Monthly Archives: September 2013

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27.09.2013 Rroma in France

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Balmer (2013) reports on the massive criticism of the EU commission on the French Rroma policies. The reason for the complaint were the repeated statements by Interior Minister Manuel Valls, that the majority of the Rroma are not compatible with the French due to their specific lifestyle and should return to Romania. With these statements Valls drew the criticism of many of his Socialist party colleagues but at the same time also a lot of sympathy on the part of many French mayors who feel alone in confronting informal Rroma camps around Paris. In a statement, Viviane Reding, Vice-President of the European Commission, reminded Valls about the agreement of 2010, where  France promised the compliance of freedom of travel and establishment for all EU citizens, including Rroma. France has a law that allows deportation of asylum seekers if they cannot raise enough money for their own livelihood.

Nunès (2013) gives an overview of the responses to Valls statements by various French mayors. Most, including socialist politicians, agree with Valls on his order and return policies. The reasoning is always similar: France is not responsible for solving the world’s problems. With their anarchical way of life, Rroma are not compatible with the French society and should be deported. They are a massive financial burden on the French welfare state, which is battered enough already by the economic crisis. For Clermont-Ferrand, they are primarily passive victims who can not be saved by the overstretched French government at this time and thus must be expelled. By the assignment of a victim role, Ferrand wants to distance himself from ethnic categorizations: “Il n’est pas question de stigmatiser une population, mais, dans une période de pénurie d’emplois et de logements, nous ne sommes pas en mesure de réussir leur intégration. Il faut mettre un terme à l’hémorragie rom en France” [One should not stigmatise a population, but at a time where there is a scarcity of jobs and housing, we are not in a position to achieve their integration. We have to stop the Rroma bleeding in France.]

Vallaud Najat Belkacem, Women’s Rights Minister, clarified the position of the French government in the national Rroma politics: The repatriation is part of a range of measures in dealing with Rroma. French Rroma policies are determined by assertiveness and humanity: assertivness in the sense that one prevents misery, which is no way to live,  by the destruction of Rroma camps. Humanity, in the sense that one always promotes access to education, employment and housing where possible (Le Point, 2013). That these humanitarian interventions are permeated of political views and intentions is an important detail that is not discussed in more detail by Belkacem. Instead, evictions are declared to be humanitarian measures to protect residents who need to be saved from untold misery. That living in an illegal settlement could be an unpleasant but acceptable alternative to permanent expulsion practices for those affected is not considered.

Libération (2013) states that Valls sees his policies as the ones  of leftist politician who takes the suffering and distress of French citizens seriously. That these are anti-socialist policies, which make a distrinct difference between the equality of people established in France, he negates completely: “Le ministre a répété que son action est «celle d’un homme de gauche». «J’ai le devoir (…) d’écouter l’exaspération, les colères, les souffrances de notre peuple», a-t-il argumenté” [The minister repeated that his action is “the one of a leftist”. “I have the duty (…) to listen to the exasperation, the anger, the sufferings of our people.] The Housing Minister, Cécile Duflot, criticised Valls violently stating that he continues to carry on Nicolas Sarkozy’s policies and set a highly questionable order policy based on ethnic origin.

In her analysis, Soullier (2013) also emphasizes the strong connection between French Rroma policies and the election campaign and its associated views of politicians. So Marie Le Pen continue to talk about a “horde” of Rroma who will come to France starting  in January 2014, with the enactment of freedom of movement agreement with Bulgaria and Romania. Other MPs, such as Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet, assign to Rroma criminal habits need to be prevented. Few politicians like Dominique Voynet recognise that the problem is cannot only be attributed to the Rroma of desire for integration, but is also the result of a lack of will on the part of government and society to accept them, “C’est difficile de reprocher aux personnes de ne pas s’intégrer quand on leur refuse le droit de travailler.” [It is difficult to reproach people not to integrate when one forbids them to work.]

Social geographer Olivier Legros know also point out that only visible Rroma living in camps are discussed by the media and politicians. The invisible, integrated Rroma are thereby condemned to non-existence, the general public does not even know they exists at all. The Rroma are a projection screen for the unwanted: “Dans le discours politique français, les Roms désignent des personnes qui habitent des bidonvilles aux marches des villes, qui viennent d’Europe centrale et qui menacent la sécurité des citoyens. Finalement, le Rom est une métaphore, un mot qui décrit des indésirables. Ceux qui se sont intégrés, on n’en parle jamais. […] Comment savoir, on ne parle jamais de ceux qui se sont intégrés? Il y en a peut-être dans votre bureau, dans votre entreprise mais ils n’éprouvent peut-être pas le besoin de le dire tous les jours.” (20 minutes France 2013) [In the French political discourse, Roma designate people who live in slums near urban centres, who came from Central Europe and threaten the safety of citizens. Finally, the Rom is a metaphor, a word that describes the undesirable. Those who are integrated, we never talk about. […] How do you know, we never speak of those who are integrated? They may be in your office, in your business, but they may not feel the need to say so every day]. According to Legros, the really questionable thing is that poverty is raised as a stigma and criminalised. It obscures the social conditions that are not the result of personal decisions and actions , but the result of structural, socially institutionalized and maintained inequalities.

Christian Vanneste of the extreme rightist  RPF party (Les Obervateurs 2013), takes the debate as an opportunity to perform an alleged disclosure of the true problems. He pours into racist generalisations that he does not see as racist because they correspond to the real behaviour of the Rroma and are confirmed by statistics. Rright at the beginning of the article he states that there is a clear link between the presence of the Rroma and a rise in crime rates: “Il y a un rapport entre la présence dans plusieurs grandes agglomérations d’une concentration d’immigrés roumains et bulgares et la délinquance.” [There is a correlation between the presence in several large agglomerations of Romanian and Bulgarian immigrants and criminality.] He further dishes out the popular notion of networks of organised beggars, con artists and criminal children gangs, elevating the exploitation of Rroma by Rroma as a cultural trait. He also quantifies the damage caused metal theft done by Rroma at 800,000 euro. For Vanneste, it is clear that the debate about the Rroma is not about racism but about objectified facts. What he does, is racism with questionable statistics and a correlation of parameters that de facto have nothing to do with each other, because there is simply no such thing as “ethnic culture of delinquency”. The rest of the article consists of a tirade against the EU, which presumes to prescribe the “right” policy decisions to the French government.

Comment: Valls statements, which are culturising and generalising are once again a prime example of the massive politicization of the Rroma identity, which is presented to the outside world as natural and anti-political. It must be stressed once more that integration is a two way process. If Rroma access to education, employment and health care is denied, the integration is nearly impossible. Quite a few French politicians seem not to want to pursue such an integration, because they believe from the outset that Rroma cannot be integrated. Whether they have ever spoken with Rroma for a longer time is highly doubtful. The polemic shows how much policies are controlled by entrenched opinions: One wants well-educated, financially strong immigrants with high social integration capabilities. If they do not meet this ideal, ethnic characteristics are exploited to declare them not “to be integrated”. That this assignment steeped in political and moral views is usually ignored. Rather, this is presented as indisputable nature of the Rroma.

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27.09.2013 Rroma Debate in Germany

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Martens (2013) casts a sober look at the predicted mass immigration of Rroma from Romania and Bulgaria when the treaty on the free movement of people becomes a reality in January 2014. He criticises the dire prophecies by pointing to the admissions of other Eastern European countries where similar predictions were made. After Poles were allowed free establishment in Europe, it did not come to the predicted mass exodus. A standard objection is usually that one strives to better the situation of Rroma in their countries of origin with regard to access to education and the labour market. At the meeting “For educational situation of Roma in (and out of) Southeastern Europe” different social scientists and politicians spoke about their experiences and insights. Martens criticises how these subjective views are presented as objective truths, and in turn reproduce stereotypes, despite the good intentions behind it. For example, the green politician Franz Romeo in his speech uncritically reproduces the prejudice “Serbs and Bulgarians, refer to Roma children as “brown gold”” because they are abused for the benefit of organ trafficking.

Deutsche Welle (2013) reports, as many other media previously did, about angered residents over new Rroma migrants in Duisburg. Indignant voices about what are deemed Rroma insults convey an image of the incompatibility of the Rroma and German way of life. Such debates are as old as the history of migration itself. Immigrants’ cultural characteristics are exploited in order to channel the fears of the people associated with a changing situation. Debates on migration and immigrants always reproduce ideas about ethnic unity in the sense of ethnic nationalism. That migration can also be enriching, is, however, often like negated. Instead, the media attention focuses on problem cases. That these represent the norm rather than the exception is highly doubtful.

The preconceived notion that most Rroma have none or a very poor education is also reproduced by Aufderheide (2013) in her article on programs for Rroma in Duisburg. For better integration, immigrants will be tested on language skills, education and work experience. Aufderheide, not wrongly but very uncritically, speaks generally of a low education level and writes them off as welfare recipients. This supports conservative voices who fear a massive impact of immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria on the German social welfare system: “When the complete freedom of movement enters in force in the coming year, people will stand in line in front of the job centres to submit applications for Hartz IV. Skilled workers, which employers are clamouring for, will only be found in this population with a magnifying glass. Which of course does not necessarily mean that these people can’t do anything.” The idea that successful integration can be promoted by encouraging people, seems to be completely alien to her.

On the immigration debate, Grunau (2013) gives an closer look at the issue of poverty. He notes with a reference to Mappes-Niediek that it is often the poverty of immigrants, which is perceived by residents as being undesirable. This is then mixed with a cultural background: “They are just as rejected as poor people all over the world. The problem is poverty, not Roma, which the author proves with many examples.” Also forgotten in the polemics debate about poverty immigrants is that in the 1960s and 1970s, tens of thousands of Rroma arrived as guest workers from Yugoslavia to Germany and live there well integrated. What one can observe, therefore, is the ethnicization of a poverty problem. Ignoring the integrated, invisible Rroma, many of whom they fear to be publicly recognised as Rroma and named as such so because they fear that they could be excluded from their social environment is associated with this phenomenon: “This is also an investigation on Roma who came as guest workers in the 60s, 70s, and have noted: “We are perceived as Italians, as Turks, Yugoslavs we’re doing much better here if we are not perceived as Roma..” They have kept their identity secret, with the consequence that they have made ​​a career, are integrated, are established” (Grunau 2013/II). Barbara Lochbihler, Member of the European Parliament, sees the lack of integration of Rroma in the education system in most European countries as an important factor for the persistence of poverty and the remaining low enrolment rates. The experience with education, which parents could be pass on to their children is lacking.

Arbutina (2013) analyses the Rroma political participation ability. He notes with a reference to Zeljko Jovanovic of the Open Society Foundation, that for many Rroma, due to the blatant poverty, politics constitutes an incidental phenomenon. Moreover, in several Eastern European countries the will to let Rroma really to participate in the country’s politics is lacking. Socially widespread nationalist views hinder the implementation of political multiethnic states in which all voices are allowed to speak. As an example of the political and social integration, Macedonia can be identified: there are well-established parties representing the interests of the Rroma and Rromanes can be studied as a language in the universities. Jovanovic stresses, however, that Rroma should not only build on the integration will of governments but should also put more efforts themselves towards a successful integration.

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27.09.2013 Racist Rroma Register of the Swedish Police

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Wolff (2013) speaks about the Rroma register, which has been operated by the Swedish police for eight years and caused quite a sensation. The register systematically recorded Rroma established in Sweden, regardless of age, gender, or other parameters. The focus, therefore, was not, according to Wolff, the registration of delinquent Rroma, but the categorisation of all Rroma in Sweden, which were thereby put under general suspicion. A member of the Swedish Police Corps reported this illicit register to the police anonymously and so caused it to be known.

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27.09.2013 Anti-Rroma Pogroms in Poland

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A seemingly harmless incident between a 16-year-old Rroma and a 13-year-old ethnic Poles in the city Andrychow led to massive tensions. A petition and a now-banned Facebook group called for the expulsion of around 140 Rroma from this city of 20,000 inhabitants. The case is symptomatic of the continued segregation of Rroma in Poland according to Focus (2013), as well as in the neighbouring Slovakia. Low education rates and poor integration led to a persistence of poverty and exclusion: “Many Slovak and Polish Roma are illiterate, unemployed and on welfare. Because despite compulsory education, not all children go to school – partly out of fear of discrimination, partly out of fear of assimilation – the way the next generation is poised to misery.”

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20.09.2013 Rroma Debate in France

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In France, the polemical debate about Rroma, which arrived at its zenith this summer, does not abate. The UMP deputy Nathalie Kosciusko-Morizet indicated in a television interview that in her opinion, in Paris, many are being harassed by Rroma (Le Point, 2013). The paper presents Kosciusko-Morizet’s comments in the context of polemical statements of Gilles Bourdouleix or Christian Estrosi. The UMP mayor of Croix, Régis Cauche, assured party members he would provide them support in the event of in the event they would make critical statements about Rroma.

Le Monde (2013) points out that the Rroma are once more misused as an instrument in the French municipal election campaign to grab the votes of conservative voters.

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20.09.2013 Rroma Debate in Germany

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The conservative weekly newspaper Junge Freiheit (2013) reports on “Gypsies […] they want the full right of German social benefits if they declare Germany as their new centre of life.” The paper evaluates the decision of Essen’s Higher Social Court in a precedent that allows now all “Gypsies” from Southeast Europe to also be entitled to all social benefits in addition to the child benefit and emergency medical care. The conservative weekly newspaper takes a clear judgmental  and order oriented perspective on the immigration debate: desirable are, if at all, only professionals and only if they do not compete with German workers. It also makes the economic opportunities of immigrants a question of ethnicity: Rroma, in the paper’s eyes, are all potential welfare cheats. Mockingly they note that it is sufficient, according to the Social Court, to declare Germany as one’s new centre of life and for being awarded benefits.

The town of Nordhausen ordered the prohibition of NPD election posters of the NPD in the vicinity of the former concentration camp Mittelbau-Dora and prescribed the minimum distance. With the slogan “Money for grandma instead of Sinti and Roma” the NPD generated a lot of resentment.  Legal proceedings were initiated by several people against the NPD for anti-Gypsy propaganda (MDR 2013). The anti Rroma propaganda has also triggered legitimate fears among many Rroma in Germany, especially in families with children who have to see posters on their routes to school. Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma criticised that authorities had only acted in some cities, but not pronounced a national regulation to ban the posters (Evangelical Press, 2013). In the city of Giessen, the Administrative Court ruled in favour of the NPD’s posters: they must be hung back after the town had them removed. In a bipartisan action, critics of the NPD have now hung posters with the slogan “My grandma also like Sinti and Roma” (Hit Radio FFH 2013).

The TAZ (2013) reports the successful construction of a dormitory for Rroma in Neukölln that is funded by the Housing and Community Society of Aachen. Previously a house in the Harzerstrasse gained media attention mainly because of the waste and the noise. Through the intervention of Aachen Housing society, the house has been renovated and overcrowding has been reduced. The housing project has even won a social Architecture Prize. At the same time the displeasure of some of the neighbours has been awakened, who complained about the social advantage given to Rroma. However, Benjamin Marx, the project manager, sees the project as an important sign of social acceptance of Rroma.

The SPD excluded Martin Korol from the party because of his anti-Roma statements. Korol had made derogatory comments towards the Rroma immigrants from Southeast Europe Rroma on his website earlier this year, but then removed them due to considerable criticisms. Korol was elected in February 2013 into the Bremen state parliament, and his previously published statements had previously not raised any attention (Mirror 2013).

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20.09.2013 Rroma as a Projection of the Majority Society

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Tuomas Kyrö’s novel “beggars and Hare” explores the ambivalent relationship of the majority towards Rroma. The protagonist, a Romanian Rrom named Vatanescu, experiences a variety of adventures during his stay in Finland. He was – as Brüns (2013) – primarily a projection of the desires and fears of the people he encounters. He himself remains shapeless as a person: “Vatanescu was referred to as the Bulgarian concrete reinforcing bars Ivan, sometimes as the Polish Miroslaw, son of Bronislaw or as yhe Albanian Fox. On the sides, a lot happens, which leads him into a high office. You get to know the other characters of the novel in biographical breaks, one learns, however, until the end very little about the Roma: He is what the others make of him.”

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20.09.2013 Rroma and Experts

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Lausberg (2013) raises an important question on the relation of knowledge produced by Rroma experts about Rroma and its appropriation by the public. Lausberg criticises Rolf Bauerdick “Gypsy: Encounters with unpopular people” for the reproduction of centuries-old stereotypes, because Bauerdick, in addition to the descriptive plane of his book, did not manage to address other levels of reality such as the dominant social discourses, the heterogeneity of the Rroma or the xenophobic instrumentalisation Rroma. Bauerdick’s critique of the common view of the Rroma as victims, deprived of their own power to act, is an important objection to public views of the Rroma. Also they are responsible for their own destiny, not only the structures of society. However, in this criticism, he commits the mistake to unilaterally describe Rroma representatives as elitist, overly moralistic and haughty, and himself as an empirical journalist, a revealer of objectivity: “The reference to his decades-long meetings with Roma displays his intention to make him appear as a reliable insider, to strengthen his credibility. His point of view as he approaches the target group under investigation (Roma) is highly questionable and dubious. Bauerdick is not able to distance himself from the normal ideas of his own Western culture and to understand Roma from their own cultural and social context. […] Bauerdick wants to refute the theory that the majority of society is always the perpetrator and the minority always the victims. On the questions of who ever set up this theory and why it supposedly has hegemonic character, he is going into. Bauerdick even claims that “the Gypsies are exploited far less than the Gadsche by members of their own people. ( Bauerdick, 2013, p 14).”

Lausberg so rightly criticized the ambivalent role of self-appointed Rroma experts. Expertise usually works according to the logic of stabilization, reduction, purification and synthesising of heterogeneous and often contradictory knowledge. Complex phenomena such as the highly complex issue of the Rroma identity appear in their statements as clearly analyzable and describable. In the Bauerdick case, he commits the serious mistake to reduce the reality to what he was able to observe during his research trips. That the Rroma identity also tocuhes topics such as self-and external attribution of identity, dominant societal views and different opinions and lifestyles among the Rroma themselves, he is not taking into account. Instead of a complex, sometimes even contradictory picture,  he creates a one-sided caricature of Rroma living in slums, who have fallen into apathy and who call themselves “Gypsies”. Towards “invisible Rroma”, to which one simply cannot even go fast by car, Bauerdick is not fair: they too form part of the social reality of the Rroma. They do not live in slums and do not conform to questionable statistics on illiteracy and to the exorbitant numbers of Rroma children. Bauerdick could exactly as well have written a book about well-integrated Rroma. He would then admittedly have disregarded a part of reality, but he would have stimulated critical thinking, that what must be all good journalism goal. Instead, one is now forced to read a lot of positive reviews about his book, praising uncritically Bauerdicjk’s supposedly objective empiricism” “The book convinces because the author is aware of the situation at all focal points of the gypsy life in Europe itself, he knows the people, he knows those who, in the northern city of Dortmund, experienced the onslaught of enslaved women, the portrait of Radka Inkova […], whom he meets in the northern city of Dortmund, we read with a great sad wave. Radka was born in Stolipinovo, into a family with twelve children. The parents did not send them to school, they married after Gypsy law as they were twelve years old. The man beat her every day and she left him, and since fell into the clutches of Arslan P. He enticed her to Dortmund” (Neudeck 2013). Individual stories are presented as tangible cultural traits and thereby convey a point of view that present the Rroma as responsible for their own social exclusion. Moralistic views need to be carefully questioned, as they often hide the complexity of reality behind one-dimensional opinions. His book, which without doubt was written with a lot of empathy towards Rroma, is now instead exploited by right-wing politicians to create propaganda against Eastern European immigrants. A critical analysis of knowledge generation and appropriation is therefore so important. Adorno and Horkheimer have referred to this problem in “Dialectic of Enlightenment” as early as 1947.

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20.09.2013 Disputes Between Rroma and Residents in Salzburg

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Clashes between local residents and travelling Rroma in Anthering (Flachgau) and Bischofshofen (Pongau) generated resentment in Austria and encourage the uncritical reproduction of distorted perceptions about Rroma. In Bischofshofen, young people organised via Facebook and subsequently visited travelling Rroma and provoked and insulted them. Police prevented further escalations. A few days earlier in Anthering a farmer tried to chase illegally camping Rroma by splashing them with manure (The Press, 2013). Once more, specific cases become precedents that are applied to Rroma as a whole. Most Rroma are not travellers at all and never were involved in any many illegal activities. Reporting such incidents is part of a tradition of one-sided coverage of Rroma: These reports are in many cases related to crimes or other negative events, which has led to the entrenchment of a negative public image. The proposal by the Greens immigration responsible Martina Berthold to provide an available camping spot for travelling met with strong criticism. There is no real need for it. That the article promotes racist attitudes towards Rroma can be inferred from the comment column. It reads as: “That the R & S [Rroma and Sinti] settlements in Hungary are located several kilometres away from the urban areas has reasons – ask the Hungarians why this is so. And remarkably – this is not new, this is older than the Nazis, but it has apparently proven to work. And proven things you should not be given up!” (Salzburg_24 2013).

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20.09.2013 Anti Rroma Behaviour and False Statistics in the Czech Republic

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The Prague Post (2013) discusses the statement of the Institute of Sociology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, which decidedly distances itself from the statistics on Rroma that are circulated by some media. These questionable statistics on marriages, prostitution or crime amongst Rroma are attributed to the Institute of Sociology, although it never gathered such data. The goal of the authors of the articles in question is the creation of a natural perception of pejorative views on Rroma as well as creating a negative emotional view.

Heinlein (2013) reports on disturbing developments in the Czech Republic: The ongoing economic crisis and the impoverishment of the middle and lower classes feeds radical right-wing movements. Both the Interior Minister Martin Pecina and the Czech Intelligence Service warn of the increasing friendliness of the majority society towards right-wing groups which results in higher willingness to use violence against Rroma. Against this, only a few voices are defending Rroma. Too big is the fear to be marginalized, “Despite the everyday discrimination and the increasing violence against the 200,000 to 300,000 Roma in the Czech Republic, possible solutions are hardly discussed in the current election campaign. Neither party is willing to stand against the majority opinion in the population position. […] According to the polls. at least one right-wing party will enter parliament this time.”

Schultheis (2013) spoke with Miroslav Táncos, chairman of the newly established Rroma Democratic Party in the Czech Republic. Táncos indicates that it is very difficult without a Rroma Party to achieve real improvements for Rroma. The government programs have very limited effect. In the established parties Rroma concerns are not important enough to make a stand on them for the election. But one clearly feels closer to the leftist parties because they possess a keen sense of social justice. Especially one wants to sensitise the youth on the topic of Czech Rroma. Among them, opinions were not so entrenched as among older generations. Also, the behaviour of those Rroma who are criminals must be improved. Municipalities and mayors usually decide against Rroma. A widespread prejudice against Rroma is that the Czech Rroma get massively more social benefits than the ethnic Czechs. Táncos is nevertheless optimistic that society as a whole takes an objective attitude towards Rroma, even if this is not the case with quite a few. The Economist (2013) in his article about the Rroma Demoratic Party (RDP), refines the aims of the newly established political organization: the promotion of educational opportunities for young Rroma who were disadvantaged for decades, as well as single mothers and the elderly.

Nejezchleba (2013) reports that in the Czech city Duchcov Rroma and supporters organised protests against right-wing rallies. They so want to ensure that Rroma do not retreat and entrench themselves in their homes in fear. Nevertheless, according to Nejezchleba, fear is rampant among the members of the minority. The Mayor of Duchcov shows clearly more sympathy to the anti-Rroma marches: The frustration of the people by the ever-increasing unemployment and the simultaneous exploitation of social assistance by Rroma is understandable. That a significant part of social assistance never arrives to Rroma should not be forgotten.

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06.09.2013 Street Prostitution in Zurich

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Dammann (2013) reports on the verdict in the trial of a pimp of the Zurich street prostitution scene. According to the indictment, the man massively abused six Hungarian women have forced them into prostitution. He has now been sentenced to seven and a half years in prison. The judgment once more raises the question of how the distinction between volunteer and forced prostitution is useful, since often, these concepts cannot be clearly distinguished. From a legal perspective, the term “forced prostitution”  does not exist. It is argued that structural phenomena such as migration and poverty are transformed in victim-perpetrator schemes and that the sex workers are represented as one-dimensional victims without own power to act. Many movies and books make prostitution as something that is done voluntarily although often due to poverty. Against this, one has to look at the repeatedly imposed sentences against brutal pimps, especially in the area of ​​street prostitution. Dammanns hint that these men are often Rroma who exploit their women is also absolutely to be understood in a non-cultural way. Mutual exploitation has nothing to do with culture, although some observers like to assign it to Rroma, but is the result of individual acts of amoral people.

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06.09.2013 Segregation of Rroma Children in the Slovak and Hungarian Education Systems

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The Standard (2013) discusses the continuing segregation of Rroma children in Slovak schools. According to a recent report by Amnesty International, 43% of Rroma children are taught in ethnically segregated classes. The Slovak government is responsible for this situation by that tolerating or even promoting segregation practices. The government defends itself by pointing out at the usually very poor Slovak spoken by Rroma, making a separate teaching a necessity. Critics, however, see this as an excuse to comply with the wishes of ethnic Slovaks to teach their children separately from those of the Rroma. Individual judgments, as in Prešov in October 2012, are a sign of the will of a dedicated group within the country to abolish segregation. Currently though, this still seems to be the common practice.

Pester Lloyd (2013) points out in a recent article about similar practices in Hungary: The opening of a new public elementary school was only announced by personal invitation solely to parents of Magyar origin. Rroma parents were intentionally excluded from the welcome letter. The County Jász-Nagykun-Szolnok has, according to the Pester Lloyd, the highest segregation rate in the country. Numerous court decisions condemning ethnic segregation of children in primary schools have changed nothing on the prevalence of this practice. The authors also condemn the distorting representations of the Hungarian Rroma politic by Hungarian Members of the European Parliament: Livia Jaroka, the Fidesz Roma representative in the European Parliament, talks about the immense progress in the integration of the Rroma. But whether this has indeed improved, needs to be critically examined. The Pester Lloyd points out to an issue that is given too little attention: To what extent integration programs actually bear fruit is very little researched and documented. What counts is the public statement that something is being done.

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06.09.2013 Rroma House in Duisburg

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The disputed house in Duisburg, informally called Rroma-House, continues to feed a heated debate. Unfortunately, journalists still reproduce little thought views that present a one-dimensional view of the migration to Germany and explain all the problems with culturalism rather than with poverty and lack of education. RTL online states: “Germany is a paradise for them. You no longer come as asylum seekers, but as EU citizens. As such, they have the right to live where they want and get twenty times as much money for children as in their home. From 2014, they can then work completely legally here – or get Hartz 4 [tn: social help]. It is a test for the society. But Roma want to change. they learn that there are rules and all are willing to abide by these” (RTL 2013). RTL uncritically reproduces the dominant discourse of right-wing parties on economic migration, which omits to show  that migration has diverse backgrounds. Also, as so often, too little distinction is made between poverty caused by life circumstances and cultural characteristics. Instead, living in a ghetto in South East Europe is presented as cultural identity of these people. This hurts all Rroma who do not meet these stereotypes and lead a normal, inconspicuous life. A differentiated coverage must represent the heterogeneity and complexity rather than generalizations and culturalism.

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06.09.2013 Rroma Debate in France

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The forced evictions of illegal Rroma settlements continues in France. Bergès (2013) reports on the upcoming evacuation of the largest Rroma camp in Lille. Bergès, using testimonies criticises the fact that the evacuation are actually more a hindrance on a long-term integration,  and that steps taken towards to building one’s own life are thereby made massively difficult or even utterly destroyed. Quite a few of the French politicians,  also some from the left, do not in fact want that immigrant Rroma become part of the French society: they propagate the view of the incompatibility of the Rroma culture of with French values and are disturbed by the slums in the suburbs of French cities. However, it is often the residents of the settlements close to the camps that are bothered by the sight of poverty and misery and ask for evictions to take place. Due to the many evictions in recent months, the social problems have not been solved, but simply shifted towards more and more homeless living in large cities such as Paris.

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06.09.2013 Rroma Debate in Germany

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Gumbrecht (2013 ) discusses the ambivalence of foreign names such as “Gypsy” and calls for a differentiated approach to terminology. While this term has been abused in the context of National Socialism and of inhumane practices, it also has romantic connotations. The unreflective usage of the self-designation “Rroma” might well go hand in hand with the desire to want to relativise or even negate the historic suffering of the Rroma: “The variety of readily available information on relevant etymologies, semantic fields and morphological variants is so tight that the impression that you think the name change can undo the historical suffering of Roma and Sinti and get rid of a debt.”

Despite his pleas for critical, disturbing thoughts, Gumbrecht is not free of misconceptions. When he cites a recent statistic that claims that a large part of the Rroma show a lack of interest in education, he makes the mistake of identifying poverty as a cultural phenomenon. There are many Rroma who put great emphasis on education and strongly engage themselves so that more and more Rroma acquire good educational qualifications. But he also intelligently states how difficult it is to actually understand the social realities of the Rroma behind the numerous stereotypes: The Rroma, next to Rromanes, speak a variety of languages, depending on which country they live. They belong to different faiths and have very diverse economic work. In addition to the heterogeneity of these parameters Gumbrecht cites a “permanence” of traditions, such as living in extended families, patriarchal structures, or ritual purity and impurity, that are seen as the foundation of the Rroma culture. But even here, caution should be exercised before political judgments are deducted, because findings that there was a “predominance of “health” and “happiness” […] over the dimensions of performance or knowledge” may be true for some Rroma, many others would strongly object to that statement. These “invisible Rroma”  that are almost not discussed by the media, the well integrated, professionally successful, feel ill represented by the media reporting and misunderstood. This aspect is not addressed by Gumbrecht. But he speaks enthusiastically of Django Reinhart and Drafi Deutscher and thus indirectly confirms how little the German public knows about Rroma.

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06.09.2013 Oskar Freysinger’s “Gypsy Concept”

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Reichen (2013) reports on the SVP member of the State Council of the Valais canton, Oskar Freysinger to draft plans for a new approach in dealing with Travellers on behalf of the Valais Parliament. In the summer of 2012, a large wedding resulted in embarrassment when Rroma settled on a farm without a permit. Under the new plan, the police should seek dialogue with the Travellers and then escort them to the transit site in Martigny or to another vacant location. Through the imposition of an evacuation order, vehicles could also be seized in the future. It should be noted that most of the Rroma are not travellers and never were. This is one of most the common misconceptions about the Rroma. Among the Swiss Jenischen, seasonal travelling lifestyle is far more common, but they, in turn, distance themselves from foreign travellers who pass through the country during the summer.

Albania Kosovo News Eastern Europe News Switzerland

06.09.2013 Kosovar Rroma and the Swiss Asylum Policy

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On the basis of the fate of a Rroma family from Kosovo, Eggenberger (2013) highlights the problems of the Swiss asylum policy. Smajli, the father, tells of discrimination and marginalization by the government and by ethnic Albanians who constitute the majority population in Kosovo. His story of persecution by debt collectors was not believed by the Swiss immigration authorities. The problem: it can’t be proven. The Federal Office for Migration bases its assessments of asylum applications on political reviews of the situation of the applicants’ countries of origin. If these opinions state that minorities are not subjected to persecution, this conclusion is applied to each application. Since personal life stories often cannot be fully proven, it is the official country reports and not the personal history that prevails on the assessment of the application. The official estimates by the Kosovar government are one-sided, so Smajli: “There is still fighting in Kosovo and there are still deads. Only the government does not want this to filter out. Homes of minorities are destroyed or burned down. If you go to the police, one is not heard. Access to the labour market is restricted to ethnic Albanians.”

Czech Republic News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

06.09.2013 Czech Rroma Form their Own Party

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The Prague Daily Monitor (2013) reports on the establishment of the “Democratic Party of the Rroma”, which was formed this August. The goal in the next elections in autumn is to win as many seats as possible in order to provide help on the Rroma concerns, particularly those who are specially vulnerable such as single mothers, the disabled, and the unemployed. The main concern of the party will be, however, to improve the educational opportunities of the Rroma and the integration into the labour market. This can be seen as a response to the still widespread practice of segregation of Rroma in the public schools. In 2011, the “party of equal rights” was officially recognized, another party which also represents the interests of Rroma.

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