Message to the Mayor of Belgrade: Is it difficult to say "Roma brothers, sorry!"

I thank the mayor. Aleksandar Šapić on selected words about my father, Rajko Đurić, which he spoke at one of the last press conferences, in the context of the tragic death of a Roma child in the settlement on Vuk Vrčević Street.

It is true that my father was one of the greatest intellectuals of his time, not only among the Roma, but also in the majority society and in the international framework.

But that is not the only reason why I am writing this text.

I have no doubt that Miloš Šapić raised his son Aleksandar properly, because I know him. He is a good man. I met him countless times in my house, just as my father, Rajko, was a guest in his. That's why I believe (although I don't know the mayor personally) that he is not a Roma hater.

However, for the sake of the truth and for the good of my Roma people, I have to tell them in a friendly way that good upbringing and good intentions are not enough to understand the situation in which the Roma community has been for decades.

It is precisely this lack of additional acquaintance with historical, social, economic and psychological facts, I think, that made the mayor declare what he declared and that he believes that what was offered to the Roma as a solution represents a real chance when it comes to solving the housing issue of residents of substandard settlements.

An ordinary citizen does not need to know this additional knowledge about the Roma Golgotha ​​throughout history and its social consequences, although in order to reduce the social distance towards the Roma in our society, it would be good if every citizen of this country knew the true and deep sources of "Roma suffering". It would not be bad if, in this sense, the educational system also made its contribution and introduced the younger generation to all the factors that contribute to the Roma being where they are.

Ignorance is no excuse.

However, the mayor's position does not forgive him for not knowing that Roma came to these and European areas a thousand years ago. In that long period of time, right at the beginning, the Greeks called them "Athiganoi" - untouchables, pestilence, those who should not be dealt with, simply because their appearance and other cultural characteristics were significantly different in relation to their new environment. Fear of the new and different awakened the prejudices and animosity of the then inhabitants of the Balkans and Europe towards the Roma community.

Precisely as a consequence of such irrational and senseless fears fueled by prejudices, the famous fear of children arose: "If you are not good, the gypsies will steal you" and that paradigm has persisted in the non-Roma mind until today, manifesting itself in different ways.

Mayor Šapić would have to know at least enough about his fellow citizens, the Roma, that on the soil of the whole of Europe, from their arrival throughout the late Middle Ages, and in some countries even much later, the authorities did not even allow them to stay on the territory of cities, counties for longer than a few days. The nobles knew how to organize an open hunt for them, with horses and dogs. In Romania, they had the status of classic slaves in chains. That slavery lasted for 500 years. They were freed about the same time as African-American slaves whose slavery lasted half as long. Compare that with the consequences of five centuries of subjugation of the Serbs during the Ottoman Empire.

What do you think, what consequences did it have for the Roma, their mistrust towards the good intentions of the majority population, the authorities, their social and economic development? What consequences did the centuries-long persecution and annihilation have on the psyche and state of consciousness of these people? These are all important things that the mayor had to know and keep in mind when he said that Roma are uncivilized, unadaptable or antisocial.

Roma contribution to European culture and suffering

Even under these circumstances, let me remind you, the Roma have brought many good things to Europe. In the field of music, their influence brought significant changes. Franz Liszt was directly inspired while listening to Roma's concert in the queues. The Roma made it possible to cast iron tubes for cannons in the Middle Ages, using a unique technique of casting in clay molds, because they were excellent blacksmiths. In Romania, as slaves (and designers, because some of them were trained slaves, but also as labor) they built magnificent castles all over the country, which today represent an unavoidable tourist attraction in this part of Europe, and Antonio Solari il Gobo is the author domes on one of the most famous cathedrals in the world, the Duomo in Milan.

Among the Roma, there were decorated heroes who participated in the wars of the 20th century. There is no need to waste words on how much they suffered in the Second World War alone. Together with the Serbs and Jews in this climate, and on European soil also with the Poles, they suffered the greatest sacrifices in the infamous camps of the Nazis and their collaborators. In some countries, such as Croatia, the Roma were almost completely exterminated during this war. In total, between one million and two and a half million European Roma perished in this period of history.

The atrocities committed against the Roma in these dark days are insufficiently known to the public. In Auschwitz, for example, Joseph Mengele kept the tattooed skin of a Roma on his desk. In this camp, there was also a special section only for Roma inmates. With the Roma children, Mengele performed live experiments, injecting chemicals into their eyes, putting clamps so on the limbs to cause gangrene, he tried to make conjoined twins out of twins by suturing and connecting blood vessels, etc., etc. It is too gruesome to describe what the Roma endured just because they were born as members of this nation.

On the margins of society

After the war, in many European countries there were special police registers on Roma. They often lived in classic apartheid and without any rights, on the margins of society, left to their own devices and unrecognized. And yet, the Roma community gave the world a Charlie Chaplin, Yul Brynner, Ava Gardner, Rita Hayworth, Sir Michael Caine, Ronnie Wood (Rolling Stones), then many athletes from Andrea Pirlo to Hadzi to Kvarezma and Zlatan Ibrahimovic, including the current boxing champion Tyson Fury.

In Serbia at the beginning of the 20th century, their settlements represent reserves where "some exotic people" live and no one cares about them. It is not surprising that with such a status of "strange creatures that stare far from the eyes of gentlemen" they were interesting to Uncle Iliji, who recorded their customs and life with his camera, and these recordings also represent the beginning of Serbian cinematography.

For the first 30 years of the communist era, until the beginning of the 70s, most Roma lived in their settlements in complete isolation. Enumerators rarely go there, and health services even less often. Children are not obliged to attend primary school, nor are the authorities insisting on it. Shocking information about the life of the Roma in Serbia, the misery they sank into, is brought to the public by Aleksandar Petrović's film "Feather Collectors".

At that time, the International Roma Movement began to form, whose first honorary president was the actor Jul Briner, who declared himself a Roma, then Slobodan Lala Berberski, then Sait Balić, and at the height of that movement in the 80s, my father, Rajko, whom the mayor mentioned.

Therefore, only from the 70s of the XX century, the Roma became more visible in society and began to demand some of their rights. Until then, they live as American Indians in reservations.

Well, that's the truth in a nutshell, which stood in the thousand years of Roma living in these and European simplicities.

What does Šapić offer to the Roma?

After this, what does the mayor think, what is the real chance given to the Roma to adapt? When you offer people who have suffered so much throughout history, flats in Kamendin, and with a contract cut off a few years for them to find their way around (while their preferential rents last, and then those rents jump enormously, so those apartments turn out to be more expensive than in some attractive locations in Belgrade) , when you offer people who have been living in one way for generations the apartments where they should live, and at the same time you don't think about where they will dispose of the recyclable waste from which they live and feed their children, then that not a chance.

The mayor says that they were also offered a job. Yes, but with an income that is significantly less than what is earned from collecting waste. You know, those Roma are not stupid, even though they lack formal education. Life has taught them to calculate well where they can get more, after all, like all of us.

Due to the historical fate described above, the Roma have an additional developed drive for self-preservation, and everything is subordinated to that preservation of the collective. That's the only thing that gives them a chance to survive, because they don't trust the state, and frankly, why would they? A lot of power went over their heads. Many of them were well earned from Roma votes. Many promised all kinds of things, and no one gave anything or almost nothing. As far as that is concerned, this government is neither better nor worse than others.

Kada says that the Roma do not want to live civilized and to choose to beg, the mayor actually repeats the dangerous concepts that led Roma to the guillotine and gas chambers. That's why I had to give that long historical introduction.

When he says that they steal wire and pull out cables, he forgets about the Serb colonists from BiH and Montenegro who were settled in Vojvodina after the Second World War. They were given something that, at that time, was much better than flats in slats (which, by the way, were built with very poor quality). Do I need to remind you how this experiment ended? People who were herders, thought that they should move into new German houses with tiles, gilded doorknobs, bidets in the bathroom, tubs and showers with all the cattle. Yes, those super modern houses started to stink in a very short time, the tiles were broken so that the goats wouldn't break their legs, the new tenants defecated behind the house because it was incomprehensible to them that someone was doing that under the roof where they eat and sleep. When we talk about the time needed for adaptation and the attitude of the neighbors towards these people, let me mention that today, after 80 years, what do the native Vojvodina people think about the "newcomers" (who watched Government job, everything is clear to him).

Where does the European money go for the Roma?

I completely agree with the mayor that a part of the NGO sector, which has proven to be rather useless by organizing endless seminars and trainings for everything and anything, of which these people have none benefit. A part of these organizations are led by Roma who live well at the expense of their compatriots.

However, a huge part of the cake did not end up in Roma pockets, but in non-Roma pockets. This money was not spent on purpose. Serbia is unable to withdraw an even larger part of the money from European funds due to the lack of a clear vision and proposed long-term and sustainable solutions.

Who is most at risk? Precisely those Roma in Vuk Vrčević, whose children are run over by trucks, because the parents are fighting for survival, and in that daily slavery, it is not too strange if attention slackens, and the child is kidnapped and runs off into the road.

Residents of an even larger settlement on the Čukarica slope are also affected, whose children are bitten by rats, and when there are heavy rains, their shoes are left in the mud, which they have to overcome in order to go out into the street. Here, as a journalist, I had the opportunity to report on old people, some of whom freeze to death every winter.

The mayor should keep all this in mind when he talks about the Roma who "will not live differently". I repeat, Roma are not weak-minded. Nobody runs away from fatty cakes. It must be that something was wrong with the offer of the country he represents.

I am convinced that Rajko, his father's friend, if he were alive, would have told the mayor all this in his characteristic, professorial and paternal way, bearing in mind his relatively young age, and with the aim of raising awareness of Roma problems.

Don't light a fire next to hay.

Unfortunately, due to the lack of this finer sense of the problem (which a large number of non-Roma have, even those who have been dealing with Roma issues for a long time and whose good intentions I have never doubted), Šapić unfortunately said what he said. The result of what was said can best be observed on social networks, where the mayor was supported by a huge number of haters and chauvinists, who clearly have openly hostile feelings towards the entire Roma people (although, as he said, the mayor does not have the entire Roma people in mind).

Simply, he would have to be aware in the future not to start a fire next to dry hay if he didn't want the whole barn to burn down. In other words, in addition to the name of the Roma and the Roma community, there must be great caution, carefulness of words and a subtle sense of proportion, so as not to create a fire of intolerance towards an entire people with incendiary rhetoric. This potential for resentment towards the Roma exists in almost all European societies, but also in Serbia, where neo-Nazism is growing and where nationalist and collaborationist ghosts from the Second World War are increasingly being vampirized.

There are solutions for Roma settlements

By the way, for the 165 listed Roma settlements, there are solutions to a large extent. They are defined by various studies of international expert organizations and include the highest standards that relate to all aspects of human life, so that their application would not only solve the problem of a roof over their heads, but would also lead to a sustainable solution regarding the employment of these people, then children's education, health care, etc.

The problem is that the solutions are expensive and require long-term systematic work in which experts from various relevant fields must be involved, i.e. a multisectoral approach, as well as the Roma themselves who would constantly work to raise the awareness of their countrymen.

No one expects the mayor himself to implement solutions for such a complex problem as adequate Roma housing. However, it would show strong political will in the right way if he gathered such teams around him and allowed them to develop a road map towards sustainable solutions in this area.

The part of the statement where he decisively says that he has nothing to discuss with the Roma is the most worrying of all.

That, mayor, is not a good sign, just as it is not a good sign to say "Roma brothers, I'm sorry!" Believe me as someone who knows the soul of his people well, you would win them over with such a gesture because the Roma did not remember badly. In the end, think about everything I wrote in the name of the long-term friendship of our fathers, but also in the name of a better future for my people, who in this area have no other country than Serbia.

The author is the editor of the television show "Romanipen".

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