Philippe Alcoy
The migration crisis has clearly shown the structural nature of
racism and xenophobia in Europe. The Roma people are among the most
oppressed in the continent; in France, there has been a rapid rise in
anti-Roma racism, not only from right-wing groups, but also from the
state and its institutions.
Here, Left Voice presents the translation of an article originally published in Révolution Permanente (parts I, II , and III ) on the history and “tortuous journey” of the Romani people in Europe.
The New York Times reports that France has become one of the
most hostile European countries for the Roma. In 2013, there were 19,000
forced removals of Roma people; 13,500 in 2014, and an average of 150
each week in 2015.
"Well, Hitler may have not killed enough [Roma]." That’s what
Gilles Bourdouleix, a member of the Union of Democrats and Independents
Party, mayor of the French city of Cholet, said in the summer of 2013 to
a group of Roma who were expelled from the land they occupied. This is
perhaps the most radicalized example of a deeply reactionary
tendency—anti-Roma racism—growing in France and other European
countries.
These speeches and racist acts against the Roma population are far
from new—they have a long history. However, since the fall of the Berlin
Wall and the deterioration of mass living conditions in Central and
Eastern Europe, the Roma population has again become a scapegoat.
With the deepening international economic crisis, the anti-Roma
discourse is being promoted by a large group of political parties
ranging from the extreme right to reformist sectors. Various political
leaders seek to cynically channel frustration and discontent against the
Roma and other exploited and oppressed sectors of the society.
These leaders and the media promote tropes that are very old, but
still ubiquitous, including the idea that the Roma do not want to work
and do not want to fit in; that they are profiteers who live off of
swindling and theft beginning at an early age; that they live off of
taxpayers’ contributions through state benefits; and that they are the
"dangerous poor" who have nothing to lose and thus are a threat to the
entire society.
While these characterizations may appear cartoonish, they serve as
the basis of a discourse that, first, normalizes the misery in which the
Roma are currently living and, second, criminalizes poverty.
To counter these streotypes, it is necessary to examine the evolution
of the social and economic conditions of the Roma people in Europe.
These conditions explain the extreme poverty of the Romani people,
especially after the fall of the Stalinist regimes in Central and
Eastern Europe.
Slavery and Serfdom
Although it is very difficult to determine the exact number, it is
estimated that there are about 12 to 15 million Roma people in the
world. Most live in Central and Eastern Europe, though they also live in
Western European countries like Spain, Italy and France. Romania has
the highest Roma population (between 800,000 and 1 million, nearly 10
percent of the total population). They comprise a significant portion of
the population in Bulgaria (8 percent of the total population) and
Hungary (5 percent of the total and the largest national minority).
According to some researchers the Roma are native to the Indian
subcontinent. For unknown reasons they began migrating to the West in
successive waves beginning in the 10th century through the 17th century.
It is believed that in the beginning of the 14th century, they arrived
in Europe through the Balkans and spread throughout Eastern and Central
europe. In the 15th century, they traveled as far as Britain, the Nordic
countries and Russia. This geographical dispersion partly explains the
cultural diversity of the Roma people.
This same period was also marked by the enslavement of the Roma
people, especially in the territories of Moldavia and Wallachia (south
of modern Romania). The exploitation of Roma slaves in these countries
became central to the economy of Moldavia and Wallachia. Romanian author
Gabriel Troc writes that the value of Roma slaves “increased when
they were ‘imported’ from the neighboring regions. This could be an
explanation for the large number of Roma in present Romania. As Isabel
Fonseca has shown, from the moment they were imported en masse, the
prejudice against them was sealed. ‘The term Gypsy no longer signified a
broad ethnic group or race... For the first time it referred
collectively to a social class: the slave cast.´ This study also
indicates that the term ‘Gypsies’ may have grouped together other people
who were also enslaved.”
This situation pushed Roma families to flee to less hostile regions.
Many groups went to Transylvania, while others went even further west.
In Transylvania, although the Roma occupied the most marginalized
positions in society, they were not formally slaves. However, they did
not own land and were completely dependent on local aristocrats who
hired them temporarily and treated them as if they were slaves. The
rest of the time, they had to stay on the move to work as migrant
agricutural laborers, to trade artisanal goods they manufactured and to
sell a few specialized services. All of this enabled them to survive.
The “nomadism” of the Roma first resulted from conditions of escaping
slavery and second, became the means of survival for a landless and
excluded people. In this sense, we can characterize the Roma as being in
forced nomadism.
Between Precarious Proletarianization and Forced Assimilation
The Roma were a marginalized group who at every turn were
discriminated against and persecuted. Many were reduced to slavery or
serfdom. However, in some areas and at specific times, the Roma groups
managed to obtain relative social recognition. This was the case of
those living in Hungary between the 15th and 17th centuries.
As the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign Affairs states,
“During the wars fought against the Turkish conquerors, Gypsies
played a considerable role in Hungarian society. Constant military
preparation and the lack of craftsmen provided opportunity to work.
Offering cheaper rates than the craftsmen in guilds ensured them jobs in
fortification and construction work, metalwork, weapons production and
maintenance, horse trading, postal services, wood carving and
blacksmithing. This enabled them to make a living and engage in
important activities for the country. Some Gypsy groups were even
granted privileges, first under King Sigismund (1387-1437) and King
Matthias (1458-1490) (…) However, at the end of the 17th century when
the Turks were driven out of Hungary, most activities carried out by the
Gypsy population were rendered unnecessary by farmers, animal breeders,
craftsmen and traders, who had begun to settle in Hungary.”
This integration into the country’s economic structure was
accompanied by a policy that forced Roma people to assimilate into
Hungarian society. The term "Gypsy” was forbidden and replaced with the
term, "new Hungarian." It was forbidden to speak the language of the
Gypsies. Roma marriages were very limited and Romani children were taken
from their parents to be raised in Hungarian families.
In the second half of the 19th century, the arrival of new Roma
groups from neighboring countries not only fueled prejudices held by the
majority Magyar population, but also among Hungarian Roma who had been
"assimilated."
There was a high level of diversity within the Romani population, even if one solely considered Hungary. According to Troc, “The
divisions in Hungary’s Gypsy population developed in the early 20th
century. The largest group, who arrived earlier and lost their language
and culture, are known as the ’Romungro’ or Hungarian (Gypsy) people.
They themselves form the rest of the Gypsy population today. The vast
majority of the second group arrived from Romanian land in the second
half of the 19th century. They speak the Gypsy language, and are called
‘Vlach Gypsies’ by virtue of their origin. There is also a third,
smaller group, the ‘Beas’ Gypsies, who mainly settled in South-West
Hungary and speak archaic Romanian-language dialects.”
With the development of capitalism in Central and Eastern Europe in
the late 19th and early 20th century, the Roma people began to form part
of the proletariat in some countries. The opening of new industries,
construction of new infrastructure (roads, railways) and the expansion
of agriculture allowed a part of the Roma people to become integrated
into the economic process.
However, this "integration" was done at the lowest levels of the
economy. Analyzing the example of a village in Transylvania, Gabriel
Troc writes, “‘Opportunities’ should be read here only as
‘opportunities for survival’ (…) The Roma were considered cheap labor
that did not have the right to wages, like a gadzo worker did.
Accordingly, before WWII, a significant number of Roma were ‘employed’
by Hungarians in return for food and clothes (…) Some of them,
especially women, were ‘hired’ for domestic work in Hungarian
households. Because the Gypsy had no land, they were constrained to do
whatever labor was offered to them by the majority population (…) When
employed in agricultural or domestic work the great majority of Roms had
a de-facto serf status.”
A "Forgotten" Genocide?
In the 1930s, the worldwide capitalist economic crisis and the rise
of fascism had terrible consequences for the Roma population. The stigma
against them grew and racist acts perpetrated by far-right gangs and
the state increased.
The Roma were the first to lose their jobs. They were often run off the land or homes they occupied to make room for the nationals. Furthermore, the Roma were increasingly perceived as a burden to the State. Gabriel Troc states, “In
Romania the taxonomy was aimed to separate the ‘useful’ Roma (a small
group of metalworkers in the countryside craftsmen in the cities and
some musicians) from the ‘beggars,’ ‘vagrants,’ and ‘primitive’ Roma
who, by their high rate of reproduction, would alter the ‘pure’
composition of the Romanian population. The consequence of this
classification was the massive deportation of Roma populations in
Transnistria (eastern Basarabia, now part of Republic of Moldova) during
the war.”
Indeed, in 1942, Ion Antonescu’s pro-Nazi regime in Romania sent
25,000 Roma people (12 percent of the total 210,000 living in the
country) into concentration camps, 11,000 of whom never returned. An
estimated 230,000 to 500,000 Roma people died in concentration camps
during World War II. They not only came from Eastern Europe, but also
Western European countries (over 30,000 Roma people were kept in
concentration camps in France).
The silence about the genocide of Roma people (Germany—the former
FRG—did not formally recognize this historical fact until 1979) cannot
be understood without recognizing the continuity of discrimination and
racism against the Roma in Europe today. This racism is expressed
through discriminatory policies in various countries. In The Forgotten Holocaust (L’Holocauste Oublié, 1979), Christian Bernadac states that “prejudice,
maintained by constant ’state sanctioned’ repression, led to this
disturbing paradox: to be against Gypsies is to be with the law. The
breeding ground for the ’Final Solution’ was perfectly clear when
National Socialism seized power in 1933. All the imaginable abuses– with
the exception of gas chambers–were anticipated, described and
implemented by other governments: mass deportation (France, 1802),
removal of Roma children from their parents (Germany 1830), armed
evictions (Britain, 1912), the prohibition of gypsy language and
clothes (several regions of France, Spain, Portugal), the prohibition of
marriage between Gypsies and of nomadism; serfdom (Romania), the
dissolution of marriages between Gypsies and non-Gypsies (Hungary), the
confiscation of property, the prohibition of owning a horse trailer,
the prohibitition of exercising certain professions, the prohibition of
buying a house (Portugal). (…) Branding projects (Hungary, 1909) or
sterilization (Norway, 1930)” (pages 33-34).
To complete the picture of widespread anti-Roma racism, Bernadac
provides the testimony of Jewish Holocaust survivors on the Gypsies:
“Professor Hagenmuller: ’Gypsies appeared to us having basically
two characteristics: the passion for stealing and the music.’ Professor
Charles Richet: ’concerning Gypsies, their total disappearance would
have affected in the camp only a small number of committed
philanthropists...”
If we can find such judgments in testimonials meant to denounce Nazi
barbarism in the concentration camps, it is not surprising that these
genocidal acts against the Roma continue to be obscured and
misunderstood.
Stalinist Regimes: Between Reform and Repression
At the end of World War II, the western march of the Red Army
established deformed and bureaucratised workers’ states in a number of
Central and Eastern European countries.
The policies of the Stalinist regimes toward the Roma people were
those that sought settlement and assimilation, thus denying cultural or
national specificity. Policies of industrialization, however, did allow
the Roma to gain employment in national enterprises and collective
farms.
In Hungary, the employment rate among working Roma men in 1971 was 85
percent—perhaps the highest in the Roma people’s entire history in
Hungary. Nevertheless, they continued to occupy the “unskilled”
positions with the most menial tasks, as was the case throughout the
region.
Regardless, the newfound ability to earn relatively stable incomes
enabled the Roma to access social benefits, education for children and
vocational training. However, as the Hungarian Ministry of Foreign
Affairs explained, “Gypsy children were often taught in separate classes, or subjected to special education due to their ’handicap.’”
The Roma children attended schools in which classes were taught in
the majority language; no subjects were taught in their native language,
which was not the case for other national minorities, such as the
Hungarians and Germans in Romania).
When it comes to housing, the policies of various governments helped
build homes and buildings where the Roma families could live. Within a
few years, Roma slums disappeared. However, these homes were rudimentary
and remained segregated from the rest of the population. In some cases,
as in Romania, the Roma were housed in “the newly-built socialist
group of apartment districts, which were full of police and army
personnel, in an attempt to control and ‘civilize’ them” (Gabriel Troc).
During the Stalinist period, the living conditions of the Roma
population of Eastern Europe generally improved, despite the
bureaucratic and reactionary political regimes of the communist parties.
These experiments gave a glimpse of the potential of a real workers’
state, and what could be achieved. However the Stalinist bureaucracies
failed to end the rampant anti-Roma prejudice. On the contrary, these
prejudices were often stoked by state institutions themselves.
The Restoration of Capitalism: A Major Setback
In the late 1980s the process of capitalist restoration began in the
former "Soviet bloc" and millions of workers found themselves
unemployed.
The decline for Roma workers was even worse. The jobs held by the
Roma were the first to disapear, especially for Roma women. In Hungary
for example, the government study we cited earlier stated that “this
progress... collapsed during the social and political changes of 1990.
The construction industry and mining, which provided employment for most
of the Gypsies, fell into crisis. Gypsies, who were largely employed as
unskilled workers and carried out tasks requiring the lowest level of
expertise were the first to be made redundant at privatized companies.
Within a short period of time the majority of Gypsy families had fallen
back to the level of previous decades”.
In Romania, the industrial situation is virtually the same as the one
described in Hungary. There during the re-privatization, or the
“redistribution process” of land in 1995, the Roma were excluded. Thus, a survey conducted in early 1990 showed that “[About
Eighty-seven percent] of [Roma] women and 58% of men had no diplomas;
only 1.8% of all Roma achieved a medium or high level of qualification.
27% of young people were illiterate and 40% of 8 year old children never
attended school or stopped going… The rising poverty was especially
catastrophic for the Roma : 87.5% did not have enough to survive (40.6%)
or had barely enough (46.9%).”
Landless and jobless in a context of mass unemployment and increasing
discrimination, the Roma population of Central and Eastern Europe were reduced to extreme poverty.
For many (about 70 percent), the only stable income was the meager
family allowance, retirement, and disability pensions granted by the
state. Others had to struggle to survive by collecting scrap metal and
recyclable materials. Many were forced to beg or engage in illegal
activities.
The widespread economic crisis and the already precarious conditions
of the Roma set the stage for a surge in anti-Roma discourse and racist
attacks. The same study on the Romanian case after the fall of the
former regime states, “Between 1990 and 1991 houses were burned and
people were beaten and expelled from their villages. The most violent
incident occured in Hadareni in September 1993, which ended with the
death of four men, three Gypsies. In total, there were about thirty
local clashes the cause of which are disputed but which always lead to
the eviction of Gypsies.”
Economic Crisis and Racism
In times of crisis, the ruling classes seek scapegoats to divert the
attention of the masses from the true cause of their suffering. The
scapegoats are the most exploited and oppressed sectors of society—often
those seen as "foreign” or “other.” The racism and nationalism are a
logical consequence of bourgeois politics.
In Europe, where an economic crisis of historic proportions has been
brewing for the past several years, there has also been a rise in the
populist political tendencies of the extreme right. Some obvious
examples include the French National Front and the Greek Golden Dawn,
but there are other lesser-known far-right groups, like the Bulgarian
Ataka and the Hungarian Jobbik. These two parties have grown on a
platform of violent anti-Roma discourse.
It is clear that this discourse serves the capitalists—contributing
to the divisions within the working class and the oppressed in general.
In this sense, it is not surprising that governments and politicians are
introducing blatantly discriminatory policies targeting Roma people,
such as compulsory work for the Roma in Hungary. In France, the "Roma
problem" is discussed with no mention of the mass expulsions of Roma
from their homes by city and state governments.
But the workers should not be misled. The measures that governments
take today against the Roma are linked to and may soon broaden into
attacks against the whole of the proletariat and the masses. Passivity
and inaction in the face of anti-Roma speech and laws will only make it
easier for capitalists to attack all the exploited.
Today, the Roma are the ideal scapegoat for the capitalists of the
whole European continent. As we tried to show in this article, the
poverty of the Roma is not a natural, intrinsic characteristic of the people. It results from a combination of social, economic and political conditions.
Futhermore, their social condition does not follow a linear
evolution. On the contrary, the Roma were able to integrate themselves
into the production process, like any other sector of the population.
Also, during every crisis, because of the persistence of anti-Roma
prejudices, they were among the first who were sacrificed and
their living conditions were horribly degraded. Since the restoration of
capitalism in Eastern Europe and particularly since the onset of the
global economic crisis, we see this same process being repeated today.
It is essential that the labor movement takes on the fight against
anti-Roma racism as part of the struggle against all forms of racism.
This is an unavoidable task to rebuild the unity of the exploited and
oppressed against the attacks of the capitalists.
Translated by Thabitha Kotravaï
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