The Semantics of Racism
European Roma Information Office - 30.05.2004 17:55
Why it is so hard to denounce racism when its victims are Roma.
The semantics of racism
Angela Kocze, Karin Waringo, Valeriu Nicolae, European Roma Information Office
“[W]e will have to start to … force Romani children to stay in boarding schools … where they will be subjected to the system of values which is in force in our society.” This was the gist of the proposal made by Eric van der Linden, the Head of the EU Delegation to Slovakia, on how best to resolve the so-called “Roma problem”. Despite the fact that, Eric Mr. van der Linden added was careful enough to insert the caveat that his ideas were to be “put into quotation marks”, his message was clear: Romani children should be subjected to formal education, which stresses the dominant values in Western society. According to the EU ambassador, the main objective of this proposal is to to ensure that Romani children conform to societal norms and mores when they are adults, so that they may better contribute to society’sits economic growth.
These statements were part of a TV documentary on Roma in Slovakia, which was broadcasted by Dutch television on 1 May, the Dutch television broadcasted on 1 May, the very day that Western Europeans nervously awaited the arrival of their Eastern European “brothers and sisters” into their “common European home”. It was a mere coincidence that our organisation, the European Roma Information Office (ERIO), became aware of the Mr. van der Linden’s proposals, and we immediately wrote the President of the EU, in yet another probably vain attempt to draw the Commission’s attention to the ongoing, and escalating, discrimination and racism against Roma in the now enlarged European Union. We demanded Mr Prodi to ask for Mr. van der Linden’s resignation as Ambassador to Slovakia.
The follow-up of the events surprised us. Maybe, if you are engaged in this kind of work, raising awareness of the situation of the European Roma, you stop expecting. You get accustomed to the issues you are raising including cases of severe ignorance and disrespect, blatant racism and even Human Rights violations, encountering merely unsympathetic reactions from many of your interlocutors. Indeed, you are talking about Europe’s most despised and most discriminated ethnic minority. So don’t expect anything such as compassion or even a helping hand.
Given this, the racist content of Mr. van der Linden’s statements [were] so obvious to us, in contradiction with anything the EU Commission has claimed to represent, that we did expect the Commission to respond. The Commission’s answer was brought to us by the press. After initially refusing to comment on the ambassador’s statements on the basis of our transcript, the Commission’s spokesman, under the heavy fire of the Brussels-based EU-correspondents, unleashed during the Commission’s press briefing the next day, but on his personal title, that these statements which he certified as accurately transcribed were indeed regrettable. The word was actually put into his mouth by an outraged and uncomprehending journalist.
In his own words the Commission’s spokesman qualified the statements as “an unfortunate choice of words in an interview which was otherwise quite good and talked about important things”. He also said, that the Commission’s ambassador had been requested not to give interviews “on this topic” any longer. And he said, that Mr van der Linden “thinks that he regrets” his statement. But there was no word that the ambassador would face disciplinary measures, not even a word of apology, neither from the Commission, nor from its ambassador.
Instead the EU Commission’s spokesman gave the ambassador indirect backing and gave Roma another slap in the face of the Roma, when he insisted, that the Commission does consider education as important to address the situation of the Roma. Hey, you, bunch of uncivilised people, need to be educated! Mr. Van der Linden was yet more outspoken. Need to learn our values, need to fit into our society, need to contribute to our wealth.
Still our argument was taken up by the media. Maybe Roma have a different view on how their problems can be resolved, was perhaps the assumption made by Slovak media, who went to gain the comments of representatives of some Slovak Romani organisations. And these volunteered to offer their support to the distressed ambassador. See, there are not all Romani organisations that disagree with Mr. van der Linden’s statements. Does this mean that, if the Roma themselves cannot agree, whether Mr. Van der Linden’s statements are acceptable or not, we do need to use our own judgement on answering this question?
Let’s be clear: We were very pleased about the numerous supportive reactions we received and we were actually much touched, when we noticed that quite a few journalists shared our emotions and our anger. This is still exceptional for us. Mr. van der Linden will probably have to face legal proceedings for his undue talk and we are sure that this will serve him and other like-minded people as a warning to curb their words. But it is hard for us to understand that an issue which has to do with racism unfolded a discussion about education and semantics.
"But don’t you think that the boarding schools would be a good idea? Aren’t you preventing the Romani children from getting the same education you received?" were some of the questions posed to us. Now let’s take this: Why would it be necessary to place Romani children into boarding schools? Because it is well-known that the Roma lack education which prevents them from getting a job later and fully participating into the life of our society. Mmm, sure? Are any of those who proposed this interpretation of Mr. vVan der Linden’s intention really informed about the school situation of Romani children? How do you explain that Romani children are segregated within the school system, placed either in special classes or into special schools for mentally disabled children, where they receive substandard education? Or do you assume that Romani parents are just unable to take care of their kids?
As a matter of fact, Mr. vVan der Linden did not propose to provide these children with better care but to subject them “in permanence” to the system of values of the dominant society. There is another word for subjecting somebody in permanence to a system of values which is supposedly alien to this person: Brainwashing. It is a strategy which is used by dictatorial regimes to break political opponents, by religious communities to make their adherents become subservient subjects, and has been used as a strategy of forced assimilation of minorities. Roma have repeatedly become victims of such attempts. They are based on the belief that the negative characteristics ascribed to them are not hereditary but rooted in their environment. So, if you want to turn Roma into “normal” people, you need to take them out of this environment and raise them according to other beliefs. This is arguably still the more favourable interpretation of where the so-called “Roma problem” stems from. The other misconception seeing the Roma as genetically determined to nomadism, thievery, treachery etc. has again and again led to attempts to exterminate their people
There is an element of concern in all of this. The distressing element is that people who are otherwise quite sensitive to issues such as Human Rights violations and racism are astonishingly blind when it comes to the same things being committed against Roma. If it is about Roma, there is always a “but”. But what? Asked straightforwardly there are only a few who will be outspoken but the explanation is that there is something wrong with the Roma. You will hear many examples of Roma who did steal, did beat their wives, did send their children to begging, etc.. Of course, there are these Roma and maybe they have a higher negative record in some of these categories than other people do. But if you live in a shanty-town at the outskirts of a big city you are much more likely to steal bread or a wallet than to commit tax evasion or to get involved in to financial embezzlements. And it has also been shown that domestic violence against women is well developed among all social strata of the society.
But it is not just this. While society perceives and treats a criminal offence committed by a person of the majority as an individual act, it considers it as a pattern when this person belongs to a minority. Regarding the Roma, even people who never ever had any contact with them, do not hesitate to admit anything negative which they hear about them.
Anti-Gypsyism is a long-standing feature of the European culture, which the European society is still reluctant to acknowledge. During the late middle-ages veritable “Gypsy” hunts were organised in the Netherlands, Germany and Denmark, in which Roma were tracked down in the same way as wild animals. In Wallachia and Moldova, Roma were kept in slavery for almost five centuries. During National-Socialism, almost half of Europe’s Roma population was exterminated in the name of the purity of blood and culture. Anti-Gypsyism together with anti-Semitism has provided the European societies an element of cohesion at times when this society has experienced major transformations and ensuing fears.
Not even a month ago, French Roma were chased from a small town in Eastern Germany. At the time of writing we discovered news that neighbours threw stones at a Roma settlement in Coventry. An older friend told us, the locals “welcomed” Roma by throwing stones at them in her village, somewhere in the heart of Europe in the 1950s. Jan Yoors, a Gadjo, living with Roma, described how his “kumpania” was chased from one place to another in Western Europe onat the eve of the Second World War.
If the majority society tend towards this kind of behaviours, there is obviously something wrong with it. But imagine the reactions, if Roma would now dare to propose to place temporarily gadjikane (non-Romani) children into Roma families. This would certainly be considered as a major offence or an act of madness and induce renewed violence against Roma.
If we want to talk about values, which we want to see respected, we need to talk about these “values” too. If we want to talk about education, we need to talk about what it represents, including its ideological and ethno-nationalist content. And we need to talk about the education of the majority towards tolerance, openness and respect. It’s always possible to discuss about semantics, but then again we should not be selective in our perception. If we do so we are only looking for excuses for racism and contributing to its spreading.
 E-Mail: office@erionet.org  Website: http://www.erionet.org
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