Publicly, the German Euro MEP Cornelia Ernst criticized what she deems in her eyes to be poor policies of the EU members towards Rroma. Since the ratification of a Rroma strategy, the EU Commission has undertaken little to effectively achieve the set targets. Currently about 4% of EU Eastern European help is devoted to Rroma. Ernst calls for an active prevention against racism and discrimination towards Rroma, which have increased spectacularly in recent years (Finanzen.net 2013).
Ernst (2013) describes the Rroma in the Czech Republic as the losers of the changes and who lived in modest prosperity prior to 1989. Today, in the Czech Republic, there are about 300 Rroma ghettos while before the changes there were only twelve. Many live in homes for asylum seekers, the unemployment rate exceedingly high at around 90%. She also criticizes the European Rroma strategy as it is not binding and does not foresee any sanctions for non-compliance.
The University of Hildesheim held a seminar on the topic of the participation of Rroma of in public education. The seminar is led by the educationalist Viola B. Georgi and examines the mechanisms of exclusion and inclusion of Rroma, which lead to a weak representation of members of this minority in educational institutions. In addition, there is an exhibition on the Rroma persecution under Nazism (Long 2013).
In a recent publication, Amnesty International (2013) criticizes the non-application of basic human rights for Rroma especially in Hungary and in Kosovo. But countries like Germany are also involved, as they deport members of this minority back to their home countries without actually considering the discriminatory practices. These examples indicate a discrepancy between official country analyses, used to determine the local situation, and the real situation of minorities. The report also criticises illegal evictions in 36 states. It emphasizes the issues of Rromas settlements in France and Italy, which in recent months repeatedly were mentioned in the press and generated attention in politics. Politics are exploiting Rroma camps, especially in nationalist parties (n-tv, 2013).
Romani Rose, chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Rroma criticised the removal of a Holocaust memorial at a school in Wiesbaden. The exhibition presented the deportation of a resident Rroma family and was dismantled a first time in 2006 before being re-instated in 2008. This was brought to attention only through the actions of the school who requested the Documentation Centre of the Sinti and Rroma to remove this exhibition from the list of memorials. Rose criticized the closure of the memorial with the comment that this was an expression of irresponsible handling of history (Mueck-Raab 2013).
Bermeitinger (2013) reports on the construction of a Holocaust memorial in Mainz, which goes back to a commitment of Hildegard Coester. On 6 May 1940,107 Rroma from Mainz were deported according to records and sent to a concentration camp.
Pamperrien (2013) discusses the new non-fiction book by journalist and photographer Rolf Bauerdick. Bauerdick’s book “Gypsies: Encounters with an unpopular minority” is deliberately not politically correct. He distances himself from Klaus-Michael Bogdals thesis of a tradition of exclusion and of being considered alien and instead calls attention to the status of victim that Rroma themselves maintain. They are caught in their own apathy. He is belligerently states: “There is also another truth. I hardly remember a Rom who looked for a piece of responsibility among themselves about the roots of their misery, even less so one who found one.” With his political incorrectness, Bauerdick wants to highlight the need and to encourage Rroma to take their own responsibilities. But he forgets that unilateral action significantly depends on the one the available and structures and that there are very repressive for many Rroma. His simple distinction between real problems and intellectually produced pseudo-problems created by scientists falls short. It discredits the de facto interweaving of real events and social images and thoughts that fuel and spurns each other. Bauerdick is quite right in denouncing abuses among the Rroma themselves, when he speaks of exploitation by usurers who force their own people into prostitution, begging and theft. To use this as the determining discourse and to denotes it to be the dominant form of relationships among Rroma can heavily be doubted. A single journalist simply lacks the capacity for such a study among all Rroma. It perpetuates the picture of misery that he discredits the image of economically successful and inconspicuous, well integrated invisible Rroma. Bauerdick notes:
“All who intensively worked with Roma, have, as soon as this decade was announced[European Decade of Roma Inclusion], said that this would go down the drain. And so it did. It did so because the Roma are not taken seriously. One wants to help them without demanding something of them. This is how you behave towards people from whom you don’t expect anything. For me, this is the most insidious form of discrimination and exclusion at all” (Pamperrien 2013).
Brill (2013) sees the media discourse about Rroma as dominated by commentators who hide their ignorance of Rroma behind negative or positive biases. He refers in his remarks to the book “Poor Rroma, bad Gypsies” written by the Eastern Europe correspondent Mappes-Niediek. In spite their intention to defuse stereotypes, Brill’s remarks lead to the production of new ones. It states in a generalising fashion “Community and a sense of the State you will be looking in vain. The differences with the majority population are enormous, from the limitations of the Roma language to the divergent conceptions of time and money, past and future, property and business, cleanliness and what is good and important in life.” So Brill constructs a picture of Rroma, which wrongly assumes their incompatibility with European values and habits. He creates an “othering” in the meaning of Gayatri Chakravorty Spivak. Whether these views stem from Brill or are versions of Mappes-Niediek views is not clearly apparent. The observations that Rroma look at journalists with suspicion and do not provide reliable information, is critically challenged.
Roucaute (2013) informs about the often contradictory policies of the French authorities towards Rroma. They base their rigorous policy of clearing camps on unacceptable conditions of hygiene and danger of fires that prevails in these settlements. One executed the plans of the minister Manuel Valls, said an official. You have to comply with existing laws. A circular of six ministers of the new government states that “„les opérations de démantèlement des campements illicites (…) sont pleinement légitimes, dès lors qu’elles interviennent en application d’une décision de justice ou pour mettre fin à une situation de danger ou de risque sanitaire immédiat.“ [the operations of removal of illegal camps are fully legitimate as soon as they are the result of the application of a legal decision or in a situation of immediate danger or sanitary risk.] De facto, this is a firmly established policy of the French government since a few months, as it considers the highly visible Rroma camps as negative to the French state and wants to be rid of them. The government invests in the development of infrastructure in Romania, where a portion of the migrated Rroma is originating. Many Rroma in turn see their future in France, however, because they see no future there for them due to the structural conditions in Romania. There are thus conflicting priorities between the bio-political objectives of the French state and the expectations of the Rroma for the future, and these seem unlikely to converge in the near future.
Sources:
- Bermeitinger, Michael (2013) Stele erinnert an verschleppte Sinti und Roma. In: Allgemeine Zeitung vom 17.5.2013.
- Brill, Klaus (2013) Von Roma-Slums und “Gipsy Industry”. In: Süddeutsche Zeitung vom 21.5.2013.
- Ernst, Cornelia (2013) Weil wir Nachbarn sind. In: Neues Deutschland. Sozialistische Tageszeitung vom 24.5.2013.
- Finanzen.net (2013) Neues Deutschland: Europaabgeordnete Cornelia Ernst kritisiert anhaltende Diskriminierung von Roma in der EU. In: Finanzen.net vom 23.5.2013.
- Lange, Isa (2013) Seminar untersucht Bildungsteilhabe von Sinti und Roma in Europa / Ausstellung in Hildesheim. In: idw – Informationsdienst Wissenschaft vom 23.5.2013.
- N-tv (2013) Roma in Ungarn und im Kosovo sind angeblich nicht sicher Amnesty prangert Flüchtlingspolitik an. In: N-tv Deutschland vom 23.5.2013.
- Pamperrien, Sabine (2013) Gefangen in der eigenen Apathie. In: Deutschlandradio vom 23.5.2013.
- Roucaute, Delphine (2013) Roms : à Lyon, l’attitude “schizophrène” des autorités. In: Le Monde vom 23.5.2013.
- Mück-Raab, Marion (2013) Die Vitrinen-Affäre. In: TAZ vom 22.5.2013.
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