Left To The Wolves

Preparing for Porajmos
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

As attacks on Roma continue to escalate in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Romania the rest of Europe seems complacent as they ramp up attempts to deport their Romani populations. In France it has become evident that the police are more like the SS than civil servants... no longer enlisted to protect and serve but rather harass and deport. In England the Roma live in constant fear that the government's bipolar disorder might switch for the worse. Yet now we watch the rest of the world begins to turn its back on the Roma once again.

Canada and the United States have both recently begun to take steps to deny entry and to deport Roma within their borders. Canada claims that the Roma who came to Canada to seek refuge from Hungarian pogroms no longer deserve to stay within Canada as refugees. In doing this the Canadians must first ignore the rise of violence against Roma communities throughout Eastern Europe, let alone within Hungary itself. Secondly the Canadian government will have to ignore the fact that the Hungarian government may not be willing to allow the Roma back into Hungary.

We are watching as the most abused and neglected people within Europe are once again facing ethnic cleansing. Pogroms have already begun to take shape in Hungary and the Czech Republic. These violent flash mobs are part of daily life for Roma within Romania, Bulgaria, and other Balkan states. Now we have the other hallmark of ethnic cleansing... deportations.

France has been the leader in this deplorable act of fascism. In France today the police wear jackboots and even strap on red armbands. The "democracy" of France no longer recognizes the civil liberties they claim to uphold as they now pick who has the right to live free and who must leave or die.

The bulldozing of camps, burning of caravans, and beatings of Roma citizens can not be overlooked. The bastions of freedom can not be allowed to operate in a manner that mirrors the crimes of their Nazi past. And with that I know I may be pushing the envelope with some...

But was it not the brown shirts in Washington who lobbied for our government to set on the sidelines while Hitler put Roma in the first concentration camps? Was it not the Vichy regime who helped the SS gather up France's Roma for the first Porajmos? And was it not Germany that gave us the horrors of the Holocaust in the first place?

All these governments have had their failures when it comes to the Roma. Now they are slipping into the darkness of their past failures once again. Over the past decade alone we have become apathetic when dealing with the right wing and their anti-Romani demands. We have watched as groups like Jobbik in Hungary have grown out of control. We have remained silent while French president after president has wrongfully deported French citizens....

Again, for those of you who disagree with me.... France's dragnet approach at rounding up Romani who have illegally immigrated to France has been used to deport Roma who have lived and were born in France. It was an inevitable consequence of actions that originated in the radical right wing of France's government. And it continues even as a left wing socialist rules as president.

None the less the West is setting up all the right conditions for another genocide of the Romani people. When we allow people to be loaded up on planes (or cattle cars) and be sent away we condone the first part of ethnic cleansing. When we allow politicians or political parties (Jobbik for example) to publicly push for violence in any manner against a group of people we condone the final solution.

This post isn't meant to blindly accuse any one government. It is meant to blame all the Western world of once again failing to uphold our pledge of "NEVER AGAIN". It is time to wake up. It is time to uphold the rights of all mankind; regardless of their ethnicity, religion, or livelihoods. It is time to start working to set right all the areas of civil rights in which our parents generation and their parents generation failed.