Racism?

Plavecky ?tvrtok in Záhorie, Bratislava county is my second home as of my 8th year since my father bought an old village house and began with the reconstruction. That factually meant almost complete demolition of the old and building a new house after the old shape from scratch. Pursuant then communist rules, whereby officially a family could not own more than one additional house, strictly limited in size to "one big room" plus accessions.

Sleeping quietly on the upper end of the village at that agreeable Indian summer October day of 2020, I barely could have perceived that at the lower end, another clan battle of at least totally outraged 100 locals played havoc. House burned, one police of the two assigned for overall the village violently attacked, additional police called in the emergency to the place where illegal settlers dwell for ages, despite inpouring of Eurofond resources and decades of persuasion and efforts towards their societal and spiritual uplift.

They ferociously deny any reasonable idea of departure or relocation arguing with their human rights relating the issue solely to racism whilst permanently accentuating their precarious life situation, hence, practically impossible to move them away.

These are Roma, the cultural minority, the non-autochthonous, from the lowest casts of India originally, migrating around Europe for centuries, in recent time forced to lead a sedentarized life-style which, in a net shell, appears to be contrary the spirit of their traditional and largely outlived cultural and societal norms.

The settlement of round 1000 inhabitants with the outskirts dangerously fusing with the village houses nicknamed Yugoslavia of the 90ties is ever-increasing while stretching upon the nature reservation of once exceptional forest with some precious and protected plants sorts, none of them surviving the forest devastation.

Moreover, the settlement lies directly on the gas pipeline.

As far as I remember, and I can recall already a long time of cohabitation of the villagers and the Roma, I cannot remember one single event of rage against them.

On the other hand, there had been countless incidents of them assaulting the majority population.

Whether directly attacking and hurting school teachers during the lesson or dragging the bus drivers out of the bus for refusing to share a cigarrete with them.

Whether molesting pedestrians for money or cigarettes, grabbing women and girls at the ....you know what as one president of one big country is notoriously famous for feeling empowered to do that as well.

Whether just screaming loudly if one refused to talk to them or has shown off too distancing gesture.

Whether, as a result of alledged financial strains, unable to share electricity, water and waste removal costs which ulteriorly lie on the shoulders of the majority population.

All that by recording dozens of criminal infractions or delicts each month within the settlement borders.

Having said that we must admit that since the fall of communism the social condition of Roma's had seriously deteriorated.

Due to the low threshold of education they usually reach, their ability to succeed in the job market has shrunk awfully.

Parallelly, we cannot spell that the job opportunities for manual workers have been increased despite the massive state stimulations and foreign investments granted a 10 years tax holiday in Slovakia in exchange for the creation of jobs.

For what exactly? For creating "a hundred of working posts" in manufacturing, or automotive industry.

Undoubtedly, what we experience is an influx of foreign migrant workers, especially from Ukraine, not the afflux of eager Roma's co-citizens desiring to change their social status or deliberately applying to become a regularly employed blue-collar.

Traditionally, Roma's have been famous for exceptional craftmanship and art performance.

Against all odds of imperialist capitalism blooming after the velvet revolution of 1989, their language and cultural traditions could have thrived and be pursued without any barrier.

Nevertheless, it seems that along with the drastic widening of social scissors the majority of Roma's were not able to put up with the new, ergo to face the augmenting competition and thus became overwhelmingly unable to steer their life independently, eventually depending on state allowances, incapable to ensure their material autarchy.

Those who bear the brunt of failing integration are both them and the majority population.

So do not call Slovaks rasists.

Unless stirred up politically, badges of extremism are as rare as all people of colour in all Slovak pubs together.

Active citizenship has nothing to do with politics.

Minuscule success stories could be dug out where the integration, both societal and economic, marked a significant uptick.

To sum up, both the health care and Roma issue are two ultra massive black holes which have progressively devoured millions of euros, without allowing us to sigh of pleasure from the enjoyment of a mere indication of improvement.

Government accounts for more than 1000 Roma settlements in Slovakia, and their number is increasing.

Out of there, to draw the Roma kids out to school and make them scholars up to the graduation appears to be one of the biggest setbacks our school system strives to endure.

Yet, the coronavirus outbreak confirmed that our Roma citizens can be very disciplined if they want to be. They even outperform.

Along this line, what fails are the methods to change the attitude, whilst a negative attitude causes a low motivation of the counterpart.

Without being personally pushed to face or modify the stark status-quo we all must come to the conclusion, that in the long run, keeping a low success record on integration we all become losers.

Ethnic diversity is a past nowadays. Except for Slovaks, Hungarians, Ruthenians and Romas, there are no other larger ethnic groups living in Slovakia.

Unless Slovakia becomes able to pursue an effective coexistence with this ethnical group, I am afraid, the majority population will not be able to tackle the subject of (imi)migration in a comprehensive and EU responsible way as expected from us on the political level.

Moreover, not until the full enjoyment of social and economic rights becomes true EU-wide, and the EU socially and from the net income per the same position point of view equalised, we can hardly talk about an equal share upon the financial and cultural burden among the remaining EU member states as well.

That's why resettlement quotas will never work.

Please, keep that in mind when pointing finger at the East.