roma of europe fenced out from inside

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Europes Roma: Fenced Out from the Inside by Cheryl L. Daytec-Yagot

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EUROPES ROMA: FENCED OUT FROM THE INSIDE

By CHERYL L. DAYTEC-YAGOTLegal Studies DepartmentCentral European University

Budapest, HungaryJune 2010

(O)ppressive treatment of a population over an extended period of time will

create discriminatory attitudes, the effects of which will continue to assert

themselves in the actual population long after laws have been changed.1

Summary

While acknowledging that the Roma inclusion agenda has had gains, this

paper declares that such are in large part limited to legislation and policy-

adoption and expected benefits have not trickled down to the greater number of

Roma. On the whole, considering the hopes raised by the declaration of 2005-

2015 as the Decade of Roma Inclusion and the holding of a summit on Roma

issues, the agenda is, so far, a letdown. Drawing from the works of various

scholars and authorities on the Roma question, this paper identifies the obstacles

to the full realization of its promises: the absence of monitoring mechanisms, the

inherent limitations of minority right regimes and the lack of effective Roma

political participation. It also delves into factors that perpetuate Roma exclusion:

racism and xenophobia, capitalism, illiteracy and internalized oppression.

Introduction

1

Ian Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsism in Europe, in Other Voices, v. 2., n. 1 (February 2000),p. 4


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It would be a travesty to say that the Roma inclusion agenda, which

witnessed its moment in 2005 with the declaration of the Decade of Roma

Inclusion, has not reaped fruits.

A decade ago, the EU adopted the race directive mandating member

states and candidate states to nullify legislations and policies militating against

the principle of equal treatment2

on education, social protection including

social security and healthcare, social advantages and access to and supply of

goods and services, including housing.3

In its 2005 Annual Report, the EU claimed that the race directive acted as

a powerful incentive for new member states to undertake political and economic

reforms.4

Hungary, Macedonia and Romania vested legal recognition of Roma as a

national or ethnic minority5

and Russia, although not a member of EU considers

them as a culturally autonomous nation.6As the EU directed, member and

candidate states adopted reforms. However, these are sporadic measures based

on pilot projects rather than integrated policies and programs.7

But the raft of legislations and policies that the European Union (EU) and

its member states adopted, does not by itsef reverse the wheel of Roma

2

European Union, Council Directive 2000/43/EC: Implementing the principle of equal treatment between persons

irrespective of racial or ethnic origin, 29 June 2000.3Ibid.

4Council of the EU, EU Annual Report,, p. 95.

5Dimitrina Petrova, The Roma: Between a Myth and the Future. Social Research, Vol. 70, No. 1 (Spring 2003), p.

1436Ibid.

7Mona Nicoara (ed), Roma Activists Assess the Progress of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2006), Decade

Watch (2007), accessed fromhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdf
http://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdf


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(mis)fortune. In the words of Hancock, (a)ny population that has been devalued

to the point of losing its identity as human beingsover a period ofcenturies will

not automatically be seen as equals simply by passing a law.

8

Thus, observing asteep rise in popular prejudice, violence and intimidation against Roma,

9Prof.

Bernard Rorke and Valeriu Nicolae declared that the corpus of the Roma inclusion

agendas success is the improved rhetoric which they also cited as a

demonstration of the EU Commissions shift from passive somnolence to active

engagement.10

Sadly, all the gains in the legal and rhetorical front have not transformed

the Roma status: they remain a pariah minority almost everywhere.11

Exclusion

is the norm of the day for Europes approximately 10 million Roma.12

The EU admitted thatnumerous assessments of the situation of Roma

clearly illustrate that members of this community continue to suffer marked

discrimination and social exclusion, and encounter difficulties in gaining

unhindered and equal access to employment, education, social security,

healthcare, housing, public services, and justice.13

Seventy-five percent of Roma

wallow in poverty.14

In Bulgaria, the Czech Republic, Hungary, Romania, and

Slovakia, around 40% of Romani people are unemployed15

while the figure is as

8

Hancock, ibid.9

Decade of Roma Inclusion. One Year On, What Has Changed? 2 Sept. 2009, accessed fromhttp://www.romadecade.org/665010

Ibid.11

Petrova, supra.12

Petrova, supra.13

Council of the European Union General Secretariat, EU Annual Report on Human Rights, (2005).14

Karen Plafker, The Social Roots of Roma Health Conditions, eumap.org: Monitoring human rights and the rule

of law in Europe. Accessed online athttp://www.eumap.org/journal/features/2002/sep02/romhealth. 15

Petrova, supra.
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high as 90% in some former Soviet countries.16

They suffer the worst health

conditions of the industrialized world together with some of the worst health

problems associated with the third world.

17

To top it all, anti-Roma violence,sometimes manifest in murder,

18continue unabated.

Why is the inclusion agenda sailing through rough waters? Why do the

Roma, after seven or eight hundred years19

since their diaspora to Europe

remain outsiders where their feet are now firmly planted?

Obstacles to Roma Inclusion

The weakness inherent in the inclusion agenda and the minority rights

regimes contribute to hampering Roma integration into the European

mainstream. Moreover, the strength of the rhetoric of the EU Roma Platform is

matched only by a lackadaisical attitude to implement it.

Absence of Monitoring Mechanism

The Decade, despite its powerful rhetoric, suffers from the absence of an

effective outcome monitoring mechanism which would measure the results of

government programs and help assess progress towards meeting the goals set at

16

Ian Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsy Racism in Europe, presented to The Council of Europe,

Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe, Joint Seminar on Romanies (Gypsies) in Europe, Warsaw, 20-

23 September 1994.17

Plafker, supra.18

Paul Legendre, Hard Times and Hardening Attitudes: The Economic Downturn and the Rise of Violence Against

Roma; written submission to the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 2009; accessed

fromhttp://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdf19

Hancock, On the Origin and Current Situation of the Romani Populations.
http://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdfhttp://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdfhttp://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdfhttp://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdf


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the inception of the Decade in 2005.20

Moreover, statistical difficulties posed by

the lack of nationally representative disaggregated data on the situation of the

Roma on the four priority areas of housing, education, employment and health,render it an impossibility to measure the effectiveness of Roma inclusion

policies.21

At the moment, what may be measured are inputs of States but not

their outcomes.22

Sans a mechanism for its enforcement, the Roma inclusion

agenda is toothless, something that may not cow EU member states into

compliance, and is not guaranteed to pull out the Roma from the periphery of

society to the mainstream.

Inadequate Judicial Enforcement Mechanisms of Minority Rights Regimes

Additionally, minority rights regimes rely on monitoring mechanisms to

promote compliance by participating states, rather than on the judicial

enforcement of rights.23

Two of the most powerful legal instruments supporting

Roma rights, the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities

and the European Charter for Regional or Minority Languages, are not subject to

the jurisdiction of a judicial body.24

20

Mar tin Kahanec, The Decade of Roma Inclusion: A Unifying Framework of Progress Measurement and Optionsfor Data Collection, IZA Research Report No. 2, April 2009, accessed from

http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/reports/report_pdfs/iza_report_21.pdf21

Mona Nicoara (ed), Roma Activists Assess the Progress of the Decade of Roma Inclusion (2005-2006), Decade

Watch (2007), accessed fromhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdf22

Ibid. 23

Istvan Pogany, Minority Rights and the Roma of Central and Eastern Europe, Human Rights Law Review 2006

6(1), pp. 1-25, at p. 4.24

Ibid.
http://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/reports/report_pdfs/iza_report_21.pdfhttp://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/reports/report_pdfs/iza_report_21.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.romaweb.hu/doc/evtizedprogram/2007/decadewatch_angol.pdfhttp://www.iza.org/en/webcontent/publications/reports/report_pdfs/iza_report_21.pdf


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The problem with monitoring mechanisms is that their effectiveness is

anchored on the cooperation of governments. For instance, the success of

initiatives of the Office of the High Commissioner for National Minorities (HCNM)and the OSCE is unavoidably dependent upon the willingness of the parties

involved to cooperate as recommendations of these office are devoid of

binding force and premised upon the sovereign states voluntary

participation.25

Unlike judicial enforcement mechanisms, monitoring

mechanisms restrict supranational action to enforce minority rights.

Cultural Identity-Focused Regimes

One reason for the minority rights regimes failure to ameliorate Romas

plight is their emphasis on Roma cultural and linguistic identity, falling short in

addressing socio-economic issues.26

Even with the presence of a strong legal

paradigm on protection of cultural and linguistic identity, the Romas diversity

could operate against them. They do not possess a clear or coherent sense of

identity that is readily distinguishable from that of the rest in society.27

Further,

eroding the chips of social exclusion will not necessarily erect the edifice for

economic inclusion. But the reverse is true. As the Committee on the Elimination

of Racial Discrimination pronounced, (f)inancial means are often needed to

facilitate integration in society.28

25

Jennifer Jackson Preece, National Minority Rights Enforcement in Europe: A Difficult Balancing Act. The Journal

of International Peace Studies.26

Pogany, supra., p. 1127

Ibid., at p. 528

Habassi v. Denmark (Communication No. 10/1997-CERD/C/54/D/1997, 06.04.1999)


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Since economic power fabricates political muscle, an employed Roma

population can hoist a bargaining power against the societal forces that continue

to undermine efforts for their integration. The Roma inclusion agenda can leap bymetes and bounds if minority rights regimes confront this class socio-economic

concerns. To succeed, European inclusion initiatives need to address the most

fundamental and acuteRoma poverty.29

Sluggishness in Implementation of Roma Inclusion Policies

The transformation into flesh of EUs Roma rhetoric is moving at seemingly

snail-pace. For instance, the EU waited for three years,30

a long stretch of time

by any standard, after the declaration of the Decade of Roma Inclusion, to

convene a summit to adopt an EU Roma Platform. To skeptics, this demonstrates

the measure of urgency the EU attaches to Roma issues. Compounding this, the

creation in the wake of the summit ofa unit focused on Roma inclusion and a

task force on anti-Gypsism31

within the EU Commission remains a vision.

Additionally, the Commission is in limbo as to how to operationalize the

platform.32

It is alleged that its agenda lacks specificity.33

This could be

occasioned by the lack of Roma participation in crafting the agenda itself.

29Martin Kovats, The Emergence of European Roma Policy, p. 110

30The first European Roma Summit was held in Sept. 2008.

31Decade of Roma Inclusion. One Year On, What Has Changed? 2Sept. 2009, accessed from

http://www.romadecade.org/665032

Ibid.33

Ibid.


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Political Marginalization

Beyond cavil, Roma representation within the policy process allows them toidentify their problems and propose viable solutions

34toward their inclusion.

Unfortunately, political participation and representation of Roma are

pronouncedly wanting,35

the most critical of democratic deficits within and

beyond the European Union,36

notwithstanding that the legal frameworks of

many EU countries guarantee it37

and that the Decade aims at giving Roma a

voice in the process of inclusion.

38

Although a few Roma have made inroads intomainstream politics,

39their political force does not constitute what it takes to

revolutionize the Roma condition. Policies affecting them are still crafted in ivory

towers by outsiders whose acquaintance with Roma realities is vicarious if not

sketchy.

Reinforcing Romas political alienation is their cohesion or lack of it. In the

words of Prof. Rorke, (b) eyond the rhetoric of Romani nation, the very notion of

nationhood remains as problematic as it is elusive.40

Roma are a non-territorial,

non-national, non-economic population, and because no territory is jeopardized

34

Martin Kovats, The Emergence of European Roma Policy, in Will Guy (ed) Between Past and Future: The Roma

of Central and Eastern Europe,University of Hertfordshire Press, pp. 102-10335

Stephan Muller and Zeljko Jovanovic, Pathways to Progress? The European Union and Roma Inclusion in theWestern Balkans, Budapest: OSI Roma Initiatives, p. 13036

Bernard Rorke, No Longer and Not Yet: Between Exclusion and Emancipation. In Valeriu Nicolae, et al. (ed)s,

Roma Diplomacy. New York: Idebate Press, 2007.37

Ibid.38

Mona Nicoara (ed),, ibid.39

For example, Livia Jaroki, a Romani woman was elected to the EU parliament in 2004.40

Bernard Rorke, No Longer and Not Yet: Between Exclusion and Emancipation. In Valeriu Nicolae, et al. (ed)s,

Roma Diplomacy. New York: Idebate Press, 2007.


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by their persecution, and because no government exists to speak in their defense

or complain about their abuse,41

their struggle for inclusion traverses thorny

paths. There is no inclusive Roma identity around which they can congregate as apeople to configure a cohesive political force. Their cultures are diverse and

distinct from one another and they are frequently suspicious of oneanother,42

apparently a byproduct of divide-and-conquer tactics of hostile governments. This

baldly negates Romani ethnic identity (as) the basis of present day emancipator

mobilization.43

Laying no claim to a widely Roma-supported emancipation struggle and

territory, States perceive them as incapable ofraising irredentist or secessionist

security issues so that their concerns, especially during the initial flurry of

efforts to formulate and enforce minority rights regimes, are largely ignored.44

This contrasts sharply to how States panic at perceived security issues raised by

ethnic minorities that are territorial and with a strong political base raising self-

determination claims.

Many Roma are stateless45

impacting on their political participation as they

are denied suffrage, a most basic political right the exercise of which allows the

individual to influence public policy affecting him/her. Citizenship, dubbed the

41

Hancock, On the Origin and Current Situation of the Romani Populations, supra.42 Pogany, supra. P. 943

Petrova, supra., p. 11344

Wil Kymlicka, Multicultural Odysseys, Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2007, at p. 21945

Hancock, On the Origin and Current Situation of the Romani Populations, supra. When Czechoslovakia split into

two states, Roma became stateless. The Czech Republic came out with a new citizenship law declaring Roma

within it as Slovaks. This constrained the Roma to apply for naturalization to become Czechs. The criteria were such

that the applicants were ineligible, rendering them stateless. Approximately 100,000 Roma were affected and

rendered stateless by this citizenship law.


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defining quality of an individual in the 21st

century46

is a warm blanket: it

endows the citizen State protection and other legal entitlements. It is therefore

problematic for stateless Roma that EU citizenship is based on ones citizenshipwithin a member country.

47While they are stateless, they remain vulnerable to

exploitation and abuse.

Causes of Roma Exclusion

Exacerbating the stumbling blocks to Roma inclusion are factors that foster

exclusion. These forces operating in the socio-cultural and political milieu in the

domestic fronts are racism, capitalism, illiteracy and internalized oppression. On

closer scrutiny, some of the causes are manifestations of other causes,

demonstrating that Roma problems are viciously cyclic. But it is still important to

regard these effects as causes since they generate further problems and treating

them has the potential of alleviating the Roma issues.

Racism and Xenophobia

Roma continue to be victims of discrimination not so much because of

discrimination in the law, but because of difficulties resulting from social

attitudes that have become ingrained into the society.48

The media, which are

powerful purveyors of consciousness, perpetuate anti-Roma prejudice49

and

46

Angus Bancroft, Roma and Gypsy-Travellers in Europe.Burlington; Ashgate Publishing Company, 2005, p.

141.47

Bancroft, ibid., p.157.48

Ian Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsism in Europe, Other Voices, v. 2., n. 1 (February 2000),p. 449

Ibid.


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stereotypes attributing to them incivility, inferiority and a state of anomie.50

For

instance, offenses allegedly committed by Roma are sensationalized as Roma

crimes

51

which is tantamount to attributing ethnicity to crimes. They areportrayed as the spring from which debauchery flows. But the blights of poverty,

unemployment, child mortality, and illiteracy afflicting them do not receive the

same exposure.52

The natural culmination of discriminatory media projection of Roma is

reinforcement of public disdain53

and their treatment as a social residuum. To

quote Ralf Dahrendorf, "They are, if the cruelty of the statement is pardonable,

not needed. The rest of us could and would quite like to live without them."54

This

summarizes best what the public feels about Roma, also an underclass, as a result

of pejorative media projections.

Even public officials and authorities are complicit in the pervasive bigotry

against the Roma55

and this has adverse consequences on the implementation of

legislations promoting Roma interest. Thus, Michael Kocb, Czech Human Rights

Minister remarked, The Government passes good legislation but it is not

implemented.56

It is claimed that those public officials who are in touch daily and

50 Gyorgi Csepeli and David Simon, Construction of Roma Identity in Eastern and Central Europe: Perception and

Self-Identification. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 2004), pp. 129-150 at p. 133;

available online athttp://www.csepeli.hu/elearning/cikkek/csepeli_simon.pdf51

Petrova, ibid. 52Ibid. 53

Gyorgi Csepeli and David Simon, ibid.54

(1985, p.20). Surveys conducted in55

Paul Legendre, Hard Times and Hardening Attitudes: The Economic Downturn and the Rise of Violence Against

Roma; written submission to the United States Commission on Security and Cooperation in Europe, 2009; accessed

fromhttp://www.errc.org/cms/upload/media/03/EF/m000003EF.pdf56The Times. Roma families experience the dark side of the Velvet Revolution. 21 Nov 2009http://www.timesonline.co.uk/tol/news/world/europe/article6926192.ece
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up-close-and-personal with Roma- the police,57

mayors, and civil servants- ignore

equality legislations due to sheer prejudice and this is more pronounced in the

former Communist countries.

58

The discrimination is pervasive even among the general public59

and there

appears to be a culture of impunity protecting the anti-Roma violent activities of

neo-Nazi groups that one remarked that the Neo-Nazis seem able to do what the

national government (is) constrained from doing.60

Unchecked racism

emasculates the Romas employment prospects and hampers their full and equal

access to public services.61

Racism is reflected in every facet of Roma existence. Thus, they are subject

to violence, segregation, unemployment, and poor, if not nescient access to

public services. Even the high incidence of unemployment among the Roma is

partly due to racism as being Roma is in itself a disqualification.

Capitalism

The capitalist order is a culprit in the Romas exclusion.62

Roma experience

proves Hummes assertion that social exclusion is closely tied to the new

economic world order, globalized, with free and open markets, which isn't

57Delia Grigore, The Romanian right and the 'strange' Roma (27 July 2003); accessed fromhttp://www.opendemocracy.net/people-migrationeurope/article_1387.jsp58

Bancroft, 32.59

Unknown reporter, The Times, 28 August 1992 as quoted in Bancroft, 101.60

Bancroft, supra. 101.61

Pogany, supra. at p. 662

Will Guy, Romani identity and post-Communist policy, in Will Guy (ed.), Between past and future: The Roma of

Central and Eastern Europe, University of Hertofrdshire Press, pp. 5-13.
http://www.opendemocracy.net/author/delia-grigorehttp://www.opendemocracy.net/people-migrationeurope/article_1387.jsphttp://www.opendemocracy.net/people-migrationeurope/article_1387.jsphttp://www.opendemocracy.net/people-migrationeurope/article_1387.jsphttp://www.opendemocracy.net/author/delia-grigore


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bringing prosperity or social justice to all.63

As Petrova put it, Roma continue to

be seen, even after the Nazi genocide, as parasitic elements, alien to the principle

of productivity and its underlying values.

64

The shift in the economic order afterthe fall of communism has pushed them to subterranean crevasses of

marginalization.

Roma are said to have suffered under Stalinist rule but they were not as

wretched as in the present day.65

It integrated them into the production process

albeit they were placed in low-paying and unskilled jobs

66

in agrarian cooperativesand industrial enterprises

67which nonetheless elevated their standard of living.

68

Unfortunately, these were the very same jobs doomed todisappear during the

shift to capitalism69

as the profit-maximizing mechanized labor rendered unskilled

labor redundant. Capitalism winged its way to directions requiring skills that

Roma were unable to acquire70

as Stalinism isolated them in the lowest strata of

the proletariat. Expelled from the capitalist workforce,71

they were pushed back

to the fringes of society where they remain to date.

63

Accessed fromhttp://www.brainyquote.com/quotes/keywords/globalized.html64

Petrova, supra.65

Guy, ibid.66

Bancroft, supra., p.11.

67League for the Fifth International. The Roma, Europes forgotten nationality (31 December 2002), accessed from

http://www.fifthinternational.org/content/roma-europes-forgotten-nationality

68Guy, ibid.

69Pogany, supra. at p. 6

70Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsy Racism in Europe.

71Bancroft, supra. 151.
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Thus under capitalism Roma tend to be fired first and hired last on account

of their inadequate skills72

and themassive prejudice against them73

which the

capitalist order makes no attempt to curb. These put to serious peril Romas labormarket reentry and reduce them into public welfare scroungers, or into

dependency on temporary jobs in the informal sector or overseas.74

To capitalism,

Roma, with insufficient or no income, are flawed consumers75

whose hands

cannot reach its wares and are therefore inconsequential if not invisible.

Some Marxists, fastened to the belief that racism is indissolubly entangled

with capitalism, propound that this profit-motivated economic system need(s)

the pariah status of the Roma since they are a silent minority upon whom the

social contradictions can be offloaded; they are the first to be sacked and the first

to have their social benefits cut.76

Furthermore, the bourgeois society fostered

by capitalism needs a scapegoat on which to focus the hatred of the backward

layers of society in order to divide the working class and forestall its unity in

struggle against exploitation and oppression.77

Whether these claims possess

merit or not, what remains unchallenged is that Romas marginalization was

dramatically aggravated when capitalism was catapulted into the economic

throne in Eastern and Central Europe.

72

Ian Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsy Racism in Europe,73

Hancock.74

Dena Ringold, et al., Roma in an Expanding Europe: Breaking the Poverty Cycle. Washington; The World Bank

(2005), p. 975

Niclas Mansson, Bauman on Strangers- Unwanted Peculiarities in Michael Hviid Jacobsen, et al. (eds),The

Sociology of Zygmunt Bauman : Challenges and Critiques. Burlington: Ashgate Publishing Company (2008), p. 16376

League for the Fifth International, supra.77Ibid.


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Lack of Education

Roma suffer from high illiteracy rate78

which in turn excludes them from

economic access as they lack the educational qualifications for the available jobs

in the aftermath of Stalinisms fall. This is fomented by racism and learned

helplessness. Illiterate parents duplicate their misfortune in their children whom

they do not send to school due to grinding poverty and ignorance. Under

Stalinism, Roma, as a matter of policy, were shoved inside classrooms79

improving

their literacy level and engendering the rise of an educated Roma class.80

Thus,

Roma were regarded as the teachers pets of the Communists, pampered and

privileged.81

Unfortunately, due to racism which went unchecked in the post-

Cold War period, they were excluded from the classrooms or put in schools for

the mentally handicapped simply on account of their being Roma!82

Some of them

do not go to school at all. In this 21st

century, it is shocking to note that some

300,000 young Roma are illiterate!83

If education is the key to transforming the prospects of the Roma,84

their

educational persecution logically hampers their integration and estranges them

from opportunities for a quality of life bearing little if no semblance to their

present desperate state. Since most Roma children are pushed by segregation

78

Edwin Rekosh, et al. (eds.), Separate And Unequal: Combating Discrimination Against Roma in Education.

Budapest: Public Interest Law Initiative, 200479 Zoltan D. Barany, Orphans of Transition: Gypsies in Eastern Europe. Journal of Democracy - Volume 9,

Number 3, July 1998, pp. 142-15680

Guy, supra.81

Bancroft, supra., p. 125.82

Rekosh, supra.83

Stephan Muller and Zeljko Jovanovic, Pathways to Progress? The European Union and Roma Inclusion in the

Western Balkans, Budapest: OSI Roma Initiatives, p. 13084

Pogany, supra., at p. 11


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policies to schools for the mentally handicapped, it is unlikely that they will climb

up the zenith of the educational ladder. This puts a shroud of uncertainty on their

future economic prospects.

Internalized Oppression

Internalized oppression is also a cause of the Romas exclusion. Describing

this phenomenon, Paulo Freire in his famous work, Pedagogy of the Oppressed

said:

Self-depreciation is another characteristic of theoppressed, which derives from their internalization of the

opinion the oppressors hold of them. So often do they

hear that they are good for nothing, know nothing and

are incapable of learning anything that they are sick,

lazy, and unproductive that in the end they become

convinced of their own unfitness.

This is exactly the situation of the Roma: a large number of them view

their condition with the eyes of their oppressor. The danger is that where

marginalization becomes part of the order of things, it deprives one even of the

consciousness of exclusion"85

and the oppressed unwittingly co-authors his/her

oppression. It must be stressed for it bears stressing that Freire labeled

internalized oppression as a manifestation of abuse although it contributes to it.

Cespeli and Simon attribute to (h)ostility, rejection, negative stereotypes,

prejudice, overt and covert forms of discrimination the proclivity of Roma to

85

Loic Wacquant, 'Inside the Zone: The Social Art of the Hustler',Theory, Culture and Society 15(2), 1998 at p.13


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internalize the negative image perpetuated by outsiders.86

Helpless in defeating

the outsiders hostility, Roma disown their identity87

instead of struggling to

reverse their image

88

worsening the legal and policy problems related to Romastatistics.

89Others end up embracing an identity constructed by hostile if not

oppressive outsiders90

contributing to the lethargy of efforts to dismantle barriers

to their long walk to the gates of the mainstream.

Roma self-depreciation is not lost to the European Union, thus it has a

project to elevate understanding and respect for the Roma among mainstream

society (and) improved self-esteem among the Roma community.91 How

effective the project will be is for history to judge. Meantime, Roma continue to

suffer from learned helplessness which derails the struggle for their integration

into the mainstream.

Parting Words

It is wishful thinking to say that the motley legislations and policies that

form part of the Roma rights regimes will alter the Roma situation within the

Decade of Roma Inclusion. The structures upon which is anchored pervasive anti-

Roma prejudice have remained formidable for centuries and these cannot be

dismantled overnight. The Stalinist regime, even with its herculean strength in

86

Gyorgi Csepeli and David Simon, Construction of Roma Identity in Eastern and Central Europe: Perception andSelf-Identification. Journal of Ethnic and Migration Studies; Vol. 30, No. 1 (January 2004), pp. 129-150 at p. 135;

available online athttp://www.csepeli.hu/elearning/cikkek/csepeli_simon.pdf87

Will Guy, Romani Identity and Post-Communist Policy, in Will Guy (ed) Between Past and Future: The Roma of

Central and Eastern Europe, University of Hertfordshire Press, p. 11; Petrova, p. 114;88

Csepeli, ibid. 89

Petrova, supra., p. 11590

Csepeli, ibid.91

Council of the EU, EU Annual Report, 79.
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prohibiting racial bigotry92

succeeded only in momentarily suppressing anti-

Gypsyism, which swiftly resurrected as soon as the Berlin wall collapsed. It will

take decades if not centuries before the lingering remnants of anti-Romasentiments will vanish into thin air. After all, the colored peoples of America

continue to suffer from discrimination long after desegregation was struck down.

Roma themselves should form a cohesive force to tear down structures

against them. The European Union should adopt judicially enforceable

supranational legislations to complement existing minority rights regimes to

liberate the Roma from the abyss of discrimination they were hurled into. States

should translate their political commitments into integrated policies that will

guarantee holistic development for their Roma constituencies.

Nothing less than these can meaningfully contribute to a comprehensive

theory of justice in Europe.

92

Hancock, The Consequences of Anti-Gypsy Racism in Europe, supra.

roma of europe fenced out from inside

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