Tag Archives: Education

Hungary News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

01.02.2013 Verdict Acknowledges Segregation of Rroma Children in Hungary

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According to the Hungarian minister responsible for the situation of the Rroma, there is no discrimination of Rroma in Hungary, neither is there a segregation of Rroma children in Hungarian schools. A verdict by a north-Hungarian court acknowledges now officially that the segregation of Rroma children is illegal. The verdict recognised that Rroma children are regularly positioned in lower classes than other children, discriminated during lunch hours, swimming lessons and public school events.

According to the Pester Lloyd, the discrimination of Rroma children is an established practice in Hungary, with a tradition of several decades. It often gets initiated by parents who don’t want their children to mix with Rroma children. This denial of good education keeps the unsatisfying situation of many Rroma in Hungary a status quo.

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01.02.2013 Political Correctness and Minorities Names

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Kathrin Spoerr of “Die Welt” elaborates about the use of terms ascribed to minorities and the political correctness or incorrectness inherent in them. She takes the example of one of her daughters, who disguises herself in the kindergarten as Gypsy, for a project about different children from the world. The teacher of the catholic kindergarten gets problem with her supervisor, when designating the children as “Zigneuner”, which the supervisor sees as politically incorrect. For Spoerr, the use of the term itself isn’t the problem, but the intention of how it is used. When persons, children or adults, use terms for ethnic groups and use them in connection with pejorative, negative attributions, the term becomes a negative meaning. Spoerr therefore pleads for less political correctness and more intelligence and reflection, when talking about other people, no matter of what origin.

Source:

  • Spoerr, Kathrin (2013) Das darf man doch nicht sagen! In: Die Zeit vom 31.1.2013.
News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

25.01.2013 Rroma and Structural Violence

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The situation of many Rroma in different countries around Europe is closely connected to the sociological concept of “structural violence”. Structural violence is a term used by different social scientists to denote structures of repression of epistemological, political, economical and social nature, which keep the affected people from improving their livelihoods. In the case of Rroma, structural violence has the form of highly negative epistemological ascriptions, which hinder them from improving their circumstances, combined with a history of exclusion and disadvantage, which leave many of them in a kind of “devils circle” of hopelessness towards any major change. Paul Farmer defines ‘structural violence’ as follows:

“Structural violence is one way of describing social arrangements that put individuals and populations in harm’s way… The arrangements are structural because they are embedded in the political and economic organization of our social world; they are violent because they cause injury to people … neither culture nor pure individual will is at fault; rather, historically given (and often economically driven) processes and forces conspire to constrain individual agency. Structural violence is visited upon all those whose social status denies them access to the fruits of scientific and social progress (Farmer 1999: 79).

The concept is therefore closely linked to the notion of ‘agency’, which refers to the individual power of a single person in a social structure to perform his/her aspirations and affect his/her social environment. ‘Ageny’ also emanates from subjects, who are conditioned in the way they act, or perform an action. The idea that “the things they do are in some sense determined by the ways in which their identity has been constructed” (Ashcroft/Griffiths/Tiffin (2007: 6) refers to the idea that social possibilities of individuals or groups are linked to the identity fellow human beings ascribe them and the way people reconstruct their own identity between outside ascription and self-ascription of identity. In this reflections, it is important to consider that it is neither just individual agency and neither just the structure surrounding a person, that determines his/her destiny, but a complicated negotiation of the two. Bourdieu sees it as a dialectic between “externalizing ones agency”, and “internalizing the structure”, which is at work when constructing personal and group identity (Bourdieu 1990). 

In the case of Rroma, the structure – with which I want to denote the structure of society as well as knowledge which society produces and emanates about the Rroma – is today clearly still the dominating factor in the relationship of agency and structure. Individual and group actions of Rroma have contributed to improve their situation in society, but negative stereotypes and prejudices still continue to dominate them so strongly, that many Rroma have to life with their identity as a burden, rather than be proud of their identity. It is the task of all mankind and political and economical leaders in particular, to change the relationship of agency and structure in such a way, that individual persons, no matter of what origin, don’t have to feel powerless because of the strong overweight of structure over individual agency. Fostering equal access to education, working possibilities and financial means can be a step towards achieving this goal. 

As part of the institutionalized exclusion of Rroma in large parts of Western society, one can detect what Bauman calls the production of “human wate”, which is closely connected with the dangerous feeling of being redundant in and for society. Bauman pessimistically explains the feeling of humans who feel redundant in this world:

The others do not need you; they can do as well, and better, without you. There is no self-evident reason for being around and no justification for your claim to the right to stay around. To be declared redundant means to have been disposed of because of being disposable – just like the empty and not refundable plastic bottle or once-used syringe, an unattractive commodity with no buyers, or a substandard or stained product without use thrown off the assembly line by the quality inspectors. Redundancy shares its semantic space with ’rejects’, ’wastrels’, ’garbage’, ’refuse’ – with waste (Bauman 2004: 12).   

This dangerous feeling of being disposable for society because of exclusion and repression from educational, economic and political possibilities has to be seen as an inherent and major part «structural violence». From Bauman’s (2004) viewpoint, the systematic exclusion of people is a vital part of modernity and it’s production of order. It is in its simplest form the result of economic processes, which differentiate between useful and un-useful humans for production and consumption. In it’s more complex forms, the production of order is a form of “state racism”, which is the systematic evaluation of knowledge about people and its subsequent re-ascription, in the form of the differentiation of “useful” and “un-useful humans”. This differentiation is amongst others based on the dominant “stories”, which are told about groups of people. In case of the Rroma, the dominant tale is one of negative stereotypes, of intentional criminality and deliberate unwillingness towards integration. This “tale” is so deeply rooted in European history, that is dominates realistic scientific knowledge and statistical knowledge about Rroma, which would paint a different picture of Rroma realities. Rroma Realities are complex, diverse, fragmented, individual stories, which evade simple reduction. This approval of complexity has been termed “the postmodern condition” by Jean Francois Lyotard. For the case of Rroma, it means to acknowledge that there is not “the Rrom” as simple as there is not such a thing as “the Swiss” of “the Italian”. Most Rroma speak the language Rromanes, but some don’t. Some Rroma are Christians, some are Muslims, some are part of other religions. A few engage in criminal activities, but most of them don’t. When wanting to understand the reality behind the stereotypes about Rroma, it is important to acknowledge that there is no simple answer to the question of how Rroma really are. An individual destiny can never been reduced to simple labels.

Sources:

  • Ashcroft, Bill/Griffiths, Gareth/Tiffin, Helen (2007) Post-colonial studies. The key concepts. London/New York: Routledge Publisher.
  • Bauman, Zygmunt (2004) Wasted Lives. Modernity and its outcasts. Cambridge: Polity Press.
  • Bourdieu, Paul (1990), The Logic of Practice, Polity Press: Cambridge.
  • Farmer, Paul (1999) Infections and Inequalities. The modern plagues. Berkeley: University of California Press. 
Bosnia News Eastern Europe North Macedonia Serbia

18.01.2013 Fostering Social Housing in Bosnia-Herzegovina

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Liechtenstein will foster education and public housing of Rroma in Bosnia-Herzegovina with 105’000 Swiss francs, helping the local international organization for refugees and migration aid (IMFH). According to the article, a big part of the aid money will be used to build facilities of the public housing program, which is aiming to improve the conditions of Rroma living in countryside, often under precarious hygienic conditions. From the viewpoint of the state of Liechtenstein, the housing program will also help to decrease migration movements to Western Europe, which are caused by social-economic hardships.

The educational program of the foundation “Kinderdorf Pestalozzi” is currently enabling around 5’000 Rroma children in Serbia and Macedonia to get a regular school education. The state of Liechtenstein is also fostering this program with a financial contribution (Lichtensteiner Vaterland 2013).

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Czech Republic News Eastern Europe News Western Europe

18.01.2013 Criticism towards Czech Republic’s public school system and the discrimination of Rroma children

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A new study recently published by the ‘Open Society Justice Initiative’ criticizes the systematic disadvantage of Rroma children in Czech Republic’s public school system. The study emanates from the ‘D.H. and Others versus Czech Republic’ case: In 1999 18 Rroma children from Ostrava sued the Czech school system for systematic discrimination before the European Court of Human Rights. As a result, eight years later, the court declared the suit legitimate, demanding from the Czech state increased actions to stop the discrimination of Rroma children in the public school system. According to the publication, most Rroma children in the Czech Republic end up in inadequate, third-rate schools, making it very difficult for them to acquire advanced job opportunities and therefore inhibiting social advancement.

The children that were part of the ‘D.H. and Others versus Czech Republic’ case have grown up and look back to what has changed since the lawsuit was filed. Most of them come to a pessimistic conclusion, stating that despite some official statements and renaming of schools, the exclusion of Rroma children from public schooling remains an everyday practice. Several interview partners stated that discrimination came not as much from the other children attending the school but from teachers systematically judging and treating Rroma children badly. One method used to downgrade Rroma children is to declare them psychologically retarded. According to the report, this is a common way to exclude them from the public school system and therefore from social advancement. The former Commissioner for Human Rights of the European Union, Thomas Hammarberg, stated in his report «Human Rights of Roma and Travelers in Europe»: “with thousands of Roma children effectively excluded from the mainstream education system in the Czech Republic and condemned to a future as second class citizens every year… it is now time to speed up the implementation of the inclusive education agenda” (Open Society Justice Initiative 2012).

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Germany News Eastern Europe News Switzerland News Western Europe

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.
Germany News Eastern Europe News Switzerland News Western Europe North Macedonia

04.01.2013 Rroma as “hostile others”

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The television program “Der Club” of the Swiss national television company arranged a discussion about the topic of Rroma as “hostile others”, appearing in public only in connection with negative events. The participants of the discussion were Stefan Heinichen of the Rroma Contact Point Zurich, Mustafa Asan, a Swiss-Macedonian dual citizen and Rroma, Alexander Ott, supervisor of the immigration authorities of the police corps Bern, Julia Kuruc, social worker for the women organization “Flora Dora”, Brigitte Hagmann, supervisor of the section West-Balkans of the DEZA and Martin Heule, a folklorist. The discussion started with the topic of Rroma being publicly present as beggars and what backgrounds and motives there are to this activity. The participants agreed upon the insight to differentiate between Rroma identity and the criminal activities – begging or more explicitly organized begging, is prohibited in many Swiss cities. More importantly however, it was criticized that criminal activities are often hasty and uncritically attributed to Rroma, even though most people are not capable of identifying the language Rromanes or other markers of Rroma identity. Therefore, there is a picture of criminal Rroma, which is actively produced and spread by public actors as the police, un-reflected media and public persons, which builds on prejudices and lacking knowledge about Rroma. Not rarely, people of East-European origin, which are not Rroma and who engage in criminal activities, are identified as Rroma.

Another important aspect is the striking poverty of many minority groups in Eastern Europe, often even big parts of the entire population. This socio-economic hardships force people to organize and band with each other in order to overcome lacking means of financial income. Organized begging – as Julia Kuruc states – is therefore often not a choice, but a necessity for survival.

The negative stereotypes attributed to Rroma are so strongly anchored in many European societies, that also in Switzerland, people of Rroma origin are often reluctant to publicly state their Rroma identity. The consequences can be social exclusion, the strengthening of prejudices against persons and consequently more disadvantages. Therefore, many Rroma prefer to label themselves with their nationality and keep their ethnic identity a secret.

Mustafa Asan stated, that from his viewpoint, the events concerning Rroma are often reduced to a perspective of majority-society, excluding problems as the lacking will of majorities to integrate and support Rroma and therefore change their ongoing problem of exclusion and discrimination. Stefan Heinichen added, that one should stop to speak of a “Rroma problem” but start to speak of a societal problem. Of European society, which still has striking problems in integrating Rroma economically, socially and politically. Brigitte Hagmann criticized the lacking efforts of many East-European governments to actively change the miserable situations of Roma. On the other hand, it would be to simple to ascribe Rroma just to role of victims, but that it is necessary that Rroma themselves deploy an active part in changing their situations long- and short-term.

Another aspect is the difficulty of portraying the way Rroma really life. Life worlds of Rroma are very diverse, depending on their family and national history, their religion, their insisting on traditions or their subsequent softening and alteration, their group membership and social integration. Heinichen clearly hesitates when asked to explain Rroma traditions.  

As goal to improve the conditions of Rroma the participants identify better integration into the education system and better embedding and access to the economic sphere. Also, the problem of severe poverty of many people in Eastern Europe, which is important to separate from the topic of Rroma, has to be addressed.

Also the German television program «Menschen bei Maischberger» on ARD elaborated on the notion of Rroma as hostile others. Only seven days after the Swiss program, it joined elected green politician Claudia Roth, Christian-civil politician Joachim Herrmann, supervisor of the Central Council of Roma and Sinit in Germany Romani Rose, Rroma attorney Nizaqete Bislimi and Swiss journalist Philipp Gut from the «Weltwoche» in a discussion. The debate also started with the elaboration on the established negative stereotypes about Rroma, which since several hundred years continue to negatively influence the life worlds of Rroma. The discussion then continued with Philip Gut denouncing criminal activities of Rroma in Switzerland. He stated again and again, that his article in the «Weltwoche» was based on proofed facts, but he failed to intelligently distinguish criminal activities from the topic of Rroma identity and origins. Romani Rose and Claudia Roth therefore accused him of deliberately making a racist connection between ethnic origin and criminal activities. Gut defended himself by explaining that what he condemned was that certain Roma groups used children to implement burglaries, but that he didn’t accuse the Rroma as a whole of criminal activities. However, the mere fact, that he made a connection between Rroma and criminal activities, was enough to evoke the outrage of Romani Rose and other participants of the discussion.

Taking side with Romani Rose’s viewpoint, the author wants to emphasize the importance of not making an undifferentiated connection between criminal activities and Rroma ethnic identity. The making of this connection fails to consider vital questions of respect and ethics towards an ethnic group as the Rroma.

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Albania Kosovo News Eastern Europe News Switzerland News Western Europe

21.12.2012 Forced Return of Rroma in Kosovo

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Forced return of Rroma to the Kosovo

The ‘Society for Threatened Peoples’ elaborates and criticizes the practice of the Swiss Department of Migration for forcing Rroma back to Kosovo, even though their successful reintegration into the Kosovo society is not certain. They state that between 2010 and November 2012 661 persons belonging to an ethnic minority have been forced to return to the Kosovo. Despite the “Memorandum of Understanding” signed between the Kosovo and Switzerland in the beginning of 2012, which should assure favorable conditions for members of minorities as civil registration, access to education and protection from discrimination, the situation of Rroma in the Kosovo has not improved. The report states that discrimination against Rroma, Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians is ongoing and people belonging to this groups face everyday victimization in working, education, mobility, use of their language and access to public services. According to the report, between 73-84% of Rroma, Ashkali and Balkan Egyptians in the Kosovo are currently unemployed.

Because of these shortcomings, the report criticizes and strongly advises against the forced return of Rroma to Kosovo. The RCP appreciates the objective, critical assessment of the ‘Society for Threatened Peoples’ and takes sides with its demand. Especially the forced return of entire families, with children who attended Swiss schools, has to be heavily criticized. Often, these children don’t speak Albanian and therefore face difficulties with re-schooling in the Kosovo. 

Source:

  • Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker (2012) Wiederausreise statt Reintegration? Die Situation der unter Zwang rückgeführten Roma, Askahli und Ägypter. Ostermundigen: Gesellschaft für bedrohte Völker Schweiz.
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