Of all the groups seeking asylum in Western Europe, none have been subject to more harassment from state forces and racist gangs than the Roma of eastern Europe. Michael Pröbsting, traces the struggles of a people whose history shows many parallels with that of the Jews, from medieval pogroms to the Nazi death camps, but whose rights, today, continue to be denied.
The twenty-year-old Slovak Roma, Mario Bango, languishes today in a Bratislava prison because he defended his brother against a Nazi attack. His case symbolises the situation faced by the Roma in Eastern Europe today. The Economist recently published a survey that revealed the systematic discrimination that they face and the periodic bouts of frenzied press reports targeting Roma asylum seekers underline the fact that discrimination does not stop at the EU’s borders.1
The oppression of the Roma, like that of the Jews, has deep historical roots going back to the Middle Ages. Originally from India, the Roma gradually migrated west with the expansion of the Ottoman Empire. By 1300, they had reached south-eastern Europe and some communities moved further into western and northern Europe in the 15th century.2
Late feudal society, characterised by stagnation, poverty and sharp religious conflicts, was unable to integrate the Roma, just as it was incapable of integrating the Jews. In particular, the Church, resorting to the Inquisition to shore up its faltering power, led the campaign against the non-Christian Roma. In 1427, the Archbishop of Paris condemned them and set off a wave of discrimination, including full scale pogroms, which endured for centuries.
In general, their persecution was worse in western Europe than in the east. In the areas which were repeatedly fought over by the Hungarian and Ottoman empires, they were allowed a degree of toleration. This was because both sides needed them as smiths and other metalworking craftsmen. No surprise, then, that many Roma moved from western Europe to the east.
Systematic discrimination made social integration impossible. Only a few trades, such as blacksmithing and music-making, were open to them; many were vagabonds. Later attempts at integration failed because they were accompanied by massive repression. For example, the Habsburg Empire of Maria Theresa and Joseph II tried to settle the Roma on the land as peasants but, simultaneously, prohibited their language and traditional costume and forcibly removed their children! In what is, today, Romania, the Roma were held in slavery until 1864. After the abolition of slavery many moved to central Europe, particularly Hungary and Slovakia.
Because they existed on the margins of society, the Roma were forced to accept a niche existence within feudal society and, therefore, the concept of the “people class”, developed by the Trotskyist Abram Leon to explain the social position of the Jews, can also be applied to them. Because of their virtual exclusion from society, there was very little social differentiation within the Roma community. There was no basis for a division into the various main classes of society such as landowners, peasants or merchants. Instead, people and class were identical.3
In addition, unlike the Jews, the social discrimination against the Roma gave them no specific economic role, on the contrary, they were consigned to be what can only be called an economic pariah status. As a result, the Roma were not assimilated into capitalist society even in the social upheavals of the nineteenth century.
In the twentieth century, the social contradictions of crisis-ridden capitalism gave birth to a series of catastrophic wars and genocides. By this time, the vast majority of Roma were settled and no longer nomads.4 Just as the Church had focused the hatred of the people against peripheral layers, fascism, after successfully smashing the workers’ movement, carried out mass murder against whole peoples.
What others call the Holocaust, or Shoa, the Roma call Porrajmos (the devouring). Between 500,000 and 1.5 million Roma were murdered by the Nazis yet this genocide, the tragic climax of a centuries-long history of oppression and persecution, was not even mentioned in the Nuremberg Trials.5
The oppression of the Roma under Stalinist rule
The abolition of capitalism in eastern Europe in the late 1940s and the building of a series degenerate workers’ states in the region had a massive, but contradictory, affect on the Roma.6 Because the ruling Stalinist caste needed a huge workforce for its industrialisation plans, there was, for the first time, a basis for their integration into modern production, particularly into industry. As a result, a Roma working class was formed and there was even a degree of integration into the education system and the creation of a small Roma
intelligentsia.
Stalinism, however, did not abolish social oppression but, rather, transformed it. Just as the economic position of the workers, on the whole, improved, but the class remained politically oppressed, so also with the Roma. Similarly, just as the working class was denied any independent role in the social transformation of 1948-50, but remained an object of the decisions of the communist party central committee, so the Roma were not allowed to be the architects of any improvements in their own social position. The ruling caste could not allow the Roma to free themselves since this would have made them difficult to control and could have encouraged other minorities to take steps to improve their own lives.7
Furthermore, a real liberation would have provoked a backlash from sections of the Slavic population which were deeply influenced by chauvinist and racist attitudes towards the Roma. The bureaucracy wanted to avoid this at all costs because it aimed to preserve a conservative outlook within the working class. Therefore, the Stalinists made no serious efforts to overcome anti-Roma prejudice.
For all these reasons, the oppression of the Roma continued under Stalinist rule. Certainly, there was a significant degree of integration into the production process. In Hungary, for example, in the early 1980s, 85 per cent of Roma men of working age had a job and also 45 per cent of the women.8 Nonetheless, most of them were in the lowest strata of the working class. According to an investigation in Hungary in 1970, only 11 per cent of Roma workers were in skilled jobs, 10 per cent in semi-skilled, 13 per cent were agricultural workers and 56 per cent unskilled. It was similar in Slovakia, where over 90 per cent of employed Roma were in unskilled jobs.9
The situation was no better in the education system. The Roma were regarded as “backward” and this was used to justify sending many Roma children to “special schools” for the “socially difficult” and “intellectually underdeveloped”. In Hungary, in 1974-75, 24 per cent of all children in “special schools” were Roma although they constituted only 5 per cent of the whole population and this proportion increased to 37 per cent in the late 1980s. The Stalinist bureaucracy in Bulgaria even called Roma schools explicitly “schools for children with underdeveloped life attitudes and culture”.10
The reason for this so-called backwardness was, of course, nothing to do with “intelligence” but was the result of oppression by the Stalinist state. According to a study by an educational research group of the Hungarian Academy of Science, most Roma children had no opportunity for social integration through nursery schooling. In many communities, Roma children were not allowed to attend nursery and in the Roma communities themselves there was rarely any nursery provision at all. No surprise that in 1979 only 20-30 per cent of Roma children attended nursery, while 84 per cent of all Hungarian children did.
The oppression of the Roma even extended to the denial of their identity as a distinct ethnic group. According to the Stalinists in Czechoslovakia, the Roma living in Slovakia were a “socially backward section of the Slovak nation”. A decision of the KPC’s Central Committee, on 8 April 1958, proclaimed the need to assimilate the “ethnographic group of the gypsies”.11 For the Stalinists, “assimilation” meant simply the denial of any separate identity for the Roma. Conditions were even worse under Ceaucescu’s dictatorship in Romania. There, the Stalinists denied that the Roma minority even existed. The normal Romanian word for the Roma – “Tigan” – was prohibited in official discourse.12
This oppression was reflected in a systematic discrimination against the culture and language of the Roma. Naturally, this had massive consequences for their integration since many only spoke Romanes. Today, approximately 60 per cent of the Roma in Romania speak Romanes as their first language and 20 per cent in Hungary. According to Roma activists, around 80 per cent of the Roma in Slovakia speak Romanes even if not necessarily as their first language. The Stalinist bureaucracy refused official recognition of the Romanes language and, therefore, did not print books in it or allow it to be taught in schools. Not surprisingly, many Roma children were sent to “special schools” after gaining poor results in language-based tests!
The Roma in capitalist eastern Europe after 1989
The restoration of capitalism in eastern Europe had catastrophic consequences for the Roma.13 The discrimination they suffered under Stalinist rule, their concentration in low skilled and low paid jobs and their poor education, now ensured that the closure of many agrarian cooperatives and industrial enterprises would affect them particularly hard.
Unemployment exploded in the Roma community after 1989. In Slovakia, more than 80 percent of the Roma – in some regions like Kosice it is even 100 percent are without a regular job and have to live on welfare or precarious part-time jobs.14 In Hungary, too, despite its reputation as a model example of a country that has successfully achieved capitalist restoration, it is estimated that 60-80 percent of the Roma are unemployed. According to the European Union, 70-90 percent of the Roma in the Czech Republic cannot find a job. It is no exaggeration to say that newly restored capitalism has destroyed the Roma working class.
The effects are dramatic. According to a World Bank study, the number of people living below the official poverty line is four or five times higher among the Roma than in the rest of the country.15 In Slovakia, life expectancy for Roma men is 55, for women it is 59. This means that they die, on average, 12 and 15 years earlier than the majority of the Slovak people.16 Between 30-45 percent of all the unemployed in Slovakia are Roma. According to the same study, Roma form 8.8 percent of the people, but 31.6 percent of those who live below the poverty line.17
Today, most Roma live ghettoised in villages and settlements on the edge of towns.18 The sanitary conditions are appalling, many do not possess power to heat their homes or for cooking. Big families are often forced to live together in one or two rooms. Overcrowding and poor sanitation naturally lead to a greater incidence of sickness among Roma.
One of the very few gains for the Roma after 1989 was the official recognition of their language and literature. Before the “Velvet Revolution”, there was virtually no Romanes literature. Since then, a few hundred books have been published. At the university in Prague, there are now Romanes training courses.
But these gains are not worth a lot since most Roma continue to be massively discriminated against in education. It has been estimated that a quarter of all children in Slovakia are of Roma origin, but they are massively disadvantaged.19 Until their sixth birthday, they generally only speak Romanes. Because of their poverty, and the hostility from the Slovak authorities, many parents cannot send their children to the kindergarten.
In school, Romanes is not used and, therefore, the educational development of most Roma children is restricted. To this one must add the open hostility from reactionary teachers and even many of the other children. It is no surprise that their progress in the school system lags behind their “white” classmates. Many Roma still have to go to so-called “special schools” – schools for children with learning difficulties. In the Czech Republic, there are around 3 percent Roma in the whole population, but they constitute 70-75 percent of all children in special schools.20
They are also discriminated against in “normal” schools. In Hungary, there are so-called “special classes” – the “C-classes” – for “socially backward children”.21 In 1997, there were 132 such C-classes in 840 schools which were investigated, most of the children in them were Roma.
Within education, there is often a deep segregation of the Roma, even where they live together with non-Roma and form a significant part of the population. One study showed that, in Romania, in mixed areas, the majority of Roma children attend one school, but the “whites” another.22 In Bulgaria, 70 percent of all Roma children attend Roma-only schools. Economic hardship also enforces educational disadvantage. For example, in Macedonia many Roma live on welfare payments alone and they cannot afford new school books which have been estimated to cost the equivalent of one month’s family income.23
This racial discrimination in the sphere of education has led to a dramatic decline in educational achievements among the Roma. Whilst, in Bulgaria, 36.5 percent of non-Roma have a high school diploma, the figure is only 4.9 percent among the Roma. Similarly, 8.9 percent of non-Roma have an academic diploma, but only 0.1 percent among the Roma. The already high illiteracy rate among the Roma is increasing. In Bulgaria, the number of illiterate Roma grew from 28,897 in 1991 to 46,406 in 2001.24 In Romania, the illiteracy rate stands at 27.3 per cent.25
The oppression of the Roma is also reflected in increasing violence directed against them. In the Czech Republic, 20 Roma were murdered by skinheads in the 1990s.26 This violence from Nazi skinheads has increased in the last few years in Slovakia, the Czech Republic, Romania and other countries.
The Roma are generally excluded from official political life as well. Separate Roma parties never gain more than 1 percent of the vote in parliamentary elections and, when included on the lists of other parties, Roma are never high enough to have a significant chance of being elected. The only exception is in Macedonia where Roma parties were successful in entering parliament. In 1990, two delegates of the Party for the Comprehensive Emancipation of Roma in Macedonia (PCER) won parliamentary seats. Later, the Union of Roma in Macedonia gained one MP. Nonetheless, on the whole, the Roma are rarely represented in eastern European parliaments.27 Instead, parties like the racist Slovakian National Party (SNS), whose representatives call Roma, “idiots who belong in reservations”, are well represented.28
It would not be putting it too strongly to say that the Roma have been among the chief victims of capitalist restoration. They are the pariahs of the twenty-first century in Eastern Europe. It is not surprising that many Roma try to flee these conditions and claim asylum in the west.29 But the imperialist governments in the European Union – who profess to sympathise with the fate of the Roma – refuse to give them asylum. This is a typical display of hypocrisy on behalf of EU governments. At heart, they are as racist as the capitalist states in Eastern Europe. In reality, the EU is only concerned about the fate of the Roma in the East because they want to avoid them fleeing to western Europe.
The national character of the Roma
Several bourgeois Roma organisations, particularly the International Romani Union (IRU) demand that the Roma be recognised as a separate nation which, moreover, should have representatives in the European Union. On the other hand, the Stalinists, for example, the Slovak Jaroslav Suzs in his book published in 1961 on the “Gypsy Question”, argued that the Roma have no specific ethnic identity and are only a “socially backward part of the Slovak nation”.
Today, there are approximately 10 million Roma living in the world. Eighty percent of them are in Europe and around 5.85 million or, roughly, 60 percent of all Roma, live in eastern Europe (including the former USSR). In some eastern European states they are a significant minority. Although the data is of variable quality and consistency, not least because many Roma fear to declare their identity at the census because of their fear of racist oppression, the following table gives a general sense of the proportions of the Roma in the populations of eastern Europe.30
Macedonia 11%
Slovakia 10%
Romania 9,5%
Bulgaria 9%
Yugoslavia (Serbia & Montenegro) 7%
Hungary 6%
Czech Republic 2-3%
The systematic discrimination of the Roma over several centuries, including the genocide by the Nazi regime, has prevented the Roma from being integrated into society but also blocked the possibility of their transformation into a nation. Their oppression, which pushed them for centuries into social niches and made them a “people class” – made the formation of a nation with internal class differentiation impossible.
Their integration into the labour force began late and often went hand in hand with denial of their specific cultural and ethnic identity. When this was partly accepted after 1989, it was again accompanied by a renewed expulsion from the workforce as a consequence of capitalist restoration.
The Roma’s geographical dispersal and century-long pariah status have meant that they do not form a majority of the population in any country. Their history also prevented all Roma from speaking Romanes as their first language. Today, about 60 percent of the Roma in Romania and 20 percent of the Roma in Hungary speak Romanes as their first language. In addition, there are many different dialects of Romanes and the IRU has made major efforts to develop a unified written Romanes language. Neither can we speak of a national consciousness of all or even the majority of Roma. Generally speaking, Roma communities are widely scattered among different groups and clans.31
Elaborating on the works of Marx and Lenin on national development, it is possible to offer the following definition of a nation:
“A nation is a product of the bourgeois epoch, that is, the rise and fall of capitalism. It is a community composed of classes, dominated by a privileged and/or exploiting class or caste. This community has a unifying territorial and economic basis, a common language(s) and culture, a common history (real and/or mythical). On the basis of these, a common self-awareness or national character has developed, with the political consequence that the nation has established, or aspires to establish, some state form for itself.”32
For the reasons mentioned above the Roma did not develop towards a nation or a nationality in this, Marxist, sense.
However, it would be wrong to deny the existence of the Roma as a special group with a specific identity and some national characteristics, as the Stalinists did. Furthermore, the Roma have a common ethnic identity (coming from India) which has not changed because of the century-long oppression and social isolation. In this respect, there are similarities with the black people of the USA.
However, unlike them, the Roma have or, at least, a part of them have, their own language. And, although they do not form a majority in any country, they are not totally dispersed. The majority of them live together, in urban ghettos and villages or settlements in specific regions. For example, in Slovakia, most Roma (55 per cent) live in the east and the south; in Romania, they live in the north-eastern, Siebenbürgen, region.33 One can even say that a minority of the Roma do see themselves as a nation.
What is the cause of these contradictory phenomena in the national development of the Roma? We have already identified their historical oppression as the general reason but we need to be more specific. The oppression of the Roma is characterised by the fact that most of them are part of the lowest strata of the working class, that is, day labourers, workers in the “grey sector” with insecure employment conditions or even the lumpenised layers (i.e. people who have been expelled long-term from the production process). A very small minority of patriarchs, intellectuals and rich bourgeois are separated from the broad mass of impoverished Roma living in ghettos. This is, by the way, also a characteristic of Roma oppression: the conservation of patriarchal social structures stemming from the pre-capitalist epoch. So, racist oppression results in a specific and distorted class structure within the Roma community.
In short, the Roma are an ethnic, racially oppressed group, whose evolution towards a nation was blocked due to their oppression; some elements of their existence point in the direction of assimilation, others in the direction of a nation. In short they are what Lenin called a nationality.
Under capitalism, a real assimilation of the Roma, an abolition of their oppression, is impossible. Racism is historically closely linked with modern capitalism. The capitalist states in eastern Europe (but also western Europe) need the pariah status of the Roma since they are a “silent minority” upon whom the social contradictions can be offloaded; they are the first to be sacked and the first to have their social benefits cut.
In addition to this, bourgeois society, particularly in periods of crisis and instability, needs a scapegoat on which to focus the hatred of the backward layers of society in order to divide the working class and forestall its unity in struggle against exploitation and oppression. Since the virtual annihilation of the Jews, today, the “gypsies” and immigrants are used for this purpose.
However, a free, organic development towards a nation is also barred for the Roma. For this, racist capitalism would have to allow them the unobstructed formation and diversification of different classes, the distribution of their culture and language, again, an impossibility.
There is more than one road to becoming a nation. We particularly see that the subjective factor, that is, the self-awareness of the Roma , plays a central role. Therefore, we cannot exclude the possibility that a majority, against a background of sharp, racist oppression, the formation of a broader middle layer and a working class, could develop such a national consciousness in future and, therefore, become a nation. It is not impossible that this could happen in one country, or group of countries, but not in others.
For Marxists, the creation of nations is not a goal in itself. We fight for the biggest possible freedom of social and cultural development of all peoples. If the Roma want to be educated in their own language then this should, of course, be guaranteed. If the Roma demand their own TV stations in their language they should be given the resources to realise this aspiration. However, our goal is the common struggle of the workers, peasants and youth against capitalist society and its inter-linked racism. The struggle against the specific oppression of the Roma is part of a socialist perspective.
For the liberation of the Roma!
While we cannot exclude the possibility that the Roma could develop into a nation, as Marxists, we have to start from the present day situation. At present, the most burning demand of the Roma is to be rid of their social and cultural oppression and to be accepted as equals in society. Therefore, we fight for their full and real integration. This integration can only be fully and democratically achieved in a revolutionary way.
The Roma have no reason to trust the traditional leaders of the various Roma parties, including the International Roma Union. The little and big caudillos, who are, generally, self-appointed patriarchs or clan leaders, are only looking for posts and privileges for themselves and their friends. Examples include those Roma leaders who made alliances with the reactionary chauvinist Meciar party, the HZDS, in Slovakia, or those who are corrupted by EU money.
Their methods are typically bourgeois: appeals issued by official congresses, diplomatic notes, petitions to the rulers, deals made behind closed doors. To openly fight for the rights of Roma is alien to these self-appointed leaders.34
What are needed are broad-based, mass mobilisations and militant actions on the streets and in the workplaces, the building of democratic organisations of the mass of Roma, and an orientation not towards the domestic ruling classes or the EU but to the workers and peasants of the non-Roma population.
The main characteristics of a strategy to end Roma oppression can be provisionally set out as follows.
• Creation of jobs for the Roma through a programme of public works!
• For a building programme of high-quality houses for the Roma! It is up to the Roma if they want to live in separate towns/settlements or if they want to live in the majority population areas.
In education, the de facto apartheid must be abolished. Naturally, we would respect the wish of Roma if they want their own schools but projects like the Ghandi school in Pecs (Hungary) are just an attempt by the small Roma elite to create their own educated elite. The mass of the Roma only want to have equal rights in mixed schools.
• For a fundamental reform in the education system to ensure the Roma have education both in the majority population language and Romanes on a voluntary basis!
While it is true that the Roma were officially recognised as minorities in some eastern European countries after 1989, this has only improved the situation for a small minority of official Roma leaders and some intellectuals. It delivered nothing to the mass of the Roma.
• For the recognition of Romanes as an equal language in schools, educational material, media, and in public places. For this, the necessary finance and personnel must be provided.
How should this be financed? By progressive taxation levied on the capitalists who enriched themselves at the cost of the workers and particularly the Roma!
These programmes must be under the control of democratically elected representatives of the Roma and the working class. Out of their experience, the Roma know only too well that the bourgeois state stands on the side of the ruling class and prefers only that a small minority of rich Roma should emerge under their patronage.
Given the increasing number of racist attacks against Roma by skinheads, the Roma should not trust the police or other agencies of the bourgeois state to protect them. In fact, the state and the police themselves terrorise the Roma every day and they ignore attacks by skinheads or just mete out symbolic punishment. The Roma, and those workers and youth who support them, should only trust themselves. The young Roma, Mario Bango, has provided us with a courageous example of how to fight back.
• For organised, self-defence of the Roma communities against racist gangs and police attacks!
The struggle against Roma oppression is an international one by its very nature. The Roma live in many countries and are oppressed everywhere. Furthermore, their freedom to travel is severely restricted. We oppose all limitations on their right to cross borders!
• In the west, the workers’ movement must fight for the full freedom of the Roma to travel and to settle!
Many Roma have illusions in the EU. But look how these “defenders of human rights” treat the immigrants in their own countries! The EU governments put pressure on the eastern European governments to make some reforms in the way Roma are treated merely because they do not want to have the Roma in their own countries. The mass of the Roma will get nothing from the EU.
The strategy for revolutionary integration includes the struggle for equal rights but the goal is not the separation of Roma from the majority populations but the unification of the mass of both people to fight together against the ruling class. Only in and through the class struggle can the Roma achieve real integration and overcome the chauvinist prejudices that have long dominated the majority populations.
• For a policy of integration of Roma workers (and the unemployed) in the trade unions and other institutions of the workers’ movement. They must be represented in all leading bodies and have the right to caucus separately.
Given the de facto exclusion of the Roma from the production process and the massive racism in society, this demand is not sufficient. The recent “hunger march” in Slovakia is a first sign of a political awakening of the Roma. We must start from this and build a revolutionary Roma movement based on a series of democratic and social demands. The Roma should not wait until the official workers’ movement takes up their demands, unfortunately there are, as yet, no signs of this. The building of such a Roma mass movement is the task of today and all anti-racist activists of the majority populations should give it their full backing.
Such a movement could also overcome the divisions inside the Roma community and its domination by patriarchal leaders. In the end, they are obstacles to the real integration of the Roma. The exaggerated importance of the small academic layer amongst the Roma also has to be ended, they play the role of official representatives of the Roma to the bourgeois governments or the EU but they do not have the interests of the broad masses at heart, so much as the defence of their own privileges.
What we need is a movement of the rank and file Roma and the intellectuals who are connected with them. Such a movement could transform the Roma from victims of racist oppression into central political leaders of social change. For this it is essential that the Roma movement does not limit itself to democratic demands but orients towards the common struggle with the whole working class for a revolutionary transformation of capitalist society and the building of an authentic socialist society!
Footnotes
1 The Economist, “Europe’s spectral nation”, 12 May 2001
2 Ian Hancock, Origins of the Romani People, http://www.geocities.com/Paris/5121/history.htm
3 Abram Leon, Marxism and the Jewish Question,
4 For example, by 1893 in Slovakia only 2 percent of the Roma were nomads. Zoltan Barany, “Minderheiten, Ethnopolitik und die osteuropäischen Roma”, in Ethnos-Nation 2/1994, p8
5 Günther Weiss, Sinti und Roma seit 600 Jahren in Deutschland.
6 A degenerate workers’ state is a society in which a reactionary political dictatorship rules over a post-capitalist, bureaucratically planned, economy.
7 For a Marxist analysis of Stalinist rule read our publication The Degenerated Revolution
8 Brigitte Mihok, Rechtliche Gleichstellung versus alltägliche Chancenungleichheit. Zur Situation der Roma in Ungarn, in Nation 6/1998, p121
9 Anna Jurova: Die Roma in der Slowakei; in Ethnos-Nation, 2/1994, S.46
10 Donka Panayotova, “Successful Romani School Desegregation: The Vidin Case”, in Roma Rights, No. 3-4/2002; http://errc.org/rr_nr3-4_2002/noteb8.shtml
11 Anna Jurova, “Die Roma in der Slowakei” in Ethnos-Nation 2/1994, p39
12 Alexandra Nacu, “Poverty, Ethnicity and Identity in Romania – Reflections on the Status of the Roma” in FRE/RL East European Perspectives Vol.5, No.12, 11 June 2003
13 The LFI has analysed the downfall of the Stalinist ruling systems and the restoration of capitalism over the last 10 years. See read for example, “Hungary’s road to capitalism”, Trotskyist International 23, Jamuary 1998
14 League of Human Rights Advocates (Slovakia), “Report of Fact-Finding Mission on the Human Rights Situation of the Romany Community in Kosice” in Human Rights Reporter, p15
15 Alexandra Nacu, “Poverty, Ethnicity and Identity in Romania: Reflections on the Status of the Roma”, in RFE/RL East European Perspectives Vol.5, No.12, 11 June 2003
16 Anna Jurova, “Die Roma in der Slowakei”, in Ethnos-Nation, 2/1994, p32
17 Dena Ringold, “Poverty and Roma in Central and Eastern Europe: A View from the World Bank”, in Roma Rights, 1/2002; http://errc.org/rr_nr1_2002/noteb4.shtml
18 Read for example, Alexandra Wootliff-Bitukova, “The EU’s Red Card – Roma in Slovakia”, in Central Europe Review, 27 November 2000
19 Eva Sobotka, “1+1=3 – Roma in the Slovak educational system”, in Central Europe Review, 15 January 2001
20 G Tiffany, “Petros: Moving Forward Roma in the Czech Republic”, in Central Europe Review, 27 November 2000
21 This was, by the way, an invention of the Stalinists. Claude Cahn, David Chirico, Christina McDonald, Viktória Mohácsi, Tatjana Peric and Ŕgnes Székely, “Roma in the educational systems of central and eastern Europe”, Roma Rights, summer 1998, http://www.errc.org/rr_sum1998/notebook_2.shtml
22 Mihai Surdu, “The Quality of Education in Romanian Schools with High Percentages of Romani Pupils”, in Roma Rights, 3-4/2002; http://errc.org/rr_nr3-4_2002/noteb1.shtml
23 Cahn et al, op cit
24 Donka Panayotova, “Successful Romani School Desegregation: The Vidin Case”, in Roma Rights, 3-4/2002; http://errc.org/rr_nr3-4_2002/noteb8.shtml
25 Viorica Bucur, “The Roma Population in Romania and its Education”, in Southeastern Europe Notices 2/2003, p 58
26 Ulrich Glauber/Thomas Roser, “Die Minderheit von 20 Millionen Roma in Europa erklärt sich bei einem Kongress in Prag zu einer eigenen Nation”, in Frankfurter Rundschau, 29 July 2000
27 Peter Vermeersch, “Romani political participation and racism: reflections on recent developments in Hungary and Slovakia”, in Roma Rights 4/2000, http://errc.org/rr_nr4_2000
28 Peter Vermeersch, “Vying for Position”, in Central Europe Review 27 November 2000
29 See the British newspaper, The Guardian, 22 September 2003.
30 The Economist 20 March 1999; Business Central Europe, November 2000; Zoltan Barany: Die Waisenkinder der Transition”, in Ost-West-Gegeninformation, 3/1999, S.4
31 For example, Brigitte Mihok, “Rechtliche Gleichstellung versus alltägliche Chancenungleichheit. Zur Situation der Roma in Ungarn” in Ethos/Nation 6/1998, p119ff
32 League for a Revolutionary Trotskyist International, “Nationalism, nation state and national liberation”, in Trotskyist Bulletin 6, June 1995, p3
33 Anna Jurova, op cit, p31
34 For an example see the debate “The Romani movement: what shape, what direction?”, in Roma Rights, 4/2001; http://errc.org/rr_nr4_2001/noteb3.shtml