Abstract
In the midst of the 2015/16 refugee crisis, the Visegrad countries stated their opposition to refugee quotas. Viktor Orban, the Hungarian Prime Minister, compared refugee quotas to Hungary’s asking to disperse its Romani citizens to different EU countries. Slovak Prime Minister Robert Fico replied that Slovakia could not accept refugees of different religion and culture since it had had problems in integrating its own Romani citizens (Romea.cz, 2015). Several questions become apparent here: how is it possible that such prominent politicians could even consider dispersing their own citizens to other countries? How could they openly admit to their exclusionary conduct against their own citizens, who are not of majority ethnicity? How is it possible that such attitudes towards Roma remain unquestionable despite all policy developments in the field of anti-discrimination towards particularly vulnerable groups? Aidan McGarry offers an answer to these questions already in the title of his new outstanding book: Romaphobia is “the last acceptable form of racism”.
Throughout his book, McGarry is pointing to a societal phenomenon that both Roma and non-Roma are aware is there. But metaphorically speaking, it seems that the majority society is sweeping it under the carpet, or at least diminishing its importance. Nevertheless, McGarry claims that this phenomenon should be taken into particular consideration by social scientists and be called by its real name: racism against Roma. In his introductory chapter McGarry presents a particular conundrum that he explores throughout the book: according to him, Romaphobia remains persistent despite the policy transformation that targeted the integration of Roma and the improvement of their position in different European societies, both in EU Member States as well as in candidate countries with large Romani populations. In Chapter 1, he states:
Even though we can recognize the importance of the law in fighting what might be termed as overt forms of racism, it does not really help with covert racism, which is a more malignant strain. Changing laws and legal protection against discrimination is the minimum we should expect. Covert racism is found in subtle prejudicial views and attitudes and is the soil in which overt racism grows. (p. 18)
In the next chapters McGarry analyses the constellations in which Romaphobia is particularly present and how it produces stigmatisation as well as subsequently perpetuates Roma marginalisation. Yet at the same time, McGarry does not consider a Romani individual as a passive object of Romaphobia: he shows how they constantly contest this form of racism as activist citizens (Chapter 6) by a variety of direct and indirect protests, including the manifestation of Roma pride (Chapter 5).
In Chapter 2, McGarry theoretically explores Romaphobia from the perspectives of territoriality and belonging: he argues that Roma are constantly being positioned as strangers within their own nation states. Despite the fact they are citizens of their states they are alienated from enjoying the full rights of their citizenship, because the majority society inherently categorises them as nomads who do not belong or are not in fact connected to the territory. McGarry shows that there is nothing within Roma society that would produce such positioning. Here he makes a very innovative shift in thinking: it is not the Roma, but there is something within the Westphalian concept of the sovereign state that in fact produces such a designation of Romani individuals and it seeks its justification in Romaphobia. Chapter 3 shows how the construction of Romani identity and also nationalism are constantly forced to remain in dialogue with views based on Romaphobia. It is a frame imposed from the outside and it is based on a hegemonic relationship between majority populations and Romani minorities.
Chapter 4 presents one of the most striking portrayals of Romaphobia: socio-spatial segregation of Romani communities. McGarry analyses two examples of how political authorities actually relocated Romani communities from city centres to their outskirts: the cases of Šuto Orizari (Šutka) in Skopje (the Republic of Macedonia) and Lunik IX in Košice (Slovakia). He discusses socio-spatial segregation because, he argues, it does not necessarily lead to the powerlessness and voicelessness of Romani minorities. Interestingly, in the case of Šutka, certain mechanisms of Roma political representation have been established as it acquired the status of the biggest Roma municipality in Europe. On the other hand, despite the fact that Slovakia is an EU Member State, Lunik IX in Košice represents a total institution of segregation: entrapment in a vicious circle from which the inhabitants of Lunik IX cannot seem to break free. As shown in the interviews that McGarry conducted with Lunik IX residents, Romaphobia is a form of racism that not only supersedes the physical appearance of Roma, but is based on the spatial component as well: when someone with a Lunik IX address applies for a job, they are rejected even before being given an opportunity. Nevertheless, Chapter 5 shows that Romani individuals are fighting to be given better opportunities: with the Romani pride parade, they step out of their segregated spaces. With this protest manifestation, they ‘come out’ with their Romani identity, challenge stigmatisation and demand equal recognition. Chapter 6 illustrates another terrain where Romaphobia is being produced, but also contested: in the frame of EU citizenship and intra-EU migration.
McGarry’s book comes at a crucial time. On one hand, it is published in the period when the new European Romani Institute is being established (he analyses its establishment in his book), which aims to contest previous stigmatised Romani identities. On the other hand, Romani individuals are once again becoming targets of covert racism because of new events in society such as the refugee crisis and Brexit. Such events are not directly targeting Roma, but they are being swept in as collateral damage. McGarry shows how Romaphobia is the product of its context and not of isolation. Hence, it also cannot be analysed from the isolationist stream of Romani studies, but needs to be embedded within the analyses of broader interdisciplinary social sciences and humanities. McGarry manages to conduct such embedded analysis very lucidly, but at the same time his book also remains accessible to a wider audience beyond scholars and policy makers. This is certainly additional added value of this excellent book.