China's Hidden Jihad

The Atheist State's Unholy War On Uyghur Muslims

Repression is not defined by strict measurements. If a state is able to deny the basic rights of a people in any way it is crossing over into the realm of repression. If it attempts to limit the access of a people to their faith it is a repressive regime. If it blocks a people from the same rights that it assures to others within it's population the state is repressive by nature. It is an act of tyranny that though it may be hard to put to words it is always identifiable when you see it.

In a country where the state has no prescribed religion and recognizes only the rights of the majority the line between normality and repression is often blurred. But it is there. And for the Uyghur people it is a reality that threatens to deny them their heritage, their faith, and their future. For in a state where the perverted desires of the few are put above the needs of the many it is always those left on the fringe that pay the most. In China's unstable Xingiang region the Uyghur people are the ones left on the fringe of society. They are the ones that bear the weight of a country's greed.

The weight of a nation can break the will of a people to fight... to resist. Yet when pushed too far that weight can create unity. A certain bond is formed in a people that are oppressed by brutal tyrants. It is a link to that once formed it is hard to break. All the degradation, all the humiliation, all the pain and suffering; they become reasons to push back. The tears that mothers have shed over children taken away by jackbooted thugs become the water that nurtures bitter seeds. The blood and sweat that fathers sacrifice for their families' sake only serve to feed the hunger for change. All of which are planted in the minds of the youth who watch as their parents backs' break under the heavy hands of authoritarian beasts.

Change that comes from this form is not something that waits patiently for the right time and place. Change that comes from this form is that which comes like fire. It razes the structure of society and puts siege to the cornerstone of a government that has held it down for far too long.

This is what China is struggling to contain as it tucks it's iron fists in a velvet glove. All the while the regime finds new ways to keep prying eyes out of the troubled region. For this reason the national propaganda is the only form of press allowed into areas where the security forces heighten their presence. China is once again attempting to blackout the region so that the rest of the world can't see what dirty deeds are being done behind closed doors.

The rage that China created in the hearts and minds of the Uyghur community has flared up time and time again. With each new riot came an opportunity to round up the men and boys. With each new stabbing or alleged attack came a new chance for China to open fire on Uyghur protesters. The most notable incident in recent memory was the July 5th 2009 violence in Urumqi. It was a riot in which the Han majority was rewarded for turning a peaceful protest violent. Their reward has been the persistent repression of their Uyghur neighbors every July since.

This past Ramadan the anniversary of the July violence was celebrated by the fascist state by placing hundreds of Uyghur students in detention centers where they were not allowed to observe the holy month. Uyghur children were bussed to state run schools where they were forced to hand over all electronic devices that could be used to contact the outside world. Once under arrest the children were daily subjected to state propaganda that was intended to help the reeducation process take root in the Uyghur community.

"Due to Ramadan, places of worship will be forbidden from holding all sorts of religious teaching activity. If there are violations, the places will be sealed."

~ Posted Chinese Order in Karamay

In addition the state supported increased police presence in Uyghur neighborhoods across the Xinjiang region. In Karamay the security forces were meant to enforce restrictions on Uyghur travel and to prevent visits to mosque and religious facilities. Those allowed to visit the mosque were ordered when they could be present in the mosque and for how long. A police officer was present at all times to assure the order was carried out to the letter of the law. Not a minute longer was allowed in the heavily restricted prayer times.

Then comes the French style ban on headscarves. Chinese authorities in many parts of Xinjiang have put out orders to prevent Uyghur women from wearing hijabs and other traditional head coverings. Most notably the area of Hotan has seen (mostly peaceful) demonstrations against such restrictive ordinances that violate the Uyghur peoples' religious rights.

"We have a policy of going and checking bearded and strangely clothed people, according to orders from the top,” Uchturpan public security department’s intelligence unit.

This restriction on religious attire was highlighted on August 5th when a Uyghur man was stopped by two police officers and ordered to shave his beard. When the man refused the altercation became violent. As a result the police pulled their weapons and opened fire. In the end the Uyghur man was gunned down while using his knife to defend what dignity the state had left him with.

All of these are just examples of the barbarism with which the Uyghurs are forced to live. When local concerns are brought through the proper channels the state responds with vast sweeps of the community and even harsher laws. This sort of discrimination against the Uyghurs, who watch as the state ships in Han settlers, is the food for revolution. It cannot be ignored as China attempts to force economic advancement while segregating the minority population from the economic windfall.

With every exploitation that the Uyghur people suffer comes a new seed cast in a bitter field. And while only time will tell what will grow from this maltreatment it is only reasonable to assume that it will not be beneficial to the state. A government cannot sow the worst forms of abuse and expect to reap the best of a neglected population's efforts.

So what exactly are the seeds that China is planting? 

Displacement and Replacement

Let's start with the displacement of Uyghur people and the replacement by the state with ethnic Han Chinese.

The outbreak of violence in July of 2009 drastically changed the way that China approached the issue of "assimilation" and "economic adjustments" in the Xinjiang region. Where the government had been attempting to stifle religious practices gradually while simultaneously increasing manufacturing activity in Uyghur villages and cities they suddenly ramped up their approach.

By the end of July 2009 the capitol of Urumqi was blanketed with 20,000 new Chinese military personnel. Uyghur citizens were forced out of large sections of the city while the government bussed in Han citizens. Homes where Uyghur families had just recently raised their children were now being occupied by Chinese transported in from Eastern China. The jobs these displaced Uyghurs had held in local factories were then handed over by the state to the Han immigrants. Any Uyghur who dared to speak out was caught up in the dragnet that the security forces had cast over the city.

Official and unofficial detainment centers were created for the Uyghur citizens of Urumqi. Countless civilians who were detained after the riots were not heard from again. This helped China's official campaign of uprooting the Uyghur people. It allowed the Han immigrants to be left in place since nobody would be coming back to claim the "abandoned" homes in which the state had placed them.

If we fast forward a couple years the campaign of displacing Uyghurs has not stopped. It has instead grown and been added onto as China continues to "develop" the region by removing the native population. With one way the Uyghur population is being displaced is through the forcible relocation of young Uyghur girls.

In official propaganda the state tells Uyghur women that the process of moving to Eastern China to work in factories is both "enjoyable" and "rewarding". In reality the Uyghur women face absolutely no security as they are placed in areas without social networks to help them adjust to the abrupt deportation from their homeland. Girls who are relocated are given little to no education about where they are being sent to. Religious, social, and cultural concerns are not addressed once the Uyghur girls are shipped to factory jobs that pay them less than their Han counterparts.

Wage Disparity

While income in the West is dictated by the relationship between the employer and the employee the income for the Uyghur is dictated by the relationship between the ethnic group and the state. This is most painfully obvious when we look at the Uyghur people who are subjected to inhumane working conditions in Chinese factories. While employment is relative to their ethnicity in areas more directly state controlled economic regions those who do find employment are restricted to jobs the state finds suitable for their "ethnic class". 

In studies done in 2008 researchers found that the "informal economy" of Xinjiang was segmented not by what a person could achieve or their level of education in a field but rather their given ethnicity. This showed that ethnic Han were given the highest paying jobs while Uyghur workers were only permitted to perform menial task and lower levels of employment. There was not one single career field shown that could prove this given rule of employment in Xinjiang wrong. Across the board Uyghur workers were being forced to work beneath Han (who at times had less education and/or training). 

These economic studies showed that despite any apparent equality that China claimed existed in their schools that Uyghur were limited in their own "autonomous region". No matter how hard a Uyghur student tried they would not be permitted by the current economic system to advance to the top of their career field simply due to their ethnicity. 

For the Uyghur who worked at the top level permitted to them in this bias system there was the added reality that income was slanted in favor of Han workers. The same studies showed that Uyghur who held the same job and did the same work as a Han citizen earned considerably less. This once again served the Chinese goal of repression in both economic and social standings for the Uyghur community. 

Social Inequality

Religious and ethnic prejudice against the Uyghur people in China is both an institutionalized and social mechanism.

Religious 

While the state officially recognizes the Uyghur as "racially and culturally distinct" (thus making them a recognized minority) they do little to respect the culture of the Uyghur people. This is based in the constitution of China in the aspect that the official religious status of the state is that it is atheist. However, religious tolerance is achieved (minutely) through the lose wording which states that China has the right to regulate "normal religious activities". The wording is measured in such that it permits the state the right to dictate to a given faith what is "normal" and what is not. Therefore giving China permission to deny religious observances, practices, and organizations at any time for any reason.

The willingness on China's part to accept Islam as a "normal" part of Muslim culture has broadened over the past couple decades as China has grown in both its economy and materialistic needs. With exploitative relationships with Middle Eastern countries came the desire on China's part to show that it can tolerate Islam... to an extent. This allows China the ability to play it's hand with trading partners while at the same time telling Western nations that it is becoming more religiously tolerant.

In reality the religious tolerance that China shows toward Muslim minorities is limited only to what it views is beneficial to the state. When political pressure is mounted by the outside the Chinese either give a token of goodwill or simply block access to regions like Xinjiang all together. In the end the religious rights of the repressed minority never truly grow but are simply loaned for a time before being taken away again.

As for the cultural aspect of religious discrimination the nature of the problem arises through long held prejudices against Muslims in Western China. From the very moment that Islam arrived there have been distinctions made between the faith and its followers and the rest of Chinese society. One of the main reasons has been the fact that Islam first arrived by traveling up the "silk road".

The fact that Islam arrived in China through the mouths and books of merchants has damaged the relationship between Muslim minorities and the Han majority every since. This is in part due to the class system found in China at the time of Islam's arrival. It was a class system that placed merchants at the bottom of the totem pole for the fact that they were seen as "leeches". This meant that Chinese society viewed merchants as contributing the least to society while benefiting the most from it. Thus when Islam arrived in China through the economic trade with the West it was immediately viewed as barbaric.

The stigma that Muslim minorities face can still be traced back to the class system of the Han Dynasty. Today Muslim minorities are still traditionally portrayed as greedy, underhanded, manipulative, and as liars. These prejudices are often applied by the less educated masses of Western China and have shown no signs of leaving the society as education levels rise amongst the citizens of Xinjiang province. The fact that they are so interwoven with the social fabric of China's Han majority has proven to make these prejudices hard to displace.

Ethnic

Ethnic differences in China are difficult to navigate around. While it is at times seen as beneficial to be classified as an ethnic minority it has proven more often than not damning for the Uyghur people. From the moment they are born the Uyghur people are subjected to discrimination due to the given ethnicity they were born as. It is not a far leap for us to suggest that large portions of the opportunities in their lives are shut out by the state simply based upon ethnic classification.

The government of China is structured so rigidly on ethnic lines that Uyghur children face their first encounter with ethnic discrimination from their first day of school. Even in schools that flaunt their "mixed" ethnic student body the Uyghur children can face both physical and mental abuse by their Han classmates and teachers. This is only amplified as Uyghur children work their way from lower levels of education to higher levels. 

Once out of the government's schools the Uyghur youth are barraged by social standards that reiterate the supposed superiority of the Han ethnicity to that of their own. Employment, communal participation, and social standings are all regulated by one form of ethnic discrimination or another. Even in an "autonomous" region, where government is supposed to reflect the given ethnic group, those in charge are chosen by their loyalty to the Han majority. 

This persistent reminder of a person's lack of supposed value shows the willingness of the Chinese state to subjugate it's own citizens. Of course after a certain point it would be arguable that given the perception of the state, and the way it views it's own people, that China does not see the Uyghur people as Chinese citizens. 

For this reason the Chinese government can look forward to the harvest of these vile seeds it has sown. No people should have to live with this sort of barbaric heathenism shown by the Beijing. No people, if history is the best indicator of future behavior, will forever bear this sort of abuse.

(Note: The use of "jihad" in the title is in response to China's misuse of the word when reporting on ethnic violence committed in Xinjiang. We here at Alder's Ledge would like to clarify that jihad is a word that, though misunderstood due to misuse, has a rather beautiful meaning. The word jihad can best be defined as to strive to live a life pleasing to G-d (Allah). This means that it is a term which encourages the believer to strive for a life or morality and greater understanding of their duty to serve the L-rd. However, through it's misuse and misunderstanding over time the term has been associated with "holy war". This misuse of the word was not intended by Alder's Ledge in the aspect that it would further perpetrate this misunderstanding.)

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Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)

Radio Free Asia
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/attack-07292013171133.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/uchturpan-08052013173737.html
http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/scholar-07312013173204.html

The Diplomat
http://thediplomat.com/2013/08/04/xinjiang-reassessing-the-recent-violence/2/

Washington Post

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/discussion/2009/07/07/DI2009070701491.html

Forced Migration

http://www.forcedmigration.org/podcasts-videos-photos/podcasts/uyghur-women

University of Washington Tacoma 

http://digitalcommons.tacoma.uw.edu/cgi/viewcontent.cgi?article=1003&context=ppe_prize

Other Sources

http://www.tonyjhowell.com/papers/Minority_income_disparity_in_Xinjiange.pdf

The Reality of Marriage Inequality in Israel

Ethnic and Religious Based Restrictions On Marriage
(A Bridge Too Far series)

In 1935 the Nazis Introduced the Nuremberg Laws

Creating Marriage Restrictions On European Jews.

I have been told that to start this post I should clarify that I myself am Jewish and do have ancestors who died in Croatia during the Holocaust. I never felt compelled to make such a distinction before yet while writing a much longer post from which this article is taken it was pointed out to me such a distinction should be made. This is in part due to the fact that many of our readers seem to be under the impression that I am either Christian or Muslim. Though I have no problem with either religion, I don't belong to them. So with that said I do not take it lightly when I talk about Israel or the Holocaust. Both are dear to me and it is due to that love that I can't tolerate what I see as wrong in my beloved Israel. 

With that said, here is the portion of this new series dealing with marriage in Israel and the segregation the current system enforces. 

Marriage in America is depicted as a right that all citizens should be granted to enter into freely. Though we should not take it lightly and the current system in America may not reflect that view we are forcibly pushing for change in our homeland. It has been during this battle over equality in marriage that I could not help but look across the sea at my beloved Israel with weary eyes. For despite America's failures in removing the church from a state regulated legal contract we have at very least removed race and religion as disqualifications for marriage. This is something that I could not say about Israel. 

On August 1st of 2003 those in charge of Israel found it fitting to expand upon the ethnic bylaws for marriage in Israel. After rushing a new law through the government in Israel offered a it's Arab citizens a new set of laws that would ban the marriage of Israeli citizens to Palestinians. Arabic citizens who chose to marry Arabs from the West Bank or Gaza would therefore be forced to move out of Israel or live apart from their new spouse. The law had dictated that even when married to Israeli citizens Palestinians could not gain citizenship or residence within Israel. 

Marriage in Israel has always been something of a contentious subject. Jews in Israel are not permitted to marry non-Jews if they want their marriage recognized by the government. Jews who are not considered Orthodox are also banned from marriage to Orthodox Jews in the fact that the state of Israel will not recognize the marriage. This was highlighted in story of Rita Margulis when she, having served in the Israeli armed forces and lived in Israel since the age of four, was denied a legal marriage by the state.

For me it has been these two main parts of the laws governing marriage in Israel that has taken my mind back to the days where we Jews were faced with similar restrictions on our decisions to marry. We all know the laws to which my mind wanders. Yet far to often it seems Jews around the world try to avoid the reality of how Israel treats marriage and how we as a people were once treated in the same light.

In 1935 the fascists in Germany introduced a series of laws that would live in infamy for the rest of time. Under Nazism the Jews of occupied Europe were officially from that point on banned from marriages with non-Jews. Any marriages that existed from that point on were considered void. The offspring of all these marriages were considered "tainted" and thus Jewish. It didn't matter in reality what amount of blood was Jewish or not, children from these marriages were targeted just the same.

"Marriages between Jews and Staatsangehörige (Germanic citizens) or kindred blood are forbidden. Marriages concluded in defiance of this law are void, even if, for the purpose of evading this law, they were concluded abroad."

~Nuremberg Laws, Section 1: Article 1

The laws regarding marriages between Jews and Germans (or non-Jews) was so important to the order of Hitler's Europe that it was the first part of the new race laws. The need to discriminate against the Jews in the aspect of marriage was so important that it couldn't wait for economic policies or property ownership to be addressed first. This was in part due to the genocidal efforts of the Nazis and the desire to limit the ability of Jews to reproduce. It was also due to the idea of "blood purity" that perverted the Nazi view of marriage.

These laws had direct effects upon the Jewish population of Germany from the very moment they were implemented.

"They also, at the same time a law took effect that did not allow a Jewish person, male or female, to go with a gentile person, male or female. At that time, I was going with a nice young lady that I had gone with for some time, and we were out camping, I remember very well. I had a kayak, and we went out camping near Hamburg, and there was a fellow and, next to us, near us, in another little camp with a tent, we slept in tents. He wanted to make a date with this young lady that I was going with, and she didn't want any part of it. He reported me to, to the Gestapo, and I was arrested for going with a gentile girl. I got six months in prison, solitary confinement in 1935."

~ Edward Adler, Born 1910 in Hamburg Germany

In Israel the laws regarding the marriages of Jews to non-Jews may not word for word reflect the harshness of the Nuremberg Laws of 1935, yet the spirit of the law does. Despite the notion of being the one true democracy in the Middle East the reality remains in question when such laws are permitted. If the letter of the law is allowed to be interpreted in such a manner that it denies citizens basic human rights then the spirit of the law is dead. And without spirit the nature of democracy crumbles.

When we add in the laws that deny citizenship, revoke citizenship, or restrict the rights of certain citizens due to the religious or ethnic heritage of that citizen the spirit of democracy is faded even more. A democracy cannot tolerate the denial of human rights to any member of it's society if it desires to be a vibrant and healthy democracy. Yet in Israel, a purported beacon of democratic values, the spirit of Nuremberg taints the letter of the law when the state approaches marriage from this angle.

The most basic answer to this problem is the lack of "civil marriage" instead of Orthodoxy governed marriage is the disbanding of the Orthodoxy's monopoly upon the state sponsored establishment of marriage. For us in the United States this was supposed to be solved through the separation of Church and State. For Israel however the state is nearly governed by the Orthodoxy in the fact that despite being a democracy Israel is a Jewish state. It is an aspect of the relationship between Orthodox Judaism and the state that has long hindered any such separation.

For people like Rita Margulis this means that even being a Reform Jew in Israel means having fewer rights than those who subscribe to Orthodox Judaism. As for the Arabic Israelis, such laws add further pressures upon a portion of the population who was polled in 2007 as being 47% "less than patriotic". Such laws undoubtedly do not help create more patriotic Arabic citizens or even promote pride in "Jew-ish" citizens. And yet these laws continue to be enforced and thus help to segregate Israeli society.

Now, while I do understand that the comparison to Nazi laws may be considered offensive, this undeniable haunting reminder of such laws is meant to make you think. In a modern society should we accept the notion that religion or race should have anything to do with whether two people are permitted to marry one-another? Or should Israel be forced to rethink it's position upon marriage and the approach the state has taken to the issue thus far?

As for Alder's Ledge it is a sad reality that such laws still persist in a country where the values of liberty and freedom are espoused by both citizens and politicians alike. We would wish to see Israel take this step as one of many initial steps toward reconciliation with our Palestinian brothers and sisters. For we cannot see a future ahead where lasting peace is established and sustained when such laws are permitted to exist. Legalized discrimination, in this form and all others, will forever be a thorn in our side as long as we continue to willingly suffer it so.

Want to learn more about this subject and others covered by Alder's Ledge? 

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Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/06/12/israel-civil-marriage-ban_n_3429764.html
-
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/rabbi-uri-regev/why-is-it-so-difficult-for-jews-to-marry-in-israel_b_3196200.html

United States Holocaust Memorial Museum
http://www.ushmm.org/outreach/en/media_oi.php?ModuleId=10007695&MediaId=2711

One Step Ahead Of The Hounds

Rabid Racism and White Europe

(Image via AP/Vadim Ghirda)

When African American slaves were on the run they had to keep out of sight and hide from the white population of the American South. But it wasn't just the hate filled eyes of their would be masters that the runaway slaves had to avoid, they also had to cover up their scent and trail. Bounty hunters would often deploy dogs to chase down fugitive slaves. Their packs of foaming mouthed hounds could pick up the slightest smell of a fleeing slave without so ever being in sight of the fugitive. Once on the trail the dogs would release a call to their master. This baying tell the ruthless hunter that their human prey was just down the path a little ways. And once the dogs were on the heels of the fleeing slave the game was about up.

Extreme prejudice was used once a slave was taken back into custody. Whips, chains, and torture were all used to subdue the spirit of the victim. The desire to crush the "rebelliousness" of the victim was the main priority of the slave owner. It was the necessity to break the desire for freedom that kept the whip so close at hand. Yet it was that very same desire for freedom that led the slave to run away time and time again.

Mankind is made with a desire to live free. It is an intrinsic part of our natural state that no matter how grotesquely oppressed it may become the desire for freedom always finds an outlet. Against all odds, against all obstacles, the longing we have for liberty finds a path out of our minds and into reality.

For the Roma of Europe the desire to live in a land of liberty cannot be denied. For this desire they risk physical abuses of all sorts. For this desire they risk death at the hands of radical hate groups. For this desire they cross border after border as they flee the oppression that has long kept them captive in Eastern Europe. For the Roma this desire for freedom was stoked with the ascension of their respective homelands to the union with Western Europe. It was with this hope that many have moved Westward.

The migration of poor communities to countries where economic growth is taking place is not a new concept. It occurred in waves of immigration here in the United States. The Midwest was essentially built by the first waves of immigrants seeking the benefits of America's economic boom. Yet Western Europe, currently in a state of stagnation, seems to think it is somehow immune to this natural desire of all mankind.

Extreme poverty is a form of slavery in the aspect that it keeps a people in bondage to the monotony of simply surviving from one day to the next. Given a glimpse of hope, even if it is what we call poor in the West, those kept in the chains of such poverty will always take the chance at running. For these runaways the end reward is a better future for their children. For these runaways the light ahead is a life lived with less hunger and less want. Yet for these refugees the dogs don't seem to nip at their heels till they arrive at what they once viewed as freedom.

Roma have always lived in France, Germany, England, Spain, and the rest of Western Europe. Their numbers in these countries have increased with each economic downturn due to the need for cheap labor in semi-free markets. Agricultural outfits have for decades utilized the Roma community as near slave labor as they utilize the desperation of Europe's most discriminated against ethnic group. So it is unlikely that we can write-off the latest upward tick of xenophobic attitudes across Western Europe to a make-believe "influx" of Roma from the East.

Yet in places like France this portrayal of the Roma, as invading Mongol hordes, is catching traction amongst both politicians and hate groups alike. The dogs that the Roma have to run away from lay in wait in the National Front and amongst the right wing politicians. The rabid response to the propaganda these organizations create is an ever increasingly racist France. By telling the same lies that Hitler did over a long enough time without relent these politicians have garnered support amongst their rage filled base. And in addition they have planted the seeds of for their bitter harvest.

One politician in particular has done more to rally the dogs of France in recent days then MP Gilles Bourdouleix. While visiting a Roma encampment Mr Bourdouleix told a reporter in regards to the Romani, "Maybe Hitler didn't kill enough of them." It wasn't till the media took the story and ran with that Mr Bourdouleix decided that his words were perhaps "poorly chosen". And yet the French MP didn't redact his words, no; instead Mr Bourdouleix decided to blame the reporter for the story and claimed he had been "misquoted".

An American would expect that a politician who openly used such hate speech would be dragged out of office by his own party. But the French didn't seem too eager to bring out the guillotine. Instead they seemed reluctant to denounce Mr Bourdouleix. Some might say that the French politician is receiving a relative slap on the wrist for his statement. Even though Europeans will be commemorating the Porajmos (The Devouring or the Romani Holocaust) on August 2nd, Mr Bourdouleix's comment was then repeated as an opinion poll on a popular French news website. One can only guess from our side of the pond how the French voted in such a poll.

So lets take a moment and pretend that Mr Bourdouleix's view of the Roma is even remotely viable. Let us take a look at what the Romani people would be fleeing from in the East if they are really "invading" Europe....

In Slovakia the citizens of the town Kosice have erected walls to "keep the Roma out". However the concrete walls in effect have created a massive ghetto that confines the Roma within. The claimed purpose of the wall drastically contradicts the actual purpose it serves for the "settled" citizens of Kosice. And that is to keep the Roma in one place where they can easily be attacked or gathered. Either scenario is far more sinister than the purported goal of keeping the Roma segregated (an already devious objective).

Across the rest of Slovakia the more discrete methods of segregation are institutionalized. Slovakia does not allow Roma to be in the same schools (if in schools at all) as the non-Roma citizens. Roma are run out of cities and villages alike by Slovakian police. Politicians in Slovakia use even more racially tainted slurs than French politicians. And vigilantism amongst Slovakian civilians is far worse than in France (though in 2012 French citizens did take to burning out Roma camps).

Then you factor in the abuses Roma face from Slovakian government directly. In recent years the European Roma Rights Center has documented 200 cases of Romani women who were forcibly sterilized by the Slovak government. In many cases the Slovak government obtains coerced signatures of their victims by either sedating the victim or operating first and offering consent forms afterward. In most cases the government does not fully depict what has been done until the woman finds out in a later exam. This very tactic of abuse would in any government indicate a state sponsored campaign of ethnic cleansing. Yet Slovakia denies every case due to the coerced signatures they obtain under duress.

"While I was on the operating table and under anesthesia, the doctor gave me some papers to sign. I asked what it was and he told me that it was 'something about the child'. I was not able to read what was on the paper because I was not fully conscious at the time. I only found out later that I had signed consent to be sterilised and now I cannot have any more children."

~Roma Woman Forcibly Sterilized in Slovakia

So lets take a moment and pretend that racist like Bourdouleix aren't spreading hate about the Roma. How can we blame a people for moving West when the East has offered them only unmitigated suffering? How can we blame the Roma for attempting to flee decades of abuse at the hands of civilians, governments, and brutal armies and militias? Should the Roma be expected to stay in countries like Slovakia where they are subjected to abuse without legal recourse? Should they be forced to have their basic human rights stripped from them while they live in hellish conditions? Or should the Roma be permitted to seek refuge in the West?

It is not hard to see that the Romani people have suffered for centuries at the hands of bigots like this French politician. They have endured more hardship than any other European minority of our time. They died in the camps alongside the Jews and yet they are widely forgotten. It was the Roma who bore the brunt of socialism's wrath. It was the Roma who were silently sacrificed to the purges of Communism. The other victims have had their names recorded. The other victims have had their stories told. Yet it is the Roma who are forgotten to history and forced to live beyond the realm of modern day Europe's prosperity. They are a people that have clung to existence by holding onto the fringe of Western society.

So why now that we have accepted the tolerance we so proudly boast about that the Roma still cling to the edge of our so called enlightened society? How can we, the Western world, accept this sort of deplorable segregation and institutionalized discrimination?

It is obvious when stepping away from the mainstream and looking in that the gap between the Roma and the rest of society has not shrank. Slurs for the Roma still are used like the word nigger was used in the dirty south. Portrayals of Roma in the media are still just as derogatory (if not more so) than they were during Hitler's reign. Pop culture has romanticized the Roma to the point that their image of the Roma is more vile than even some Medieval caricatures of the them.

If this gap is to be closed society must stop projecting upon the Roma what we would wish them to be and accept the Roma for who they truly are. We cannot expect the Roma to assimilate to the point of surrendering their culture (if at all). Instead our societies must take pride in the differences between us and celebrate the Roma culture for all it is and not just the parts we find favorable.

As for our governments, they must be forced to implement programs designed to integrate Roma into society. These programs must combat the segregation of Romani from schools (either forcibly or through "white flight"). They must combat hiring processes that would discriminate against the Romani in both Eastern and Western Europe. And they must desegregate housing across Europe and bring Roma out of ghettos and slums and offer humane living conditions for both Roma and non-Roma citizens.

These are not suggestions in all reality but rather demands for a civilized society. Without these the West cannot claim that we are free and open societies but rather repressive regimes in which "separate but equal" is accepted over "justice for all".

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Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/07/08/world/europe/roma-children-kept-separate-and-unequal.html?_r=0

Eurasia Review
http://www.eurasiareview.com/13072013-hindus-want-end-to-walls-separating-roma-in-slovakia/

Mint Press News
http://www.mintpressnews.com/french-politicians-racist-remarks-tap-growing-xenophobic-sentiment-in-europe/165928/

Romea.cz
http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/czech-republic-neo-nazis-attempt-pogrom-on-roma-commit-arson-nine-injured-28-arrests
-
http://www.romea.cz/en/news/czech/who-will-be-chosen-as-the-greatest-hero-fighting-injustice-unfair-treatment-and-wrongs-in-the-czech-republic-people-can

France 24
http://www.france24.com/en/20120928-marseille-residents-force-out-roma-gypsy-burn-camp-france-valls-sarkozy-repatriation

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/2013/07/23/gilles-bourdouleix_n_3639606.html

New Europe
http://www.neurope.eu/article/french-deputy-condemned-over-anti-roma-remarks

European Roma Rights Center
http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/file/slovakia-country-profile-2011-2012.pdf

What Is In A Name?

From The Romani To The Rohingya,
Ethnic Cleansing By Renaming.
(Part of The Darkness Visible series
& Roma In Europe series)

(Roma Face The PNL Party / Rohingya Face 969)

A name is in many aspects the very nature of who we are or who we consider ourselves to be. A person born and raised in France would not suddenly consider himself to be Mexican one day simply because it sounded right. A child born and raised in Yemen would not suddenly decide that he is Korean because somebody suggested it. We are raised to be proud of who we are. The nationality we are given from birth is that which we desire to keep as we age. It is funny in sense, yet we do not easily part from this seemingly arbitrary title. It is simply just too important for us to do without.

Americans are raised with a slightly different sense of what it means to be this or that. We add African, Asian, Latin, Hispanic, Native, and many other nationalities in front of American when we want to be rather specific about our origin. And for most of us, this is a welcome part of declaring our heritage to the world around us. It not offers us a sense of being distinguished in a country that melts our diversity to form a new culture of its own. Yet despite this, we still do much the same as a Parisian might do when we tell others who we are and where we come from... we give them a name that describes it.

For the Roma people of Romania the decision to proclaim their heritage by calling themselves "Roma" is under threat. National Liberal Party (PNL) deputies Mircea Dolha and Grigore Crăciunescu proposed an amendment to the Romanian constitution that would make it illegal for Roma to call themselves Roma. The wording is ambiguous enough to avoid outright rejection by other parties within Romania's government yet according to NGOs and activists clearly targets Romani people. And for the most part the amendment would serve to further alienate Roma living within Romania.

This issue of state sponsored discrimination against an ethnic minority places Romania in the same group as the genocidal government of Myanmar. By attempting to deprive the Roma of their natural right to claim their ethnicity and cultural heritage the government of Romania attempts to push a policy of ethnic cleansing through renaming of an ethnic minority. The parallel between Romania and Myanmar is only further constructed through Romania's PNL party's policy that ethnic minorities may not call themselves "Romanian" unless they can prove their ethnicity to the government. This policy mirrors the policy of Myanmar in it's devout dedication to a policy of denial as it continues to deny the existence of an indigenous Rohingya population within Burma.

In the case of the Roma people in Romania the only major difference is the fact that the PNL has not given them a name with which to scapegoat the Romani people. Though ethnic slurs and the stereotypical gypsy image is paraded readily by PNL party members, the Roma are simply going to face total ethnic cleansing in Romania. The Rohingya people of Burma on the other hand are being given a name to replace their own; Bengali. This form of ethnic cleansing allows Myanmar the opportunity to justify deportations while also revising the history of Burma... erasing Rohingya from history.

For both the Rohingya and the Roma, these attempts to commit ethnic cleansing are only partially masked by political language and platitudes. If allowed to stand these attacks will devastate entire ethnic groups while setting back their attempts to coexist with their neighboring ethnic groups. In the long run these moves also undercut the history and heritage of these two ethnic minorities. By making it illegal to register under their own ethnic name the governments force these groups to accept and adopt the ethnic heritage of groups to which they do not belong.

In the eyes of the world a name is a funny little thing. It seems somewhat odd to many just how important these simplistic titles seem to us. Yet if we were to take just a moment, a brief moment of meditation, we would find in our empathy the disturbing notion of what it would mean to be without our own name. It is in that little title we carry with us that we link ourselves to others within our culture, our beliefs, our heritage. In the eyes of those who realize this a name is not just a silly word but a treasured part of who we are.




An opportunity to scream:

You can help the Rohingya people hold onto their name by signing yours here:

http://www.avaaz.org/en/petition/Allow_the_Rohingya_to_Register_Their_Name/ via +Jamila Hanan 

Want to learn more about this issue and others covered by Alder's Ledge?

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Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

Romania Insider
http://www.romania-insider.com/ngos-outraged-by-proposed-amendment-to-romanias-constitution-banning-roma-from-calling-themselves-romanians/101635/
-
http://www.romania-insider.com/amnesty-international-report-slams-romania-on-roma-rights-and-cia-prisons/99947/

SE Times
http://setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/articles/2013/06/10/reportage-01

Amnesty International Live Wire (blog)
http://livewire.amnesty.org/2013/06/13/you-cant-give-up-you-have-to-fight-for-your-rights/

Burma News International
http://www.bnionline.net/index.php/news/kaladan/15481-rohingya-village-is-uprooted-by-forced-registration-program.html

Yahoo News
http://news.yahoo.com/why-myanmars-rohingya-forced-bengali-144444651.html

Beneath The Heel Of The Peoples' Republic

Learning From A System of Oppression And Discrimination

Vladimir Lenin told us; "Give me four years to teach the children and the seed I have sown will never be uprooted." Is China's desire to totally control Uyghur students rooted in it's communist beliefs?

Ahead of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan Chinese schools in the Xinjiang region of China have begun to tighten controls on the ethnic Uyghur. In addition to the extorted promises of Uyghur parents agreeing to keep children under 18 years of age from fasting for Ramadan, China has begun sending out buses to gather up Uyghur students. These actions are said to be preventive measures that are supposed to keep both Uyghur and Han citizens safe during the anniversary of the July 5th, 2009 ethnic clashes in Urumqi. The thing that makes Uyghur groups both in exile and within China find these measures offensive and discriminatory is the fact that China only appears to target Uyghur when such measures are taken. 

Such actions often include the confiscation of Uyghur students' cell phones and other personal electronic devices. These confiscated phones are searched and most of the time returned. If an Uyghur student attempts to hide their property from the authorities they face severe consequences, of which China is not willing to talk about. Yet Han students are excused from search and seizure methods that are applied to Uyghur students. 

This is amplified by the state sponsored segregation of Uyghur students from the rest of the students in Xinjiang schools. However when Uyghur students are not segregated they become ready targets for Han students and ethnically Han teachers. In October of 2011 a group of Han students barged their way into a Uyghur language class armed with sticks. These Han students savagely attacked and beat Uyghur students as the Han teacher stood by and watched. Yet in other cases Uyghur students in even earlier grade levels are routinely subjected to severe beatings by Han teachers for even the most minute of infractions (often only perceived offenses). Han students on the other hand are rarely punished, let alone physically. 

“I was sent to Canada to study ... because I couldn’t go to school back home because I was afraid of my Chinese teachers and Chinese classmates.” 

~ Uyghur Student seeking asylum in Canada

The response by many Uyghur parents has been to transfer their children to schools that are officially bilingual or have a Uyghur majority. This initial response has created a system in which the Uyghur fall in line with the Chinese desire for total segregation. It completes the initiatives put forth by Chinese officials without forcing the government to accept responsibility. The excuse that is often offered by Chinese government officials is that the two ethnic groups just simply can't "get along". Therefore when a group of Han students attacks a group of Uyghur students the officials are able to tell the outside media (heavily restricted, if ever allowed into Xinjiang) that this is just how children behave. While at the same time China takes advantage of ethnic division and further alienates the Uyghur community. 

Division, after all, allows for China's government to carry out it's own "war on terror" in Xinjiang. It permits China the oppertunity to put pressure on the Uyghur community so as to crush any future hopes of a separatist movement. With continual pressure of China's heel upon the Uyghur people the government in Beijing seeks to subdue the spirit of a people. Under it's weight it seeks to force Uyghur no other option but to leave their homeland. Thus replacing the Uyghur with China's "ethnic Chinese" Han people. 

While these statements may be controversial to some. The history of China's actions in the Uyghur Autonomous Region has been that of an invasion force. From the start in 1949, China sought to bring the region under control by forcing Han citizens to move into the region. From the very moment the People's Liberation Army entered Xinjiang the Chinese began to flood the region with friendly civilians. Once established in the region, China laid out laws that blatantly favored the Han while discriminating against the Uyghur people. This tradition has been unimpeded every since. 

In 2009's ethnic riots the Chinese government used the excuse that the initial protestors (and instigators of the violence) were in fact Uyghur. The part that China ignores is that the ethnic violence quickly placed blood on both Han and Uyghur hands. Even more importantly, China refuses to admit to the fact that military and police forces entered the fray clearly on the side of the Han citizens of Urumqi. These police forces then conducted arbitrary arrests that cast a large net over Uyghur neighborhoods while almost completely avoiding the Han neighborhoods. Disappearances of Uyghur men and boys followed the 2009 riots and have not ended.

The Uyghur children are however the real victims of China's entrenched bias against them. From the moment Uyghur students come of age to be school bound they are introduced to a state sponsored system of oppression and discrimination. They are not allowed to speak their language in Chinese state schools without fear of beatings by both teachers and Han students alike. Instead of being taught the history of their people, Uyghur students are forced to learn the official history of Xinjiang and The People's Republic. Their heritage and ethnicity are taught to them to be reasons for their suffering at the hands of government officials. And yet all of this is supposed to teach the children of the Uyghur to be faithful to a government all the way across the country in Beijing. A government that they are not permitted to take part in or advantage of. 

Seeds grow in their own time and in their own way. If China intends to teach loyalty to the system (which I highly doubt) then they will be greatly disappointed when the children they teach bring forth the fruit of the seed China has planted. A government that teaches it's youth that it is a burden, an obstacle, and an oppressor cannot pray for patriotism. Instead, it prepares it's field for conflict.

Source Documents 

(Note: not all sources listed)

UNPO 

http://www.unpo.org/article/13376

Radio Free Asia

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/china/students-06132013105142.html

http://www.rfa.org/english/news/uyghur/beatings-01312013165459.html 

Human Rights Watch 

http://www.hrw.org/reports/2009/10/22/we-are-afraid-even-look-them

Whites Only

Institutionalized Segregation In Europe 
(Roma In Europe series)

"So long as there is one single person anywhere in the world who is denied his or her freedom, then none of us are free.  As long as there is exploitation which is taking place on our doorstep, in our own backyards, then we must all share the responsibility to get justice and freedom for the people concerned."

~John F. Kennedy 

After the Civil War in the United States the south responded to the freedoms granted to African Americans by introducing "Jim Crow" laws. These laws were meant to keep the African American community in perpetual subservience to the white population that had once ruled the American South. Though the freed slaves could no longer be put in chains and shipped off to be sold as human cargo, they could no sooner gain access to the free world America had created for itself. For American society this came to known as "separate but equal". It was assumed that the African Americans should be grateful for what they had been given by Lincoln and simply accept that they were somehow inferior to the whites that had once owned them.

As the generation of freed slaves grew old and their children grew up in a segregated America the divide between their limited freedoms and white America's total freedom became increasingly apparent. Jim Crow laws increased as African Americans became more apt to finding ways to overcome the barriers that had been set before them. Perseverance by the minority pushed the majority's discomfort to the point of breaking. With every step African Americans took toward equality the hate that fueled groups like the Ku Klux Klan grew. Over the course of the next few generations it would become even more obvious to American society that separate is never equal. Segregation would have to end if American society was to continue to mature in its understanding of true liberty.

In America freedom comes like a raging fire. It is a violent and bitter course of action that puts our notions of what a free society is through a refining fire. Yet for all the hatred that comes boiling to the surface we somehow have managed to united in the end. By pushing the extreme elements of our society to the fringe we find at our core what it means to have our liberties as a country. For all the scars and wounds we have suffered along the way, America has brought forth an example of what elements of a culture cannot be tolerated in a society if it is to truly be free.

Segregation is one of those elements.



Europe has claimed to lead the world in tolerance and understanding. It boasts about its multicultural heritage and how it has managed to absorb others along the way. Immigrants that once flocked to America now set their eyes upon Europe as it's multiple economies spring new growth. Africans, Arabs, Eastern Europeans, and Asians all trickle into the EU with every passing year. Yet for all the new religions and cultures that Europe accommodates with reasonable success there remains one minority that Europe has a long history of failure with. The Romani people.

Eastern Europe has centuries of negative history when it comes to even tolerating the Roma let alone accepting and integrating the Romani culture. Under Stalin the Roma were forced into slave labor and used by the Soviets in a subhuman manner. The Poles seemed over zealous in handing over Roma over to Hitler's SS during World War Two. And the Balkan states have all had a long history of forcibly keeping Roma people segregated from the rest of society.

While Western Europe showed it's complete disregard of the Roma people in just the last few years as France, Germany, and Italy all led the way in deporting Roma people and forcing evictions of entire Roma communities. This was almost a mirror image of how Hitler had dealt with the Roma when his forces occupied Europe just over 70 years ago. And yet the EU could only manage to offer up rather moderate condemnation for France when it refused to stop deportations. It is notable that the EU however did not condemn Italy or Germany for their actions or even England for its use of forced evictions. This lack of outrage shows a disturbing level of tolerance for state sponsored intolerance of one of Europe's largest minorities.

Obviously one would imagine that Europe would have grown in it's capacity to tolerate and integrate Romani culture into it's vast array of cultures already assimilated. You would imagine that at the very least the Roma would only suffer segregation in as much a way as the Chinese immigrants do by formation of areas nicknamed "China Town". This manageable degree of segregation would be considered somewhat normal since people tend to surround themselves with people of a similar cultural background. It can be seen in areas where Kosher markets and delis are almost adjacent to synagogues. And for the most part this form of segregation is accepted by even the most liberal societies. But for the Roma this form of segregation would be a giant step up from their current level of oppression within European society.

In most of Eastern Europe Roma are supposedly legally allowed to live in areas where their "white" neighbors congregate. However in most cases if Roma would move into a white neighborhood the local branch of Europe's KKK would show up that same night. Just as African Americans were told to stay on their side of the tracks, Roma in Eastern Europe are forced into ghettos reminiscent of those established by the SS. Then when the local white population decides that they no longer want Romani families in one ghetto they have the Romas' homes destroyed and force evictions. Roma who loose their homes are then forced to even worse ghettos. Despite laws that appear to make "white only" neighborhoods illegal, Jim Crow like laws nullify any sense of equality.

In places like Slovakia Romani people find that Jim Crow doesn't just apply to where they are allowed to live but also dictates where they are able to work. According to The New York Times, "Only 20 percent of Roma men of working age in Slovakia have jobs — compared with 65 percent in the general population — and they die 15 years earlier than the national average." This level of employment disparity affects how the Roma will provide for their families and manage to put food on the table. When they are only able to manage a 20 percent employment rate the Roma are forced to rely upon governmental assistance and thus become subject to public ridicule. Adding to the stigmatization that Roma already face due to the socially accepted level of bigotry that exist within European culture.

Then comes the problem of widespread discrimination against Romani children when it comes to education within European school systems. From Greece, Hungary, the Czech Republic, down to Slovakia and Romania; the institutionalized level of segregation practiced on a purely ethnic basis is astounding. It directly mirrors the segregation that took place in America's South. Many schools within Greece are literally "white only". In Slovakia Roma children are not allowed to eat within the school cafeteria but are instead forced outside to eat bagged lunches while their Slavic (white) counterparts are fed hot lunches. While in the Czech Republic it is a common practice for schools to place Roma children in classes designed for the mentally handicapped simply because the children were born Romani and not Czech.

It is in the schools that Europe implants the seeds of discrimination into the hearts and minds of the next generation. Roma children who grow up with parents that are unable to find jobs due to discrimination are immediately reminded by the state that they too are just as unwanted as their parents. Where the government should be encouraging it's future to learn how to better their future the state instead shows Roma children that there are limits to their future. By allowing segregation in the schools, Europe digs the trenches in which to bury the aspirations of the next generation.

If change is to come to Europe it may not need to come in the way America had to bear it. But it must come one way or another. Europe can no longer grow in its freedoms as long as a portion of the population is denied the right to grow with it. Europe must decide whether it is to amputate the Roma from European society (as the Nazi's attempted to do) or whether it will fully accept the Romani as part of Europe's rich heritage. After all, nobody wants to simply be tolerated.

Segregation must be ended. It cannot be tolerated. It is a distinct barrier to progress.

In Hungary the resistance to change has already become violent. Jobbik has rallied in the same way that the KKK sprang forth to challenge the Civil Rights Movement in America. Violence, intimidation, and re-enforcing of Europe's Jim Crow laws have all been the hallmarks of radicalized organizations like Jobbik in Eastern Europe.

In Western Europe groups like the EDL (English Defense League) make up the backbone for the radical right-wing of Europe's pro Jim Crow crowd. These organizations back political parties that practice policies such as keeping the Roma on the road (or constantly driving Roma out). These groups mainly use intimidation but are not above using force (example here).

These groups present the same possibility for violent change as Europe realizes that segregation has no place in the 21st century. They are the KKK of Europe. These groups inhibit growth and stand in the way of progress. And yet they are only a portion of the reason that change is slow in coming to European society as a whole.

Politicians in Europe who exploit entrenched prejudices to further their political carriers help to keep Romani families on the fringe of European society. Through their own bigotry and callousness they help to block Roma integration. Others demand that Romani people assimilate to traditional European ways of life (assuming on their part that Roma don't want to in the first place) while refusing to demand the same of new immigrants. All of these politicians are allowed to practice such discrimination however in part to the established bigotry toward Roma in Europe in the first place.

A member of European society does not need to support the EDL or Jobbik to help prevent equality for their Romani neighbors. They simply have to accept the discrimination that Roma suffer in Europe on a daily basis. By refusing to speak up for their fellow Europeans (the Roma) these citizens allow their apathy to further the suffering of the Romani.

Yet this apathy is not limited to white Europeans alone. All Europeans; regardless of race, religion, ethnicity, or cultural heritage should feel a deep sense of disdain for any level of discrimination found within their society. The willful tolerance of these prejudices should spark a fire within you that cannot be contained. Witnessing this repression of a fellow human being should pull at your heart and soul in a way that provokes action... demands condemnation... and makes you scream.

Change will come to Europe. It must.

It is only due to a lack of support for it that Europe still suffers from the limitations that held back America's embrace of civil liberties. And yet this barrier to true freedom and liberty can be overcome. This obstacle that has one fatal flaw. It is that it must be accepted by society if it is to remain in place. Europe as a whole must find the segregation and oppression of the Roma intolerable for it to finally end.

"It has to start somewhere, 

It has to start sometime.

What better place than here, 

What better time than now."

~ Rage Against The Machine

Source Documents
(note: not all sources listed)

New York Times
http://www.nytimes.com/2013/05/10/world/europe/in-slovakia-integration-of-roma-mirrors-early-struggles-in-us.html?pagewanted=all&_r=0

Huffington Post UK
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/artur-conka/roma-families-in-europe_b_3253404.html

The Slovak Spectator
http://spectator.sme.sk/articles/view/50157/2/discrimination_still_a_problem.html

Southeast European Times
http://setimes.com/cocoon/setimes/xhtml/en_GB/features/setimes/features/2013/06/07/feature-02

Separate Is Never Equal

European Roma Still Face Apartheid
(Roma In Europe series)

(European Union Member States Continue To Segregate Roma Children In The Classroom)

The foundation for a better future in any society is found through education. In a world where we are rapidly being reduced to the sum of what our degrees and diplomas say we have achieved there really is no other way forward. Regardless of our own determination and personal ingenuity the world around us views us through paper work. If an portion of our society is thus kept from having access to even the most basic levels of education they are therefore kept from the vast majority of what our society has to offer.

Would we elect government officials that were kept from graduating even the most preliminary levels of education? Would we trust a doctor to treat our ailments if he/she was never able to go to medical school? Would we believe a teacher if he/she had never even been to any form of upper level education?

It is a common trend amongst unskilled labor, the backbone to our economy, that many are placed in those roles due to a lack of education. We may rather enjoy believing that everybody has access to education at any level if they simply apply themselves. This provides us an excuse to look down upon the grocery clerk while ironically they make our daily lives possible. It gives us the ability to stare down our noses while the sun beats down upon the construction workers that slow us down in our daily commutes to our so called prestigious jobs. But what if we knew the stories of these people, if we knew what obstacles they had to overcome, we might look at the systems our society flaunts in a different light.

For some of the most neglected members of our society the story that they start with almost immediately erases the opportunities we take for granted. Personal choice becomes less of a reason for their place in society as society itself begins to hijack those said choices. In the case of the Roma in Europe this hijacking can be summed up as blatant discrimination on the part of governments, local communities, and the society in which the Roma live.

Centuries of looking down upon the Roma as a permanent underclass (or outsiders) has left a systemic discriminatory perception about who the Roma people are. It has left the very name Roma, or gypsy, a sort of slur in and of itself in European society. When someone feels cheated they say they have been "gypped". When a stranger appears to be poorly dressed and unkempt they are flat out referred to as a "gypsy". And then there is the romantic prejudices of the Roma as being fortune tellers, witches, and symbols of bad luck. All of this has left a barrier that Roma people have had to climb over to reach the world that has attempted to go forward while leaving them behind.

Roma children in Europe are the first to notice this when it comes to the hallmarks of childhood. Instead of being allowed into the same school systems that other European children get to go to many Roma children are forced to either attend schools designed solely for Roma or take classes designed for the mentally handicapped. In Greece this has been more evident than in other European states. When schools were built in Sofades (a town comprised of roughly half Roma citizens) the Roma who were closer to schools catering to "Greek" children were told they had to go to schools farther away. The reason: these children were Roma, and Roma children are not allowed to attend school with other children in Greece. Plain and simple discrimination on the basis of ethnicity.

“It’s shameful that, despite three separate European Court rulings now, Greece has failed to change its ongoing discrimination against Romani schoolchildren and the flagrant violation of their right to education,” said Jezerca Tigani, Deputy Europe and Central Asia Director at Amnesty International. 

Last year countless European courts took up the issue of Roma children's rights to an equal education in European schools. These court decisions were considered historic since they for the first time addressed the long upheld discrimination by European society against the Romani people. In many ways these courts took upon the same fight that American schools had been forced to do when they desegregated schools and allowed black and white children to be educated side-by-side. Yet that is a point that European nations tend to avoid since they were supposed to be the leaders in ending slavery, segregation, and all that "old world" bigotry.

Some might ask why we should talk about segregation while Romani families face violent attacks by racists (both in politics and in racist extremist groups) in the Czech Republic and Hungary. Some might ask why we should worry about school while Roma are still facing deportations from France, Germany, Italy, and other "developed" European countries in the West. And while these concerns are very pressing indeed, the open hostility in society at large is the basis for why these conditions exist in the first place. If we are to accept that children can be introduced to the idea that they are less than human from the start of their "education" then we accept that other children can be taught that the prior are the "them" in an "us vs them" scenario. It allows for the effects of discrimination to be imprinted upon the next generation while the one in control allows the cycle to persist.

"What startled me most of all was the unbelievable aggression, the hateful speeches, and the openly racist positions occupied at certain points by the loudest participants, male and female, from the special schools. These are the same people who meet disadvantaged Romani children and their parents every day. They are the very people who educate those children, " said Michaela Marksová-Tominová, Czech Shadow Minister for Human Rights and Equal Opportunities.

When hate is allowed to be the first taste of what a society has to offer for a child it becomes a lens through which that child will view the world in which he/she lives. While many can overcome this discrimination through hard work on their own part, many others cannot. It is an obstacle that chips away at what our society can be and will become. It destroys the foundation of a society for generation to come. Thus permitting the instability we have lived with thus far to persist into the world we leave behind for our children and grandchildren.

When we deny education to a child we aren't telling that child he/she can be anything that they can dream of. We tell that child that they aren't valuable in our society. We tell them that for as long as they are alive they will always be outsiders in our community. The denial of education (full, equal, and integrated)  is a method of oppression and rejection. It forces upon the next generation the prejudices of the previous generation. And for this reason it denies society at large the hope for a better future.

If Europe is to continue forward in its progressive views on what it means to be European they will have to come to terms with their past. Either they fully integrate the Romani people into European (accepting the differences and not forcing assimilation) or Europe admits that they are a society that accepts apartheid. For in a world where we claim that "all men are created equal" we can never expect that being kept separate be viewed as equality.


























Source Documents
(Note: not all sources listed)

Amnesty International
http://www.amnesty.org/en/news/european-court-again-chides-greece-over-discrimination-against-roma-schoolchildren-2013-05-30

Open Society Foundation
http://www.opensocietyfoundations.org/voices/roma-education-2013-time-europe-remedy-its-democratic-deficit

Huffington Post
http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/artur-conka/roma-families-in-europe_b_3253404.html

Prague Daily Monitor
http://praguemonitor.com/2013/05/24/%C4%8Dr-fails-deal-segregation-romani-students-ai-report-says

"They are Cockroaches"

On the Fast Track to Hell

In 1994 the tiny, hardly heard of, country of Rwanda slipped into the history books as Hell on Earth. This was the site where a minority of militant attackers launched one of the fastest and most effective genocides of the 20Th century. Now we watch as the warning signs of Rwanda begin to pop up in another tiny, hardly heard of, country.

Bahrain is a country where the national minority runs the government, the Sunnis royal family reigns in Bahrain. Shiites outnumber Sunnis 4 to 1 in this tiny island nation. It wasn't till this year that the minority rule really began to face open opposition to their authority (often oppressive government).

In response the royal family has ordered the imprisonment and deaths of Shiite politicians, teachers, doctors, nurses, and businessmen. Those who have taken to the street to protest this action are now being attacked by government backed militias and the country's own military. Gunfire, teargas, grenades are the common responses to often nonviolent protesters who simply want a government that better represents their common will.

The Sunni population not directly involved in the repression and outright attacks seem to support them simply by remaining silent. Other Sunnis however have come out in favor of the brutal attacks of unarmed protesters. They have even been captured on film cheering the snipers as they pick off protesters one by one.

The Obama White House has said absolutely nothing about this looming genocide. Perhaps the president just doesn't care. After all, was he not the president who decided to wait till Iran had crushed its opposition before muttering some sort of apology? Was it not a Democrat president who waited till the bloody April in Rwanda had ended before he too mumbled some sort of apology?

As bulldozers tear down Shiite holy sites the United States 5Th Naval Fleet enjoys its little base in Bahrain. As people are shot in the streets our politicians enjoy rubbing elbows with butchers. As the youth of a nation are systematically slaughtered our president remains un-harassed by the US... the land of the free.

Our voices should be raised so loud that they might be heard in that tiny country, Bahrain. Our hearts should be with the oppressed peoples of every nation no matter what the race, religion, or creed. Yet when it comes to Bahrain the screamers of our great nation remain silent?

We have watched as Iran shot its youth right through the heart. We stirred for but a moment before falling silent once again. And in that moment of wavering we watched as the youth of Iran were crushed beneath the heels of tyrants.

Make no mistake about it, the Green Revolution of Iran has not been forever silenced. The good fight is still being fought against the beast that still sets upon the throne of Iran. We just aren't allowed to watch this battle... for if we were our government might be forced to act.

So what about Bahrain?

If no action is taken from the outside world, by the United States, Bahrain will slip into the bloody Hell of genocide. Their youth, the protesters, will be systematically slaughtered till their are no more left to fight the oppressors. The leaders of the Shiite community in Bahrain will be butchered... "shot like dogs". Their community will be uprooted "like termites". And the United States will set back in the comfort of its relative safety as the future cause of terrorism is born from our own indifference.

This is genocide. The systematic removal of community leaders, the executions of politicians, the intentional infliction of harm with intent of destroying in part, or in whole, a community. Bahrain is already sinking into genocide. These are just the first signs of what is still to come.

“That [the crackdown on protesters] is completely against the Geneva Convention[s] in any warfare or any protest situation; so to be breaking the Geneva Convention[s]... and to (be) basically committing genocide, I think it's ... an amazing situation that the UN isn't looking further into these things,” London-based documentary filmmaker David Lawley told Press TV on Saturday.

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Source Documents
(note: not all sources are listed)

Kansas City Star
http://www.kansascity.com/2011/05/08/2858559/while-bahrain-demolishes-mosques.html

Press TV
http://www.presstv.ir/detail/177596.html

LA Times
http://latimesblogs.latimes.com/babylonbeyond/2011/05/bahrain-new-report-details-alleged-torture-calls-on-obama-to-hep-ahead-of-thursday-speech.html