Daily Archives: July 16, 2014

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16.07.2014 Stereotypes: illiteracy among Rroma

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Michel (2014) informs about the work of the Hamburg counselling centre Karola. Karola has set itself the task to help needy women and girls from immigrant families. This has resulted in a focus on Romnja, who need support when being in contact with the authorities or when learning how to read and write. Michel puts the focus on the language courses, which is an interesting, but also very prejudiced aspect. Again and again we read in articles that Rroma can not read and write, and that this illiteracy is part of their culture. However, it is rather a phenomenon of exclusion, poverty and lack of education that affects only part of the Rroma. Many can read and write. Michel refers to the study of the organization Romnokher: “There are no official figures on how many Roma are illiterate in Germany. A representative study of the organization Romnokher of 2011, on the educational situation of Sinti and Roma, comes to the conclusion that 18 percent of the 26-to-50-year-olds have never been to school. 44 percent of them visited a school, but did not graduate. For the younger generation, the level of education is higher: Nine percent of the to 25-year-olds did not attend school. Still, obstacles remain – and the worse the education of the parents, the more difficult it is for their children in the school.” The study interviewed 275 Rroma from West Germany about their educational situation, belonging to three different generations. Whether this sampling is sufficient for a reliable assessment of the education of Rroma in Germany – the Rroma Foundation currently assumes 110,000 to 130,000 Rroma in Germany – is not without doubt, because the sample is very small (see Strauss 2011). Karola’s integration assistance, described by Michel, is very positive. However, one has to be cautious when identifying individual histories as representative for all Rroma, and therefore to treat them as cultural traits. If a Rromni reports that she did not go to school because her parents were afraid that she might have a relationship with a boy, this must be seen as individual experience and not as a cultural characteristic. The same goes for Romnja, for whom it was free to decide whether they wanted to go to school or did not go because of distrust towards public institutions. Many Rroma can read and write. As Michel herself states, there is no reliable data on the educational situation of the Rroma in Germany.

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16.07.2014 Seville: pogroms against Rroma

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Wagner (2014) reports on pogroms against Rroma in the southern Spanish town of Estepa. After a series of break-ins, a mob of angry citizens formed which made Rroma responsible for the burglaries and invaded the local Rroma settlements. Several homes were destroyed. Fortunately, nobody was injured: “The protesters blamed the members of the minority for an increase in crime in the village of the province of Seville. According to media reports from Sunday, they attacked five Roma houses and put two of them on fire. In the incident from Saturday, no people were injured. The illegal rally had been organized on the social networks. The municipality of Estepa had stated the day before that the number of burglaries has increased dramatically in this town of 12,000 inhabitants. They convened an emergency meeting and announced a strengthening of the police forces.” The pogroms are symptomatic for failed European social policies that do not succeed in effectively addressing the social and economic inequalities. Instead, racist slogans that blame marginalised groups such as the Rroma as scapegoats for all ills, find approval among more and more people. A very worrying development that has been confirmed by the recent European elections, in which the right-wing populists gained massively in vote shares in all European countries. A society that disrespects its most vulnerable members – its minorities – is a failed society, as it violates the basic principles of democracy: the equality of all citizens.

Bulgaria Germany News Eastern Europe News Western Europe Romania

16.07.2014 New study: Rroma in German media still heavily discriminated against

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Several German newspapers report on the latest publication of political scientist Markus End who studied the stigmatisation of the minority by national media on behalf of the documentation and cultural centre of German Sinti and Roma. The study entitled Antiziganism in the German public. Strategies and mechanisms of media communication takes a critical look at the representation of Rroma by and in public media. End did not only focus on extreme, obvious cases of stigma and racism, but rather on the subtle ways of thinking in racist discourses that constitute the basis for the minority’s rejection. One of the author’s central finding is that journalists who are usually producing a differentiated coverage also use the false and prejudiced presentation ways in the case of this minority because they don’t work critically enough with alleged facts. The racist stereotypes are found among all types of media, in Boulevard as well as in so-called quality media.

In the course of the debate on immigration from Romania and Bulgaria, the tendency prevailed to speak of “poverty immigration”. However, this expression was implicitly assimilated to the meaning “immigration of poor Rroma”. Such coded statements are as problematic as open hostility towards the minority. Romani Rose criticises the same problem concerning the use of terms “poverty”, “crime”, and “Rroma”: “problems, crime, poverty. There are many stereotypes who are associated with the ethnic group. “The stigmatising debate has intensified lately, said Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. The fact that Roma and Sinti are repeatedly mentioned in the same sentence with crimes lead to the fact that the allegations against individuals are made into an identity-feature of all Sinti and Roma, he explained. The same is the case with the allegation of poverty: “Poverty is not an identity-feature of our minority. What does poverty have to do with ancestry?” No group is so heavily marginalised in Germany as Sinti and Roma, Rose states (Ambrosi 2014). Christine Lueder, anti-discrimination commissioner of the federal government, criticised the excessive passive tolerance of discrimination by the German government. It should do more to tackle stigmatisation and marginalisation of this minority. Romani Rose demands from the German government an annual report on discrimination against Rroma in Germany. As the media themselves report about these shortcomings, they – first of all – have the responsibility to do something about it. Therefore, in the future, Rroma should be represented in the broadcasting councils of the public channels. At least, in Germany, in contrast to most other Western European countries, there is a consciousness for the Rroma living in an integrated and invisible fashion, having a German passport:  one estimates them at around 100,000 persons (compare Emmrich 2014, Grunau 2014, MiGAZIN 2014, Neues Deutschland 2014, Rroma Foundation 2014, Scholz 2014, Verein Roma-Service 2014).

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16.07.2014 “Memories of Holocaust victims are lost with the graves”

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Stoll (2014) and the SWR (2014) report on the expiry of the concessions of graves of Holocaust survivors. The graves of Rroma who survived the Nazi genocide are more than just resting places to the members of the minority. They are also memorials to the victims of National Socialism and thus have an historical value. Approximately 3,500 tombs are affected. Romani Rose calls for conversion of the tombs of Holocaust survivors to honour-graves with eternal resting right. It is significant that the Jewish cemeteries were granted this status a long time ago, whereas the Rroma have been denied this expression of respect until now: “The chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma, Romani Rose, has urged the federal and state governments on Monday to do more for the tombs of Sinti and Roma. The graves are also places of memory to the victims of the Holocaust, he said in Heidelberg. […] “If the graves are eliminated, then the families also lose the memory to a part of their biography and to the people who have fallen victim to an unique racist crime”, says Romani Rose […]. He goes even further: he states that the sites are also “learning sites” for the population: through them, one conceive what was once possible in Germany and what appears inconceivable today” (SWR 2014). The Rroma Holocaust was only recognized in 1982 by the chancellor Helmut Schmidt. This only happened after massive protests by Rroma in Germany, who did not want to tolerate the continuing discrimination against them in the post-war period any longer. Rose emphasizes that the survivors’ graves are also places of remembrance for the rest of the family members who did not return from the concentration camps. He appeals to the policymakers that one finally recognises the graves as eternal resting places.

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16.07.2014 Daily Mail: again racist article about Rroma as welfare scroungers

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In a highly one-sided, racist article, Styles (2014) reports about a Rroma who is said to abuse the British welfare system. The article is largely identical to the text of Rawle (2014) from April 3rd of this year, which also portrays the Romanian Rrom Yonn Lazer as a welfare scrounger, who is said to act deliberately and shamelessly. The repetition of the same subject with the same informant makes it obvious that the aim is not objective journalism but stirring up resentment among the readers. Lazer is presented as proof that the British immigration policy has failed and plunges the state into ruin. Objective facts are not mentioned. Instead, the stereotypical, racist notion is spread that all Rroma immigrants are impoverished, poorly educated, and abuse the British social welfare system. In addition, Styles claims that Lazer is in direct dependence of a clan chief in Romania, to whom he has to give a share of all his incomes. This is another popular stereotype about Rroma, which is based on prejudice and not on facts. Through the presentation of many prejudices, the article makes itself untrustworthy, but reinforces resentment among the readership. Styles vilifies all members of this minority by establishing a clear link between ethnicity and social abuse. Thus she makes herself indictable for racist defamation. Right-wing populist views are presented as if they were objective facts. That these are extreme, individual cases is not discussed.

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16.07.2014 A discussion about discrimination: „Why do Roma have it so hard?“

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Koetting (2014) speaks about the ongoing debate on Rroma in Germany. The interlocutors were the South East Europe expert Norbert Mappes-Niediek and the political scientist Markus End, as well as the audience. Here, a first problem is created: a listener speaks of the hospitality of Rroma in impoverished slums in Slovakia. Despite great empathy, the listener reproduces stereotypes, by equating Rroma with a life in poverty and a lack of education. She speaks of “ordinary people” that met her with much kindness. But that Rroma are not a social class, but rather belong to all strata of society, is not mentioned. There are many well-integrated Rroma, as the numbers of the Rroma Foundation show. The South East Europe expert Mappes-Niediek also confirms this false equation of Rroma with an underclass. However, he admits that tens of thousands of guest workers, many of them Rroma, came in the 1960s and 70s as guest workers to Germany and have integrated successfully. The program shows the problem that one only ever speaks about the visible representatives of the minority: the beggars, the slum dwellers, the criminals. However, the world consists of more than what you see at first glance: the integrated, invisible Rroma, which make up the majority of the minority, also build part of it. Regarding the importance of education, Mappes-Niediek notes critically that education in Romania or Bulgaria does not necessarily allow a social advancement, as in Germany, but that the economic and social exclusion is maintained in spite of good educational qualifications. Most listeners use their individual experiences – negative and positive – and equate them with the “culture” of the Rroma and thus ascribe them a robot-like habitus, which does not do justice to the heterogeneity and especially individuality of Rroma. Many reproduce the stereotypes of travelling, poor, music playing Rroma only apply to a portion of the Rroma. Markus End points out that the media convey a highly one-sided, value loaded notion of Rroma: for instance, an Internet newspaper headlined: “Not only Roma come, but also academics.” Through that, one undoubtedly assumes that there are no Rroma who are scientists, which is clearly racist.

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