The Roma Expulsions

Bob Hitching lives in Budapest and runs the Roma Bible Union with his wife Nancy. He is available to visit Churches in Europe sharing how outreach models to the Roma can be developed. www.RomaBible.com


The recent forced repatriation of Roma from France to Bulgaria and Romania has put the issue of both Roma rights and alleged French Right Wing xenophobia in general into the foreground of EU social cohesion policy as well as creating a frenzy of media activity..

The issue at stake is the expulsion approximately 1200 Roma from illegal camps in Southern Central France to Bulgaria and Romania in recent weeks. This has been exercised in part by Presidential decree by Nicolas Sarkozy

The reaction from Roma Rights groups has been strong and the Media have given significant coverage which in turn has created a series of protests from the Left leaning groups in France to sympathy protests across Europe.

Viviane Reding of the European Commission added an institutional twist to the saga by making a reference to Europe not seeing this type of action since the Second World War. This in turn has helped the French government at the popular level as the Commissions criticism, which will now take the form of an inquiry, has angered main stream French society.

This whole set events is taking on a life of its own and from a media standpoint will have many future twists and turns to keep the coverage alive and ongoing.

For our purposes in this short piece we need to unpack some of the key and salient facts and then seek to draw some conclusions that may assist in our response to this case and the many more that will come in the future.

In the second week of July 2010, Luigi Duquenet was shot dead in his car in Saint-Aignan in France's Loire Valley. Luigi was from a traveller community well known in the small French town. The official report suggests that Luigi had failed to stop at a Police road block, hit a policeman with his car and was then shot dead by other police men who came to the assistance of the injured officer. As a result a mob of Roma travellers attacked the police station. The news created a massive reaction within the French media which in turn led to a series of policies being implemented to “clean up” the Roma problem. The Icon of the Roma problem was the existence of illegal East European Roma settlements which were alleged to be nests of prostitution, begging and crime.

Perhaps the most important issue in this whole affair is that Luigi Duquenet is from the French Romany people who are culturally very different from the East Europeans who were expelled. In some senses one would not be considered cynical for accusing the French government of using a French Traveller issue to deal with the East European Roma problem that they perceive exists.

There are several issues between the lines that are important.


Categories and Definitions

In reality there is little in common between the Saint-Aignan Traveller community and the East European Roma communities that were deported. The reality is that the groups actually despise each other for different reasons. The travellers have lived in France for many generations and are in general accepted as a part of French pluralistic culture. This does not mean that Western French main stream society has affection for  the travellers. It does mean though they have been part of the French ethos for generations.

The immigrant Roma communities from the East are those who have begun to seek economic opportunity in the EU since the last expansion of the EU eastwards. The Roma from the East are generally broken down into groups and sub groups that are defined by language, culture and vocation. The Kalderash, the Lovari, the Arli, the Erli and the Gubet would be the meta groups from the East with each of those breaking down into sub groups and local clans.

In some senses general categories like Roma or Rrom can be helpful but we need to go much deeper especially in the current situation. In this case it would be like the Finnish community in Berlin being expelled because the Swedish community in Frankfurt had a riot.

The French government needs to be very careful not to use the  Saint-Aignan Traveller community riot as PR exercise to move along the East European Roma. The average French citizen can be excused for buying into the simplicity of media definitions but professional policy makers can not be.

Little is served by finger pointing at this stage and the wheels of Euro J'accuse are functioning well without my added comment. The critical issue is how do we as Church communities respond not just to this situation but to the reality of the Roma in our midst in general. Hopefully the following thoughts may be of assistance.

East European Roma Cultures

There is no one Roma culture in the East. It is in fact a diverse interweaving of world views belief systems and moral codes. It is therefore simplistic to define the Roma as a monolithic people group. Yet whilst saying that one could speak generally by saying that nearly all the Roma cultures of the East are fundamentally different from West European society and that general-isms in this case can be applied when it comes to integration. The following may help in big picture comparisons.

What is hard for Roma Rights groups and other like minded people to deal with is the fact that there are general characteristics to Roma cultures that are wide spread and sadly socially negative. The temptation is to sanctify those who are persecuted by virtue of their persecution. To do so in theses cases is a mistake. There are in general social behaviour patterns that are not conducive to social cohesion into Western Europe in most of the East European Roma cultures. Obviously, there are all the notable exceptions but they are exceptions.

Survival

Eastern Roma cultures nearly all function on the basis of giving priority to survival over and above codes of conduct. In short, Eastern Roma societies tend strongly to an ethic of survival far more than an ethic of morality. In some ways it is a hyper pragmatism that governs their cultures. That does not mean there are not moral Roma or moral codes because there are. For example the Kalderash community in Sibiu Romania functions at a level of commitment to their moral codes similar to the Jewish Hassidim in Antwerp or London. The point though is that survival is the highest ethic. If begging, prostitution and petty theft are what is required to survive then that ethic of survival will take precedence over local norms of law and morality.

This issue of survival is key. Policies need to be implemented that create within the Roma communities a “felt sense of survival”. For example, if Roma are told that if they want to live in a community their children will have to go to school because it is the law the concept is considered laughable. When pushed they will submit to survive but constantly look for ways to avoid or manipulate the system.

The tendency though is for the Left to espouse education because we all are worthy of equal opportunity and the Right demands education because it is proper, decent and the law. Both extremes are irrelevant to the Eastern Roma.

If a Roma family can grasp that education for their children will mean the possibility of greater survival for the family the concept can be understood. This is an area where Church groups can be involved in getting this message out and into the communities.


Trust

The second area looking at the Eastern Roma in very general terms is the role of trust. West European, especially Northern European society still functions with trust as being a central plank of the culture. At first this seems hard to grasp but when one compares it to Roma culture where a defining factor is the absence of trust one realises how there are still strong vestiges of trust within western European social consensus.

The most obvious expression of this trust is in the form of communicating truth. People in Western and Northern European cultures lie but they are usually aware that they have lied and very often associate lies with guilt and as something that is wrong.

The role of truth in East European Roma cultures is more complex. Truth is not so much an ethic as it is an expression of intimacy. Truth is not something one would readily give to a stranger especially a stranger who may use the truth that you have given to violate your survival. Rather truth is something that is granted slowly as trust is built.

It is at this point of breakdown over truth that most NGO's and social workers become cynical. This is an excellent opportunity for the Church community to go the extra mile and work to build foundations of trust.

I often perform surveys in Roma communities to seek to establish who is trusted. It is not a scientific poll but the results are consistent. Roma do not trust each other nor do they trust outsiders. Interestingly, the father in a family is often the object of mistrust whereas the mother is often considered trust worthy. Female Church workers who role play in motherly nurture are often very successful in building trust.

If what I am proposing is true it means that we have to build very sensitive structural relationships within the Roma communities. A common view is that social programmes are not to be trusted and are there to be manipulated for survival.

Relationships where Roma are served by a Christian community in a non programmatic form slowly building trust are without doubt the most effective means of creating avenues of contact.

Hope

In many of the Roma languages there is not a word for hope. The word has to be borrowed from the host culture language to make the point. The absence of hope is built into many Roma cultures religious world view concerning blessing and cursing.

The Bayash Roma community believe they are a cursed race. They have their own anthem and in it they sing about the curse that is on them as a people.

In the camps in France one would say that the most striking attribute of the culture was not crime but rather hopelessness that created an environment of crime.

The role of the Church community in creating models of hope is a critical need.

I often take young Christian Roma who have seen social transformation in their lives into Roma villages to show them as models of hope to those who do not believe they are able to ever rise above the culture of hopelessness.

Pastor Selim Alijevic in Serbia who has a Church of 750 Roma often takes groups of Roma Christians to visit other Roma communities for the purpose of revealing models of hope.

In conclusion, I would suggest there is a role for Church communities to have a significant social transformational impact upon Roma cultures. The three areas of Survival, Trust and Hope are key areas for us to explore as we seek to act as an alternative to the policies of fear and prejudice.

Bob Hitching lives in Budapest and runs the Roma Bible Union with his wife Nancy. He is available to visit Churches in Europe sharing how outreach models to the Roma can be developed. www.RomaBible.com