from the point of view of modern mind’s approach, the following of the belief that it is possible to grasp an identity (as opposed to others identities), by interpreting everything that appears in front of the self-colonizers, determines repeated circumnavigations of the mental patterns. On the other hand, from the point of view of the relation with the reality, there is a continuous patching of the fabric that keeps tearing and tearing. The former is the official policy of most of the modern people, continuing idealized opinions from the older times. The latter is just a matter of necessity, determined by the maladjustment of the modern theory of the identity to the reality.

Thus, the previous self-sufficient opinions and interpretations of the Self and of the Universe lost their absolute (2) status. Here too, the changes occurred on two levels. The repeated circumnavigations of the same mental patterns gradually void of any value the idea of a beginning and an end for the static outlook. They reveal it as a restless pursuit of interpretations in a closed system of patterns, in a mental sphere that for an Egoistic approach may give the appearance of an endless expansion. It remains to be acknowledged the major flaw of the contemporary prevalent approach to the modernity, the lack of considering the other dimension, that of the reality, which would permit the escaping from the obsolete self-sufficient and self-containing Egoistic sphere. On the other hand, in the unofficial level of the relations with the reality, the same approach is relativized by gradually stepping from “unquestioned, undisputed me” into “me, but not you”. The result may be perceived as a caste system, if it is acknowledged that the personal group is just one among many other people, or as sectarianism, if it is preserved the pre-modern opinion that a selection of external appearances validate the personal group as the true one, while the others follow a wrong way. In both cases, the public identity of the group is constructed by selecting what is special in that group, what makes it distinct among others, not understanding that specialty is not equal to identity.

Paradoxically, this pursuit of distinct marks is what brought together most of the contemporary people into a common worldwide framework. A framework that permits both the preservation of the absoluteness of the pre-modern identity notion (in the absence of ideas for a modern one) and its relativisation resulting from the modern social life. The notion of identity remained the same as in older times (focused on the external appearances and the self-sufficiency), but, employed to enforce the answer “me, but not you”, it switched its role to organize a modern caste system. Thus, it lost gradually the relation with its object, with the identity itself. Or, from another point of view, the identity was liberated from the grip of the pre-modern notion about it (since that notion was not very accurate, just belonged to the bygone “unquestioned me”; self-sufficient meant also self-limiting). It is yet to be seen the outcome of this framework combining self-contradicting absoluteness and relativeness, how it will reach a stable point. By now, there are just opinions and feelings (mostly based on the consequences of the continuous patching) that the contemporary assertion or attempts of revival of the static vision of the World is misleading. However, it did not appear yet an officialization of the relative nature of the contemporary notions about the Self and the World.

Something similar seem to have happened when the Desi civilization made the passage from the Vedic to the Dharmic religions. The mixing of different population groups determined the drift of the previous identity notion to a framework of the caste system (3) and the subsequent question of “who is really me?” Since the questioning of the Vedic ritual’s absolute value grew together with the increased mixing of Caucasoid, Australoid and Mongoloid people, probably the external appearances of the people had also an important role in challenging the self-limiting Egoistic worldview. After the mooting from the Upanishads (and to a lesser extent, from the Vedas), it appeared the conclusion that the external appearances are Maya. The term expresses the notion of illusion, meaning that these appearances are coherent and functional (at least at an idealistic level), by they do not have the reality ascribed by the people, making the latter to forget their real identity. It is recognized that the pursuit of codifying the identity by interpreting the external appearances may continue indefinitely, repeating, again and again, the same patterns with different approaches. Hence, the time is perceived as cyclical, nothing really new happens.

The “me, but not you” approach of the caste system is accepted as relative, it will never grasp the fundamental identity. It is perceived an irreparable difference between the idealistic view stemming from the Ego and the reality this view presumes it describes and organizes. It becomes obvious that it is a just matter of belief to consider the World as an extension of the Ego, waiting to be moulded by its theories. By the recognition of the reality dimension it is acknowledged that the personal/group notions are confined only in the minds of the person/group that employs them. This while the consequences of the deeds become part of the reality, where they may be interpreted from many points of view or they may be considered, if possible, just as reality.

The area of expression possibilities stemming from the Ego is limited and all that is possible to happen in this closed system is already happened at an idealistic level. The step by step approach of the Ego, starting from a certain point and then codifying the Universe, recognizes something as new only if there is possible a continuity, an interpretation according to something already existing in Ego’s system of notions. If it is not possible, then it does not exist officially, eventually emerging an unofficial relation, if the reality imposes its presence (relations that, as the times passes, may determine real changes).

However, this worldview, that became the base of the Dharmic religions, was not followed immediately by ideas about how to conform the lifestyle according to it. From the perspective of some circumnavigators who rounded a planet many times (until they recognized that the place they live on is not really flat and that they keep estranging from the initial time they keep using) it must be found out how it is possible to relate to any local time zone in a coherent manner. Everything that happened from the moment of departure, of abandoning a static position, is perceived as estranging the person/group from the reality by interpretations that are true only in the borders of their logic, thus self-limiting. The net of these interpretations is also compelling, because of their ability to produce the belief in their absolute truth, resulting from their internal logic. As a result of their lack of concordance with the reality, they and the deeds becoming meaningful through them (karm) are not considered anymore as an interface between the Ego and the reality (as in static times), but rather as creating the Ego. The relation between these self-contradicting absolute (from the point of view of the Ego) and relative (resulting from the contact with the reality) views does not offer an obvious answer that would permit a right perception, a liberation (moksh) from the older view.

Keeping the logic of the Ego, the answer would be to turn the ships back and to sail in the opposite direction, until the initial point of departure will reappear, thus to get rid of any karm accumulated in the meantime. Obviously, the existence of this initial point is idealized, is more a part of the abstract view of the Ego, since the initial point of departure was already reviewed with other interpretations during the circumnavigations. Since that point is the only one where the absolute view is confirmed (locally) by the more comprehensive relative view, it is expressed the hope that there it may appear an answer about how to add coherently the reality dimension in the personal/group worldview (not to regress, to run back to the initial pre-relativeness stage, the relative view is firmly part of the worldview).

It appears also available the possibility to focus on any place, different from the initial one, with the purpose of making a lucid passage from the Ego’s point of view to the local point of view. The other point of view is not better or worse itself than that of the Ego, but its witnessing, experiencing would clarify the concrete details of the limitations of the Ego, thus permitting further exploration and awareness of the Self and ultimately, the moksh. There were persons who attained moksh in this manner, but only on individual basis, few people from all the Dharmic society. Then, neither did it appear in this manner a moksh of the entire society, nor the persons who attained it offered a solution of a coherent social life for liberated people that would replace the overlapping, at most guides, advices for the others who would want to become liberated.

Much more popular became the solutions from Mahabharat and Ramayan. In Mahabharat, there are reviewed the main solutions proposed already, presented as different paths leading to moksh, each one with its own peculiarity from the point of view of the Ego. Then, after this description of the moksh’s bigger picture, it appears also the understanding that it is possible to be liberated and to live with this conflicting overlap between the absoluteness of the Ego’s view and its relativisation in contact with the reality. By recognizing that Ego’s point of view is a functional one only in its own environment, but not necessarily comprising the entire context, an individual may continue the current manner of performing social duties without identifying with their limitations.

The relative purity rules remained as a solution, with its goods and bads, for supporting the vision of an infinity of simultaneously possible ideals. The acknowledgement that any caste is just a peculiar one among others, any ideology is just a peculiar one among others permitted an unique freedom of thinking and argumentation, a coherent diversity. On the other hand, the fact that it did not appear yet a coherent expression of the fundamental identity, determined the people to keep relying on “me, but not you”, with the well-known propensity for rigidity of the social values of “me” vs. “you” and the fragmentation and the peculiarisation of the social interests.

Overall, it is obviously a positive change, it is better to have a larger image of the Self and of the World, to overcome the appearance, not being stuck in the Ego’s view. It is also irreversible, the Desis who converted to other religions kept the framework of the caste system. Those who emigrated from the Subcontinent and managed to preserve the identity recreated it in other lands, like the emergence of the Romani caste system or the Jahaji Bhai (“Boat Brother”) (4) system of the Desis who emigrated in the 19^th century.

Nowadays, the rest of the World attained also this unavoidable conclusion about the relativity of the static “unquestioned me”, with the same “me, but not you” drifting. It is the same conflict between the social safety and order of the older rituals and the free thinking that not abide to them like in the times of the passage from Vedism to Dharm. And a search for something that does not exist in the static way of thinking. An important difference between the two cases is the rapid pace of the technological and social changes of the modern people, which may support easier the opinion that the time brings something new every moment and that the realm of the Ego is flat and infinite. Also it remains to be seen the direction of the contemporary framework of “me, but not you” identities, how it will be accepted their relativity.

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(3) I mean the Desi caste system based on jatis, not that better known worldwide, presenting only the four initial varnas.

(4) The Desi emigration for indentured labor in the 19^th century was mostly on individual basis, uprooting persons from their social framework. They recreated a new one in the areas of settlement, by the crystallization of the groups of people who arrived with the same ship, who made together the sea passage.

Identity and its perception

A realistic vision of the identity should make obvious that the concern about it appears only after contacts between more localized identities, after drifting towards what I name “obviously me” and “me, but not you” ways of expressing it. Those living in an undisputed localized point of view don’t have concerns of this kind. They simply have an identity and a mental image (taken for granted) about it, the latter mirroring the former, but not being equal to it. The concern about the right, the true, the pure identity appears when a multicultural environment challenges and overcomes the presumed truth, righteousness and purity of that mirroring.

As for the identity itself, it results from the need for a structure to organize the social life. The fuel that makes such a structure work is the people’s confidence in its ability to face any challenge, in order to be something worthy to struggle for. Hence the structure must be considered coherent from the synchronic point of view and flexible from the diachronic point of view. It has to maintain convincingly a system of all the values, meanings and conventions at a given time and also to face any unexpected challenges of the reality and to integrate any novelties or to make the passages required by internal changes that appear inevitably, as the time elapses.

I owe to Ferdinand de Saussure’s Course in General Linguistics the notions of synchronicity/diachronicity and the understanding of the social system’s units not as a nomenclature, but as meanings that give value each other by contrasting each other. However, regarding how such a structure works, there is a big difference between a linguistic structure and a social structure. Where in the former it is arbitrary the way a synchronic grammar is organized, the phonetic segments are delimited and the path the diachronicity has, in the latter there is the responsibility of how goes on the life of the social group that employs it and ultimately of its survival (5). Being used as an interface to interpret the raw reality, to create mental images for enabling the decision making process, a social structure involves the inherent responsibility brought by every deed made from its point of view. The speech, as the counterpart result of the language, does not have this inherent responsibility. An indirect responsibility comes when considering the speech as a deed, but then, of course, the responsibility is only on the social structure employing the language. The consequences of a speech are determined in its creation by the culture of the one who utters it and in its perception by the culture of the other(s) who witness it (6), consequences not depending on the language itself, on its grammar and phonemes.

The language structure is used to communicate, the social structure is used to interpret the reality, to live socially (with the language as the main tool of a social life). As in Saussure’s example of the chess game: there is the synchronicity of each chessman’s value, made meaningful by its position on the board and there is the diachronicity of the changes that occur in an intelligible manner. Only that from the point of view of the language structure the movements are spontaneous and fortuitous, while from the point of view of a social structure there is an intention of the one who makes the move, intention resulted from setting goals, reasoning inside that system of values, in order to relate to the reality. Both types have the ability to create a meaningful framework, but the language works alone, is free in its creation of meanings, while the social structure is in a relation with the raw reality. From the responsibility brought by this relation it results also the relation between any individual and the deeds he/she does from the point of view of such a structure (since living socially is the natural way of life of the people). A social structure has the ability to create a world of meanings, understandable by a human mind, but it depends on the people how they perceive it and employ it to live in the real world. This supposes to have an opinion about why it is used a certain set of meanings, values, conventions, why a particular one and not another particular one (the synchronic view). Also an opinion about how it works the system, how the changes may occur in time, eventually, why it is supported a certain way of dealing with changes (the diachronic view).

To make clearer what I mean by a particular set of values and a particular understanding of how it works the system, for example, a Romani singer from the Balkans expects to be perceived from the point of view of four different worldviews: the Romani one, the elite and non-elite European ones (ultimately they seem to have the same identity fundamentals, but the current identity issues presented at the article Rom-Gypsy, the reality vs. the image produce two worldviews) and the Turkish one (7). The raw reality of what they sing, how they perform, how they live off-stage, what they say in mass-media, this reality is processed and made meaningful for a human mind by these four local types of cultural engines (8). If the fuel is the confidence of the people that the system works, then the engine is the way they understand the cultural structure, the particular architecture from their minds, the way they put it at work.

The history of every person, of every smaller local cultural area adds and continuously modifies details in a cultural structure, making it unique for every individual or group of people. However, it should not be forgotten that all this continuous tuning is based on and happens inside the realm of cultural meanings and values kept alive by the fundamental, basic core of the worldview (synonymous with a level of self-sufficiency). For example, in the sense of the cultural cores highlighted by the relative purity rules of the Romani people. The Romani castes are oriented towards the local society, with names from local languages, as if that local society would have a Desi cultural core. This not being true, it appears obvious the existence of different systems of basic values (9).

These situations of more self-sufficient cultural cores living side by side appeared later in human history. The initial natural way of developing a social life was to coalesce on a local basis in a common framework any meanings, conventions resulted from the local history of the contacts with the local reality. Why a certain way of considering distinctions of meanings and not another way, this question could not appear, given the local singleness of a self-sufficient cultural core. Instead what was particular in the local structure was considered as general and the background mechanism of the structure was not perceived as such. Hence the particular way a society creates cultural values and social relations was not considered as one among many such possibilities a human society would have available to use, but the one and only possibility.

Not understanding how the system works, for the people from such societies the meanings available at a certain time appeared as a nomenclature, as a list of pre-existent concepts. By bestowing the perception of self-sufficiency on the local society’s synchronic concepts instead on its overall mechanism, the relation with the reality was perceived as a relation with those “pre-existing” concepts, by considering them as the reality. The people understood it as a relation with some finite objects, rather than a relation with a mental social structure capable of creating an infinity of meanings, mental objects, if managed accordingly by subjects who know how it works. Consequently, they perceived their identity as an object, rather than as a subject, they considered themselves made from concepts, rather than their creators.

In the background, the mechanism of upholding and adapting social meanings continued to work, but at a different level. Since, in practice, it became obvious that the understanding of the cultural meanings as pre-existent could not really explain everything, it developed a less conscious area, a spiritual level, to deal with the real coherence of the social life, expressed by religion (and later also by arts, as they separated from religion). Gods and other spiritual beings with identities reflecting and counterpoising the human ones appeared at the junction points of the social structure, managing its general coherence and continuity. After this transfer of the main responsibilities, the people, with their profane identities, could live as finite beings in a World preserved as intelligible by the spiritual identities (10). The way the two types of identities share the social authority and power, the way they relate to each other (submission, love, friendship, trickery, neighborliness etc.), the degree of distinction between them, these specific features were usually determined by the particularities developed by each local culture. Acting inside such an organization of a local social structure, the main concern of the people is to provide for themselves, to negotiate their individual/group position in the society (11) and to keep an equilibrium in the relation with the spiritual area.

Given this focus on the local cultural concepts as “hard” notions, the diachronic point of view is considered as a continuity of the set of those visible cultural concepts. Usually, the time is perceived as cyclical, always repeating the same tradition, with periodical holidays that reenacted the beginning of the World, as codified in the local culture. The people counted on this tradition as their unique source of group and individual identity, of stability of their worldview, hence perceiving the externally visible features of their cultural engines (employed to make the reality understandable) as if they would have been made of hardware, not of software.

Here too, in this imagined human conquest of the diachronicity, the spiritual area, with its externally visible spiritual identities, had the ability and the background responsibility of keeping the system working, in a manner beyond the understanding of the profane people. It has also to deal with the changes that keep occurring, of course, originating from both internal and external sources. A particular organization of the local culture may be flexible enough to include them, otherwise it has to undergo a reorganization with an eventual reshaping of the spiritual identities or to become assimilated, to start using the cultural core of another culture, if the use of new features with external origin cannot be integrated in the current framework.

On the other level, unaware of the existence of the cultural cores, from the profane point of view any novelty becomes integrated in the local worldview by relating it with notions already existing, by understanding it through them, by looking for similarities among them. Every time, the solution for making understandable something previously inexistent in the nomenclature was to create a continuity from the established notions already available, to expand step by step the trust the local society bestowed on the latter. This does not concern only the notions that receive a verdict of acceptability, but also those deemed as unacceptable or anything in between these extremes. Unacceptability, rejection, this is change from the previous position of inexistence, they are from a certain point in time a part of the local worldview. Later, no matter the verdict they received, they will be part of the established nomenclature sought as a profane authority in dealing with changes and novelties. From a profane diachronic point of view, it is important a step by step continuity, a thread, in order to keep the World understandable. Then it is the job of the spiritual area, if necessary, to reshape the architecture of the system of notions for accommodating the changes, to modify profane verdicts in order to keep the structure working, making decisions seeming to come out of nowhere (from the point of view of the profane diachronic thread), but having so much authority.

This approach to the diachronicity makes also highly impossible the understanding of the background cultural cores’ existence, when more of them happen to live side by side, contrasting each other in an obvious manner. Most usually, the cultural differences between them, the novelties that they bring to each other, imbued with a perceived otherness, when arriving in the other area, they suffer a process of altering their initial meanings as a result of this step by step profane continuity, by making connections and ties with the receivers’ current nomenclature. In the end, nothing really new arrives to them, to make them understand the relativity of their worldview. While, from the point of view of the original area, whether they receive a positive or a negative value, the novelties undergo a process of trivialization.

In the receiving culture, the novelties will either be successfully assimilated, included in its worldview (12) or will prove its specific structure as inflexible, determining further the people to adopt the cultural structure of the novelty’s origin. Either the notions change their initial meaning or the people change their initial identity. Even in the latter case, there is at first a trivialization, they or their descendants will understand later how the notions on stake are used in a cultural structure, when they will slide and they will start using the other one. Hence, even when changing a particular structure with another one, if using the step by step continuity, if focused on the nomenclature, it can’t be seen the relativity of both of them. Simply, after some time the other nomenclature will become obviously the valid one, without an insuperable need for a serious explanation of the change (if it is observed the change).

In practice, in real life, as long as there is not some sort of assuming responsibilities by the people in a (semi-)conscious manner inside the social structure, their self-sufficient cultural cores are also not individualized and the fundamental differences between adjacent communities tend to fade. Usually, situations that bring together populations living apart for a long time (like migration, overcoming of previous topographic barriers, population growth etc.) may bring side by side an obvious bulk of cultural differences.

The situation changes when there appear human civilizations, when the history of known and notable events takes the place of the anonymous prehistory. It is not yet well known what determined this change, but it is suggested that it was the local necessity to organize a much more complex society in certain areas (13) that triggered a more conscious human involvement in the functioning of the social structure. For those involved in organizing and shaping a local society, the focus moved from a physical survival in an environment with limited resources to finding ways (political, cultural) of clarifying and expressing the coherence of a society beyond the personal relations and the local community. Individuals begun to work with the potentialities of their societies’ social structures, to create social values, to make decisions and, implicitly, to assume responsibilities in the functioning of the structure. There appeared political and cultural constructions expressing a local coherence, constructions that created another level for the social life. This level deals only indirectly with the environment, its focus being the social structure and its ability to make the World understandable (14).

It was a breakthrough, without a possibility to return (15), once acquired the comprehension of the possibility of employing cultural values for creating local social architectures without an immediate, direct usefulness (but so resourceful in making an understandable framework of the World and for the human ability of setting goals, of mobilizing groups of people). Through these public mental constructions the social life obtains a broader perspective, its potentialities can be practiced. The previous unidirectional way of bestowing identity from the local social framework to the individuals is replaced with an interactivity, by adding the possibility for the individuals to shape, to influence the framework. The latter is expressed, is visible through the details resulted from the way the individuals choose to create, use or challenge values and meanings inside it, while the former, through their deeds, obtain an identity inside it, thus they become a “somebody”. The public events resulted from their deeds, if altering in a way or another the relations in this framework or the framework itself, are shaping also their public identity.

This determines a different perception of the individuality, since a full-fledged social architecture that exists for its own sake is a concrete construction based on the initiative, on the creativity of individuals. Without individual initiatives there wouldn’t appear and continue in time such constructions.

However, this involvement of the people in the functioning of the social structure did not mean that it appeared the question why a certain way of expressing cultural meanings and not another way. The involvement is limited to political and cultural applications of the social structures, the structure itself is used by individuals, but in an unofficial, indirect manner. The creations of the structure are still perceived as a nomenclature, as static, endorsed as a tradition, thus the responsibilities of the people are limited to the particular way of providing details for a certain social construction. Hence, it remains a separation between a profane and a spiritual area, in order to keep the structure working.

This limited responsibility makes an obvious difference between erudition and intelligence, between the knowledge of cultural meanings as a nomenclature and the understanding of how it works the structure that supports them, gives them life. The intelligence keeps alive public mental constructions as political or cultural applications of social structures. It supports the continuity or the recovery of their organization, giving hints about how the system works, and it comes with solutions when uncertainties appear. As a result of the limited responsibility, the intelligence is also limited to the understanding of how it works a particular local structure, not the structure in general. Thus it is not organized itself, usually it depends on the experience and/or on the intuition of every person. And it tends to remain at an unofficial level. When somebody has an intelligent ideas, does something intelligent, the subsequent creation or change is officialized as part of the current nomenclature, as an object for erudition. In such a social organization, the intelligence has no public authority, first it has to become subject for erudition.

The concept usually praised as intelligence in fact is just its visible results, the relation with the intelligence as the life blood of political/cultural constructions, remains an indirect one. There may be identified catalysts in the local space and time for an intelligent intervention, however, the intervention itself, from the local point of view, comes out of nowhere. The fact that it stems from and it is suited on the local unheeded structure makes it to be accepted subsequently as part of the nomenclature. The main concern of the official point of view is to preserve the coherence of the nomenclature, by finding a continuity (whether positive, accepting the past, or negative, rejecting the past) from the already established notions, by keeping a thread, in order to make a comprehensible mean of bestowing authority on the novelty or on the change.

This shapes also the vision about time. The events that influence, alter the local social architecture are perceived as individualized (as a result of their consequences), but they are imagined in a succession on a static vision of time, considered as a thread based on the authority of a beginning, then continuing indefinitely. As if nothing intelligent enough may happen to question that authority. And, since the intelligence is limited to the pre-requisites of that beginning, every event may be successfully integrated in the thread until, eventually, something else happens to those pre-requisites.

Once it occurs the breakthrough, the passage to the great idea that people may imagine public mental constructions beyond what they perceive as the local environment, nothing stops individuals to challenge the particularities of those constructions. Especially when, in this case, the people’s idea about their society is not a theory anymore, but it is practiced and any inadequation to reality may become more salient. And the limitations resulted from the nomenclaturization of any intelligent intervention make sure that after some time the intelligence will be useful again. This relation between individuals’ intelligence and the publicly accepted erudition is a never-ending story, every time there is room for changes, improvements, as long as the cultural meanings are perceived as something finite, as a nomenclature.

The motivations that produce historical events may stem from a personal and/or public interest, may be directed towards a political and/or cultural sphere. Many times, the individuals or groups of people who manage to produce historical events, to make the local public constructions look different, involve also their public identities in the process of nomenclaturization of the historical change. If they are successful, their identities, perceived as the source of the change by the others who are in the realm of erudition, are considered as its embodiment, as a guarantee for the continuity. And the initiator, most usually, is ready to accept this, since for him/her too the intelligence remains at an unofficial level. If the novelty assures a political and/or a cultural coherence of a public mental construction, then there appear visible threads that keep this coherence. They are the official visible faces of the real unofficial continuity of the local social structures, doubling them (as presented above in the description of the origin of the Roma and Jews) as a result of the understanding’s limitations only to how it works a particular local structure, not the structure in general.

In general, in a civilized society, it is good to be in the shoes of the person or group of persons who started and keep preserving the coherence of the local construction or to have some sort of a positive relation with them. This, in the case when there is no disagreement with the way it is envisaged this coherence. If others have other vision, they have to come with something intelligent (16). The one who has the best understanding of how it works the local social structure continues the main unofficial thread (the “underground” one as presented before), by starting another visible-type thread, by reorganizing the nomenclature. Eventually, the former preservers of the local coherence may survive for a while; but, if they don’t come with something that would give a better expression of the local structure through their point of view and they stick to the nomenclature from their times of glory, as the time elapses, their nomenclature will appear more and more soulless, it will become obvious there will remain nothing to struggle for.

This fine balance that has to be maintained in such a social organization between the praise for the own nomenclature and the understanding of the functioning of the own social structure appears also pertinently at the contacts between more civilized cultural cores. The own nomenclature is the immediate, visible expression of the way a certain civilization assumes responsibilities in creating public mental constructions and of their benefits, but it has no value if it is not supported by the background unheeded structure. As different civilizations, as a result of their different histories, have differences in assuming such responsibilities, what in the previous case was a competition for the best official expression of a single self-sufficient structure, in this case it is a relation between more unheeded self-sufficient social structures. As a result of their invisibility, this relation is unorganized, unclear, the communication is slow, tending to end in interpretations different from the original meaning. It mostly depends on the strength of the own structure, on the self-confidence that it gives, in order to preserve the personal coherence in a multicultural environment. Thus, an important boost is a local numerical preponderance of people belonging to the personal social structure, in a geographic space made meaningful for centuries by that structure. On the other hand, being in diaspora tends to create a pressure, and the usual response of the people with such background is to focus on the own nomenclature as the only visible source (for them) of continuing their usual way of life. As described above, on long term, this leads to assimilation. Sometimes, groups living in diaspora may end, as a result of this pressure, in becoming more conservative than the main society from their homeland. From their point of view, this is even something that has to be praised, but as the time elapses, the new generations will find that nomenclature more and more meaningless, when compared to the local social structure (17).

In certain circumstances it became obvious that the nomenclature is not the ultimate reality, that the alternation between the unofficial intelligence and the official erudition cannot maintain every time the social coherence, thus appearing other worldviews. Meaningful contacts between more social structures, each with its own self-sufficiency, casted serious doubts about this perception of the nomenclature. It took groups of people out from the position of “undisputed, unquestioned me”, as a result of the pressure to give a coherent answer to the simultaneous existence of different sets of nomenclature. If the doubts’ emergence resulted from the confidence of the people that the codification of their nomenclature at a certain time embodies their identity, the drift was towards the “me, but not you” approach to identity. If it resulted from an immediate loss of confidence in the nomenclature, the drift was towards the “obviously me” approach to identity.

The former type of interaction creates a single framework for more social structures. The groups of people that have used to keep alive these structures choose to codify their each nomenclature for identification in the new framework, which, on long term, becomes the new social structure for all those groups. The relation with the previous unheeded social structure is lost, starting a continuous quest for “catching” the perfect expression of their identity through this codification, until it is recognized publicly that this is a circular history, the same patterns are repeating again and again, without any hope for catching the perfection. It appears a discordance that somehow resembles that of a cultural minority after some generations of believing in their original nomenclature, while living their daily lives in the local social structure, generating a mismatching overlapping. For such a minority, the way out of the deadlock is to recognize that they became assimilated in the local social structure and to accept officially its nomenclature. For people with “me, but not you” approach to identity the way out is not so simple, since it does not exist a part of the population remaining in the area of “undisputed me”, to use its readily available nomenclature. Every group part of such a framework becomes involved in a codification, every set of nomenclature loses its link with its social structure, the new social structure resulted from the framework is equally foreigner for each codified nomenclature. They have to consider this seemingly faceless social structure, to reconnect with it without the usual intermediation of a nomenclature. Until they find a solution for this reconnection, the previous habit of codifying those initial nomenclatures is refined in a set of relative purity rules. These rules are an effort to behave as if nothing happened, for minds that do not believe anymore in the fixed, static positions of the social concepts.

On the other hand, the other type of interaction appears when a group, in contact with another group whose social structure enjoys a local and temporal prevalence, does not have from the very beginning the continuity of its usual nomenclature. The pressure determined by the others’ prevalence impedes the resumption of their own nomenclature. This problem impedes further the passage to the others’ social structure, because it cannot appear the usual step by step continuity at the level of the nomenclature. To consider directly for use the others’ nomenclature, the only available locally, this makes obvious that it does not fit their own social structure. Thus, there remain in the same space more self-sufficient social structures and for those caught without a nomenclature to make the World understandable it appears obvious that their identity does not reside in the nomenclature itself, but in something vivid behind it, an “obviously me”, when compared to the vivacity of other social structures.

As already said, these are my preliminary views about how it happened. As for the visible effects of what happened, it is notable that these changes of worldview did not suppose an immediate understanding of how it is possible a conscious assumption of responsibilities in the creation of meanings inside a social structure. The responsibility rather drifted towards the use of sets of purity rules to support a coherent life. In both cases it would have been necessary more than that to become obvious how it functions a social life. From the structural point of view, the clarification happened only on one of the two perspectives of the social structure, the “obviously me” drift clarified the role of the social structure synchronically, but continued the static view diachronically, while for the “me, but not you” drift the clarification was diachronically, continuing the synchronic nomenclaturist view. While the static worldview considers that its particular synchronic nomenclature and diachronic thread are the only possible, the former approach accepted that there are possible more sets of nomenclatures, while the latter accepted that there are possible more threads.

The absolute purity rules, as an expression of the “obviously me”, appear after the collapse of the initial undisputed and localized opinion about the World. They result from the fact that there is discontinuity in the nomenclaturized opinion about the World, but there is continuity in the opinion about the Self. It is understood at the synchronic level how the existence of the cultural meanings depends on a structure, but the diachronic level the “obviously me” is still interpreted in the previous unquestioned style, as keeping the tradition, the continuity of a single thread. It is understood that the cultural meanings can be created irrespective of the particularities of a certain nomenclature, they can take the shape of an infinity of nomenclatures, because it is not the nomenclature what really matters, but something else, which, if not considered properly, the cultural meanings would lose all their values. This something else is considered through the static diachronic point of view, the only part that remains from the initial localized worldview. While in that undisputed initial view the synchronic cultural values had a social authority through the concept of nomenclature, in the “obviously me” approach, the choice of using certain cultural values from the infinity of possible selections is let entirely on the authority of the static diachronic view. Its popular expression, a certain thread that continued a tradition, now disconnected from its relation with the details of a certain nomenclature, becomes The Thread, an abstract construction, beyond any synchronic detail, bestowing its authority (derived from a presumed right beginning) on the World and on the right choices of cultural values from so many opportunities.

Regarding the public expression of such a worldview, among the two known approaches that managed to construct successfully a public life through the perspective of “obviously me”, the Jewish one clarified the relation with the World from a static perspective, while the Japanese one used its geographical isolation to have a public Thread, avoiding in the same time this public static clarification. In the latter case, the Imperial Household of Japan is the embodiment of this Thread, as a source of authority, but not involved in the details of the Japanese society. In the former case, the Moses’ reform brought to the public conscience the existence of a spiritual Identity that ensures the coherence of the World. The separation between the profane and the spiritual area is emphasized more than ever, as a result of this authority in choosing the right direction. The beginning of Jewish Torah/Christian Old Testament describes well this worldview, when presenting the World as created by Somebody who, as a last creation, brings in the profane, practical sphere something resembling Him, a being who, in his turn, receives the right to name and give a public cultural value to anything already created by that Identity. In both cases (the same as in the Romani case that until now did not find a public expression), the absolute purity rules are an effort to preserve the coherence for people that see the infinite possibilities of imagining the World. Before they believed naturally in a certain static worldview, afterwards they had to believe, understanding their social life as keeping a correct way (hence the absolute feature of these purity rules).

The relative purity rules, as an expression of “me, but not you”, appear after the collapse of the initial undisputed and localized opinion about the Self. They result the fact that there is discontinuity in the perception of the Self as a thread, but there is continuity in the opinion about the World. The “me, but not you” approach to identity is the expression of losing that unquestioned status of the previous image about the Self. It is understood the possibility of a simultaneous existence of more threads and the fact that the identity does not depend on the details of a certain thread assumed by an individual/group. The personal thread is perceived as relative, determining the appearance of the relative purity rules, in order to keep the order in a vision about the World, where every ideal is perceived as a specialization, as a niche. These rules are necessary for preserving the appearance of the validity for each of the simultaneous ideals (hence their relativity), to create semi-consciously for them a space of uniqueness as it was in the times of “unquestioned me”.

Both types of purity rules express the perception of a problem, for the absolute ones at the level of the World ("what is my place in the World"), for the relative ones at the level of the Self ("who is really me?"). Among the populations using such purity rules, there appeared two cases of public statements about the nature of these problems, materialized in the Abrahamic and Dharmic religious views. They express with static cultural tools a worldview that does not have a static stability, inquiring into the truth, the reality of such a static social life. The Abrahamic view comes with a vision of the perfection that may be present in the static World, while the Dharmic view states that any perfection is confined only in the minds of those who imagine it, seeking a way out of this partial vision, searching for a direct relation with the reality.

I’d make a comparison to exemplify these two approaches towards the perfection. Sometimes after the second destruction of the Temple from Jerusalem (in the 1^st century CE), it appeared among Jews the religious commandment to let somewhere in the house a part of the wall not whitewashed, to symbolize the imperfection of the World as long as the Temple does not exist. Among Roma it is the habit of leaving a part of the house unfinished or at least unfurnished, otherwise, it appears the fear that something bad will happen to the family from that house, they can even die because of such bibaxt (inauspicious state). Compared to the undisputed, unquestioned times when a certain localized perception of a house was just a house, in the manner the local people understood it, these two points of view have serious doubts about the perfection of any localized understanding of the concept of house. For the former, the solution is to rely on the thread of the spiritual Identity that has the perfect vision of anything existing in the World. For the latter, there is the status-quo of the relative purity rules reminding that any perfection is just an ideal state of the mind, having no connection with the real World, as long as there are not available cultural tools to relate directly with the World as it is. In the former case, the separation profane/spiritual is perceived at its strongest level, in the latter, these two static areas are considered ultimately the same (as expressed in the Sanskrit saying tat tvam asi – “you are that”).

Regarding the religions that stemmed from the initial Abrahamic and Dharmic public statements, the Christianity in the former case, and the non-Desi Buddhism in the latter, religions that have no idea about the two identity drifts and the purity rules, they are personal understandings of quick solutions for the issues of these two public religious views, of course, bearing the responsibility of their proposed solutions. Their focus is on what is visible in these initial publicizations, they are not interested in what determined them, dealing only with the concept of God, respectively liberation, great ideas that make people think and inquire (in this sense, the Islam being an outsider’s perception of God).

I notice the resemblances of the absolute and the relative purity rules when compared to the notions of introverted and extraverted of Carl G. Jung. However, it seems that I arrived from another path to a point where there are visible some similarities of external features, I’ll address later this issue in detail (in my presentation they are also related to the notions of diachronicity and synchronicity).

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(5) This primary concern for one’s own group defined the human social life until very recently. The circumstances and the broader understanding brought by the modernity make more and more obvious the necessity of considering one’s group as a part of the World, interdependent with the rest of the World. This interdependent view would require some serious changes of paradigms, since the localized ones, even when looking like respecting the rest of the World, they still tend to impose the local particular worldview, “the others really matter if they talk to me from the point of view of my worldview”.

(6) In fact, consequences appear even when not understanding the language.

(7) For the last, especially when singing in Turkish, expanding the base for a potential Turkish public from the Turkish minorities in the Balkans to the society of the modern Turkey and Turkish minorities living elsewhere.

(8) I chose this example for its complexity, however, everywhere for every Romani person there is available at least a duality of the ways for understanding the reality, one native and the other(s) of the local non-Roma. It depends on the person, on the history of the local broad society how well it is known in depth the functioning of these cultural engines (including of the native one).

(9) The example of the Romani singers was from the point of view of the absolute purity rules, this one is from the point of view of the relative purity rules.

(10) The creation and, eventually, the destruction of the World are also among the responsibilities of the spiritual identities.

(11) As much as there were developed the distinctions of individual positions in a given society.

(12) Eventually with some other directions of development, if it is surpassed the initial trivialization, if they become productive, successful in the new cultural area.

(13) For example, the theories from Arnold J. Toynbee’s Study of History about the beginning of the civilizations or the concept of “hydraulic civilizations” from Karl A, Wittfogel’s Oriental Despotism.

(14) I want to emphasize that here I don’t use the word environment as a counterpart for reality, but for expressing the immediate external pressure for physical survival. Besides, the reality includes thoughts, worldviews, it depends on the people if they see them as reality, as they are, or from a certain point of view.

(15)To be written…

(16) This description concerns the changes in the nomenclature as a result of disagreements regarding the right expression of the local structure, but of course, someone may simply replace the other one as the preserver of the coherence, if the vision of this coherence is repeatable, it is not too much personalized (in fact, this is the most usual case in history).

(17) The modern world is a case of a multicultural environment where there is not much left to preserve the self-confidence, hence every local society turned to their own nomenclature as the only visible hope for the preservation of their cultural coherence. Among other results, this identification of the nomenclature as the identity produces situations like those in the Balkans and Russia. There, the local societies cannot find the way to their own social structure, because they are diverted by the identification of their identity with the most visible and praised nomenclature, that of Western Europe. Instead of being self-confident and expressing themselves the way they are, they have to imagine themselves as compared to that nomenclature, with the choice of either copying or rejecting it (more about this issue in the article Rom-Gypsy, the reality vs. the image).

The Romani worldview

In this context, the emergence of the absolute purity rules and the clarification of the real identity, once arriving in Diaspora, can be understood as a moksh in the Dharmic context, a liberation of the Romani people. This would be the first known collective moksh. Usually, there are known cases of individual liberations, of persons who until now, neither could they explain to the others what means moksh from the point of view of the Maya, nor could they organize a coherent social life from a liberated point of view. The only thing they could do was to live their life by considering the reality or, some of them, to organize guidance systems towards moksh for the rest of the people. In the same time, the discussions about the liberated view tended to produce only negations, denials of connections with any idea that would resemble it, the principle known in Sanskrit as neti…, neti… (neither…, nor…).

At this his point, probably it is necessary a clarification about what means moksh. It is not a fulfillment of something previously known, an ideal that would correct an unbalanced World, as most of the contemporary people imagine the ultimate religious goal. In fact, it cannot be even a goal, since, if it is considered as a goal from the point of view of the Ego, the result would be an endless succession of circumnavigations, as described above. As explained in the article Romani society, if it would be considered the integration of the Romani worldview and also of the fundamental Dharmic point of view in the public sphere, then the contemporary notion of religion should undergo major changes, it should be truly multipolar.

The Dharmic liberation is not something new, when compared to a static vision, because there is no such continuity, it does not change anything, it just reveals the vision of the reality as it is. The path to the liberation does not appear by selecting one way and rejecting the others, but by relativizing all the nomenclaturized products of the mind. Thus this relativisation does not mean that something changed or a new mechanism was discovered in the realm of the ideals, only their functioning becomes obvious.

The names for the reality and for its vision by the Self are only conventions for pointing to something known but not easy to express, not an abstraction organized by the Ego. There is accepted the existence of more opinions about what they really mean and their simultaneous multiplicity is respected. For example, in the Dharmic literature there is a debate about the results of moksh, about what happens to the Self: does it have the correct view or does it become the correct view (as expressed in the metaphor “tasting sugar or becoming sugar”)? The fact is that the static view is not fitted to describe the World as it is, in motion. The static style of presentation and categorization is usually misleading in this sense, trying to describe something that does not exist from its point of view. Continuing the series of negations, the moksh is not necessarily something spectacular, extraordinary, as are described usually the religious phenomena. From a localized view, it tends to be not such a meaningful event. In fact, many times, it is presented its simplicity and the not-so-conspicuous, usual life the liberated live.

Thus, the moksh simply happened for the Romani people, from the point of view of the reality. The subsequent identity clarification created ethnic names, Roma/Chave, Manusha, Kale, expressing the desired fundamental, basic identity of the Dharmic people, beyond any casteism and sectarianism. However, this Dharmic cultural luggage did not include also the knowledge of a public life from this liberated view, since previously it was focused only on how to attain it. The individual nature of the previous liberations did not produce this necessity. It proved also not to be an easy task to find possibilities of expressing the clarified Romani view. They continued to live from the point of view of the Maya, they continued the Dharmic-specific organization based on casteism, community prestige and honor. However, all remained relative, no new karm was added, there was and there is a deep sense of relativity about the Maya type of organization, always the basic, fundamental Romani identity remained foremost. On the one hand, the intercaste relations did not officialize, they were confined at an informal level, on the other hand, the Romanipen could not find a written form, being incompatible with the Maya style of expression.

From the temporal point of view, it continued the continuous present used in South Asia until the Muslim invasion, focused rather on finding the abstract patterns, than on a mental creation of a succession of meaningful events, a linear history. The migration itself out of the Subcontinent was not a particular event notable for remembering, since it did not suppose a fundamental change of perspective, it just settled an issue of the Dharmic worldview. They did not find something new, like in the Jews’ case. The latter retained the remembrance of a breaking-off with the original civilization; before leaving Mesopotamia, Abraham destroyed the gods of his father. Among Dharmic people the gods were considered already inherently relative, accepted as such and respected for their place in the World.

For the Roma, the life in Diaspora meant the beginning of a different relation between particular/local and fundamental/basic, between the relative and the absolute purity rules. A social life cannot exist without the emergence of all kind of particularities, but also the existence as a minority among people with different worldviews keeps remembering the relativity of these particularities and brings to the forefront the real identity. One may wonder, if there appeared non-static and non-localized perceptions at the synchronic and diachronic levels, why couldn't it appear immediately a public expression of this worldview? In this sense, it should be reminded, as also Ferdinand de Saussure noticed, that these two levels are interdependent, but they work with different approaches, from different perspectives. One cannot put them, in a direct manner, in the same basket, they interact through their results. These purity rules do not keep a coherence for their own perspective, but for the other one, the limitations of the other view are contested. The absolute purity rules, as an expression of the diachronic perspective, contest the localized understanding of the synchronic one, their fundamental question being: "what is really my place in the World?" (the sychronicity). The relative purity rules, as an expression of the synchronic perspective, contest the static understanding of the diachronic one, their fundamental question being: "who is really me?" (diachronicity).

As a result of the relative purity rules, there is no restriction for individuals to think about, experiment ideologies that propose certain visions about the World (as long as these persons maintain good social relations with the other members of the local community). However, there does not appear popular interest in such ideologies, perceived as something partial, never embracing the fundamental Romani identity supported by the absolute purity rules. On the other hand, from the point of view of these absolute rules, if there is a will to come forward with a worldview expressing this fundamental Romani identity, beyond any local limitations, the relative purity rules question the details of the beginning of such an ultimate Thread. For every possible thread there appears the Dharmic question about what gives authority to its beginnings, a pertinent question that cannot be avoided. In this sense, I remember a short poem written by my brother, Ciprian, some time ago, in 2001:

Details

I’m wasting time

Looking for details

For a start line…

But I found out

That I have to claim

And that I’m not allowed

To let somebody rule me.

You’re wasting my self

Seeking for details

Inside me…

If somebody seeks a public presence that should express the personal identity, from the diachronic perspective, there do not exist the exact details of the ultimate beginning (18), from the synchronic perspective, there do not exist the exact details that would describe that individual as compared with others (non-Roma or Roma from other castes). If somebody becomes amazed by the details of a certain point of view, the situation looks like a poorly played Gypsy film (more about such films at the article Rom-Gypsy, the reality vs. the image), where the new additions are totally strange, non-Romani, and the main character(s) do not even have the naturalness of the non-Romani actors. Even other Romani individuals tend to be careful in dealing with such problems, if they criticize the details of such endeavors, they may end up in believing that they have a better set of details. They may become also Gypsy actors that benefit from the magic of a film to mimic the reality, losing the awareness that they arrived in the same issue, a film where the characters debate about films. The usual Romani folk remains out of such issues, nothing became popular yet.

Personally, in the year 2000, I had the idea of comparing the social fabrics of the Romani and Jewish people, thus understanding the similarities of what I name absolute purity rules, subsequently arriving to the perception of a duality of identity features, a visible and an invisible set, from a static point of view. This was obviously a much more Romani-friendly perception of the identity, but, as the time elapsed, I saw I remained stuck only in discussions with close people, who knew what we were talking about. Regarding a public expression, as my brother made clear in that poem, the things were not so easy from a Romani point of view. Now I found this way to come with this presentation, employing the static concepts of nomenclature and thread, while clarifying their relativity.

My perception is that it is necessary to study the fundamentals of the social structure and thus there will appear the cultural tools that would make possible to enable a public expression, non-static and non-localized. For example, something like the concept of 0 (zero), which appeared some time ago in the Dharmic worldview, a notion inexistent in the classical static worldview, subsequently clarifying and solving so many problems of the mankind. These should be rather obvious notions than personal constructions and in an sufficient number in order to create a functional public expression. This expression would make visible the apparently inexistent focus (from a contemporary perspective) of the purity rules, the more comprehensive understanding of the World and of the Self.

Such a public expression would make possible a public Romani life, going beyond views like this Romanian saying, a se îneca ca ţiganul la mal (“to drown like the Gypsy near the shore”), expressing the Romanians’ perception of the Roma as persons who are able to get through any difficulties, but when they are close to accomplish something, to create something with a nomenclature and a thread, they give up for minor issues (minor from a non-Romani view). Such cultural tools would be useful for any other people, just to remind the incompatibility of the Japanese mindset with fixed situations, as expressed, for example, in TV series like Otoko wa tsurai yo (the perspective when the individual becomes involved and suffers for not reaching accomplishments) or Jikō keisatsu (when the individual is detached and does things in a manner that will not get him involved). For some years they too are amassing enough questions about their identity and the possibility to keep a clearly defined space, as a result of the modernity's pervasiveness.

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(18) And the Roma are not in the position of the Japanese, living in a clearly defined place where it is possible to unfold in time a society of people who all know what they are talking about, without the need to clarify the details of a presence in a static World, so that the details of the beginning wouldn’t matter.

More articles by Alin Dosoftei