While the EU and its member states are still trying to find its focus when it comes to Roma people, the members of these communities struggle with their daily lives. Next to Cluj, the Romanian town I live in, there are two large Roma communities, both of them next to the garbage deposits. I visited these communities, as a journalist several times, and I still remember how kids as young as 5 were telling me how rats enter their barracks every night and crawl up their beds while they sleep. Or an old man in his 60’s telling me how snakes basically live with him in the same barrack. The main activity of the children there is to search through the piles of garbage every day, in search of things that they can still use or, worse yet, food. I recognize every day many of the adults in those communities on the streets of Cluj, while they beg.
The authorities in Cluj refuse to deal with these communities. While the town is expanding and drawing more and more foreign investors, the Roma communities are treated as the dirt that needs to be hidden under the carpet, not to ruin its image. In the fall of 2007, two little girls were burnt alive in their barrack, because of the primitive system their family was using to keep warm. Another child died in the same way last spring.
Here is just one picture taken by photographer David Dare Parker at the Pata Rat community next to Cluj. You can see other great pictures of his from Pata Rat on his website www.daviddareparker.com, under the Romania section.
Young Roma children digging through the piles of garbage at Pata Rat, next to Cluj (Romania).
The Roma is the largest stateless nation existing within the current borders of the EU. It is believed that up to 12 million people in the EU are Roma, representing about 2.5% of the total population of the Union. However, the number is most likely much higher. Many Roma people are not taken into consideration in national census, because they do not have personal identification documents of any kind. For instance, in Romania, the official numbers say the Roma represent 2.5% of the population, meaning about 550.000 people, but unofficial numbers are as high as over 1.5 million. Besides, many Roma do not declare themselves as Roma when they are asked about their nationality, but as coming from the dominant nationality in their country of residence (Romanian, Hungarian, Spanish etc).
Until not so long ago, the Roma were regarded as a problem of Central and Eastern European states, because most of them are concentrated in these states. However, the Roma are nomads and they have quickly moved throughout the entire Europe. Their moving process has been facilitated even more by the less strict border controls throughout Europe in the past decades. Therefore, the Roma are no longer a problem of certain states, but of the entire EU.
However, in its over 50 years history, the EU has failed to tackle the Roma problem in an articulate, coherent way. While they live among us civilized people from developed countries, the Roma often lack access to the most basic human rights. They do not have access to education, health care, clean water and food. The right to a decent living standard is stated in many constitutions, yet it is denied to Roma people for decades. The nation states have constantly failed to provide sustainable solutions for the Roma or even ignored them and the EU, so far, has followed the same path.
Many have argued that it is the Roma people’s fault for its situation. That they are essentially uneducated, wish to be left alone and live their own way, that crime and rudeness is somehow written in their genetic code. Unfortunately, many Roma provide support for such claims daily. Another internal problem is that the Roma, taken as a whole, rarely regard themselves as a nation or as a bonded community. They live and socialize in small communities, similar to tribes, and feel like outside intervention, even from other Roma, is a threat. This lack of internal unity has made it difficult for Roma advocates to articulate a common position and put forward solutions that would be accepted or function for Roma throughout Europe or at least within a state.
Nevertheless, the EU has shown it is capable of putting forward guidelines and regulations for almost everything and everyone, if it wants to. So far, it seems that it has been more important for the EU to deal with the shape and size of bananas or tomatoes than with the daily lives of millions of its citizens dealing with the same problems.
Only last year, in September, the European Commission and the French presidency of the Council organized the first summit dedicated to the Roma. Over 500 people participated. However, the summit was another failure. The participants could not even decide if there is a need to adopt new policies for the Roma or use existing EU regulations which do not aim to target primarily the Roma, therefore the essential problems of the Roma were not even reached. Moreover, there was no translation provided for the Romanes language and the first Roma to become minister in Macedonia, Nezdet Mustava, was interrupted when he tried to delivered his speech in Romanes.
It seems the struggle for better life standards for the Roma is still left in the hands of NGO’s. For instance, the EU Roma Policy Coalition is a group of NGO’s from different states pushing the EU to take action and deal with the problems of the Roma. They even proposed a draft EU strategy for the Roma. The Commission deals with the Roma problem only at a lower level. 12 member states, under the guidance of the Commission, put together the EURoma network, which tries to use structural funds for Roma oriented projects. The main program developed so far is the Acceder program.
The European Parliament has taken tough action against the initiative of the Italian government last summer to register the fingerprints of every Roma living in Italy. Also, the EP as an institution and several MEP’s individually have called for sustainable solutions to the problems of the Roma throughout time. However, we come back to our old problem, the EP does not have enough power (yet) to take action itself or force the Commission or the Council to apply its decisions. The Italian situation was particularly sensitive for Romania, because the Roma coming under fire in Italy come in their largest part from Romania. In fact, because Roma and Romanian sound similar, a leading national newspaper in Romania is running a campaign to change to name of this nation from Roma back into “gipsy”, with strong arguments showing that gipsy is not an offensive name for a person of this origin.
It is clear that the road Roma need to face until they will live a better life in the EU is still a very long one and it won’t come anywhere close to ending until the EU accepts the fact that the Roma represent a nation living within its borders, which should be treated on the same terms as the ones enjoying the benefits of having a state.
(89 votes, average: 4.63 out of 5)
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“Besides, many Roma do not declare themselves as Roma when they are asked about their nationality, but as coming from the dominant nationality in their country of residence (Romanian, Hungarian, Spanish etc).”
I’m curious - how do we lump them together into the same community then? I.e., is there actually a Roma problem, or is it the problem of unregistered transients in some EU states?
The problem with treating the Roma as a nation is that they seem to have no national unity - no representation, nobody that the EU institutions can deal with.
The EU is a community united by general values, and the only way to integrate the Roma would be to teach them those values; if they choose not to accept the European social norms, then there is very little that Europe owes them, other than basic human rights. I wonder if there is a solution to be had, other than integration by attrition - attracting the most ambitious and intelligent Roma to EU schools and universities, so their success stories would motivate others.
Andrei, the point you raise is very good. It’s very difficult to treat the Roma as a nation, as I also pointed out, because they lack internal unity and probably they don’t even want to be treated as a nation. However, the common cultural traits of the Roma communities all over the world are obvious and, even more important, the problems they face are very similar regardless the state they are in. Dealing with these problems means dealing with the Roma as a whole.
The EU can no longer afford to regard the Roma as a “transients”, because Roma are a public issue and attract a lot of anger in many EU societies; I mentioned Italy in my post.
What you propose as a solution is correct and it is applied at a local level. The problem is that once the Roma elites are recognized as such by the rest of the society, they probably lose authority within their original community. The EU should develop mechanisms to deal with this communication problem with the Roma.
This is indeed a very serious problem and not only for EU. Though I have to say, in Russia the Roma issue attracts far less attention (or so it seems to me).
Do you see any practical steps that could pave the way towards future solutions? Something to resolve this communication problem for instance?
And would you agree that in any way Roma would have to trade part of their identity (some of their specific national / communal features and traditions) for access to basic rights and assistance?
You mentioned something very true in your post: the Gypsies, or Rromanes themselves do not have any claim at all towards any national status. They are a very particular ethnicity and might I say, civilization - inside rules, ethics, morals, and at times quite strict obligations towards one another. They live in small clans/tribes “satre” and they always have quite fixed hierarchies. This is the case in the vast majority of true Gipsy communities in Europe.
There are some cases where these features simply lead them to specialize in aprticular, marginal occupations - traditionally there were clans of Gipsies specialized in being musicians, brick builders, copper workers, etc. Recently, in some regions/countries, this social structure which usually keeps them quite apart from the normal laws in that particular place, means they can find a very succesful path in organised crime. Or, because of their somewhat remote mentality, tend to be unable to integrate/adapt and are often reduce to such horrible living conditions as the camps near big cities (Rome is probably the worst example in the EU).
Can the EU help them? Of course. Only a small percentage of them actually organise in criminal networks, the vast majority are just jaded by their very old and traditional social patterns. But with enough investment, with the creation of special agencies in all regions where there are large communities, things can change. The easies is ensuring social welfare for the families who send their children to school (just giving money has proven rather inefficient so far). Social workers need to establish links with all the communities, but respect their internal hierarchies.
I have read about a village in Moldova where the ‘bulibasa’ (leader of the ’satra’) was persuaded of the importance of education for all the children and now, 5 years later, Gipsy kids in the region are actually atending school daily instead of begging or looking for scrap iron to sell.
Of course, all of the above requires immense effort. And money. Anything can be achieved with money, even reducing the the criminal networks gipsy satras tend to be able to establish so easily.
Question is, do the European themselves are willing to do this?
Lately, Italians and Hungarians seem content just to blame them for all problems, Romanians busy only with making sure everyone understands Roma does not mean Romanian (personally I use Gipsy because all my life I have known and interacted with quite a number of people from this ethnicity and none probabily ever heard of the term Rroma) and the Gipsies themselves, locked in their ancient societies are too little aware of the way they are perceived from outside, and too jaded in general to go to the lenghts needed to gain what they rightfully deserve: true integration.
Still, slowly, things are moving. I hope.
Veverita (
), I think Roma issues get little attention everywhere, maybe that’s preceisely the reason they are in this situation and this communication problem exists. My feeling is that the best way to obtain the trust of Roma people is to provide in their communities the most basic needs for a decent life: schools, a doctor, a grocery store and so on. I don’t think a local budget anywhere in the world would be to burdened by such measures and the benefits could be quite rewarding.
You’re perfectly right that they might be obliged to give up on some of the elements in their way of living, but then again globalization is forcing all nations to do that sooner or later.
Bogdan, what you wrote is complementing very well what I wrote in my post.
Encouraging gipsies to practice their traditional crafts and also helping them to sell and earn money from them is another measure which can help them gain trust in the rest of the society and reduce the crime rate within their communities. I believe that once Roma are helped to come out of their shells and integrate in the societies they live in, then they will also cooperate more among themselves and might actually become a nation in the full sense of the word.
great analysis on roma, man!:)
thanks
Hey - can you go out and report on the Roma community with a camera and a recorder? It would be so great to have an interview/video recording of this post… it would be very moving, I have no doubt
Well written!
It was very interesting to read.
Very glad you’ve written this… The problem is also that rights of Roma within the old member states can also be dire, so this is not something that can in any way be attributed to EU enlargement - the issue of Roma rights pre-dates the fall of the Berlin Wall. I’ve written a little about Roma rights in Italy here.
@Ruth - That’s a good idea, I’ll try to make a video next week.
@Anita - Thanks!
@Jon - I agree, Roma have dealt with social problems probably ever since they appeared as a people. But if member states are incapable or unwilling to deal with the Roma, the EU has the authority and should step in meaningfully to come up with sustainable solutions or at least to prevent abuse against the Roma in member states. Since you wrote about the camps next to Rome, I’m sure you are familiar with the constant dose of abuse in the treatment received by the Italian government and the Italian police. The European Parliament was the only institution to raise its voice against the Italian government, while the Commission and the Council remained silent, despite the fact that the actions of the Italian authorities call for sanctions in a much greater measure than the formation of a potentially dangerous coalition in Austria after the 1999 elections.
Great article George! Well done! Balanced as always!
I had a “little” incident with one Roma kid who was trying to steal my bag in Bucharest 2 months ago, just before leaving for Dublin. Since then I developed a strong frustration against them.Yet, seeing these pictures and reading your article made me think with more indulgence to these people…
thanks!
i think most of us in romania had little incidents with roma kids, but, as young political scientists, we should look at them as interesting cases for study
I started writing a comment here, but it grew into an article:
http://elections.thinkaboutit.eu/2009/03/getting-real-how-can-the-problems-of-the-roma-be-solved/
Great discussion and I hope your trip to Roma neighborhoods was safe…Do you see any parallels between Roma problems in the EU and problems related to African Americans (or indigenous Americans) in the US? Do you think any solutions applied in the latter case could be useful with regard to Roma people? Or vica versa?:)
I’d say there are no parallels at all. The African Americans and native Americans have their lands, universities and schools. It is in their culture to value education and seek improvement. Most of the roma communities only wish to be left alone to live their lives as they did one or two hundred years ago. This would not normally be a problem if they didn’t disregard all rules of society and in many cases health codes, laws and property rights. It is a tradition in their communities to cell their daughters for brides and by cell, I mean auctions and everything.
There are many such examples of traditions that most people find hard to accept. Some of them are in direct violation of laws, but whenever we try to stop them, the EU and human rights organization go ballistic on the government, claiming we are trying to wipe them out. It is truly a sensitive issue.
Raimondas, I got back safely from the Roma neighborhoods
i agree with Boyan, I don’t think the situation is similar between the Roma and the African Americans. The desire for integration in the society is much more present within the African American community than within the Roma in Europe.
However, I refuse to adopt an approach based on the superiority of our socities compared to the culture and habits of the Roma. Boyan is right, there are many traditions which come in contradiction with, let’s say, Western values. We, adepts of “civilized” values, and thus inteligent civilized people, must find a way to communicate with the Roma and integrate them, because, yes, they live in our states and they have to respect the laws of these states. And of course breaking the law in the sense of stealing, agressively begging etc should not be accepted at all and Roma should not be allowed to do that or fogiven just because they are Roma.
They have a different culture, different traditions, but after all this is what diversity means.
Boyan, I do not agree with you on the absence of parallels between the Roma people and native Americans(I will leave African Americans aside for now). I do not think Indians had their schools until those were imposed on them by the American government. I also agree with George that we can not say our cultural values are advantageous in comparison to those of Roma, and I think that the just like native Americans, Roma people also want to seek improvement, maybe just in quite different ways…Both communities are most impoverished in their respective countries, they do not have perceive themselves as a single community, and I would even say that the attitudes of the general population to them are similar (I am quite sure that native Americans face discrimination in the US, although probably to a smaller degree than the Roma people).
Having said this, I think there is something to learn from the American experience. One of the ways to improve the economic situation of native Americans was giving them the privileged access to the casino business. Why not trying something similar in Europe (certainly, negative aspects of this policy should also be considered)? In return, the Roma communities should oblige themselves to restrain from some of the worst of their practices mentioned above. Has something like this been tried already?
P.S. George, I am happy your trip was successful - looking forward to your videos:)
[...] or how the list of the Bulgarian liberals for the European elections looks like …Raimondas on Getting sensitive (part I): Is the EU capable of dealing with the problems of the Roma?Boyan Yurukov on Getting real: How can the problems of the roma be solved?George Iulian JIGLAU on [...]
The “Roma” issue will not be solved in the next 100 years from now. And why “Roma” anyway? Are they italians or something? They are gipsies, zingaros, gitanos, bohemiens. Who decided and why to called them “Roma”?
zalmoxys,
you are probably right and that’s because no one has the will to do that… the states, the communities, the roma themselves, the EU… no one.
‘roma’ is a name they gave themselves. i don’t have a problem with calling them gipsies and many of them don’t either. but that’s their official name, so to say, that’s why i use it.
Congratulations!!!!I really enjoyed both of your posts about the Roma issue-great job!
thanks, tanja!
it’s incredible if you think about it… writing about extreme poverty brought me a cool slim notebook.
[...] UE şi după un loc doi onorant în februarie, pot să ridic braţele şi să strig VICTORIEEE! Postul meu legat de problemele romilor din UE a câştigat primul loc ca număr de voturi şi ca rating în martie, ceea ce mă bucură la fel de [...]
It’s always interesting to change the perspective slightly when reading, to see the author’s theses in a different light, as it were.
Consider the following paragraphs, taken from the blog above:
“Many have argued that it is the Roma people’s fault for its situation. That they are essentially uneducated, wish to be left alone and live their own way, that crime and rudeness is somehow written in their genetic code. Unfortunately, many Roma provide support for such claims daily.
Another internal problem is that the Roma, taken as a whole, rarely regard themselves as a nation or as a bonded community. They live and socialize in small communities, similar to tribes, and feel like outside intervention, even from other Roma, is a threat. This lack of internal unity has made it difficult for Roma advocates to articulate a common position and put forward solutions that would be accepted or function for Roma throughout Europe or at least within a state.”
Now substitute Roma for Belgian, and you have an accurate description of the member state that hosts the European institutions.
What does that tell us about the odds of succeeding in integrating Roma in Europe?
Basically that creating an artificial nation where there is no sense of unity will never succeed. That treating a group of people as a group when they themselves do not share that view will never work. That it is futile to grant rights to people who do not want them.
As long as this remains the case with Roma, all the efforts in the world won’t change their situation more than superficially.
Iago, I think the comparison is interesting, but well exagerated. Giving rights to Roma, in my view, means working to give them access to clean water, food, school (at least at a minimal level)… Giving them a state is something far far away. I doubt that the two main nations in Belgium could be compared, from the perspective of their needs and problems, with the Roma communities.
[...] След първите ми две статии, написах още три, с които исках да дам повече знания за ситуацията в България на читателите на този европейски блог. Както писах и преди, целта на това блогърско състезание е да предизвика интерес у младите към ЕС и евро-изборите. Както всички знаем тези теми не са въобще от най-популярните в България, а същото важи и за цяла Европа. Затова за да стимулират блогърите да пишат за това, Европейският Журналистически Център (EJC) организираха състезание с множество награди за стил на писане, посещения, гласуване на читателите и най-голям ефект. Като пример - когато прочетете някоя статия в блогът Th!nk About It, под нея ще намерите 5 звездички и с тях ще може да я оцените. В края на всеки месец до изборите се избира статията с най-голям среден брой гласове и авторът получава награда лаптоп. За март победителя беше George Jiglau от Румъния със статията си за Европа и циганите. [...]
George, congratulations for your success, but even more for your post. I read the comments, and I have some ideas to share.
Roma do not declare themselves as Roma, because it is not desireable to be Roma, not because they do not consider themselves as gipsies. Roma people are really so different amongst themselves too, that a Romanian gipsy is not even speaking the same language as the Hungarian gipsy, or the Serbian gipsy. So thinking of them as wanting to have their own state is probably an idea that lacks any realism.
The comparison with native Americans is very appropriate, since Roma also tend to have a lifestyle that is considered inferior by western culture. Indians were also considered inferiors, they were called savages by European colonists. Think of the great movies and novels about native Americans, think of how much we value their culture, and that the world is poorer because many Indian nations perished/were exterminated during colonization. The American choice for Indians finally was to let them have their own territories within the state, where they can organize themselves as they like. Seems to me that it is working.
It is very correct to consider Roma only as different rather than inferior. When speaking about integration of gipsies, we are not allowed to forget a very important issue: if we want them to be integrated by making them leave all their culture, their habits, their language behind, we could hardly be successful. And we would also lose an important value: the gipsy culture. Integration is not the same as assimilation. What we owe them is to let them have a choice. If they like, they might live in small groups, and they might choose if they prefer to live in a house or in tents, or wagons. They must not be forced to move to houses, to dress like „civilized” people, they must not be forced to renounce to their language on order to get education. This is the obligation of the society: through mutual agreement leting gipsies stay where they wish to be, how they wish to be, and trying to make their life better under these circumstances. At first probably no doctor would move his cabinet to a gipsy community, but there might be a Roma doctor to do that. There are special places for Roma people at the University in Cluj, there are Roma professionals, Roma teachers, who might wish to work at a Roma school, with Roma children.
As far as it considers Romania, we have another problem: denial. George, maybe you remember that some years ago Hungarians made a movie here in Romania, about gipsies. The movie called Dallas illustrated exactly the life of gipsy communities like the one you mentioned nearby our hometown. What did the authorities do when they found out? They declared that the whole movie is nothing but fiction, and there are no people living this way in Romania. And as far as one do not admit there is a problem, how do we want to get a solution?
The EU might give an opinion, but cannot and wishes not to resolve the Roma problem or any other matter of ethnic minority in Europe. The situation must be handled by each state, so far the EU can only be a watchdog of how they handle it.
Edit, thank you for your excellent points. I agree with most of them, especially since we both know, as journalists in Cluj, the major problems faced by the roma communities here or elsewhere in Romania.
However, I still believe that an integrated approach for all the roma in Europe is possible and needed, because even if they do not speak the same langauges, they are united by the fact that they share the same structural disadvantages almost everywhere they are. I agree with you that this issues should be handled by every state, but the premise that I left from in my argument was precisly that member states are unable or unvilling to solve them. One of the reasons is exactly the denial you correctly brought up.
When I’m speaking of an integrated strategy of the EU towards the roma, I’m thinking of at least minimal measures to draw offifical attention on roma issues, to acknowledge their problems, at least to do what NGO’s are doing for years. If the EU, as a political decision making body, would eliminate denial from its approach, through public straightforward statements from its leaders, without leaving the issue in the hands of minor Brussels bureaucrats, I think it would be a major step in finding an answer to the disgraceful situation in which the roma are now; in giving them the right to choose, as you say, because they are often forced to leave a miserable life. And I’m not thinking of the few wealthy gipsies, but of the large majority of gipsies leaving in shacks, without any access to clean water. As “independent” as they may be, I don’t think any gipsy would refuse a source of clean water.
I agree that the EU should have some strategy, I only wanted to point out that considering the present situation I do not think it is possible. The member states could not even agree if the EU should at all have competencies regarding ethnic minority problems, if there should be a common policy regarding minority rights, minority issues - how could they agree in a specific problem like the Roma?
Even so, it would be possible to have a minimal official action drawing attention on the problem - I only see that there is no official Brussels-wish for anything like this. That is why it is so good to have communication on the issue and blog-posts like yours. If we at least speak about these problems, sooner or later they might be considered as real by high officials, too.
@ Edit Kerekes: I agree to some extend with the comparison between Romas and native Americans but we should not forget that even though the Romas have lived for centures in Europe they are still “imigrants” here, they have never lived on the same territories for longer periods of time and most of them have never owned land ( I am not sure if that applies for every contry in Europe but it is true for Bulgaria ). So a solution to just give them land ( whose land ? ) where they can have their own rules is not a solution in my opinion.
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