Cigány ut Photo©2002, RomaniWorld Irrational dreaming Like most children in her country this little Roma girl will want to go to a normal school and, with all the other children of her age, learn together of the wonders of the world. As she gets older she might wish to learn more and become a nurse, a doctor or teacher. Of course like all other people she will probably wish to marry someone she loves and eventually raise children. Enjoying their company, assisting them in learning and hoping they will do well. Just as her parents looked after their parents so well, even although they are not well off, so will she look after her parents in their old age. Her family values merge a respect for the elderly and children sustained by life long dedication and love. But Unfortunately this little girl lives in the Hungarian countryside in a small village. Even worse, for her, she is Roma. In spite of the fact that she has normal intelligence she is unlikely to go to the normal school for others of her age. She will be separated with other Roma children and be taken to another building where she will be segregated and not receive any useful education for the rest of her "school days". There is an immense stigma associated with this action and therefore the children realize they are being forced out of the normal school of which they dreamed. They see their future evapourating before them. Invariably they cry and protest in vain. All of this occurs out of sight of the media and prying "do-gooders" in an immense Aparthied educational Gulag which spreads through the rural regions of Hungary. This whole system has grown up since 1989 because successive Hungarian governments have paid local authorities Euro 2,000 for each child forced into a so-called special school for the subnormal. This has been used a a convenient justification for segregating Roma children. Unfortunately the funds are not spent on these children. The children forced into this status are not expected to achieve. In fact they are not allowed to since this would show that forcing them into such institutions was unjustified. It is all part of a macabre sick racist game which is state-sponsored. With this girl going to such a school she will never receive a school certificate and so will never be able to do the work she might wish to do. While the other non-Roma children “get ahead” she and her Roma colleagues will be forced to fall behind. She has little chance of ever earning a good salary and contributing to society in the way she might wish. She will be forced to earn a low income doing menial jobs. Instead of building a family enjoying basic comforts and dreams, she and her husband will earn so little money together that when they begin to see how their own children are subjected to the same cruel segregation on the first day at school her own suffering will become more intense. As an older mother she will have had a bad diet, and because she will love her children she will become more and more subject to stress-related illness as she witnesses her whole family suffering in their struggle to survive. She is likely to die of stress-related illness imposed upon her by the non-caring attitudes of government and society. She will die 15 years before the “others” of her age; her husband, who will be subjected to daily discrimination at work will also suffer from stress through concern and love for a family he can hardly support. He will die at around 60 to 65 years of age, again 10-15 years before others of his age in Hungarian society. She is likely to be a young widow and poor. Family values Roma think in terms of family because this is a rational way to think. On this basis you do not discriminate against others. They understand that if they do not help each other, some will fall behind and in the end all will suffer. Unfortunately all Hungarian Governments and the European Union do not understand such family values. The Hungarian Government pays a lot of money to local authorities to segregate Roma children and give them almost no useful education. In 10 years time 25% of the workforce in Hungary will be Roma who can earn on average around 20% of the average wage. Hungary has one of the highest per capita international debts in the world which consumes a large proportion of its GNP. Because of the low earning capacity of the Roma segment of the workforce the Hungarian economy currently under-performs by some Euro 3 billlion each year. This is the cumulative result of this irresponsible human resources strategy based upon racism. The non-Roma Hungarian population is decreasing in size while the Roma population is increasing by just less than 2% each year. With their current irresponsible approach to the Roma the so-called professional base of the economy is collapsing and today's Hungarian workforce will pay a heavy price as the economy becomes less capable of generating income to support an increasingly old population in retirement. Soon, the Roma will make up 25% of the Hungarian workforce earning 20% of the average. This is why Hungary cannot afford to continue its state-sponsorship this irresponsible human resources policy. Morals, ethics, family values and common values have never been enough to convince Hungarian politicians and leaders to stop such inhumane cruelty. To such people, only money speaks. Major growth expected in Euro- Gypsy business At last! Help for the Roma Recently, the World Bank, the Open Society Institute and others have organized meetings to launch a Decade of Roma Inclusion. There is an educational fund to which OSI (George Soros) has donated Euro 20 million and the total fund is worth around Euro 30 million. Eight Central and Eastern European governments have declared their support for this venture. The 0.4% deal? Unfortunately, in the case of the educational fund, which is divided between eight countries, it is difficult to see what will be achieved. As an example, the Hungarian government alone invests some Euro 100 million every year in a financial incentive to rural local authorities to maintain over 50,000 Roma children in segregated educational denial. That works out at some Euro 2,000/child each year. This policy, in contravention of European law, is managed by and within state institutions. On the basis of an equal share out, Hungary's share of the Roma education fund might be around Euro 400,000 each year. The obvious question which has to be asked is, how do the World Bank and the OSI expect to make any headway in Hungary with just Euro 400,000 to help educate Romani children when the state of Hungary, each year, invests Euro 100 million to segregate them and deny them education? This 0.4% deal will not achieve anything significant for Roma. Until the Hungarian government stops breaking the law and spending 250 times more on segregating Roma children than this fund is allocating to integrate them, then everyone associated with this activity is deluded or dishonest or both. Thriving Gypsy business The European Committee on Romani Emancipation estimates that Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic, member states of the European Union, jointly invest around Euro 300 million in similar schemes, which constitute an official bribe, to local authorities to segregate and deny education to around 150,000 Romani children. Therefore the first essential step in improving the education of these children is for these governments to terminate this state-sponsored discrimination. This simply means these governments should obey European law. But there are easily identifiable groups who represent a silent lobby who survive comfortably by using these funds while helping sustain overt descrimination against Roma on the part of others. During the last 15 years a large so-called Gypsy business has grown up in Central Europe creating an almost exponential growth in non governmental organizations who consume increasing amounts of money in the name of assisting the Roma. But the Gypsy business, as is well understood in Central Europe, is a business which benefits everyone who participates in it, except for the Gypsies themselves (Roma). Many consultancy companies with no prior experience with Roma, and indeed some whose staff harbour prejudice against the Roma, have jumped onto the band waggon to earn $ millions, sustain a very comfortable life style and producing nothing of benefit to the Roma. If one reviews the millions spent on the Roma it is noteworthy that there are no examples of worthwhile sustainable projects run by Roma in Central Europe. During over twelve years EU spent around Euro 65 million on all Roma initiatives while during the same period Hungary, the Czech Republic and the Slovak Republic spent over Euro 1 billion, specifically bribing local authorities to segregate and deny education to Romani children. This business has been so successful that the numbers of children forced into such depreivation, since 1989, increased by more than 400%. In Central Europe, the Gypsy business, founded on overt racial discrimination, in terms of the return on investment, is the most profitable business in these economies. Rules of the game With so much money at stake it is not surprising no one really wants to upset the apple cart. With so much slush, there has developed an "understanding" amongst its stakeholders. This understanding is that it is acceptable to organize seminars, workshops and meetings and funds can of course be created with a name tag carrying the word "Roma" somewhere. But the basic rule is that no one must criticize the ongoing role of governments who sustain this injustice and have callously made any practical solutions impossible. Children in special schools? Well these are put down to being "mistakes" or "misclassifications" of children rather than the result of a coordinated overt racist state-sponsored policies. No one should call attention to the continuation of payments of funds to local authorities to proactively segregate and deny education to Romani children. No one should remind us that the local authorities divert these funds so as not to provide compensatory education for having removed the children from the normal school system. Mind control of would-be critics The Hungarian government is particularly adept at misleading would-be critics of its uncceptable policies. For example, the central government introduced a payment to local authorities of around Euro 175 for each Roma child transferred from a special school to a normal school. This delighted diplomats and concerned citizens in the rest of Europe. On the other hand they continued to pay Euro 2,000 for each child kept in a special school. Local authority personnel admit that the Euro 175 is a window dressing which will never be used. This selective propaganda is avidly consumed by naïve foreign would-be critics who then write reports to say the practice of encouraging local authorities to force Romani children into special schools no longer exists in Hungary. This, of course, is not true. The government is quite prepared to proactively and tactically mislead when it feels it needs to. The Hungarian government also gave considerable publicity to an "initiative" organised to teach Hungarian police officers the Romani language as a basis for "improving relations" with the Roma Community. The police also received "training" in "conflict management". Media releases flooded the foreign press who gave this "news" a reasonable coverage, including the BBC World service. But the facts are that 78% of the Roma in Hungary do not speak any Romani but only Hungarian. On the other hand all of the other Roma also speak Hungarian with around 6% being competent in Romani another 6%, who also speak Hungarian, have some understanding of a Romanian dialect and not Romani. So this widely publicised Hungarian government "initiative" was no more than a cynical propaganda stunt specifically designed to mislead foreign media. The intent is of course to circulate misrepresentations of government intent by showing them in a positive light. On the other hand this is designed to cover up a heavily funded proactive state-sponsored discrimination which targets the Roma. Such examples serve to demonstrate the dishonesty and lengths to which this government will go to mislead in a fairly well managed exercise of mind control over would-be critics. These tactics, based on an official and enthusiastic willingness to misrepresent the facts to anyone who might "interfere", are what sustain such a wholesale institutuional discrimination and flouting of European law by such governments. Non governmentals support the Gypsy business The de facto proactive central government policies designed to harm the Roma is the principal cause of the problem. Most non governmental organizations are reliant upon funds from governments, aid institutions and large private donors. They often would rather not embarass their paymasters. Civil society institutions where one would expect to see some transparency are promotors of obscurity. They steer away from mentioning this overt dishonesty of central governments or the role of corrupt local authorities. They play a dangerous game with the futures of the Roma by implying that the Romani educational "problem" to be something to do with "Romani culture". They step back from accusing the state employed "educational psychologists" of being instruments in a macabre racism by stoping local mainstream school children from having to mix with Romani children of the same age, with equal and, in some cases, more intelligence. They lamely play the game by not questioning, too overtly, fraudulent assessment sheets. They “experiment” with a pilot scheme here, and another there, with a dozen or so children in an attempt to "demonstrate" that "some" Roma children should not be in special schools. This naïve and irresponsible approach plays wonderfully into the hands of those wishing to stall all progress and slow things down. Such "experiments" demonstrate nothing that has not been known for well over half a century. It is repeating far more thorough work undertaken with the American Indians since the 1940s. It only trots out in an amateurish way what is known of the experience of the Gaels in Ireland and the West of Scotland; a different home culture is not an impediment to being able to excel in education, if there is adequate encouragement on the part of teachers. Such incremental experimentation has no role within a system where those with decision making power are steeped in racism. The percentage of children, in any population group, in need of one-on-one assistance is less than 5% and yet some 98% of Roma children in some rural villages are in these schools. The whole system constitutes a sort of Central European rural Apartheid Gulag of cruel deprivation. The Roma know what is going on An objectionable aspect of the agencies, who sustain this cultural approach to the Romani education problem, and indeed to the Roma in general, is that they are able to sustain a social image which provides some kudos as people who are "doing something", driven by social conscience and the best of intentions. But their unwillingness or inability to call attention to the specific causal factors in a more overt fashion, and their wastage of funds on irrelevant activities, makes them convenient pawns in the hands of those who do not wish the Roma well. They are part of the ongoing insult to the Roma. The effective separation of the this whole system from the reality on the ground can be seen in the reference by the World Bank and OSI to “young Roma leaders” who are "cooperating" with them. It seems that such people have been hand picked top down and are largely unknown to Roma communities. This is hardly an encouraging example of a participatory approach. But it is a way to exercise some control over an agenda with higher financial stakes and to prevent reality breaking out. Far from encouraging the Roma, all of this simply encourages the further spread of an increasing awareness, amongst normal Roma, that these agencies are incompetent and many of their leaders are in it for the money. In short, they are corrupt. This recent small increase in funding carrying the "Roma" tag should lead to a sustained growth in the booming Gypsy business. 16th February 2005 25th May 2006 (updated)