Daily Archives: October 15, 2014

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15.10.2014 Racist hatred after “Rroma attacks” in a school of Sheffield

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Several British newspapers report on violence at the Hinde House School in Sheffield. Various students were victims of severe physical attacks in the last few weeks and months, for which Rroma youth from Slovakia are made responsible. While the school management states to get the situation under control, a group of parents calls for harder sanctions against the school violence. The school administration is deemed to show too much tolerance towards the “gang-like culture” of the Rroma community. In the case described here, problems that also exist at other schools are made in​​to ethnic issues. There is no “gang-like culture” of violence among Rroma. What the newspapers report are the actions of individuals, who could also belong to any other ethnic group. The cited parents, who accuse the school principal of Hinde House to do nothing against the Rroma adolescents for fear of racism accusations, see this differently: “Parents have accused an inner-city head teacher of turning a blind eye towards violent gangs of Roma pupils for fear of being labelled a racist. More than 1,600 people have signed an online petition claiming ‘children have been stabbed, mugged and nearly kicked to death’ at the school. It urges the head not to ‘be afraid’ to tackle the issue – and suggests he is failing to do so for fear of appearing racist because the majority of the perpetrators are of Slovakian Roma origin. […] The petition was launched after an attack last Thursday that left pupil Rhys Larkings, 14, battered and bruised with a broken nose after being allegedly punched to the ground by three Roma Slovak teenagers.” The adolescents responsible for the violence were excluded of the school as a consequence, and the police have launched an investigation against them. The complaint of the parents saying that the school administration does nothing for fear of racism accusations is therefore unfounded. Rather, the outrage of the parents cited seem to be influenced by the nationalism fuelled by UKIP, as one can read in the article’s comments section. Excessive ethnic divisions only occur when people are willing to be manipulated by nationalist rhetoric. Rroma are not more violent than other ethnic groups (compare BBC News 2014, Daily Express 2014, Lawton 2014, The Star 2014).

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

15.10.2014 Photo reportage on homeless Rroma: illustration of misery or favouring their exclusion?

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Mediapart (2014) comments critically on the photo-reportages of the French photographer Marc Melki. He portrayed homeless Rroma in the streets of Paris for two years, and published the photographs on the Internet, in exhibitions and in picture books. Mediapart criticises that the resulting photographs miss the intended aim of the photographer, without him acknowledging this aspect. Melki wanted to draw attention to the failure of the state and the public institutions that allow such misery, but at the same time he enables authorities and right-wing groups to identify the depicted persons and pursue them. In addition, the photographer does not get the consent of the portrayed families, but relies on the right to photograph in public: “According to several consistent testimonies of those managing the emergency shelters in France, they have repeatedly rejected the pleas of Roma families, who referred to the abandonment of an earlier accommodation, because of the publication of undated photos … In Brussels, families who were photographed without their knowledge, found themselves on right-wing extremist internet pages of their homeland. One can therefore completely wonder if these photos do not come to the aid of the police that comes at regular intervals to seize the impacts [possessions?] of the families, to throw them in waste containers and to drive them to their destruction…” Mediapart thus addresses an important point that is at times lost in the journalistic desire to document the “unvarnished truth”. Portraits and documentations are presented in a variety of contexts and with different intentions, whereby they are often given new meanings that do not need to correspond to the original photographer’s intent. For people who are heavily influenced by stereotypes about Rroma, the photographs of homeless Rroma can confirm their prejudices, rather than encourage them to inquiry and empathy, as the photographer intended. A discerning photographer should reflect upon the possible uses and interpretations of photos that can be used to the detriment of the portrayed persons. In France, there are an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 Rroma, according to estimates of the Rroma Foundation. The majority of them are integrated, go to work, speak French and have their own houses. Many of them have lived in France for several generations. The photographer negates these invisible Rroma  in his will to portray the “unvarnished truth”.

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15.10.2014 Ozd: new Jobbik mayor demands of Rroma assimilation or emigration

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In the northern Hungarian city of Ozd, a representative of the right-wing extremist Jobbik party has become the new mayor after the local elections of October the 12th. Although the party is known for its strong anti-Rroma rhetoric, the new, only 27-year-old city mayor presented himself diplomatically in his first public statement. His oral statements are in contradiction to his campaign manifesto, in which he promised an uncompromising policy towards the Rroma: “He said he would crack down on crime and poverty on behalf of all residents, whatever their ethnic background. Yet the programme on which Janiczak ran in the election is explicit in singling out the Roma community. The manifesto, posted on the Jobbik Internet site next to a photograph of Janiczak, states: “We think there are two ways to solve the Gypsy question… The first one is based on peaceful consent, the second on radical exclusion.” “Our party wishes to offer one last chance to the destructive minority that lives here, so first it will consider peaceful consent. If that agreement fails, then and only then the radical solution can follow.” The programme threatens to “chase off people who are unable to conform”” (Irish Independent 2014). What the new Jobbik mayor is completely silent about in his call for assimilation is that most Rroma have been trying to integrate for a long time, but were hindered to so by economic and social exclusion. The continued segregation of Hungarian Rroma is therefore above all the result of the unwillingness of many Magyars to overcome their prejudices against the Rroma, and to facilitate their access to the labour market, to housing and public schools (compare Dunai 2014).

Aladar Horvath, a Hungarian Rroma activist, comments on the largely unchanged situation of the Rroma in Europe that development funds were often not accessed or landed in the wrong places. He adds that the economic crisis of 2008 has exacerbated social inequality: “Social injustice has risen markedly in the majority of EU countries since the economic crisis began in 2008, according to a recent study by the Bertelsmann Foundation. Discrimination and social divisions have increased especially quickly in the Czech Republic, Hungary and Slovakia, where the Roma face “systemic discrimination.” In Slovakia and the Czech Republic, enrolling Roma children into classes or separate schools for students with “special needs” remains a significant problem despite recent landmark court rulings against segregation in both countries. Hungary in particular appears to be moving in the wrong direction. Observers say that’s because the popularity of anti-Roma rhetoric and policies outweigh influence from Brussels. The number of segregated, Roma-only schools has increased from 128 in 1997 to more than 300 today, Horvath says. Geographical segregation has also increased as the deteriorating job market and cuts to social spending have combined to drive Roma into isolated “islands of poverty,” says Budapest-based researcher Attila Agh, who worked on the Bertelsmann study” (Overdorf 2014). Of the 600,000 to one million Rroma living in Hungary, there are indeed many affected by poverty and exclusion. However, there are also numerous integrated Rroma, who do not live in segregated settlements and belong to the middle or even upper-class.

France News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

15.10.2014 Nanterre: 30 immigrated Rroma evicted from pavilion

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Brahmi Howton (2014) reports on the expulsion of about 30 immigrant Rroma, who had settled in an abandoned pavilion in Nanterre. A large contingent of riot police was deployed to expel the group from its new site. The Rroma families were evicted in May this year, following a court verdict, from the grounds of the infrastructure company of Seine Arche (Epadesa), and have since wandered about the city from one place to the next: “This building has been unoccupied for over a year, and we decided to seize it as long as there is no solution found to host the families again”, said a member of the committee that was initiated in last spring to support them. In mid-afternoon, the families finally accepted to leave the place quietly, in the rain, and without knowing where to go.” In France, according to the Rroma Foundation, there are an estimated 100,000 to 500,000 Rroma. The majority of them is integrated, goes to work, speaks French and has its own accommodations. Many of them have lived in France for several generations. These invisible Rroma are not perceived by the media, the politicians and the public, they are even denied existence. On the opposite side, there is a minority of the minority, approximately 17,000 recently immigrated Rroma, who get all the media attention, as in the report. They live in informal settlements and are affected by extreme poverty, but also only want one thing: to integrate. Also in Saint André-lez-Lille, a group Rroma was evicted of their place. They had been camping next to the football stadium Sainte-Hélène since a year and a half (North Eclair 2014).

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15.10.2014 Miskolc: “Declared war to the Roma”

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Like other newspapers last week, Schulz-Ojala (2014) from the Tagesspiegel reports on the eviction of a Rroma settlement in Miskolc. Around 600 Rroma are affected by this initiative. The journalist focuses his article on the political context of the action: the instrumentalised and reinforced exclusion and discrimination against Rroma by politics. On October the 12th, local elections were held in Hungary; as expected, the national-conservative Fidesz emerged as the strongest force from the ballot. Also in the future, the party will have most of the mayors. As the second strongest party, the right-wing extremist Jobbik party reinforces its position, taking the second place in share of votes in 17 of 19 constituencies and winning 13 mayoral races in 9 counties. A very worrying trend, since Jobbik has repeatedly distinguished itself with Rroma-hostile slogans (Pester Lloyd 2014, Pusztaranger 2014). Beside Aranka Majoros, a Rromni effected by the eviction, Schulz-Ojala portrays the Rrom and human rights activists Attila Tomas: “Only an hour’s drive it is from Miskolc to the Slovak, Ukrainian and Romanian border; there peacefully undemocratic conditions can grow, away from the core of European attention and also in the isolated fields of understanding of the Hungarian language. Is it a silence before the storm? Attila Tomas lists the symptoms by name. Permanent crisis and growing impoverishment of the population shape everyday life of the former steelwork metropolis Miskolc, where in the 80’s 200,000 people still lived. The Roma, with almost exactly the national average of ten percent of the city’s population, then had work like everyone else. The collapse of communism and the closure of many factories made the Roma the first unemployed, Tomas states. The Roma who have a job nowadays work for the community, in order to avert the reductions in social assistance – well below the legal minimum wage. An unemployed family with three children gets to around 250 Euros of social welfare, including child benefit, half of what the low-income earners receive – a durable envy-breeding ground for the next poorer among the non-Roma. On the other hand, the area of Miskolc is just over a kind of war against the Roma. A few years ago, a spectacular series of Roma murders raged in particular within the vicinity of this city [….]. Downright ghostly it seems that now, scarcely five years later, the three most promising candidates for mayor campaign with anti-Roma propaganda for votes.” Schulz-Ojala conclusion is bleak: despite the increasingly established Rroma party Magyarországi Cigány Part (MCP), the minority continues to be a plaything of the leading forces in the country that don’t have integration and equal opportunities as the highest goals, but the maintain of power and nationalism.

Kacsóh (2014) also covers the forced expulsion of Rroma in Miskolc. He, like Schulz-Ojala, points out that the Rroma with an unlimited lease contract can apply for compensation of up to two million forints, attached to the condition of a voluntary relocation into one of the surrounding communities of the city. It is also requested that they will stay for at least five years at the new location. Adjacent communities as Sátoraljaújhely have in turn responded to these rules with limitations themselves: those who make use of this offer are not entitled to receive social funds for the first five years and may not acquire or rent any apartment from communal ownership. They are also excluded from the local work program for three years. Although these rules are illegal, the government of Sátoraljaújhely takes the change of a lawsuit and has therefore adopted the rules nonetheless. This is further evidence of the continuing prejudice against Rroma.

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