{"id":1448,"date":"2014-04-09T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2014-04-09T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/%20rroma.org\/09-04-2014-stigma-and-the-international-rroma-day\/"},"modified":"2022-07-27T07:48:57","modified_gmt":"2022-07-27T06:48:57","slug":"09-04-2014-stigma-and-the-international-rroma-day","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/rroma.org\/de\/09-04-2014-stigma-and-the-international-rroma-day\/","title":{"rendered":"09.04.2014 Stigma and the international Rroma Day"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

On the occasion of the international \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma Day, Grunau (2014) spoke with the president of the central council of German \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tSinti and Roma, Romani Rose. Rose\u2019s assessment of the social integration of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma is mediocre. While there has been progress in terms of political and historical \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\trecognition of the Rroma, there still are massive stigma and appalling living \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tconditions in which Rroma have to exist: \u201cIn \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsome areas some things have improved, but what we are not satisfied at all with \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tis the situation of the Roma minority in Eastern Europe. There are situations \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthat are catastrophic. […] These are particularly Bulgaria, Romania, but also \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe Czech Republic and Slovakia. There are informal ghettos that are without \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tsewerage, without electricity, and water. There are villages, where over a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthousand people live without any perspective. This situation has been known for \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tmany years. It is no longer acceptable. There is an infant mortality-rate that \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tis four times higher and a life expectancy that is ten years lower compared to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe majority population.\u201d<\/em> In this regard, Rose demands easier access to \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tfunding that doesn\u2019t need not be refinanced by the states themselves. He \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tproposes the creation of a special fund for the Rroma. Next, Rose criticizes \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe continuing discrediting and instrumentalization of the Rroma by right-wing \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnationalist parties and actors, but also by bourgeois politicians in the wake \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof the immigration debate in Western Europe. Thus, the openly racist Jobbik \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tparty made a share of 21% of the votes, in the elections in early April. At the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tend of the interview, Rose also points to the still highly distorted perception \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof the minority. 64% of the people of a survey said that they did not want \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma as neighbours. However, many of them already have neighbours, friends or \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tacquaintances that are Rroma are, but they do not know that they belong to the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tminority: \u201cHowever, these 64 percent do \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnot know that they already have work colleagues, neighbours and tenants, they \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tdo not know that they are shopping in stores with people who are members of the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tminority. Also in show business or in football, everywhere there are members of \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthe minority.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n

Caspari (2014) emphasizes \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tin her conversation with the antiziganism researcher Markus End that there are \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tnot only negative but also positive stereotypes that encourage the idea of a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcultural alterity of the Rroma: \u201cThose \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\twho say that all Sinti and Roma make such great music just positively present a \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tstereotype. It implies that members of the ethnic group are different, that \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tthey only make music and do not like to work as \u201cwe\u201d do.\u201d<\/em> The same is the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tcase with emphatic articles about the Rroma that still reproduce stereotypes: \u201cIn many \u2013 also benevolent \u2013 reports clich\u00e9s \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tof supposedly typical characteristics of the Roma are used, even though the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tRroma do not exist at this general level. [ … ] An online editor recently \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\theadlined concerning the debate over free migration: \u201cnot only Roma are coming, \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tbut also academics\u201d \u2013 as if there were only uneducated members of the ethnic \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tgroup. About the nurse, the doctor or the construction worker, who are well \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tintegrated in Germany, rarely if ever is reported. Images that are added to the \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tarticles on the situation of Roma, often show poor, barefoot children. Here \t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\t\tagain, a clich\u00e9 is conveyed.\u201d<\/em><\/p>\n