Daily Archives: May 7, 2014

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07.05.2014 “Toward a Roma Cosmopolitanism“

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Feffer (2014) writes about his encounters with the Romanian Rroma-activist and sociologist Nicolae Gheorghe, who died last August. Gheorghe was decidedly fostering a cosmopolitan view of the Rroma and their affiliation to the different states and turned against all nationalisms: “His widest ambition for the Roma, who had no land of their own, was that they should be a ‘transnational’ people, a grand pan-European federation of men and women, who, while proper citizens of their own countries, also represented a society broader, freer and more enterprising than that of nation states […].” But Gheorghe realized that the real challenge was not the work in the European institutions, but the implementation of integration policies at the local level. In the villages and cities the consciousness of cosmopolitanism, which had existed under the Ottoman rule and Communism, had been lost. At the same time, many Rroma did not manage to evolve into entrepreneurs, as Gheorghe had hoped. The people they helped in training didn’t go back to engage in community work, as planned, but rather accepted positions in the administration. They didn’t understand enough about the mechanisms of the free market and focused too much on the production of goods. The group companies Gheorghe had supported with the help of funding, did not function as desired. They should rather have supported individual business ideas, he remembers. In addition, a further portion of the support funds disappeared due to nepotism. But there had also been successful projects. In these cases, however, private property existed previously, property on which one could build for an enterprise: “Most of the Roma working in our project had no such patrimony. They’d been selling their labour. And they didn’t know what to do with money. They had no entrepreneurial skills. They imagined – and I imagined too – that if we gave them money entrepreneurial skills would just appear. And that was not the case. They wasted the money. We ended up generating personality problems: It was much more than they could mentally cope with.” Gheorghe therewith directly addresses the problems that arose during the transition from one economic system to another, which required completely different values and skills. However, in his account, Gheorghe negates that there were Rroma who worked successfully in the new system and accumulated wealth. There the stereotypes of Rroma kings and palaces come from, as they keep popping up in newspapers.

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07.05.2014 The reportage Roma – Europe’s poor children conveys one-sided notion of the Rroma

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The reportage, awarded with the citizens media award of Saxony-Anhalt, reports about Rroma in Transylvania. It paints a sympathetic, but unfortunately also very normative view of the Rroma in Romania. The commentator states at the beginning of the reportage that the helpers of the association “Children’s Aid for Transylvania” would come to know the life and culture of the Rroma in a Rroma settlement. The fact that they confuse culture and a lifestyle resulting out of exclusion, is not discussed critically. Like many other reports in Germany, the coverage reproduces the idea of Rroma as victims in their countries of origin, but remains silent about well-integrated, invisible Rroma, who do not conform to the stereotypes. In addition, the discrimination against the minority in Germany is left out, where they are often portrayed as perpetrators. Instead, it is repeatedly referred to the fertility of the aid project, without giving the Rroma themselves a real voice. Therewith the aid project is staged as a success, but the person concerned appear as uncivilized that were in need of civilizing through the project: “When I think of the starting time, with the turbulence and unrest, and no values and norms within this group of the children of the centre, and now this development […] earlier communication was brute force, there were beatings”, the project manager Sebastian Leiter states biased. In contrast, the film also provides intelligent viewpoints as the views of the social workers Thomas Richardt, which emphasizes the importance of contact between the Rroma and Gadje and stresses that a society is only as good as it treats its weakest members. – The report shows once again that good intentions alone are not sufficient to convey a differentiated picture of the Rroma (compare Kinderhilfe für Siebenbürgen e.V 2014, Berliner Zeitung 2014, Focus 2014).

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07.05.2014 “Remembrance ceremony at the memorial for the Roma and Sinti in Salzburg”

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Salzburg 24 (2014) reports on a memorial event at Rroma memorial in Salzburg. The memorial commemorates Rroma deported by the Nazis. In Salzburg, there were 300 of them: “They were rounded up in 1943 on the site of the former trotting course and then deported over the detention camp Maxglan to the concentration camp Auschwitz-Birkenau. To this tortured people a memorial is dedicated to in the small park at Ignaz-Riederkai. […] Mayor Heinz Schaden also addressed the current situation in his speech: the guiding principle for dealing with poverty migrants should be the universal human rights. However, the social problems of Roma and Sinti in several Eastern European countries cannot be solved on the streets and squares in the rest of Europe, he states. Rather, it requires a pan-European effort to enable the people in their home countries a decent life.”

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07.05.2014 Marseille: The importance of education for a successful integration

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La Provence (2014) reports on the work of teacher Jane Bouvier in Marseille. The teacher is committed to help Rroma children from the slums of the city to enrol in school. The hurdles are numerous, but it is important not to give up quickly, Bouvier states. Bouvier had to seek new accommodations after families were evicted from their homes. She must convince parents of the importance of education for their children and perform the administrative necessities. The children live in conditions that are not exactly conducive to a concentrated learning. Nevertheless, Bouvier is trying to promote them as good as possible. Another problem is teasing on the part of the students: “Resident in a caravan but visiting his cousins in the slums of Plombières, Santiago, 9 years old, testifies in his own words: “At school, there are some who are very nice, and some who are very angry. They tell us: You are Romanians and you rummage in the garbage cans. If I tell it to the teacher, Mohamed and Mourad grab me. Sometimes the girls say them they should cease to annoy us. They say: “He is like us, he is a man and if his family rummages in garbage cans, that is not your problem.””

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07.05.2014 Integration of the Rroma in the Czech Republic

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Schneibergová (2014) reports on the symposium „people on the margins“ in Brno. MEPs from Germany, Austria , Poland, Hungary and the Czech Republic came together to discuss the marginalization of minorities. The presentations and discussions featured MEPs, ministers and local politicians. The focus was on the minorities and their position in society. Most speakers agreed that access to education should be facilitated and that the Rroma should finally be included in politics. Left-wing politician Ondřej Liska stated: “I think that one speaks too much in the Czech Republic about minorities instead of with the minorities. We should say goodbye to the concept of policy for Roma, because we need a policy with the Roma. We need children and young people who are educated, who can assert themselves in the labour market. We need young Roma citizens who participate in the dynamics of social processes. There are such people among the young generation. But an average Czech – although I hate using that term –  has not been informed about it.” To what extent Rroma representatives themselves also took the floor, is not discussed. Therefore, one gets the impression that also at the meeting one did not speak with but about the minority.

Nejezchleba/Waldmann (2014) report from Ústí nad Labem, in north Bohemia. There, on the first of May, a group of right-wing radicals demonstrated against the EU and the Rroma. The local Rroma organized a counter-demonstration, where they expressed their displeasure with the nationalists. This it a recent development, since usually Rroma preferred to stay away from the demonstrations of the right-wing extremists: “For years, the state agency for social integration had recommended the Roma to abandon the city during the Nazi marches, so to leave the matter to the police. A father in Ústí said on the sidelines of the demonstration, he feared for his children, that why he would not come into bigger appearance at the counter demo. Like him, many Roma prefer to remain silent. But the number of those who want to oppose the right-wing extremists with a new self-confidence increases. Around Konexe [a citizens’ initiative] a new alliance has formed; it brings together both anti-fascist activists from Prague and Saxony, as well as local Roma, priests and students.” Human rights activists such as Markus Pape see it as a positive development that the still highly marginalized Rroma in the Czech Republic increasingly resist their defamation and actively stand up for their self-determination (compare Schultz 2014).

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07.05.2014 Immigration from South-Eastern Europe is an economic and not a Rroma phenomenon

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Demir (2014) discusses in the MiGAZIN once more the role of the Rroma in Europe’s debate on immigration from Southeast to Western Europe. He insists that immigration from Eastern Europe is not a Rroma problem but an economic phenomenon. Many skilled workers from Romania and Bulgaria have come to Germany for economic and social reasons, without provoking questions on whether they are Rroma or not. This only happens with so-called “poverty immigrants”, who are usually hastily referred to as Rroma. It is important to emphasize, Demir states, that the German Rroma-organizations are not contact- but dialogue-partners for the debate on immigration: “Not to be forgotten is the question of what the self-organization of my people can contribute. This includes the willingness to be available as a dialogue partner. In addition to that, the council of experts recommends entering into dialogue with the Roma self-organizations. It is important to emphasize: a dialog partner is not a contact-partner. The self-organizations justifiably see themselves not as a contact for immigration from South-Eastern Europe, precisely because it is not a Roma problem and should not be further ethnicized. [ …] It is unclear how high the Roma population of immigrant Bulgarians and Romanians is. Basically, it’s not even relevant. Because the membership to an ethnic group says nothing about the level of education or economic status of a person.” ” This viewpoint is contradicted by the opinion of many German politicians, also conservative ones: Rroma are heavily discriminated against and marginalized in Romania and Bulgaria and therefore come to Germany because they hope for a better life there. From this perspective, ethnicity is not entirely irrelevant. However, in the political debate it is unjustly intermingled with misleading culturalisms as Rroma clans, patriarchal structures or allegedly cultural-related anti-social behaviour and crime. In this context, Demir is completely to agree with that ethnicity should be kept out of the discussion.

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07.05.2014 European elections: Greek and Muslim Rromni without chance

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Tzafalias (2014) reports on the candidacy of the Greek and Muslim Rromni Sabiha Suleiman for the European Parliament. Suleiman runs for the left-wing opposition party Syriza, but was dropped from the list again shortly after her nomination. The reasons for her being dropped, Suleiman Tzafalias describes as driven by ethnic disputes: Dimitris Christopoulos, who actively championed for the removal of Suleiman, referred to the supremacy of the Turkish Muslims in the region: “Suleiman’s candidacy would be a show of support for nationalism in an area of Greece which is plagued by it, to the detriment of those Greek Muslims who define themselves as ethnically Turkish. He [Christopoulos] even said that the Muslim minority in Thrace is a “unified Turkish thing”, and – initially – made no mention of those Muslims who define themselves as Roma or Pomak, a Slav-speaking ethnic group. […] Suleiman, who defines herself as a Greek Roma Muslim woman, said all this was happening because the Turkish consulate in Thrace was targeting her, as they wanted to ensure that the Muslim Roma were absorbed into the Turkish minority.” The case described by Tzafalias is a prime example of what is known in the social sciences as “intersectionality”: the simultaneous membership to different groups and the associated special features and difficulties. To better understand the case of Thrace, Tzafalias refers to the Lausanne Peace Treaty of 1923. As a result of the demise of the Ottoman Empire, two million people should be exchanged between Greece and the newly founded Turkey: the Muslim Greeks to Turkey and the Christian-Turks to Greece. The Rroma are still caught in the crossfire of political efforts to homogenize ethnic states. A worrying development (compare Wordbulletin News 2014).

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