Santino Spinelli, the first Rom in Europe to become a senior lecturer text Sasa Petejan  "The Roma have never declared war on anyone, because they have never needed land. They have never felt the need to seize someone else’s territory. We are the only people in the world that have never resorted to terrorism to demand the sacred right of existence. We do not claim any territory but rather an existence that we have been denied since the time when we were forced to leave our land of origin. Even today, the Roma people, who were victims of that circumstance, are still regarded as a social flaw that needs to be eliminated. Until our people is acknowledged as an ethnic minority and are also recognized all political rights, we will remain paralyzed in the word "gypsies," citizens of any country, but always third-rate citizens."    photo Bojan Brecelj