Roma Opinions on the Representation Crisis: Prof. Ian Hancock “We Have No Dumukh”

“In Brussels there is no more (Roma) movement. We are here, we are close to the institutions but we are not using them” – these are the words of a Roma woman living and working in Brussels for years who told me that she wants to remain anonymous. There was a sense of disappointment and loneliness in her words. Some of the Roma I have spoken to and exchanged correspondence with over the past two weeks have been reluctant to reveal their identity because they were afraid of losing their jobs. But what was even more interesting was that people who have long been excluded from the “system” and unable to find work were also afraid to talk and this seems to be a general trend among Roma.

Even after leaving their positions in the NGO sector or international institutions in Brussels, Strasbourg, Warsaw, Budapest or Vienna many of them prefer to remain invisible; they do not wish to share their frustration nor their experience with others, but isolate themselves. If everyone adopts this pattern of behavior then who will speak for the Roma community? There is already a whole class of highly educated Roma in Europe, but they refuse to be leaders, they just want someone to give them a job. These people have been brought up this way for the last 30 years – this is what is meant by “Roma inclusion” – to integrate individually into the status quo and to serve it, not to change it, and when the status quo blows you away, you are left alone like an empty and crumpled Coca Cola can. But this was also the philosophy with which their parents were indoctrinated during Communism in Eastern Europe – they were expected to become docile workers without leadership and right to opinion. And if we go even further back we come to the five centuries of “Gypsy slavery” in Romanian principalities; after slavery was abolished in 19th century former slaves often stayed with their old masters because they knew no other way of life and had nowhere to go. Fortunately, there are millions of Roma in the Western world who do not carry that psychological and historical burden of slavery, Communism and Nazism, which can be summed up in what Prof. Ian Hancock calls the “pariah syndrome”.

And it is perhaps no coincidence that it was Prof. Hancock who was among the first to come forward to voice his opinion on the current crisis of Roma representation after the disappearance of Roma MEPs from the European Parliament, the decrease in the number of the Roma working in the EU Commission and the transformation of the Roma issue into a political “taboo” in Brussels. Are the Roma still “pariahs” in the 21th century Europe and how does this fit into the “European way of life”?

I will present the opinions of prominent Roma from Europe and America in a series of interviews, in search of answers to these questions starting with Professor Emeritus Ian F. Hancock OBE from the University of Texas at Austin, Ph.D., London University, Dip.,O.A.S. (London), Ph.D. (Umea), Ph.D. (Konstantin). He has great contribution to the development of the Roma movement, as participant in the International Romani Union, representative to the UN and the US Holocaust Memorial Council. In 2018 he was knighted by the Queen of Great Britain with The Order of the British Empire.

Prof. Hancock: “We have no “dumukh”

“Because we have no “dumukh” (Rom. “fist”), we have no negotiating power, we are not feared… we tend to exaggerate our qualifications, and once given positions of authority, it becomes obvious very quickly that we only talk about the Romani situation, and only about our own “endani” (Rom. “kin”), and do not (cannot) contribute anything about the bigger European contemporary or historical details. We are seen as wasting their time, and if we are dismissed, they know that there will be no response for them to worry about. We are “only Gypsies”… No country, no government, no army, no economy… They include us in order not to look bad or racist, but we are “window dressing” and are not taken seriously.

This was my own experience as a member of the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Council. What they DO fear, is a Romani person who knows what he is talking about, who knows our history and its consequences in today’s world… Worse than racists are the “liberals” who say “we must help the poor Gypsies” publicly and who say “but not in my neighbourhood” privately.

When I asked the professor why is the Roma issue taboo in Brussels and the word “Roma” disappeared from the political programs and from the agenda he replied to me:

Because they now realise that we are starting to make a noise. We are starting to get dumukh. Although they could do whatever they want about us, that is beginning to change, because we are getting louder and more educated. Only a tiny fraction of us so far, but our numbers are growing. They created the “one size fits all” label Roma, because it made their job easier. Put all kinds of unrelated groups in the same bag, call them all Roma, and deal with them all as one thing. Now having learnt that they are not in control of who and what we are, instead of bothering to educate themselves about us, they find it easier simply to walk away from the whole issue.”

“I have often said that we are “our own worst enemy” because we seem not only fail to support those of us that are trying to do something for us all, but that we will even criticize and gossip about that person. But while that is certainly true of some, I think the “dushmaja” statement does not apply to everyone, and I would say instead, that we are “responsible for our own lack of success in working as a team”. Why? Because we lack confidence when presenting ourselves, because we can only deal with some of the questions directed at us. The details of our history are only now being worked out, and for most of us they are seen as inconsequential, unimportant when it comes to dealing with racism, health and safety.”

“What has to be understood, is that the differences that we point out to show that our endani is different from another one (and therefore “better”), have been imposed from outside—from the non-Romani world, the jado. They are not part of core Romani culture—the parts that we all had, that we all shared, and to a large extent still share. Put simply, what links all Romani people are the core factors—genetics, language, culture—and what separates us are factors acquired from the non-Romani world, different in different places, further compounding our group differences.”

We must educate ourselves about our own history, and not let gadže decide for us and speak for us. But the non-Romani world too, must be educated not only about our history as a people, but about its own complicity in creating our situation today. Instead of condemning the Rromni with her baby begging in the centrum, ask why she is there. What circumstances have led her to this? Does she really prefer it, as some journalists have claimed? Do we really prefer squalor? Gadže enslaved Romanies, gadže attempted to exterminate us, gadže are the ones responsible for your questions here.

We have four weapons: education, the truth, shame and anger – SIČAJVIMOS, O ČAČIMOS, LADŽAV, XOLI. Education is essential, for us to be able to speak for ourselves with confidence and authority. Truth is essential, because it cannot remain hidden forever. Shame, because once that truth becomes known, those that have attempted to hide or distort it, must take that shame, for example “The purpose of sending the Gypsies to Auschwitz was to rid society of their presence, not to kill them.” (Lewy, 2002: 28). And one more weapon that we have: ANGER (XOLI).”