03-01-2004, 11:31 PM
http://www.tol.cz/look/TOLnew/article.tpl?...NrArticle=11650
Equal but Still Separate
Week in Review: 24 February - 1 March 2004
When the uproar has died down in eastern Slovakia, Roma looking for a way forward could find inspiration in a 50-year-old U.S. court case.
As of 1 March, the standoff between Roma and the authorities in several Slovak towns seems to be quieting down. There have been no reports of looting or rioting in several days, and on 29 February President Rudolf Schuster met with Roma leaders, saying he supported their demands for the withdrawal of more than 2,000 police and soldiers deployed in the eastern and central towns and settlements most affected by the disruption that broke out 10 days earlier.
When pressed to explain why hundreds of poor Roma rampaged through shops, stripping the shelves bare of goods, many local Roma blamed the Bratislava government's welfare cutbacks. On 1 February, new welfare rules went into effect that will shrink the payments to most recipients, with large families hit especially hard because most child-support payments now stop with the fourth child. One of the most active Romani advocacy groups, the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), charges that this provision was designed specifically to cut the number of Roma on the welfare rolls.
Others both within and outside the Romani community charge that the rioters were urged on by loan sharks who prey on those dependent on state support, lending money at usurious rates to tide them over until the next welfare payment.
Different though the circumstances are, some aspects of the predicament of Slovak Roma (and Central and Eastern European Roma in general) are remarkably similar to the situation in the poorest black neighborhoods of American cities: unemployment, lack of access to good schools, and reliance on state support, to name a few.
AS IT WAS THEN, SO IT IS NOW
There is a good case to be made, however, that today's Roma should more accurately be compared to American blacks a half-century ago. The analogy is more than just academic, because the struggle for civil rights in America at that time can offer valuable insights and tactical experience to those working for Romani rights.
Above all, Roma and North American blacks represent "nonterritorial nations." Their people share cultural, social, and genetic traits, yet they cannot with any certainty point to a spot on the map and declare, "This was our home."
In the case of America's blacks, their forebears from western and central Africa were thrown into the maelstrom of slavery on another continent, where in the interests of increasing labor productivity and preventing unrest, their masters suppressed their African languages, religions, and customs.
<b>
In the case of the Roma, it is generally agreed that their forebears originated in northern India, from where, during the medieval era, they migrated westward--experts differ as to whether willingly or unwillingly, as slaves or as soldiers, en masse or in many waves.</b> Although many Roma, unlike the vast majority of North American black people, retain a linguistic link with their Asian homeland, in neither case will you find nationalism of the chauvinist or even fanatical type perfected by some Western and Central Europeans.
Many other resemblances can be found--notably, the sorrowful fact that many Roma, and most American blacks, had ancestors who were slaves. The devastating psychosocial impact of this has been amply demonstrated in the American case and can only be assumed to be enormous in the European one.
The two peoples are alike in another way. Looking at American blacks some 50 or 60 years ago and at Roma today, we see people who by and large are the victims of violence at the hands of the majority, rather than people who commit violent acts against the majority. We do not see the desire for justice transformed into a campaign of violence against the establishment. In the American case, a few groups of armed radicals did emerge in the late 1960s and early '70s, but they failed to win anything like the popularity of, for instance, the Irish Republican Army at the same time (whereas the IRA could draw on generous Irish-American sources of guns and money, only a tiny number of blacks sought or obtained such support from abroad).
RIGHTS ARE NOT ENOUGH
In one vital area, European Roma of today might seem well ahead of American blacks of a half-century ago. On paper, they possess equality before the law: equal access to education, jobs, housing, and political life. True, they are often barred from equal opportunity in jobs or education, or subject to blatant racial violence, by local authorities' refusal to enforce the law. But at least they are not prevented by law from attending the same schools as the majority, as was the case in many Southern states two generations ago, or from sitting in the front of a public bus or taking a drink at a "whites only" water fountain.
And citizens of European states who believe their human rights have been violated have a legal recourse of last resort in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. On 26 February, the court awarded monetary damages to the families of two Bulgarian Roma shot dead in 1996 by a military police major. Although at the time of the shooting the men were on the run from a punishment stint in an army construction detail, the court ruled unanimously that, in firing on nonviolent criminals, the officer violated the men's right to life as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges also found that Bulgarian authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the men's deaths and had violated Article 14 of the convention, which broadly prohibits discriminatory practices.
But while in this respect Central Europe's Roma are ahead of America's blacks at the middle of the 20th century, in another they share the dilemma of blacks of a full century ago. In both times we can see that deprivation and discrimination rendered the people themselves unable to put their case for justice. The level of political and cultural discourse in the Romani communities today, or such discourse as appears in English, is inadequate to the gravity of their cause. Roma-run media typically tend to emphasize brief news items, often reports of crimes against Roma. Of course, these reports serve a vital need and should be more widely circulated, unbalanced though they too often are. But cries for help alone will not do the job.
THE GREATEST EVIL
Fifty years ago this May, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling that quickly became a touchstone of the American civil rights movement. In the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, the court struck down its own "separate but equal" decision of 1896. In that now-infamous judgment, the court found that the constitutionally mandated right to equal education could be carried out in segregated schools--that black children had no constitutional right to sit among white children. Over the intervening decades the absurdity of this argument became more and more apparent to the black community, and to growing numbers of whites. Black lawyers and activists, aided by a small group of dedicated white lawyers, began to seek legal means to overturn "separate but equal" legislation in the 1930s and finally made the breakthrough when the parents of a schoolgirl named Linda Brown and other black parents brought their case to the Supreme Court in 1954. Yet they still had to wait many years to see serious moves to desegregate schools in many parts of the country.
Is the Brown case an apt model for the Romani rights movement? True, it makes a sobering illustration of how long it can take for justice to become law, for law to become practice, for practice to become normality.
Yet Brown could be a model for the Roma because--let us assume--just about everyone of good will would agree that all children should have equal access to educational services.
In spite of that, local and national authorities across this region continue to deliberately and cynically deny Romani children equal access to schooling. The scandal of the "special schools" is well known. Schools ostensibly set up to give a modicum of education to children with mental or developmental handicaps have become dumping grounds for Romani children who, even if they complete their schooling, are often permanently disadvantaged by the stigma of "specialness." What is not often mentioned is that this practice of separate and unequal primary education is no holdover from the totalitarian era. Under the previous regimes in Central Europe, Romani children were in general not heavily over-represented in special schools, although this began to change in the 1980s. From 1990, according to a study conducted by the ERRC, the fraction of Romani children shot up to the point that in 2003, over 40 percent of Romani children were attending special schools, and, incredibly, they comprised 98 percent of the special school population.
Why would newly democratic states enthusiastically begin channeling Romani kids into substandard schools? The ERRC and other Romani activists charge that national and local school authorities willfully exaggerate the "specialness" of Roma children in order to take advantage of Western-funded programs not available to ordinary schools. And the amounts of money available are eye-opening. According to the study, from 1989 to 2003, 2.3 billion euros was transferred to local authorities in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for the supposed benefit of special schools. And yet, the study says, "special schools were and remain extremely ill-equipped, there is effectively no useful instruction and children languish and essentially lose interest and finally, and understandably, drop out."
The distinguished American civil rights lawyer Jack Greenberg has commented on the similarities between the black and Romani movements on several occasions, including last year at Central European University in Budapest. Greenberg helped argue the case of Brown vs. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court. As he noted at a discussion in New York several years ago, the breakthrough of Brown capped a long effort to persuade the American public that "the greatest evil that black people faced at that time, among a great many evils, was segregation and discrimination in education."
The Romani cause may never find its Martin Luther King Jr. or even its Muhammad Ali. But if Romani activists, human rights defenders, and European institutions will get to work to identify winnable cases, prepare evidence, train lawyers, and if need be spend years looking for the "silver bullet case," as Greenberg put it--then maybe the Roma will find a Linda Brown of their own. And the images of trashed stores and screaming protestors will fade from memory.
====
http://www.tol.cz/look/CER/article.tpl?IdL...NrArticle=11362
Equal but Still Separate
Week in Review: 24 February - 1 March 2004
When the uproar has died down in eastern Slovakia, Roma looking for a way forward could find inspiration in a 50-year-old U.S. court case.
As of 1 March, the standoff between Roma and the authorities in several Slovak towns seems to be quieting down. There have been no reports of looting or rioting in several days, and on 29 February President Rudolf Schuster met with Roma leaders, saying he supported their demands for the withdrawal of more than 2,000 police and soldiers deployed in the eastern and central towns and settlements most affected by the disruption that broke out 10 days earlier.
When pressed to explain why hundreds of poor Roma rampaged through shops, stripping the shelves bare of goods, many local Roma blamed the Bratislava government's welfare cutbacks. On 1 February, new welfare rules went into effect that will shrink the payments to most recipients, with large families hit especially hard because most child-support payments now stop with the fourth child. One of the most active Romani advocacy groups, the European Roma Rights Center (ERRC), charges that this provision was designed specifically to cut the number of Roma on the welfare rolls.
Others both within and outside the Romani community charge that the rioters were urged on by loan sharks who prey on those dependent on state support, lending money at usurious rates to tide them over until the next welfare payment.
Different though the circumstances are, some aspects of the predicament of Slovak Roma (and Central and Eastern European Roma in general) are remarkably similar to the situation in the poorest black neighborhoods of American cities: unemployment, lack of access to good schools, and reliance on state support, to name a few.
AS IT WAS THEN, SO IT IS NOW
There is a good case to be made, however, that today's Roma should more accurately be compared to American blacks a half-century ago. The analogy is more than just academic, because the struggle for civil rights in America at that time can offer valuable insights and tactical experience to those working for Romani rights.
Above all, Roma and North American blacks represent "nonterritorial nations." Their people share cultural, social, and genetic traits, yet they cannot with any certainty point to a spot on the map and declare, "This was our home."
In the case of America's blacks, their forebears from western and central Africa were thrown into the maelstrom of slavery on another continent, where in the interests of increasing labor productivity and preventing unrest, their masters suppressed their African languages, religions, and customs.
<b>
In the case of the Roma, it is generally agreed that their forebears originated in northern India, from where, during the medieval era, they migrated westward--experts differ as to whether willingly or unwillingly, as slaves or as soldiers, en masse or in many waves.</b> Although many Roma, unlike the vast majority of North American black people, retain a linguistic link with their Asian homeland, in neither case will you find nationalism of the chauvinist or even fanatical type perfected by some Western and Central Europeans.
Many other resemblances can be found--notably, the sorrowful fact that many Roma, and most American blacks, had ancestors who were slaves. The devastating psychosocial impact of this has been amply demonstrated in the American case and can only be assumed to be enormous in the European one.
The two peoples are alike in another way. Looking at American blacks some 50 or 60 years ago and at Roma today, we see people who by and large are the victims of violence at the hands of the majority, rather than people who commit violent acts against the majority. We do not see the desire for justice transformed into a campaign of violence against the establishment. In the American case, a few groups of armed radicals did emerge in the late 1960s and early '70s, but they failed to win anything like the popularity of, for instance, the Irish Republican Army at the same time (whereas the IRA could draw on generous Irish-American sources of guns and money, only a tiny number of blacks sought or obtained such support from abroad).
RIGHTS ARE NOT ENOUGH
In one vital area, European Roma of today might seem well ahead of American blacks of a half-century ago. On paper, they possess equality before the law: equal access to education, jobs, housing, and political life. True, they are often barred from equal opportunity in jobs or education, or subject to blatant racial violence, by local authorities' refusal to enforce the law. But at least they are not prevented by law from attending the same schools as the majority, as was the case in many Southern states two generations ago, or from sitting in the front of a public bus or taking a drink at a "whites only" water fountain.
And citizens of European states who believe their human rights have been violated have a legal recourse of last resort in the European Court of Human Rights in Strasbourg. On 26 February, the court awarded monetary damages to the families of two Bulgarian Roma shot dead in 1996 by a military police major. Although at the time of the shooting the men were on the run from a punishment stint in an army construction detail, the court ruled unanimously that, in firing on nonviolent criminals, the officer violated the men's right to life as guaranteed by the European Convention on Human Rights. The judges also found that Bulgarian authorities had failed to conduct an effective investigation into the men's deaths and had violated Article 14 of the convention, which broadly prohibits discriminatory practices.
But while in this respect Central Europe's Roma are ahead of America's blacks at the middle of the 20th century, in another they share the dilemma of blacks of a full century ago. In both times we can see that deprivation and discrimination rendered the people themselves unable to put their case for justice. The level of political and cultural discourse in the Romani communities today, or such discourse as appears in English, is inadequate to the gravity of their cause. Roma-run media typically tend to emphasize brief news items, often reports of crimes against Roma. Of course, these reports serve a vital need and should be more widely circulated, unbalanced though they too often are. But cries for help alone will not do the job.
THE GREATEST EVIL
Fifty years ago this May, the United States Supreme Court handed down a ruling that quickly became a touchstone of the American civil rights movement. In the case of Brown vs. Board of Education, the court struck down its own "separate but equal" decision of 1896. In that now-infamous judgment, the court found that the constitutionally mandated right to equal education could be carried out in segregated schools--that black children had no constitutional right to sit among white children. Over the intervening decades the absurdity of this argument became more and more apparent to the black community, and to growing numbers of whites. Black lawyers and activists, aided by a small group of dedicated white lawyers, began to seek legal means to overturn "separate but equal" legislation in the 1930s and finally made the breakthrough when the parents of a schoolgirl named Linda Brown and other black parents brought their case to the Supreme Court in 1954. Yet they still had to wait many years to see serious moves to desegregate schools in many parts of the country.
Is the Brown case an apt model for the Romani rights movement? True, it makes a sobering illustration of how long it can take for justice to become law, for law to become practice, for practice to become normality.
Yet Brown could be a model for the Roma because--let us assume--just about everyone of good will would agree that all children should have equal access to educational services.
In spite of that, local and national authorities across this region continue to deliberately and cynically deny Romani children equal access to schooling. The scandal of the "special schools" is well known. Schools ostensibly set up to give a modicum of education to children with mental or developmental handicaps have become dumping grounds for Romani children who, even if they complete their schooling, are often permanently disadvantaged by the stigma of "specialness." What is not often mentioned is that this practice of separate and unequal primary education is no holdover from the totalitarian era. Under the previous regimes in Central Europe, Romani children were in general not heavily over-represented in special schools, although this began to change in the 1980s. From 1990, according to a study conducted by the ERRC, the fraction of Romani children shot up to the point that in 2003, over 40 percent of Romani children were attending special schools, and, incredibly, they comprised 98 percent of the special school population.
Why would newly democratic states enthusiastically begin channeling Romani kids into substandard schools? The ERRC and other Romani activists charge that national and local school authorities willfully exaggerate the "specialness" of Roma children in order to take advantage of Western-funded programs not available to ordinary schools. And the amounts of money available are eye-opening. According to the study, from 1989 to 2003, 2.3 billion euros was transferred to local authorities in Hungary, the Czech Republic, and Slovakia for the supposed benefit of special schools. And yet, the study says, "special schools were and remain extremely ill-equipped, there is effectively no useful instruction and children languish and essentially lose interest and finally, and understandably, drop out."
The distinguished American civil rights lawyer Jack Greenberg has commented on the similarities between the black and Romani movements on several occasions, including last year at Central European University in Budapest. Greenberg helped argue the case of Brown vs. Board of Education before the U.S. Supreme Court. As he noted at a discussion in New York several years ago, the breakthrough of Brown capped a long effort to persuade the American public that "the greatest evil that black people faced at that time, among a great many evils, was segregation and discrimination in education."
The Romani cause may never find its Martin Luther King Jr. or even its Muhammad Ali. But if Romani activists, human rights defenders, and European institutions will get to work to identify winnable cases, prepare evidence, train lawyers, and if need be spend years looking for the "silver bullet case," as Greenberg put it--then maybe the Roma will find a Linda Brown of their own. And the images of trashed stores and screaming protestors will fade from memory.
====
http://www.tol.cz/look/CER/article.tpl?IdL...NrArticle=11362