Deporting Gypsies today, and what next?
by Sohail Nazir – LFIT expert on immigration issues
‘That is what happens when Gypsies steal babies’[1]
Right-wing governments in Rome and Paris went too far by shifting the blame on the Roma ethnic community for socio-economic ills and starting off their deportation. In Europe, where monstrous treatment of Jews, communists, social democrats, homosexuals and Roma at the hand of the Nazi dictatorship is less than 70 years ago, any such event at present must be met with sharp criticism. [i]
It is often commonplace that the colour red does not solely carry the message of love and romance, but also rather unwelcoming messages of pessimism, fury and even threat. And as such, dressed in a fervid red jacket, Brussels’ grand lady from Luxembourg, Viviane Reding, brought a surprisingly ardent flavor into the normally dry and boring EU Commission’s briefings. The EU Justice Commissioner and Vice President is known for her immaculate style, always find compromises in disputes. But this time her patience was wearing thin.
Her utter condemnation of French president Sarkozy’s Gypsy (Roma) deportation programme resulted in disbelief in the political establishment. For too long the EU commission kept quite over this sore issue, not realizing how dangerous this game is. It is dangerous in regards to violability of human rights and dignity, freedom of movement and equal treatment. But this time around, Viviane Reding banged the briefing by fiercely opposing the anti-Roma policy, and saying, “I make it very clear (…) to everybody. My patience is wearing thin. Enough is enough. No member state can expect special treatment when fundamental values and European laws are at stake”.[2]
What made her join the international chorus of condemnation against Sarkozy? And why hasn’t she spoken up against the Italian right-wing government which exorcized such policies for years? Why are many public figures silent over such a critical issue?
An alien and maligned minority of social undesirables
About 10 million Europeans are loosely labeled as Roma and Gypsies. Oftentimes they belong to the lower segments of society, to the “underclass” to be precise. They are wretchedly poor and their bad housing conditions in the outskirts of main European urban centres such as in Napoli are ever so often social reality. Such deprivation reminds one of a Third World country. Josephine Verspaget, a Rapporteur for the Council of Europe, hit the point by writing, “The position of many groups of Gypsies can be compared to the situation in the third world: little education, bad housing, bad hygienic situation, high birth rate, high infant mortality, no knowledge or means to improve the situation, low life expectancy(…). If nothing is done, the situation for most Gypsies will only worsen in the next generation”.[3]
Interestingly enough, the Rapporteur composed her report in 1993. This report provides striking evidence for the little tangible differences in their situation today. Their poor condition in world’s richest countries still remains by far and large invisible in international media and politics. Instead, preconceptions and hostile attitudes towards the Roma are ripe in European liberal-democracies which pride themselves with inviolable human rights, yet fail to address the needs of certain minorities, as the Roma.
Straws in the wind
From time immemorial the Roma have faced discrimination, persecution and violence culminating in the brutal Nazi holocaust achieving support by Mussolini’s fascist regime.
Showing an Indian student the picture of the Roma girl depicted above leads her to say that the girl would seemingly appear Indian. “The girl looks as somebody from the slums of Mumbai”. Indeed there is some truth in her reflections. There is an agreement by historians that the Roma originate from northern India and made their way to Europe between 3rd and 7th centuries AD.
Carrying Hindu gods and practicing Hindu customs made it difficult for them to assimilate in the new Byzantine environment. They were considered as heathens soon assimilated to a group of untouchables, called Astingiani. The English word “Gypsy” stems from Astingiani. But the intolerance towards this distinctive group gradually resulted into new waves of persecution, thus forcing them to leave behind today’s Turkey around the 14th century for a new home in the Balkans and Serbia, Bulgaria and Greece.
Their expectations to live freely were not met in their new home. They were not only constrained to work on land but, as in Wallachia, a Romanian principality, they lost their freedom of movement and became property of the principality as slaves. This led to a further flight about a century after. They went to seek refuge in Ukraine and Russia. Regarded as pilgrims there, they were guaranteed shelter.
Even so around the year 1500, a period of fierce repression finalized this light-hearted welcoming attitude. They were hunted down, killed and murdered leading some historians to claim this as to have been the first Roma genocide. There were straws in the wind against them everywhere: in Russia, France, England and Turkey ill-treatment was wide-spread almost all over Europe. In England they faced execution; branding and the shaving of heads were practiced in France; and severing of the left ear of Roma women in Moravia.
Civilizing Roma
The age of enlightenment could hardly be dubbed as the age of reason in respect to the Roma. In fact, the more we appreciate Enlightenment as an age of humanity the more we get troubled by the harsh force of assimilation orchestrated on Roma. The prohibition for Gypsies to get into wedlock among themselves, 24 strokes of cane for those who spoke in their language are some notable examples. But the real abuse was the forceful removal of children. Like the Aborigines in Australia, so the Roma were subject to this heinous practice as much as the latter forced sterilisation in former Czechoslovakia, for example. The vision was clear: to wipe Gypsies off the map. The Roma moved again only to find themselves in the gas vans of Chelmno, where they were abused and exploited in gruesome experiments in the extermination camps. Approximately half a million have been murdered at the hands of the Nazis.
A small minority – posing a threat to the collective well-being?
The prejudice of being involved in petty crimes, their distinctive culture and way of life brought them on the margin of virtually any society they have lived in from generation to generation. A former Romanian president even once denied their existence in his country and others have met the Roma with absolute indifference. Some people echo bitterness and disbelief in the current deportation procedures of right-wing governments – but do we really care?
Let’s have a flashback to July 2009. Do you know the story of the 13-year-old Cristina and the 11-year-old Violetta Djeordsevic from Italy, the two Roman girls whose sudden death marked out the sheer indifference people have found for Roma? On that sunny day both girls left their camp to a well-visited, pleasant beach not far from Napoli. Like many Roma, they were hawkers, trying to sell some inexpensive trinkets to affluent holiday makers. As children they wanted to play in the sea: but died through drowning. The waves brought their bodies to the busy, sandy coast. Clearly realizing of what has happened holiday makers and Italian day-trippers looked at the dead bodies and did not bother. The very next minute after noticing what has taken place they continued to relaxing on the beach, throwing a Frisbee to each other and simply having a sun bath as if nothing has occurred.
Racism does not spare children
One does not need to go into further detail to realise that racism does not spare children. It clearly lays out that there are deep-seated resentments in a Europe which is so proud to live up to the high dreams of the French Revolution of equality, liberty and brotherhood. But what kind of equality and liberty are we talking about when we fail to realize that the memory of the fascist past is fading away just like in Italy? When people having roots in Bel paese (such roots can be traced back to the 15th century in Roma’s case) are treated conspicuously different? What have the society and politics in Rome, Paris and Brussels done to integrate them? Nothing.
Instead Berlusconi and Sarkozy, Maroni and Bossi misuse public sentiments for their own political purposes. It goes at the expense of a poverty-stricken minority on the margins of society. When elected officials attack Roma, it automatically motivates right-wing extremists to use violence against them. Vulnerable groups often lack voice in public. When then established politicians like the Italian interior minister Maroni viciously misuse their vulnerability it gets to a point when one needs to call the fundamental values of human rights to order. Are the most elementary rights truly guaranteed to everyone? To remind you: when vigilant mobs of extremists’ burned down a Roma camp Maroni remarked that ‘this is what happens when Gypsies steal babies’[4]. An unacceptable, utterly abominable view.
People who agree with Kant’s axiom that violence is always immoral must concur that things can’t continue like this. The International Committee against the Elimination of All Forms of Racial Discrimination adopted a specific recommendation on discrimination against the Roma in 2000. But their policy proposal is inadequately responded by the Italian and French governments. The centre-left opposition needs yet to provide policy proposals in order to deal with the entrenched social, political and economic exclusion.
When Europe, France and Italy impinges on their pride in highly valuing human rights and the dignity of individuals in a democratic system (…), then people like Anna Meijknecht don’t have a reason to describe the Roma as people without future.[5]
All in all, it was a centre-right politician from Luxembourg who made people think about the Roma’s bad conditions and their marginalisation. At the end I share a quote by Vladimir Luxuria, a former Italian parliamentary deputy who said in regards to xenophobic groups of vigilantes: “The thugs (…) don’t just feel legitimised by Alemanno (right-wing mayor of Rome of the National Alliance), they feel sponsored by him.”[6]
What we need, therefore, are courageous people who stand up for the course and plight of the weak and vulnerable in our European societies. We need politicians from the centre-left who take the fear away and explain why a pluralistic society can and must succeed. Who are able to establish a public morale and call into question what has happened in the past when a government has started feeding people with their fears and misusing such sentiments in attacking a minority, so that they could distract the public from their own failures in governance. This morale begins by supporting Reding in her criticism to halt the deportation and to demand a code of conduct for guaranteeing equal rights and opportunities for everyone.
[1] Italian Interior Minister Roberto Maroni of the anti-immigrant Northern League. http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/opinion/16iht-edgoldston.html
[3] Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Report on Gypsies in Europe. 11th January 1993. Doc. 6733 at para. 29.
[4] Italian Interior Minister Maroni
[5] Meijknecht, Minority Protection. Standards and Reality (2004) TMC Asser Press at 67.)
[6] http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4021089.ece
[i] http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/17/familyandrelationships.roma
Bibliographic notes:
BBC News. 08/07/2009. “On the road: Centuries of Roma history”. http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/8136812.stm accessed on 12/10/2010.
Goldston, J.A. 15/09/2010. In NYTimes.com. “Roma and the E.U.“ http://www.nytimes.com/2010/09/16/opinion/16iht-edgoldston.html accessed on 24/10/2010.
The Guardian. 17/08/2010. “Who do the Italians hate us?” http://www.guardian.co.uk/lifeandstyle/2008/aug/17/familyandrelationships.roma accessed on 24/10/2010.
Meijknecht. 2004. Minority Protection. Standards and Reality.TMC Asser Press at 67.
Hawes, D. and Perez, B. 1995. The Gypsy and the State.-The Ethnic Cleansing of the British Society. Oxford: Alden Press.
Mercier, G. 14/09/2010. “EU Commissioner Compares Expulsions Of Roma To Vichy’s Deportation Of Jews”. http://newsjunkiepost.com/2010/09/14/eu-commissioner-compares-expulsions-of-roma-to-vichys-deportation-of-jews/ accessed on 02/11/2010.
O’Nions, H. 2007. Minority Rights Protection in International Law. The Roma of Europe. Hampshire: Ashgate.
Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe Report on Gypsies in Europe. 11th January 1993. Doc. 6733 at para. 29.
The Times. 29/05/2010. “The politics of fear return to Italy”. http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/article4021089.ece accessed on 22/10/2010.
