“After a century in which totalitarianism and racist madness, world wars and genocide, blind destruction and mass deportations have brought our continent to the brink of the abyss, a century in which our democratic notions have been tested and survived, it should be possible to give Europe’s largest minority, the Roma people and nation, a seat and a voice in the European Parliament” – this is what the Nobel laureate for literature Gunther Grass (1927-2015) said in his speech in the European Parliament in Strasbourg on October 11, 2000. He was a German and a friend of the Roma.
Twenty four years later an article titled “There is No Roma Nation” appeared in a “radical”, “progressive” online publication from UK (on January 31, 2024). It contains claims such as: “Romani peoples look, dress, think, and sound very different to one another. In linguistic terms, there is no such thing as a universal Romani language” this is “a sort of Romani Esperanto”, and those who say that Roma constitute a nation provide justification to non-Roma nationalists “to further segregate and discriminate”; instead of seeking unity with each other in an “imagined community”, the Roma should seek unity with “working-class allies”. The author of the article is of partially Romani origin and works as advocacy and communications director for a European “Roma Rights” organization in Brussels.
The question arises: What has happened to the Roma movement during these 24 years? How did the idea that the Roma nation should have its own representatives in the European Parliament turn into the idea that such a nation does not exist, and that Roma should merge with the working class and vote for the left instead of seeking collective political representation? Is this an expression of ultimate ‘progressivism’ or of regressive tendencies that are taking the whole Roma movement back forty years, when in Bulgaria and Romania the existence of Roma nationality was denied and the Roma were expected to assimilate into “the proletariat” and disappear? Recycling old ideas from the era of late socialism and putting them into circulation wrapped in the cellophane of progressivism brings to light the deep ideological crisis in the Roma movement. None of the organizations claiming to represent Roma at European level reacted to the “There is no Roma Nation” article. It seems they simply agree with everything written there – a tacit consensus.
Against this background, it is not surprising that the Roma lost all four seats in the European Parliament after the June elections; the number of Roma working in the EU Commission’s “Roma unit” decreased from four to two, and the Roma issue became taboo in Brussels. On the one hand, this is result from the democratic deficit in the EU but on the other hand it reflects the internal crisis in the Roma movement, since there are people in “the Roma elite” denying the right of Roma to exist as a “political community”; instead of subject of politics they are an object of projects, instead of nation – a “marginalized group”.
This is exactly the way in which certain political and corporate circles at high level see the Roma – a subordinated mass, a “human material” at disposal of the ruling classes, a donor of children, voters, workers and soldiers, a “solution” to someone else’s economic and demographic problems. But who will solve the problems of the 12 million Roma in Europe, who will protect them, who will represent them if today’s Roma elites are busy serving someone else’s interests? All this paints a worrying picture for the future of Roma in Europe. Let’s see why this vision is so problematic.
If we assume that “there is no Roma nation”, then the symbols of the Roma nation, the Roma flag and anthem, become meaningless and no one should use them. It also makes no sense to celebrate 8 April and commemorate 2 August, because both imply that the Roma were persecuted during the Second World War as a separate and homogeneous national group, regardless of their internal differences, in the same way as the Jews. Viewed from the perspective of the new “progressive elites” today, the delegates to the First World Roma Congress in 1971 probably seem like deeply deluded people. Instead of inviting “allies” from other marginalized groups and drafting a joint “inclusion manifesto” they adopted symbols of a non-existent nation. This mistake can be corrected now, in 2024. The concept of the Roma nation can simply be revoked by the “new elites” in a Stalinist spirit – “no man, no problem”, “no Roma, no discrimination”. There are only workers, men and women without identity, cheap labour – take it, use it, consume it, exploit it – and do not worry, we are not here to help them, but to help you.
In 2017, the “King of Roma” Dorin Choaba from Romania sent a letter to President Trump offering him Roma workers to build the wall along the border with Mexico. Now, in 2024, we see other people advertising and offering “young Roma workforce” left and right as if it were a commodity for sale. And what about the far-right parties? Maybe they would like this idea too, because once they come to power they might need workers for the labour camps. The neo-fascists will be looking for people who can help them exploit the Roma even better and silence the discontent in the community – this is also a job opportunity.
If the Roma are not a nation, they do not deserve to be represented in European and national institutions along with other nations, and they should be content with being represented by politicians who are not Roma. For example, ethnic Slovaks, Hungarians and Romanians elected to the European Parliament must also defend the interests of the Roma (something they would probably hardly agree to). Further, following this line of reasoning about class solidarity, we should expect the left-wing political parties in Europe to be the Roma’s greatest allies. However, anyone who is aware of the situation on the European left knows that it is not immune to anti-Gypsyism, and sometimes leftist politicians show even greater intolerance towards Roma than right-wing politicians. It is not a question of class, but of ethnicity. And when it is about ethnicity, the left and the right can even join forces in the name of national unity against real or perceived internal and external enemies, as is already happening in some EU Member States in the context of the war in Ukraine.
The reasons for the described ideological crisis are rooted in the replacement of the Roma agenda, formulated before the 1990s, with the agenda of external political and financial factors that appeared on the scene afterwards and have nothing to do with the Roma movement. What we see in 2024 is the result of the decades-long erosion of internal solidarity and the retreat from the core values that were once at the heart of Roma civic and political activism, but are no longer respected by new Roma elites who are deeply alienated and disconnected from the intellectual legacy of previous generations.
This is how we come to the current situation. Now we see mostly organizations that are “Roma” only in form, but not in content. Hence, they are unable to articulate and defend the Roma interests, nor to offer a positive vision for the future of Roma at this critical moment for Europe, unless they believe that the transformation of all Roma into factory workers and service personnel for the European ruling classes is the ultimate goal of Roma movement. How are they going to create so many jobs? This implies not a free market economy, but a centrally planned economy and overcoming anti-Gypsyism as an obstacle to integration in the labor market. Neither is possible under the current conditions in Europe. They need not a democracy but an authoritarian regime in order to enforce this agenda. Something more, they need to eliminate the ethnic differences in the society.
The existence of a Roma identity, which has persisted for so many centuries in Europe, is a problem because it does not fit the model. The Roma will be discriminated against as long as they insist on retaining their separate identity and language, scattered among other peoples. But if they give them up and manage to hide their origins, everything will be fine – they will no longer be discriminated against, they will get a good job, they will have a nice house in a non-Roma neighbourhood. This is the logic of the article “There is no Roma nation”, this is what many of the integrated Roma believe in principle, and this is why many of those working in Roma organizations do not see any problem, but think that this is just an expression of the author’s freedom of speech. This is because many of them have been indoctrinated with this way of thinking since childhood to such an extent that they are unable to understand where the problem lies. And now this is the philosophy, the credo of a whole class of young educated people who are the product of “inclusion”.
Many of them will take the scholarships for Roma, they will take the jobs for Roma, they will take advantage of everything related to Roma, but they will never defend Roma identity and language because they think they don’t need them anymore. Once they have used them they can throw them away. And because most of the still existing Roma organizations have been taken over in recent years by people with such mentality, this has led to a crisis of ideology, to an emergency situation which will undoubtedly get worse in the coming years because of the advance of the far right in European politics.
So where are the Roma today? We see human rights defenders, we see artists, mediators, evangelicals, atheists, feminists, communists, greens but where are the Roma with the Roma way of thinking? Where are the people defending the Roma cause? It is wonderful that so many well educated Roma embrace the ideologies of other national and social movements. But who stands for Roma? That is the question. It is true that there are many people who look like Roma and even say they are Roma, but very often they refuse to act like Roma when it comes to defending the interests of the community. That is why we need to talk about this publicly and look for ways to pull the Roma movement out of the coma it has fallen into over the past decades. Otherwise, the ideological crisis could turn into an existential crisis for Europe’s Roma.
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