Representation & Politics The International Representation of the Roma - Part 1 Return to the Representation list A long standing problem facing the Roma has been the absense of a transparent international representation. Although many bodies have claimed to 'represent' the Roma, on the international stage, most have turned out to have no grass roots support. Quite often they have been set up and run by a mixture of enthusiastic academics and a few Roma activitists. With the next major enlargement of the European Union there is, without any doubt, a need for a trans-national focus on the Roma because they will become the largest single minority in Europe. They also face a range of common problems which, within the context of accession, need to identified, acknowledged and solved. Such common problems include, inter alia, racial discrimination, poverty, unemployment, lack of econonomic opportunities, exclusion from mainstream policy initiatives, poor or Apartheid educational provisions, cultural and language issues and specific problems facing Roma women. A transnational group is needed because, without one, it is unlikely that these issues will be adequately addressed by either national governments or the European Commission. The Current Situation Because of the general poverty and marginalized status of Roma in much of Central Europe, there is a constant risk that the so-called leadership will be induced by governments to establish virtual representations for the Roma. Such stage sets have the effect of reflecting positively on the governments who 'encouraged their establishment' whilst at the same time exercising a direct control over the extent of practical actions to assist the Roma. This is achieved by constantly affirming the status of these individuals in public whilst undermining their effectiveness by restricting the financial and human resources made available to them. It is easy for those who gain positions within such organizations to become enamoured by their new status and for their priorities to become institutionalised. As a result, more effort can go into the constant consolidation of the status and permanency of these individuals, in their new roles, than in to addressing Romani problems. Image Manipulation substitutes Action Some Central European governments are adept at playing on this circumstance by using such Romani 'leaders' to explain their role as 'leaders' of the Roma to visitors and dignitaries as well as international institutions such as the European Commission. This stage management indirectly passes on the message to the audience of what an effective job the national government is doing in supporting an environment within which such institutions can operate on behalf of the Roma. As a result, such institutions become completely deflected from their main task of representing the Roma to becoming government propaganda tools which operate at the expense of the Roma populations. Fortunately the members of Roma communities perceive the reality of the situation fairly quickly and any grass root support which such organizations might have built up, evaporates into thin air. Unfortunately, little of this real situation is perceived by foreign governments and the European Commission. National Politics - The Hungarian Roma Self-Governments The better known 'representations' of the Roma are political in nature and stay far away from direct action at community level. For example, at the national level, the minority self government system in Hungary is often held up, in the international community, as an 'example' of the promotion of inclusion and democracy for the Roma. In line with the normal central European model, the minorty self-government of the Roma has a representation in just 15% of the Hungarian communities. Its role is advisory and its leaders admit that in around 60% of the local authorities their 'advice' is ignored. So, in the remaining 6% of local authorites, they might be listened to. Their annual budget, for the whole local authority representation of three people, is around 1,000 Euro, or a salary of 27 Euro each month (about US$20). It is clear with this funding they cannot make use of independent technical advice or consultants, they often cannot afford to travel to Budapest to attend meetings. So the facilities provided by local authorities normally consist of an office with no telephone, no supplies and rickety funiture picked up second hand somewhere. That is the sum total of the human resources, funding and the infrastructure of the local representation of the Roma self government in Hungary. It is generally admitted that the system achieves little. The fantacy representation of minority self-government is now well-recognised by the majority of Hungarian Roma. Propaganda Central European governments, in their bid to satisfy European criteria in the human rights sphere and, in particular, their treatment of the Roma have begun to wage a somewhat less-than-subtle propaganda war to substitute real actions to help the Roma. The principal elements of the propaganda campaign are to encourage the marginalization of the Roma by weakening their status as citizens. The objective is to make the Roma a European problem and to abandon national responsibility for the Roma (see footnote). Government ministers increasingly refer to the 'responsibilities' of Roma 'leadership' whereas there is no such leadership. Leadership of any nation is that of the government, prime minister and/or president and these are the sole individuals responsible for leadership of all citizens of the nation, including mainstream and minority groups. The other dimension of this propaganda is to begin to introduce the concept of the Roma as a 'nation' and to begin to introduce in meetings, with European governments and the European Commission, images of future mass migration and the difficulty of 'controlling' the Roma. This plays directly into the hands of European Government fears surrounding immigration and asylum seekers. It encourages European pressure for the Union to make resources available to control the situation. The control is, however, aimed specifically at the Roma. Such propaganda succeeds in introducing, a discriminatiory dimension to EU actions concerning a specific component of the nationals of candidate countries. In other words the Central European governments are already succeeding in encouraging the European Union to consider the Roma to be something different from their mainstream populations. This is in direct contravention to Article 13. The truth is that in most Central European countries there are more members of the mainstream population who are poor and who are likely to migrate to Europe than there are Roma; this somehow is not raised by either side. International Politics - The International Romani Union The last, more subtle propaganda element, is the now increasing reference to central Europe as having a better political representation for the Roma than countries in the European Union. This refers to such organizations as the Hungarian minority self-government and, more lately the Czech NGO, called the International Romani Union (IRU). It is well-known that the Hungarian Roma minority self-government is a farce, but less is known about the IRU. Unfortunately, recent press releases of the IRU, concerning meetings between IRU representatives and members of the Swedish government (currently President of European Council), confirm that the IRU is presenting, in the name of Roma, all of those elements which central European governments are advocating to weaken the position of Roma. A Tool of the Czech Government? The IRU's main position is that the Roma need to be considered to be a nation and, as such, should be involved in dialogues on foreign policy. To support this theatre, the Czech government has responded to this demand by placing a Roma in their Ministry of Foreign Affairs to represent the Roma 'Nation' on matters of foreign policy. The IRU has also stressed the number of Roma who are in central Europe and who need work. And last but not least, the IRU called the attention of the Swedish government representatives to the fact that the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe are better represented politically than Roma in the European Union. There is therefore little doubt that the IRU is expounding, quite effectively, Czech government propaganda. Roma Grass Roots In sounding out views of members of the public in Roma rural communities in Hungary, Romani World found no one who had heard of the International Romani Union. Some intellectuals and academics who work in the Romani field in Budapest, had heard of the IRU, but these people, in the main, are not Roma. It is therefore troubling that this NGO is approaching governments, in the name of the Roma and, in addition, advocating policies which the majority of individuals in many Roma communities remain unaware. Romani World has also asked members of very low income Roma communities whether or not they will migrate, once Hungary becomes a member of the European Union. Most people asked were confused by the question, some were affronted, everyone questioned the question, "why should we leave our homes to go to a strange country?" We found no Roma who consider themselves to be part of some virtual 'nation'. The majority of Roma know that they are nationals of the countries in which they were born and live. To the majority of Roma the country they live in is, like members of the mainstream population, 'home'. Some commented that the Roma who had been subjected to particularly inhumane treatement by their Hungarian local authority, and who went to Strasbourg to seek asylum, were a special but, unfortunately, justified case. The IRU positions would therefore seem to be without any democratic legitimacy and to be quite dangerous. It is increasingly suggested that the IRU is a tool of the Czech government, the country where the IRU has its headquarters. Within the current political context, the IRU seems to be promoting a pervasive, and negative, propaganda concerning the Roma's 'wish' to be considered as a nation. The hidden danger of this ill-advised strategy, is that the Roma could become perceived to be a people without land, taking up the status of European Palestinians, a group shunned by all. The Roma are a vital element amongst the mix of races which have contributed to the formation of the peoples of Europe and, as such, remain nationals of the countries where they were born. It is important that in the name of European integration, a peaceful future and, indeed, equal opportunities, that the IRU be asked to stop masquerading as the international, or even European, representative of the Roma and to stop promoting such destructive policies. Certainly, the IRU policies will make the Czech government and some other Central and Eastern European governments show up in a good light, but in doing so the IRU undermines the interests of the Roma. Footnote: This was a technique used with disastrous effect by the Israeli's to dispossess the Palestinians following World War II. As a result, today, some 3,000,000 Palestinians live in squalor, as refugees, banned from their own homeland.