All over Western Europe and North America a new
generation of Roma is arriving in flight from persecution or hardship in
Eastern Europe. The re-emergence of genocidal attacks on Romani population
in Eastern Europe since 1989 has both led to renewed international flight
and migration, and has put the fragile organisation of the emergent Romani
intelligentsia on the spot, as they try to tackle the enormous task of
making the world aware of their peoples' plight. What follows here is NOT
a general statement of that plight, but a tiny fragment of the mosaic.
For the Romani peoples are made up of a great coalition of diasporic groups,
each with its own traditions, identity and often dialect, each a precious
repository of unique cultural wealth. Within the flight of perhaps 200,000
Rom from Eastern Europe in this decade, let us look at the struggle of
a group who constitute less than l% of that number, the Bosnian Serbaya
Kalderari.
Since 1990 there have arrived in the United Kingdom perhaps 4,000 Romani
refugees in total. The largest contingent is from Poland. The second largest
come from Bosnia and belong to one particular Romani group, the Serbaya
Kalderash Rom. Almost all the Rom from Yugoslavia in the UK now have come
from this small community that was based in Banja Luca, but had members
in Sarajevo and elsewhere. Most of these were born in either Serbia or
Bosnia, but, as the group tell their own story, the centre of gravity of
the group became, over the 50 years before the war, increasingly Bosnia.
The circumstances of this group are very particular, and distinct from
those of many other Romani groups in Yugoslavia.
The Kalderash Rom are a branch of the great Gypsy
diaspora that originated in India around the end of the first millennium.
They are one of four main ethnic groups (the others are the Lovari, Machvaya
and Churari) of the so-called Vlach Rom, who speak Romani dialects influenced
by Romanian, and were enslaved in Romania from the 16th century. There
were a number of emigrations, probably flights from slavery, which led
to the establishment of Lovari in Hungary and Machvaya in Serbia from the
18th century, but the Kalderash remained largely in slavery till the 19th
century; the last were freed only in the 1860s. During the 19th century,
however, there were great emigrations of ex-slave Kalderash into neighbouring
countries, which became part of the great movement of oppressed people
and economic migrants about that time.
There were, however, two distinct initial destinations of 19th Century
Kalderash emigrants from Romania. The larger portion went north into Russia
and from there spread to France, Spain, North and South America, and indeed
have become the most widely dispersed of all Gypsy groups. In North America
they tend to deny their slave origins, and throughout the West they are
jealous of their status among other Romani groups.
A smaller group of Kalderash, however, went south into Serbia. There,
in the first part of this century, they remained poor. They were seen as
a low-status immigrant group by other Rom in the former Yugoslavia, which
may explain why in the 1919-39 period many of them gravitated to Bosnia,
where they were seen not as Romanian immigrants, but as an adjunct of Serbian
immigration. They were, after all, Orthodox in religion, like the Serbs,
and like most long-established Serbian Rom (although in their private religious
ceremonies these Bosnian Kalderash insist they are Romanian Orthodox, rather
than Greek or Serbian Orthodox). The majority of long-established Rom in
Sarajevo, for example were Muslim Khorakhane Rom, and the largest new community
there in the 1980s were Albanian Rom, fleeing discrimination in the Kosovo
region.
We must see the Bosnian Kalderash, therefore, not
as an undifferentiated part of the great Romani population of former Yugoslavia,
but as a minority of a minority, (by my conversations with them, probably
numbering no more than 1,500 overall) and a poor immigrant minority at
that - at least until the 1950s. My discussions in 1975 and 1987 with Rade
Uhlik (the doyen of Yugoslav Romani Studies, who lived in Sarajevo) and
other experienced Yugoslavs made it clear that amongst Rom generally, this
poor, and formerly largely nomadic or shanty-town dwelling group, was seen
as low-status.
From the 1950s, however, the Bosnian Kalderash bettered themselves in
the same way as thousands of other Yugoslav citizens, by becoming guest
workers abroad, especially in Italy, France and Germany. When they went
there, however, they found the Rusaya Kalderash communities who had established
themselves in Western Europe up to 65 years earlier. These communities
had a firm lock on the tradition of Kalderash trades (coppersmithing and
it's derivatives, such as repairing stressed machinery, such as large vehicle
jacks). The Bosnian Kalderash guestworkers were unable to live as self-employed
craftsmen or traders as is their cultural economic ideal; they had like
other Yugoslavs to work in factories. There they saved money, which they
remitted to their families back in Yugoslavia, and eventually took capital
back to Bosnia, where they could use it to get nicer houses, set up small
businesses, and in fact live like Rom - until the war came. "You should
have seen Banja Luka before the war" one old man said to me. "It was the
best town in the world for business; people came to the market from everywhere."
Banja Luca was in fact, of course, a lesser economic and cultural centre
than Sarajevo. In Sarajevo religious identity even became more a cultural
relic than an impassable barrier, and some of the Bosnian Rom there took
Muslim Khorakhane Romani wives, (especially from among Muslim Romani economic
migrants to Sarajevo from poorer Macedonia) with the result that there
are a number of nominal and one or two sincere Muslims among the Bosnian
Kalderash in London, attached to their community by marriage links. For
example, there is one Muslim war widow of 24, whose Kalderash husband was
killed in the fighting, and who after a year began to live with another
young Kalderash in Sarajevo briefly before her first husband's family arranged
her escape to Britain. When he eventually arrived, on false Italian papers
there was considerable difficulty in explaining the situation to the immigration
authorities and arranging for their asylum claims to be considered together.
When war came, the position of the Bosnian Kalderash as a small and
by now mildly prosperous ethnic adjunct of the Bosnia Serbs suddenly collapsed.
They were seen as not really Serb after all, and part of a mixed religious
community. Families have told me how for some time the more extreme Serbian
nationalists made it clear that they did not accept their presence in Banja
Luka. Some families began to leave before 1992, seeing which way the wind
was blowing. A number reached England and scouted it using touring caravans
and tourist visas, staying usually in tourist caravan sites. They applied
for asylum after they began to hear bad news from home. These first arrivals
were able to bring much of their savings with them. Later arrivals were
not so lucky. From October 1992, some report that Chetniks in Serbian-held
areas were suggesting to them that they should leave for Muslim villages.
But they thought would not have been accepted there, if they had never
practiced Islam, or were baptised as orthodox Christians. Most Serbian
families near them, they say, would not let their children play with the
Romani children.
From October 1992 in Banja Luka there was a virtual
curfew during which it became impossible to leave one's house. Then the
Serbian soldiers came. In November, they took some of the Serbian Rom to
go to be soldiers too, but others they took to clear mines. They did this
by taking their wives and children and saying they would not release them
until they (the men) had tested a stretch of ground to make sure it was
clear of mines. According to my informants, they did this, for example,
to one Dragan Jovanovic, related to some of the Rom who came to the UK.
The families that were living in Sarajevo also found themselves being
called to serve in the armed forces - perhaps to shoot at their own relatives
who were being conscripted in Banja Luca. As ethnic conflict became more
acute in the poorer areas, despite the non-sectarianism of official Sarajevo,
Muslim Rom who had married into the Kalderash were seen as tainted by association
with Serbians. Most fled rather than be conscripted. Many of these report
sleeping in cellars or under road bridges. When the Bosnian Kalderash started
leaving, they knew that it might be for a long time. The first asylum-seekers
were people used to travelling in Western Europe, who moved out some of
their assets while waiting to see what would happen, and then applied for
asylum when phone-calls told them of expulsions and explosions. They did
not want, however to make for France, Italy or Germany, the countries where
they often had to work like slaves (as they saw it) and had not been able
to live like Rom, and where they would have been in the shadow of the Rusaya
Kalderasha. They came instead to a new country, England, not the scene
of past memories of bitter exile, and possessing only a tiny existing Rusaya
Kalderash community in West London.
Once community leaders had come to London, the whole community began
to regroup here - as they report it, perhaps 500 or so, 30-40% of the whole
Bosnian Serbaya Kalderasha community as it existed before the war, and
God alone knows what percentage of the community that still survives. It
is hardly surprising that the scattered fragments of this traumatised community
caught in other parts of Europe are eager to reach their own kith and kin
in England, where there are enough of them to celebrate their traditional
slavas,
comfort the grieving and succour the destitute. This can make for more
problems. There are members of this community who still possess residence
permits for other European countries, and so can only legally join their
kin in England on short-term tourist visas, which may pose a temptation
to them to falsify their position. And sometimes the UK government suggests
that they should be seeking asylum in other countries near to former Yugoslavia.
There are also problems of racial stereotyping. Those Rom that escaped
with their money and can afford decent cars and mobile phones are seen
as not as deserving as the poor Muslim gaje refugees who have been
bussed in, often by evangelical Christian workers, with very little money
or possessions. These live in hostels and are highly dependent on those
who help them. Refugees cannot win - if they are miserable, they are seen
as parasites; but if they are resourceful and resilient, they are seen
as not needing help, or even permission to stay. Whether or not the asylum-seekers
have money, however, they are not allowed to work or carry out business
for six months - but receive social security payments - but at a lesser
rate than local people. In consequence a number have resorted to begging
(traditionally seen by many Yugoslav Rom as a legitimate adventure in the
rich West) and some have been arrested for this, or hounded by the newspapers,
who have described those they tracked back to the houses they had been
found by local councils as "bogus Bosnians" (bogus, because the Sarajevo
government disclaimed responsibility for them). Inevitably the psychological
problems caused by displacement have also led to some domestic problems,
disruption and minor crimes, which the press blows up when they get hold
of them, though perhaps not to the same extent as in some European countries.
A series of arrests for completely incompetent shoplifting by young women
from a small group of families can, I think, be seen as a result of inter-generational
domestic strain more than a serious economic enterprise; but it has helped
to generate a climate of moral panic about the community in London, to
the point where many families have now moved to the north of England. The
one serious crime alleged against a Rom, however, of attempted rape, threw
the community itself into a state of utter white-faced shock.
Most refugee Rom from Eastern Europe make for Germany
or Italy. Italy has traditionally been a country visited by Yugoslav Rom
to earn money to take back home. Many are now seeking asylum there. There
have been a number of racist attacks on Gypsies in Italy (whether refugees
or long-established), and the Allianza Nationale in Rome (formerly the
fascist MSI, and part of the Berlusconi government) has begun to advocate
expulsion of all Rom from Rome, and other measures. The growth of racist
attacks, and forced repatriation of Rom (mainly from Romania) in Germany,
are notorious. For these reasons the members of this community are very
eager to gain asylum in the UK rather than some other European countries.
The UK branch of the International Romani Union, the Gypsy Council for
Education Culture Welfare and Civil Rights, has been anxious to assist
and defend these asylum-seekers, although the cultural differences between
these Rom and English Romanichals are very substantial. When the Romanichals
are fighting desperately for the right to remain nomadic, they sometimes
do not understand why the Kalderash are so keen to get houses. They held
a special meeting for asylum seeking Romanian, Polish and Yugoslav Rom
in London in 1993, and tasked Dr. T. A. Acton and Dr. D. S. Kenrick to
help where possible. A number of lawyers have gained some expertise in
pursuing these asylum applications.
To make the case for asylum for these Rom, we have to make a number
of points about the circumstance back in their former country. Throughout
Yugoslavia there have been incidents of rising racial violence. In 1990
they stopped Rom voting in the elections in Slovenia. In 1991 at least
two Rom were shot by police and a Romani woman was set on fire by a mob
in Kosovo (Searchlight, April 1992). The President of the International
Romani Union, Dr. Rajko Duric, was a journalist on Politika till
October 1991, when he was threatened with conscription for his opposition
to the war, after his protests over Rom being conscripted into the Serbian
army where they might have to shoot Croatian and other Rom (letter from
Rajko Duric, October 1991 issue of International Romani Union newsletter.)
He also gave a TV broadcast on Oct 12th 1991 criticising the war and Mr.
Milosevic (Belgrade Channel 3). I think that after that the Serbs suspected
all the Rom - but they could not go to Croatia where almost all the Rom
were killed during the war, or to the south where most of the Rom are Muslim.
Formerly, Rom were content as Yugoslav citizens in a country of many
peoples. There was discrimination and prejudice, but also a struggle, with
encouragement from the top, to lessen these. That country no longer exists.
Dr. Nicolae Gheorghe, the International Romani Union vice-president from
Bucharest, has said that the violence against Rom in Eastern Europe is
not yet genocidal but it is "localised violence." But each example of localised
violence raises the temperature, and as the victims of localised violence
flee to safer areas, so the prejudice of the host communities who sometimes
accept "their own Gypsies" but not "foreign Gypsies" is raised. If they
go back now, even to safe areas, they will just make things worse and less
safe for the Rom left there
A big multi-country survey for the Times-Mirror
Centre for the People and the Press showed that throughout Eastern Europe
in 1991 Rom faced the deepest prejudice and discrimination: "Hostility
to Gypsies showed no correlation with religion or with economic or educational
status. It was extremely strong and virulent across the breadth and depth
of the continent" (the Pulse of Europe - special report, supplement to
the Los Angeles Times, 17 September 1991.)
On July 10th 1992 in Helsinki, the Conference on Security and Co-Operation
in Europe (C.S.C.E.) adopted its strongest ever condemnation of racial,
ethnic and religious discrimination and violence. European governments,
including that of the UK, affirmed (Helsinki Document Ch.6. Para.35) "the
need to develop appropriate programmes addressing problems of their respective
nationals belonging to Roma and other groups traditionally identified as
Gypsies and to create conditions for them to have equal opportunities to
participate fully in the life of society and will consider how to co-operate
to this end." The 1994 CSCE (now OSCE)
declaration proposed some practical measures to set up a contact point
to monitor this.
Peace in Bosnia may well make things little better
for the Rom. The proposed constitution of Bosnia Herzegovina appears to
be basing citizenship firmly on ius sanguinis not on ius soli,
with the result that, as in states with similar laws like the Czech Republic,
many Rom may effectively lose their citizenship. Provisional clauses seem
to envisage that citizenship may be revoked if one's parents are deemed
by the state to have lied about their origins. The American civil rights
lawyer, Barry Fisher (personal communication), in commenting on these clauses,
has suggested that Rom have some reason to fear that peace between Croats,
Serbs and Slav Muslims, may merely be the starting point for effective
ethnic cleansing of the Rom, especially those who like the Serbaya Kalderash
may be alleged to be of foreign origin.
We are urging on compassionate grounds that these Rom be allowed to
come to England where they can find the community support that they will
not be able to find easily in other countries. The Rom are perhaps better
equipped than many others, by the experience of centuries of persecution
to be resilient in the face of calamity; but that strength comes from the
solidarity of kin and community. This Bosnian Kalderash small community,
if it finds its feet in England, can be an asset to the whole community,
bringing knowledge, skills, experience and its ancient language and culture
to enrich our multi-cultural society in the UK. It is not a large community,
and despite its resilience and cheerfulness, it has suffered great loss
over the past three years.