Almost one hundred academic researchers specialising in Romani studies have signed an open letter to the Council of Europe’s Secretary General, Thorbjørn Jagland, expressing their concern about a recent Council of Europe communication announcing its new four-year Thematic Action Plan on Roma and Traveller Inclusion. They take issue with the statement’s depiction of Roma as having a pre-disposition to early marriage, violence, organised crime and begging, and say that such suggestions contribute to, rather than confront stigmatisation and prejudice.

The 93 signatories, all members of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies that was set up in 2011 by the Council of Europe and the European Commission, are based at over 70 different universities and research institutions in more than 20 different countries. They include eminent scholars such as historians Henriette Asséo and David Mayall, anthropologists Michael Stewart and Alain Reyniers, ethnomusicologists Carol Silverman and Iren Kertesz Wilkinson, social policy experts Margaret Greenfields and Phillip Brown, and linguists Ian Hancock and Victor Friedman. The list also includes some key figures from Romani cultural and public engagement initiatives, such as Jana Horvathová of the Museum of Romani Culture in Brno, musician Santino Spinelli of the Università degli Studi di Chieti, Rumyan Russinov of the Public Policy Advocacy Centre, and Traveller activist and researcher Janie Codona MBE.

In their letter to Secretary General Jagland the academic colleagues criticise the Council of Europe’s communication from 7 March 2016 in which it announced that it will dedicate 20 million Euros to “awareness raising activities at a local level to help curb early or forced marriages, domestic violence, trafficking and forced begging in Roma communities by addressing negative consequences of such activities.” They write that this statement puts the blame for the effects of marginalisation on the Roma themselves, and request a correction from the Council of Europe clarifying that the causes of exploitation and victimisation are universal and not inherently linked to Romani society or culture, and that they should therefore be addressed globally rather than with specific reference to Roma.

The proposal to sign a collective letter triggered a debate on the Network’s email discussion list. Those hesitating to criticise the Council of Europe over the announcement pointed to a need to take a firm and consistent position against practices that put women and girls in danger. Fears of racial stigmatising should not, they argued, overshadow the concerns for the safety of women and girls in all communities, including the Romani community. Alongside issues of principle, strategic arguments were also put forward. Some members pointed out that the Council of Europe’s commitment to addressing issues of domestic violence and forced marriage derived directly from its ‘Istanbul Convention’ from 2011 on preventing and combating violence against women and domestic violence, and that opposing the Council of Europe’s determination to address such issues in regard to Roma might undermine its overall approach to the problem. Others maintained that signing the letter would mean opposing an increasing number of Romani women who are coming forward to challenge practices such as early and arranged marriage and other forms of exploitation and abuse. The claim that in Europe practices of early and forced marriage were confined to certain segments of the Romani population, where patriarchal roles prevail, remained highly contested. On the other hand, some participants in the debate argued that there was a need to address violence against women as a specific consequence of anti-Gypsyism, which gives rise to an inability of victims to access legal remedy, as public authorities take the view that “Roma have their own law and we dare not mix in.”

Yet despite these reservations, the protest letter, addressed to what is widely regarded as one of Europe’s highest moral authorities on human rights, received wide support. Members pointed out that domestic violence is widespread in poor communities, who are also the most frequent victims of trafficking and forced begging, while early marriage is usually linked to the opportunities that young women have to access training and education or to find paid work outside the home. Framing the issue as a cultural one creates a license to segregate Roma and to contain them. It also promotes the view that inclusion should inherently be linked to the adoption of particular norms of behaviour rather than dedicated to the elimination of exclusionary practices and barriers.

Contributors also drew attention to a gradual build up of a focus on trafficking and early marriage in the deliberations of the Council of Europe’s Ad Hoc Expert Committee on Roma (CAHROM). The issue figured prominently at the latest CAHROM meeting in Bucharest on 2 March 2016, just days before the new Thematic Action Plan was announced. It was also on the table at the CAHROM meeting in May 2015 in Strasbourg. Indeed, ‘trafficking and early marriage’ have been high on the Council of Europe’s Roma agenda since its Strasbourg Declaration of 2010, when the organisation began to shift its attention away from Roma political participation and toward a focus on ‘mediation’ projects, legitimised by the view that Roma show a propensity, supposedly, to voluntary disengagement from mainstream institutions and mainstream behaviour norms (see my recent article on ‘Europe’s neo-traditional Roma policy’). But even as a tactical tool, intended to tempt sceptical governments to support the Council of Europe’s Roma inclusion agenda in its entirety, the announcement would seem highly inappropriate: Using exclusionary discourse to promote inclusionary policies can easily backfire, and there is a real risk that the approach will exonerate national governments that do not have the political will to implement Roma integration policies, and that it might legitimise the positions of anti-Roma political parties.

Interesting lessons can be learnt from the Network’s discussion and its outcome. The first is the encouraging realisation that an advocacy initiative can resonate well with academic colleagues without constraining the pluralistic character of the debate or curtailing participants’ confidence to discuss conflicting points of view openly, in a way that allows them to benefit from and capitalise on the range of insights, arguments and pieces of evidence. The fact that academic circles show a commitment to public engagement and advocacy on issues that surround public images of Roma also debunks the myth that academia is the “last stronghold of colonial, paternalist approaches to Roma”, expressed by some recent commentators writing in support of another recent Council of Europe initiative, the European Roma Institute. Indeed, while academics have taken a lead role in this particular debate, standing up against the wholesale portrayal of Roma as beggars and rapists, there has been deafening silence among the ranks of the more established Romani activist circles. This is not surprising, given the fact that Roma activists are in many cases direct beneficiaries of EU and Council of Europe funds and therefore have less freedom than academic colleagues to direct open criticism against influential European policy bodies. The European Academic Network on Romani Studies is finding itself in a different position. Having been set up initially by the Council of Europe itself, it was criticised by some activists for failing to allocate a fixed representation on its elected Scientific Committee for people who self-identify as Roma. Now it has matured into a body of members who are able to engage in an organic process of open and pluralistic debate without fear of either internal splits or external repercussions.

The Council of Europe’s response to the criticism may well prove to be an indicator of how this organisation sees its future strategy of engagement with Roma – perhaps more so than its own controlled proclamations. It can choose to take the easy way out by blaming the statement on a non-fit-for-purpose communications officer who failed to consult the Private Office before going public. That would make the Council of Europe look clumsy and unprofessional. It would also mean that the next communications fiasco is just waiting to happen. Another option is to dismiss the criticism and repeat the line of the Secretary General, who is personally quoted as saying: “Our strategy gives more attention to Roma women and children who are particularly vulnerable”. That would risk appearing complacent and insensitive to the criticism that contends that the causes of the problems lie beyond cultural traditions.

If, on the other hand, the Council of Europe chose to take the criticism on board, invite experts to an open discussion on the proper way to address the symptoms of poverty and exclusion, and issue an unequivocal clarification that it does not seek to blame the Roma for their own misery or to legitimise the patronising obsession to contain and control their behaviour, then it might not only re-gain the respect of its critics, but also be in a position to tackle head on the very core of anti-Gypsy sentiment: the perception that fundamental differences in family values, kinship organisation, and sexuality constitute the major cultural fault line that separates the majority from the Romani minority.
—
Yaron Matras is Professor of Linguistics at the University of Manchester. He is one of the founding members of the European Academic Network on Romani Studies, Coordinator of the MigRom research consortium, and author of ‘I met lucky people: The story of the Romani Gypsies’ (Penguin Press, 2014).

I am glad that supporters of the ERI have shared their thoughts and developed the debate. Many people want change and the ERI is a new initiative. But hopes and wishful thinking are insufficient and there must be a role for critical analysis. I expect that many people who support the ERI do so because of its noble aspirations to fight prejudice and discrimination and want to believe that the ERI can deliver. The goal is so vast that it is not a question if the ERI can eliminate prejudice and create a ‘positive’ Roma image, but whether it makes a useful contribution. Therefore, we need to consider whether there any reasons to think that the ERI would do more harm than good.

In my view this is an important debate, not because of how a small  organisation might directly affect the few individuals and organisations who have any interest in it, but because of what it represents at a time of emerging Roma politics. Roma has become a political object (identity) and this will remain the case and have a profound impact on many countries and across Europe in the years and decades ahead. A key feature of this politics is the participation of Roma people in public debate – Roma activism. Despite being the far weaker partner in the relationship with mainstream institutions – states, NGOs, international organisations – the political ideas and actions of Roma activists are important in how the politics of Roma plays out. I appreciate that Roma activists need to explore every opportunity – and the ERI is precisely that, the provision of resources and status by OSF and the Council of Europe– but judgement is required as being easily led is likely to result in strategic mistakes with tragic consequences.

One area of concern is the thinking underpinning the ERI and what this implies for the quality and motivation of its work in its complex and serious subject area. In all three proposal or consultation papers (May 2014, October 2014, May 2015), the ERI has been justified as a crucial means for tackling the newly discovered Roma problem of ‘low self-esteem’ (it is defined as a problem and is explicitly attributed to Roma). Zeljko Jovanovic (8 May 2015) has elaborated on this concept explaining that ‘antigypsyism is not only in the non-Roma mindset, but in the Roma mindset too ‘.  Putting to one side how meaningful it can be to apply what definitively relates to individuals to a diffuse and vaguely defined population of millions, it is clear that low self-esteem is a disadvantage that lies within Roma people.

As the December paper discussed, this is a serious problem  because ‘Improve[d] Roma self-perception [is] a prerequisite for empowerment and participation’  and ‘genuine participation of Europeans of Roma origin “is a precondition for success”’ in ending the ‘widespread economic and social marginalisation of Roma communities in Europe’. The ERI is being called into being to tackle this fundamental problem and to institutionalise the belief that people considered Roma can’t expect better treatment from states and societies until they show a bit more self-respect! This train of thought is less an example of clumsy drafting than illustrative of  the value of a critical analysis which points to how politicisation (and bureaucratisation) also pathologicalises Roma identity with the aim of managing (maintaining), rather than overcoming objective problems of poverty and exclusion.

Another example is the unambiguous claim that social inclusion initiatives have proved ineffectual because they have not tackled the ‘root causes that stand in the way of meaningful progress: ignorance, hatred and mistrust’. This is, to say the least, a great simplification of a complex issue. What makes people think and feel the way they do? Aren’t ‘ignorance, hatred and mistrust’ more likely to be symptomatic of social and economic relations than their ‘root cause’?

This oddly restrictive approach to understanding very real issues regarding experiences and perceptions of Roma identity and people is less an intellectual proposition than an ideological one. In making the ‘root causes’ of poverty, exclusion and discrimination (as well as of multimillion euro policy failure) matters of the mind, no consideration need be given to the structural and systemic factors that many of us believe play an important role in how Roma is understood. The system is fine, just the people that are wrong. They think wrong thoughts about Roma. Furthermore, it is suggested that these wrong thoughts are essentially a legacy from the past (rather than generated within contemporary society). What is required is re-education or at least some good PR – the promotion of a ‘positive image’. This neo-liberal ideology may be the answer, but there is no reason to think so. More than two decades of promoting Roma difference while failing to overcome the social and economic inequalities created at transition have not obviously improved the safety or social standing of those labelled Roma.

The debate about the ERI has included concerns from academics that it would undermine the reputation of scholarly-level research. In respect of the ERI’s own work, how that is assessed will depend on who is judging. In the ERI’s case there are likely to be many different audiences, yet surely among the most important would be the ERI’s financial and political sponsors.  The way the ERI has been presented to date indicates that the ERI is likely to retard the development of more sophisticated critiques and effective interventions to combat anti-Roma racism. Rather than at the European level, it would be better to invest in national networks for studying the reasons for and challenging prejudice and discrimination in the states and societies where Roma people live.

While its ideology may lead to the ERI having a harmful impact on the theory and practice of the fight against hostility towards Roma, it could more prosaically damage perceptions of Roma by failing as an organisation. Corruption and dishonesty, notably through the misuse of monies is not unknown and has damaged the reputation of Roma activists and activism. There is no reason to believe that the ERI will be corrupt, but it has some common risk factors such as dependence on limited sources of external funding and ambiguity of method and mission. More broadly, the ERI maintains a basic weakness of many Roma organisations in lack of accountability to those in whose name it acts.

Factionalism is another  way in which the ERI could contribute to a negative perception of Roma political claims. Donor dependence and absence of popular support make Roma organisations easy to manipulate so that they serve the interests of their masters more than Roma people. One has to admire the brass neck of those who claim the ERI is some watershed in Roma control, when not only are there already  many organisations run by Roma people, but also because this is so obviously not the case for the ERI, which will be entirely dependent on meeting the expectations of its sponsors. The proposed ERI appears to conform to rather than challenge the long historical tradition of imposing compliant Roma leaders on communities to maintain the status quo.

Another area of concern is the ERI’s contribution to nationalism. This is a difficult issue as so much of Roma politics is rooted in the idea of bringing Roma together in one politically recognisable entity, a political community regardless of how loosely integrated. With its mission to showcase Roma culture and create a positive public image for Roma, the ERI will inevitably have to confront the question of who and what is or isn’t Roma. Of course, the ERI would not have a monopoly on these matters, though its distinguished status derived from its relationship with the Council of Europe would affect its influence. Yet, this status links it to a particular conception of Roma, an explicitly political conception that most vaguely and inclusively defines Roma, which has been most influentially promoted by the Council of Europe (as it provides unique governance opportunities).

The political role of the ERI is underlined by its policy analysis and advice role and though one would expect that the ERI would defend its main sponsor’s vision of who the Roma are, so it is worth considering whether the construction of an administratively convenient EuRoma nation is really a good idea and even harmful to Roma people? Nationalism has both progressive and regressive characteristics and the claim that people deemed to be Roma belong to their own political community has  different significance across Europe. In some countries there is widespread dislike of ‘the Roma’ and regular politicised hostility, not only from the far right. The institutionalisation of the EuRoma nation would not necessarily empower Roma people in their national and local struggles, but would certainly provide an ideological legitimacy to their exclusion.

As well as providing the cultural narrative to the EuRoma nation, the ERI would also contribute to exclusion through the creation of Roma political institutions. Admittedly, the Council of Europe has sponsored the ERTF since 2004, and its coincidental spurning of the aspirationally democratic ERTF for the unashamedly elitist ERI tells its own story. The issue with the ERI is also timing. Since 2011 the EU has sought to clarify the relationship between the European and national level by emphasising the responsibility of Member States for the treatment of their Roma citizens. The role of European intuitions is to facilitate and support, but not to deliver or take responsibility. There are many faults with the EU Roma Framework, but its fundamental idea of focusing on national action and accountability is profoundly important. Yet the ERI directly contradicts this principle, institutionalising European level Roma governance. I am not so much concerned with the specific impact of the ERI itself, but that it sets a precedent for the proliferation of European Roma intuitions into the future.

I appreciate that many people have high hopes of European influence on domestic Roma institutions, but I believe that European Roma governance will not work, indeed that it can be understood as a displacement activity. The EU has recognised that all the changes that need to occur to improve the lives and opportunities of Roma people have to take place within national states and societies, be initiated,  undertaken, legislated for or regulated by domestic authorities and socially and culturally embedded in the communities in which Roma people live. Anything at the European level can only be a means to the end of national reform. European Roma governance misdirects attention (Roma activism) to where power isn’t and away from where it should be focussed.

The most fundamental risk inherent in the whole politicisation of Roma identity is that raising the political profile of Roma without effectively addressing the associated social problems leads to increased hostility towards Roma people and identity. Unfortunately  there is a tendency towards this as it is much easier and cheaper to integrate Roma identity into public discourse than to drive through economic and institutional reform.  It is worth considering why the Council of Europe’s Secretariat is so keen to create a separate Roma institution on behalf of a body that is  led by minsters from national governments and overseen by parliamentarians of national legislatures i.e. precisely those who have the political power and means to advocate for and implement domestic reforms, but who seem to be conspicuously unable to achieve much progress when it comes to improving the living standards and life chances of so many of the people they label as Roma.

As currently proposed the ERI would be an elitist neoliberal institution that further promotes a convenient symbolic politics at the expense of one based on realising the rights Roma people already have as citizens.

References

For the documents referred to in the text you can consult our Chronology http://romanistudies.eu/news/eri-chronology/

For more details on the Alliance for the European Roma Institute visit the Facebook page: https://www.facebook.com/AllianceforERI

Introduction

The alarming proliferation of ‘campi nomadi’ (nomad camps) in Italy intensifies the urgency of analysing their internal mechanism and the complex relation between all the parties [1]; ‘camp dwellers’, government agencies and Civil Society organisations [CSOs][2], involved in their production and reification. To arrive at an adequate appreciation of this nexus, the three components of what has been termed the ‘camps system’ have been analysed separately. This approach helped to pinpoint how they have combined to produce a hegemonic perspective on Romani issues, which yields a simplistic binary interpretation of a complex and dynamic phenomenon: Romanies are generally viewed as either victims or threats, narrowing the range of responses to charity or hostility.

Only in recent years a growing awareness regarding the agency of camp inhabitants has re-emerged more consistently after a period in which an ‘encamped life’ was at times associated to Agamben’s (1998) ‘bare life’ and Foucault’s (1977) ‘biopolitics’. Nevertheless, scholars are still hesitant in developing a current of study looking specifically at camps, not only as ‘resistance sites’, but more broadly as ‘all-inclusive systems’, where interacting and interdependent agents form an integrated whole. Through in-depth analysis of this specific socio-political context I was able to observe the existence of a democratic deficit in the way these actors operate and co-operate with each other: competition and antagonisms, corruption, lack of transparency and accountability, and inefficiencies have all contributed over the years to producing and maintaining the present living situation of the Romani peoples.

Italian Government

Instead of building capacity and autonomy among the Romani minority groups, the Italian institutions chose to adopt an approach that produces and replicates the opposite effect, implementing policies which are completely centred on the institutionalisation of the Romanies in ‘camps’. A number of scholars have already criticised this strategy arguing that the situation of the Romanies, both locally and nationally, is an issue characterised by political bipartisanship. ‘Camp dwellers’ and ‘campi nomadi’ can be understood as liminal subjects and spaces, whose relationship with institutions, CSOs and mainstream society is best characterised by Agamben’s (1998) notion of ‘inclusive exclusion’. Romanies are neither included, nor absolutely excluded. They have a distinctive place within Italian society. Millions of euro are spent every year on Romani-related issues. This has become a huge business involving hundreds of employees, in public and private sectors alike. On the one hand the government invests significant sums in supposed ‘inclusion’ projects; on the other it keeps promoting the ‘politica dei campi’ (camps policy), forced evictions and emergency measures.

The 2008 ‘Nomad Emergency’ and 2012 ‘National Strategy’ represent the clearest examples of the contradictory approach adopted by public institutions. The Italian Government, responding to a European Union request, introduced several measures to tackle the causes of marginalisation and social exclusion of Romanies. Their condition was defined as a ‘humanitarian emergency’ (Sigona, 2009, p. 277) and a ‘humanitarian problem’ (Clough Marinaro & Daniele, 2011, p. 621). The humanitarian construction of the measures towards the Romanies turned them in something acceptable within strategies of control. This goes well together with van Baar’s (2014) ‘reasonable anti-Gypsyism’. In other words, the belief that they would otherwise be involved in ‘illegal’ practices that could harm ‘our’ rights and freedoms justifies a differential treatment of the Romanies (van Baar, 2015). Their implementation, though, was in the end rather ineffective or even counterproductive. The first type of intervention portrayed Romani issues merely as a security matter. The second type, instead, which aimed at transcending the emergency phase and finding valid alternatives to the ‘camps policy’, neither had any influence over institutional attitudes nor did it increase the involvement of Romani representative bodies.

CSOs/Third Sector

In the last two decades neither the ‘State’ nor the ‘market’ has coped with changes in the demographic structure that have generated demands for new services (Barbetta, 2000). So CSOs — also known as ‘Terzo Settore’ (Third Sector) – sprang up in response to these demands (which usually involved health care, educational, recreational and cultural services). The rise of what has been defined as a ‘welfare mix’ brought about not only greater involvement of non-profit organisations in welfare politics, but also the establishment of informal arrangements between public authorities and CSOs which were mediated by political patronage (Ranci, 1994, p. 247). Despite the fact these organisations are contracted by local governments through a system of public bidding which in the 2000s became more transparent (Patanè, 2003), a proportion of public procurement notices continues to conceal the existence of special agreements rooted in political patronage (Fazzi, 2011; Springhetti, 2009).

Because of the financial and economic crisis, particularly in the last decade, public resources towards the social sector have been constantly decreasing at the expense of service quality. This had direct repercussions for Third Sector organizations, since local institutions kept outsourcing their work to them. This situation, together with increasing pressure towards cost rationalisation and growing competition (often as a consequence of lowest bid auction mechanisms; Springhetti, 2009), confirmed theses about Third Sector’s dependency on public institution, with isomorphic behaviours as side effects (Di Maggio & Powell 1983; Lori, 2011; Federico, 2012). This led to a dichotomous behaviour enacted by the sub-contracted agents working within ‘nomad camps’: on the one hand, contestation of government policies; on the other hand, compliance with government requirements. Many of these organisations have become self-referential. They often have no or very little time for Romani voices: their own interests and survival have become their main priorities.

As a concluding remark, both the CSOs involved in the ‘camps system’ and the city council departments seldom publish the results of their activities or try to generate a better understanding of the Romanies’ plight. It was thus very difficult to gain a clear understanding of the way institutions and CSOs operate. A lack of official reports, and other studies detailing budgets, objectives, strategies and outcomes, made it impossible to evaluate these organisations scientifically via the elaboration of empirical indices.

The Romani ‘camp dwellers’

A number of authors have described the condition of the ‘Romanies of the camps’ in Italy as institutionalised within a system of ‘patrol and surveillance’. The encampments have been conceptualised as physical spaces where Roma were ‘forced to live’ (Rossi, 2010); as ‘non luogo’ (no man’s land; Bravi & Sigona, 2006), a place whose purpose was to confine the ‘Other’ and where individuals lost their sense of self; as a ‘total institution’ that dehumanised Romanies, leaving them with no real opportunity to be included within Italian society (Nicola, 2011). The camp thus produced and replicated the idea of the Romanies as ‘a “monstrous hybrid’ of humanity and bestiality’ (Todesco 2004, Piasere 2006, cited in Solimene 2013, p. 171) which in turn has served the purpose of justifying the implementation of exceptional measures.

The picture that emerges from the work of Asséo (1989), Piasere (2005) and Calabrò (2008), and more recently from Clough Marinaro (2015), Sigona (2015) Daniele (2011a, 2011b) and Solimene (2012, 2013), reminds us that Romanies should not be regarded as voiceless and passive victims of a hostile society. By drawing upon Wacquant’s (2011) analysis of the ‘ghetto’ as a Janus-faced institution of ethnoracial closure, Clough Marinaro (2015) recognises Rome’s institutional camps’ function as a protective shield, which fosters ‘active forms of identification, resistance, and mobilization from within’ (p. 11). Although relations between the State, the CSOs and the Romani residents are shaped by an unequal struggle, the opposition between ‘rulers’ and ‘ruled’ gives rise to a cycle of power and resistance. Using Foucault’s (1990) words: ‘Where there is power, there is resistance’ (p. 95).

This study confirms Foucauldian’s interpretation of the ‘camp’. This is not just an exogenous institutional means of control and segregation but also an endogenous tool of resistance to government assimilative efforts, which produces self-ghettoisation as a side effect. Over the years the ‘campi nomadi’ have become a ‘battlefield’, an arena of conflict between Romanies (the ‘Gypsy’) and non-Romanies (the ‘Gadje’); not productive space for conflict from which valid solutions could emerge, but rather a site where oppressor and oppressed form and crystallise their own identities as homogenous entities, each in opposition to the other.

Final observations

The Romani experience in Italy constitutes a case unique in the European context, as Italy is the only country whose official policy is to institutionalise its Romani population inside urban ‘ghettos’ (Clough Marinaro, 2009). Analysing this context reveals a series of anomalies resulting from the simultaneous interplay of several agencies. The growing attention to Romani-related issues, both nationally and internationally, led to the establishment of a complex system that a range of actors found appetising: private and public, left- and right-wing political alignments, Romanies and non-Romanies. The Romanies’ current situation has thus been produced by a mix of interrelated factors: a highly politicised issue characterised by bipartisan convergence; the CSOs’ dependence on welfare and an incapacity to act in the interests of its Romani beneficiaries; and, finally, a failure to understand the attitude of the Romani peoples as an act of ‘resistance’.

It can be useful here to think at the situation of Romanies in the context of the Italian approach to cultural diversity. Although in the last few decades the Italian population has become increasingly diverse, Italy can be hardly defined a multicultural society, a concept and a model that are rather missing (Allievi, 2010). The Italian approach to cultural diversity rather oscillates between a well-rooted ethnocentric monoculturalism and an underdeveloped discourse around interculturalism. This paradigm has become a ‘trendy’ concept and been adopted by local authorities and CSOs, particularly within the school system. Yet, intercultural rhetoric, especially in relation to the social inclusion of the Romani peoples, has been too often used automatically and uncritically. Romanies, particularly those living in camps, are generally seen as exogenous elements in Italian society and are expected either to assimilate to the dominant culture or to be removed/expelled, in the worst case.

Although interculturalism has the merit of promoting genuine cross-cultural relations, through dialogue, confrontation, and, most importantly, reciprocal re-configuration of one’s own beliefs and identity, the prevailing trend in Italy is rather the defence of a catholic, monocultural national identity (Allievi, 2010). In addition, the country is still ‘struggling with the overall social inclusion project’ (McSweeney 2011, p. 4). With specific regards to the Romani peoples, it is in place an open conflict which has been ongoing for centuries between ‘Gadje’ and ‘Zingari’. Both of them keep constructing and reifying a strong sense of belonging in opposition to the other. This is accentuated by the fact that Romani peoples do not get the possibility to fully retain and promote their own identity. In fact, a number of institutional ‘roadblocks’ are lessening the possibility of bringing about real change: among others, the lack of cultural recognition as a historico-linguistic minority, the lack of comprehensive national legislation covering Romani issues, a tendency to classify Romani peoples as ‘nomads’, the constant sinking of public funds into the construction and operation of ‘ghetto camps’ rather than permanent housing, and a determination to deny Romanies all opportunity of making decisions for themselves.

Public funds are basically used to promote a ‘fake’ inclusion (Massimiliano Fiorucci, personal communication, December 20, 2011). If the Italian Government does not first address the specific limits of its legislative and cultural framework, all other measures are doomed to fail, and an emergency stance will be the only option. Jiménez Lobeira (2014, p. 398) argues that only a truly liberal and democratic public realm, ‘which is in principle open, plural, inclusive, substantively and normatively neutral, will make the task of building mutual recognition, intercultural exchange, equality, solidarity, and eventually a common political identity, possible’. The recognition and accommodation of minority ethnocultural groups becomes thus fundamental. In this sense, supporting a ‘politics of difference’ will provide certain individuals with a differential treatment, enhancing their freedom to be treated on an equal ground with individuals who are not discriminated against by the general norm. Instead, the incapacity for an individual to be given such a right would harm out-group relationships in favour of in-group connectedness.

As a way to conclude this very brief overview of the complex mechanism of the ‘camps system’, I argue that the Italian government needs to reaffirm its commitment to the promotion of cultural diversity, valorizing immigration and multiculturality as valuable resources. The choice to invest more efficiently on inter-cultural practices might represent a valuable solution for reducing a reciprocal racial hatred. However, the premises for an equal and mutual dialogue are still missing. The relation between Italian majority and Romani minorities is clearly unbalanced. My aim is not to reject the intercultural theory per se, but its future implementation as an official approach to cultural diversity depend on the recognition that at the moment its foundation lays on very unstable grounds.

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Notes

[1] This paper presents some of the findings of my PhD thesis, titled Romanies in Italy: From National ‘Emergency’ to National ‘Strategy’ in Rome’s ‘Campi Nomadi’. This study focuses on the city of Rome and provides an investigation of the interactions between Romanies, local institutions and Civil Society organisations.

[2] This term refers to a wide range of actors from various organisational and juridical settings: community groups, non-governmental organizations (NGOs), labor unions, indigenous groups, charitable organizations, faith-based organizations, professional associations, and foundations (World Bank 2013).

Riccardo Armillei is Associate Research Fellow to the UNESCO Chair, Comparative Research in Cultural Diversity and Social Justice, Alfred Deakin Research Institute for Citizenship and Globalisation, Faculty of Arts & Education, Melbourne Burwood Campus, Australia.

[First published on the Blog page of the Coalition for Racial Equality and Rights, 1 April 2015: http://www.crer.org.uk/crerblog/entry/culture-confidence-and-community-the-new-european-roma-institute-eri ]

On March 26^th George Soros, founder and chairman of the Open Society Foundations, and Thorbjørn Jagland, secretary-general of the Council of Europe published a co-authored article entitled ‘Why we are setting up a European Roma Institute’ (Soros and Jagland, 2015).

Although less than 700 words in length, this European Voice article contains the foundations and promise of a symbolic and actual paradigm shift for up to 12 million Romani lives and livelihoods. The authors point out that although at the heart of Europe, the diffuse Romani communities spread across the territory have been denied an institution that can strategically and sensitively convey and represent heterogeneous issues of Romani culture, identity and politics.

The time has now come, argue Soros and Jagland, to change this reality: social exclusion and economic deprivation must transform into meaningful opportunity and material outcomes across areas of art, politics, music, life. The European Roma Institute, they suggest, is the vehicle to deliver this. At heart, this is the radical and fundamental paradigm shift that has been a long time coming in Romani Studies. The promise must now become reality.

How would the Institute do this in practice? The remit would be broad yet focussed – an educational role will be one of the primary means to enable a ‘chipping away’ at centuries-old anti-Romani stereotypes and prejudice that continue to plight communities whether in Slovenia, Scotland or Slovakia. A concern for Romani self-esteem and consciousness/confidence building is also raised as pivotal to the Institute’s work and it is self-evident that in challenging and questioning gadjo (non-Roma) power this is important ‘social capital’ for Romani individuals and families to possess.

Who has the power and platform to narrate or even translate Romani stories and experience is important they argue – and for too long this has rested only in the hands of (often well-meaning) non-Romani scholars, activists and politicians. The creation of the Institute will act as a beacon, and learning platform, for Romani children of future generations to look towards with hope and aspirations, as well as ‘belonging and pride’. It is an Institute by Roma for Roma, in all shades, colours and schemes.

It is true that vaguely similar initiatives, at a nation-state level, have been attempted before but too often in a way that has been tokenistic and lacking any kind of joined-up thinking and genuine political will. The Institute will reach out across the boundaries of European society to try and join together, in a strategic, non-partisan and rational way, some of the existing dots. It cannot shy away from the existing social, economic and political issues that urgently need to be faced. This is an example of where transnational action and determination must trump national stagnation and ineptitude.

Although Roma-led, the Institute is an amalgamation of ideas and inputs from the Open Society and the Council of Europe, as well as a new body – the Alliance for the European Roma Institute. Funding is secure for a five year start-up period and will help propel Romani communities into the European spotlight in a very different way to the usual negative associations that are illuminated. Aside from its creative and arts focus, it will also advise the Council of Europe on matters of political and economic substance whereby Romani educators, activists and representatives will for once take control of the stage, microphones and cameras.

At a local level, for the various Romani communities living and working in Scotland, what would this Institute mean? There are at least four immediate and practical steps that could be taken, in my view:

• To sponsor a local ERI ‘hub’ or centre, mostly likely in Glasgow, that local Romani populations can manage and use to undertake the kinds of creative arts and confidence-building activities envisaged by Soros and Jagland. Such work could build on the initiatives already undertaken by an existing Roma-led NGO based in Govanhill, Romano Lav (Roma Voice).
• To fund and nurture the advancement of Romani students at local Universities and colleges, especially in fields of law, economics, humanities, engineering and sciences.
• To develop opportunities for genuine Roma and non-Roma intercultural cooperation, working together on shared-projects within local communities with an aim to enhance quality of life for all residents (e.g. Such as the successful ‘Clean Green Team’ project which aimed to deal with issues of environment/recycling).
• To work in partnership with local public, private and voluntary sector agencies to challenge some of the systematic and prevalent anti-Roma stereotypes and prejudices that routinely feature in print and broadcast media.

Of course, time will tell what the Institute can deliver on and, as ever, the devil will be in the detail. Cynics and sceptics will doubtless have their say and pour cold water on an initiative that has not even properly taken form yet. Indeed, it is rather disappointing that the European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF) has declined to offer its backing and support at this point in time, citing the focus on arts and culture as problematic – in a policy sense –  as well as the European rather than nation-state focus of the Institute’s proposed work (ERTF, 2015).

However, as an opening salvo, the statement by Soros and Jagland is encouraging, optimistic and we might say even ‘visionary’. These are all elements that have been absent far too long in the lives of the majority of Europe’s Romani populations. In short, it is time for gadjo Empires to fall and new Romani paradigms to be built.

References:

European Roma and Travellers Forum (ERTF) (2015) ‘The Position of the European Roma and Travellers Forum on the European Roma Institute (ERI) to counter prejudices against Roma, Sinti and Kale by promoting research about their culture and history’. Press Release. 30-03-15. http://www.ertf.org/images/Letters/ERTF_Position_on_ERI.pdf (accessed 31-03-15)

Soros, G. and Jagland, T. (2015) ‘Why we are setting up a European Roma Institute’, European Voice, 26-03-15. http://www.europeanvoice.com/other-voices/why-we-are-setting-up-a-european-roma-institute/ (accessed 31-03-15)

It might have appeared a bit like a Hollywood drama about the rich and powerful pulling the strings behind the scenes, except that the topic was, supposedly, how to empower Europe’s weakest and most marginalised nation – the Roma. Over the past year negotiations have been taking place between the Council of Europe and a small group of activists who claimed the title “Roma elite”. Backed by the Open Society Foundations (OSF), the formidable civil society enterprise led by billionaire philanthropist George Soros, the group drew up plans for a European Roma Institute (ERI). It would, they said, “license” research on Romani culture and ensure that the dissemination of information on Europe’s largest ethnic minority would be “Roma-led”.

Following the first announcement in April 2014, governments were sceptical, as were many Romani political representatives and academic experts. To many, the group was unfamiliar, with no established track record of local leadership, little experience in cultural management, and no academic publications to their names. But they claimed a connection to Romani ancestry and they seemed to have powerful friends. The proposal then disappeared from the public eye, only to return again in the following year. Pre-empting a discussion at the Council of Europe’s Parliamentary Assembly and a formal consultation with member states planned for 31 March 2015, Council of Europe Secretary General Thorbjørn Jagland lent his name to a joint statement with George Soros on 26 March 2015, announcing the creation of a European Roma Institute. The first sentence of their comment read: “For more than four decades Europe’s Roma community have wanted to establish an institution that would give their music, art and unique traditions their own stage”. The text was accompanied on the OSF website by a photo of Romani musicians playing violins and guitars. It went on to promise that the institute would not only educate about Roma culture but also act as policy advisor to the Council of Europe and member states. Dozens of OSF-grantees from Sweden to Ghana hurried to replicate the statement on Twitter. There was some bewilderment among the rank and file in the Council of Europe, where diplomacy usually means adherence to protocol and arms twisting is usually kept away from the public eye. Why the rush and the aggressive promotion campaign?

Two Council of Europe projects on Roma come to a formal end this spring. The first is an agreement with an umbrella organisation of Romani NGOs known as the European Roma and Travellers Forum. It was set up in 2004 and was considered a historic breakthrough, for it granted Roma, for the very first time, consultative status in a European political organisation. The Forum has made some adversaries due to its reluctance to support the Council of Europe’s growing role as a contractor of “mediation” projects for Roma, which, it said, were self-serving and did little to support participation or combat exclusion. A second venture, arguably of less importance, is a network of academic experts initiated by the Council of Europe to make research on Roma more accessible to policy makers – the European Academic Network on Romani Studies. This too triggered discomfort among managers who feared that their projects might come under unwelcome scrutiny. Also ending is the Decade of Roma Inclusion, an initiative of ten eastern European states launched and co-sponsored by George Soros. It faces criticism for leaving little by means of a legacy save a generation of Roma activists who are about to lose their jobs in dedicated NGOs.

ERI is a quick fix: It offers a handful of jobs to a group of people who present themselves as Roma, and it gives Soros an impressive impact legacy within the heart of Europe’s political establishment. It rids the Council of Europe of the burden of an untameable Roma representation in the midst of its corridors and protects it from prying academics. Intended or not, it also downgrades Romani participation, from a consultative role on human rights, to artistic performance – such is the imagery transmitted by the Jagland and Soros commentary; the musical stage is the one place where Europe has always been content to embrace its Gypsies. All this is happening to the cheers of those who see ERI as a “Roma-led” initiative and therefore as a triumph for emancipation and empowerment – a perfect alibi.

The danger is that the identity-politics will come at the expense of open debate and academic freedom. In order to legitimise itself, ERI seems to be on overt confrontation course both with Romani grassroots activists and especially with academics specialising in Romani studies. It is guided by the philosophy that self-ascribed ancestry should override formal qualification. Discussions among its supporters on social media are full of aggression against the supposed “power monopoly” of researchers who have spent their careers educating the public about Roma and supporting calls for Romani rights. Their discourse resembles what Canadian anthropologists Frances Widdowson and Albert Howard describe as native participation in an Aboriginal Industry: As funded projects on Roma proliferate, individuals who self-ascribe as Roma are given incentives to aspire to influential positions if they use their “authenticity” to provide projects with the legitimacy that they require. There is a real risk that ERI will not only decorate Europe’s strategy of marginality-management toward Roma, but that in the process it will seek to control information and knowledge; that it will sanction ideas as scientific if they are put forward by those who claim Romani ancestry while trying to ban any enquiry that questions those ideas; and that in this way it will end up marginalising the study of Romani culture rather than affording it the respect and the rigour that it deserves.

The Council of Europe once had a reputation for spearheading human rights causes and for drawing on evidence to formulate policies. It should seek to re-gain that reputation, not sacrifice it in the name of political correctness.

Yaron Matras is coordinator of the MigRom project and author of ‘I met lucky people: The story of the Romani Gypsies’.

As we approach the end of the Second Cycle of the Network project I though it would be interesting to see how far we are with building the Network and connecting the different nodes.

This is a visualization of the distribution of the Network members worldwide. You can zoom to resize the map using the + and – signs on the top left. You can also drag the map to reposition it or search for a particular country or city tying into the search window on the right.

If we look at the distribution of the membership by localities a more detailed view is available.

The distribution of Facebook likes (more than 1,300) of the Network Facebook page is the following.

Dear colleagues,

I thought to share with you the text below written by a Roma girl, who won the first place at the essay completion at the International Roma Day in Bulgaria 2014.  The content of the essay is very touching and I would like to give voice of this little girl that has also participated in my latest research project in Bulgaria. I would very much appreciate if you disseminate it via your networks (below there are also the Bulgarian and Italian language versions).

I remain available for further inquires.

Many thanks in advance and best wishes,
Radosveta Dimitrova, PhD,  COFAS Marie Curie Fellow,  Department of Psychology, Stockholm University

Website: www.radosvetadimitrova.org

One world with common dreams

by Valkana Iliyanova Kostova

Valkana with her parents

The mirror is in front of me. I look at myself and hear the rhythm of a familiar song. I concentrate for a bit to start my essay, as my teacher told me to, and to talk about myself; about my thoughts, my wishes, my small world, but the echo traitorously whispers to me “Gypsy”… a word I have heard so many times behind my back. Yes, I am a Gypsy girl, I live in a Roma neighborhood on a muddy street where it is not uncommon to see a kid and a dog playing together in a pool. To walk barefoot and hungry is part of everyday life. In this place belongings are few but there are many smiles. So I smile and I will begin to tell you about my small world, the world of the Gypsy girl.

With birth, every creature on this earth – a tree or a flower, a bee or a person – has the right to live and to breathe; to grow, to gather sunrays and winds, to dance under the rain, to enjoy the stars above. These intelligent creatures, the people, receive another right – to dream. My dreams are my other world, my internal self, and my plans for the future, my rainbow of hope.

The red color of the rainbow is my wish to be accepted and understood. I have been studying in this school for three years now and we are all Roma kids. Up to now, the others did not know me but now I want them to know me better and to like me. I already have a lot of new friends and I hope they will all come to love me. Orange determines my love for all people on the Earth – independently of the colour of their skin, ‘race’ or religious beliefs. We have to be equal, to understand and love each other. Yellow brings my dreams about what I want to become when I grow older – sometimes a fashion model, sometimes a doctor to help people, sometimes a teacher. Whatever profession I choose, it will be about caring about other people.

Green is my wish to travel around the world – to go to England, France, China and most of all India (it is suggested that this is the place my ancestors came from). I know how beneficial it is to meet new and different people, to find new worlds. Lilac is the hope that people around the world will be happy. There will be no devastating earthquakes, hurricanes, volcano eruptions and floods. We need to follow and respect the laws of nature because nature is our mother protecting us. White is my dream about peace – without people being killed, hurt, suffering or lonely.

This is how, on my horizon, a fully-colored rainbow appears. This rainbow brings peace, hope, well-being, love and understanding. All colours are merging into the blue one – the colour of faith. People have to believe in their dreams and fight to achieve them. Our dreams and wishes are different, our ideas and goals are different. Piece by piece they build our world, give it a meaning and help it develop. Dreams do not have an ethnic belonging. They are the flight of the thought and the soul. The mirror is in front of me but I do not need it anymore. My glance escapes outside the window. It starts raining. The rain is pouring down on the muddy street. The sun is trying to reach out of the cloud and, out of its rays, the water drops on my window and they are shining in the colours of my rainbow – the rainbow of hope. This is the rainbow of the Gypsy girl.

Valkana Iliyanova Kostova

Varshez, Bulgaria, Middle school “Ivan Vasov”, 7^th grade

See also the original Bulgarian version and the Italian translation.

The EU began to take an interest in Roma when Western countries felt threatened by Roma migrations. The century-old fear of an influx of Gypsies became packaged as a concern for their human rights. Now we have an EU mechanism of sorts and an ideology to go with it: Alongside a manifesto on preventing discrimination and facilitating employment, housing, and education, the EU Council recommendation from December 2013 calls attention to Roma as a threat to others — by asking for transnational coordination to control Roma migration; and to themselves — by foregrounding issues of child trafficking, safeguarding and forced marriage. Reminiscent of Emperor Joseph II’s edict on the Regulation of the Gypsies from 1782, the EU wants Roma to be productive citizens, but it also wants to continue to contain their movements and to pathologise their culture.

Member states responded to the EU’s call for National Strategies with an array of evasive statements. But most notable of all is the failure to agree on a definition of the target group. For some they are citizens and thus indistinguishable from the majority; for others they are migrants and so one of many groups of alien nationals. Some define them as the poor and socially deprived; others as those who own a caravan and take to the road on a seasonal basis (but remain distinct from the majority ethnicity who spend a holiday on a trailer park). The phrase that Eurocrats set and many post-modernist scholars repeat is that ‘Roma’ is merely a ‘generic cover term’. European policy on Roma has become a kind of politically correct license to continue to conceptualise ‘Gypsies’ as a lifestyle rather than an ethnic minority.

Now, there are several governments that have not subscribed to the National Strategy pact. One in particular has recently come under criticism from lobbyists. One might view the UK’s position on this issue as part of an overall distant stance toward Europe. But at least within the UK civil service, it is not general reluctance to participate in European enterprises that drives the sceptical approach to Roma Integration Strategies, but a feeling that a well-established practice in the UK makes the new programme redundant. The UK, it is argued, prides itself in a whole range of good practice examples for social inclusion. A heavy hand against discrimination coupled with a gentle touch to support multiculturalism, they say, does the trick.

Surely, there are issues. The Dale Farm evictions in 2011 highlighted the structural desperation of Britain’s Gypsy and Traveller population. Despite many years of dedicated support by a special Traveller Education Service, segregation remains a problem in education. A government-backed Gypsy, Roma and Traveller History Month is an annual event that celebrates these minorities and their cultures, but it continues to confuse both outsiders and community members in insisting that all those considered ‘nomads’ must have a shared heritage. Roma migrants in Britain have regular access to housing, health care and education, more so than in most western countries. Yet we saw quite a bit of scaremongering in the aftermath of the release of a report by researchers at Salford in 2013 that tried to inflate the number of Roma in order to make a case for more funding for the voluntary sector.

The question is, could all these issues be resolved or even alleviated by getting the UK government to adopt a National Roma Integration Strategy? While the ultimate answer is anybody’s guess, we do, with the benefit of two years’ hindsight, now have at a least a germ of experimental conditions to be able to form an assessment: We can compare the situation in those countries that do have a strategy, with those that don’t.

The EU’s report from April 2014 on the implementation of the Strategies provides curious reading in that respect. Many examples of progress are provided, but there is no evidence whatsoever that any of them are directly linked to a National Strategy. To cite just one example in my own area of expertise, Romania is highlighted as having introduced a programme to train Romani language teachers. But this programme has been in place since the early 1990s. To cite another, the use of Roma mediators in various countries is praised; but this is largely the work of the Council of Europe’s Romed project, inspired by, but structurally independent of the Strategies.

So in effect, the EU’s National Strategies have so far been nothing but a reporting mechanism. It is open to reports on any activities that target Roma, whether new or well established. Effectively, it’s about raising awareness and entering into discussions, being able to praise good practice and to name and shame those who are lagging behind. In that respect, as long as a member state files its report, it doesn’t matter whether it formally has a National Strategy or not. The UK’s examples of good practice are just as valid as those of other countries, and its policy flaws are just as serious as those of others.

So who cares about National Strategies? The EU report from April 2014 bitterly complains that EU money is available that is not being claimed by the states to support Roma. It literally begs governments to beg for more money. This has caught the attention of third sector agencies in the UK who are keen to play a role in filling the gaps that austerity has created in local authority resources. Money for Roma, whether needed or not, will help them secure their jobs. A commitment by the government to National Strategies, they believe, could be cashed in the form of massive grants to help them run their networks and operations. To that end, they need to show an urgent need to expand their support measures: a huge influx of Roma, hitherto undetected, or a risk of children going missing without parental care. For this they need evidence, and so they try to enlist experts to support their cause. Academics should reflect carefully before lending their name to such an exercise.

Yaron Matras is coordinator of the MigRom project and author of ‘I met lucky people: The story of the Romani Gypsies’