Category Archives: Italy

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16.05.2014 Pew-polling institute: Rroma are the most despised minority

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On the occasion of the upcoming European parliamentary elections, the Pew polling institute examined the opinions of the French, Germans, Greeks, Italians, Poles, Spanish, and English about the European Union, as well as on general social topics. The opinion research institute came, among others, to the finding that Rroma are the most despised minority in Europe, with prejudices in Italy, France and Greece being the greatest: “The most negative views in Europe aren’t directed toward Muslims or Jews. Rather, it’s Roma. [The] chart is really quite remarkable, showing that Spain is the only nation where more people hold positive views of Roma than negative. In Italy, just 10 percent have positive views about Roma, while 85 percent have negative views. Unfortunately, it’s not entirely surprising. Roma, often dismissively referred to as “gypsies” in Europe, have suffered discrimination in Europe for centuries, and some estimates suggest that 70 percent of their European population was killed during the Holocaust.” The study can also be interpreted as meaning that in countries with strong ideological debates about the minority, more people rejecting. Moreover, in the countries with the highest rejection – Italy and France – the media only report about Rroma living in Slums, which promotes a biased view.

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23.04.2014 Free movement of workers: access to the labour market remains difficult

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Pastural (2014) reports – on the occasion of the European free movement of workers with Romania and Bulgaria since January 2014 – about possible improvements in the access of Rroma to the French labour market. However, this is not the case. The access to the labour market for the low-skilled Rroma workers remains very difficult: “Full of experience as a result of working in agriculture or construction in Greece and Italy, Ionut Nica waited impatiently for the end of the transitional arrangements, towards the access of Romanian nationals to the labour market of the Schengen area. Since January 2014, Ionut has the right to work. “There was a tremendous hope on the part of Mr. Nica, who expected this splendid date of the month of January as if it would change his whole life”, laments Florence Marrand, social worker at the medical-social establishment of the Conseil général of Puy-de-Dôme, who advises Ionut Nica regularly for a little over one year. “Today, he is deeply disappointed. Certainly, he was able to enrol at the job centre, he could enrol at the work-assistant mission, he was able to answers vacancies. But nothing has changed specifically, absolutely nothing…“ It is to hope that Pastural is wrong with his portrayal of two individual cases, and the inclusion of immigrant Rroma into the labour market will enhance. At the latest, when the effects of the economic crisis are finally gone. One problem is, according to Pastural, the lack of resources to improve ones qualifications, and thus the appeal for the labour market.

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11.04.2014 Robert Kushen: the integration of Rroma remains a challenge

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On the occasion of the international Rroma Day, the chairman of the European Rroma Rights Centre, Robert Kushen, reflects on the situation of the Rroma in Europe and the continuing challenges for this minority (Kushen 2014). He arrives at a sober view: the decade of Rroma inclusion, which was adopted in Sofia in 2005, and encompassed the countries of Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Czech Republic, Hungary, Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, Slovakia and Spain, unfortunately cannot fulfil the expectations that it raised. Rroma are still affected by widespread poverty, discrimination, unemployment and insufficient access to public institutions such as schools and hospitals: “Despite this political recognition of an unconscionable social crisis, Roma remain among the poorest, unhealthiest, least educated and most marginalised European citizens. The data are devastating: Across Central and Southeast Europe, 90 percent of Roma live in poverty. Fewer than one third of adults have paid employment. Only 15 percent of young Roma have completed secondary or vocational school. Nearly 45 percent of Roma live in housing that lacks basic amenities. Life expectancy in Roma communities is 10-15 years less than in non-Roma communities, with many Roma lacking access to insurance and health care.” Kushen refers in his judgement to information from the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP 2013). Reasoning with such figures is not without dangers, since the representation of the Rroma as uneducated, poor, and unhealthy is often interpreted by the polemical, public discourse as a cultural peculiarity of the minority, although these characteristics are inevitably a poverty phenomenon. Although is not to deny that numerous Rroma are poor and uneducated, the relevant question is whether such an argument can contribute to the  integration of the Rroma. In addition, surveys often only take into account the visible Rroma, because the integrated ones are hard to identify as Roma and difficult to contact. Not only images of misery are needed, which generate compassion, but also images of success that allow a positive identification.

Kushen continues with information about the marginalization of the Rroma in Italy, France, Sweden and Hungary, and then gets on to the latest report from the European Union on the situation of the Rroma. The report published on April the second this year, can not present success stories either: “In early April, the European Commission convened a “Roma Summit” and issued a report assessing how member states are doing in addressing the interconnected problems of poverty and discrimination which the Roma are facing. The report noted “the persistence of segregation” in education, a large and in some cases widening employment gap between Roma and non-Roma, big differences between Roma and non-Roma in health insurance coverage, and an “absence of progress” in addressing the need for housing. Finally, the report noted that discrimination remains “widespread” (compare European Commission 2014).

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14.03.2014 Pogrom against Rroma in Naples

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Roberts (2014) reports on a pogrom against Rroma in Naples, with little sympathy for the Rroma side. In response to an alleged attack by two Rroma on a 16-year-old Italian girl, a 50-person mob rushed to the local Rroma camp and threatened the residents with stones. Only the intervention of the police prevented the worst. Roberts gives the last word to the mayor of the fourth district, Armando Coppola. In his statement, he shows no sympathy for the Rroma: “Residents have already had to put up with thefts and obscene acts by the gypsies who are inclined to urinate in the street. […] I have requested the council to order the immediate eviction of the camp. Otherwise the justifiable exasperation of the citizens of Poggioreale will no longer be controllable.” The comments section of the article is filled with racist remarks from readers who praise the violence of the mob. These unscrupulous, hateful actions and statements against the Rroma give food for thought. Italy, as other European countries, has been repeatedly criticized for its repressive policy against the minority.

  • Roberts, Hannah (2014) Dozens of Romas flee their camp after 50-strong mob attack their site following claims two of the gypsies had raped a local girl in Italy. In: Daily Mail online vom 12.3.2014.
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28.02.2014 The immigration debate and Rroma stereotypes

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The Romanian ambassador in London, Ion Jinga, writes against the stereotypical representation of the Rroma in the British media. Only recently, the English newspaper “Daily Mail” published an interview with the Romanian Rroma “Rudi”, who confirmed almost all prejudices against the minority: that Rroma steal and burden the British welfare system. That an individual of an ethnic group is taken to represent all members of a group, is not a new phenomenon, but it is amazing how well this presentation method works. Rudi stated: “I made my way by pick-pocketing, thieving and other small crimes. I was put in prison or arrested by the police in Norway, Finland, Sweden, Spain, Italy, France, Austria and Germany before I arrived here. [ … ] Your benefits system is crazy. It’s like finding a sack full of cash that has been dropped, picking it up and no one saying anything.” Jinga attempts to qualify the one-sided statements and to show the complexity behind the generalizations. Rroma are marginalized, but most of them are trying to find a job and work hard, especially when they migrate to another country. The portrayal of problem cases through the media confirms false prejudices and hinders a successful integration of the minority. The Romanian government has repeatedly pointed out that the integration of the Rroma is a pan-European task that cannot be handled by a single nation. Jinga also convincingly demonstrates that the Romanian economy performs very well in a pan-European comparison. However, one has to disagree in one point with him. Jinga claims that access to the Romanian labour market is equal for all. That Rroma in Romania are still heavily discriminated against, should not be denied (Jinga 2014).

The highly one-sided article from Daily Mail (Reid 2014) builds its argument on dubious statistics from the British bureau of statistics. The ONS (Office for National Statistics) stated that Romania has the highest birth rates in Europe and that the British welfare system animates Romanian immigrants to get even more children. These statements are supplemented with the effusive confessions of Rudi, who confirms all prejudices about social tourism. That, through his statements, he advocates for the restriction of immigration, doesn’t seem to come to his mind. At the end of the article he states: “We Romanians can go anywhere we want in Europe now — but, of course, it is only Britain that pays us to live.” Reid manages to fuel fears of mass immigration into the British social system and to consolidate them. She doesn’t seem interested in an objective assessment of the situation at all.

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17.01.2014 Poverty-migration and the Rroma

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Nuspliger (2014) gives a cursory overview of the debate on poverty-migration and on the feared predictions of mass migrations to Western Europe. He qualifies the images of right-wing conservatives who predict a strong west migration from Romania and Bulgaria in 2014. Many residents of these countries migrated abroad in 2007 after the EU accession and did not wait for the unrestricted movement of persons. The statistics about the poverty-migration regularly treat seasonal workers and students as equivalent to real labour migrants and therefore create a distorted picture of migration movements. In addition it is observed that many would-be migrants go into countries with diaspora groups or related languages: “Against the backdrop of the northern European fears of a Romanian mass immigration it is remarkable that, according to Eurostat figures of 2012, over three quarters of exile Romanians have moved to Spain and Italy – for which there are also linguistic reasons. Half of relocated European Portuguese are living in France and three-quarters of the emigrants of Poland live in the UK and Germany, which attracted many immigrants from Eastern Europe before the end of the licensing restrictions in 2011.” Rroma are being disadvantaged as before. The funding provided by the EU is only insufficiently used. Additionally, Rroma slums in Western Europe are the evidence of the lack of integration of this ethnic group. In the debates on immigration, meanwhile, images of social abuse dominate the discourse, which is taken up readily by polemicists.

Lübberding (2014) discusses the TV program “Maybrit Illner” on the topic “poverty on the move: how much freedom of movement can we afford?” The participants of the discussion were the Bavarian interior minister Joachim Herrmann, the Green politician Cem Özdemir, the Councillor of Berlin-Neuköln Franziska Giffey, the head of the German police union  Rainer Wendt, the Duisburger citizen Sabine Kessler and the Rrom Dzoni Sichelschmidt. They discussed the pro and cons of unrestricted migration in the European Union. Lübbering shares the opinion that most of the immigrants from Romania and Bulgaria are Rroma, although the ethnicity is not recorded in the statistics. He states that in the city of Duisburg, with around 500,000 inhabitants, the 10,000 new immigrants are of Rroma origin. Lübberding takes side with the critics of unrestricted migration in the European Union when making fun of the integration targets of the European Union. He claims that the Union lacks sense of practice: “The error of the Brussels bureaucracy is not in their ambitious plans, but in the ignorance of their ambitiousness. On power-point slides just everything looks better than in the neighbourhood of Mrs. Kessler.” On the other hand it is a positive aspect of European networking that the problem of Rroma integration has now become a pan-European issue and no longer just concerns the countries with significant Rroma populations. Additionally, Lübberding qualifies the dimensions of immigration, which are anything but dramatic. Compared with the 1.2 million refugees who have fled from the civil war in Syria to Lebanon, the immigration to Germany is very modest. Dzoni Sichelschmidt emphasised the important fact that the Rroma have emerged in large part as losers from the events of 1989: the hostility towards them has risen. This circumstance is often neglected in Western Europe (compare ZDF 2014).

In debate about immigration, Kelec (2014) takes a right-wing conservative position. Additionally, with respect to Rroma, she present cultural arguments. She sees an unrestricted immigration as a failed policy of ignorance. Kelec accuses the left parties of downplaying the problems of reality and accusing right-wing populism of being responsible for everything. The Christian Democrats are supposed to insist stubbornly on their values. On Rroma she pretentiously claims: “The children of Sinti and Roma are left alone, in the Clans, medieval conditions often prevail [ … ]. Roma children are sent by their parents and clan chiefs to beg or work on the street – they are supposed to be in school. They also have an EU-wide right to childhood and education. In Roma families child-marriages and forced marriage is common – the right to independence and integrity must also apply for young girls and women. There can be no tradition of being above the constitution, even if some believe that medieval manners as “culture” are worthy of protection.” With these unwise generalizations Kelec discredits herself. She represents traditions and media cases as if they were deadlocked and universal. Her remarks are racist and offensive to a majority of the Rroma who do not follow these practices. Kelec reproduces uncritically polemical ideas about backwardness and exploitation that have nothing to do with the identity of the Rroma. Accusing Rroma living in poverty of their poverty as a crime is arrogant and stupid. Criticism of the traditions, which are no traditions, is no intelligent criticism.

Teigeler (2013) points out the important fact that the debate about unrestricted migration in the European Union is dominated by fears and irrational predictions. Before Poland’s accession to the Schengen area there were similar fears of a mass migration, which turned out to be unfounded. The discussion also often tends to forget the fact that with the immigrants also important needed professionals are recruited. Labelling immigrants sweepingly as poverty immigrants and benefit-freeloaders simplifies the complexity of reality too much: “With the multiple accusations that immigrants and in particular Roma from South Eastern Europe “will subvert the social system, old racist stereotypes are stoked”, criticized the speaker of the Green Party parliamentary group, Jutta Velte, on Tuesday (31/12/2013). “We need a more objective debate”, the representative urged.” 

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01.11.2013 Rroma and Poverty

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Mappes-Niediek (2013) takes a look at the overall European situation of Rroma. According to a study by the Soros Foundation Discrimination of Rroma is not the main problem but their blatant poverty is: “Poverty is the main problem, not the discrimination, the researchers found: Of more than a thousand Roma respondents in the four countries, 76 percent in Italy and 66 percent in Spain  felt discriminated against. In Romania, however, there were 40 percent and 34 percent in Bulgaria. In Hungary, where right-wing gangs terrorise and hunt Roma, Roma hardly migrate to western EU countries.” So poverty is an equally important factor in the preventing attending school or to a doctor visit. That discrimination and poverty are not in fact directly related is doubtful. Mappes-Niediek counters the German hysteria about a mass immigration of Rroma from Romania and Bulgaria: Most Rroma remain in their country in spite of poverty.

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11.10.2013 European Integration of the Rroma

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The Voice of Russia (2013) reports on the EU program ROMACT, in which Bulgaria, Hungary, Italy, Romania, and Slovakia participate, a program that is mainly intended to promote social and economic integration of the Rroma. Upon these EU plans, Russia’s Minister of Nationalities Vladimir Sorin announced that the Rroma’s lack of economic integration is mainly due to their travelling lifestyle. He reproduces misconceptions – most Rroma being sedentary – but above all, he trivializes the fact that the travelling way of life was the result of social exclusion. From an economic perspective, the 12 million European Rroma represent a largely untapped “worker reserve” that need be tapped. That the will of the European population is also necessary in addition to a better integration into the education system and the labour market, is easy to forget (Iskenderow 2013).

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24.05.2013 Rroma in the European Union

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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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17.05.2013 Rroma in Italy

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The documentary “Lashi Vita” tells the story of the origin of pogroms against Rroma in Italy which started in early 2007. That year, an Italian woman was murdered by a Rrom, leading to a wave of xenophobia and racially motivated violence. The documentary goes to the roots of racial prejudice and examines the gray area between human rights, legislation, and social practice as lived in human interactions. The State’s practice practise of enclosed Rroma camps with systematic monitoring and categorising of the inmates shocks, and can be qualified in terms of Orwellian state surveillance state of alien bodies. (Mundi Romani 2008)

Source:

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