Yesterday was international Roma day

and so I thought it appropriate to share this, which I wrote some time ago:

The expulsion of Roma people from France is not just an affront to human rights: it is much more important than that

 It challenges the very fabric of the European Union. 

Romani (Roma people) belong to a tribe that originated in India and gradually migrated westwards ending in Europe around the end of the first millennium AD (Hajioff and McKee 2000).  The romantic image of dark-skinned people with curly hair, gold loop earrings and colourful clothing living in painted gypsy caravans is seductive, but this obscures modern realities.  Over the summer of 2010, news media tracked the developing story of the expulsion of Roma people from France, where they were given a plane ticket home and 300 euros in exchange for a signature.  Current evictees from France will also be recorded biometrically, so that they cannot re-enter the country under another name and claim another 300 euros.  Publicly, one may find the story shocking and enjoy a sense of moral superiority over the French along the lines of ‘we don’t do things like that here in ….  (insert name of European country)’.  The uncomfortable truth is that it is not just the French, but many governments in western Europe that are expelling Roma.  This essay will argue that the reasons for such persecution lie in a mismatch between the ideals of the European Union, with its emphasis on free movement of labour and capital, and the realities of the domestic politics of the European member states. 

The recent media focus on France began with President Sarkozy’s pronouncement on Roma and Travellers, following violent exchanges between police and Roma settlers in July 2010 after the police shooting of a Roma youth who failed to stop at a police roadblock.  The government claimed that they were not expelling but repatriating voluntarily, which the 300 euro ‘payment’ seemed to testify.  However, the facts emerging around biometric fingerprinting seem to question the validity of that claim.  These mutual legal infringements create an interesting ambiguity. 

Since their early migration, Romani presence in Europe has been characterised by persecution and oppression, the most significant example being the Nazi Holocaust where approximately 500,000 Roma people were killed (Glenny, 1999).   Today, stigma and negative images are still associated with Roma in a way that the non-governmental organisation Minority Rights Group describe as problematic.  While the romantic myth of nomadism is seductive; labelling Romani as ‘travellers’ may, at best, be regarded as misguided romanticism.   Terms such as ‘gypsy’ and ‘traveller’ are widely used to describe Roma people; but the first of these can be disparaging and the second misleading.  Matras (2000) challenges the use of the term ‘traveller’ to denote Roma people, refuting as myth their reputed nomadism.   He explains that Roma people in Europe are often itinerant workers, who have a home in a particular place, often another European country.   The reality is that Roma people are not nomadic by choice but by necessity, Matras (2000) says.  They migrate for work, or because of discrimination.  Roma people themselves often refuse to identify themselves to authority for fear of persecution.  While this might make the issuing of a work permit difficult; what is worse is it does little to challenge racial stereotyping and confounds the uncertainties about demographics and statistics. 

It is easy to condemn the expulsion of Roma as racial discrimination and to believe that all Roma people’s problems are racially motivated, but campaigners say that this belies the truth that Roma people, as with other minority groups, live differently from the majority of Europeans and their value system is not easy to align to a globalising Europe bent on unification.   Roma people are commonly and mistakenly described as nomadic, and while it can be argued that nomadic lifestyles do not fit easily into a market-driven globalised Europe, the truth is more complex.

Non-governmental organisations (NGOs) such as Amnesty International, the Minority Rights Group (MRG) and the European Roma Rights Centre and other interest groups have criticised France for breaching the European Charter of Fundamental Rights in expelling Roma people.  The Sarkozy government meanwhile asserts that they have merely upheld French law in respect of work permits, illegal settlements and theft.  France is not the only country to have expelled Roma people, but the attention paid to French treatment of Roma people veils the problematic policies of other nations.  Danish policy has also come under scrutiny for sending Roma people back to Romania for what are seen to be minor transgressions of the law for which a Danish national would receive only a fine (eerc.org).  Cahn and Vermeersch (2000) analysed similar events in Belgium and in Slovakia in 2000, and discovered that both governments had submitted to right-wing political pressure.  They highlight the role of the media in stirring up racial hatred and exacerbating the problem. 

These NGOs explain that Roma communities are closely-knit and bound by norms that appear to set them apart from other nationals in the same country.  Stauber and Vago (2007) debate whether this behaviour is a result of the Roma’s own self-image, or if it has developed of necessity in a hostile environment.  As a result, Roma communities exist parallel to, rather than part of, wider communities in their host or home countries.  The Roma themselves exhibit an independence, brought about by marginalisation, that seems to outsiders like an ambivalent disrespect for law and order.  The resulting dissonance explains why social exclusion is a common pattern, and explains, although does not justify, the emergent racial discrimination and persecution.  

What makes the expulsion from France problematic is the fact that Roma people are European citizens, from other European countries.  Petkovski (2010) writing in the Guardian asserts that the majority of Roma presently under threat of expulsion from France are Romanian citizens, and so they are sent back to Romania.  Similar patterns can be seen in countries with large Roma minorities including many of the countries of eastern and central Europe particularly Macedonia, Czech Republic, Romania, Hungary, Serbia and Bulgaria.  With the exception of Macedonia and Serbia, which are accession countries, all the rest are already members of the European Union and are therefore bound by the European Charter of Fundamental Rights.  Countries wishing to join of the European Union are also required to abide by the Charter.

Cahn and Guild (2008) say the problem lies in a mismatch between the discourse of national law addressing immigration, international human rights law, and the rights of citizens of member states as enshrined under European law.    According to the MRG, while Roma rights are enshrined in human rights, Roma people remain the most deprived people of Europe.  They are marginalised in their access public services and are under-represented in public office, even in countries where their numbers make up a significant minority.  Their lack of representation in the police and the judiciary, as well as their poor participation in politics, confirms and entrenches their marginal positions in society.  Thus, when Roma people migrate from eastern to western Europe to find work, they are also evading persecution at home.   The Romanian government’s recent criticism of France’s actions exhibits the double standards implicit in the Roma debate. 

MRG point to an inadequacy in human rights reporting, which tends to focus on Roma people’s limited access to education and health service, as well as to employment, but less so on their (lack of) participation and representation in public life (Bokulic and Kostadinova 2008).  Their lack of job opportunity means that Roma often operate at the margins of the economy; sometimes as market traders or informal labourers without the protection of employment law, and at the same time, exploiting and being exploited by the black economy.  Roma survival strategies thereby inhabit a grey zone where cohesive Roma communities limit their dependence on the wider community, hence exacerbating their own exclusion. 

European expansion offers enhanced opportunities for citizen mobility, but this also brings greater challenges of integration even though strengthened legislation bans discrimination on the basis of race or ethnicity.    In this respect, the Roma expulsion debate actually ignores the central issue.   Cahn and Guild’s (2008) analysis shows that current national policies and law fail to provide an adequate response to the challenges of Roma migration.  These challenges include coping with the sudden arrival of groups of Roma, addressing public anger and dealing with sensationalist media reports.  Thus, it is easy for right-wing media to exacerbate tensions by focusing on problems associated with Roma people and pressing for a harsh political response.  

 If we remain in debates about xenophobia, we come no nearer a sustainable solution with (rather than for) Roma people.  What is needed then is education programmes for Roma as well as non-Roma people, and legal frameworks that are robust enough to accept that one can be both an economic migrant and a refugee from persecution. The education programmes should provide opportunities for Roma people to move out of poverty and engage political life, as well as to help other Europeans to understand that a united Europe is a Europe of diversity.   The criticism levelled at France should also be addressed to Roma people’s home countries, so that their institutionalised discrimination and stigmatization is addressed, at the same time as Roma people’s participation in public life is encouraged and enabled so that their valuable contribution to a Europe worthy of the 21^st century can be realised. 

References

Bokulic S. and Kostadinova G. (2008). Pushing for Change? South East Europe’s Minorities in the EU Progress Reports, Minority Rights Group International.

Cahn C. and Guild E. (2008). Recent Migration of Roma in Europe. OSCE.  High Commissioner on National Minorities.

Cahn C. and Vermeersch P.  (2000). The Group Expulsion of Slovak Roma by the Belgian Government: A Case Study of the Treatment of Romani Refugees in Western Countries. Cambridge Review of International Affairs, 13(2), 71-82.

European Roma Rights Centre. (2010). ERRC Challenges Danish Expulsion of EU Roma.  Downloaded from www.errc.org   21st September 2010

Glenny, M.  (1999). The Balkans, 1804 – 1999: Nationalism, War and the Great Powers.  London: Granta Books.

Hajioff, S. and McKee, M. (2000). The health of the Roma people: a review of the published literature, Journal of Epidemiology and Community Health, 54, 864-9.

Matras, Y. 2000. Romani migrations in the post-communist era: Their historical and political significance. Cambridge Review of International Affairs: 13(2), 32.

Minority Rights Group. 2010. http://www.minorityrights.org/  downloaded from the internet September 2010.

Petkovski, I. (2010). Roma debate involves some hard truths.  Guardian.co.uk downloaded 20^th September 2010.

Stauber, R. and Vago, R. (eds). (2007). Roma: A Minority in Europe.  Central European University Press, 165 – 175.