Roma in Europe: The Politics of Collective Identity Formation 9781472420589, 9781472420596, 9781472420602, 9781315606811

Table of contents :
Cover
Contents
List of Figures and Tables
List of Abbreviations
Acknowledgements
Introduction
1
The Roma People
2 The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania
3
EU Accession Conditionality as an Opportunity Context for Roma Political Representation in Europe
4
The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania
5 The International Roma Political Activists and their Role in the Crystallization of Roma Collective Identity
6
The Roma Kings between International, State-National and Local Legitimization. The Case of Romanian Roma Kings
7 The International Roma Festival in Costesti/Romania
Conclusion
Bibliography
Index

Citation preview

ROMA IN EUrOPe

This page has been left blank intentionally

Roma in Europe

The Politics of Collective Identity Formation

IOANA BUNeScU Malmö University, Sweden

First published 2014 by Ashgate Publishing Published 2016 by Routledge 2 Park Square, Milton Park, Abingdon, Oxon OX14 4RN 711 Third Avenue, New York, NY 10017, USA Routledge is an imprint of the Taylor & Francis Group, an informa business Copyright © Ioana Bunescu 2014 Ioana Bunescu has asserted her right under the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act, 1988, to be identified as the author of this work. All rights reserved. No part of this book may be reprinted or reproduced or utilised in any form or by any electronic, mechanical, or other means, now known or hereafter invented, including photocopying and recording, or in any information storage or retrieval system, without permission in writing from the publishers. Notice: Product or corporate names may be trademarks or registered trademarks, and are used only for identification and explanation without intent to infringe. British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library The Library of Congress has cataloged the printed edition as follows: Bunescu, Ioana. Roma in Europe : the politics of collective identity formation / by Ioana Bunescu. pages cm.  Includes bibliographical references and index. ISBN 978-1-4724-2058-9 (hardback : alkaline paper) — ISBN 978-1-4724-2059-6 (e-book) — ISBN 978-1-4724-2060-2 (e-pub) 1. Romanies—Europe, Eastern—Politics and government. 2. Romanies—Europe, Eastern—Ethnic identity. 3. Romanies—Europe, Eastern—History. 4. Political participation—Europe, Eastern. 5. Europe, Eastern—Ethnic relations. I. Title. DX210.B86 2014 305.8914’9704—dc23 2014003009 ISBN 9781472420589 (hbk) ISBN 9781315606811 (ebk)

Contents List of Figures and Tables   List of Abbreviations   Acknowledgements   Introduction  

vii ix xi 1

1

The Roma People  

13

2

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania  

27

3

EU Accession Conditionality as an Opportunity Context for Roma Political Representation in Europe  

39

4

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania  

47

5

The International Roma Political Activists and their Role in the Crystallization of Roma Collective Identity  

61

6

The Roma Kings between International, State-National and Local Legitimization. The Case of Romanian Roma Kings   117

7

The International Roma Festival in Costesti/Romania  

161

Conclusion  

193

Bibliography   Index  

197 211

This page has been left blank intentionally

List of Figures and Tables Figures 6.1 6.2 6.3 6.4 6.5 6.6 6.7 6.8 6.9 6.10

The emblem of the Royal House of Roma   128 King Tortica’s residence (the Brass Palace) in September 2004   138 Main kitchen in the Brass Palace   139 Backyard kitchen of the Brass Palace   140 Main wall of the guest room in the Brass Palace   141 Part of the left wall in the guest room of the Brass Palace   142 Middle part of the left wall in the guest room of the Brass Palace   143 Main part of the left wall of the guest room of the Brass Palace   145 The door in the right wall of the guest room at the Brass Palace   146 King Tortica with the crown, the holy crucifix and the flags of Romania and European Union   150 6.11 King Tortica with his granddaughter in the Christian Orthodox corner of the guest room   151 7.1 7.2 7.3 7.4 7.5 7.6 7.7 7.8 7.9 7.10 7.11 7.12 7.13 7.14 7.15 7.16 7.17

Roma children waking up for the fair after a night sleeping in the field   164 Roma merchants preparing for the fare after a night sleeping in the field   164 Roma family that travelled and slept in horse carriage   165 The author welcomed to warm up at this Roma family’s morning fire   165 (a) and (b) Wealthy Kalderash Roma preparing for the feast   166 (a) and (b) Romanian merchants at the site of the Roma festival   167 French Roma photographer    168 Norwegian Roma artist, Romanian researcher and German journalist   168 (a) and (b) King Cioaba’s tent halfway up the hill   181 (a) and (b) The Roma occupying the area between the fair and the hill   182 Roma women burning some of their merchandise   183 Roma child merchant waking up after a night sleeping in the field  183 (a) and (b) The ethnically mixed left side of the fair   184 Roma family from Valcea that hosted the author at their table   186 Roma man proudly displaying golden teeth   187 Roma boys promised as grooms displaying golden jewelry   187 Roma women with long skirts   190

viii

Roma in Europe

Tables 5.1 5.2

The Legal Situation of Roma in Europe   Symbolic and Legal Agencies of the Roma  

65 115

List of Abbreviations CoE CCGSR CEE CPRSI ECHR ECJ EU ERRC ERTF FCNM IRU NIS NGO ODIHR OSCE OSI PER RNC RPP SEE

Council of Europe Central Council for German and Sinti Roma Central-Eastern Europe Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues European Court of Human Rights European Court of Justice European Union European Roma Rights Center European Roma and Travellers Forum Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities International Romani Union New Independent States Non-governmental Organization Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe Open Society Institute Project of Ethnic Relations Roma National Congress Roma Participation Program South-East Europe

This page has been left blank intentionally

Acknowledgements I would like to express my gratitude to everyone who supported me during the process of writing this book for it would have never been possible to bring it to an end without the kind assistance, cooperation and understanding of everyone who kept having faith in me. This book was written in many locations and with the input and advice of many prominent scholars. First of all I would like to thank Professor Jan Kubik, the much-missed Professor Marian Kempny, and Professor Sławomir Kapralski who actively contributed, inspired and offered valuable feedback throughout the process of writing, particularly during the period when I was hosted at the Graduate School for Social Research of the Polish Academy of Sciences in Warsaw. During the research process I also benefitted from discussions and advice from Professor Ulf Hedetoft who offered feedback to my work during the 4-month writing fellowship at Aalborg University in Denmark. Past encounters, seminars, summer schools, private conversations and fieldwork with colleagues and mentors from the Central European University in Budapest and University of Bucharest provided me with significant knowledge and tools for framing the present work. I should mention here Professor Michael Stewart and Professor Vintila Mihailescu for introducing me to social anthropology and to an understanding of the Roma people from this perspective. The political anthropology perspective of my thesis was inspired by Marian Kempny and Jan Kubik, while the European studies perspective was inspired by many conversations and exchanges I had with my colleagues from the European Studies Program at Aalborg University in Denmark. I would also like to thank Professor Frances Pine for facilitating my stay at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany for library documentation. I am also grateful to all institutions that hosted me during my journey, as well as to the funding agencies that made it possible. I should mention here first of all the Graduate School of Social Research of the Polish Academy of Science, the Open Society Institute in Budapest, the Institute of History and International Studies at Aalborg University in Denmark, Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle, Germany and Malmö Institute for the Study of Migration, Diversity and Welfare (MIM) in Sweden. My work for the OSCE Contact Point of Roma and Sinti Issues in Warsaw represented an important opportunity to get in contact with prominent Roma political activists that accepted to be interviewed. I would particularly like to thank Andrzej Mirga and the much-missed Nicolae Gheorghe for their openness and the valuable insights they agreed to share. I would also like to thank everyone I encountered on my way who provided me with shelter, food and trust, as well as with openness and friendship. I refer here to all my interviewees in several locations, as well as their neighbors, acquaintances and friends. I am

xii

Roma in Europe

particularly grateful to my friend Joanna Jahn from Wrocław University in Poland for her IT support at impossible hours and during difficult times. Last but not least I would like to thank my family and friends for their patience and faith in me and for the emotional support they offered unconditionally throughout the process. Ioana Bunescu November 2013, Bușteni

Introduction The Roma have been subjects of various policies of assimilation and integration in Europe and have often been perceived as subversive to imperial and, later on, to state authorities for their distinctiveness from majority populations. As a result, the Roma have often been portrayed as a problem that needs to be solved, perhaps rarely more intensively so then during the historical moment of European Union’s eastern enlargement. Even though the alleged Roma problem has constituted an issue of debate for many centuries, the plight of the Roma acquires new political, cultural and social dimensions in contemporary Europe. This book starts from the assumption that a more thorough knowledge about the Roma is needed prior to uncritically label these populations as a homogenous group to be targeted by immigration or integration policies. Each book chapter is an outcome of a multi-sited ethnography1 that combines anthropological, cultural studies and political science approaches to understanding the historical process of collective identity formation of the Roma. In addition, the book calls for a re-evaluation of the conceptual tools prevalent in policy making and scholarly literature on Romani studies and puts to work an alternative set of concepts for uncovering the meaning of fieldwork material. The analysis of extensive fieldwork material offers a multi-faceted picture of the Roma in different contexts of interaction. This approach highlights the pitfalls of taking for granted the homogeneity of this group, as well as the importance of understanding the different needs and interests of these diverse groups of people. Although several previous scholarly attempts have questioned the homogeneity of this group and proposed an understanding of the Roma as a heterogeneous category, there have been rather singular and only recent attempts2 to go beyond binaries and to propose third-space categories, such as hybridity,3 for understanding the politics of belonging and identification of these people. This book adds to this proposal by employing Homi Bhabha’s concept of hybridity in uncovering the meaning of the often contradictory and confusing fieldwork material. The fieldwork data identified paradoxical choices of distinctiveness and similarity of the Roma with other minority and majority groups. For example, in censuses the hetero-identified Roma do not often self-identify as Roma and they choose to identify with other ethnic groups, while in other social situations the same people self-identify as Roma. The diversity of Roma identifications challenges the necessity and the adequacy of policies 1  George E. Marcus, “Multi-sited ethnography: Five or Six Things I Know about It Now” in Ethnography through Thick and Thin (Princeton: Princeton University Press, 1998). 2  Annabel Tremlett, “Bringing Hybridity to Heterogeneity: Roma and the question of difference in Romani studies” in Romani Studies 19, No.2 (2009): pp. 147–68. 3 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994).

2

Roma in Europe

targeting Roma as a homogenous ethnic group, as well as that of a homogenous social category. The paradox of Roma identifications varying from strong assertions of Roma identity to complete negations of it triggers this book’s inquiry into the reasons why Roma identifications are so heterogeneous. The argument unfolding in each empirically-based chapter is that the heterogeneity of Roma identifications is not random, but that it follows certain context-specific patterns. For example, at local level in a multi-ethnic locality in Transylvania, one could observe that within the same hetero-identified Roma group there is a tendency for differentiated and fragmented self-identifications; while at state level, for instance in Romania, and at international level there is an opposite tendency that blurs differentiations and emphasizes a more homogenous collective identity of the Roma. This book attempts to uncover the reasons for the large array of Roma identifications through the combined method of thick description4 and multi-sited ethnography5. The conjunction of these methods offers a contextual understanding of the complex dynamic of Roma collective identity formation at three analytical levels: the local, the state and the international. These three levels serve primarily analytical purposes and they are not used in this book as reified categories with clearly defined boundaries. However, the use of these analytical categories has implications on selecting and interpreting fieldwork material. Several large case studies are chosen to illustrate the dynamics of Roma collective identity formation at these different analytical levels: • The Roma identifications in a local context with a multi-ethnic character (the village of Cristian in Transylvania, Romania) • The political mobilization of the Roma at state level in Romania, in the context of EU enlargement • The international collective identity project carried out by Roma political activists at European Union level • The international collective identity project carried out by Roma political activists speaking on behalf of multi-governmental organizations (e.g. OSCE) and international NGOs that speak for the Roma • The bridging role of Roma kings as international, state and local representatives of the Roma Different conceptual and analytical categories used in this book require specification before launching them in the actual analysis of fieldwork material. First of all, the concept of Roma needs to be examined. Roma is an all-inclusive political term that implies the existence of a Roma collective identity and tends to downplay the several factions and group distinctions that exist under this umbrella-term. It is important to mention that the homogenization endeavor launched in 1970 4  Clifford Geertz, The Interpretation of Cultures: Selected Essays (New York: Basic Books, 1973). 5  Marcus, Multi-sited Ethnography.

Introduction

3

by some Roma political activists at international level is not entirely welcomed by some groups, for example by the Roma and Sinti in Germany, who prefer to stay apart from the all-inclusiveness of the movement. In this book one could find three terms that refer to the same people—Roma, Gypsies and Tsigani—and the distinctions between them are very important for the topic under discussion. When I use the term Roma I refer to the politically correct mainstream terminology that came into being in 1970 when the International Romani Union (IRU) was created. I use the term Gypsies when I refer or quote from scholarly literature that uses this terminology. I use the term Tsigani when citing excerpts from interviews conducted during fieldwork and when trying to highlight the subtlety of terminology used in the everyday life self-identifications of the Roma. When I refer to the population under study as an author, I use the politically correct terminology of Roma for analytical purposes and not for political purposes of strengthening the reification of the Roma as a homogenous group. Another concept that requires specification is that of collective identity. The concept of collective identity is understood here as a useful analytical category which however does not entirely have a reified correspondence in practice. The distinction proposed by Brubaker and Cooper6 between identity as a category of analysis and identifications as categories of practice is crucial for understanding the conceptual and analytical framework of this book. The identifications are hereby defined as empirically observable indicators of the more analytically homogenous concept of collective identity. For this reason, the book offers primarily an overview and analysis of the large spectrum of identifications of the Roma people in real life situations encountered during fieldwork, as well as of collective identity discourses promoted by some Roma political activists. The empirical focus on identifications and collective identity discourses is hoped to offer insights into the mechanisms of Roma collective identity formation without unnecessarily and mistakenly reifying its content. The identifications and the collective identity discourses of the Roma are understood here as political practices that are both structurally determined and intentionally employed. The concept of politics is hereby largely defined as an inclusive category that signifies the structural content of different contexts of identifications ranging from local, state and international contexts. The concept of power is intimately linked to the concept of politics and is understood here in Foucaultian terms, as immanent and relational. In Foucault’s view ‘power is everywhere’ and it is ‘not something that is acquired, seized, or shared, something that one holds on to or allows to slip away; power is exercised from innumerable points, in the interplay of non-egalitarian and mobile relations.’7 The post-structuralist and contextual understanding of the political, of power, and of identity, constitutes the main analytical foundation of this book. 6  Rogers Brubaker and Frederick Cooper, “Beyond ‘Identity’,” Theory and Society 29, No. 1 (2000): pp. 1–47. 7  Michel Foucault, The History of Sexuality (New York: Pantheon Books, 1978), pp. 93–4.

Roma in Europe

4

The findings indicate that Roma identifications are contextual and more often than not they represent means in the struggle for resources available within different structural contexts. In such instances, Roma identifications become political tools for negotiating a better standing vis a vis other actors encountered in the process of social interaction. However, the instrumentality of identifications and identity discourses of the Roma does not ignore the possibility of a genuine feeling of belonging to certain categories of self-ascription in the moment of identification. Such feelings could suggest an internalization of these practices as structural content. There are several aspects of identifications of the Roma people that have been identified during the analysis of fieldwork material: • • • •

The extrovert (public) vs. the introvert (private) aspects The performed vs. the denied aspects The instrumental vs. the felt aspects The ascribed vs. the self-ascribed aspects

Methodological limitations allowed access of the non-Roma author only to the extrovert, the performed, the instrumental, the ascribed, and the self-ascribed aspects of Roma identity and for this reason these aspects will feature more in this book than the felt and the introvert aspects. The introvert, the denied and the felt aspects of identity are elusive in the eye of the beholder and are therefore more prone to a speculative type of analysis. Certain inferences about these aspects of Roma identifications are nonetheless made as well, but they remain at the level of hypotheses for future research to be conducted preferably by Roma scholars. The main argument of this book is based on a constructivist and interactionist approach to understanding identity and each chapter unfolds how the Roma collective identity formation is continuously negotiated in different contexts of interaction with alterity. In contrast to primordialist understandings of identity that assert the existence of a pre-given and clearly circumscribed collective identity, I argue that collective identity in general and the Roma collective identity in particular is formed through an on-going process of negotiation and interaction with the contextual other. The collective identity of the Roma is uncovered in this book as a dynamic puzzle of identifications and discursive practices that emerge from different contexts of interaction and are creatively employed by the Roma and the non-Roma alike. Each chapter exemplifies with fieldwork data how Roma identifications and identity discourses hybridize8 elements of perceived alterity in order to negotiate a better status in different context-specific power hierarchies. In this book, hybridization is understood as a modified version of the concept proposed by Homi Bhabha. In his view, a hybrid is what emerges in the process of social interaction between two different entities, for example individuals, groups, cultures, that engage in a form of negotiation of boundaries inherent to the encounter. A hybrid is therefore a structural product of an encounter with difference. This 8  Bhabha, Location of Culture.

Introduction

5

product is under constant change and represents a third space that lies between the gaze of us and that of others. In Bhabha’s view the process of identification is always relational and takes place in the liminal space between us and others. This book uncovers how hybridity works in the practices of identification and in the discourses of Roma collective identity. It starts from Homi Bhabha’s post-colonial understanding of the term and adds to it through fieldwork examples the idea that the hybrid as a third space is not only structurally produced by forces inherent to the encounter with difference, but also strategically constructed by the Roma engaged in a field saturated with power relations. The Roma identifications in this case are understood as means of emphasizing difference concomitantly with the strategic recognition of similarity with the object of difference. The various Roma identifications have therefore a double side—one that strives for similarity with the more powerful other and another that strives for difference from the other. The fieldwork in different sites indicates that Roma identifications vary contextually on a continuum between total differentiation from the other, to metonymical identifications with the other, and to identity between us and other. I argue that this large spectrum of identifications is a structural outcome, as well as an indicator of agency that Roma employ to mainstream their position for gaining better access to resources otherwise only available to more powerful groups. I also argue that, by performing certain similarities with the more powerful other, the Roma identifications and collective identity discourses form third space niches of power resources with potential to challenge the hierarchical status quo and to transcend periphery. The social creativity inherent to this struggle leads to a proliferation of identification contexts, which in turn could create new centers and new peripheries. The process of creating a plurality of context-sensitive identifications is what I refer to in this book as the hybridity thesis. The fieldwork data collected to inform three levels of analysis—local, state and international—indicate that a large spectrum of identifications is the common denominator of the collective identity formation of the Roma at all levels. The argument unfolding from these empirical encounters is that hybridization of identifications simultaneously serves purposes of differentiation from the contextual other and of unification among different Roma groups. A second line of argument in this book to which I refer to as the instrumentality thesis is that these different facets of Roma identity are also instrumental for gaining a better standing in local, state and international arenas. Each chapter explains how the hybridity of Roma identifications and identity discourses is not only a structural outcome of encounters with alterity, but also a strategic means of transcending stigma and of balancing the uneven power relations between the self-identified Roma and the more powerful others in any given context. Chapter 1 is a background chapter that offers a general account of the history of Roma in Europe, an outline of the variety of Roma groups, some considerations on the similarities and specificities of the Roma people compared to other minority and majority populations in Europe, as well as a critical account of the debates on the heterogeneity and standardization of Romani language. The chapter offers an analysis of the relationship between the ascribed and the self-ascribed appellations

6

Roma in Europe

of the Roma and it maps out the internal fragmentation of the group from a terminological point of view, most notably the ascribed character of the terms Roma and Gypsies. In addition, the critical account of the history of the Roma in Europe places an emphasis on points of contention and of agreement among different historians that wrote about the Roma. The terminological and historical background coupled up with different ethnographic accounts on the Roma constitute the basis on which the chapter draws inferences about the similarity and specificity of different hetero-identified Roma groups with other European populations. Among the similarities among different Roma groups the analysis identified as most recurrent a shared code of defilement and the social practices that spring from it, a shared history of discrimination, and a non-territorial imaginary. These three elements shared by most hetero-identified Roma populations are also elements that differentiate the Roma from other European populations. The chapter concludes the Roma are both vulnerable and powerful actors due to their often uncertain and volatile markers of belonging. The conceptual tools outlined in the introduction are employed for the first time here to explain the survival of Roma distinctiveness and to make the transition to the next chapter that presents ethnographic accounts that illustrate this dynamic at a local level. Chapter 2 focuses on the identity politics of everyday life of ordinary Roma at the local level. The analysis relies on data gathered through observations and semi-structured interviews in a multi-ethnic locality in Transylvania during several summers of fieldwork in the first decade of 2000. The hierarchical structure inherent to this multi-ethnic locality with a strong Saxon influence provides a relevant background for analyzing the way a foreign cultural item is appropriated and used imaginatively by the Roma in local identity politics. In this particular case, the Nachbarschaft—a way of organization of communal life of Saxon origin—is appropriated and re-inscribed by the Roma to mainstream their otherwise marginal position vis a vis other ethnic groups in the village. The chapter starts with a history of the village and it concentrates on its cultural mark—the Saxon Nachbarschaft—and the ways it is re-inscribed in the institutional practices of Romanian and Roma inhabitants. It proceeds with mapping the symbolic geography of the village through an analysis of social representations the Saxons, the Romanians and the Roma have of themselves and of each-other. Furthermore, this chapter explains the function of Nachbarshaft in the construction and negotiation of these social representations at the local level. The last part of the chapter focuses on the specific ways in which the Roma appropriate and transform the Nachbarshaft in order to transcend marginality and to mainstream their position as equal members of the community. This chapter illustrates a case in which the Roma re-inscribe the Nachbarshaft as a form of capital that is strategically employed in negotiating local power relations. The multi-ethnic character of the village provides a context of power relations that inspires a variety of hybrid identifications to transcend stigma and to negotiate a better status for the Roma.

Introduction

7

Chapter 3 presents the background of EU enlargement as a structural context in which European Roma identity politics have been crystallizing in the past two decades. It starts with the debates surrounding the legal framework of national minority protection in European Union and its conditional role in EU’s eastern enlargement. The chapter continues with outlining the political debates on individual versus collective minority rights and their implications on European Commission’s recommendations for minority protection in accession countries prior to 2007. The analysis of these debates and of EC’s recommendations indicates that the issue of national minority protection, particularly that of Roma minority protection, became divisive in European politics and created a double standard of Roma minority protection in EU member states and in accession countries prior to 2007. In addition, the analysis shows how the issue of double standards for Roma minority protection in Europe contributed to establishing a hierarchy of power between old member states and accession countries and to a perception of Eastern European Roma minorities at the bottom. The chapter concludes that the double standard for Roma minority protection in conjunction with the unclear threshold of its implementation in accession countries, led to an undesirable increase in negative societal attitudes towards the Roma and to legitimizing the practice of scapegoating the Roma for delaying EU’s accession of some eastern European states. Despite these problematic aspects of accession politics that led to an actual increase in negative societal attitudes against Roma, the context of EU’s eastern enlargement represented an opportunity for political representation and mobilization of Roma minorities in Europe. Chapter 4 is a case study of Roma minority politics in Romania in the context of EU’s eastern enlargement. The Romanian case is meant to illustrate the mechanisms of Roma collective identity formation and the emergence of political representatives that speak for the Roma in a national context. It explains why the policies meant to improve the situation of Roma in Romania had only been implemented superficially and merely contributed to the formation of different forms of Roma political representation prior to accession. The analysis highlights the way Roma political representatives responded to the Romanian minority policies and illustrates with empirical examples how the formation of Roma agency drew upon Romanian party politics, electoral interests and the reform in public administration in the context of EU accession negotiations. The empirical material in this chapter is generated through participant observation, secondary data analysis and interviews with Roma actors involved in public administration and minority politics in Romania in pre-accession period. More specifically, the primary data were gathered through personal interviews conducted between 2004 and 2007 with members of the Romanian Roma political party, Partida Romilor, and with Roma employees in public administration in four major Romanian towns. The chapter concludes that the Roma were at the intersection of several interests of different political actors involved in the process of accession negotiation in Romania and that they constituted more an instrument for politics than a target for policies during pre-accession years. The context of accession created mutual

8

Roma in Europe

benefits for EU actors, Romanian government, political parties and Roma representatives, but not that much for the targeted disadvantaged Roma groups that remained largely untouched by the minority protection criterion for accession and witnessed an actual increase of negative societal attitudes against them. The instrumental character of the “Roma problem” in the EU pre-accession period had nonetheless proven beneficial for some Roma actors that seized the opportunity to create their own agencies of representation with Partida Romilor as the most notable example in Romania. Chapter 5 analyzes the role of international Roma political activists in the crystallization of a clearly defined political status of the Roma at international level. It starts with an overview of the political status of the Roma in Europe and of the international agencies with significant impact on legitimizing a discourse of a Roma collective identity in the period that preceded the last wave of EU enlargement: the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues (CPRSI), the International Romani Union (IRU), Roma National Congress (RNC), the Central Council for German and Sinti Roma (CCGSR), the European Roma and Travelers Forum (ERTF), the Open Society Institute (OSI), and the Project of Ethnic Relations (PER). The analysis is based on data gathered through semi-structured interviews with members of these organizations, secondary data analysis of documents issued by these organizations, and biographies of main international Roma political activists. The chapter also offers a theoretical and historical overview of the genealogy of the concept of “de-territorialized Roma nation” promoted by the International Romani Union and analyses the process of its mainstreaming in a political context of discursive competition. The chapter concludes that there are at least three main discursive factions among Roma political activists that advocate different types of political status for the Roma at international level prior to 2007. One faction emphasizes the importance of protecting asylum seekers, particularly the Roma from Kosovo. Another faction advocates the rights of Roma as regular citizens and not as a separate ethnic group, particularly the Sinti in Germany. The third faction attempts to integrate all other factions and to create a collective identity for the Roma based on a common history of discrimination. The heterogeneity of causes and interests of Roma political representation creates a challenge as well as a reservoir of political resources for the formation of a unified collective identity of the Roma around the world, which is mainly negotiated on the basis of a common history of discrimination, human rights and the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities. Chapter 6 focuses on the institution of Roma kings. This type of Roma political representation has been given little attention in scholarly literature due to its ridiculed character in mainstream media that has unanimously been internalized as unworthy of serious attention. It is precisely for this reason that this book dedicates a special chapter that approaches the Roma kings as a significant and important institution for the construction of Roma collective identity, particularly its stereotypical form. The analysis starts from the assumption that the stereotypical image of the Roma kings constructed by the media has a great impact on the public

Introduction

9

image of the Roma in general and also on Roma’s self-perceptions. The chapter starts with a historical background of this institution in Europe. The historical analysis indicates that the institution was created by imperial authorities that needed a representative of Roma communities for tax collection purposes and therefore assigned the Roma kings as mediators between Roma minorities and non-Roma majorities. The fieldwork data were collected through interviews with Romanian Roma kings, observations of their religious and political practices, and visual data analysis of photographs taken by the author at their residencies. The empirical data indicate that the verbal and visual discourses of Roma kings emphasize similarity with the non-Roma, while their every-day practices indicate a more traditional and differentiated way of living. The analysis of fieldwork material offers further insights into the reasons for the identified gap between the discourses of similarity and the practices of differentiation encountered during fieldwork. The discrepancy between Roma kings’ discourses and practices is hypothesized to emerge from their historical bridging role between the Roma and the non-Roma. In the same time, this discrepancy is also the reason for their negative portrayal unanimously entertained by the media, the majorities and the Roma minorities. The chapter concludes that the Roma kings’ in-between position between the Roma and the non-Roma renders them vulnerable and obliges them to perform a discourse of hybridity to increase, albeit so far unsuccessfully, their legitimacy vis a vis the Roma and the non-Roma alike. Chapter 7 offers an analysis of the annual international Roma festival in Romania. The festival is a context in which different types of Roma actors meet, such as political activists, cultural representatives and ordinary Roma. The festival is analyzed as a complex platform of intersection and competition between different Roma identity discourses and it offers an overview of the Roma identity puzzle in all its complexity. The complexity of the site offers valuable insights into the ways Roma collective identity re-inscribes itself as an outcome of the various contextual interactions between us and others. The chapter also offers insights into the institution of Kris and its role of guarding the Romani code of defilement identified as the most distinctive characteristic of the Roma. The institutions of Kris is analyzed here as a form of autonomous law making and as a possible embryo of a polity or at least as a significant element of Roma collective identity formation. The empirically based part of the chapter is divided into two parts following the division of the festival into two days. The first part analyzes the invisible part of the festival, or the unadvertised festival day when the Roma administer the autonomous justice sentences—the Romani Kris. Although for ethical reasons I did not directly participate during this day of the festival, I was in its immediate vicinity and I was able to analyze the environment surrounding the main location of the Kris that offered some valuable insights. The second part is an analysis of data gathered through participant observation at the site of the festival during its second day which is the public day of the festival, one specially designed for the non-Roma. The pictures taken during fieldwork provide valuable insights into the symbolism of space and the multitude of identity discourses at

10

Roma in Europe

the site of the festival. This chapter alongside previous ones converges towards one main finding of this book which is that Roma practices are often inconsistent with Roma discourses. This discrepancy between Roma discourses and practices is identified as a strategic means for negotiating identity in search for recognition. While the discourses often advertise similarity with the non-Roma, the practices strengthen the specificity and distinctiveness of the Roma’s ways of living. This is the mechanism through which Roma minorities maintain specificity while at the same time advocate similarity with the non-Roma in strive for being recognized as equally powerful actors. Conclusions The paradox between locally differentiated identification practices and internationally homogenizing discourses of the Roma is explained in this book by two main lines of argument to which I refer to as the hybridity and instrumentality theses. The analysis does not however indicate that the processes at local level have intentional connections with those that occur at state and international levels, but rather that these simultaneous processes have hybridity and instrumentality as common denominators. The homogenization attempts of the Roma international movement together with the locally differentiated identifications that stress similarity with the more powerful others are ways of creating extra contexts of identification, which, in turn, promise extra advantages for the Roma people through enlarging their pool of symbolic power resources. In other words, the pursuit of similarity and homogeneity creates the ground for empowering the Roma to maintain their specificity and diversity. This ambivalent process of hybridization generates trans-localities and new areas9 or places which are not bounded geographically but take shape in social imagination.10 These new imaginary third spaces or hybrids are made of identifications that act as potential generators of power resources. One could conclude that the homogenization of the Roma identity happens strategically, as well as structurally or independent of intentional action or agency. Mafessoli11 argues that in contemporary times phenomena of heterogenization and homogenization coexist in a conflictive harmony. Differentiated group identities undergo a process of massification alongside a process of more profound differentiation and these two phenomena support and increase each other. These collective identities are formed and further massified in greater societies through 9  Arjun Appadurai (ed.), “Introduction” in Globalization (Durham, NC: Duke University Press, 2001). 10  Benedict Anderson, Imagined Communities: Reflections on the Origin and Spread of Nationalism (London; New York: Verso, 1991). 11  Michel Mafessoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society (London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), p. 45.

Introduction

11

a process of creating a larger emotional community of shared sensibility. This process is often a structural outcome of individuals’ need to accommodate one another—a process that does not exclude the rise of conflicts, but inherently presupposes a field of power relations that establishes, challenges, re-establishes and re-adjusts harmony. The collective identity formation of the Roma is in fact not an issue that could be treated separately from the issue of collective identities in general. The homogenization tendency that makes space for further hybridizations and for a proliferation of identification contexts is a common mechanism to most cases of collective identity formation in a field of uneven power relations. All marginalized groups need to employ a certain amount of creativity to access needed resources, and by doing so they also create new niches of symbolic and non-symbolic power. Each new niche generates new centers and new peripheries and redefines the contextual configurations of power relations. The struggle to transcend periphery inspires the Roma to creatively challenge and generate new configurations of power through diversifying identifications in any given context. The resulting heterogeneity of identifications might unite the Roma in a community of sentiment, which could be forged from above by political activists, but which could also happen independently from below as a result of humanity’s need to imagine and pursue a better life.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 1

The Roma People A General Account of the History of the Roma in Europe The Roma people are thought to have arrived in Europe as pilgrims. According to Fraser,1 the Roma entered Europe through the Balkans sometimes during the Middle Ages. At the time of their arrival in Europe the Europeans knew little about the origin of these people and only later in the eighteenth century, due to some linguistic evidences, their origin was tracked back to northern India, in a territory currently known as the Punjab region. However, the reason for which they fled India are unknown although there have been several historical speculations on this issue. One of the more recent accounts on the history of Roma is offered by Donald Kenrick2 in a complete chronology of Roma attestations in Europe. The study offers also a few accounts on the historical events that might have influenced Roma’s migrations prior to their arrival in Europe. Many authors3 agree that the earliest mention of the Roma in a written document was in 1011 in Persia, in the Shah Namah (Book of the Kings) by the famous poet Ferdowsi. According to Ferdowsi “10,000 Luri musicians were imported from India by Bahram Gour in 420 B.C.”4 Kenrick5 finds the first mention of the Roma in Persia to be later in ad 225–241. In ad 855 during the Arab Empire, the Greeks defeated the Arabs at Ainzarba and took the Zott (Indians from Persia, nowadays regarded as Roma) soldiers and their families as prisoners to Byzantium. This is how some authors explain the early presence of Roma in Europe.6 Yet, the Roma in Europe are not merely the descendants of those musicians once imported to Persia. Some scholars argue that a second and much greater wave of migration happened in 1192 when the Muslim domination over the Northern part of India began as an outcome of the Indian defeat during the second battle of Terain. The Roma are thought

1  Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (Oxford, UK; Cambridge, MA: Blackwell, 1992). 2  Donald Kenrick, Historical dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies) (Lanham,

MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998). 3  Jules Bloch, Les Tsiganes (Paris, Presses Universitaires de France, 1953); Jan Yoors, The Gypsies New York: Simon and Schuster, 1967), 9; Donald Kenrick, Historical Dictionary. 4  Yoors, Gypsies, 9. 5  Kenrick, Historical dictionary, iiv. 6  Thomas Acton quoted in Jørg E. Albert, Sigøjnere er et folk (Copenhagen: Forlaget Forum A-S, 1982), 4.

14

Roma in Europe

to have left the country either as prisoners of war or as refugees. According to Nupam Mahajan: It was in the tenth century AD, the second Islamic invasion of India took place, carried by Mahmud of Gazni. Mahmud invaded India seventeen times, mainly for the acquisition of “wealth of Hindustan.” He took control of Punjab and later sacked the rich cities of central India and the capital of many of the post-Gupta dynasties, Kanyakubj (modern Kannauj) (…) Overall, Mahmud’s expeditions were mere annual raids undertaken mainly with the object of plundering the wealth of India, destroying temples, desecrating Buddhist, Jain and Hindu idols. He carried out massacres of local population (who did not profess Islam) and put no efforts to rule the newly acquired parts of his empire.7

The same date is mentioned by Kenrick8 as the time when “the last Gypsies leave for the West.” Later on, the Black Plague that reached Constantinople in 1347 is thought to have pushed the Roma that had been already residing in Byzantium further away into Europe. As an effect, the first mentioning of the Roma in the Balkans is in Prizren, nowadays in Kosovo, in 1348. Several other mentions of the Roma in the fourteenth century start appearing in Dubrovnik/Croatia, in Romania “the first recorded transaction of Gypsy slaves” in 1385, and in Bohemia. After the fourteenth century there are several other attestations of the presence of Roma on many European territories. Kenrick9 enumerates these attestations as following: France (1418), Russia (1500), Belarus and Lithuania (1501), Switzerland (1510 Death penalty introduced for Gypsies residing in the country), England (1547 Broode publishes the first specimen of Romani language), Denmark (1589 Death penalty imposed to Gypsies not leaving the country), Romania (1595 Stefan Razvan, the son of a slave, probably of Gypsy origin, becomes ruler of Moldova), Habsburg Empire (1758 Maria Theresa begins assimilation program), Holland (1763 Pastor Valyi is thought to be the first to discover the Indian origin of Romani), Austria (1776 First published article on the Indian origin of Romani language), Germany (1783 Henrich Grellmann publishes the first academic work establishing the Indian origins of the Gypsies), Spain (1837 George Borrow translates St. Luke’s gospel into Romani), Romania/ Transylvania (1848 Emancipations of serfs including Gypsies or the “release from slavery”; 1856 Emancipation of Gypsy slaves in Vallachia), Ottoman Empire (1874 Muslim Gypsies given equal rights with other Muslims), UK (1888 The Gypsy Lore Society is established), Bulgaria (1905 Sofia Conference demanding voting rights for Gypsies), Switzerland (1926 Pro Juvenute starts a

7  Nupam Mahajan, “Coins of Islamic Dynasties,” Nupam’s Webpage for the Indian Coins, 24 February 1999, (28 May 2008) 8  Kenrick, Historical dictionary, xii. 9  Kenrick, Historical dictionary, xii.

The Roma People

15

program of forced removal of Gypsy children from their families for fostering), Slovakia (1928 Pogrom in Pobedim), Germany (1933 The National Socialist party comes to power. Jews and Gypsies persecution begins. Sterilization act), Poland (1937 Janusz Kwiek elected king of the Gypsies), Germany (April 1938 Concentration camps for Gypsies), USSR (1938 Stalin bans Romani language and culture, August 1941 all the Sinti Gypsy families who lived in the Volga Republic are deported to Kazakhstan, September 1941 SS Task Forces carry out mass executions of Jews and Gypsies in the Baby Yar valley, December 1941 824 Gypsies killed in Simferopol), Latvia (1941 All 101 Gypsies of Libau executed), Poland (1941 Gypsy ghetto in Warsaw), Romania (1942 20.000 of Roma deported to Transnistria), May 1945 the end of the second world war (all surviving Gypsies freed from camps), England (1971 First World Romani Congress in London WRC), Hungary (1975 The first issue of the magazine Rom Som appear), Switzerland (1978 2nd World Romani Congress), Poland (1981 Pogrom in Oświęcim), RFG (1981 3rd World Romani Congress), Yugoslavia (1981 Gypsies granted national status on equal footing with other minorities), Hungary (1989 Roma Parliament set up), Poland (1990 4th World Romani Congress. Standard Romani alphabet is adopted by the World Romani Congress, 1991 Pogrom in Mława, 1992 Attack on remaining Gypsies in Oświęcim, 1994 OSCE-CPRSI established in Warsaw, 1995 Grota Bridge settlement of Romanian Roma devastated by police), 1996 ERRC set up in Budapest.10

The end of the Second World War marked the fate of the Roma according to the East-West divide. It is hard to tell which part of the iron curtain was a better place for the Roma during those years. However it is certain that the two different kinds of regimes—the western liberal and the eastern socialist-communist affected these people in different ways. Eastwards of Berlin, the Roma were forced to settle and to become proletarians. They were expected to contribute to the industrialization process in the former communist bloc. The ethnic, religious, and cultural differences were to be evened out and ideally eradicated. What actually happened was an attempt to forced assimilation of the Roma in Eastern Europe. Not many Roma, nor many Poles, Romanians, Hungarians, Czechoslovaks appropriated these ideas to their heart but the practice of sedentary living and the contribution to the industrialization of the host countries were required as exclusive practices. Westwards of Berlin, the Roma were less pressured to settle but they were not favored to settle either. Their life was and still is in constant search for a place where they could feel safe to perform their way of life that often comes into conflict with the majority populations’ ways of life. The nomadic character of the Roma is understood as a necessity that springs from the adversities encountered in the places they tried to settle in, and as an outcome of being constantly chased away by the local authorities, by fellow citizens and by others. 10  Kenrick, Historical dictionary, xvii–xxxvi.

Roma in Europe

16

The Variety of Roma Groups Some analysis of the relationship between the ascribed and the self-ascribed appellations of the Roma people is needed before proceeding with the analysis of this group. The Roma are a large and diverse population made of different subgroups: It is difficult to label each group in a simple and straightforward way: the various groups identify themselves or may be identified by others (i.e., by other Gypsy groups, or by the non-Gypsy populations who live on the same territory) by using names which overlap, or may mix, and, above all, follow non-homogeneous classificatory patterns.11

A list of terminological appellations is therefore necessary to map out the internal fragmentation of the group. The main classificatory criterion of distinguishing among the different appellations of the Roma is the ascribed / self-ascribed nexus. Gypsies is an ascribed term used by different majority populations to refer to the group under study. The term derives from the assumption that the Gypsies were originally coming from Egypt. This assumption is still held by some Roma that reside nowadays on the territory of the Balkan Peninsula and who call themselves Egyptians. Another appellation, found in the former Yugoslavia, is Hashkalija. This is the Turkish name for Gypsies that has remained in the region even after Ottoman domination ended. They differentiate themselves from the Roma by claiming their history is slightly different due to their prolonged residence on the territory of Egypt and their possible, at least partial, Egyptian origin. Nonetheless, in the early fourteenth century there was another migration wave when Lohars, who were mainly blacksmiths, are thought to have arrived from India. They arrived together with other professional casts in Southern Europe. It is considered that the Egyptians were already there when the Lohars arrived together with the Rabagi (transporters), Gabeli (acrobats, dancers), Arlia (musicians) and Chergari (fortune tellers).12 There are, however, alternative explanations of Roma history and terminology which due to language barriers have unfortunately remained

11  François De Vaux De Foletier, Mille anni di storia degli zingari (Milan: Jaka Book, 1990), 19–24, quoted in Nico Staiti, “The identity of a Gypsy community,” The Roma Khorakhané as cultural mediators: nuptial rites and music, 20 July 1997, (2 February 2006). 12  Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies—University of Minnesota, Gypsies of Kosova, (2 February 2006).

The Roma People

17

obscured in this book.13 Private conversations with different scholars14 that could read Russian and Polish sources explained that these sources claim that the Roma were integrated into professions in Byzantium and not before their arrival in the Empire. According to available sources, there is only one more group of Roma that consider themselves as originating from Egypt and this is the Gitanos in Spain. The word Gitano is the fifteenth century Spanish translation of the word Egyptian: Many experts believe these so-called Egyptian Gypsies left India with Alexander the Great and were the blacksmiths and camp followers of his army as it traveled to Egypt. Several Yugoslav historians have written that these Egyptian Gypsies probably came with the Arab army that laid siege to Dubrovnik in the nineteenth century. Perhaps after that failed siege, they deserted (or were abandoned) and made their way into Macedonia to pay homage to Alexander the Great who took their ancestors from India to Egypt.15

The Egyptians in South-Eastern Europe and the Gitanos in Spain do not speak Romani language. Nonetheless they retain a lot of other characteristics with other populations that find their name under the umbrella term of Roma. In a study published by the World Bank about Roma and Egyptians in Albania16 some of these two groups’ cultural characteristics were measured relatively to the Albanian cultural characteristics. The findings are telling as regarding the level of integration of the two groups in the majority culture as well as for the differences among them. The study concludes that there are indeed important differences between Roma and Egyptians in Albania and that the most striking ones are the difference in language and in social organization. The Egyptians are more similar with the majority society whereas the Roma maintain a striking difference from the majority group. It is however hard to generalize from such studies and conclude that the term Roma is the umbrella term accepted by all groups that share certain characteristics. In this book I will use the term Roma as an analytical category when I want to refer to all these different groups even if I acknowledge that its existence as a homogenous category of self-ascription in everyday life is 13  For example there are some Polish and Russian scholars that wrote quite extensively about this issue in their mother tongue. I refer here to Lech Mróz, Geneza Cyganów i ich kultury (Warszawa: Wydawnictwo Fundacji “Historia pro Futuro,” 1992); Andrzej Mirga and Lech Mroz., Cyganie. Odmiennosc i nietolerancja, (Warszawa: Wydanictwo Naukowe PWN, 1994); Nadezda Demeter, Nikolai Bessonov and Vladimir Kutenkov, Istoriia tsygan-novyi vzgliad (Voronezh, 2000). 14  I refer here to the conversations I had with Professor Jan Kubik that provided much valuable input during the process of writing this book. 15  Centre for Holocaust and Genocide Studies—University of Minnesota, Gypsies of Kosova. 16  World Bank, Gypsies in Albania, 20 February 2006.

18

Roma in Europe

questionable. Another all-encompassing term used for referring to the Roma is Tsigani. This term is an ascribed one which is loaded with pejorative connotations. I will use this term when I quote from interviews or when it is used as such in other sources. Some Roma refer to themselves as Tsigani in certain circumstances. The translation of the pejorative ascribed term of Tsigan in different languages is as follows: French Tsigane; Albanian Cigan, Maxhup, Gabel; Bulgarian: Цигани (Tsigani); Czech Cikáni; Duch and German Zigeuner; Danish Sigøjner; Lithuanian Čigonai; Russian Цыгане (Tsyganye); Hungarian Cigány; Greek Τσιγγάνοι (Tsingávoi); Italian Zingari; Romanian Tsigani; Croatian and Serbian Cigani; Polish Cyganie; Portughese Cigano; Spanish Gitano and in Turkish Çingene. In Iran they are referred to as Kowli, in India as Lambani, Lambadi, or Rabari.17 Roma is the self-ascribed term by the majority of the groups generally ascribed as Tsigani by the majority populations. Some Russian18 authors opine that the word Roma comes from the Greek word Rhomaion that was designed to indicate the Byzantine Empire or the Eastern Roman Empire (the Greek influenced Nova Roma under Constantine 1st) with the capital in Constantinople. However, according to some Indian authors the etymology of the word Roma has no connection whatsoever with the Roman Empire. W.R. Rishi19 explains that the word Rom is derived from Rama from the Sanskrit root Ram. Rama in Sanskrit according to Rishi has the following meanings: • One who pervades and operates all • Ramta Ram in Panjabi is one who roams about. In Sanskrit the word virama means to stop: viramati (he takes rest) and if you remove the prefix vi, rama should have the opposite meanings “non-stop, moving” • Dark-colored: In the Vedas the word Rama has been used in the sense of black and not as a proper noun • Husband, which is the same as in Romani language • Pleasing, delighting, charming (in Sanskrit ramana is masculine and ramapi feminine and in Romani language the feminine is also Romni (meaning wife) Rishi describes how the a from the word Rama turned into o in the word Roma but for the purpose of the current study this is less relevant. What remains important is that, in his interpretation, the root of the word Roma preserves until today the meaning of husband/wife previously had in Sanskrit. This is the term self-ascribed 17 Amalipen, Connecting Roma and Romani friends throughout the world, 28 May 2008. 18  Demeter, Bessonov and Kutenkov, Istoriia tsygan-novyi vzgliad. 19  W.R. Rishi, “Etymology of the Word Rom,” Roma—The Panjabi Emigrants in Europe, Central and Middle Asia, the USSR, and the Americas (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1976, 1996), 1 August 1998, (20 February 2006).

The Roma People

19

by most of the people that are thought to have come to Europe from the Panjabi region of North India in a first wave of migration during the eleventh century. There is an umbrella term in Romani language that designates all the people that are not Roma. Just as the Jews have the term Gentiles to identify all who are not Jewish, the Roma have the term Gajo, Gadje or Gadjikane to identify all those who are not Roma. According to Padmashri W.R. Rishi,20 “the word ‘Gajo,’ also pronounced as ‘Gazho’ (plural: ‘Gaje’ or ‘Gazhe’) is used by the Roma in a contemptuous sense for a non-Rom (non-Gypsy). A Rom will never take a Gajo into his confidence.” The Gajo for Roma is the mirror term of Tsigan for the nonRoma. All these three terms are used to ascribe a name with a pejorative meaning for a population different from the one that ascribes the term. There are other self-ascribed terms used by specific groups of people regarded as Gypsies by majority populations. For example, Sinti is a self-ascribed term for populations that could be found in Germany and Austria and includes communities known in German and Dutch as Zigeuner and in Italian as Zingari. According to Marco D. Knudsen,21 the Sinti speak a dialect of the Romani language called Romanes, Sintenghero Tschib(en), which is fully Romani by vocabulary, with primarily only grammatical differences, and which exhibits a strong German influence. Historically, the Sinti arrived in Germany and Austria during the middle ages and they divided into two groups that spread around towards East and West and eventually adopted local names for their groups. Few notable musicians were of Sinti origin to only mention Joe Zawinul and Django Reinhardt. The term Manouche is the self-ascribed name of the French Sinti groups. In Romani language Manouche means person. Calé (or Kalo) is the self-ascribed name of both the Andalusian Gitano and the Northern European groups. The term means black in Romani language. There are some other denominations especially for various groups in the Balkans, such as Calderas, Ursari, and Lautari, Rudari, Lovari and “they refer to the prevalent occupation within each group (such as coppersmiths, bear-trainers, and musicians). Cergashi (or Cergari) refers to groups of nomads who come mostly from the former Yugoslavia. The term means those of the tents, in opposition to the sedentary groups (Vatrasi).”22 As one could notice there are a number of ways in which the Roma collective identity takes shape by differentiating itself externally from the non-Roma and internally among different Roma groups. One of them is a differentiation based 20  W.R. Rishi, “Etymology of the Word Gajo,” Roma—The Panjabi Emigrants in Europe, Central and Middle Asia, the USSR, and the Americas (Patiala: Punjabi University, 1976, 1996), 1 August 1998, (20 February 2006). 21  Marco D. Knudsen, Roma Frühgeschichte (1000–1400). Freedom by joining the Islam http://www.romahistory.com (14 June 2007), quoted in (17 August 2007). 22  François De Vaux De Foletier, “The identity of a Gypsy community” (2 February 2006).

20

Roma in Europe

on traditional sources of income or livelihood. Another way of differentiation and self-identification is based on historical and geographical context. Examples include Vlachika Roma—Vlah Romanies, migrants from Walachia principality of the second half of the nineteenth century (today’s Romania); or Servika Roma—Serbian Roma also called Slovak Roma who came to Slovakia in the sixteenth century from Serbia. Some groups of Roma draw their names from the religious beliefs with which they identify. This is the case of, for example, Chorachane Roma or Muslim Roma. Yet another source of naming is Romani words, which designate a male or a husband (Rom or Manuš) or someone dark (Kalo). In some cases, the Roma groups identify with names ascribed by the majority populations surrounding them. Scholars in the field have not always been able to trace the etymology of individual group names. Most groups have further internal differentiations. This largely depends on the traditionally perpetuated model of social stratification a specific group adheres to.23 Commonality and specificity of the Roma people compared to other European populations The Roma groups in Europe share a common history of discrimination in spite of the heterogeneous appellations and self-identifications inside the group. The most notable example is perhaps the Holocaust carried out by the Nazis during the Second World War. The Roma have been persecuted and suffered several types of discrimination ranging from genocide and pogroms to socio-cultural marginalization and forced assimilation. All these factors led to what one might call nowadays a weak integrative identity and a stronger local, clan and kin identity. This phenomenon could be explained in two ways. On one hand, an important outcome of the Holocaust is that Roma identify themselves to smaller units of belonging for fear that all-encompassing markers of identity such as Roma could be misused by majorities to continue the discrimination of the group. It is easier to instrumentalize an integrative identity than a fragmented one. History has proven that the instrumentalization of identities could be for positive, as well as for negative purposes. On the other hand, the Holocaust destroyed the social organization of the Roma to a very large extent. A common stance had to be rebuilt on the remnants of what might have been once a more crystallized identity. The level of social capital among different Roma groups must have been eroded as an aftermath of the Holocaust and other detrimental historical experiences. The lack of trust between Roma and non-Roma could be a possible explanation for the rather low cooperation among different Roma groups. During fieldwork, one could observe more co-habitation than co-operation among different Roma groups. In a study on Austrian Roma., Halwachs shows “there is no regular relationship 23 Czech Helsinki Committee for Human Rights. “Overview” in The Roma, October 2002, (23 March 2007).

The Roma People

21

between the individual groups”24 of Roma. It is reasonable to hypothesize the trust among different Roma groups has been eroded during twentieth-century history of discrimination and as an outcome of the constant external threats the Roma have been exposed to. Under these circumstances, fear has become a constant state of mind for most of the Roma. This phenomenon could partly explain their inconsistent self-identifications in censuses and the discrepancies between their public and private identity practices. The partial assimilation of Roma within the majority cultures in which they live created an important division between the Roma that followed the Roma code of defilement, the Romanipe, and the more assimilated Roma who are usually settled and do not speak the Romani language. The Romani language is seen by most of the groups as an important identity marker in spite of the dialectal differences and of the multilingualism of most Roma groups. It has recently become an important identity marker even in cases when Romani language was only used passively. Such is the case of Burgenland-Roma in Austria who are mainly German speaking population but who regard “the decline in their use of Romani as a loss.”25 This new interest in Romani language sprang from inter-group communication with other Roma groups who use Romani for their internal communication.26 The BurgenlandRoma, otherwise a rather secluded group, realized that “making Romani a primary factor of identity” should be their main concern in the communication with the “ethnic-others.” It is interesting to observe that in the case of Roma in Austria and probably in the case Roma in other European countries: the importance of Romani as a factor of identity rises in correlation to its declining use. The only exception to this tendency is constituted by the groups in which a language shift (to the majority language) has taken place.27

An explanation to this apparent paradoxical situation could be that the reinforcement of language is considered necessary, particularly by the more vulnerable cases such as the partly assimilated Roma. These people are usually discriminated by the Roma and by the non-Roma28 alike. Their alleged assimilation and disregard of the Romanipe on one hand, and their status as Roma on the other hand, render them illegitimate members of both groups. There is no larger community support 24 Dieter W. Halwachs, “Roma and Romani in Austria,” Romani Studies 15, No. 2 (2005), 145–73, 154. 25 Halwachs, “Roma in Austria,” 154. 26 Halwachs, “Roma in Austria,” 157. 27 Halwachs, “Roma in Austria,” 157. 28  In this book I use the term non-Roma for the populations usually referred to as Gadje by the people who identify themselves as Roma. However, since the term Gadje has a pejorative connotation, I use the term non-Roma that is a more neutral term to signify the other from a Roma perspective. This distinction is meant only as an analytical term without clearly defined boundaries in practice.

22

Roma in Europe

for these people. Their return to language could be interpreted as an attempt to reestablish a certain unit of belonging that transcends the vulnerable position of inbetweenness. This phenomenon could be interpreted as a struggle for recognition within the larger Roma community. The Romanipe or the Roma way of life is perhaps the most important marker of difference from other populations. Unlike other cases in which language occupies a central role, in the case of the Roma the code of defilement represents the marker of distinctiveness and belonging to the group. The code of defilement is made up by customs that mainly deal with hygiene taboos (marime29). The set of social practices that spin off from the code of defilement are the criteria of evaluation of “a true Rom” within the group of belonging. Therefore, the discourses, the uttered self-identifications of the Roma do not matter in as much as the actual social practices they perform when it comes to being evaluated by the Roma as being insiders or outsiders of the Roma community. The social practices of the Roma are to a very large extent shaped by the code of defilement. The code of defilement divides the body into impure lower parts and the pure upper parts. In the same time, the left side of the body (i.e. left hand) is the one in charge with contact with the Gadje, while the right side of the body is the one considered pure and the one that encapsulate the authenticity of the Roma. The upper and lower parts of one’s body should never be washed in the same water according to the Roma code of defilement. Roma wash their bodies only with running water in order to prevent contamination of the pure with the impure. For this reason, Roma regard rivers as better places to wash than, for instance, bath tubs.30 Jan Yoors31 offers an unprecedented ethnographical account of the ten years he spent traveling with Gypsy caravans. Yoors left his family as a Belgian non-Roma and decided to become a Rom. It is not very clear which group of Roma Yoors lived with for he only mentions that they were German speaking. Yoors32 accounts for the clear gender divisions in the Roma group: There existed an implicit division between our occupation and games and those of the young girls of the family. For the most part it was they who looked after the smaller children. I noticed with curiosity that they had no toys or formal games of any sort.

29 Marime means polluted or defiled in Romani language. The term refers to a certain state in which women are thought to be while menstruating or while pregnant. Several Roma social practices derive from this taboo. The Roma divide the human body between the pure upper part and the defiled lower part. This distinction applies both to women and men. However, Roma women have extra means of becoming defiled by menstruating or by pregnancy. Roma women’s dress that requires wearing of long skirts could be explained by the taboo. Eating and washing practices are strictly connected to this code of defilement as well. 30 Yoors, The Gypsies, 30. 31 Yoors, The Gypsies. 32 Yoors, The Gypsies, 29–30.

The Roma People

23

Urinating in public ran the risk of being seen by a woman and this was strictly forbidden. Urination was a private thing and therefore the others should not be aware of the times in which a Rom needs to do it. For this reason the toilet for Roma is a useless if not a shameful and impure thing. In a similar manner, the handkerchief is thought to preserve dirt. As one can see, two usually taken for granted indicators of hygiene are highly disregarded by Roma because they are considered dirty. As Yoors says of some conversations he had while living and travelling with the Roma, they wonder: “Why on the sweet Earth would the Gadje want to preserve the dirt from the noses?” and “how could you possibly be respectful and polite and still go to this one obvious place when everybody present knows the purpose of your going there?”33

Belching during and after meal is a sign that the person is satisfied, a gesture of politeness. Any meal should be finished with a belch otherwise the person who provides the food might think that the other is still hungry and will force him/her to eat more until the belch eventually ends the dinner. The toilet, the handkerchief and belching mark a particular vision of hygiene that is very different to that of many other populations. Another important difference between Roma and other populations is their way of understanding property. Property is a term void of meaning for the Roma. This is especially true when it comes to common goods given by nature such as land where they can camp, meadows for their horses, or wood for their fire. For this reason, what for most non-Roma might be categorized as stealing or breaking the law for the Roma only means a legitimate way to survive and to enjoy the gifts of nature: Stealing from the Gadje was not really a misdeed as long as it was limited to the taking of basic necessities, and not in larger quantities than were needed at the moment. It was the intrusion of a sense of greed, in itself, that made stealing wrong, for it made men slaves to unnecessary appetites or to their desire for possessions.34

Therefore, Roma’s understanding of private and public is quite different from that of the majority of the Europeans, in as much as their social organization is divided between a public profile specifically constructed for the non-Roma majority and a private profile in which the Romani code of defilement is strictly respected. Unavoidable conflicts appear between non-Roma and Roma, mainly because of a lack of awareness about these Roma cultural norms. More awareness is hoped to reduce the anxiety and to constitute a basis for sounder policy formulation that would meet the true needs of the Roma and that would decrease the conflicts between Roma and non-Roma. 33 Yoors, The Gypsies, 29–30. 34 Yoors, The Gypsies, 34.

24

Roma in Europe

The whole organization of Roma life is marked by the distinctions between upper and lower parts and left and right sides. Chapters 6 and 7 will draw extensively upon the manifestations of the code of defilement in the lives and social organization of the Roma. These chapters will show how the code of defilement functions as a way of hierarchization among Roma, as well as a mechanism regulating the polarization of Roma lives between public performance of identity and the preservation of authenticity in their private lives. Topography of living spaces and of the Roma festival that will be analyzed in these chapters offer vivid illustrations of the influence of the code of defilement upon the lives of Roma. The commonalities the Roma people share with other ethnic groups need to be understood in the context of current practices as well as in the context of the political status that they have held throughout history. Roma history contains some similarities with other groups, such as with the Jews before the end of the Second World War, with the Kurds and with other stateless people. The most striking specificity of the Roma, besides their code of defilement, is that they do not possess a territory of reference that could function as a unifying geographical core of their identity. The Roma political mobilization movement for establishing a de-territorialized Roma nation is similar in certain aspects with the Zionist movement. However, even in the case of the Zionist movement the territorial element was crucial. The political Zionist movement fathered by Theodor Herzl with his 1896 text “Der Judenstaat” aimed specifically at “the restoration of the Jewish State (…) Palestine is our unforgettable historic homeland.”35 Therefore, unlike the Jews who have a strong symbolical attachment to a specific land, the Roma do not require a territory although they claim recognition as a nation. I suggest their claim inspires the possibility that in the near future there will be a decoupling of states from nations not only in political theory, but also in political practice. The Zionist movement was successful at a time when the nation-states represented the main political actors. The shrinking state era could constitute an opportunity for advancing the claims of the Roma people. The Roma do not possess a territory of reference to which they consensually regard as a symbolical motherland. The whole discussion on this issue has to do with the speculative character of their long history due to limited availability of written sources. The oral tradition of Roma and the lack of a broadly used standardized language until recent years are possible causes for the scarcity of written sources regarding their history. Recent history of linguistics traces back the Roma origins in the North Western part of India. The first scholar known to have traced Roma origins to the territory of Northern India was Johann Christian Christoph Rüdiger, professor at the German university of Halle. In 1777 he:

35  Theodor Herzl, The Jewish state, an attempt at a modern solution of the Jewish question, trans. Sylvie d’Avigdor (London: R. Searl, 1946) quoted in The AmericanIsraeli Cooperative Enterprise, Excerpts From Herzl’s The Jewish State, (17 March 2006).

The Roma People

25

writes a letter to his colleague, Hartwig Bacmeister, in which he suggests that Romani (= “The Gypsy language”) is affiliated to the languages of India. Rüdiger had based his findings on clues provided by Bacmeister and by his teacher Christian Büttner, but also on his own research, carried out with the help of a Romani speaker, Barbara Makelin, and drawing on published grammars of Hindustani. The discovery is given wide circulation among a group of colleagues.36

Since then, the linguistic argument regarding the origin of the Roma people was researched further and during the twentieth century there are at least two notable examples of scholars that contributed to the emerging field of Romani linguistics: professor Yaron Matras and professor Ian F. Hancock. Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester and an important contributor to the linguistic study of Romani dialects and other rare languages, as well as the editor of the scientific journal “Romani Studies” (the continuation of the Journal of the Gypsy Lore Society). Hancock, of British and Hungarian Romani descent, is Professor of Romani Studies at the University of Texas at Austin and he represents the Roma on the United States Holocaust Memorial Council.37 Some other authors, most notably professor Judith Okely,38 question the idea of a common origin for all Roma in Europe and refute the linguistic argument. Although it is generally accepted that Romani language has a Sanskrit base and that Roma migrated from the northern part of India, it is not clear whether all groups that have been ascribed the term of Roma do in fact come from the same place. Indo-European languages share many characteristics and thus the linguistic argument could be considered insufficient. Another specificity of the Roma groups is their history of discrimination. Important similarities with the Jewish case could be found here as well however, the combination of misfortunes is quite unique in the Roma case because during the Second World War the Roma did not have any political mobilization aimed at the acquisition of a land or at acquiring a different political status. The lack of a common stance left Roma vulnerable also after the end of the Second World War. Their tragic extermination during Holocaust was shadowed by the equally tragic extermination of the Jews. It was only very recently that in Auschwitz a Romani pavilion was finally opened. Although further persecutions of the Jews also continued after the war they, unlike the Roma, at least had the chance to emigrate and received protection from the newly-formed state of Israel. The Roma 36 Yaron Matras, “A brief history of Romani linguistics,” The Romani Linguistics Page. Information of Romani Language and Linguistics, (19 March 2006) 37  Ian Hancock, “Duty and Beauty, Possession and Truth: The Claim of Lexical Impoverishment as Control,” Patrin Web Journal, 1 March 1997, (20 March 2006). 38 Judith Okely, The Traveller-Gypsies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994).

26

Roma in Europe

remained vulnerable and subjects to further persecution more alike the Jews that remained in the countries of former residence and chose not to move to Israel. The Roma did not have the choice of moving to a state especially created for them and thus they stayed in Europe or migrated elsewhere under the conditions of the states were they reside. The Roma were therefore faced with one single option, which was to accept whatever terms given to them by the “host” states. To summarize, this chapter presents some background knowledge about the Roma necessary for understanding the challenges of their collective identity formation. My analysis acknowledges the variety of Roma groups, their history of persecution as well as their main specificity in comparison with other populations. Two clusters of Roma specificities have been identified. One cluster is based on ethnographic reconstruction of the Roma practices. Another cluster focuses on the political specificities of the Roma groups. Among the specific Roma practices worth noted are the Roma code of defilement, the Roma view on property together with the effects these two characteristics have on Roma organization of everyday life. Among the political specificities of the Roma worth noted are the lack of territorial reference, the history of persecution and the lack of a common political stance.

Chapter 2

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania1

The social articulation of difference, from the minority perspective, is a complex, on-going negotiation that seeks to authorize cultural hybridities that emerge in moments of historical transformation. The “right” to signify from the periphery of authorized power and privilege does not depend on the persistence of tradition; it is resourced by the power of tradition to be reinscribed through the conditions of contingency and contradictoriness that attend upon the lives of those who are “in the minority.” Homi Bhabha2

The village of Cristian in Transylvania, currently Romania, provides a relevant illustration of the way an ethnic cultural pattern is used imaginatively by other ethnic groups for identity negotiation in a field of power relations between the Saxons, the Romanians, and the Roma inhabitants. In this particular case a Saxon cultural pattern, Nachbarschaft,3 was borrowed by the Romanian and Roma populations in the village for mainstreaming their otherwise more marginal status. The ethnic relations in this locality, largely negotiated via the acquisition and creative use of the Nachbarshaft by all ethnic groups in the village, are very illustrative for the ways “optional ethnicities”4 are used for negotiating group identity statuses in different social contexts. This chapter explains how in Cristian ethnicity as such becomes a resource and a form of cultural capital that is strategically employed by other ethnic groups.

1 Parts of this chapter have been published by the author elsewhere as a Chapter titled “Transcending marginality. Roma Identity between Glocality and Nationality” in Toma Burean (ed.), Faces of Postcommunism. Central and Eastern Europe’s Social, Political and Cultural Experiences (Warsaw: IFiS Publishers, 2007), 109–33. 2 Homi K. Bhabha, The Location of Culture (London; New York: Routledge, 1994), 2. 3 Nachbarschaft in its original Saxon version is an informal pattern of social organization that has six main functions: socialization, economic, juridical, defense, religious and educational. Nowadays, it has lost entirely the defense, religious and educational functions and it still preserves some of the socialization, economic and juridical functions. The Nachbarschaft has nowadays more of a symbolic value than a practical one, at least in comparison with what it used to be. 4 Jan Nederveen Pieterse, Ethnicities and Global Multiculture: Pants for an Octopus (Lanham, MD: Rowman & Littlefield Publishers, Inc., 2007).

28

Roma in Europe

The Nachbarschaft is a particular way of organization of communal life and it has a Saxon origin. The functions of the Nachbarschaft vary from economic and social to religious ones and they are supported by a norm of mutuality between the members of the Nachbarschaft who are expected to share part of their possessions for communal ownership, to socialize their offspring communally in the Bruderschaft (brotherhood) and Schwesterschaft (sisterhood), and to organize weddings and funerals collectively. These institutions and functions of the Nachbarschaft are largely assimilated by the Romanians and by the Roma and have become the most important marker of social organization for all ethnic groups in the village. Brief History of the Village The village of Cristian is located in Transylvania, a zone of interference of different ethnicities and cultures, and it suffered several ethnic re-compositions throughout centuries. The first historical mentioning of Cristian in the village’s historical archives is in the twelfth century (1121–1161) when Krastel, a chief of the Saxons who were brought to Transylvania from the region of Rhine and Mossela currently in Germany, decided to settle and establish a village. There are no written sources regarding the presence of Romanians in the village during that time, but the Romanian names of the hills, rivers and springs that surround the village (Păltinișul, Crăciuneasa, Vadul Surdului, Bișineu, Surdu, and Vălari) are strong reasons to believe the Romanians came into the village soon after the settlement of the Saxons. The Landlers who came from Austria are the second population who colonized the village between 1735 and 1738. Like the Saxons, they were a German speaking population, but had a different dialect. The origin of the Nachbarschaft in Cristian is attributed to the initial Saxon colonizers, since the first written mentioning of its existence in the village is in a historical register from the sixteenth century. The Roma represent the hardest population to trace in the village since some data found in historical registers are quite contradictory. The starting of a Roma special school in 1934 is mentioned in the historical register of the village and the Roma feature in the register until 1941. However, the same register does not mention anything about the Roma between 1942 and 1950.5 What happened to the Roma in the village between 1934 and 1950 remains silenced, but one could 5 I find interesting the fact that the Roma population of Cristian was not mentioned at all in official documents in the period between 1942 and 1950. The historical break of their presence in the village started when the same register mentions the important visit of Marshall Ion Antonescu who was supported in his dictatorship by the Iron Guard—the most important branch of the Nazi movement in the Balkans during the Second World War. In June 2003 Romania’s government issued a statement saying that Antonescu’s regime “was guilty of grave war crimes, pogroms, and mass deportations of Romanian Jews to

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania

29

speculate that they were deported or exterminated during the pro-Nazi period of Romania during the first half of the Second World War. The next mentioning of the Roma in the village is only from the 1950s onwards. After the Second World War, colonists were brought into the area in order to support the communist collectivization. The colonists were Romanians and Roma. After the breakdown of communism in Romania in 1989, most of the Saxons left the village and went to Germany. This exodus has given birth to a new ethnic distribution in the village. Romanians from surrounding villages and from other parts of the country (Muntenia and Moldavia) occupied the empty houses left behind by the Saxons. These more recent waves of colonization of the village are labelled as newcomers (vinituri) by the former inhabitants of the village. This historical sequence led to what nowadays are four important groups that form the composition of the village: the “old” Romanians (around 800 people), the “new-comer” Romanians or the “new” Romanians (around 200 people), a few Saxons (around 70 people) and the Roma (around 250 people). The symbolical interactions between these four groups in Cristian changed dramatically after the arrival of the Romanian “new-comers” in the early 1990s because they were the only ones that, at the time of interview, were not organized in a Nachbarschaft. The Fieldwork The fieldwork in Cristian shows how Roma self-identifications vary depending on the context. The fluidity of social boundaries between different ethnic groups was captured through doing a mental mapping of the village in which the villagers were asked to locate on the physical map of the village the ethnic “others.” The ethnic map of the hetero-representations of the four ethnic groups in the village emerged in this way, a map to which I will refer further as the mental map. This chapter will offer the results of this mental mapping and will particularly focus on the self and the hetero identifications of the Roma in the village, in order to understand how the Roma group identity is negotiated vis à vis other ethnic groups. The fieldwork data indicate an interesting inconsistency between how the Roma identify themselves in direct encounters, and how they do when ticking boxes in a questionnaire. In direct encounters or during interviews, the Roma in the village identify themselves as Roma or Tsigani (a term for the Roma usually used by Romanians in a pejorative sense), while in the questionnaires where they were asked to tick a box of ethnic belonging they identify themselves as Romanians. To illustrate this ambivalence, one of the interviewees said “We are Tsigani of Romanian nationality,” while another said “There are no Tsigani here, all of them are Romanians,” and, even more subtle, “We are Germanised Roma, therefore, we are Romanians.” On the other hand, when the implication of other groups of territories occupied or controlled by the Romanian Army” from 1940 to 1944. During the same period, large numbers of Roma were deported from the Romanian territories as well.

30

Roma in Europe

the village was stated clearly in the questionnaires, they rejected belonging to the Roma group since they knew that this identity would automatically place them at the periphery and that the survey could be potentially misused, as happened with census data during the Second World War. However, when treated separately from other groups and during immediate interactions, their identification changed to that of Tsigani or Roma. When we started the fieldwork in Cristian in 1998 together with some colleagues from the University of Bucharest, we were warned by some villagers not to go to Dallas in the evening and to watch out because the Tsigani6 live there. Of course, one of the first things we did was to go to Dallas and find out what Dallas was about. The area where the Roma live is clearly delimited from the village by the train line, in this way occupying the spatial margin of the village, if not somehow outside the village if the train track could be read as a symbolic boundary between the village and the outskirts. When we got there the people surrounded us from everywhere, they were noisy, and they asked questions. The children looked at us with curiosity and some explicitly asked us to take a photo of them. They were the Tsigani. at least that was what we thought. We tried to ask some questions from a questionnaire but, when we reached the question about ethnicity, all the people from the group started to whisper to each other. The man I was interviewing answered “Romanian”; the others were encouraging him to answer “Tsigan.” When I asked the same question of one of the people who were trying to convince the first one to declare himself Tsigan, he answered, smiling, that he is Romanian. When hearing his answer the group started to whisper and to laugh again.7 In other words, they totally confused us. We were going there with the idea that they are the Roma or the Tsigani, but in those moments the question how much are they Tsigani, or how are they Tsigani arose in our minds. Later on, after talking with them some more, we understood that the answers to these questions are all contained by the answer to the question when are they Tsigani? The research question then became, what are the social circumstances in which the Roma identity is constructed? I argue that, besides its ethnic8 feature, the Roma identity is specifically created within the process of social interaction and is contextual. In other words, I consider the Roma identity as being continuously 6 A pejorative meaning is often attached to the term Tsigan and in this chapter both terms—Roma and Tsigani—are used in order to differentiate the meanings that appear in different contexts, but related to the same individuals. Tsigan is the term used by several interviewees and therefore it is used as such in this chapter. 7 Alexandru Balasescu, Caiete de Teren (Bucuresti: Paideia, 1997). 8 Sélim Abou, L’identité culturelle: relations interethniques et problèmes d’acculturation (Paris: Anthropos, 1981). I use the word ethnic as understood by Selim Abou who considers there are two characteristics that define the ethnic: the common roots and the shared common cultural code. An important completion to this definition is offered by Y. Bromlei who adds a third characteristic to the previous two, which is the conscience of ethnic group’s unity and of its alter nature vis à vis similar corpuses.

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania

31

created and re-created within the everyday life arena relative to a diversity of points of reference. This approach highlights the contextualized nature of the Roma identity and its mobility on the individualism–holism continuum. Being focused on a case study, it allows the identification of the several contexts in which the negotiation of the Roma identity is moving between assertion and negation during the us and other everyday life interplay. This chapter is also an attempt to transcend the limits of understanding a particular Roma group, by offering a reflection upon ethnicity and identity in general, and upon its mechanisms of functioning in the Romanian rural space, in particular. The village of Cristian represents the context of a concrete locality, in which the Roma ethnic identity could be regarded from a perspective that integrates it in the broader setting of social negotiations that take place in a multi-ethnic environment. One of the difficulties in dealing with ethnicity is the obstacle met when one tries to differentiate strictly between ethnic as an objective reality and ethnic as a subjective product of social interaction. This distinction shapes the dispute between the primordialist and interactionist approaches to ethnicity.9 At the level of small communities, the internal boundaries are made by fluctuating, flexible criteria that are continuously negotiated through social interaction. This negotiation pre-supposes a flexibility and variability of the mechanisms of differentiation between ethnic groups. The ethnic category, as a social category, subordinates the individual to the group of belonging and confers more or less reified characteristics to the members of that respective group. In the case of ethnicity these characteristics are called ethnic stereotypes10 and they play an important role in the construction of the identity of an individual. The ethnic stereotypes determine social relations and interactions as people often act without questioning them. As Tajfel11 argues in his social identity theory, individuals often treat each other as members of well-defined groups that he refers to as social categories. In his view the ingroup–out-group differentiations are the main tool for categorizing, labelling and, ultimately, stereotyping. As argued above, the identity has polar dimensions: the personal and the social dimension. Different situations favor the manifestation of one or the other dimension. They are opposed on a continuum. On the first pole, named the Self or the variability, the individuals act on the basis of their own characteristics (personal identity); at the other pole, the Group or the uniformity, the individuals act on the

9 Paul R. Brass, Ethnicity and Nationalism: Theory and Comparison (New Delhi; Newbury Park, CA: Sage Publications, 1991). 10 An ethnic stereotype is understood here as a value judgment which exists inside and outside the group of belonging and which is transmitted further. 11 Henri Tajfel, Human Groups and Social Categories: Studies in Social Psychology (Cambridge; New York: Cambridge University Press, 1981).

Roma in Europe

32

basis of the common characteristics (social identity). Thus, this continuum situates the separation between personal and collective in the realm of social identity.12

One way to see how these phenomena are manifested empirically is doing fieldwork. The fieldwork in Cristian was an attempt to understand how selfidentifications are constituted and what are they determined by. The use of demographic and ethnic records was an inspiration for designing a way to access the empirical representations of the ethnic groups in the village. During interviews each interviewee was shown a schematic representation of the village and of their street, followed by a set of questions. These questions asked the interviewees to self-position themselves on the map, to ethnically self-identify, and to ethnically identify their neighbors. The results obtained are surprising, but nevertheless they shed light on the specific situation of the Roma as a marginalized group. The Social Representation of the Groups by Self and Hetero-Identification The Saxons The Saxons position themselves in the center of the village and they use as points of reference the Evangelical Church, the museum and the school and also the Evangelical cemetery. The old Romanians are hetero-situated by the Saxons near the Orthodox Church and towards the south, beyond the Evangelical cemetery. More than half of the Saxons did not differentiate between old Romanians and new Romanians (newcomers in the village) and they simply associate them with the generic category of Romanians. Therefore, for the Saxons there is no clear delimitation between the area where the old and the new Romanians live. The topographic representation of the newcomers is diffused. Unlike the Romanian newcomers, the Roma (or Tsigani) are clearly hetero-situated by the Saxons at the periphery of the village. Half of the interviewed Saxons answered that the rich live in the center, while the other half answered that the rich are dispersed everywhere in the village or they do not exist. The poor are located by some Saxons in the areas inhabited by Roma, while some other Saxons answered this question in a more interesting way saying that the poor live outside the village. A clear delimitation between the rich center inhabited by the Saxons and by a few Romanians and the Roma periphery emerges as a result.

12 Willem Doise, Jean-Claude Deschamps and Gabriel Mugny, Psychologie Sociale Expérimentale (Paris: A. Colin, 1978), 52 (personal translation into English).

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania

33

The old Romanians The self-positioning of the old Romanian covers almost the entire space of the village. Nevertheless, it indicates some significant segregation such as the Nachbarschaft by the Orthodox Church, the west of the village, the space delimited by the two arms of the river Cibin and the area between the river and the railway-station. Thus, the old Romanians have a tendency to represent themselves as inhabitants mainly of the western part of the village. Romanians’ representation of the Saxons follows two tendencies. Five of the old Romanians interviewed answered that “there are no longer Saxons in the village because they all left,” while 15 Romanians identify the Saxons as inhabiting the central area around the Evangelical church and spread throughout the village. The Romanian newcomers are perceived as dispersed all over the village although some clusters could be formulated. Eight answers perceive the newcomers as inhabiting street number one called Jina Street,13 five answers locate them on the main street and seven answers locate them as being spread around the village. Five of the old Romanians explicitly answered that the “vinituri (or the Romanian newcomers) are now all around the village.” Like everybody else, the old Romanians represent the Roma (or Tsigani) as living outside the village, beyond the iron factory, although they mention the number of the streets on which the Roma live (street twenty-two or “Dallas”14) and beyond the railway station. Most often the localization of the poor coincided with the areas inhabited by Roma. The area inhabited by rich people partly overlaps with the one inhabited by the old Romanians. In other words, the old Romanians identify themselves as rich, even though ten of them also included the Saxon area in the rich category and three of them included the newcomers’ area. In conclusion, the old Romanians represent the spatial distribution of the population in two ways. The first ascribes the central position to the Saxons and the space around the Orthodox Church and the western part of the village to Romanians. The second identifies the periphery as being entirely Roma (Tsigani) and poor. As in the case of the Saxons, the old Romanians have a polarized view of the village—there are two rich centers (one Saxon around the Evangelical church and one Romanian around the Orthodox Church) and a poor periphery inhabited by Roma (Tsigani).

13 Jina is the name of a village from which most of the newcomers to Cristian came. 14 Dallas is the ironic nickname used by the villagers when they refer to the Roma

district in Cristian. The irony of the nickname consists in its direct connotation to the American series Dallas that used to be very popular in the early 90s Romania. The main characters in the movie are owners of rich Texan oil companies and farms. Hence the ironical reference to the poverty of the Roma in Cristian.

34

Roma in Europe

The New Romanians or the Newcomers (Vinituri) Fifteen new Romanians that were interviewed place themselves in the center of the village and eight of them on Jina Street, also relatively center. Other conquered lands of the newcomers are around the national road area towards Sibiu and around the stadium. Seventeen of them either represent the Saxons in the center of the village, or they say that the Saxons are isolated cases, which cannot be clustered in a certain area. All the answers implied that there is not a significant number of Saxons in the village. The old Romanians are represented as inhabiting the west part of the village, around the Orthodox Church and towards the River Cibin. Four of the answers placed the old Romanians all around the village and one answer placed them also in the Roma area. The representation of the Roma is the most coherent one relative to that of other groups because most of the newcomers represented the Roma in a single area, ironically called Dallas, over the train tracks. The rich people are represented as being in the centre and the west of the village towards Cibin. To sum up, for the newcomers the Saxons and the old Romanians are seen as rich, while the poor are localized in the area inhabited by the Roma (Tsigani). The Roma (Tsigani) On street number twenty-one of the village, which is located in the Roma area and which has households hetero-identified entirely as belonging to Roma, 20 households were interviewed out of 22 that reside on that street. The heteroidentified Roma form a group whose social self-representations are harder to analyze, since they do not always self-identify as Roma. Only 8 people out of 20 interviewed said they have a Roma (or Tsigan) origin. Apart from this, it was interesting to analyze to what extent the Roma identify themselves as being poor and in which part of the village they represent themselves. As illustrated above, most of the other groups interviewed identify the poor with the Roma and the results were the same in the case of the Roma interviewed. Fourteen answers out of 18 locate the poor and the Roma in the same area, while the other two said that there are no poor people in Cristian. Two people refused to answer this question. Most of the Roma represented the Roma as being in in the same area but, surprisingly enough, all the Roma interviewed represented the Roma area as starting always next to his or her own household. In other words, none of the people interviewed admitted that they actually live in the Roma area. Three of the subjects even denied the existence of the Roma in Cristian and said that “There are no Tsigani here. All of them are Romanians, old Romanians.” The Roma tendency to self-define as Romanians or other ethnicity becomes obvious in some interviews. A good example is the statement of an old Roma speaking about Roma in the village. He said that all of them are “Germanised Tsigani, in other words they are Romanians.”

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania

35

The same phenomenon happened when they were asked about the Saxons. Ten out of 19 Roma deny the existence of the Saxons by saying that “no more Saxons live here. All of them left and only two or three stayed.” The other nine localize the Saxons in the proximity of the Evangelical church and around the Evangelical cemetery. Twelve Roma out of 19 localize the old Romanians around the Orthodox Church and the Orthodox cemetery and five localize them also in Dallas. Three out of these five interviewees localize the old Romanians exclusively in Dallas. This is clear evidence of negation of the Roma identity on one hand, and of the assertion of an old Romanian identity on the other hand. All Roma except two differentiate between the new Romanians and the old Romanians and they localize the newcomers between the two arms of the River Cibin and near the stadium. The rich people are represented all around the village by five interviewees and in the center of the village by seven interviewees, all of the rich usually identified as newcomers. This explains how Roma perceive the new Romanians as a threat to their own social position in the symbolic hierarchy of the village. For the Roma the newcomers are potentially a new rich elite, which eventually could change the rules of competition for status in the village, previously defined by belonging to a Nachbarshaft. The newcomers did not have their own Nachbarshaft at the time of the interviews, while the Roma did. For this reason, the newcomers are often portrayed by the Roma as a threat. To sum up, the central tendency is to position the Saxons in the center of the symbolic geography of the village whose main point of reference is the Evangelical church and the road that splits the village into two parts. This center is recognized by the majority of the villagers except some Romanians who consider the Orthodox Church as the center and some Roma who recognize Dallas as the center. The old Romanians are localized in the western part of the village and the newcomers are perceived as spread all around, not counting the Saxons who do not differentiate between new and old Romanians. The Roma are placed at the periphery, which is also identified as the poor area. The rich are represented generally in the center of the village, in opposition to the poor at the periphery. Therefore, the social representations vary from group to group. Different groups perceive the richest people in the village differently. The new Romanians perceive the old Romanians and the Saxons as the richest, while the Roma perceive the new Romanians as the richest. The Saxons are the only ones who represent themselves as the richest in the village. When researching in the area hetero-identified by most as the Roma area, the first initially shocking and apparently paradoxical observation is that out of the nine subjects who said only Roma inhabit their street, five said that they are Romanian. Here we can find the intersection of the group definition and individual definition of identity. At first glance we see only some persons who identify themselves as Romanians living on a Roma street. Nonetheless, this could also be regarded rather as an invention of the other inside the personal group of belonging. This strategy permits a better individual definition and separation from the group

36

Roma in Europe

in the desired direction depending on circumstances. This idea could be illustrated by the declaration of one of the interviewees. When he was asked to explain the inconsistency of his answers, he rectified the initial declaration by saying than there are “a lot of poor people” on the street. These poor people were the people whom he initially referred to as Tsigani. This interviewee used a social-economic identification, wealth, as an individual characteristic to differentiate him from the Roma ethnic group stereotyped as poor. He was not poor, which meant that he is not a regular Roma. His wealth could transform his ethnic belonging. One of the most interesting declarations belongs to an interviewee who identified himself as “Tsigan of Romanian nationality.” First, his discourse uses the invocation of a situation recognized officially, “written in an ID card.” This is a discursive means to offer political legitimacy to a statement which belongs to the domain of ethnic identity and which expresses the wish of liberation from an identity perceived as stigmatized. To be “Tsigan of Romanian nationality” could mean first of all the wish for integration within the majority. At the same time, the word Tsigan could describe more a social status than an ethnicity. Thus, when the word Tsigan is used for self-identification it could mean that a series of social attributes differ from ethnic belonging in individual cases. These attributes are often socio-economic. This situation could explain the possibility that Roma negotiate their identity in multiple ways. After 1989 a new category of identity emerged in the village, the stranger, or the newcomer (veneticul or vinituri) who had not shared with the other neighbors the experience of co-habitation and who lacks symbolic legitimacy for this reason. The fact that the newcomers are Romanians has no particular relevance in this matter. What really has relevance is the temporal criterion, that they are coming from outside the village, and they are not seen as a homogenous group. As an old Romanian that spent all his life in Cristian put in an interview “they do not know each other. They have come here from everywhere [ … ] But I will tell you something: I live in this village on the tombs of my parents … And then, a good man wouldn’t leave his village so easily.” In other words, the newcomers are regarded as weak characters who have no roots and therefore, no dignity. Love for the land is a virtue, which, if it is lacking, distorts the image of a “good man.”15 The new wave of colonists to Cristian created the grounds for shifting criteria of subordination. As Auge16 noted, there are three possible ways of subordination: spatial, temporal and individual. In Cristian the subordination is of two types: temporal (who has been in the village longer) and cultural (who is and who is not a member of the Nachbarschaft). The Roma feel that they could gain an advantage over the newcomers by being in the village longer and by perpetuating the Nachbarschaft. The boundary between us and them, between us and the strangers is characterized not only by ethnicity as one would expect, but by time and, most 15 Balasescu, Caiete de Teren. 16 Marc Augé, Non-Places: Introduction to an Anthropology of Supermodernity,

trans. John Howe (London; New York: Verso, 1995).

The Roma in a Multiethnic Locality in Transylvania

37

important, by the Nachbarschaft. Those who promote the Saxon model feel they are perpetuators of a superior pattern and should therefore be conferred a higher social status. In Cristian, and particularly among Roma, the “social perceptions are categorical: you are or you are not a member of a Nachbarschaft, you are or you are not appropriate.”17 By creating their own Nachbarschaft the Roma from Cristian struggled for recognition of a higher symbolic status coupled with a hope for diminished stigmatization by other groups. The Roma in Cristian, the Saxon pattern of organization, the Nachbarschaft, and the temporal criterion are the main instruments for negotiating a better status of their collective belonging. Thus, the Roma Nachbarschaft is not as much a sign of assimilation as a tool for overcoming stigma. The practice of similarity with the Saxons has the function of differentiation and legitimization of Roma’s position in the village vis à vis the Romanian newcomers. The fieldwork data suggest that, as in most multi-ethnic contexts, identity is flexible and contextual, not so much monocentric, but polycentric, shaping itself on the needs of the population and being shaped by some identity strategies. The Roma were the most affected by the arrival of the strangers in the village in the early 90s because they feel they will have to fight once again against stigma, which was previously overcome by accepting the Saxon way of organization into Nachbarshafts. This fear was expressed clearly in the interviews. The complaint of one 46-year-old Roma illustrates this more general discontent: “Since the newcomers have settled here, we have become the target of laugher for the whole world. They call us Tsigani, but we don’t steal, we don’t hurt anyone.” This situation could represent for the Roma a possibility of reaching the same level in the symbolic hierarchy of the village as the Romanians have, which means a minimization of ethnic differences, the removal of the stigma and the acquisition of additional status. On the discursive level, the Roma identifications are made relative, often in opposition, to the strangers. Incontestable rights could be sustained only by means of being old and established in the village. In a conflict that took place between a Roma and a new-comer Romanian, the Roma said to the Romanian: “Me, I have spent all my life here and you, who came to Cristian only some years ago, you pretend to have the right to make justice for yourself?” Again the argument of who has been in the village longest is prominent. This argument legitimizes the status of the Roma as a superior ethnic group in the village relative to the newcomers by the means of time. Those who have older roots in the village could claim more rights and higher status and these could be symbolically conferred on the Roma through community support from the old Romanians and from the Saxons. The experience of co-habitation, that apparently led to the indigenization of the Saxon model among the Roma, and the temporal criteria are tools for 17 Balasescu, Caiete de Teren.

38

Roma in Europe

symbolic negotiation of status.18 The inhabitants of Cristian show a particular dynamic of membership and of social representations, as well as a rich social creativity, by employing these criteria of belonging in the negotiation of their status. Under these circumstances, the symbolic hierarchy of the village remains open for redefinitions. One could conclude that the Roma from Cristian create a “translocality”19 or a “third space”20 to which the Romanian newcomers have little access. Similar to the Cieszyn Silesians in Kempny’s study,21 the Roma in Cristian are a case of constructing “local identities of transnational22 character.” In this village, the Roma Nachbarshaft constitutes a new symbolic space understood as a “symbolic construct self-consciously used in order to represent a space of cultural distinctiveness rather than a geographical entity.”23 To sum up, this chapter identified the strategies Roma involve in their identity and status negotiations in one multi-ethnic locality in Romania. The downplaying of the Roma and Tsigan identity through self-identification with the dominant Saxon culture and Romanian ethnicity are local strategies of status negotiation. These strategies are employed whenever the Roma feel endangered by stigmatization and when they emphasize the cultural communalities with the dominant groups justified with the temporal criterion—who has lived longer in the village. The self-identifications of the Roma with the dominant groups could be understood in this case as symbolic re-positioning of the Roma in the center of the village and as signaling that the newcomers should be regarded as the new periphery.

18 Veronica Szabo, Cahiers de Terrain (Bucuresti: Paideia, 1998). 19 Arjun Appadurai, “Introduction,” in Globalization, ed. Arjun Appadurai (Durham,

NC: Duke University Press, 2001). 20 Bhabha, Location of Culture. 21  Marian Kempny, “Nation-building as a Communist ‘Rational Planning Strategy’ Subverted by Local Narratives. The Case of Identity Politics in Cieszyn Silesia,” Polish Sociological Review 152, No.4 (2005). 22  I refer here to transnationality as a hybridized space where Saxon culture, Romanian nationality and Roma identifications meet. 23  Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof, “Introduction,” in Communities across Borders: New Immigrants and Transnational Cultures, ed. Paul Kennedy and Victor Roudometof (London; New York: Routledge, 2002), 23.

Chapter 3

EU Accession Conditionality as an Opportunity Context for Roma Political Representation in Europe The History of EU Accession Conditionality and the Protection of National Minorities The European Council meeting in Copenhagen in June 1993 marked the most important political moment for the national minorities in Eastern Europe in the last half of the twentieth century. The summit concluded that further EU enlargement could only proceed if accession states fulfill certain conditions. The Copenhagen presidency outlined these conditions as follows: Membership requires that the candidate country has achieved stability of institutions guaranteeing democracy, the rule of law, human rights and respect for and protection of minorities, the existence of a functioning market economy, as well as the capacity to cope with competitive pressure and market forces within the Union. Membership presupposes the candidate’s ability to take on the obligations of membership including adherence to the aims of political, economic and monetary union.1

The idea of conditionality of accession was not new in regards to political criteria however some of the conditions were new in character. Article 237 of the Treaty of Rome stated that “any European state may apply to become a member of the community yet, as early as 1962; the European Assembly stated that democratic rule was a condition for membership.”2 Later on, at The Hague summit in 1969 it was established that “it was the duty of any applicant state to adopt the acquis and the political aims of the treaties.”3 At the Copenhagen summit in 1978 in view of a possible southern enlargement “respect for representative democracy and human 1  Wikipedia, Copenhagen Criteria, (5 May 2007). 2  E.O. Eriksen, J.E. Fossum and H. Sjursen, “Widening or Reconstituting the EU?,” in Making the European Polity: Reflexive Integration in the EU, ed. O.E. Eriksen (New York: Routledge, 2005) 237–53, 243. 3  Ned Burton, “Assessing the Accession Criteria,” in Workshop 1: Political Dimensions of the Accession Criteria (Birmingham: European Research Institute, 2002), 2.

40

Roma in Europe

rights were essential elements of membership.”4 However, the inclusion of an “explicit economic criterion, or the unprecedented reference to minority rights as part of the political criterion”5 constituted brand new conditions for the CEE states in 1993. One could infer that due to cumulative conditionality, the process of EU enlargement became more and more difficult from one enlargement wave to the next. One of the main causes for introducing minority protection conditionality in 1993 was the historical context in which the accession criteria for CEE states were formulated. Early 90s were for Europe a period of unrest due to the fall of communism and later to the ethnic wars in former-Yugoslavia. The ethnic violence between Romanians and Hungarians in Târgu Mureș in January 1990 that was transmitted live by media all over Europe, as well as the later tragic events in former Yugoslavia triggered many fears of chain-effects throughout Europe.6 The split of Czechoslovakia in January 1993 was feared to bring about similar events in spite of the peaceful character of the Velvet Divorce. Large waves of asylum seekers from former Yugoslavia heightened the fear that the member states would not be able to cope with the costs involved by granting them asylum status.7 Roma in particular were regarded as a special category of asylum seekers who faced double discrimination in the places from which they immigrated. The member states preferred to assure themselves through the minority protection conditionality that the EU accession of CEE states will not bring about an increase of immigration and asylum: The shift from a focus on territorially-concentrated ethnic minorities to the Roma over the course of the 1990s seemed to reflect the changing political risks and costs of ethnically-driven territorial conflict in Central and Eastern Europe compared to the arrival of Roma asylum seekers in Western Europe.8

Collective versus Individual Minority Rights This shift ran in parallel with the shift from collective rights to individual rights for members of national minorities. Recommendation 1201 of the Council of Europe in 1993 that included collective minority rights was intended to be “transposed into an additional protocol to the European Convention on Human 4  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 2. 5  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 2. 6  W. Crowther, “The European Union and Romania: Politics of Constrained

Transition,” in The European Union and Democratization, ed. P.J. Kubicek (New York: Routledge, 2003), 87–111, 93. 7  G. Schwellnus, “Double Standards: Minority Protection as a Condition for Membership,” in Questioning EU Enlargement, ed. Helen Sjursen (New York: Routledge, 2006), 186–201, 187. 8  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 3.

EU Accession Conditionality

41

Rights and Fundamental Freedoms (Council of Europe 1950).”9 However, the demands regarding collective rights were dropped and not included into the Council of Europe Framework Convention on National Minorities formulated in 1995. At that point in time, “the Commission initially upheld both documents as representing the European minority standard”10 with the hope that in this way both collective and individual minority rights will be safeguarded. Special pressure was put on Slovakia and Romania to recognize collective rights for minorities in 1995. However, the collective rights were in the end dropped and even discouraged by the EU in 2001 when Hungary adopted the Status Law enforcing rights for Hungarian minorities living abroad. Although the law was regarded as “a novel approach to the problem of a diaspora’s relations with its ‘kin-state’”11 it brought about “a remarkable degree of controversy into Hungarian foreign relations, both with neighboring states and with the European Union.”12 As a result, Recommendation 120113 was in the end abandoned altogether and the only document with some sort of binding remained the EC Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities, which is individualistic in character. The differential pressure the EU put on the accession states and the Member States to comply with these norms further enhanced this inconsistency. A Common European Standard versus Double Standards The accession countries’ signatures of the Council of Europe’s Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities represented the first action that ensured a safer haven for minorities within these countries. However, the requirements set for the candidate countries did not apply to existing members states and failed to be incorporated within the Community’s acquis. By 2007 the Framework Convention received 43 signatures and 39 ratifications14. The notable exception of non-signatory state is France which declared the Framework as unconstitutional, whereas Belgium had signed but had not ratified the Convention. 9  Schwellnus, “Double Standards,” 195. 10  Schwellnus, “Double Standards,” 195. 11  Michael Stewart, “Hungarian Status Law: a New European Form of Transnational

Politics?,” in The Slavic Eurasian Studies Occasional Papers, 4 (2004): 120–51, 122. (5 May 2007). 12  Stewart, “Hungarian Status Law,” 121. 13  Council of Europe Parliamentary Assembly. Recommendation 1201 on an Additional Protocol on the Rights of National Minorities to the European Convention on Human Rights, 1 February 1993, (4 April 2007). 14  Council of Europe, Framework Convention for the Protection of national Minorities Chart of Signatures and Ratifications, 14 May 2007, (14 May 2007).

42

Roma in Europe

It could be speculated that the reasons for which France rejected the Convention where similar in character to the reasons for which Central and Eastern European states were expected to sign and ratify it. One reason for finding the Convention uncomfortable was that its emphasis on individual rights had implications upon its reaches far into the particular structure of each domestic political system. As a result of its double standards application, the Framework Convention started to be seen as a tool for exercising power between a “hard core of member states (…) and the remaining integration ‘laggards.’”15 As an effect, it generated “intense resentment in the Central and Eastern European candidates”16 which regarded this particular conditionality as differential treatment. It would be perhaps worth meditating on the question some prominent scholars asked rhetorically: “If the EU decided to apply for membership (after 1993), would it be accepted?”17 The fear that “a new type of order is emerging in Europe: an order in which an authority above the states can itself legitimately ‘lay down the law’ and legitimately set standards for appropriate government”18 became salient. As some authors opine, “it was, and is, entirely unacceptable for the EU to interfere in the relations between the central governments of the member states and the ethnic minorities living within their borders.”19 Besides the perceived threat of the Convention to national sovereignty, another uncomfortable perception was formed—that of a multi-tiered EU composed by first, second and even third class citizens. The differential treatment between member states and accession states but also among different accession states filled “national rivalries and resentments between candidate countries.”20 For example Latvia did not ratify the Convention earlier than 2005 but this did not constitute an obstacle to its EU accession in 2004 as it represented for Romania despite ratifying it. The differential treatment of conditionality criteria regarding minority protection undermined its legitimacy and the belief in its importance. Perhaps the most detrimental effect of the EU’s double standards on the issue of protection of ethnic minorities was an actual increase of the negative societal attitudes that majority populations expressed towards minority populations, especially the Roma. The public perception that the Roma’s backwardness is responsible for delaying the process of accession fueled ever-growing resentment and discrimination against the Roma minority in accession countries. The western European media also contributed to an essentialized image of eastern European 15  Giandomenico Majone, Dilemmas of European Integration. The Ambiguities and Pitfalls of Integration by Stealth (Oxford: Oxford University Press, 2005), 15. 16  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 4. 17  Eriksen, Fossum and Sjursen, “Reconstituting the EU?,” 244. 18  Eriksen, Fossum and Sjursen, “Reconstituting the EU?,” 244. 19  B. De Witte, “Politics Versus Law in the EU’s Approach to Ethnic Minorities,” in Europe Unbound. Enlarging and Reshaping the Boundaries of the European Union, ed. J, Zielonka (New York: Routledge, 2002), 137–61, 150. 20  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 4.

EU Accession Conditionality

43

countries in general, and of Romania in particular, fueling the negative attitudes and fears regarding Roma in western Europe, in as much as it strengthened the negative attitudes towards the Roma minority in eastern Europe. As an effect, the Roma were blamed for delaying EU accession in some CEE countries, most notably in Romania. Vague Evaluation and Monitoring Criteria. Which is the Threshold? Besides the questionable character of the minority protection criterion due to its inconsistent application by the candidate states, and the criticism of it being merely a discursive political tool, the assessment practices on candidate states’ performance in fulfilling the Copenhagen conditions for EU accession were criticized as being too reliant on candidate state governments as sources of information. In turn, these governments were not clearly instructed as to which level of implementation were they supposed to reach in order to be granted accession. There was no clear threshold for assessing the fulfillment of the criteria and no clear measuring instruments with which one could calculate the actual achievement of a threshold. In fact, no threshold was set. In other words, the European Commission (EC) established conditions for accession states, but did not provide the tools for efficiently measuring and monitoring their fulfillment. The “uneven use of conditionality”21 coupled with the absence of a threshold, fueled mistrust in the serious nature of the Framework Convention and in the importance of its application. At the same time it brought about the feeling that it was merely a rhetorical tool for delaying the process of accession, which pleased those countries which were more in favor of deepening instead of widening the EU. This, in turn, encapsulated the Framework into a rhetoric of accession22 with no apparent incentives to transform itself into effective implemented policies. This situation benefited widely the political spectrum in accession countries, as well as the Roma political activists involved in one way or another in the process of minority policy implementation. The next chapter shows how the rhetorical nature of the Convention represented a political opportunity for ethnic mobilization of Roma in Eastern Europe, as well as a bargaining tool for local authorities in localities that comprised high numbers of Roma to claim more funds.

21  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 4. 22  Gwendolyn Sasse, “EU Conditionality and Minority Rights: Translating the

Copenhagen Criterion into Policy,” in European University Institute Working Papers, 16 (2005): 18.

44

Roma in Europe

The Minority Rights of Roma: Western Europe’s Stick on Eastern Europe? One could already witness the effects of policy developments triggered by the EU conditionality of accession that brought about a stronger political representation of Roma in Eastern Europe than in Western Europe. While some institutional changes did take place in Eastern Europe, although not reaching deep enough, the western European states that comprise large numbers of Roma did not recognize the plight of this minority as anything other than one of foreign relations. As Clark put it: Although the situation of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe is almost unanimously acknowledged to be horrendous by many Non-Governmental Organizations (NGOs) (e.g., Amnesty International, Helsinki Watch, Project on Ethnic Relations), it is equally true that the established bourgeois liberal democracies of the West have treated Roma living in their own countries with just as much contempt, hatred, fear and loathing as their Eastern neighbors during the last five hundred years.23

If one compares the official census number of Roma in France, for example, with that of Roma in Romania that would show no real difference. In France there are 500,000 Roma officially recognized and about 1.2 million estimated, however, the Roma issue in France is often treated as an external one or as an issue of migration. Presenting a de facto internal issue as external does not make the issue disappear but it places responsibility outside France. This problem was also noticed by organizations monitoring Roma discrimination such as the European Roma Rights Center: France is renowned as the source and guardian of modern democracy and of individual rights and freedoms; yet, hundreds of thousands of French citizens are subject to severe violations of the most basic civil and political rights without this seeming to cause even a ripple of protest, let alone public outcry, at the challenge posed to the very foundations of the French Republic. A large part of those affected by these violations are Gypsies and Travelers, indicating that these violations are in fact racist in character.24

Similar situations exist in Spain and in the United Kingdom. In Spain there is no official number of Roma/Gitanos identified because they do not form a separate category in censuses. This is the case because: 23  Angus Fraser, The Gypsies (Oxford: Blackwell, 1995) quoted in Colin Clark, “Counting Backwards: the Roma ‘Numbers Game’ in Central and Eastern Europe,” in Radical Statistics 69, no. 4 (1998), (4 May 2007). 24  Euroactiv, Situation of Roma in France at Crisis Proportions, 15 May 2007, (20 May 2007).

EU Accession Conditionality

45

Roma/Gitanos are not recognized either as an ethnic minority, or as one of the “peoples of Spain” (not to speak of being recognized as a national minority), and there has been no response to Romani requests for political recognition. Thus there is no legal protection of their identity, culture, language and other minority rights.25

According to the estimates, between 500,000 and 800,000 Roma live in Spain out of which “up to 30 percent live in substandard housing, and up to 90 percent of the inhabitants of shanty towns are Roma/Gitanos.”26 In the United Kingdom, according to the government website of the Commission for Racial Equality,27 there are an estimated 200,000 to 300,000 Roma and Travelers. Like in Spain, the Roma and Travelers in the UK are not monitored in national statistics and the survey data are usually mainly available through schools. These figures show that Eastern Europe is not the only region of Europe with a significant number of Roma and that in fact Roma people live in poor conditions and are discriminated against everywhere in the European Union. However, the context of EU enlargement and the accession conditionality criteria on CEE states, together with the ways the issue was covered in the European press, built up a public opinion that Roma need to be protected only in Eastern Europe. Therefore, not many in Western Europe question the possibility that Roma are as discriminated against in their own country and they need as much protection as they do in Eastern Europe. Clark, a British social scientist from the University of Newcastle noticed this discrepancy and accounted for it in his text on number politics: For many national and local politicians it is just too much of a temptation to forget about the Roma by ignoring them in census counts. If they do not exist then their needs can be denied: they do not require grants, services or special needs funding because they are invisible or look after their own. A case of counting backwards?28

If, in large parts of Western Europe, Roma are invisible, are denied existence as a group, and their social problems are not recognized as an internal responsibility of the state, in Eastern Europe the situation is expected to be the other way round. 25  Open Society Institute, Report on the Situation of Roma in Spain (Budapest: OSI, 2002) (4 May 2007). 26 Open Society Institute, Monitoring the EU Accession Process on Minority Protection (Budapest: OSI, 2002) (4 May 2007). 27  Commission for Racial Equality of The Government of the United Kingdom. Gypsies and Irish Travellers. The Facts (London: Commission for Racial Equality of the UK Government, 2007), (5 May 2007). 28 Colin Clark, “Counting Backwards.”

46

Roma in Europe

Due to EU conditionality of accession, the importance of improving the situation of Roma increased in Eastern Europe, while the figures were often manipulated, increased or decreased, by different actors that wanted to access funding for the improvement of the situation of Roma. These actors range from public authorities, and in particular local authorities who need to attract more funds for their localities, non-governmental organizations that live on funding coming from Roma projects, and Roma political activists. This could explain why the counted numbers of Roma tend to decrease in Western Europe, while those in Eastern Europe tend to increase. The result of these developments is a reified and misguided perception that the Roma problem is exclusive to Eastern Europe. This perception reinforces the legitimacy of the claims in some old EU member states that the efforts to improve the situation of Roma in Europe are mainly, if not only, the responsibility of Central Eastern European member states. These uneven conditions of European enlargement led to unsurprising, undesirable outcomes of prevailing double standards in the already enlarged EU where the negative attitudes and discrimination against the Roma are still rampant with indications of bleak and rather worrying developments. In the future it would be desirable that all EU member states comply with the same conditions of membership and approach the plight of the Roma people in a non-differentiating way, if real changes for the betterment of the largest European minority are to emerge.

Chapter 4

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania Pre-accession Policy and Practice of Roma Minority Protection in Romania The chapter explores the development of Roma politics in Romania in the context of EU enlargement. It develops the argument of the previous chapter that the Copenhagen criteria of national minorities’ protection as a condition for EU accession for Central Eastern European countries represented a political opportunity for political mobilization of the Roma in the region. The high costs of exclusion from the EU club prompted eastern European states with significant minority populations to accept the Copenhagen conditions and to try to implement new policies towards national minorities. However, the sustainability of these policies was questionable from the start due to the negative consequences of the issue of double standards in both pre- and post-accession periods. The chapter illuminates the reasons why minority protection conditionality of accession of CEE states in general, and of Romania in particular, reached only a superficial level of implementation in regards to improving the situation of Roma. The analysis of fieldwork data collected in 2004 in Romania by interviewing people involved in public administration dealing with the improvement of the situation of Roma1 lead to the conclusion that the causes for superficial implementation are multiple and are located at the intersection of EU politics, Romania’s domestic politics and Roma minority politics, as well as in the diffused political responsibility for improving the situation of Roma among these actors. The policy aim to improve the situation of Roma in CEE countries turned out to be only a relatively effective political means for the EU, Romanian and Roma political entrepreneurs, and the real beneficiaries of the conditionality of Roma minority protection for accession to the EU turned out to be only some people involved in politics, and less so the Roma that truly live in poor social conditions. The policy aim of improving the situation of Roma was not accompanied by 1 The main methods used for data collection were participant observation and interviews with Roma representatives at different levels of public administration, as well as with other Roma figures that occupy certain positions of power in Romania. For maintaining the anonymity of the interviewees names will not be disclosed. My own positioning within the field as an expert working for an intergovernmental institution, Organization for the Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE), might have biased certain answers during interviews.

48

Roma in Europe

clear evaluation criteria of its implementation. The vagueness of the pursuit and the difficulty of reaching a common standard of measuring its implementation, coupled with the problem of double standards for EU member states and accession countries, transformed this policy aim into a political means for emerging political representation of Roma in the region. The paradoxical effect of creating a politically favorable context of national minorities’ empowerment was that victimization of the Roma became a strategy for CEE states to attract further EU financial support. As some interviewees explained, the problem is that once a policy aim is achieved the means for claiming the appropriation of more resources disappears. This reasoning often prompts political entrepreneurs to delay the actual implementation of policies, and to maintain the problem as a political means to attract resources. This mechanism is not specific only to the policies targeting Roma, but also to other cases of policy implementation.2 The Roma were instrumental for EU politics in as much as they often became a scapegoat for delaying accession of CEE countries that raised fears in EU members (i.e.: migration, asylum seekers, unemployment, competition, costs). In turn, the CEE states found Roma instrumental in scapegoating their weaker economical and/or political performance in regards to the fulfillment of the other Copenhagen criteria for being granted accession. Roma political leaders themselves found the context favorable for pursuing their own aims of minority politics. As a result, negative societal attitudes towards Roma remained salient and led to further discrimination against Roma who do not possess the means to fight against it other than concealing their ethnic identity. The majority population in Romania often blamed the Roma as the main reason for delayed EU accession which correlated with the negative image Romania has in western European countries. A Gallup survey conducted in 2003 on a national representative sample in Romania revealed that one third of Romanians thinks that “Roma should not be allowed to travel abroad because they create a bad image of Romania.”3 In the same line of thought, almost half of the population of Romania supported the idea of a demographic policy aimed at limiting the growth of the Roma population. However, Open Society Foundation (OSI) published a more optimistic view in the 2006 Roma Inclusion Barometer, in which it was stated that “Romanian society became much more tolerant towards the Roma (in 1993 over 70% of 2  Nira Yuval Davis, public lecture, Mainstreaming and Intersectionality, Aalborg University, 24 April 2007. The feminist buzz words of “mainstream” and “intersectionality” that were proposed as means in 1995 during Beijing’s conference on feminism infiltrated into policy formulations as aims in themselves. This situation is not convenient for some feminist political entrepreneurs that compete for appropriating more power resources. Nira Yuval-Davis, a reputable theoretician of feminism, pointed out during a lecture given at Aalborg University the undesirable effect of transforming policy means into policy aims. 3  The Gallup Organization Romania, “Intoleranţă, discriminare şi autoritarism în opinia publică,” in Extremism în România, 16 October 2003 http://www.gallup.ro/romana/ poll_ro/releases_ro/pr031016_ro/pr031016_ro.htm (2 May 2007).

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

49

the Romanians were refusing to have a Roma neighbor, in 2006 only 36% still favors this position).”4 Although, according to such sources, the negative attitudes towards Roma have undergone a relative improvement in Romania, these figures still illustrate a rather worrying situation. This could explain why Roma self-identifications are often confusing and why the numbers of Roma in censuses based on self-identification are dramatically lower that the estimates based on hetero-identification. Roma in Romania often prefer to identify themselves as Romanians or Hungarians for fear of discrimination. Therefore, it is considered that some percentages that account for Romanian and Hungarian populations in Romania are in fact Roma. For example, the Romanian census in 2002 revealed that the number of Roma in Romania is 535,140, which equaled 2.5 percent of the entire population (as compared to 6.6 percent of Hungarians—the largest minority group in Romania). However, a study conducted in 19985 based on hetero-identifications on a national representative sample revealed that the number of Roma in Romania is 1.5 million, which equals 6.7 percent of the entire population. It is also important to mention certain political interests that revolve around diminishing or, depending on the context, increasing these numbers. On the one hand, Roma political representatives have an interest in increasing these numbers in order to legitimize their power and agency to the representatives of the majority, however, this interest is opposed in practice by the survival strategies that discriminated-against Roma need to employ in order to transcend their stigma. Besides, 40 percent of the Roma in Romania considered themselves as Romanianized or Hungarianized6 and therefore it is questionable to what extent they feel represented by Roma representatives, by Romanian ones or, possibly, by others. On the other hand, in certain contexts, Romanian authorities at different levels of administration also have an interest in presenting the number of Roma as bigger. The availability of funds at national and local level in Central Eastern Europe depends largely on the number of Roma and on their critical socio-economic situation. The possibility that some political actors might have an interest in preserving or slowing down the process of improving the situation of the Roma was mentioned more than once during interviews with Roma involved in Romanian public administration. This problem is of more general range, which is that any kinds of policies evaluated as having been successfully implemented lose the right to claim resources for future implementation.

4  Open Society Foundation, Roma Inclusion Barometer, 3 October 2006, (2 May 2007). 5  Guvernul Romaniei—Comisia Anti-Saracie si Promovare a Incluziunii Sociale (CASPIS). Suportul Social pentru Populatia de Romi, (4 May 2007). 6  Guvernul Romaniei—The National Agency for Roma Statistics, Populatia dupa Etnie si Limba Materna pe Judete, 27 March 2002, http://www.anr.gov.ro/docs/statistici/ statistici/t4.pdf > (4 May 2007).

50

Roma in Europe

To summarize, this chapter develops the argument that all three political actors—the EU, Romanian authorities, and Roma representatives—found the minority protection conditionality of EU accession instrumental for furthering their respective political interests. This whole problem is analyzed below in the theoretical framework of power7 relations, while recognizing the role of Roma agency8 in these relations. Roma agency emerged out of the structural context of EU enlargement, which represented a context of opportunity for political empowerment of the Roma. However, in the post-enlargement period, when the conditionality of minority protection no longer held the same leverage, the improvement of the situation of Roma in Europe presupposed the search for alternative means of minority protection. The Integration of Roma in Romanian Public Administration9 One expected outcome of EU accession conditionality was the reformation of public administration in accession countries that comprised large numbers of Roma to create institutions addressing the improvement of the situation of this minority. In the following paragraphs I outline these developments in public administration in Romania during pre-accession years. Romania signed and ratified the Council of Europe Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities in 1995 and it came into force in 1998. As an outcome of this development the Romanian government issued in 2001 the Governmental Strategy for the Improvement of the Situation of Roma which aimed to create a Roma decentralized elite with the role of “facilitator of social integration and emancipation policies.”10 The decentralization was expected to emerge from the creation of different new structures within public administration. As a consequence, four main institutions directly responsible for the implementation of the Strategy were created and expected to start functioning early on. Nonetheless not all of them functioned as expected:

7  Foucault, History of Sexuality. 8  In this book I use the term agency to refer to the possibilities of action and change

in a field of power relations and structural constraints. I refer here to the distinction between structure and agency and the relationship between them as understood by Pierre Bourdieu in his seminal book Distinction. A Social Critique of the Judgement of Taste (Harvard: Routledge, 1979) 9  Some data were gathered during fieldwork in 2004 contracted by the OSCE Warsaw. A report was written for the OSCE but it remained in manuscript stage. Parts of this chapter are based on data gathered during research conducted for the OSCE. 10  Romanian Government, Strategy for the Improvement of the Situation of Roma 430/2001 (Bucharest: Romanian Government, 2001).

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

51

1. The Mixed Committee for Implementation and Monitoring. Its executive organ is the National Office for Roma within the Department of InterEthnic Relations of the Ministry of Public Information. 2. The Inter-Ministerial Commission for Roma that is responsible for applying Governmental Strategy 430/2001 in the activity sector of a particular Minister (Education, Health, etc.). According to an interview11 held with the County12 Expert in Bucharest, this Inter-Ministerial Commission for Roma existed only on paper, but never functioned: “The Mixed Committee existed at the level of Ministries. It did not function. It existed only on paper. It existed but never functioned” (Regional expert Bucharest). 3. The County Bureaus for Roma. According to the Governmental Strategy they were supposed to contain three or four Regional Experts on Roma issues out of which at least one should be of Roma origin. In reality, there was only one expert in these Regional Bureaus for Roma and they were of Roma origin. 4. The Local Experts for Roma. They were meant to be the main mediators between the local public authorities and the Roma communities. They were to function within the Local City Halls. At the level of the Commune (several villages form a Commune) one clerk of the City Hall (Commune Hall) holds the function of the Local Expert on Roma issues as part of a collection of functions. In Romania the institutions of Regional (County) and Local Expert were officially recognized through the Governmental Decision for the Improvement of the Situation of Roma 430/2001. At the time of research, only the institution of Regional Experts was integrated within the public administration structure of Regional Prefectures. The institution of Local Expert was integrated at the local level within the City Halls only in isolated cases, most of the time the City Halls lacked any kind of institution to deal with the implementation of the Governmental Strategy. The Regional (County) Experts function within the Regional (County) Bureaus for Roma were integrated within Prefectures in 2001, immediately after the elaboration of the Governmental Strategy for the Improvement of the Situation of Roma 430/2001. From four regions taken into the research sample (Dolj, Bucuresti, Botosani, Neamț), all four Roma Regional Experts were nominated by Partida Romilor13—the political party that represents the Roma minority in Romania and, at the time, the main institution that had a developed national database of Roma human resources. All the Regional Experts interviewed were 11  The interview was taken in February 2004. 12  County is the administrative term for region in Romania. However, the county

does not have the same degree of autonomy as an administrative region. There are 42 counties in Romania. In this paper I use the term county and region interchangeably. 13  The former party Partida Romilor has been renamed and in 2007 was called Roma Party Pro-Europe.

52

Roma in Europe

of Roma origin, a situation widespread at the national level. The homogeneity of the political affiliation of these experts could be explained by the time pressure of finding people to take on these functions in 2001. The above-mentioned solution was instrumental to the immediate start of the implementation of Governmental Strategy 430/2001, but in the long run it eventually led to conflicting situations between different non-governmental organizations and other Roma agencies entitled to nominate candidates for these positions. Another important element of the Strategy was to create the institutions of Local and Regional Expert for Roma. The responsibility for creating these institutions was delegated at the local level to City Halls and at the regional level to County Prefectures. However, in 2004 when the empirical research was conducted, the position of Local Expert was not fully institutionalized and in the few cases in which it was, only members of the Roma political party Partida Romilor held these functions.14 From the interviews conducted in Romania in January 2004 some members of Partida Romilor functioned as both Local Advisors (Consilieri Locali) and party members, most of the time their roles not being clearly distinguished. The Local Advisors were functioning as Local Roma Experts and political activists within Partida Romilor. They cooperated with but they were not de facto paid by the City Halls and they did not officially hold the position of Local Expert at the Local City Hall. A general look at the reform in public administration in Romania in regards to Roma issues shows that the actual implementation is less real than its existence on paper. This situation stagnated for a while due to the rotation of parties that won the elections in Romania. The limited absorption of Roma in local public administration was slowed down by the electoral loss of the Social Democrat Party in 2004. The new Alliance that won the elections changed the employees at all levels of administration and did not have any sort of agreement with Partida Romilor to recruit Roma from among its members. The political rivalries between the Social Democrat Party and the winning Alliance placed Partida Romilor in an unfavorable position in this respect. In conclusion, the reform in public administration and the need for implementing it under the time pressure of accession brought about a tendency to look to solutions that were at hand at that time, but which were not necessarily the most sustainable. The time pressure benefited the Roma members of Partida Romilor but left aside all the other Roma who might have been suitable to occupy these administrative positions. Under the circumstances of governmental change the whole reform slowed down due to political rivalries. Although on paper the reform had to be implemented regardless of the party in power, the actual situation in the field proved to be quite one sided, however, this situation had a positive side. 14  An interesting point emphasized by many interviewed members of Partida Romilor is that Partida Romilor is first of all an NGO that becomes a political party only during electoral years. 2004 was an electoral year in Romania and the interviews were conducted in January 2004 with de facto party members.

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

53

Partida Romilor’s diminishing monopoly over occupying these positions prior to the governmental change from social democrats to liberals in 2004, made space for other Roma actors to compete for the new positions that emerged with the administrative reform. This opportunity for plurality of Roma representation was strengthened further by the regional policy development attempted through The Decade of Roma Inclusion.15 Electoral Interests of Policy Implementation The Social Democrat Party was in power in Romania between 2001 when the Governmental Strategy was approved and 2004 when they lost the elections in favor of the National Liberal Party and Democrat Party Alliance (PNL-PD). At the end of 2003 Partida Romilor, otherwise registered as a non-governmental organization, signed a special political agreement with the Social Democrat Party. Point 9 of this Political Agreement stipulated that Partida Romilor functions as a political party during electoral years16 and supports the candidates of the Social Democrat Party on presidential, parliamentary, regional and local election lists. In exchange, the Social Democrat Party agreed that: the representatives of the two political organizations will collaborate in the government, in central public authorities, as well as in Prefectures (regional offices) and in Local Councils.17

The result of this Political Agreement is that the members of Partida Romilor filled the positions for Roma within all available levels of public administration in Romania. As mentioned before, another reason that led to this situation of monopoly was the time pressure under which Romania had to comply with EU conditionality of accession. As Ned Burton18 put it in his report on Workshop 1 on Political Dimension of the Accession Criteria “the need for speed and the appearance of results has sometimes encouraged candidate state elites to go for centralized solutions.” One could notice that even though in Romania the Strategy aimed at 15  The Decade of Roma Inclusion will be discussed more in Chapter 5. For now it is only important to mention that this regional strategy that started in 2005 appeared to be right in time to encourage a continuation and monitoring of policies regarding the improvement of the situation of Roma in the CEE region. 16  Romanian law allowed such anomalies as shifting governmental and nongovernmental status of an organization. In electoral years Partida Romilor has functioned as political party whereas the rest of the time they had the status of an NGO. 17  Partidul Social Democrat/ Partida Romilor Social Democrata. Acord Politic privind Parteneriatul dintre Partidul Social Democrat si Partida Romilor SocialDemocrata din Romania. (Bucharest: PSD/PRSD, 2003). 18  Burton, “Accession Criteria.”

54

Roma in Europe

administrative decentralization, the way this was implemented brought about a certain monopoly and a centralization of Roma political representation by Partida Romilor. An additional reason that facilitated this situation was the post-communist context in the region, which constituted a fertile ground for the “centralizing bias of EU conditionality in reinforcing communist legacies.”19 However, the change of government in 2004 brought about the possibility for decentralization of power not only on paper, but also in practice. This opportunity was not a direct result of governmental efforts, but rather the result of a coincidental mix of factors. These factors were, on one hand the continued pressure on Romania20 to comply with the accession criteria and on the other hand, the appearance of a new policy strategy in 2005, to be implemented through the Decade of Roma Inclusion: The Decade is an international initiative, which brings together Governments, inter-governmental and non-governmental organizations, as well as Romani civil society to (i) launch initiatives to strengthen Roma inclusion as a high priority on the regional and European political agendas; (ii) learn and exchange experiences; (iii) involve Roma meaningfully in all policy making on matters concerning them; (iv) bring in international experience and expertise to help make progress on challenging issues; (v) raise public awareness on the situation of Roma through active communications.21

The regional character of the Decade as well as the mix of agencies involved and responsible for its implementation brought about a possibility for plurality. The main organizations involved in this regional program are international in character and are listed here: World Bank, Open Society Institute, United Nations Development Program, Council of Europe, Council of Europe Development Bank, Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Co-operation in Europe, European Roma Information Office, European Roma and Travelers Forum, European Roma Rights Centre, and Roma Education Fund.22 The strategy tackles the issue of measurability of policy outcomes as its main goal. The main objectives of this strategy were to, “accelerate progress toward improving the

19  Burton, “Accession Criteria,” 7. 20  Romania was not part of the big accession wave in 2004 and it only entered

European Union in January 2007. Therefore, Romanian Government considered important the continuation of minority policy reforms between 2004 and 2007. 21  The Decade of Roma Inclusion, Terms of reference (Sofia: The Decade of Roma Inclusion, 2005), 2 February 2005, (4 May 2007). 22  The Decade of Roma Inclusion, Terms of reference.

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

55

welfare of Roma by including Roma in the decision-making process and to review such progress in a transparent and quantifiable way.”23 The Decade has been targeting Central and South-East European countries and in 2007 its signatory countries were Bulgaria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, FYR Macedonia, Montenegro, Romania, Serbia, and Slovakia. However, The Decade stated very clearly on the first page of the policy document issued in Sofia on 2 February 2005 that “We invite other states to join our effort.”24 Despite this encouragement, none of the old member states offered to join in even though countries like Spain, the United Kingdom and France contain large numbers of Roma confronting similar discriminatory treatment and low social and economic conditions as in eastern European countries. It could be observed that besides its merits of tackling the issue of measurability of policy outcomes, the regional application of the Decade reinforced the double standards within Europe and, as an effect, the view that the Roma are an exclusive problem of eastern European member states. The Issue of Census Politics: Numbers, Financing and Mutual Interests Closely connected to the issue of numbers and statistics is the issue of funding and the interests that revolve around different sources of funding. One could identify four types of actors that could benefit from funding related to the improvement of the Roma situation. The main target for such funds is the Roma that live in poor social conditions, however, in order to reach their target the funds are to be disseminated by different agencies, which in turn need funding to survive as agencies. Fieldwork data indicate that more often than not these funds remain concentrated at the different levels of administration in charge of their dissemination and that the targeted Roma population benefits less than these agencies. There are different types of agencies for disseminating funds at European, national and local levels: • • • • • • •

The national Delegations of the European Commission25 Inter-governmental organizations (for example, OSCE) State governments Regional (county) councils Local organizations and authorities (City Halls) International, national and local non-governmental organizations Roma organizations (activating in partnership or as part of the local, national and international governments).

23 The Decade of Roma Inclusion, Terms of reference, 3. 24 The Decade of Roma Inclusion, Terms of reference. 25 European Commission Delegation in Romania, Fișa de Sector. Sprijin pentru

Romi (Bucharest: European Commission, 2007), February 2007, (11 May 2007).

56

Roma in Europe

My argument, which emerged from the fieldwork carried out with Romanian public administration officials in 2004, is that all these actors mutually instrumentalize each other in order to gain some benefits from the very existence of the precarious situation of the Roma in Europe. In an interview conducted in 2004 with the Roma official of the County Bureau for Roma in Botoșani/Romania this situation was made crystal clear: The fact that the Rom is important only as long as we could use him as an instrument to absorb some money from EU is demonstrable. And I believe that, unfortunately, this (my note: Botoșani) is not a singular case of Romania. Because we, the Roma, have become a pre-accession criterion.

Fieldwork data indicate further that in Romania the Roma that benefited most from the EU programs and other regional policies were primarily members of Partida Romilor and, to a lesser extent, Roma that are active within different NGOs. At the time of the interviews, the gains from the policies designed to solve the social problems of the Roma were, so far, the creation of different agencies and institutions set up to deal with this issue, but not so much actually reaching the Roma from below. Post-accession, the interests at stake revolve around maintaining these agencies and their maintenance depends largely on the existence of the precarious situation of Roma. In addition, the placement of different public administration agencies dealing with Roma at the periphery of governmental funding availability resulted in merely hiring a few Roma to occupy positions with no resources allocated further to implement on-site programs to reach the local Roma communities. Due to the general economic situation in Romania, public approval for funding the improvement of the situation of Roma is hard to sustain and this situation negatively influences government efforts in that direction. The political and electoral interests of mainstream parties play a major role in this equation as well. Since 1989, in the post-dictatorial period, when Romania started to have free elections again, the Roma became an important provider of votes especially for the Social Democrat Party26 which promised better policies for combating poverty. On the flipside, however, there were fears of losing the electorate if the policies were too obviously targeted on a specific ethnic group at the expense of other Romanian populations that live under poor economic conditions. The political game was thus one that had to deal with this situation in a creative yet very unstable way. The most visible outcome was that the Roma were praised during electoral campaigns and almost forgotten soon after. However, in order to maintain a degree of credibility in the perception of future elections, the government and public authorities had to show a certain effort to address the Roma issue, but only as much as it did not affect their credibility. The economic and political situation in Romania coupled with the European pressure to comply with the Copenhagen criteria of accession brought about a series 26  Partidul Social Democrat/Partida Romilor Social Democrata, Acord Politic.

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

57

of public agencies of Roma representation in pre-accession period. However, these agencies did not have much power to implement programs because their funding depended on decisions made at other levels of administration. For example, each regional Prefecture, from a total of 42, had a Regional Expert for Roma, however, the institutions responsible for decision-making regarding funds were the Regional Councils where Roma were not represented. As a result, funds were not allocated to the Regional Experts for Roma who therefore held a position with no power to implement any programs. A similar intention at local levels to include Roma as Local Experts in City Halls where financial decisions were made did become a reality by 2004. At the time, the Regional (County) Office for Roma was mainly a one-person institution, which had no real influence on the life of Roma. Fieldwork data indicate this reality. In an interview with the Regional Expert for Roma in Craiova, when asked “how free do you feel in influencing the Prefecture (The County Public Office) or the City Hall where the funding decisions are made?” the interviewee answered: “Well, you know, we—the Prefecture—do not have funds. It is more the Regional (County) Council. They are the main funding agency at the regional level. We ask for money from the Regional Council. One recommendation would be to have someone there, at the Regional Council level.” On the other hand, the regional and local funds depended on the availability of funds at national level, which, in turn, depended largely on funds coming from the EU. The financial incentives to address the social problems of Roma at local, regional and national level in Romania were therefore stimulating but they often collided with the political interests of gaining and maintaining electoral support from the majority population. The Regional Expert for Roma in Botoșani explained this mechanism during an interview: How could one locality persuade the Local Council that you have problems and you need money to solve them? It is by showing that you have Roma in your locality. Where there are Roma, there must be also a representative in the local public administration. It is clear that this would be an extra advantage. Because, this is useful, in my opinion, as a very good instrument, which I am convinced it will remain as such, to use those programs, to use those opportunities. Even if it does not sound good, I think that the local public administration should be a little opportunistic because real developments only come from such attitudes.

The number of Roma is instrumental in the battle for attracting funds at the local level. This is also true for other agencies involved because the Roma are placed in an area of confluence of interests of different agencies competing for funding. However, this image of Roma as a social issue that needs to be addressed is often counter-balanced by the image of Roma as ostentatiously rich. In Romania there are some Roma, often Căldărari, who live in palaces. The image of these rich Roma, often hyped by the mass-media, influences the negative societal attitudes towards all Roma and the perception that the ethnic criterion of designing policies does not overlap the social criterion that would also otherwise apply to many

58

Roma in Europe

Romanians living in poverty. The fears that the social funds coming from tax payers are used to improve the condition of an ethnic group that is often portrayed as ostentatiously rich leads to ethnic hatred and discrimination. Unfortunately the Roma that encounter these negative effects in their daily life are the disadvantaged ones. In an interview with the president of Dolj’s County branch of Partida Romilor this issue was illustrated as follows: If some have managed to get rich and they are still managing, these people spoil the image of those poor ones, of those unfortunate who sleep on the street or in the field. And because of this, the others say “look what the gypsies have!” And then they create this image and the European Community could say at some point that it is not necessary to help. (…) And all these contribute to a bad image, especially the image and the lack of credibility of those leaders that represent us at the top, but also those at the local level. And then I say that, well, come on brothers, now you say that you are poor and so on, but then what are you doing? When one says his roof has only 1200 kg copper and his palace has one hundred rooms or fifty rooms … but then there are fifty families of Roma that do not have housing. And then you end up begging the State, which is poor, which has no budget and then … from the point of view of the legislative …

The interviewee referred to those rich Roma that are sometimes mis-portrayed in international and national media as the bearers of EU funding for the improvement of the situation of Roma. This issue was raised quite a few times during interviews and many Roma that I interviewed recommended that the Roma should not be treated as a homogenous social category. A translation of this recommendation into policy would mean that programs should be designed for poor people and not necessarily for all ethnic Roma. Perhaps an inter-sectional approach that combines a disadvantageous social category with the ethnicity criterion would work best in this case. The same interviewee mentioned that “a huge confusion about the Roma is created because of those rich Roma. The image and de-linkage of the majority population from the minority population, especially from the Roma community, creates hatred.” In other words, another negative effect of social policies formulated on ethnic grounds is that of increasing discrimination and ethnic hatred. In conclusion, Chapters 3 and 4 outlined two main undesirable effects of the double standards application of minority protection conditionality for membership in the European Union. The first is that it did not improve the negative societal attitudes against Roma. This happened because Roma were regarded as the main reasons for which accession was delayed for some countries and for which these countries, Romania in particular, have a bad image abroad. As a result, Roma became the target of increased ethnic hatred in Romania even if the acquis legislation allowed, on paper, for their better protection. The second, as important as the first, is that the double standard implementation of minority protection allows the Roma problem to be perceived as an exclusive problem of eastern European states and not one of Europe as a whole. This attitude raises doubts about the normative basis

The EU Enlargement and the Political Representation of Roma in Romania

59

of the minority protection criterion of accession and it diminished its credibility. An obvious recommendation that emerges from this situation is having a single European standard of minority protection, as the only way the Roma, the largest European minority, could become truly protected, while the grounds for divisions and rivalries between European states and regions would diminish. On the other hand, if the double standard tendency continues, one could imagine an even more pessimistic scenario than the current realities, in which the situation of the Roma will worsen. If the pressure to improve minority protection in eastern Europe continues disproportionately to the pressure for improving the situation of Roma in all European countries, the negative societal attitudes against Roma will increase in the region because they will be regarded as responsible for the bad image that eastern Europe in general, and Romania in particular, has in the EU. The emerging discontent in eastern Europe with the attitude of the old member states deepens the divisions within the European Union, which becomes even weaker as a unified international actor. From the perspective of the impoverished Roma, chances are still bleak that their situation will improve, especially in those western European countries where their situation is ignored or tackled with deportation. An avoidance of this scenario could be achieved by implementing a single European standard of minority protection in all EU member states.

This page has been left blank intentionally

Chapter 5

The International Roma Political Activists and their Role in the Crystallization of Roma Collective Identity

Areas are not facts but artifacts of our interests Arjun Appadurai

The Legal Status of Roma in Europe from East to West The idea of a homogenized European Roma identity was only a fictive matter until 1971 when it was brought up during the first International Romani Congress in London. The meeting resulted in the elaboration of a national anthem, a flag and the emergence of “Romani ethno-nationalism.” This implied a “transition toward becoming an ethnically mobilized group, having a common stance and interest” and “a redefinition and a construction of its own minority identity.”1 A new political awareness movement began among the Roma and the International Romani Union (IRU) was created. This was a first step for the negotiation of Roma issues at the level of the international community on the basis of the newborn concept of a Roma nation. Another important follow-up was the idea of a standardized Romani language, supported by the Council of Europe,2 however, some authors believe that this idea is difficult to accomplish and that dialect pluralism is a more reasonable aim.3 The question of legitimacy of one Romani dialect over all others, while unavoidable in the process of language standardization, is similar and much related to the challenges of forming a Roma nation and the question of legitimacy of its representatives. Even if nowadays one cannot talk about one standard Romani language, different Romani dialects have been standardized as national Romani languages in different countries. For example, the dominant dialect in the official Romani language in Romania is Kalderash, whereas in Hungary most Romani language is based on Lovari.4 The criteria for choosing a dominant dialect 1 Nicolae Gheorghe and Andrzej Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-First Century: A Policy Paper (Princeton, NJ: Project on Ethnic Relations, 1997), 12. 2 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-First Century, 18. 3 Yaron Matras, “The future of Romani: Toward a policy of linguistic pluralism,” Roma Rights Quarterly No. 1 (2005), 31–44. 4 Matras, “Linguistic pluralism,” 34.

62

Roma in Europe

over others could be a topic for further research on Romani dialects competition in the process of language standardization, research carried out successfully by researchers in Romani linguistics, most notably by Yaron Matras and Ian Hancock. However, what is of interest in this book is how one dialect gets to assume primacy over another and the argument is that this process of competition follows a contextual logic. It would be interesting to research to what extent these semistandardized Romani languages, made official at different state levels that had to design Roma minority policies, particularly minority education policies, are an outcome of the minority–majority negotiations. The current study will not delve deeper into this but it raises the question and it implies that the legitimization of certain dialects in different countries as the standard for Romani language is most probably an outcome of political negotiations between the Roma minority cultural representatives and the cultural representatives of the majority in those countries. This process is in fact very much in line with the main question that some prominent transnational Roma representatives5 try to address, which is “how to define, preserve, or restore their minority cultures while enjoying access to the benefits and protection that come from participation in the larger economy and society?”6 The answer to this question takes into account the importance of the official political nomenclature of the group (ethnicity, nation, and so on) and its legal implications. As David Mayall put it “the issue of how Gypsies are defined nowhere takes on more significance than in law. Not only does the legal definition shape and determine popular perceptions, but it also provides the basis of the official treatment of the group.”7 Another aspect to be taken into account while trying to answer this question is the self-identification of the Roma, and their selfawareness as belonging to the same ethnic group. “Such awareness forms a bound of unity which has been stimulated by memories of a shared historical past, a sense of common origins, shared activities and culture, and regular social interaction.”8 Another important question that arises in the context of the collective identity formation of the Roma is that of whether the national and international bodies that have been constituted to represent the Roma are recognized as such by the bulk of Roma populations and, connected to this, whether what is going on at the level of the representatives has a connection with what is going on at the grassroots level. Some authors believe that the activity of Roma representatives affects only a small part of the whole Roma population and that “the lives of the majority of Gypsies 5  I refer here to the international Roma political representatives who are generally educated Roma that are active in the NGO and inter-governmental sectors and try to promote Romani nationalism. They often find opposition from the local Roma elites who do not easily welcome the idea of a homogenized collective identity for all Roma groups and who argue that the sort of nationalism proposed implies too much use of non-Roma niches. 6 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-First Century, 1. 7 David Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 1500–2000: From Egyptians and Moon-men to the Ethnic Romany (London; New York: Routledge, 2004), 200. 8 Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 196.

The International Roma Political Activists

63

remain largely untouched by their existence.”9 The same argument is supported by Michael Stewart who, referring to the Vlach Gypsies in Hungary, says that they show no interest in their Indian origin and that “while for the intellectuals the common ethnic origin of the Gypsies is genuinely felt and imagined, this is not so for ordinary Gypsies.”10 Acknowledging that the modern concept of nation as territorially bounded does not constitute an accurate description or a legitimate ground for recognizing new types of nations within the current political landscape, the international Roma intelligentsia opted for innovative concepts in the Brussels Declaration such as stateless nation, non-territorial, transnational and truly European people. All of these terms signal that, in search of recognition, the international Roma representatives do not claim an ethnic territory or a nation-state of their own, but a broader political framework in which to address their cause.11 In this context, the concept of Roma nation has more of an instrumental symbolic political meaning than a legal one and Roma ethno-nationalism aims to form a type of identity that “fits into the legal frameworks and arrangements offered to them by the various states and international institutions.”12 However, the Roma are a visible and discriminated-against group within different states, and they need certain legal provisions, “either as citizens entitled to basic rights and freedoms like everyone else, or as a minority entitled to protection of its minority rights.”13 These two main options are a ground for a certain level of dissent on the international political arena of Roma representation, with a more prominent tendency of advancing the claim of affirmative minority rights and the treatment of Roma as citizens with special problems. The options of regular citizens and citizens with special problems are both constituted within a state citizenship framework. This is easily visible in Eastern European states in which the fragile emergence of civil society and its emphasis on universal principles of human rights are not strong enough to guarantee that Roma will not face discrimination based on these principles. In such emerging contexts, the constitutional agreements are not sufficient and a more legally binding approach is regarded as necessary—something some Roma leaders found more likely to happen by advocating a national minority approach. On the other hand there are cases, such as that of Spain which has a significant number of Roma, where the citizenship approach is regarded as more suitable and where the Roma are nonetheless not recognized as a national minority. The national minority approach is more advocated by the Roma representatives in Central and Eastern Europe because many of these states that contain an important 9 Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 209. 10 Michael Stewart, “The Puzzle of Roma persistence: group identity without

a nation,” in Romani Culture and Gypsy Identity, ed. Thomas Acton and Gary Mundy (Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1997), 82–96, 90. 11 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 33. 12 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 17. 13 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 19.

64

Roma in Europe

number of Roma are countries of the former communist bloc which had to comply with the European Union’s accession conditionality which, among others, assumed that the civic understanding of citizenship and minority rights had to replace the ethnic understanding that has prevailed in Eastern Europe for many centuries. This way of approaching the Roma as an ethnic group of citizens with special problems could be conceptually understood as the outcome of a process of colonization of ethnic nationalism in Eastern Europe by the civic nationalism of Western Europe, or as a political category emerging from a process that Homi Bhabha14 would refer as to as hybridization. However, the civic version of nationalism in Western Europe did not officially appropriate the ethnic aspect as much as the Eastern European states appropriate the civic one. That would have implied a policy of affirmative action for the Roma in Western Europe just as much as in Eastern Europe. The result of this unilateral colonization was a double standard of minority policy within Europe that affects the Roma in Europe unevenly. While the introduction of a civic criterion in approaching minority issues was needed in Eastern Europe at the time, the recognition of the ethnicization of social problems should be official in Western Europe as well and not allowed to disguise ethnic hatred and discrimination in the midst of allegedly civic polities as merely an issue of foreign policy. The changing landscape of statuses of Roma in Europe is illustrated, for instance, in Document 9397/2002 of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe on “The legal situation of Roma in Europe”:15 Following the enlargement of the Council of Europe and the admission of new member states from Central and Eastern Europe, the number of Roma living in the Council of Europe zone has risen considerably. About 60 to 70 percent of the Roma in Europe live in countries, which joined the Council of Europe since 1990.

There are no exact figures for the number of Roma in each European Union country but in countries in which Roma are recognized as a national minority or as an ethnic group official censuses count numbers of self-identified Roma. On the other hand, other centers for statistics carry out their own research and often come up with higher estimated numbers of Roma in these countries. Estimates are calculated based on hetero-identification, when people are asked to identify the identity of their neighbors. Neither census statistics based on self-identification, nor estimations based on hetero-identifications could in fact offer an objective view on the real numbers of Roma, but the interviews could at least offer a general overview of the situation. The Council of Europe’s overview of the legal status of Roma in different European countries based on governmental data can be seen in Table 5.1. 14  Homi Bhabha, The Location of Culture (New York: Routledge, 1994). 15 Council of Europe—Parliamentary Assembly, Legal Situation of the Roma in

Europe (Strasbourg: COR, 2002), 12 April 2002 (07 May 2007).

The International Roma Political Activists

Table 5.1

65

The Legal Situation of Roma in Europe Size of the Romani population

Lifestyle of the Roma

Legal status

Austria

Estimated 20,000– 25,000

All of them are sedentary.

No special legal status

Belgium

Census presented by the Centre for Equal Chances (1999): 25,000–30,000

Mostly sedentary.

Roma have diverse legal status.

Croatia

Official census: 6,964 Estimated: 20,000– 30,000

Mostly sedentary but also semi-sedentary and traveler groups.

National minority status

Czech Republic

Official census (1991): 32,903 Official census (2001): 11,716.

Sedentary for more than 200 years

National minority status

Denmark

Estimated 1,750

Sedentary

No special legal status

Finland

Estimated that 10,000

Mainly sedentary

Traditional minority status

Germany

Estimated 70,000

Mainly sedentary

No special legal status

Greece

Estimated 80,000– 150,000

Sedentary, semisedentary and also itinerant groups of Roma. Estimated no. of travelers 25,000– 30,000.

No special legal status

Hungary

Official census: 142,683 Estimated: 400,000– 800,000

Fully sedentary

Ethnic minority status

Iceland

0

Italy

120,000

30% sedentary 70% in the process of sedentarization

No special legal status

Malta

0

Netherlands

22,500 caravan dwellers. Less than 20% of them are Roma (mainly Sinti). Estimated 1,000 Roma live in ordinary housing.

90% non-itinerant caravan dwellers Most Roma are sedentary

No special legal status

Roma in Europe

66

Size of the Romani population

Lifestyle of the Roma

Legal status

Norway

Estimate 2,000–3,000 Romani people/ Travelers Estimated: 300–400 Roma/Gypsies

Traditionally the Romani people/ Travelers mostly nomadic

National minorities status

Poland

Estimates: 25,000– 30,000

All sedentary

Ethnic minority status

Romania

Official census: 409,000, Estimations: 1,500,000–2,000,000

Mostly sedentary

National minority status

Slovakia

Official census (1991) 75,802, Estimates: 420,000–500,000

All sedentary

National minority status

Slovenia

Official census: 2,293–2,847 Estimates: 6,500– 7,000

Both sedentary and traveler groups

No special legal status

Sweden

Estimates: 40,000– 50,000

All sedentary

National minority status

Switzerland

Estimated: 35,000

3,000 semi-sedentary 32,000 sedentary

No special legal status

FYROM

1994 census: 43,707

Mainly sedentary

Ethnic minority status

Ukraine

47,917

Mainly sedentary

National minority status

United Kingdom

Estimates: 300,000 Roma and Irish Travelers

Such national statistics are not collected

Racial groups statuses

Source: Council of Europe

As Table 5.1 shows, there are some data missing from the counts due to some governments failing to report on the situation: Albania, Bulgaria, Cyprus, Estonia, France, Georgia, Ireland, Latvia, Liechtenstein, Lithuania, Moldavia, Portugal, the Russian Federation, San Marino, Spain, and Turkey. These latter cases might have had a problem reporting on the number of Roma because in most of these countries Roma are not treated as a separate ethnic category or as a national minority and therefore they do not figure as a separate question in official censuses. However, according to the information given by state governments to the questionnaire of the Parliamentary Assembly of the Council of Europe, the Roma are officially recognized differently throughout Europe, as following:

The International Roma Political Activists

67

1. As a national or ethnic minority group in Austria, Croatia, the Czech Republic, Hungary, FYR Macedonia, Norway, Poland, Romania, Slovakia, Sweden, Ukraine and the Federal Republic of Yugoslavia; 2. As a traditional national minority in Finland; 3. As a racial group protected under the Race Relations Act 1976 in the United Kingdom; 4. The Roma have no special legal status in Belgium, Denmark, Germany, Greece, Italy, the Netherlands, Slovenia and Switzerland; 5. There are no Roma living in Andorra, Iceland and Malta.16 In conclusion, there are two main types of national minority approaches towards the Roma in Europe. The first approach is that of the Roma as a national minority not differing from all the other national minorities existent in a certain state. This approach does not presuppose, on the part of the state, any kind of special treatment of the Roma. The second approach regards the Roma as a particular type of national minority, which, due to its visibility, faces harsh discrimination and little access to resources. The latter approach claims special and additional rights for the Roma to be implemented through affirmative action by the state. As Mirga and Gheorghe, two prominent Romani political activists, acknowledge: This approach, the one most common among Romani political leaders, is based on the conviction that upgrading the collective status of Roma and the personal dignity associated with a national or ethnic identity will help solve the problems confronting the Romani population. The approach has two variations. The first demands the same protection and legally binding rights that are given to other minorities in a given state; that is, the overall legal framework is given by national legislation. The second variation asserts that the Romani minority is an exception, which renders its situation unique in comparison with other cultural and ethnic minorities. The adherents of this point of view look to the broader European legal framework.17

To illustrate further, in Romania, for example, the Roma are protected by national legislation as much as by broader European legal framework. The Roma in Romania are recognized by the national legislation as a national minority and they are also the subjects of affirmative action based on a broader European legal framework in regard to anti-discriminatory measures. The case of Romania is similar to that of most Central and Eastern European countries in which national legislation concerning national minorities had to develop in accordance with the recommendations given by the European Union. The old member states however, not being subjected to the same type of conditionality, maintained different approaches as shown in Table 5.1. 16 Council of Europe—Parliamentary Assembly, Legal Situation of the Roma. 17 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 20.

68

Roma in Europe

The new type of Roma collective identity that emerges in Europe is thus mainly subjected to and most likely affected by different policies developed by each European state. However, despite these differentiations, a certain basis for homogenization is provided by the European standards of minority protection and universal framework of human rights. In the next section I argue that the transnational framework of minority rights represented in Europe by the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities (FCNM) of the Council of Europe offers the main legal background for legitimizing the constitution of a transnational collective identity of the Roma in Europe. The Roma Minorities and the Gadje Majorities: Similarity, Difference and Cultural Hybridization The Roma national movement acknowledges the necessity of creating a type of discourse that requires the presence of values that are regarded as alien by some Roma. This is actually the main criticism that comes from some more traditional Roma representatives. The fact that the success in the international political arena presupposes the education of Roma in mainstream schools is the starting point of what one could call the hybridization of Roma identity at the macro scale, understood in the Bhabha sense as a form of cultural colonization. David Mayall18 reflects that the “attempts to discover the Gypsies’ own voice, however genuine they might have been, were mediated through the eyes, ears, mouths and assumptions of the outsiders. It was also apparent that the members of the group adopted the models, language and labels of the majority society when describing themselves and their relations with others.” The vicious circle that, in order to make a minority voice heard, one needs to use the mainstream channels that function on mainstream mechanisms makes hybridization unavoidable. Therefore, the Roma had to allow an ambivalent way of dealing with this problem, which aims “to gain equality and still remain different.”19 The International Romani Union is trying to synthesize this ambivalence by creating “a clearly defined political status” for all Roma.20 The political status of the Roma at international level is mainly negotiated on the basis of human rights. The Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities is the main legal document that all Roma in Europe, regardless of their citizenship, can lean on. The Romani political activists opt for a discourse of unity and universal rights in their transnational approach with the goal of gaining the status of citizens with special rights within all countries with a significant number of Roma. For this purpose, an important part of the Roma intelligentsia regards integration, or even partial assimilation, as necessary evils. Within the larger international arena this approach gained the support of the majority, but 18 Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 203. 19 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 31. 20 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 28.

The International Roma Political Activists

69

its recognition is still largely not present within different Roma communities. This phenomenon happens for various reasons. Some authors point out that, on one hand, the uni-directional effort of the Roma representatives towards being recognized by the majority with political power and not putting a similar amount of effort into their recognition by the Roma grassroots. Michael Stewart points this out when saying that: for the ordinary Gypsy in one of the unofficial ghettos at the edge of an Eastern European village or town, the maneuvers of Gypsy intellectuals on the national and international stages rarely mean much, at least as yet. Sometimes it seems that the Romany political parties spend more effort establishing their credibility among non-Gypsy authorities than among their own constituents.21

On the other hand, the various groups of Roma in Europe and around the world apparently make the unifying identity project harder to achieve, as there are several existing factions and different self-identifications within the group. The lines of differentiation are multiple and they vary on the local-global continuum from kinship, to social status, citizenship, degree of assimilation with the majority, language, religion and other cultural and political markers. There is no common agreement on the criteria of belonging to the emerging forms of Roma collective identities, for example, no clear criteria of inclusion or exclusion from the transnational Roma nation advocated by PER. Moreover, the Roma collective identity endeavor is regarded by certain groups of Roma as Eurocentric.22 In other words, there is no common agreement on what makes a Roma or on what is the basis of a shared collective identity of the Roma. Several attempts to simplify this puzzle of identifications made by different Roma intellectuals were summarized by Mayall23 in his book on Gypsies’ identities. Here I add my own contribution to summarize the main views different scholars of Romani studies have on what constitutes the unifying elements of the Roma identity. The list below accompanied by bibliographical references offers an overview of these different views, to which I add my own that it is the Roma code of defilement, the Marime, that confers specificity to the Roma, an aspect I discuss more in the following chapters. A summary of the literature review on what is, or what could constitute a unifying element of a collective Roma identity that encompasses all heterogonous Roma groups is enumerated here: 1. The Indian origins of the Roma supported by a linguistic argument that Romani language has a Sanskrit basis24 21 Michael Stewart, The Time of the Gypsies (Oxford: Westview Press, 1997), 4. 22 For example the Roma in Central Asia, in the United States and elsewhere in the

world seem to have less representation in the international Romani movement. 23 Mayall, Gypsy Identities, 220–45. 24  Ian Hancock, A Handbook of Vlax Romani (Columbus, OH: Slavica, 1995).

Roma in Europe

70

2. 3. 4. 5.

Migration and times of migration25 The status of a diasporas facing constant persecution26 Descent, ancestry, kinship (at least one parent should be a Rom)27 Shared culture such as “self-employment, common language, an ideology of travelling, distinctive habitat, dress, rituals and codes of behavior especially in relation to cleanliness, forms of economic, social and political organization and a general ideological separation from non-Gypsies.”28 6. State of mind and the Gypsy spirit: the spirit of nomadism29 and the spirit of language as an expression of an intensive emotion.30 7. Persecution (the Gypsy Holocaust and Gypsy slavery).31 I argue that the above-mentioned unifying elements of Roma identity are not mutually exclusive. In fact, they function more as discursive unifiers of performed identity then reified categories. They often complement each other in various combinations depending on the contexts in which they are asserted. All of the above mentioned unifiers could be found performed in different contexts but perhaps the most distinctive feature of the Roma identity is to be found in their differentiation from the others, the non-Roma, or the Gadje as the Roma themselves refer pejoratively to a generalized category of the stranger. The occurrence of this characteristic is, however, hard to measure statistically because in many cases Roma self-identify with majority populations. In spite of this difficulty, it is understood that Roma apparently-confused identifications are a result of the stereotyping attitudes of the majority population and that they are merely performed in encounters in which Roma interact with the Gadje. This performance of identity, even if it is not necessarily accompanied by a feeling of belonging to the majority, shows that Roma identifications are often relational and largely dependent on their relation to Gadje in both cases of identification with the majority and in cases of identification with the ethnic Roma. In these latter cases 25  Donald Kenrick, Historical Dictionary of the Gypsies (Romanies) (Lanham, MD: Scarecrow Press, 1998); Hancock, Vlax Romani. 26  Kenrick, Historical Dictionary; Hancock, Vlax Romani; Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century. 27  Judith Okely, The Traveller-Gypsies (Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1994); Delia Grigore, Rromanipen-ul (rromani dharma) şi mistica familiei (Bucharest: Salvati Copiii, 2001). 28  Mayall, 231; Isabel Fonseca, Bury me Standing: The Gypsies and their Journey (New York: Knopf, 1995), Stewart, Time of the Gypsies; Okely, The Traveller-Gypsies. 29 Stewart, Time of the Gypsies, 15–25. 30  Fonseca, Bury me Standing, 58. 31  Ian Hancock, The Pariah Syndrome: An Account of Gypsy Slavery and Persecution (Ann Arbor, MI: Karoma Publishers, 1987); Donald Kenrick, The Gypsies during the Second World War (Paris: Gypsy Research Centre; Hatfield: University of Hertfordshire Press, 1997–1999).

The International Roma Political Activists

71

of open assertion of Roma identity the differentiation from the Gadje becomes an explicit tool of delimitating the collective Roma identity.32 The homogenization endeavor from above that aims to solidify a collective sharing of Roma national feeling and to standardize Romani language is paralleled from below by the inherent dynamics of the identity politics of everyday life that take place in the local arenas of social interaction. Solidarity and unification are continuously created and re-created by means of asserting separation and specificity, on one hand, and belonging and similarity with Gadje on the other. Maffesoli understands difference as an important support for unity as any individual or separate unit, “could only find fulfillment in … (its) relations with others.”33 Even if, for the time being, the political strategy of the Roma representatives is felt mainly at the higher levels of politics and less at grassroots level, certain patterns of unity are constantly created at the local level as well. A Roma living, for instance, at the margins of a distant village in Transylvania, although far away from the main center of power, could invent and establish his/her own symbolical niche within the social interactions that take place in his/her proximity. As Maffesoli34 noted “even if one feels alienated from the distant economic-political order, one can assert sovereignty over one’s near existence.” The Roma transnational movement, on the other hand, is a good illustration of what Appadurai35 terms “globalization from below” carried out by “social forms that rely on strategies, visions, and horizons for globalization on behalf of the poor.” These strategies on the part of the marginalized, discriminated-against, minority and generally speaking, less-powerful groups, involve a certain social imagination. Nonetheless, the social imagination has a dual character as Appadurai points out: “On the one hand, it is in and through the imagination that the modern citizens are disciplined and controlled by states, markets, and other powerful interests. But it is also the faculty through which collective patterns of dissent and new designs for collective life emerge.”36 A vivid illustration of the ways collective patterns of dissent could emerge from a localized event and reverberate into the global could be the Mława case described by Andrzej Mirga, the current Director 32 A detailed analysis of the double-edged Roma identity is offered in Chapter 7 which describes the Roma international Festival in Costesti and examines its Roma-nonRoma separation into two festival days—one dedicated for Roma, another one dedicated to Gadje. Another illustration of this demarcation is apparent in the organization of space inside Roma Kings’ palaces that will be discussed in Chapter 6. This torn organization of spaces illustrates the distinction between the performed part of Roma identity and the more felt or authentic part of Roma identity. 33 Michel Mafessoli, The Time of the Tribes: The Decline of Individualism in Mass Society, trans. Don Smith (London; Thousand Oaks, CA: Sage, 1996), 44. 34 Mafessoli, The Time of the Tribes, 44. 35 Arjun Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization and the Research Imagination,” Public Culture 12(1) (Duke University Press, 2000), 1–19, 2. 36 Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization,” 4.

72

Roma in Europe

of Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues at the OSCE in Warsaw and co-author with Nicolae Gheorghe of the first manifesto of the Romani nation published by the Project of Ethnic Relations in 1997,37 in an interview he kindly offered to me in August 2006. Asked about the ways in which the fall of communism influenced Romani activism in Europe his answer included this excerpt: M: For example in Poland, we had a case in Mława, in 1991, I don’t know if you know this case. There was a young boy driving a car and there were the traffic lights red and he couldn’t stop and fell on two young people, a boy and a girl, and I think one of them was killed. And he escaped from the place. And young people! Friends of these who were affected by the accident, gathered others and it was a crowd, they identified who was there in the car and they moved to the section of the town were Roma were living and then, the typical scenario, they stared to throw something into houses, they started to burn cars, to destroy houses and so on and so on. And there were two or three days of such … I: Unrest … M: Yes, unrest. But Roma escaped, some of them were hiding so none was affected but they lost all of what they had in their houses and some houses were completely destroyed. So just after, I was one of them and there was another guy and together we established an organization, yes? We became partners with the government and then we were following the court procedures. So that was a direct push and I believe in similar situations Roma were reacting in similar ways, trying to organize themselves to become in better position vis a vis the government, authorities, community (Note: author’s emphasis). So that was one part of the development caused by the fall of the communism.

Therefore, on the one hand the fall of communism brought about instability and ethnic violence in Central and Eastern Europe, but on the other hand it represented an opportunity for political mobilization of ethnic minorities in general, and of the Roma in particular. In this sense, Roma transnational movement could be understood as a “new design for collective life”38 that emerges “from below” and is boldly and imaginatively shaped by its promoters. The issue involved here is the creation of symbolic power resources to which the authors refer as a political space of their own through the creation of agencies of Roma representation, which in turn allow access to more concrete resources for the members of this disadvantaged minority group. Roma political activism aims for better access to otherwise unavailable resources that could empower the Roma people and protect them from being discriminated against. The attempt to construct the Roma “nonterritorial nation” which, due to the worldwide dispersion of its members, has an

37  Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century. 38 Appadurai, “Grassroots Globalization,” 4.

The International Roma Political Activists

73

existence “more symbolic than otherwise” creates agencies of representation for the Roma’s collective identity that is undergoing a process of crystallization.39 The Roma activating and aiming to attain recognition and protection at transnational levels find the trans-national language of rights safeguarded by the Framework Convention for the Protection of National Minorities more useful than the language of identity, since it implies some universality and it is territorially un-bounded.40 In addition, the language of rights could form a basis for the actual creation of a collective Roma identity. The homogenous language of rights is used to legitimize the assertion of Roma distinctiveness and at the same time it creates a ground for protecting heterogeneity within the broader context of interaction between Roma and non-Roma on one hand, and among different Roma groups on the other. The hybridization of discursive or performed identity is instrumental on the political macro-scale, as much as it is on the micro-scale where the Roma engage in the identity politics of everyday life. International Agencies that Speak for the Roma There are a significant number of international and European agencies that contribute to the strengthening of the Roma political identity. Most of these organizations revolve their work around the issue of combating discrimination within the framework of human and minority rights. They could be divided into 1) agencies run by non-Roma but that deal with Roma problems; 2) agencies run by the Roma dealing with Roma issues and 3) agencies run by both Roma and non-Roma: Most of the agencies in fact belong to the third category. Among the international agencies that have had a large impact on Roma issues and, initiated by joint efforts of Roma and non-Roma, some of the most notable—that I will concentrate on in the next section—are: 1. The OSCE/ODIHR/CPRSI (The Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues of the Office of Democratic Institutions and Human Rights of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe), 2. IRU (International Romani Union), RNC (Roma National Congress), and CCGSR (Central Council of German and Sinti Roma), 3. ERTF (European Roma and Travellers Forum), 4. OSI (Open Society Institute), 5. PER (Project on Ethnic Relations). A short history and description of these institutions follows in order to highlight their specific problem areas and their impact on the crystallization of the Roma 39 Gheorghe and Mirga, The Roma in the Twenty-first Century, 18–19. 40 Yasemin Nuhoglu Soysal, Limits of Citizenship: Migrants and Post-national

Membership in Europe (Chicago, IL: University of Chicago, 1994), 148.

74

Roma in Europe

political identity. It is important to mention that although most of these agencies function on the basis of collaboration between Roma and non-Roma, IRU and RNC were meant to be more ethnically exclusive in terms of Roma constituency, but in reality most, if not all, of these organizations in their embryonic phase lacked human resources with bureaucratic expertise and they had to hire nonRoma to perform administrative chores. The OSCE/ODIHR Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues (CPRSI) The CPRSI was established in 199441 as a branch of the Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR) of the Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (OSCE). The OSCE comprises 56 member states that cover most of the northern hemisphere and it was recognized by Chapter VIII of the United Nations during the cold war period as a platform of dialog between East and West.42 Andrzej Mirga, a prominent Romani scientist and political activist, currently the head of the CPRSI, offered in an interview an accurate description of the historical and political context in which CPRSI was established, as well as the reasons for its establishment. The following paragraphs represent excerpts from an interview I had with him in a Krakow bookstore in 2006.43 For methodological reasons the flow of conversation will be presented in its sequence, while my own analysis will follow after the introduction of the big chuck of the transcript:44 I: Did the fall of Berlin wall somehow affect the speed or the quality of the Romani movement? Did it influence it in any way? And were there any later developments of the fall, of course? M: Yes, the fall of the communism in general, that’s a symbol of it, of course it affects in many ways and speeded up many things. First of all at the country level, in many countries in Central and Eastern Europe you had outbursts of violence. You had this in Romania, you had this in Poland, some cases similar in Germany, in Austria, in Russia well … nearly everywhere there were cases of violence against Roma. And that caused, on one hand, efforts for Roma to organize themselves and to stand up against this. (…) The other one was the recognition of minorities as, let us say, part of the society because just after the fall of communism and with the new government, in Poland, a new government

41 OSCE/ODIHR Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, An Overview (Warsaw: ODIHR, 2001) (21 May 2007). 42 Wikipedia, Organization for Security and Cooperation in Europe (21 May 2001). 43  The interview was held in Krakow on August 15 2007. By that time the interviewee was not yet appointed as the head of the Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues. 44  In the interview the initial “I” stands for the person who conducted the interview, and “M” stands for the interviewee.

The International Roma Political Activists

75

was established, a committee of the national minorities re-emerged after many decades as a public act, a legitimate one which can present views. And about the developments at the international level like European Commission, OSCE, all these organizations were concerned that ethnic violence should be solved out, extinguished. Because they saw that there is a danger, they saw that there is a development going into this direction. So, to have a rule of law, to have a democracy means also to have protection for national minorities. And because of that, more focus was put on protection and building up standards as a way of protection of national minorities, as a way to keep the peace between people and societies. Especially that after the fall of communism and the dissolution of the federal states, creation of new states and so on and so on. And the Roma of course benefited … in some ways, because of these processes shed a light on Roma in Europe because of the violence against them and international organizations started to see this as a growing danger related to the break-up of the federal states, to nationalism, to minorities nationalism as well and some weakest minorities can be recognized. So international community started to pay more attention to minorities but also to Roma, which was not the case in the past. And in 1994 the Contact Point was established at the OSCE as a reflection of this growing awareness of dangers for Roma and in 1995 there was a Specialist Group established in the Council of Europe. In 93 was adopted in the Parliamentary Assembly recommendation 1203 and it set up lots of things to be done.

The Copenhagen Agreement in 1993 represented an important reason for which CPRSI came into being—to safeguard the protection of Roma rights in an intergovernmental framework. As the terminology of the department suggest, the main issue on the agenda of the Contact Point is to integrate and to combat discrimination against Roma. On the official website of the institution one could see the main issues tackled by the organization presented in the following order of importance:45 1. 2. 3. 4. 5.

Racism and discrimination Security of residence Trafficking in human beings Exclusion from public and political life Roma rights in crisis and post-crisis situations

However, in one of the first overview Document of the CPRSI46 dated 2001 “political participation” appeared to be the main target to strengthen while combating discrimination appeared to be secondary. At the same time CPRSI was established to combat racially-driven conflicts while pursuing a program of integration: 45 ODIHR, Roma and Sinti (21 May 2007). 46 OSCE/ODIHR Contact Point for Roma and Sinti Issues, An Overview.

Roma in Europe

76

The Contact Point on Roma and Sinti Issues promotes the inclusion of Roma and related groups in the societies in which they live. It also engages governments on policy issues related to Roma and has also been active both in providing early warning of potential conflicts and in mediating once a conflict has developed.47

“Advancing the political rights of Roma and Sinti” represented one of the main initial goals of the CPRSI48 and this aim was pursued by enlarging the range of representative structures for the Roma that in turn allow Roma to have a voice influencing policies at national and international levels. A more specific target was “to increase the level of participation of Roma in elections at local and national levels”49 in order to open up the possibility of Roma influencing policies designed for them. The CPRSI represented the first inter-governmental institution at the European level that appeared as a direct result of the Copenhagen conditionality of guaranteeing Roma minority protection in the enlarged Europe. In the same time, it was the first inter-governmental organization that put the aim of overcoming fragmentation of the European Roma on top of their agenda: The fragmentation of the group usually referred to as “Roma” or “gypsies/ Tsigani” is one of the key-obstacles of effective self-organization. The immense diversity of Roma and Roma related populations in terms of ethnicity, language, religion, social status and cultural background often makes it difficult to agree on common approaches. The Contact Point works to overcome cleavages and tensions between the different sub-groups by acknowledging and openly discussing existing differences, while stressing the need for joint action based on common traditions and shared experiences.50

As an outcome of this goal, a European representation for Roma was pursued and the first embodiment of it was in 2000 when the Roma Contact Group was established as a unified body formed by members of the International Romani Union (IRU) and The Roma National Congress (RNC).51 These two organizations will be presented later in this chapter, but for now it is important to mention that

47 OSCE/ODIHR, html> (21 May 2007), 2. 48 OSCE/ODIHR, html> (21 May 2007), 7. 49 OSCE/ODIHR, html> (21 May 2007), 9. 50 OSCE/ODIHR, html> (21 May 2007), 12. 51 OSCE/ODIHR, html> (21 May 2007), 13.

Organizational Structure