Daily Archives: Januar 11, 2013

11.01.2013 Gypsies and the anthropology of Enlightenment

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The literary scholar Klaus Michael Bogdal wrote a book about the representation of Rroma in European literature during the last centuries. Before, he intensely concerned himself with historical discourse analysis and Foucault (Bogdal 2011). He unfolds a story of the representation of Rroma in Europe from the Middle Ages to the present, in which he shows how they have always been constructed as an antipode to bourgeois values ​​in order to differentiate and depict oneself in opposition to them. The Roma were portrayed as savages, who live in an anachronistic, archaic society. Through depicting them as a «nomadic horde» in a state of nature, they became the antipodes of bourgeois values ​​and the source «a permanent civil war against state order» (Bogdal 2011: 162).

The images that are evoked about them – which rarely have to do anything with reality – were passed down over centuries through literature and oral tradition. Negative literary descriptions were often used as ethnographic facts and further disseminated. All the pejorative stereotypes that are attributed to the Rroma – that they are thieves, children robbers, vagabonds, spies for the Ottomans – constitute a form of negative dialectics, a form of domination of men over men through knowledge. In this case, the quality of knowledge plays a secondary role. For the public it doesn’t matter if the negative stereotypes correspond to reality, but that they become the dominant narrative about the Rroma, which dominates all other narratives. This form of disciplining of humans through knowledge by misattribution is also called «epistemological violence». Bogdal states: «Die Argumentation der Kontrahenten ist weniger durch den Willen zum Wissen, als durch deutende Gewalt charakterisiert. In ihren Abhandlungen erzwingen sie die Lesbarkeit des Fremden, Anderen, indem sie dessen Zeichen nahezu beliebig innerhalb des eigenen Verstehenshorizontes deuten“ (Bogdal 2011: 146).

Miss-ascription of knowledge about the Roma was not confined to verbal forms of racism and social exclusion and discrimination, but was applied to control them. In Switzerland one used the knowledge about them, to identify, intern and chastise them. As part of the initiative “Kinder der Landstrasse” hundreds of Roma and Yenish were taken away their children and placed in orphanages, psychiatric and educational institutions or foster families. In several lectures the fascist attitude of the supervisor Alfred Siegfried became evident. However, he remained head of the organization until shortly before the dissolution in 1973. He continued to separate children from their parents, order sterilizations and internments in psychiatric hospitals and thereby made the lives of many Roma and Yenish an agony. The Rroma children were often declared mentally incompetent and therefore remained in the power of the patronizing organization (Meier 2003).

In Germany, institutionalized pejorative knowledge was distributed about them – based on pseudo-scientific racial theories that were then classified as science  – which allowed their systematic murder by the Nazis. Bogdal emphasizes that it is not knowledge about the Roma that allowed their exclusion and extinction, but the power to enforce a certain knowledge about them. He states: «Es ist also nicht das Wissen über die Zigeuner, das bestimmte staatliche Gewaltmassnahmen erforderlich erscheinen lässt, sondern ist umgekehrt nach 1933 die Macht vorhanden, ein bestimmtes Wissen in allen gesellschaftlichen und staatlichen Bereichen weitgehend durchzusetzen» (Bogdal 2011: 337). One accuses the Rroma of the destruction of the foundations of society, caused by their lack of possessions and differing lifestyle. Through this they would illegitimately demand the work of the majority. Poverty is therefore criminalized a declared a stigma. One also attributes them hereditary criminality and begins to physically measure them. In the wake of the Nazi extermination policy «actions should no longer prevented, but lives exterminated» (Bogdal 2011: 340). State racism, which builds on the deviation of a defined norm, and decides over «useful» and «useful« lives as form of biopolitics, becomes and institutionalized variable. Positive knowledge about the Rroma, as produced by the Enlightenment anthropology and ethnography, which propagate for the integration of the Roma, remain unheard. Bogdal sees a supremacy of the positivist sciences, which have dedicated themselves to progression and applied knowledge, but unfortunately create a form of negative dialectics through unethically applying their knowledge. He states: «Die beiden für die Wahrnehmung und Verortung der epochalen Wissensformationen, die aufklärerische Anthropologie und die Ethnographie, brachten vor allem in ihren philosophischen und kulturhistorischen Dimensionen immer auch positive Aspekte zur Sprache und zogen, wenn auch nur für kurze Momente, die Möglichkeit einer Assimilation und Integration in Erwägung. Hingegen haben ausgerechnet die modernen, sich dem gesellschaftlichen Fortschritt und der praktischen Anwendung verschreibenden Wissenschaften der ersten Jahrhunderthälfte die Politik der Verfolgung, Ausgrenzung und Vernichtung bewusst befördert und gerechtfertigt» (Bogdal 2011: 342).

Source:

  • Bogdal, Klaus-Michael (2011) Europa erfindet die Zigeuner. Eine Geschichte von Faszination und Verachtung. Berlin: Suhrkamp Verlag.
  • Meier, Thomas (2003) Hilfswerk Kinder der Landstrasse. In: Becker, Helena Kanyar (Hrsg.) Jenische, Sinti und Roma in der Schweiz. Basel: Schwabe & Co, S. 19–38.

11.01.2013 Controversial call to sterilize Rroma in Romania

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The NZZ writes about a right-wring extremist groups in Romania, named «NAT88». The extremists made a public call, offering Rroma women 300 Leu (82 Swiss francs) if they brought proof to have sterilized themselves successfully. The call was legitimized by the extreme right-wingers by proclaiming «violence of Rroma against the Romanian majority». The statement was criticized harshly by the Elie Wiesel Institut, the Romani Criss organization and the centre against Racism, denouncing the call as a severe attack on the Rroma minority and the society as a whole.

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11.01.2013 Agitation against Rroma in Hungary

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Ritterband (2013) accounts a racist agitation of the publicist Zsolt Bayer against Rroma in Hungary. The publicist Zsolt Bayer defamed Rroma as «murdering animals» using his newspaper «Magyar Hirlap» as a circulation organ. Bayer is known to be a political companion and personal friend of prime minister Orban. The reigning Fidesz party distanced itself from the statements made by Bayer, but didn’t condemn them. Judiciary minister Tibor Navracsics criticized Bayers comments in a public television program, denouncing the statements as incompatible with the Hungary’s democratic principles. Orban himself didn’t take any public position. Zsolt Bayer is known to have made racist agitation before, also using the «Magyar Hirlap» to make anti-Semitic comments against Jews.

Odehnal (2013) complements the topic with a shocking detail: Not only did Bayer compare Rroma with animals and said that they had no place amongst other humans, but propagandized for their immediate extinction. Taking side with the Hungarian left-wing opposition parties, who filed criminal complaint against Bayer because of demagoguery against Rroma, the RCP condemns Bayer’s agitation deeply. Such a public call for the extinction of the Rroma should not be let unpunished. It deeply scares and astonishes, that such a misanthropic statement is aloud to be made public by the Hungarian media and laws. That the proponents of the article appeal to freemdom of the press can only be called absurd. It abandons any sense of ethics and respect towards people in general.

Pester Lloyd (2013/I) states that un-firm distancing of Fidesz from the racist statements shows that the party is trying to bind voters from the ultra right-wing Jobbik party. The article concludes resigned that a silent toleration of racism and open hatred has become a normality in Hungary.

In the most recent article Pester Lylod (2013/II) confirms that the Hungarian chief prosecutor has droped charges against Bayer, stating that there is no visible danger of people persecuting Rroma. Pester Llyod raises the legitimate question what reasons laws have, if they are not applied or only in a very restricted way.

Source:

  • Odehnal, Bernhard (2013) Aufruf zum Massenmord. In: Tagesanzeiger vom 9.1.2013.
  • Pester Lloyd (2013/I) Der Freund schweigt. Halbherzige Distanzierungen: das offizielle Ungarn und der Fall Bayer. In: Pester Llyod vom 9.1.2013.  http://www.pesterlloyd.net/html/1301orbanschweigt.html
  • Pester Llyod (2013/II) Fall Bayer: Roma vertretter sagt Treffen ab, Staatsanwalt sieht keine Hetze. In: Pester Llyod vom 11.1.2013. http://www.pesterlloyd.net/html/1301bayerupdate.html
  • Ritterband, Charles E. (2013) Hetze gegen Roma in Ungarn. In: Neue Zuercher Zeitung vom 10.01.2013. 
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