Racial tension in the Czech Republic

[Aleksey_aka_al]

There are only about 41,000 of Romani people in the Czech Republic, officially, roughly 0,4% of its population. However, somehow they manage to pose a problem for major population. According to this survey 44% of citizens are concerned about the minority. People are worried about underreported population (some estimates go as high as 400,000 people) and baby boom of the minority.

In this online petition this summer (signed by almost 16,000) people are protesting against the use of the Czech flag by an artist TomᚠRafa who blended it with Romani symbolics to promote tolerance toward minorities and against hate crimes. In December '13 the artist was fined by the local authorities for flag defamation.

http://www.praguepost.com/czech-news/34280-artist-fined-for-new-czech-roma-flag-proposals

His exhibition was held in August. The same month, in Plzen, Far-right activists organized a protest against the minory.

http://rt.com/news/czechs-arrested-roma-demonstration-955/

According to this source, about 1,500 people attended the anti-Romani protests in eight cities. While about 1,000 people through out the country organized anti-racism protests.

Such marches seems to be held on regular basis recent years. Violence is not excluded:

Hundreds of far-right activists have staged anti-Roma marches in towns and cities across the Czech Republic.

In some areas, stones were thrown at police who responded with tear gas. At least 75 arrests were made.

Amnesty International expressed concern earlier this month over the planned marches, urging officials to protect the Roma community.

The Roma are among the poorest people in Czech society and Roma leaders often complain of endemic discrimination.

The worst clashes during Saturday's seven rallies took place in Ostrava and Ceske Budejovice, Radio Prague reported.

In both cities, the marchers left the approved route and tried to reach areas with large Roma populations.

In Ostrava, around 600 protesters pelted police with stones and at least 60 people were detained.

http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-23830623

In 2011, thousands of people were marching the streets in the anti-Romani protest.

September 16, 2011

For weeks there have been riots between Czech locals and newly settled Roma in northern Bohemia. What started as a series of brutal but isolated fights has grown into a popular movement in small towns along the eastern German border. Right-wing extremists have fanned the hatred.

http://www.spiegel.de/international...n-violent-in-the-czech-republic-a-786495.html

Two Romani people from the Klatovy district continue to wait for the compensation awarded to them last November by the Regional Court in Plzeň. A total of six Romani people filed a civil lawsuit for protection of their personality rights over the trauma they experienced when violent racists Václav Boublík and Jiří Miškovič attacked them in July 2011.

Czech Anti-Racist Activist Míra Brož calls the actions of Far-right activists "Pogroms":

11. 9. 2013

You think it is correct to call these recent anti-Roma demonstrations “pogroms”?

Yes, I think that is the precise term to use. If riot police had not been at the scene, and if the mobs had actually made it to the Romani people’s homes, what do you think would have happened? These have been pogroms stopped by the police. Let’s call things by their real names. What else can we do?

<...>

How does education on the topic of extremism – fascism, neo-Nazism, racism – work in this country? What do students learn about pogroms? What do they learn about Romani people as such? Have the schools in which the student elections were won by the DSSS taken any specific measures to change their instruction on these issues?

We have long known that anti-Roma marches and violence are not a phenomenon of small groups of neo-Nazis, but a far larger problem, that of the involvement in and support for these marches by so-called “decent, normal people”. We have been talking about this since 2011, when ordinary citizens comprised the hard core of the anti-Romani demonstrations in the Šluknov foothills and elsewhere. We are glad other people are noticing this now, there is a need to start working on this, but decidedly not by offering greater repression of Romani people as a “solution” to calm the racists. Repression will not solve the problem of racism or of Romani poverty – it deepens and escalates those problems.

Here's the full interview with Míra Brož:

http://visegradrevue.eu/?p=1772

 

[Borachio]

It's a problem all right.

Roma are the biggest ethnic minority in Europe, with a population of around 12 million living mostly in eastern Europe, often in extreme poverty and subject to discrimination and segregation.

The current Roma population in the UK is 200,000 and growing fast.

The researchers cited harsh conditions elsewhere as a significant "push factor" in Roma coming to the UK and reported that the rapid increase in Roma migrants was posing considerable challenges for local authorities, with staff often "overwhelmed".

http://www.channel4.com/news/immigration-roma-migrants-bulgaria-romania-slovakia-uk

What an indictment of a country is it, when people are eager to leave?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

So the rumours of EU negotiating with the Maidanist Ukranian authorities on moving the Romani people to Ukraine are true? Hmm...

 

[Winner]

Clearly the Czech Republic is a [russian accent] Fascist [/russian accent] country in need of some brotherly Russian help, such as the one provided against Fascist counter-revolutionaries in 1968.

/thread

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Clearly the Czech Republic is a [russian accent] Fascist [/russian accent] country in need of some brotherly Russian help, such as the one provided against Fascist counter-revolutionaries in 1968.

/thread

Why do you always get offended when someone touches the topic of real-world Far-Rights?

Oh, nvm.

 

[Borachio]

I think the memory of 1968 probably still lingers on.

 

[Winner]

Why do you always get offended when someone touches the topic of real-world Far-Rights?

Oh, nvm.

I am not offended in the least. I am questioning your motives for opening this thread.

But surely you are right: no country in the world has a minority problem as severe as Czechia. We definitely need to invite Russian experts to advise us on issues of community cohesion, considering that Russia is the world's model of a harmonious multicultural society where people of all ethnic backgrounds, creeds, ages, sexual orientations as well as social classes and political affiliations live in freedom, peace, prosperity and mutual self-respect.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

I am not offended in the least. I am questioning your motives for opening this thread.

Well, I've heard this rumour and started to Google, thinking why would EU want it.

But surely you are right: no country in the world has a minority problem as severe as Czechia. We definitely need to invite Russian experts to advise us <...>[/B]

Ah, so you are offended because of Czech Rep. being the topic...

 

[Winner]

Nope, I am not offended at all - see, reasonable people don't get offended easily just because somebody speaks about their country. I am just curious why you're opening this topic without any proper analysis, without actually presenting any questions for discussion, and why you're doing it just after you've had some personalized disagreement with me in another thread. One might consider it a childish attempt at payback, if one didn't know you well...

 

[Domen]

Roma are the biggest ethnic minority in Europe, with a population of around 12 million

Really 12 million ?! Where are they? In which countries are the biggest communities?

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

Nope, I am not offended at all - see, reasonable people don't get offended easily just because somebody speaks about their country. I am just curious why you're opening this topic without any proper analysis, without actually presenting any questions for discussion, and why you're doing it just after you've had some personalized disagreement with me in another thread. One might consider it a childish attempt at payback, if one didn't know you well...

Well, don't get paranoid. I've heard a rumour, as I said, watched a video with a Nazi on Maidan who told the same rumour, then read a suspicious news article about the same rumour.

And then entered "roma eu racial tension" to Google and the article about Czech Rep. was the first in the results.

Should I also tell you what tooth paste I used today, how much in grams and what time of the day up to a second?

 

[Domen]

I think that 12 million is an extremely high estimate. The real number is probably much lower.

I don't know how well official censuses reflect the number of Romani people, though.

Here some estimates: http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Romani_diaspora

 

[Winner]

Well, don't get paranoid. I've heard a rumour, as I said, watched a video with a Nazi on Maidan who told the same rumour, then read a suspicious news article about the same rumour.

And then entered "roma eu racial tension" to Google and the article about Czech Rep. was the first in the results.

Should I also tell you what tooth paste I used today, how much in grams and what time of the day up to a second?

^ I have no idea what you're talking about there.

Is there any purpose to this thread besides "I've read something on the internet and I want to stick it to Winner"? Do you have any DEBATE QUESTIONS you would like to discuss here? Something to ask me? If not, I am not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

 

[Domen]

Tension between people with itinerant mentality and people with sedentary mentality exists for millennia.

Read the Biblical tale about the conflict between Cain (sedentary) and Abel (itinerant).

Gypsies / Romani people were itinerant people for centuries. Only very recently - in the 1900s - they became sedentary.

The tension today results mostly from fact, that the Romani people are still not used to this new lifestyle, imposed to them by external pressures.

 

[Aleksey_aka_al]

^ I have no idea what you're talking about there.

Is there any purpose to this thread besides "I've read something on the internet and I want to stick it to Winner"? Do you have any DEBATE QUESTIONS you would like to discuss here? Something to ask me? If not, I am not sure what you're trying to accomplish.

It doesn't seem that a direct question is obligatory to create a thread. And I am a bit less concerned with your persona than you think. If there were some questions I could ask you considering the topic, not sure I would now. You have a talent for deflecting the subject.

Tension between people with itinerant mentality and people with sedentary mentality exists for millennia.

Read the Biblical tale about the conflict between Cain (sedentary) and Abel (itinerant).

Gypsies / Romani people were itinerant people for centuries. Only very recently - in the 1900s - they became sedentary.

The tension today results mostly from fact, that the Romani people are still not used to this new lifestyle, imposed to them by external pressures.

From those articles it seems they are in many ways assimilated both ethnically and in lifestyle.

 

[Domen]

In the past groups of Gypsies were constantly on the move.

They were moving from one village to another, staying no longer than a few days in one place

Contrary to stereotypes, those nomadic people were not layabouts - their activities were: trade, various crafts - especially call-outs in visited villages, but also building works and finishing works (many Gypsies were carpenters, stove fitters, roofing contractors, etc.), smithing, production of various small items, such as frying pans (Gypsies were well-known for producing and selling frying pans), sometimes also horse-breeding.

They also worked as itinerant musicians - providing entertainment to people in remote villages.

Tension was sometimes caused by petty thefts - here and there they would steal a duck, a chicken, vegetables or a bag of animal fodder. However, those were minor thefts and they would never steal anything from that family which allowed them to have a layover on their land.

Patologies really started after Gypsies were forced to abandon their wagons, and settled in blocks of flats, villages or slums.

After that, they abandoned crafts and trade, switching to alcoholism and begging.

They are like nomadic American Indians, who were forced to settle in reservations.

 

[Borachio]

Yes. That's my understanding of them too.

 

[Domen]

From those articles it seems they are in many ways assimilated both ethnically and in lifestyle.

Polish Gypsies are, since they were forced (by Communist authorities) to settle and become sedentary already in the 1960s.

However, Romani people who come to Poland from the south - from Romania, Hungary, Slovakia, even Czechia - are usually not well assimilated.

Gypsies indigenous to France are still moving from one village to another today, nobody settled them.

And it is possible, that those French Gypsies are actually not causing problems (apart from lack of education), since they can live as they want.

Problems start when someone forces them to settle - then patologies appear, alcoholism, beggars, etc.

And there is a large number of immigrant Gypsies in France, as well as in the UK. They come especially from Romania.

 

[Domen]

Racism against the Romani is also a problem in Hungary:


Link to video.

 

[Borachio]

Racism is a sign of deep-seated insecurity, isn't it?