Daily Archives: April 16, 2014

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16.04.2014 Wrong experts and the European integration of the Rroma

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On the occasion of the international Rroma Day of April the 8th, Dus (2014) discusses the efforts of the European Union to integrate Rroma. The conclusion in the latest report from Amnesty International is bleak in this regard: the rights of the minority are under- respected, and their advancement is deliberately sabotaged. Romania is said to have applied only a fraction of the total funding to support Rroma. Policy makers accuse the Rroma of deliberately not wanting to integrate. Dus further speaks on the dispute between Eastern and Western European politicians: Western European politicians accuse their colleagues of shifting repeatedly the integration of this minority to Western Europe, although a pan-European commitment is inevitably necessary. In addition, there is a increasing popularity of right-wing nationalist slogans and worldviews, which are particularly hurtful to minorities such as Rroma.

A total arrogance is the subsequent testimony of the political scientist and historian Pavel Kandel, head of the centre for ethno-political and inter-state conflicts at the European Institute of the Russian Academy of Sciences: “The reason for the hostile attitude consists mainly in the fact that they do not work and for the most part do not want to work. This is  immanent to the Rroma generally. There are of course examples that testify to the contrary, but they primarily refer to the sedentary Roma. These are by and large not numerous.” Kandel loses all credibility as a scientist with this highly polemical statement. To allege the Rroma of a general unwillingness to work is highly racist. He therefore totally dismisses the actual reasons for the lacking integration of the Rroma: exclusion, defamation and persecution of the minority, who have a history of hundreds of years. However, Kandel’s racism doesn’t end here. He claims that the Rroma intentionally burden the Western European welfare system, use illegal methods to enrich themselves, migrate in mass movements to the West, and are culturally incompatible with the Western European societies: “With the accession of the countries of Eastern Europe [ … ] to the European Union, they [the Rroma ] were offered the opportunity for unimpeded movement to where the standard of living is higher and where a complex system of social aid exists. And even if they do not take advantage of these opportunities, there are many more possibilities for increasing their standard of living by using their standard methods in the rich European countries. From this follows their mass migration into the West. In addition, it results in the harsh reactions of the population and the authorities in the West. It is a collision of two ways of life that have very little in common. First, the Roma themselves create problems. Secondly, unauthorized pogroms in relation to the Roma have to be ascribed to themselves. The alternatives are to take them in either protection or to chase them out. To chase them out is easier.” With these supposedly scientific, but in truth completely absurd generalizations and accusations, Kandel makes himself guilty of demagogy against the Rroma. He reproduces almost all the negative stereotypes that exist about the minority. Hundred thousands of Rroma live in Western Europe and are fully integrated, work and coexist with the majority population without problems. The statement that the “chasing out” of the Rroma is easier than to take them into protection is a request for exclusion, pogroms and violence against the minority, which is clearly a fascist statement that is punishable. The statements of the cited historian Nadezhda Demetr are also undifferentiated, although she indicates the necessity of education for the integration of Rroma. Demetr states: “But the situation turned against them. Because the Roma are illiterate in their mass. 80 percent cannot read or write at all. And they cannot find their way in a new world. [ … ] Special programs for the adaptation of the Roma to normal life are required, of which in Europe exist enough by the way. Why these programs do not work, is a special issue.” This article is a prime example of experts who misuse their authority shamelessly, to speak truth about a phenomenon. Instead of intelligent, sophisticated analyses, they provide polemic, biased knowledge that openly discredits and insults the Rroma. They also do damage to the credibility of the social and historical sciences, by discrediting any scientific standards of objectivity and critical analysis.

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16.04.2014 Rroma: “Education as the key to success”

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Müller (2014) takes a critical look at the relevance of education in Romanian Rroma families. The importance of education is give to little attention in many Rroma families, the young Rromni Andreea from Buzau, in South-eastern Romania states. Poverty obliges Rroma children to help their families from a young age within the household and at work: “My community thinks that you cannot take up any prestige profession such as teacher or doctor as Roma anyway. They cannot imagine that you can reach a good position with education. They have come to terms with being the outsiders in society. – Only one third of Roma children in Romania graduate, according to estimates by NGOs. The vast majority remains without a chance, because the children are living in poor neighbourhoods, where they have to help at home, instead of going to school.” The problem lies not only in the lack of awareness about the importance of education, but also in the strong discrimination against Rroma in the labour market as wells as in the education system. Thus, many Rroma get assigned to unskilled labour despite having graduated, because they are marked as “unreliable and slow” due to racial prejudice. Therefore, education alone cannot stop the exclusion of and discrimination against the Rroma, but it is an important first step towards greater self-determination and recognition.

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16.04.2014 Manual Valls has to go back to court

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The new Prime Minister of France, Manuel Valls, must again appear in front of the court. The Rroma organization La Voix des Rroms accuses him of incitement to “discrimination, hatred, and violence” against Rroma. The lawsuit relates to statements that Valls made on the March 14th and on September 24th, 2013 in presence of the French press. He accused Rroma immigrants in France of wilfully not wanting to integrate and stated that there is widespread, intra-ethnic crime amongst them: “The inhabitants of the camps do not want to integrate into our country, for cultural reasons or because they are at the mercy of begging or prostitution networks. […] They have an extremely different lifestyle than we do and are obviously enough on a confrontation course: we all know, the proximity of these camps causes begging and theft and therefore delinquency. […] The Rroma have a tendency to return to Romania and Bulgaria.” Fassin wonders why the lawsuit against Valls has not received any media attention. He explains this lack of interest on the one hand with a focus on his political profile that is characterized by seriousness and rigor, and on the other hand, with the verdict of the French court of December 13th, 2013. This first lawsuit against Valls, filed by the French movement against racism (MRAP), was rejected with the explanation that Valls’ statements were not a minister’s instructions, but personal opinions of the politician: “[the minister] is in the exercise of his function when he is issuing instructions […] but not when he interacts with the media to express his opinion. […] The French Republic does not recognize the concept of race. [He] could only be in the exercise of his functions, if he recommended a different treatment of persons, based on their origin.” Fassin discredits this justification of the French court as absurd. It means that de facto a minister can never possibly speak on behalf of the government in matters relating to racism, but only ever on his own. Thus one allows Manual Valls and other policy makers to enjoy the privilege of fools, while it is denied to the rest of the population, whereby Fassin is absolutely right (Fassin 2014).

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16.04.2014 6th arrondissement: turmoil around a racist police letter against Rroma

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Several French newspapers report on an internal letter from the police of the 6th arrondissement in Paris. The note by a police officer orders the police of the  arrondissement to locate all Rroma living in the streets and to expel them: “From now on and until new directives to the staff of the 6th arrondissement are given, all Rroma families living in the streets have to be located day and night and systematically expelled” (Le Monde 2014). One senior police officer, interviewed by Le Parisien, expressed to be snubbed by “violent and illegal” nature of the text. The letter is illegal because it is explicitly forbidden in France to mark people based on their ethnicity and to make them the targets of interventions. The mayor of 6th arrondissement, Pierre Lecoq, was not surprised by the tone of the letter and announced that he did not want to see Rroma families with small children in the streets. The number of Rroma families in the area of Saint-Germain-des-Prés has tripled in the last two months, Lecoq stated. He also perpetuates the racist notion of child-trafficking gangs that deliberately educate Rroma children to beg and steal. Jean-Pierre Colombies, delegate of the national police syndicate, said that he regretted the fact that police officers have to implement instructions from the police headquarters, which are directed by ruling politicians. The expulsion of Rroma from one place to another doesn’t solve anything, he added. The Paris police prefecture in turn communicated that the proposed approach directly derives from the directives of Pierre Lecoq, who demanded decisive actions against the Rroma. Gérard Taieb, attorney for personal rights, discredits Lecoq’s argument as pure hypocrisy. Taieb stated that it was not about the protection of the children. By expelling the families from the streets, the minors and infants are not helped in any way. The detection and expulsion of a group of people based on their ethnic affiliation was clearly illegal. This view was assented by the new interior minister, Bernard Cazeneuve, in his public statement.

The new spokesman for the French government, Stéphane Le Foll, stated that there were clear guidelines and rules on how the police should behave in the event of such circumstances, regardless of internal proposals. Le Foll also denied estimates that there was an “invasion” of Rroma in 6th arrondissement. No increase in the number of Rroma had been recorded. Le Foll added that it must not be forgotten that there are actual slums and one should try to make the Rroma immigrants move back to their countries of origin. At this point, Le Foll must be contradicted, since this migration happens because of discrimination, poverty and lack of perspectives. Most immigrant Rroma want to integrate, have a job and lead a normal life. This intention is denied them repeatedly and decidedly, as one hear clearly in an interview with Louis de Matignon Gouyon on Europe 1 (20 minuntes 2014, Béguin 2014, Carez 2014, Europe1, Le Figaro in 2014, Le Monde in 2014, Le Parisien 2014, Politi 2014).  

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