In spite of the picture, and in spite of the beliefs, not all poor people in Hungary are Rroma. Unicef claims 620 thousand children live below the poverty line. This is many more children as the Rroma minority, which all in all numbers ca. 800 thousands.
Note that three million Hungarian are now below the official poverty line.
Serbia wants to extend the so-called “Roma Decade” by another 10 years to continue furthering integration of Rroma in Europe. In a meeting organized by the Roma Education Center, Ivanisevic said that the Roma Decade will change: its seat will be in Sarajevo and the implementation will be placed under the Stability Pact for South East Europe.
In October 2012, a Rromni, Paraskevi Kokkoni was savagely beaten by local men in a context of racism and of attacks by rightist extremists against Rroma in that town. Three men were subsequently condemned to 8 months of jail and to a further suspended sentence of three further years.
A petition signed by 82’000 people was handed over to the Greek minister of the interior on March 6th. This petition urges Greece to act decisively against hate crimes.
Jacques Debot, a French blogger reporting on Rroma Stories, wrote a post on photographs and Rroma. In there, he bemoans the fact that the pictures that are taken all show the same view of Rroma: Poverty, alienation, despair. He wishes that other sides of Rroma could and should be shown, very much in the sense of the Chilean photographer Navarro Vega, who took more differentiated pictures of the poorest under the Pinochet dictature.
While we wholeheartedly support this point of view, we feel one needs to go further: Photographers, and the press in general, have a moral responsibility. They show part of the reality, the visible tip of the iceberg. But they never show the invisible ones, the large majority of Rroma. And thus, they distort the perceptions of this minority.
A controversy in the UK followed a ruling finding a politician guilty of racism and discrimination against Rroma. A British Rrom and a Green candidate to the elections says no politician is different from another in this matter, and that newspapers tend to cover such comments in a way that portrays them defending the order and the community against Rroma.
Travellers and Rroma represent a community that is non-negligible and are voters. But only 10% of them voted in the last elections. This article offers an interesting analysis of the reasons why and the ways in which this is currently changing.
Meanwhile, a small number of Rroma in France continues to grab the headlines. In the north, in Roubaix, Rroma and NGOs are fighting against eviction, while in St. Ouen, near Paris, some Rroma will be relocated in an “insertion village” a project meant to integrate Rroma.
In both cases, the press continues to portray Rroma as poor migrants from South Eastern Europe, travellers (see the pictures), and as difficult to integrate. This generalisation, as we have always said is actually racists. This concerns a small minority of the Rroma population in France.
The city of Duisburg produced a study that clearly shows that extreme rightists parties started using the theme of Rroma and how this is based on daily racism, enabled by the media and politics. The broschure can be downloaded freely.
The red-green coalition from Baden Württemberg will deport asylum seekers from Serbia and Macedonia, many of then Rroma, on the anniversary of the deportation of Rroma in that Region. This anniversary celebrated on the 24th of March commemorates the first train filled with Rroma and Sinti that departed from Offenburg.
What a date to choose …
Hungarian Rroma leaders have started a petition to the EU protesting against the ethnic cleansing that took place in Miskolc. In that eastern Hungarian city, Rroma residents were forcefully expelled from a neighbourhood to make space for the parking lot of a football stadium. This stadium – like many of its siblings being in funded in part by the EU, the Rroma leaders argue that the EU bears a moral responsibility to act.
We cannot but agree there!
Three years ago, a landmark judgement found that Slovakia was discriminating Rroma children with the practice of having segregated schools. A report from Amnesty International reveals now that the situation has far from improved. This is due to the introduction of so-called “container schools” are installed in predominantly Rroma settlement, and are attended exclusively by Rroma children, the non Rroma population preferring to send their children to other schools. This is no longer segregation, this is total isolation …
Černušáková, Barbora. Slovakia’s ‘container schools’ worsen segregation of Roma children from society. In: Amnesty International Blog. 13.03.2015. https://www.amnesty.org/en/articles/blogs/2015/03/slovakia-segretation-of-roma-schoolchildren-worsens/
The Swedish police was caught a while back in 2013 running an illegal registry of Rroma that comprised over 4’700 individuals. Sweden’s Parliamentary Ombudsman (‘Justitieombudsmannen’) issued a sharp criticism of the police on that topic and requested that each of the registered person receive 5’000 Kronor ($ 768).
The newspaper “La Liberté” in a series of recent articles equates Rroma with poor migrants who come to Switzerland to beg. There is no differentiation, and the implicit ethnicisation of a social problem and the projection thereof on all Rroma is simply not acceptable.
They also mention the exhibition from Yves Leresche, a photographer who has captured many shantytowns and who shows the poor face of Rroma. All in all, this re-inforces the negative views that are already prevailing among the general population.
When one thinks that all the beggars, prostitutes and thieves in Switzerland number less than a thousand, which is not even 1.5% of the Rroma population of the country, one sees how far these views are from reality.
The current president of the federal tribunal, Ms. Bettina Limperg is ashamed at an old judgement from the tribunal referring to Rroma as a “plague”. Contrary to what one could think, this judgement was not made under the Nazis but in 1956, so eleven years after the end of the War.
This statement was alas by no mean an exception, as the Rroma Holocaust was not recognised as having been based on ethnicity until the 1970’s.
Following the case of Rroma children being bullied and humiliated by the police in a police station in Kosice, an action filmed by the police, Roma civic associations asked psychiatrists to asses the police actions based on the video that a judge refused as evidence.
Their verdict is clear: This would not have been tolerated with anyone from the mainstream population. Some of the experts spoke of systemic failure of the system and society!
A Madrid based French photographer, Pierre Gonnord has produced beautiful pictures of Rroma that he has taken in Spain. The pictures, while truly stunning, still play the old card of poor, non integrated Rroma. This is a pity, and actually, we do not need this – especially when presented as a general view of this minority.
The BBC published a long reportage about the vanishing Gypsy “Cigan” Music in Budapest. This music, while played by Rroma musicians on some of the typical Rroma instruments such as the Cymbalom, has little in effect to do with Rroma music. It is and was a collection of Hungarian Schlagers, a few Hungarian folk songs and the odd typically Rroma song, these later ones can still be heard across the borders in Slovakia, still sung in Rromanes, and in Romania, especially in Transylvania.
There were and are still some great dynasties such as the Lakatos who perpetuate the style, but, in a time where recorded music is ubiquitous, the Rroma orchestras of Budapest are a vanishing breed, only kept in a few touristy restaurants. The past is gone, but music still stays, in new forms as for example with the munch more modern Roma Varadi Café!
The French Magazine “Valeurs Actuelles” has been condemned for incitation to racial hatred against Rroma for an article and title page of the magazine called: “Les Roms, l’Overdose” – The Rroma, the overdosis that was published in August 2014. The director of the publication, Yves de Kerdrel has been sentenced to a fine of 3’000 Euro.
This is a news, and good news, especially in France where the image of the Rroma is not good, and where even the Prime Minister is not adverse at racists statements against this minority.
As usual, not a week can pass in France without the press lamenting about illegal settlements, or reporting on the judicial actions of Rroma or NGOs fighting evictions. This time, these are again the Rroma from Roubaix, in the North of France whose expulsion is pending a legal hearing that has now been reported to mid April.
Le monde diplomatique published a long article on the Rroma in today Erdogan’s Turkey. Many of them were driven out of centuries old settlements, some such as Sulukule in Istanbul dating back more than a thousand years.
However, in the last five years, some of the key laws against Rroma in Turkey have been revoked. These gestures are due in part to the pressure of the EU concerning the rights of minorities in Turkey are not fundamentally changing their situation. Prejudices are strong, very strong in that country, and Rroma – still called Cingene – are still all too often simply excluded.
While starting with a good intention, Planet.fr, in their article entitled “Roms: pourquoi tant de haine?” [Rroma: why so much hatred], manages to pack quite a few stereotypes and misinformation in a short article. They speak of 17’000 Rroma (only those who have arrived from Romania and Bulgaria), associating Rroma with migrants and neglecting the 500’000 who live in that country, speak of poverty, etc.
On the positive side, they mention that France is indeed quite racist at this stage against Rroma and tha French politics have a problem with Rroma.
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