POGROMS BREAK OUT IN BOTH RUSSIA AND ROME
By Stephen Wilson
Moscow, Russia
"You and I both know well that they professionally deal drugs there and
people just don't want to live near that. That is the problem," declared
President Putin in October 2018 at a Kremlin Round Table where he
attempted to confront the problem of Russians driving out Roma from
their towns and villages. Such a statement might have been expected
from a local Russian working at the market or a crude Russian nationalist
but coming from the President of Russia it did nothing to reassure an
expert from Saint Petersburg,Olga Abramenko. In deed, almost one
year ugly riots have broken out in several Russian towns this summer
where as many as 650 Roma have fled their homes in Chemodunovka
and Lopatka in the Penza region. It is difficult to establish the specific
cause, or rather pretext, of this pogrom. The local Russians claim that
the Roma were sexually harassing the local girls, a brawl broke out,
one Russian was killed and many injured. If you ask some Roma who
were forced to flee they claim that a group of drunken Russians came
up to them looking for trouble. What is evident is that people who had
no knowledge or involvement in those events were forced to flee their
homes. Their houses were subsequently burned down as the authorities
simply stood back and remained aloof.
The plight of the Roma in Russia is no exception. The Far Right Interior
minister in Italy has promised to drive out the Roma. Italy has also
witnessed pogroms where the Roma have been forced to flee their
homes. Unpleasant fascists chanted outside the homes of the Roma
"They must die of hunger."
This is a complex problem. Even the name of such people varies.
In Scotland they were often called Tinkers, Travelers, or Gypsies.
In practice, those people belong to different tribes or groups each
with their distinct customs, superstitions and identity. This is why
it is an over-simplistic and misleading generalization to label
them as one group. We need to stop putting people into our own
pigeon-hole boxes.
In Russia they can be called Roma or tsiganski {цыганский} In both
Scotland and Nazi Germany Laws were passed which allowed
for the automatic death sentence of any Gypsies. During the
Second World War as many as a million Gypsies perished {over
50% of their population in Europe during what Gypsies call
'Porraimos' or 'great devouring'.} A Nazis Chief Heinrich Kranz
wrote: 'Nomads of another race, who because of their vermin, filth,
and stench remain foreign to us to this day.'
The prejudice against Roma in Russia, as well as in Western Europe,
has been increasing. A recent Levada report found that as many as
43% stated they would not like to have Roma as neighbors. Roma
or Gypsies have long been negatively stereotyped as either thieves,
magicians who can put a curse on you, con-artists and fake fortune
tellers. They are also derided as work-shy as well as unhygienic. They
are constantly blamed for leaving garbage behind them. Over the past
few decades I have personally encountered such prejudice, but also
befriended many gypsies. Five years ago I heard a middle aged Russian
woman tell me she had become afraid of the gypsies she had met. "I heard
all kinds of stories that they were dealing with drugs. Where did they
make all this money they had? I wondered if they had been selling drugs".
The woman was afraid after she heard so many rumors and gossip and
read press reports.
When I and Daniel Ogan were working in a soup kitchen for the homeless
the charity group involved let a gypsy girl stay and work with them. But
the director of the Soup kitchen then accused the girl of practicing black
magic. It must have been some strange kind of magic as this girl preached
some kind of Christianity to me one day.
One day I was walking around the city center of Moscow and I gave a
gypsy woman some money. Being grateful, she told me my fortune, pulled
out one of my hairs saying, "I can punish one of your enemies if you want".
I politely declined the offer.
Five years ago Second City Teachers interviewed refugees from Ukraine
who had settled in Moscow. The family who offered them free accommodation
were Roma! The Roma told us of how they felt sorry for their plight. If only
the Russian state would allow the Roma the right to legalize their homes!
I recall that I found myself teaching a Russian Model English. The woman was
very kind, warm and friendly. She was only 18. She asked my advice: "I have
some Gypsy roots. Should I keep them secret? " I honestly did not know
what to answer. I think I replied that "Maybe it would be an advantage as
some people hold positive stereotypes of gypsies". I'm not so sure it was
prudent advice. But there are positive stereotypes of gypsies as great dancers,
singers and as highly skilled blacksmiths. In Scotland, the gypsies are
now viewed by folklorists as the main guardians of a rich oral storytelling
tradition which comprised a huge reservoir of thousands of unpublished
gems. Who can forget great Traveler storytellers such as Duncan Williamson
and Jess Smith? And this is only to name the very few!
In Scotland, I came across a helpful and decent Gypsy student of English
who took my hand and told my fortune. He informed me, "You will have an
accident and become ill. But you will recover from it". A few weeks later
I was run over by a speeding car.
My personal encounters with Gypsies in Ireland, Scotland, Moldova and
Russia have been positive. On the whole, I find them a largely helpful and
caring people. While many people accuse the Gypsies of kidnapping children,
the experience of Scotland rather suggests they would be the only people
prepared to adopt and look after an abandoned baby left on the road by
a young servant girl who wanted to avoid a scandal after an unwanted
pregnancy. In Scotland, Gypsies or Travelers as they are called, are one
of the oldest indigenous people in Scotland. Davie Donaldson stated that
their roots go back a 1000 years. In an interview he stated that he once
spoke to a policeman who told him the crime rate can actually decrease
when Gypsies settle in a town. To the allegation that Gypsies create a
mess he states this only happens on rare occasions and this is due to
the fact that there are not enough bins or access to skips to dispose their
rubbish. Unfortunately, the tabloid media latches on to this. Donaldson
stated that his people suffered from great inequality and their life
expectancy is less than ten years the Scottish average. There exist only
26 sites for them and they have 500 homes for a staggering 60,000
people.
Recent reports by Memorial as well as a Human Rights Watch Report
of 2018 indicate that the Roma encounter even worse discrimination and
injustice than their Scots counterparts. They found that the Roma
faced extreme poverty, lack of sanitation, lack of access to water and
electricity. At school their children are taught in separate buildings
on the grounds that their Russian is not so good. The Roma often face
forced eviction and the destruction of their homes from the local
authorities because they don't have the legal permission. Their
attempts to legalize their homes has always been thwarted by
huge red tape. A 1956 decree by the Supreme Soviet effectively
made their life style 'illegal'. They were classified as 'vagrants'
and 'parasites' who had to be forced into performing 'socially
useful labor '. The Soviet and post Soviet authorities have never
been tolerant of people who live a different way of life. For them,
normal people should go to work listlessly in boring factories
or offices. They must just stay put!
The Russian state has ratified agreements to observe International
Covenant on economic, social and cultural rights as well as
an agreement which eliminates all forms of racial discrimination.
When Russian politicians and officials hear of such allegations
of widespread discrimination they go into denial. It is all seen as
'a provocation ' or 'just a few exceptional incidents'. In other words,
there is no widespread discrimination. All this research is based
on poorly selected facts or even fabrication. Getting the authorities
to even acknowledge the problem remains a feat never mind
passing new measures to provide the Roma with legalized housing as
well as access to better school education.
But the Roma are not without their friends. When some Extreme
Right Fascists were demonstrating for the eviction of Roma in Italy, a
young school boy interrupted an interviewed tirade against the
Roma with the following words:
"I don't think like you. What you are doing here in Torre Maura is
exploiting the anger of the people. You turn the anger of the people
into votes for your own interests. The thing of always going against
minorities is not okay with me. When you talk about European
funding to invest in this I think they should be spent on everyone.
No one should be left behind . Neither the Italians, nor the Roma,
nor the Africans should be abandoned."
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