Anti-Gypsyism in Romania

Thomas Hammarberg

The Council of Europe Commissioner for Human Rights, Thomas Hammarberg visited Romania and encouraged authorities to come up with a set of comprehensive measures to tackle pervasive discrimination against Roma: “Without resolute action to stamp out anti-Gypsyism, it will not be possible to help many Romanian Roma out of social exclusion and marginalisation.”

There was a growing international attention on Roma lately and Romanians reacted to it, from politicians to media to daily debates. Hammarberg perceives this context as an opportunity to advance Roma inclusion in Romania: “The necessary legal and institutional frameworks are in place, but anti-Roma sentiment in political discourse and the media is still a major problem”.

If you take a look at any online newspaper that has an article on Roma issues and check the comments you will find the most blatant anti-Roma opinions that are never addressed by these newspapers. These opinions that can come up in any conversation on Roma in Romania represent a long history of anti-Gypsyism and have direct effects on the lives of Romanian Roma.

As this article observes: "Rather than discussing which term should be used to designate the Roma population, emphasis should be put on educating the general public about Roma history. The slavery they were subjected to in Romania for several centuries, their mass deportation and extermination during the second World War and their forced assimilation during the Communist period have put them in an inferior position, the consequences of which they are still suffering from today."

No wonder that Roma people are forced  to leave Romania and face difficult and dangerous conditions in Western Europe, as their only escape from discrimination. As long as they do not exist as citizens, they do not have any rights and they are the target of daily and institutionalized racism, no wonder that they try to use their   freedom of movement, which should be respected unconditionally because they are still part of the European Union.

Hard working honest Romanians

In Romanian culture there is a strong myth about hard working Romanian immigrants doing their duty. It is usually emphasized as a racist reaction to another cultural myth, Romanian Roma thieves & killers present all over Europe.

And these two images are all over media with no critical reaction to their racist connotations. I found this article in Daily Mail about a Romanian doctor. A pretty telling image for the "hard working Romanians" in Western countries:

A doctor who described her Asian colleagues as ‘orang-utans’ has been suspended by the General Medical Council.

Dr Silvia Baciu, 43, made the comments after claiming she had been subjected to insulting and threatening treatment because she was a white European.

But the NHS Trust she worked for accused her of racism and the GMC yesterday criticised her ‘unacceptable racial behaviour’.

Dr Baciu, who is originally from Romania, worked as a Senior House Officer in anaesthetics at Basildon Hospital, Essex, from June 2004 to November 2005.

After she left the department, she reuested a meeting with the Trust to discuss alleged

discrimination at the hands of her colleagues. She prepared a 12-page document to support her claims.

The GMC heard that she had written: ‘It’s not my fault that in the heads of senior Asian colleagues, there’s no difference between an educated white woman and a donkey. It’s not my fault that I was born in Europe and not

in South-East Asia, like other trainees. It’s not my fault that I’m white.

‘I dare to suggest to you, mon cher, that ( some doctors) are exempt from known immigration laws.

‘The brainy Asian males of this department can’t place themselves before the law.’

Dr Baciu, who lives in Northampton, added in the document that she feared that European science

would ‘disappear’ because there were so many Asian doctors.

She added: ‘The orang-utan section of the department is ready for action and I assure you of their effectiveness.’

Later in the document, Dr Baciu claimed she had been threatened and harassed and found attitudes towards her ‘very hard to endure’.

The GMC was told that Dr Baciu had problems adjusting to working in the UK. Craig Ferguson, for the GMC, also said there were concerns over her communication skills and her ability to complete written assessments.

Dr Baciu said that the word ‘orang-utan’ did not refer to the doctors’ appearance, but their aggressive and threatening behaviour, both in public and private.

But Mr Ferguson said: ‘Any reference to members of an ethnic group who differ from the dominant group in the UK because of the colour of their skin is racist, and any suggestion to the contrary is unsustainable.

'That this could be considered as anything other than racist is a nonsense.’

Suspending Dr Baciu for six months Ralph Bergman, who chaired the hearing, said: ‘The period of suspension will enable you to reflect on your unacceptable conduct, to take steps to become more aware of the unacceptability of racial behaviour and to satisfy a future panel that you have gained the necessary degree of insight.’

Mr Bergman added that Dr Baciu’s decision not to give evidence herself was concerning. The GMC recommended that she attend a training course in diversity before her case is reviewed later this year.

Thanksgiving Prayer - William S. Burroughs

Always good to remember Ol'Bill's words of advise. Not as good as the Gus van Sant classic version, but with some interesting footage.

"Thanks for the wild turkey and
the passenger pigeons, destined
to be shit out through wholesome
American guts.


Thanks for a continent to despoil
and poison.

Thanks for Indians to provide a
modicum of challenge and
danger.

Thanks for vast herds of bison to
kill and skin leaving the
carcasses to rot.

Thanks for bounties on wolves
and coyotes.

Thanks for the American dream,
To vulgarize and to falsify until
the bare lies shine through.

Thanks for the KKK.

For nigger-killin' lawmen,
feelin' their notches.

For decent church-goin' women,
with their mean, pinched, bitter,
evil faces.

Thanks for "Kill a Queer for
Christ" stickers.

Thanks for laboratory AIDS.

Thanks for Prohibition and the
war against drugs.

Thanks for a country where
nobody's allowed to mind the
own business.

Thanks for a nation of finks.

Yes, thanks for all the
memories-- all right let's see
your arms!

You always were a headache and
you always were a bore.

Thanks for the last and greatest
betrayal of the last and greatest
of human dreams."

Post-election American attitudes

Associated Press gives a report on post-election feelings in US. Not a pretty picture, but i guess many Americans don't feel so safe now when they don't have a president coming from a good trustworthy family of global weapon sellers. Here are some stories:

From California to Maine, police have documented a range of alleged crimes, from vandalism and vague threats to at least one physical attack. Insults and taunts have been delivered by adults, college students and second-graders.

There have been "hundreds" of incidents since the election, many more than usual, said Mark Potok, director of the Intelligence Project at the Southern Poverty Law Center, which monitors hate crimes.

One was in Snellville, Ga., where Denene Millner said a boy on the school bus told her 9-year-old daughter the day after the election: "I hope Obama gets assassinated." That night, someone trashed her sister-in-law's front lawn, mangled the Obama lawn signs, and left two pizza boxes filled with human feces outside the front door, Millner said.

Potok, who is white, said he believes there is "a large subset of white people in this country who feel that they are losing everything they know, that the country their forefathers built has somehow been stolen from them."

Grant Griffin, a 46-year-old white Georgia native, expressed similar sentiments: "I believe our nation is ruined and has been for several decades and the election of Obama is merely the culmination of the change.

"If you had real change it would involve all the members of (Obama's) church being deported," he said.

A black president is "the most profound change in the field of race this country has experienced since the Civil War," said William Ferris, senior associate director of the Center for the Study of the American South at the University of North Carolina. "It's shaking the foundations on which the country has existed for centuries."

"Someone once said racism is like cancer," Ferris said. "It's never totally wiped out, it's in remission." If so, America's remission lasted until the morning of Nov. 5.

The day after the vote hailed as a sign of a nation changed, black high school student Barbara Tyler of Marietta, Ga., said she heard hateful Obama comments from white students, and that teachers cut off discussion about Obama's victory.

Four North Carolina State University students admitted writing anti-Obama comments in a tunnel designated for free speech expression, including one that said: "Let's shoot that (N-word) in the head." Obama has received more threats than any other president-elect, authorities say.

At Standish, Maine, a sign inside the Oak Hill General Store read: "Osama Obama Shotgun Pool." Customers could sign up to bet $1 on a date when Obama would be killed. "Stabbing, shooting, roadside bombs, they all count," the sign said. At the bottom of the marker board was written "Let's hope someone wins."

Racist graffiti was found in places including New York's Long Island, where two dozen cars were spray-painted; Kilgore, Texas, where the local high school and skate park were defaced; and the Los Angeles area, where swastikas, racial slurs and "Go Back To Africa" were spray painted on sidewalks, houses and cars.

Second- and third-grade students on a school bus in Rexburg, Idaho, chanted "assassinate Obama," a district official said.

University of Alabama professor Marsha L. Houston said a poster of the Obama family was ripped off her office door. A replacement poster was defaced with a death threat and a racial slur. "It seems the election brought the racist rats out of the woodwork," Houston said.

Black figures were hanged by nooses from trees on Mount Desert Island, Maine, the Bangor Daily News reported. The president of Baylor University in Waco, Texas said a rope found hanging from a campus tree was apparently an abandoned swing and not a noose.

Crosses were burned in yards of Obama supporters in Hardwick, N.J., and Apolacan Township, Pa.

A black teenager in New York City said he was attacked with a bat on election night by four white men who shouted 'Obama.'

In the Pittsburgh suburb of Forest Hills, a black man said he found a note with a racial slur on his car windshield, saying "now that you voted for Obama, just watch out for your house."

"The principle is very simple," said BJ Gallagher, a sociologist and co-author of the diversity book "A Peacock in the Land of Penguins." "If I can't hurt the person I'm angry at, then I'll vent my anger on a substitute, i.e., someone of the same race."

"We saw the same thing happen after the 9-11 attacks, as a wave of anti-Muslim violence swept the country. We saw it happen after the Rodney King verdict, when Los Angeles blacks erupted in rage at the injustice perpetrated by 'the white man."'