Many Europeans view Roma as swindlers, pickpockets, social welfare system abusers, and people living parasitical lives on the shoulders of society. Human rights advocates and Roma organizations say the negative attitude toward Roma is mainly based in racism.
According to activist Emil Cohen, the Roma are descendants of large numbers of immigrants who came to Europe from India about 1,000 years ago. They were mostly members of lower castes, and the Roma were never able to shake the negative stereotype that developed after they entered Europe. Cohen is a member of a human rights watchdog group, the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee, and author of the electronic bulletin Human Rights in Focus.
Another theory states that the discrimination arises from the acute differences between the lifestyle of many Roma and the larger European population.
“The repulsion against those who are different, especially if they are ‘inferior,’ is a social-psychological characteristic. It is normal to think that those who are the poorest, dirtiest, and lowest, invoke even stronger hatred,” explains Cohen.
Cohen further elaborates on how racism works: while hating, people affirm their own status. Often people use hate to suppress memories of their own past and feelings of shame. In addition, by feeling hatred toward others perceived as inferior, people glorify themselves.
With the passage of time, many Roma who did not adapt to mainstream society were pushed to its fringe. Cohen said that society played a strong role in this.
“When you don’t allow a group of people to flow into the regular society, thus blunting differences, and when you erect all kinds of obstacles, the group closes itself off. In order to defend itself, it conserves its traditions, culture, and way of living.”
Indeed, Roma who are not integrated in society live in conditions the same as 150 years ago: impoverished, they inhabit makeshift camps, and receive little education.
Valeriu Nicolae, founder of the Bucharest-based Policy Center for Roma and Minorities, strives to promote the concept of responsible citizenship. He believes that the reason so many Roma are outside the mainstream is that they do not behave as citizens of their own countries. Rather, they act the way they are perceived. They are perceived as aliens, so they fulfill that role. However, he is confident a lot can be done to change this.
“First, you have get those Roma who are successful to assume their responsibilities to say they are Roma,“ Nicolae said in a telephone interview from Romania. ”This will help the society in general. In the short term, it will be difficult for them, because people do not like Roma, but in the long term, it will be beneficial for society. The non-Roma will realize there are a lot of Roma who are just like them, and Roma children living in the ghettos will have good role models to follow.”
“I myself am very well integrated in society, as well as many other Roma. Unfortunately, we are not visible because we do not correspond to the stereotypes. People identify Roma with negative stereotypes in their minds because they are educated to have those stereotypes. The statement that Roma are not integrated is false, it’s just that those who are integrated are not perceived as Roma.”
Education is the Key
According to Nicolae, in order for full social inclusion of Roma to be achieved, both mainstream society and the Roma minority need to pay a price and assume responsibility. Progress must be a two-side process. Thus, his organization has a staff of half Roma and half non-Roma, and they work together daily.
The Bulgarian Helsinki Committee member reveals details of a program that has helped nearly 3,000 Roma children to attend mainstream schools and communicate with non-Roma classmates. He said that for the last 10 years this model has been implemented in Bulgaria, but only by nongovernmental organizations. The program was modeled after a similar one that was used in the United States during the 1950s to help overcome the segregation of African-Americans in certain states.
“This is the most reliable and inexpensive way of exiting the current situation of covert intolerance and hatred,” said Cohen.
According to Valeriu Nicolae, Europe as a whole is very racist and was left far behind the United States and Canada in terms of anti-racism education.
“The United States and Canada are very keen on education against racism. They realized that you need to continuously educate your people in order to avoid clashes and violence based on racism. While in Europe. nobody invests in this type of education. Education in Europe promotes inept nationalism, like ‘our country should be a lot bigger than it is now.’”
Nicolae emphasizes that people need to realize that within the frames of the European Union they are first European citizens, regardless of their ethnicity.
“A probable solution to the Roma problem might be that Europeans in general start to pay a lot more attention on what is the meaning of being a European: what are our responsibilities and rights as Europeans? The best thing that could happen is the creation of a European identity, which trancends national, radical, patriotic, and self-delusional concepts. We need to raise awareness that we are Europeans, but ‘we’ mean all of us, regardless of our ethnicity.”
Conflicts With Governments
Reports of crimes by Roma are common in Central and Eastern Europe, where Roma live in large numbers, but since January 2007, when Romania and Bulgaria joined the European Union (EU), reports have become common in other European countries. Since 2004, citizens of EU countries have been free to travel across any EU country border.
In March of this year, the government of Milan, Italy, announced a state of emergency and conducted police raids on rings of pickpockets comprised of Roma children, ABC in Australia reported. The Italian authorities determined that some children made between $15,000 and $20,000 per month for their ringleaders.
Last month, a block of apartments inhabited by approximately 900 Roma in the Bulgarian town of Yambol was dismantled after authorities discovered that many basic construction components were missing, and the iron railings on the stairs had disappeared. Some of the residents were given municipal apartments, and others continued to stay illegally in the ruins of the apartment complex. It is a common practice in Bulgaria that Gypsies sell iron parts for money and burn the wooden insulation on the windows for heating.
Prejudice on the Rise
Amnesty International follows the plight of the Roma people and has proposed a way out of the current crisis.
She said that Europe is still a continent in which mainstream politicians can quickly gain popularity by promising to come down hard on “Gypsy crime”, or rid a town of ”Gypsy beggars.” In some countries, even extreme forms of anti-Roma sentiment can be expressed without attracting serious condemnation, such as the chanting of “We hate Gypsies” or unfurling a banner stating ”Death to Gypsies,” which occurred at a football match in Romania in March 2006.
Europe is a continent in which far-right political parties, often with openly anti-Roma platforms are once again on the rise, as the results of the 2009 European parliamentary elections revealed.
“Above all, it requires the voices of Roma to be heard and heeded”, the Cernusakova concluded.
The U.S. Department of State also expressed concern on the plight of Roma minority in Europe pledging its support to tackle the problem.
“The United States continually works to improve the situation of Roma through our bilateral relationships and through our involvement in organizations such as the OSCE and the United Nations,” stated Nicole Thompson of the Office of Press Relations in Washington, D.C.
During the U.S. civil rights movement of the 1950s and 1960s, many people with racist views said that African-Americans should be segregated because of the high incidence of social problems within the African-American community. Martin Luther King Jr. replied that the results of the discriminatory practice of segregation were being used to justify its existence.
