Villagers With Pitchforks

Putting the Flame to Roma Homes
(Part of The Darkness Visible series)

Roma Camp Set Ablaze in Italy December 2011

It turns out you can be just about anything in Europe and the Europeans will accept you for the most part. You can be a communist who sets up squats in Denmark where you can push drugs of all sorts. You can be a right wing hack and join the Jobbik party in Hungary. The one thing you can't be in Europe if you want to live in peace... Romani. 

On September 28Th, 2012 in Marseille France a group of 28 vigilantes set a Roma camp on fire. They claim they did the right thing since they did avoid the loss of life and for the most part kept the reports of violence stifled. To back up their claims they have reported that they had contacted the government with their concerns about the Roma and nothing had been done to evict the "undesirables".

For the first time in Alder's Ledge's history it seems that France's government actually backed away from the opportunity to deport a group of Romani. It however is less admirable that the French government did so knowing that the locals in Marseille were planning to take action against the Roma. And that appears to be the reason that the French police were slow to respond to the complaints and never showed up to stop the arsonist when the camp went ablaze.

This sort of attack is becoming more and more common as the governments of Western Europe experience the effects of global recession and the side effects of Europe's union... in which borders become hard to identify. When a government like France's decides to step back from its attacks on Romani (both those who have lived in France all their lives and those coming from Eastern Europe) the locals take action to continue the violence the government started. To add to this the Roma in Eastern Europe continue to flood Western Europe due to countries like Bulgaria and the Romania joining the European Union. 

This recent wave of Romani from Eastern Europe are coming to the West due to the fact that countries in the Eastern half of Europe do not grant them citizenship or even civil liberties. Romania, for example, bans all Roma from voting or from moving from one city to the next without permission. The Balkan states refuse to allow Roma any form of participation in their government or the communities day to day life. And in countries like Hungary, long part of the EU, Roma rarely are defended in court when they are the victims of crimes (both violent and sexual). 

It only makes sense for a person subjected to these sorts of prejudice and discrimination that they would want to venture to the Western half of Europe. Places like France, Germany, and Italy all look like the land of milk and honey compared to Serbia or Romania. And it doesn't take a genius to figure out that if you are banned from employment in Romania that you would gladly illegally immigrate to France. 

With this said it should be easy for anyone to see that the Roma of Eastern Europe will always be more than willing to put up with people like these in Marseille, France. And it will take a lot more than a giant brick wall, like the one the residents of Beja Portugal erected to keep the Roma out of sight, to keep the flood of Romani from coming west. This migration has been spurred by the image of tolerance the West has portrayed to the world for decades. It is a migration of people who have been oppressed and tormented in Russia, Romania, the Ukraine, and the Balkans. They just want to live, and live free. 

So it leaves us to ask, why in the land of opportunity, tolerance, and peace can you not be a Roma? Why is it that the Europeans of today are so eager to forget the lessons of the Porajamos and resort back to the intolerance their ancestors fought to destroy? 

Have we learned nothing in the past 70 years?

Racial Tensions Still Rising

Romani Still Targeted By "Ethnic Majority"
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As local police struggle to push back the hordes of racially charged "ethnic Bulgarians" and "White Czechs" the special police units are pulling out. The petrol bombs may have stopped flying for the time being but the racist crowds have not stopped massing. And it is this fact that has many Roma in Northern Bohemia worried.
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In the Czech Republic local "ethnically Czech" peoples have resorted to finding new ways to drive the Roma out of Bohemia. Some have pooled their money together to purchase the homes of Roma without the consent of the Roma themselves. Others have begun trying to push legislation to make public bans on Roma living in their select villages. All in all, the sounds echoing out of Bohemia are starting to sound more and more like the Nazi era.
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In Bulgaria the white population has still refused to stop their assault on Roma. Burning and torching of Roma homes continues as police fight to keep the assailants at bay. When out in public the Bulgarian Roma now have to fear random style attacks by neo-Nazi inspired youth. These same attacks have been used for years in Russia to target Islamic immigrants from former USSR held territories. It is a tactic used by the Russian neo-Nazi movement.
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The only good news coming out of the region is that some action is being taken to combat the rise of ethnic violence. In the Czech Republic today 14 Czechs face charges for assaulting Roma for racial reasons. This sort of action is finally starting to become the normal reaction in the Czech Republic instead of the old reaction of doing nothing.
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In Bulgaria however the news is still sour at best. Journalist who show any sympathy for the Roma or even fairness in their reporting are called "Jews". The use of the old scapegoat as an insult shows just how far Bulgaria has fallen. They are now bathing in the Nazi doctrine. And there isn't any sign of hope for their revival any time soon.
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Source Documents, please note not all documents used are shown below.
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The Prauge Post
http://www.praguepost.com/news/10461-police-pull-back-in-north-bohemia.html
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Romea.cz
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_2908
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_2909
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Prauge Daily Monitor
http://praguemonitor.com/2011/10/25/fourteen-czechs-face-racism-charges-assaulting-roma
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The Guardian (blog)
http://www.guardian.co.uk/media/greenslade/2011/oct/24/bulgaria-press-freedom?newsfeed=true
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Novinite.com
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=132646

Flower Power?

Roma Showing Civility While Facing Ethnic Violence

"We are here to prove that stirring ethnic hatred makes no sense; let other people tell what should and should not be displayed in society," Mariana Vankova from the Bulgarian National Network for Children.

Despite being faced with violence the Roma of Sofia, Bulgaria are showing up for a "Roma Pride" parade. The event was planned long before the ethnic violence broke the peace in Bulgaria. But now it is being used to show that the "ethnics" and the Roma can exist side-by-side in peace.

At nearly every intersection in the capitol city, Sofia, young Roma children were seen handing out flowers and smiling at passersby. Their goal was simple. Heap kindness upon thine enemies' head.

It is to early to tell if the parade or the flowers helped in any way. It is clear however that at least some "ethnic" Bulgarians found repentance in the act of solidarity shown by the Roma. Large numbers of Bulgarians showed up to participate and show their hope for peace.

It is true however that many on both sides of the fight have refused to join in and drop their ethnic hatred. Protest organized around the said racial motives are still present in Bulgaria. However now the police are arresting many of those who cross the line from talk to violence. And the attacks on innocent Roma are finally being addressed by the politicians and police alike.


Elsewhere in Europe the Roma Pride demonstrations occurred without as much scrutiny. On Saturday, October Second, hundreds of Roma took to the streets in Paris to display the colorful Roma culture and to show how the French government has recently attacked it. In Romania's capitol of Bucharest around three hundred Roma turned out for celebrations of the Roma culture. And according to Agence-France Presse even more Roma Pride events occurred in Denmark, Italy, Norway, and Turkey.

"Many Roma are afraid or ashamed to openly recognize their ethnicity because they are concerned about discrimination," Marian Mandache of the Romani Criss organization told Agence-France Presse. The demonstrators in Bucharest wore t-shirts that said "I am Romani" in the Romani language.

So all this leaves me to ask why fight back with flowers and not guns? It is hard to imagine a life where a simple display of your music, language, and dance is considered historic... historic in a place you have called home for generations upon generations. How do they continue to smile?



Galina Trefil.
 
"When violence is directed against us, without exception, we are blamed for it. Why? We did not “assimilate.” My grandfather once taught at Karelova University in Prague. Most anyone would have considered that assimilated enough, but he was still a Rom and, thusly, he was shot at with a machine gun and saw his children butchered. His life was destroyed. Roma families all have slaughter stories from the war though. To be Romani, one expects and has to find a way to accept hatred from birth. So, from that perspective, that Neo-Nazis would march and cry for our murder yet again is a frontal assault; not a surprise at all.

Where my own family has felt intense betrayal is that so many were destroyed by the original Nazis that, collectively, many Holocaust-survivor families today say, “Things changed. They got better. And we can take comfort in that.” I and others in my family proudly display the photographs of the Romani-American soldiers of World War II—men who volunteered for the army, eager to be part of that change; eager to bring justice and freedom to their brethren and other ethnic groups besides across the ocean. Risking their lives, these men returned to America with medals, proving not just their valor in battle, but their commitment to the idea of genocide being wiped out.

In 1959, my father made a gesture of standing up to a government that does not protect its citizens, but instead forces them to suffer. He swam a river and risked his life in order, just for a moment, to stand in his father’s homeland with pride. Even if it was only a gesture, sometimes gesture are necessary.

My father, a retired psychiatrist and surgeon, still loves the Czech Republic. This is an all-encompassing and devoted love that will not, no matter how many vicious mobs arise, ever change. No matter how many police refuse to arrest citizens bent on murder, he will never blame the Czech people as a whole, but rather the government which is failing to protect its non-Czech citizens. He considers those who Czechs who did not stand up to and or prosecute the mob as shameful to their own race and sympathizes with the many decent, ethical Czechs who are shamed by the escalating violence that they did not take part in."

Take what you will from her story. An explanation? I don't know for sure. It seems impossible to explain the resolve of the Roma people. It is hard to understand from this American mind how they still want to be part of a place and people who continue to hate them. And how they assimilate only to be rejected.

As for the flowers and smiles... we here at Alder's Ledge applaud the Roma who took part in the Roma Pride activities throughout Europe. And we will continue to cover your attempts to live in peace by writing about them here on Alder's Ledge. G-d bless you all.

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Source Documents (note that not all sources are listed below)

noinvite.com
Sofia News Agency
http://www.novinite.com/view_news.php?id=132582

Romea.cz
http://www.romea.cz/english/index.php?id=detail&detail=2007_2866

Infoshop News
http://news.infoshop.org/article.php?story=20111001151904175

Romanian Ghettos

The Call for Roma "Segregation"
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It is hard to imagine any modern state using ghettos as a method of control or in the name of "safety" these days. After the lessons learned in Warsaw it seems unthinkable that any politician in any European country would think this was a good idea. But it is happening once again. And the idea is spreading slowly but surely.
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In February of 2010 The Times on London reported that a Slovak town had begun building a 2.2 meter tall wall that was meant to segregate the two-thirds of the town's population. That wall still is in use today. And the Roma are still being segregated in Bulgaria as this article is being written.
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Just as they were in 2010 the walls are still being constructed. The ghettos are still being assembled. And the Roma are now being forced out of "civilized society".
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Their neighbors claim the isolation is for their own protection. A slogan used before. A message proclaimed by similar socialist societies of the past.
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Today the Romanians join the ranks of the Eastern Europeans willing to use ghettos to isolate the Romani population. In Baia Mare, a city in northwestern Romania, the locals are ready to build a concrete wall that will encircle the Roma area of town. This is an area the Roma were "deported" to and are now being held captive in. And once again the isolated area soon to be walled off is being said to be "for the Romas' protection".
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In past articles I have asked without remorse what would happen if places like Auschwitz were allowed to come back online. Today it seems that the old death camps are not far from the current issues facing the Roma population. Like under the old socialist of the past, the Roma of Romania now face a society that is willing to surrender its own humanity for a vain promise of "safety". And the promise of "safety" once again is not being promised to the Roma themselves.
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The governor of the city claims the deportations of the Roma outside the city limits was a necessary step to rid the city of its' "poverty hotbeds". In a way he was correct. However now the countryside just beyond the city has an issue with forced poverty. It also has an issue with sanitation since the Romani ghetto was built right next to the city's water treatment facility.
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In post World War One Germany the Roma faced similar "concentration" sites. The Nazi regime felt it was somehow fitting to place Roma ghettos near waste sites. This increased the probability of disease or death due to exposure. The Romanian governor has chosen a similar site for similar reasons.
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So the question is this... how much more will the European Union tolerate? How much more human rights violations will they stomach happening right on their door step? And are we seeing the buildup to another genocide on European soil?
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Some Source Documents Not Listed.
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The Sofia Echo
http://sofiaecho.com/2010/02/18/860356_slovak-town-raises-concrete-wall-around-roma-ghetto-report
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SETimes.com
"Roma Community Segregation Still Plaguing Romania"
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