Viviane Reding answers

Viviane Reding is the European public enemy no 1 these days. With her courageous attitude, she became hated by all conservatives. In their critique of that woman, they are bringing all the patriarchal stereotypes into the debate of Roma exclusions.

Reding's answer to that masculinist reaction is brilliant. Her answer from Strasbourg: “You see, if a man in politics puts the fist on the table, that’s “male”, he defends himself. If a woman puts a fist on the table, she is hysterical, okay? That’s why we have the gender equality question on the table today!”

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Roma slavery is debated in the Romanian Parliament

Slave auction poster (Romanian, 1852)

This week the Romanian Parliament had an interesting debate that was left unnoticed by mainstream media. Only TVR had a short report on the topic. Nicolae Paun, the representative of the Roma community, proposed the commemoration of the abolition of slavery in Romania on the 20th of February every year and also the inclusion of the subject of Roma slavery in history books for all schools. Roma people were slaves until 1856 in Wallachia and Moldavia, a peculiar case in the region. The main owner was the Romanian Orthodox Church.

Romanian Senators reacted violently to such claims this week. Using arguments such as there were no slaves, they were not enslaved by any Romanians or Europeans, they asked to be slaves (Puiu Hasotti, Romanian Liberal Party) or they were not Roma, they were gypsies and this commemoration cannot be applied for Roma (Radu Berceanu, Democrat Liberal Party), senators managed to reject the project. A simple check of Wikipedia on slavery in Romania would have told them what racist fiction they are creating (not to mention a decent check of any studies on this historical topic). Their important decisions with material effects are supported by outrageous claims. Afterwards, their rhetoric becomes historical proof for exclusion, white privilege and slavery denial. 

What they also manage to do was to bring into discussion the usage of the word Tzigan (which ironically meant also slave in Romanian) and the rejection of the word Roma. As they explained, Roma was imposed by a sort of blackmail by the European institutions for Romanian accession to EU. And the corrupted and unpatriotic politicians of the day (which are not from their party, of course) accepted such rules without a blink. The usage of the word Tzigan is highly charged these days with a nationalist/racist rhetoric (dark skinned Roma people are killing the Romanian good reputation/whiteness in the West by using a similar name) and is very present in the media, everyday discussions and politics, obviously. 

This important debate in the Parliament was not presented by the media and it was not criticized in any way. I see it as a perfect example of well institutionalized racism that doesn't surprise anyone or bring any protest. Nicolae Paun should not be discouraged and he should persist in his lonely struggles in the Romanian Parliament (he is actually the only Roma representative in the Parliament for the 2 million Roma living in Romania).

Send him an email to show your support at this address:

npaun@cdep.ro

  

history of theatre and racism

An African-American student is denied entry to a theater. He keeps his hands in his pockets to demonstrate that his protest is nonviolent, 1961.

Writing about Western theatre, I observe such a long and unacknowledged history of racism and patriarchy starting with the first Greek tragedy. This important part of history is perceived as timeless and easily acceptable by theatre makers everywhere, who in turn, are questioning the validity or the necessity of a "leftist" critique. The image above, even if shocking and shameful for American theatre, easily becomes acceptable. I am quite curious how many performance-makers and theatre critics would react to the recent closing of the only Romani theatre in France based on racial reasons. They would probably say (as I heard it before) that it was not that good anyway and the high culture won't suffer because of institutionalized racism. I will follow the reactions and I want to see that I was wrong.

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The story of Panshin Beka

no money, no gas and no maternal health in Amazonia: strong movie using basic epic theatre methods to make the viewer think about important social issues.

if you are not careful

Starting with the assumption that newspapers (and in my case, academia and even theatre) are addressing oppression in a critical way, the results (in most of my experiences with these environments) are quite twisted:

IF YOU FEAR DYING - LIVE

Excellent song with powerful lyrics from One Day as a Lion: it conceptualizes in a lyrical way the idea of male hysteria (even the title expresses the hysterical impossibility of thinking about death, the effeminacy of the male hysteric with a nonWhite soprano voice, his multiple identifications etc.)

the bastard son i spit non fiction

in exile for a while now with raw friction
never be a pawn the boomerang be upon you
i'm like Fela with my heart in Venezuela
its a world favela so fuck the novela
i'm out of the cellar with a blade and some cheddar
for the whole new world order you to bow down
to the now sound of slavery the era be
terrible terror filled terrified
why would we ever let a few white christian fiction's
shape our tomorrow followers them
cause tomorrow got a gun to its head

time is coming
rising like the dawn of a red sun
if you fear dying then you're already dead

i'm in with the spirit of Ali Toure
as I target more heads than a priest on ash wednesday
paid and hungry you pigs on gold ropes
have the mic or the heater but you can't hold both
you could snatch one and catch the blast of the other
i'm Chicano soprano high off my pitch ammo
i'm a put a crack in your diamond pimp cup
so vest up i'm your cross turned right side up
i'm the press leak that downed you aide
i'm the orange jump suit thats taylor made
i'm the crescent, the sickle, so sharp the blade
i'm the flick of the shank that opened your veins
i'm the dusk, i'm the frightening calm
i'm a hole in the pipeline i'm a road side bomb

time is coming
rising like the dawn of a red sun
if you fear dying then you're already dead

not dining with Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir for religious reasons

Jenis av Rana

Jenis av Rana is the chairman of the Christian Centrist Party of the Faeroe Islands. He managed to make international news by stating that the visit of the Icelandic Prime Minister Jóhanna Sigurðardóttir to the Faeroe Islands with her wife was "a defiance of the Bible."

Dining with the Icelandic prime minister is out of the question because for Jenis av Rana "to do so would be to show acceptance of gay marriage, which is against the platform of the Centrist party."

This example shows how homophobia based on a theological argument excludes and dehumanizes non-heteronormative people at all social levels (even if they are prime ministers). Because homophobes like Jenis av Rana cannot conceptualize queer persons as equals, to the point of sharing food.

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photo via