“If you let go of my hand, Gypsies will steal you and cut your eyeballs out.” This line has scared centuries of Eastern European children into obedience. Both my grandmothers, the Serbian and the Italian one, said it to me at amusement parks, malls, and, for some reason, IKEA.
I have long been curious about the Roma. Exterminated by the Nazis for being gypsies, the Roma are Europe’s largest minority and its perpetual foreigners. Centuries ago, this community found a home in a Europe that presents itself as liberal and cosmopolitan, but continues to view and to treat the Roma with carefully disguised contempt and, for the most part, open condescension.
I couldn’t understand how they could be so universally stigmatized. Roma possess no social, political, or economic advantages over European majority nations. And yet, the Roma are resented everywhere. It made me determined to comprehend how they could possibly be seen as threatening to Europeans who supposedly feel secure in their identities and historical privileges.
I thought I’d start in Serbia, learn more about the Roma there, and then, hopefully, over the years, compare how the Roma fare in their struggle for acceptance and integration in other European nations. What works, and what doesn’t? How does one fight prejudice and build inclusiveness? Is a better world even possible? Why are some prejudices so resistant to change, especially in old, established nations? I thought Serbia would be a good place to start, because in recent history, the Serbs themselves have experienced pariah status among nations. Does that create solidarity with other less fortunate groups, or does it harden hearts?
I became an intern at the Roma Education Fund (REF) in Belgrade, a Soros-funded NGO. I was ready for hatred towards the Roma, but not for what I found in Belgrade. Everyone I met was instantly sympathetic to how I presented my case. My project was warmly received, and the Roma Education Fund greeted me with open arms. All seemed good: more and more Roma kids were enrolling in schools, medical care was available, and municipal institutions were hiring Roma people to liaise with the community…While the numbers could be better, they all pointed in the right, upward direction.
But when I questioned people’s opinions about the Roma, I found that I ran into a wall. Ordinary, kind, friendly people in Belgrade will assure you that they harbor no prejudices against the Roma. On the contrary! They went to school with them! Everyone tells you they had Roma classroom friends who experienced no prejudice or humiliation at the hands of their teachers or peers. They were happy! We treated them as equals! They were not discriminated against!
But if you probed just a little, if you even gently poked, you would soon find out none of your liberal Belgraders had ever had their Roma friends over at home. None of them ever visited any Roma homes. Yes, there is benevolence on the surface, but it’s a patronizing benevolence that does not recognize its own implicit prejudices. Even more disturbingly, when you hear about efforts to improve Roma lives, you easily detect resentment of a group that supposedly “enjoys” and exploits its “victim status”.
Over the next 2 years, I continued talking to Roma people, and for the most part, I only ever heard stories of discrimination. I then sought out interviews with successful Roma, and found out they were not too keen to share their stories. I couldn’t fathom why.
The successful opera singer seems torn between her different identities. She can’t make up her mind: did she succeed because she was brilliant, or because she was given preferential treatment so that both the government and the Roma NGOs could claim a success story?
The successful entrepreneur beat the odds because his family members sacrificed to help. He is immensely proud of his business acumen but very reluctant to ascribe any of his success to anyone outside his own family. He makes no exception for Roma politicians.
The successful community organizer, on the other hand, touts each individual success as a fruit of collective endeavor. But he also criticizes the successful members of the Roma community for being reluctant to openly serve as Roma role models in the wider community.
I came out of the interviews wondering if the Roma problem could be one of self-definition. I realized their culture was diasporic and fluid, and that preserving their culture and passing on a narrative had always been a challenge since there wasn’t one linear thread.
Early Roma narratives have been both lost and erased. A deep-seated connection to music has persisted throughout history, and Roma music has been celebrated. But not all Roma appreciate the fact that Roma music has been stereotyped and artificially homogenized for marketing purposes. Many Roma feel that through their music, they’ve been denigrated in the process.
So it’s not just a story about selfish and affluent Europeans denying their Roma co-nationals and casting them as perpetual outsiders.
It is easy enough for people to say, “The Roma have a complicated and nuanced history.” In reality, Roma history is twofold: partially erased and partially culturally hybrid and intertwined with the communities they encounter. (The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism, Margareta Matache)
But the Roma haven’t been sufficiently loud and clear in defining their own history. This is partially due to a lack of power and resources, but also because they have been slow to insist on their own “self-definition.” (The Permanence of Anti-Roma Racism, Margareta Matache)
Changing material conditions – education, living conditions, human rights – matters, but so does changing the story. Exclusion will persist as long as the dominant narrative casts the Roma as outsiders requiring special assistance, but also as long as the Roma do not streamline their identities and their demands across the old continent.
After all, everyone wants to be accepted as they are and included just as they are. Why would the Roma accept any less? They have been Europeans for centuries. It is their continent, too.
And no European grandmothers, Italian or Serb, are entitled to frighten little children with gypsy lore. The real crime lies in not telling European children the truth about the crimes the old continent committed against the gypsies.
