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Leading issues Imposed constraints The European Romani (Gypsy, Cigány) community has been subjected to imposed constraints on their affairs for some 650 years. These constraints have remained in place largely as a result of a general lack of mainstream societal interest, poor mainstream political leadership, proactive discrimination motivated by racism, status and money. Emancipation Emancipation is the removal of such constraints so as to provide Roma with an equivalent basis upon which to exercise their freedoms and to contribute to society in general. Emancipation is significantly hampered by prejudicial prevarication of those in power who do not take necessary decisions and actions, in a timely fashion, to remove causes of harm. Such prejudicial prevarication normally occurs because those responsibile for decisions and action do not care about the group being harmed. Ignorance, the control of information and words A very potent weapon in the hands of those who would harm the Roma is the imposition of dependency. This is achieved through purposeful denial of education, not informing Roma of their fundamental rights, keeping critical information away from the Roma and substituting words for action and denying them employment. Dependency creates a situation where is is easy to manipulate the Roma, including leadership. Failing to represent Another potent weapon in the hands of those who would harm the Roma is the denial of effective representation by politicians and Parliaments. In the place of normal Parliamentary representation is the purposeful substitution of structures of Romani or minority representation with no effective power. These have the effect of excluding Roma from the main political process, enable mainstream politicans to escape their responsibilities to their Roma constitutents and allow government to blame "Roma leadership" for lack of progress in the circumstances of the Roma. The Roma (Gypsy) business During the last decade, throughout Eastern and Central Europe, there have arisen many non governmental organizations and groups "dedicated" to the Roma "cause". These in turn are supported financially by governmental, international and private donors. But this system been largely ineffective in securing any sustained impact of benefit to the Roma. Too large a proportion of the funding allocated has gone into the fees of consultants, and in series of associated activities used to sustain a booming multi-Euro-million "Gypsy business" from which everyone, except the Roma, benefits.