/fawn.roma

EUROPE-ASIA STUDIES, Vol. 53, No. 8, 2001, 1193–1219

Czech Attitudes Towards the Roma: ‘Expecting More of Havel’s Country’?

RICK FAWN EVER-GROWING IS THE ISSUE OF RIGHTS FOR ROMA and their relations with majority nations throughout Central and Eastern Europe. If one group of people seems today to be consistently verbally derided, subjected to physical abuse, social marginalisation and even legal disenfranchisement in the post-communist space, it is them. While hardly unique, this situation nevertheless has become particularly evident in the Czech Republic. Few incidents in the fate of contemporary Europe’s Roma have seized the international imagination—rightly or wrongly—as much as those that have occurred in the Czech Republic. These issues, which not only require careful examination but also some quali cation of foreign media coverage, include the ‘wall’ built effectively segregating Roma from Czechs, a series of killings, a ‘citizenship’ law condemned internationally as intentionally denying Roma Czech citizenship, the departure of Roma from that country and their claim of asylum in several states, and the continued operation of an industrial pig farm on the site of a World War II concentration camp for Roma.1 All these incidents should be striking in themselves and call for explanation and analysis, as well as in some cases clari cation of how they have been presented in the West. They are perhaps all the more unusual because of a paradox: the ethos of liberalism and tolerance accorded to Czech society by many of its own citizens, intellectual and law makers, and especially by its admirers and supporters abroad.

Indeed, the present author would be among these, and this article carries some concern for the prestige and reputation of the Czech Republic.2 The importance of this assessment is multidimensional. The Romani issue has captured international media attention, if perhaps in a simpli ed manner. Its rami cations are numerous, affecting the Czech Republic’s relations with several Western countries. It is the one issue that most jeopardises Czech accession to the European Union, as even Czech Prime Minister MilosÏ Zeman admitted in 1999.3 Apart from the diplomatic and accession rami cations, Czech attitudes towards the Roma have sullied, even damaged the positive image of the Czechs abroad. Perhaps of foremost importance, and one that underpins these issues, is that the Romani question presents some insights into how the Czechs see themselves, and, in this sense, Czech attitudes towards the Roma are iconoclastic for domestic and foreign perceptions of Czech national identity.

While no study could possibly encompass and assess all incidents in Czech–Romani relations, nor embody all popular, media and political views, this article seeks ISSN 0966-8136 print; ISSN 1465-3427 online/ 01/0801193-27 Ó DOI: 10.1080/ 09668130120093192

2001 University of Glasgow

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to provide at least the contours of those relations. It does not aim to identify or explain sources of a possible Czech liberalism, but primarily seeks to consider the nature of Czech–Romani relations by examining and categorising Czech responses to the problems, and then by offering some explanations for the nature of these dif cult relations. The article does not seek to apportion blame to any one side. It begins with the paradox of Czech values and relations with the Romani minority.

Czech tolerance To be sure, relations between Romani minorities and titular majority nations appear to be, at best, strained, throughout former communist Eastern Europe, even if speci c dimensions, explanations and consequences are evident as well.

What is particularly striking about the Czech case is the indigenous and especially the foreign perception of the Czechs as a highly liberal, tolerant people. From the inception of Czechoslovak statehood the country was deemed to be more democratic, liberal and tolerant of its minorities than other new post-World War I states. Political legacies thereafter reinforced this image. The Roma were classed as a nationality along with Czechoslovakia’s German and Hungarian populations. The 1948 communist takeover was supported, as author Milan Kundera wrote, by the best parts of society to create a society of equality. Misguided as that idealistic thinking was to prove for the majority of the population, Czechoslovak reform communists distinguished the country within the socialist bloc by initiating the most liberal and far-reaching reforms during the Prague Spring. Events surrounding and following the November 1989 revolution in Czechoslovakia bolstered the country’s image of exceptional political liberalism. A repressive, hardline communist regime was toppled with no violence by protestors, and ultimately little by the government, and with poetic attacks of jingling keys. The sobriquet ‘velvet’ that became associated with that smooth, clean political transition gave rise not only to a new dictionary entry but a metaphor for the country as a whole. Its economic change, while rhetorically drastic, produced the lowest unemployment in Europe. The Czechoslovak Federation’s peaceful dissolution on the eve of 1993 could only be compared favourably with the violent disintegration of Yugoslavia.

Throughout the 1990s political leaders debated the meaning and practice of civil society. While these debates could become acrimonious—and the personal scorn of the two leading proponents, Va´clav Klaus and Va´clav Havel, became well-known— again the Czech Republic elevated itself, not only in the post-communist world but more widely, for the fact of such discussions occupying the centre stage of political life.

Unsurprisingly, the political and ethnic tolerance of the Czechs has been noted and celebrated inside and outside the country. The country was referred to as embodying the original vision championed by the rst Czechoslovak President, Toma´sÏ Masaryk, and Havel of a ‘multiethnic state founded on humane values’.4 As Sharon L. Wolchik observes, Czechoslovakia’s interwar political traditions gave the Czech lands a positive legacy that differentiated the country from its neighbours. For example, opinion polls nd Czechs signi cantly less anti-Semitic than Poles, Hungarians or Slovaks and more disposed towards political compromise.5 In the new Czech

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Republic, the values of tolerance and liberalism were also expressed. The Chairman of the Parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee called civil society a ‘traditional attribute of Czech democracy’,6 and its application to the EU referred to the country as multiethnic. Even Fedor Ga´l, who had otherwise spoken and written about racism in the Czech Republic, calls Czech society ‘liberal’ and says the country is an ‘oasis of stability’.7 Jack Snyder has written that ‘the sophisticated Czechs were able to invent a working civil society almost overnight’.8 With such perceptions of the Czech political environment, majority–minority relations could be expected even more to be positive. Relative demography would seemingly be conducive as well. The Czech Republic might be even more a challenging case because the number of Roma is relatively smaller than in many other post-communist countries.9 Roma are calculated to be 11.1% of the Macedonian population, 8.9% of the Slovak, 8% of the Romanian, 7.2% of the Bulgarian and 4.9% of the Hungarian. With Roma approximated at 2.4% of the Czech population, or even the 3.1% gure given by the European Roma Rights Centre, the Czech Republic has roughly half the number of Roma of Hungary, which has a comparable overall population.10 Czech President Va´clav Havel called the treatment of the Roma in the Czech Republic ‘a litmus test of civil society’.11 And, as British journalist Linda Grant wrote, even though Roma have left other countries such as Poland, ‘one expects more of Havel’s country’.12 Having brie y outlined the Czech claim, and the foreign perception of Czech tolerance and the centrality of civil society, the article now asks what forms Czech attitudes towards the Roma take.

The form and content of Czech attitudes Czech attitudes towards the Roma can be divided into various categories: the rst, and probably the most central to Czech–Romani relations, stems from a societal vicious circle. This concerns, on the one hand, general Czech perceptions of Roma not only refusing to conform to social standards and squandering opportunities of social mobility but also pursuing a lifestyle destructive of majority values; on the other hand, some Roma feel, and their activists argue, that they are intrinsically excluded from the means that would eliminate their social marginalisation, such as education and employment. The second category of relations, conducted at the fringes of society, is semi-organised racist violence, perpetrated largely by right-wing and/or ‘skinhead’ groups. The other categories concern whether of cial policies can and should be delineated as of cial neglect, deliberate but indirect policies, and deliberate and direct policies. As will be discussed in a later section on Czech responses, of cial initiatives, if not also attitudes, have not been static; rather, it will be shown that important measures have been taken, particularly since 1997, to offer assistance to Romani citizens of the Czech Republic.

The societal vicious circle Czech social attitudes involve a mixture of a sense of imposition, resentment and discrimination, all of which are interconnected and mutually reinforcing. Some

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historical reasons will be offered later, but the starting point for most Czechs is the practical, daily imposition on them resulting from the incompatibility of Romani cultural and social behaviour. At a minimum, the common Czech view is that the Roma opt for a lifestyle of indolence, theft and unsanitary living conditions. This might be acceptable to Czechs were these social practices isolated from their own lives and neighbourhoods, but they cannot be in the closer con nes of urban housing complexes, and when welfare payments are distributed unequally to the much larger Romani families in which, statistically, few members earn wages and pay taxes.13 Resentment is aggravated because Czechs often refer to how Roma had their socio-economic standing elevated under communism. Once given access to housing and education, the Roma are generally seen to have squandered these opportunities, including the destruction of the housing, belonging to Sudeten Germans expelled after World War II, to which they were relocated. Many Czechs, including those holding university degrees and in professional capacities, are frank in asserting that any social inequality Roma may claim is of their own making, as if it is also preordained, ethnically-based or even biological.14 Resentment is even found in the aftermath of violent attacks against Roma, with Roma often deemed to have brought their fates upon themselves. An incident in the city of Krnov is illustrative. Following an arson attack the Kova´cÏ family refused to move out of their burned out at into a one-room replacement, since they were still asking the town for a three-room at. The view of many Czech neighbours was that such ‘rent dodgers’ were bene tting from the offer of housing while 1200 local inhabitants awaited housing. Deputy Mayor Vladimõ´r Vocelka summarised Czech feelings that the family’s ‘attitude is creating anti-Roma feelings among people.

People have the feeling that the Kova´cÏ s are trying to exploit their misfortune for as much as they can’. Ester Kotlarova´ of the League of Peace and Human Rights of Roma con rmed that local Czech opinion believed the attack ‘served the Roma right’.15 Perceived abuse of social services augments Czech resentment. Even the sympathetic ‘Bratinka report’ of the Czech government, issued in 1997, illustrated that the social support received by a family with three children would exceed the average wage, ‘which is not achievable in the job market for Roma—usually unskilled labour—[so] they often prefer to receive welfare bene ts’.16 Disclosure by Czech media, for example, that unsuccessful asylum seekers were eligible under Czech state social support law for retrospective social bene ts generated claims that Roma were leaving not because of ‘persecution’ but to exploit asylum bene ts abroad while retaining government payouts at home.17 Czech views include a vocal current among the majority population that seeks to discriminate against Roma, to isolate or even eliminate them from the Czech social space. The general social tension between Czechs and Roma is indicated by public opinion polls that nd that 45% of Czechs favour the departure of Roma from the Czech Republic and 90% of Czechs have an ‘aversion’ to Roma and would not have them as neighbours.18 This thinking takes the form also of some Czech pubs banning the entry of Roma, with signs reading ‘No dogs or gypsies’. The Czech Helsinki Committee commented in its report for 1995; ‘Cases of open non-violent discrimination against minorities, in particular Roma, were registered in consumer services,

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stores, restaurants etc., where employees refused to serve Roma or let them enter’.19 While some pub owners have been taken to court for such signs, prosecution is generally unsuccessful,20 in part because, as the Helsinki Committee stated, ‘there is no direct legal instrument’ for such cases and ‘what are called indirect instruments are not used’.21 Popular views were further indicated by the comment of beauty contes´ stõ´ nad Labem in 1993. In response to the typical tant Magdalena BabicÏ ka in U question of her choice of career, she received applause for declaring that she wanted to become a public prosecutor ‘so that I might cleanse our town of all the dark-skinned people’.22 While these may be surprising statements of rejection of the Roma by individual Ï SA, the Czech Czechs, the process extends to major organisations such as the C Ï SA employees were marking the names of Republic’s national airline. In early 1998 C those on passenger lists whom they suspected of being Roma with the letter ‘G’ to Ï SA representative in London explained that represent the English word ‘Gypsy’. A C the measure allowed those with the ‘G’ to be sent directly to immigration of cers in London, thereby expediting the immigration process.23 But here the representation abroad of Czech actions is incomplete, for Czech correspondents stress that the British government had requested and insisted upon this measure by international carriers in order to stem asylum applicants from the Czech Republic. In response to the author’s enquiries, the British Foreign Of ce, and through it the British Home Of ce, con rmed that it had not been involved in any way with the practice.

A similar measure, although this time with fuller media coverage of British involvement, was instituted on 18 July 2001. Under a bilateral Consular Agreement made in February 2001, British consular of cials began ‘interviewing’ airline passengers to Britain before their embarkation at Prague’s RuzyneÏ international airport. The ‘system of pre-clearance’ checks, conducted even before check-in, was explained thus in a statement from the British Embassy in Prague: ‘Unfortunately, the continued, systematic abuse of the UK immigration and asylum system by some Czech citizens made this unavoidable’.24 The Czech press noted that ‘white’ Czechs had brief interviews while others were directed aside for lengthier meetings. Within 4 days about two dozen Romani passengers were denied ights.25 While Romani and human rights activists declared the measure ‘racist’ and in violation of international law, the British Embassy defended the measure as ‘non-discriminatory’, and the British Embassy’s statement explained that the passports and travel documents of ‘all passengers’ would be inspected.26 Returning to social perceptions between the Czechs and Roma, tension between them must certainly be found in socio-economic differences. Unemployment among the Roma is not known exactly but was estimated in 1996 at as much as 70%.27 Human Rights Watch estimated unemployment among Roma in the Czech Republic in 1998 to be 80%, and a European Commission report in 1999 suggested Romani unemployment could be as high as 90%. For several years after communism, by contrast, the Czech Republic enjoyed the lowest unemployment in Europe, hovering at 2.7% nationally, although some regions have had much greater levels. Even when the Czech economy faltered in the mid- to late-1990s unemployment crept up to no more than 7%.

The socio-economic argument produces an obvious vicious circle. Many Roma are

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poorly educated and even illiterate in the Czech language. Their ability, therefore, to gain employment is severely, and arguably perpetually limited. Perceptions may be reinforcing this limitation. For example, job placement centres are known to be asked by employers not to send Roma for posted openings.28 The Czech Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, by contrast, asserted that no discrimination towards Roma was found in employment of ces.29 The Czech refrain is that one can think well of the Roma only until one has an ‘experience’ of them. As one recorded comment summarises, ‘this talk of helping Roma and of tolerance is nice, but you try and live with them for 3 years in the same building. I can’t sleep because of the racket, I am afraid to go into the corridor and there is not a thing I can do’.30 Even if the majority of Roma could be proved to t such descriptions this remains an ascription of collective guilt.31 To summarise broad social considerations, the more the Roma are dispossessed and marginalised, the more they are unable to enter mainstream Czech society, the more likely it is that they will live in relative squalor and resort to crime to support themselves. The viewpoint of many, although not all Czechs, remains that Roma have had opportunities, even disproportionate ones under communism, to elevate their social standing but have squandered them wholesale. Czech perceptions of persistent anti-social Romani behaviour will heighten Czech fears and loathing and the desire to reinforce, psychologically and practically, the marginalisation of the Roma.

Degrees of racism may be expected at a popular level in liberal democratic societies.

Semi-organised violence by ‘skinheads’, the second category of relations, is not unique to Czech society, and unfortunately is also perhaps not surprising.

Semi-organised violence A 1996 report by the State Attorney’s Of ce on racially motivated crimes suggested that tension was greatest between skinheads and Roma.32 Skinheads are deemed to be responsible for the majority of violent attacks against Roma, of which there have been over 1500, including nearly 30 deaths between 1990 and 1998. Such semi-organised violence is, however, conducted by small groups, and is hardly representative of Czechs as a whole. These types of attacks have become prominent not only for their racial implications but also for the graphic nature of the attacks. Two skinheads were reported, for example, to have been responsible for the May 2000 beating of a young Romani couple in the north Moravia town of Orlova while they attempted to protect their 4-year-old invalid daughter.33 Despite the high pro le of some of these cases, the number of skinheads in the Czech Republic is calculated at 3000–4000 and, though they are thought to be ‘responsible for the vast majority of racial attacks’, they cannot be seen as organised, meaningfully ideological or fully representative of society. Most ‘cannot be considered much more than groups of delinquent youth’.34 A June 1995 report of the Ministry of the Interior calculated that 7000 people were members of extremist groups, of which 1500 belonged to the Neofascists, 4000 were associated with organisations called the Patriot Front, and 1500 were skinheads. The report also noted intensive contacts among these groups, including through the use of secret equipment.35

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Although they do appear to be responsible for racially motivated crimes, technically they cannot be considered guilty of these because, as will be considered below, the Czech courts have overwhelmingly acquitted skinheads in cases that have proceeded as far as trial.

Skinheads and the far-right are hardly unique to the Czech Republic. They are certainly one aspect of Czech–Romani relations, one that receives particular attention because of the deliberate public image of the skinheads and the viciousness of their attacks, but this is still likely to be only a relatively small feature of the Czech attitude towards Roma. And while proportions are impossible to assign, this feature of relations goes both ways: Roma have also been known to engage in street ghts.

While such activities are lamentable, no signi cant societal problem would exist if Czech–Romani relations started and ended with skinhead–Romani violence. Indeed, the overall role and prominence of the skinheads may be small; they were even considered socially insigni cant by a leading Czech campaigner for equality.36 Additional answers must be sought; having considered unof cial Czech society, of cial policies now receive consideration. While these have changed over time, with robust policy reports being issued in the later 1990s, three possible forms of of cial attitudes can be discerned, especially before 1997: of cial neglect; deliberate but indirect policies; and deliberate and direct policies.

Of cial policies Of cial policies of neglect? At one level the government can be accused of contributing to the problem through indifference or inaction, namely that government agencies do little to assist Roma or to mediate in relations between Czechs and Roma.

This includes police and judicial responses. The government has been criticised by foreign organisations for not ensuring adequate policing of Romani areas and of preparing the police for race-related crimes. Roma often do not report violence committed against them to the Czech police. As Bella Edginton of the Civic Solidarity and Tolerance Movement explained, this is because Roma ‘know the evidence will be used against them. The police take their testimony and then charge the Romanies themselves with a crime’.37 European Commission reports also noted that police and court protection for Roma was de cient.38 Suggestions are made that the skinheads have actually in ltrated the police.39 In addition to police simply tending not to enter Romani neighbourhoods, two leading commentators observed that only in 1998 did the Czech government instruct the Ministry of the Interior to train Czech police forces in the identi cation of racially motivated crime, and to give such training ‘preferential attention’.40 The Czech police and judiciary seemed for several years to be inactive in dealing with racially motivated crimes or even biased against Roma, including in cases involving charges of discrimination against them. Cases concerning seeming acts of racism were dismissed by courts, such as those pub-owners barring ‘gypsies’ from entering their establishments. Racist murders also appeared not to be recognised as such. That foreign institutions criticised, and prompted Czech governmental changes, suggests that there were indeed areas of of cial neglect. By 1995 the US Congressional report on human rights in the Czech Republic, which was generally critical

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of the treatment of Roma, observed that Czech courts had become more active in prosecuting attacks against them and that the Czech government was also condemning such attacks. Similarly, from the Czech judicial viewpoint, the problem was already being redressed in the mid-1990s. For example, the chief state attorney, Bohumõ´ra KopecÏ na´, said that the State Attorney’s Of ce handled ve times more racially motivated cases in 1995 than 1994.41 But foreign observers and diplomats still maintain in reports in the late 1990s that Czech police and judges either treat racist crimes leniently or label them as ordinary crimes.42 One Romani MP, Ladislav Body, questioned whether the law would be used and suggested that even with these penal amendments the police might still deem a racist crime to be an ordinary one. Similarly, Rudolf Tancos, a Romani member of the Council for Nationalities, dismissed the need for the laws because of the larger failure of the judicial system to deal with racist crimes: ‘I’m convinced that if the laws had been adhered to as they ought to have been, it wouldn’t have been necessary to call for tougher penalties’.43 A similar view was suggested by the OSCE High Commissioner for National Minorities, who asked in 1995 whether legal amendments drafted by the Czech government would actually be implemented.44 Five years later, Jan JarÏ ab of the Czech government’s Human Rights Department said that the courts were dealing ineffectively with racially-related crimes and that skinheads accused of such offences received ‘inappropriately benevolent’ treatment from prosecutors.45 Similarly, the 2000 report of Human Rights Watch wrote that US Ambassador John Shattuck ‘criticised Czech courts for leniently sentencing perpetrators of crimes against Roma’.46 If these assessments of the legal system in dealing with race-related issues are fair and correct, they present serious risks to the Czech label of liberalism.

This is an issue that may gradually change, as suggested, for example, by the 21 convictions of skinheads on 14 March 2001 for their attack on a Romani party in a Ï eske´ BudeÏ jovice restaurant on 22 November 1999 which caused six light injuries C (and much damage to the restaurant).47 Education presented divergent perceptions of what Roma want and need. From the Czech perspective, Roma have been given educational opportunities but have rejected them. Romani activists and outside observers contend that little has been provided in the Czech educational system for the particular needs of Roma.48 Children are overwhelmingly sent to ‘special schools’, often meant to serve not as remedial teaching institutions but as holding pens for the mentally de cient (again, Czechoslovakia and Bulgaria are particularly prone to this among post-communist states49).

Even assuming cultural differences, the proportion of Romani children sent to such ‘special schools’ is stunning. In 2001 in the Moravian industrial city of Ostrava, for example, Romani children constitute under 5% of the primary school population but over half those in special schools, and 75% of all Romani children in the Czech Republic are sent to such establishments.50 Once on such a path, the likelihood of a Romani child advancing to secondary school is remote. In 1997 US Ambassador Jenone Walker called for the provision of nursery schools for Romani children, saying that would provide them with the same chance of success in elementary school as other children.51 For many Czechs, however, these criticisms are de cient for not asking whether all Roma would actually embrace the opportunity to be educated.

Some improvements have nevertheless occurred. In the west Bohemian town of

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Rokycany Romani activist OndrÏ ej GinÏ a secured local and national funding for a pre-school class to teach Romani children the Czech language before entry into mainstream Czech schools. As he put it, ‘the image of the Roma here is bad and it all starts with the education system’, a situation that could be improved with classroom integration.52 Even with some recent moves to change and adapt the educational system to prepare Romani children for mainstream schools rather than the special schools, long-term problems remain from the insuf cient numbers of Romani teachers, and the problem of attracting future ones.53 An April 2000 report by the OSCE’s High Commissioner for National Minorities, Max van der Stoel, found that the routing of Romani children into special schools was worst in the Czech Republic.54 Clearly this issue remains a fundamental problem, one that requires inputs from both Romani activists and various levels of the Czech government.

Apart from legal and educational issues, the government could have been proactive in the issue of the Lety pig farm. This is the site of the World War II concentration camp in the Czech lands where thousands of Czech Roma were interned between 1939 and 1943 and 327 Roma were killed. The camp was closed in 1943 and its internees deported to Auschwitz. In 1974 the site began operating as an industrial pig farm. When activists tried to have the pig farm closed and the site commemorated they met with indifference from local and national of cials. The government delayed making a decision on the fate of the farm in early 1999; it then considered but rejected as too costly the up to 700 million crowns required to buy the farm.55 Government indifference might have mirrored popular sentiments, as only 11% of those polled were willing to dedicate public money to the Lety site, although this view may be unsurprising because of the Czech economic downturn. In what may be seen by others as both a belated and frugal decision, the Czech government decided on 18 May 1999 to allocate 1 million crowns, or approximately US$ 25 000, to improve the Lety monument. While often expressing extreme views, the Republican Party’s attack on funding the monument might have found wider resonance. As Republican Josef Krejsa declared, ‘the government isn’t ashamed to raise prices at the present time, but it nds the money to build a monument to gypsies. It is simply rudeness and an insult to all white citizens of this state’.56 Deliberate but indirect policies? Romani and international community activists would perceive amendments to the Czech Citizenship Law as an of cial policy of deliberate but indirect marginalisation and discrimination against the Romani minority. Instituted with the creation of the new Czech Republic after the break-up of federal Czechoslovakia, the provisions for gaining citizenship were widely considered to have been aimed at excluding Roma. Regardless of the intentions, the results are clear: the disenfranchisement of thousands of Roma and their placement in a condition of statelessness. The number of those thus affected was estimated at 100 000.

As one account related, ‘the paper- lled application process, which puts the burden of proof on applicants, has often been scrambled by district of cials who knowingly gave Romani applicants false information or simply told them to get lost’. The process resulted in leaving Roma who had resided for years, even their lifetime, in the Czech lands without proof of residence to ensure access to any public services. Two hundred Roma in north Moravia were stripped of the citizenship that they had applied

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for and had been granted after they were charged with, but not convicted of, corruption. This was in contradiction to Prague’s pledge to the Council of Europe not to deprive people of their citizenship.57 Organisations such as the Council of Europe, the Helsinki Citizens’ Assembly, the Organisation for Security and Cooperation in Europe and the United Nations Human Rights Commission for Refugees all criticised the citizenship law. The Commission for Security and Cooperation in Europe of the US Congress (known as the Helsinki Committee) said the citizenship law broke international human rights agreements and caused the largest nulli cation of citizenship since World War II.58 The citizenship law was amended moderately in February 1996 so that applicants with criminal records received in the past 5 years became eligible to apply.

Nevertheless, the Helsinki Committee still referred to the obstacles faced by Roma in securing Czech citizenship in its report for 1996, which was released at the end of January 1997.59 The changes were probably the result of foreign pressure—the amendment originated in the parliamentary Foreign Affairs Committee and its chairman, JirÏ ´õ Payne, explained that the change was intended to make the Czech citizenship application process more akin to that of Western Europe.60 Limitations of Romani citizenship were lifted in July 1999, probably again in response to international pressure. As Will Guy observes, ‘almost 5 years after the controversial citizenship law had been introduced the Czech government at last began to admit that international and NGO condemnation of this law in particular and of its overall inaction in alleviating the plight of Roma might be well founded’.61 Deliberate and direct policies? Assessing direct and deliberate policies is dif cult but necessary. This section begins with one political party, the Republican, which was not in a position of power, and then examines a second, the Civic Democratic, which was in of ce, before assessing some speci c policies undertaken at different governmental levels.

Political manifestations of anti-Romani rhetoric and actions rest largely, but not exclusively, with the far-right Republican party. Unlike the skinheads, this is an organised and recognised political party whose Deputies sat, until 1998, in the Czech Chamber of Deputies. The rhetoric and policies of its leader, Miroslav Sla´dek, have been openly hostile to the Roma. He declared ‘for Gypsies the age of criminal responsibility should be from the moment of birth because being born is, in fact, their biggest crime’.62 He has advocated the deportation of Roma and his party Secretary Jan Võ´k proclaimed in 1996 that Roma ‘murder, rape and rob decent people. It is high time to resolutely stop the raving of these black racists who are acting as parasites to the detriment of the whole society’.63 Republican Party bigotry extends to practical measures. In February 1993 Sla´dek called on Czech mayors to expel Roma from their towns and offered the prize of a car to the most successful. He had called for new legislation granting police special powers to arrest Roma and he equated Roma with the ma a and crime.

Nevertheless, even less than the skinheads, the number of Republicans actively persecuting Roma seems small. For example, about 40 members of the Republican Youth marched through predominantly Romani neighbourhoods in the north Mora-

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vian town of Karvina on 1 May 2000 and protested against various issues including ‘racial murders committed on white victims’.64 The political signi cance of the Republicans in relation to the Romani issue may also be diminishing. For a party so vocal about Roma, the Republican Party lost electoral support, so that after the 1998 election it was unable to meet the 5% electoral threshold of the popular vote to ensure representation in Parliament. But while many Czechs have privately voiced the view that the loss of Republican support is evidence of a corresponding decrease in popular support for anti-Romani policies, this does not necessarily provide a correlation.

While no other political party has made of cial anti-Romani statements, many statements have been made by members of the Civic Democratic Party (abbreviated in Czech as ODS). Led by Va´clav Klaus, this organisation headed the coalition government between 1992 and 1997 and its representatives also held numerous local government positions. Thus for example ODS Senator ZdeneÏ k Klausner proposed relocating Roma from out of Prague and the ODS mayor of Ostrava Liana JanacÏ kova´ proposed municipal funding for one-way air tickets for Roma who opted to leave for Canada. In August 1997 the Executive Committee of the ODS condemned racially motivated statements although it did not ask either member to leave the party.65 ODS MPs generally did not support the parliamentary resolution that ended the MaticÏ nõ´ street wall (the details of which are discussed below). Some members of the party sought not to have their opposition to the resolution construed as anti-Romani, however. As ODS MP Jaroslav Melichar explained after the parliamentary motion, those who voted against the wall were ‘parlour defenders of human rights’ who did not ‘care for the Romany community’.66 Nevertheless, several members of the ODS have been vocal about or taken steps against Roma.

While Czech liberalism may arguably be contested at different levels throughout society, more questionable must be the action of government authorities. After all, individuals in generally liberal societies may engage in racist or discriminatory language or behaviour; for of cial bodies to do so is both unusual and unacceptable.

Speci c policies aimed against the Roma have been perhaps most evident at the municipal level. Local authorities have banned Roma collectively from municipal swimming pools, sometimes on the basis that they carry hepatitis, and often with no reason at all.67 Several town mayors, in addition to those mentioned as members of ODS, sought publicly to rid their jurisdiction of Roma, often by offering prepaid one-way ights to those willing to leave on condition that they never return.

Local policy also resulted in one of the most visible forms of strained Czech–Romani relations. This was the May 1998 decision of the NesÏ teÏ mice district council of ´ stõ´ nad Labem to build a ‘wall’ effectively dividing Roma from the northern city of U Czechs. Taking its name from where the wall was proposed and then erected, MaticÏ nõ´ street, the incident grew into a domestic political issue and a crisis that drew erce international condemnation of the whole of Czech society and polity.

Indeed, Czechs remain surprised at the attention the ‘wall’ received internationally, a Czech-language anthology on the issue being subtitled ‘the most famous street in the world’. It is important also to distinguish from Western reporting at least some features behind the local reasons for the construction of the ‘wall’. Indeed, the very language that was adopted in foreign reporting appeared to many Czechs to be unfair representation. ‘Zed’, or ‘wall’, seemed much more sinister and physically substantial

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than the ‘plot’, or ‘fence’, the town council planned to erect.68 It was also apparently not meant to pen anyone in (or out) but simply to extend down the length of a street.

Still more importantly, the area to be affected by the ‘wall’ was not strictly inhabited

by Roma, but also by rent-defaulting non-Romani Czechs.

The motivation for the fence stemmed from local accusations that the residents of the four privately-owned houses and apartments along MaticÏ nõ´ street were unceasingly noisy, dirty and unnecessarily amassing large quantities of festering garbage in the street.

Whatever the differences in coverage and interpretation of the ‘wall’, some local and national governmental responses further surprised international observers. The initial response of the Czech government was to declare that it would act only once construction of the wall actually began. This seemed insuf cient to the United Nations Committee on the Elimination of Racial Discrimination, which criticised the Prague government for not acting against what it saw as illegal racial segregation.69 Only in May 1999, a year after the MaticÏ nõ´ proposal was rst introduced, did the ´ stõ´ nad Labem city council head LeosÏ Nergl to take measures Czech Cabinet order U to halt the wall’s construction. He complied by suspending the council resolution and in August 1999 the city council annulled its earlier decision. The construction of the wall began in October 1999 regardless. In the early hours of 13 October 1999, anked by 90 policemen, builders began constructing the 2-metre high wall. It included three steel doors that were planned to be locked nightly after 10 pm. The attitude of the town council and local residents included comments that the Roma were free to decorate their side of the wall and that one was abnormal not to nd the structure ‘pretty’.70 The wall was removed after the national government agreed to give the town council 3 million crowns to ameliorate local social conditions. The town accepted the funds, and declared that they would be used in part to purchase the properties of those in the MaticÏ nõ´ street area who wished to leave the Romani neighbourhood.

Sometimes international criticism was unfounded or misinformed. One case of concern across the middle of the Czech political spectrum were the comments of the ´ stõ´ wall a EU Commissioner for Enlargement, Gu¨nter Verheugen. He called the U violation of human rights and said that the EU would require a solution to the issue.

But Foreign Minister Kavan and Czech EU negotiator Pavel TelicÏ ka both determined that Verheugen was unaware of the Czech parliament’s resolution halting the wall’s construction. Klaus replied to Verheugen’s charges that: ‘I would be very disappointed if someone wanted to make an international affair’ out of the MaticÏ nõ´ wall and that ‘We have said a thousand times that the Czech Republic was building no ´ stõ´. I would like the EU gentlemen to listen to this’.71 Other Czech of cial Wall in U responses were dismissive of and derogatory towards foreign criticism. The mayor of ´ stõ´ not only rejected European Commission President Romano Prodi’s October 1999 U condemnation of the wall but also declared: ‘Prodi? Isn’t his rst name Romany? We don’t want to belong to a European Union that makes this wall an obstacle to our membership’.72 The incident had further implications, involving much of the Czech political system. This too was revealing about the inability to impose restrictions on parts of the polity, even though other, seemingly commanding parts, felt racial intolerance was

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being practised. The resolution of the Chamber of Deputies, the lower house of the bicameral Czech parliament, rescinding the NesÏ teÏ mice council’s decision to construct the wall was partially overruled by the Czech Constitutional Court on 12 April 2000.

This followed a ruling a week before that rejected the ability of parliament to annul municipal council decisions. The court, however, did not strike down the sections of the resolution condemning the wall as racist.73 Eventually, one part of the wall was placed in a municipal museum while other parts were sold to the city zoo, which was needing a fence anyway. Now it is in use less than a mile from where it was intended. While Czech–Romani relations have thus taken many forms, the nal one is what has, in popular media and foreign reports, become known as the Romani ‘exodus’.

Exodus The emigration of Roma from the Czech Republic would appear to give an additional urgency and tenor to the plight of the Roma. Whether their decision was purely political is debatable but this international aspect evoked greater attention to the previously identi ed characteristics of Czech–Romani relations.

The exodus refers to the departure of, rst hundreds, then some thousands of Roma from the Czech Republic to Western countries. The situation arose following the broadcast by the Czech commercial television station TV Nova of the programme ‘Na vlastnõ´ ocÏ i’ (In Your Own Eyes). It depicted Romani families living in Canada and reporting—incorrectly—that that country ran a special asylum programme for Roma.

Thereafter, approximately 1200 Roma applied for asylum in Canada. Once Canada responded by imposing visas on Czechs, Roma then sought asylum in West European countries, particularly Britain and, to a lesser extent, France and Belgium.

While only one family in four was granted asylum in France, and most applications were rejected in Britain, 70% of those applying to Canada were granted asylum by the end of 1998, which suggests at least that one Western government saw grounds to deem many Roma victims of persecution. The response, however, showed both popular and of cial Czech inclinations towards the Roma. Local mayors responded by offering one-way tickets to the Roma if they signed away their property and their rights to return.

The MaticÏ nõ´ street wall also provoked Romani claims of further ight. GinÏ a declared on 10 October 1999 that, if that situation intensi ed, ‘we will have to surrender’ and ‘seek the closest safe country and ask for asylum’ in Germany. He added that his group had consulted with Romani organisations there and that they were prepared to help Czech Roma.74 What the ‘exodus’ caused was unprecedented. Not only did it cast a bad light on the Czech Republic, but it also resulted in a collective censure of all Czechs when Canada, attempting to stem the ood of refugee applicants, reapplied visas for all Czechs. Initially, a Canadian Embassy spokeswoman said that Ottawa considered the Czech Republic to be racist but it moved away from that position. One newspaper ´ stõ´ fence would ultimately result in thousands of commentator suggested that the U Czechs being affected if other countries followed by imposing visas.75 The ‘exodus’ also intensi ed the international criticism of the plight and treatment

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of Roma in the Czech Republic that had been issued before the exodus and created diplomatic dif culties. In April 2000 the Belgian Foreign Ministry invited the Czech Ambassador for consultations and told her to ‘do something’ about the number of asylum applicants from her country. A Czech Foreign Ministry spokesperson said that the number of applicants represented only 1% of asylum seekers in Belgium and the numbers from Slovakia were much greater.76 The Czech Ambassador to Belgium replied by mentioning Czech integration policies for Roma and stating that they applied to Belgium because it granted generous living allowances while taking a long time to decide asylum applications. She also challenged the utility of the Belgian visas because of the country’s participation in the Schengen agreement.77 The British government responded to the continuing arrival of Romani asylum applicants from the Czech Republic with a meeting between its ambassador to Prague and the Czech Interior Minister on enabling British immigration of cials to work out of Prague international airport in order to identify potential asylum seekers among those travelling to Britain. While they would lack powers to prevent anyone from boarding the aircraft, the proposal was for them to alert counterparts in Britain in advance of the ight’s arrival. The programme, as mentioned above, was implemented on 18 July 2001 but stopped on 8 August.

As Czech Human Rights Commissioner Petr Uhl explained in May 2000 ‘the appearance of passengers and whether they look like Romanies will be a weighty criterion’ for admitting them into Britain. He added that it was ‘unfortunate’ that the Interior Ministry was undertaking such discussions at all and that the plan for British of cials to identify and separate people on foreign soil was a ‘clear expression of racial discrimination’. British Professor of Romani studies Thomas Acton called the proposed move ‘racially segregative’ and said that it would also contravene British and international conventions.78 Thus, the fourth aspect of Czech–Romani interactions contains wide and unusual international implications. We now ask how Czech social and governmental responses to these manifestations of Czech–Romani relations re ect on Czech perceptions of liberalism.

A liberal response?

Discussion throughout this article indicates that parts of Czech government and society have of course responded to aspects of Romani relations. But part of the complexity in Czech–Romani relations lies in the nature of the government’s response. While the local level has aggravated Czech–Romani relations, the national government has generally tried to smooth them. Indeed, the variation in response by of cial circles to the Romani question is revealing about the Czech national character.

This is considered by examining the attitude of various of ces of and personalities in government, including President Havel, civil society, governmental bodies created for the Roma and other minorities, and the Klaus and Zeman governments.

Havel Havel is exceptional as a politician. His contribution to the Czechoslovak and Czech political transition has received considerable intellectual discussion. While some

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suggest that he is in a singular moral position as a dissident writer, he has, perhaps inevitably, been compromised by over a decade of politics. His support for Roma in the Czech Republic is also unusually visible and consistent.

Among his activities was the opening of a Romani festival in July 1990. He did this immediately after returning from the Salzburg Music Festival where he did what no other statesman was willing to do (with the exception of the leader of Turkish Cyprus): meet publicly and shake hands with Austrian Chancellor Kurt Waldheim.

This act demonstrated Havel’s unusual sense of values. While Klaus dismissed or ridiculed much of the international criticism of the MaticÏ nõ´ street wall, Havel recognised that ‘not just the town of Usti nad Labem but the whole of the Czech Republic is identi ed with this symbol of intolerance and discrimination. Above all, the wall has a symbolic importance’.79 Nevertheless, important and bene cial to the Romani cause as Havel’s stand might be, it might be worth noting that several post-communist presidents in Central and ´ rpa´d Go¨ncz and Bulgaria’s Zhelyu Zhelev, Southeastern Europe, such as Hungary’s A have taken similar stands, including criticising their own governments for insuf cient measures to assist their Romani minorities.80 Czech ‘civil society’ Various Czech non-governmental organisations now exist to help the Roma, although the mainstream Czech daily newspaper Lidove´ noviny has written that information supplied to it by NGOs has routinely been inaccurate.81 Currents within Czech society indicate some rejection of racial intolerance, as indicated by anti-racism marches of 10–15 000 people held after a Sudanese student was murdered. Some people have proposed boycotting restaurants that ban entry to Roma.82 Czech intellectuals, sometimes in concert with foreign counterparts, have made public statements regarding certain events. For example, leading Czech and international cultural gures published a letter in December 1998 calling for the closure of the Lety pig farm which was also sent to Premier Zeman. The letter was signed by 100 Czech and international public personalities such as Simon Wiesenthal and Gu¨nter Grass. It called the continued operation of the pig farm a ‘desecration of a monument to the victims of the former concentration camp, as well as an insult to humanity’.83 Some developments have also occurred in the private sector. For example, a major retailer began employing Romani security guards and found that theft thereafter decreased markedly.84 Governmental institutions and parliament Institutional mechanisms for accommodating at least some Romani concerns exist or have been created within the Czech polity. Of course, the existence of such structures in itself is not suf cient to address problems. In March 2000 a bill on minorities which established minority rights to work in the civil service was criticised, along with the parliamentary subcommittee for ethnic minorities, by VavrÏ inec FojcÏ ´õ k, head of the Association of Ethnic Communities, because it had only met once since 1998.85

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Nevertheless, Roma can and do get elected and sit in the parliament. The post-communist Czechoslovak federal parliament had three Roma and the Romani Civic Initiative was included in the umbrella coalition that governed after the June 1990 elections; one Rom serves as a MP in the post-1998 parliament (although she does not represent a Romani party). As noted before, Romani activists and concerned Czechs alike believe, however, that Roma need to be more proactive in forming their own political organisations.

Some representation is also enshrined institutionally in other organs. Both houses of parliament have subcommittees concerned with minority rights, including the Roma. The Council of Nationalities was composed of representatives of minorities. It includes three representatives each from the Slovak and Romani communities, two each from the German and Polish, and one each from the Hungarian and Ukrainian populations. The Council of Nationalities issued an important report in August 1997 criticising the government’s neglect of the Roma, which was approved with negligible changes by the government in October 1997. This could be seen as a turning point in government attitudes to its policy towards the Roma.

A further initiative has been the Interministerial Commission for Romani Community Affairs which was established in 1997 following the exodus and which began work in early 1998. In December 1998 it was enlarged to comprise 12 government members and 12 Romani members along with the Commissioner and Deputy Commissioner for Human Rights. But despite this membership enlargement, the commission was criticised by the European Commission for being ineffectual. It was also censured by the ROI, which declared in a 7 October 1999 statement that the commission’s inactivity had contributed to further Romani migration and to allowing ´ stõ´ fence.86 the construction of the U Some initiatives have also been taken at the municipal level, which, following the MaticÏ nõ´ case, indicates the importance and relative power of local bodies. Prague city councillors appointed a City Hall Romani coordinator on 21 March 2000 to deal with Romani education, security and potential discrimination against Roma by public services. Prague’s deputy mayor explained the measure in terms of the capital city not having ‘big problems with ethnic minorities’ and that the city was ‘seeking to preserve communication’ with them.87 Educational changes also largely rest with municipalities. While created by the central government, the ‘zero grade’ programme of a special year before regular schooling to prepare disadvantaged pupils for mainstream education is funded by local councils. Bilingual Czech–Romani textbooks have also been introduced in several elementary schools. But an important indicator of government response remains at the national government level. It can set both the parameters of action and the ethos and example by which much of society could live.

Cabinet and government The response of Klaus and his government, which ruled from the inception of the Czech Republic in 1993 to November 1997, was mixed. His initial declarations were that a Romani problem did not exist.88 Like Havel, Klaus met with Romani representatives, but his statements can generally be viewed only as responses to

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glaring cases. He seemed to respond strongly after the 1995 murder of Tibor Berky, who was bludgeoned to death in front of his wife and ve children by four youths who broke into the family’s at. Klaus convened a special meeting following the murder and called for a strong response from government ministers, the police and state prosecutors against race-related crimes. He asked Justice Minister JirÏ ´õ Nova´k to increase the sentences. He subsequently suggested raising the sentences for racially motivated murder from 15 years to life. Klaus called the attack ‘the last straw’.89 At other times, however, Klaus was dismissive of Romani issues, particularly when presented as criticisms by foreign groups. Klaus’s government responded with indifference, or de ance, to international criticism of the Citizenship Law. To the letter from the US Congress’s Helsinki Committee, for example, Klaus replied that it was unof cial and undeserving of a reply. He added that ‘tens, if not hundreds, of letters come to my desk every day’. When the Citizenship law was amended by parliament on 7 February 1996 removing the ban on applicants with criminal records, Klaus said that the alteration should make gaining Czech citizenship by Roma and Slovaks easier, implying that the law did prevent them from doing so previously. As speaker of the Chamber of Deputies, a position secured after resigning as Prime Minister in November 1997,90 Klaus was de ant about criticism over the ‘wall’. He declared: ‘I see walls in Northern Ireland which are far greater in signi cance than that in Maticni Street and no one threatens to expel Britain from the EU’.91 While Prime Minister Zeman, who has headed the Czech government since summer 1998, can also be criticised over the handling of the MaticÏ nõ´ wall, he did meet personally with Romani representatives over the issue, and his cabinet responded by declaring that it would take ‘every legal measure’ to prevent the wall’s construction. But ODS Deputy Chairman Ivan Langer still said that people were ‘right to enact private initiatives’. This last statement demonstrates the divided attitude even within the elite, to which we shall return. The cabinet’s proposed legislation forcing the town council to rescind its decision to build the wall illustrated that the Zeman government differed from its centre-right predecessor. Some 100 of 174 MPs present voted on 13 October 1999—2 hours after the wall had been completed—to overturn the municipal decision to construct it; 58 MPs voted against. Even with this ´ stõ´ town parliamentary vote, the matter remained undecided in practical terms. The U council claimed it would take the issue to the Czech Constitutional Court. And even Ï SSD member Jan Kavan said after the parliamentary motion, Foreign Minister and C in Helsinki that the wall would ‘eventually’ be removed. He commented: ‘I am fairly convinced that whatever legal steps are taken, the solution will be the removal of the wall’.92 Zeman’s response to continued British concern over the arrival of Roma from the Czech Republic in Britain might also be considered more positive and workable than that by Klaus. Zeman called a September 1999 letter from British Prime Minister Tony Blair a ‘friendly warning’ and said that he had answered his British counterpart by detailing responses by his government to the issue.93 In response to the citizenship issue, Zeman’s cabinet submitted a bill to parliament in February 1999 that would permit former Czechoslovak citizens living in the Czech Republic since 1993 to claim citizenship on the basis of a declaration. This simpli ed process was deliberately aimed at assisting the 10–20 000 Roma still believed to be

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without citizenship as a result of the earlier law. The changed practice was rati ed by the Czech parliament on 23 September 1999. While an important development in remedying the citizenship question, the new law does not make provision for those who were outside the country for extended periods during the existence of the Czech Republic, and this might affect Roma who sought asylum abroad.

In general approaches to Romani affairs, Deputy Prime Minister Pavel Rychetsky´ launched a proposal entitled ‘Romanies and Human Rights’ as part of the ‘Khamoro 2000’ Romani cultural festival held in Prague in May 2000. It planned to ameliorate Romani housing, improve education and reduce unemployment. He also spoke about the need to preserve Romani identity, stating that ‘the linguistic and cultural “Czechisation” of Roma has deprived us of the contributions of one of the oldest European minorities’.94 But media and popular views were often that even the Zeman government was not responding suf ciently and appropriately to external criticism. An editorial that deemed the EU’s annual assessment of the Czech Republic’s accession eligibility ‘kind’ nevertheless still called Czech politicians unfair partners for the representatives of the citizens of the EU.95 This overview of the of cial Czech responses to the Roma is mixed. It suggests that those with power to address at least some of the issues in Czech–Romani relations have not always attempted to do so. This is not to say that all the matters, including social perceptions and social realities, can easily or ever be resolved. Nor is it to say that governmental attitudes have remained unchanged, as witnessed by the commissioning and acceptance of governmental reports in the later 1990s on the situation of the Romani minority. Many of the categories of policy still indicate an of cial exacerbation of tensions or at least indifference or inaction. Such an assessment further challenges the reputation of Czech liberalism and tolerance. We now turn to some possible explanations for the divergence between Czech political ethos and majority–Romani relations.

Explanations This article began by acknowledging that the general Czech response and attitude towards the Roma are similar to those elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, and also in Western Europe. Indeed, as the Czech press keenly reported, OSCE High Commissioner for Ethnic Minorities Max van der Stoel said in 1995 that the violence towards Roma in the Czech Republic was analogous to what was happening elsewhere in Europe.96 But the article has also sought to outline how Czech–Romani relations have produced developments that—to outside observers—are depicted as unprecedented among the very dif cult majority–Romani relations throughout Central and Eastern Europe.

Regardless of any similar manifestations in relations between Roma and majority nations, relations between any majority and an apparently dissatis ed or even abused minority need categorisation and assessment. This is particularly true to the extent that a distinct Czech political ethos of tolerance and liberalism is said to exist. This section brie y considers reasons for the Czech response from historical and political perspectives.

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Czech legacy Once decidely multi-ethnic in composition, since 1948 the territory that now comprises the Czech Republic has become overwhelmingly Czech. After World War II, following the mass expulsion of three million ethnic Germans, predominantly from the Czech lands, the percentage of Czechs and Slovaks in the Czech Lands climbed from 64% in 1921 to 94% in 1950.97 By the 1990s the population that was ‘Czech’ exceeded 94%, with even fewer people declaring themselves anything other than Czech. This included some Slovaks, long resident in the Czech lands, often as Prague-based federal employees. In the post-1992 Czech Republic Slovaks constitute the largest minority, at 3% of the population. Even these who identi ed themselves as Slovaks have probably assimilated or intermarried; for those who have not, the small cultural and linguistic differences seem not to pose serious problems. And, again, these are largely Slovaks who adopted Czech citizenship after 1993, many of whom lived in the Czech lands for years having worked for the federal bureaucracy.

They tend to consider themselves Czech, and are largely accepted by their co-nationals as such.98 Increasingly, with the end after 1992 of bilingual radio and television programming and the inclusion of Slovak literature and poetry on the Czech school curriculum, both Czechs and children of Slovaks are losing their comprehension and use of the Slovak language.

In addition to ethnic homogeneity, the Czech Republic can also be seen to be engaging in nation building, and this process may not accommodate nonCzechs. While often seen as the dominant nationality in interwar Czechoslovakia, the Czechs nevertheless have had little opportunity to develop a Czech identity and effectively none to develop a Czech political state.99 Some autonomy was granted under the federalisation of the country that was allowed to continue after the Prague Spring. For Czechs, this was a mixed legacy, one that suggested that Slovaks gained much more from the salvaged constitutional reforms of 1968.

The opportunity to engage in nation and state building after 1993, however, certainly created the circumstances in which a new Citizenship Law could be written.

An exclusive de nition of Czech ‘nationhood’ would also be necessary to argue that the law was intended to delimit citizenship along ethnic rather than civic lines.

Czech-born anthropologist Ladislav Holy considered Czechs to have an exclusive view of Czech national identity. According to him, Czechs de ne nationality by certain criteria that include being born in the Czech lands and speaking Czech as one’s mother tongue. But these two criteria are insuf cient. As Holy writes, ‘most [Czechs] are of the opinion that having been born in the Czech lands and speaking Czech is not enough’.100 One must have ‘Czech parents’, and this tautological process ensures that Czech-born and Czech-speaking Romani can never be considered Czechs. Some Czech observers note that racism is an ideal of a homogeneous society.101 If Czechs are engaged in nation and state building, then racism towards their largest visible minority seems likely, not least when combined with Holy’s assessment of the exclusive Czech view of Czech identity.

It may be that the Czechs engage in selective racism. Foreign of cials have recounted the story of an IMF representative from India who, mistaken for a Romani,

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was attacked. When he managed to explain that he was from the Asian subcontinent his Czech assailants picked him up, dusted him off and took him to the pub.102 But ‘selective racism’ is not a likely or comprehensive explanation, and unsatisfactory to the Roma. A Romani representative said that ‘80% of the whites [in the Czech Republic] are racist’.103 A representative of the Czech NGO Nadace Nova´ SÏ kola said ‘there is bias in the treatment of Roma in every sphere of life in the Czech Republic, from the top government of cials all the way down to the owner of the village pub’.104 Czech newspaper commentaries write that ‘the image of the Gypsy [sic], or even the Arab, Turk or Indian, who has no desire to work and indecently takes advantage of “our” social cushions is of course nothing new in Europe’.105 The Prague Documentation Centre for Human Rights calculates that a racially or ideologically motivated incident happens in the Czech Republic every other day.106 The murder of a Sudanese student, the attack on the son of an Arab diplomat or the numerous assaults on non-white foreign visitors indicate that Roma, while perhaps detested by average Czechs, are not alone in receiving verbal and physical abuse.

If general intolerance is at the root, and Roma tend only to be the most available and numerous recipients, then the political isolation of an otherwise monocultural Czech society becomes a relevant consideration. Despite the political and economic experimentation under communism, political views have not fully modernised; the right-wing party, as elsewhere in the region, did not have the opportunity of the past 40 years to moderate its positions and seek more central political ground. This is partly the Czech communist legacy; a speci c part of that legacy is how the Czech outlook on the Roma was shaped.

Czechoslovak communist legacy Not only had the Czech lands become relatively homogeneous by 1950, but the country was also isolated under communism. The treatment of Roma under communism could have reinforced negative popular perceptions twice over. First, the Roma were seen as bene ting from society while the condition of Czechs was deteriorating.

In the early years of Czechoslovak communist rule Roma were moved from Slovakia to the Sudetenland to occupy the homes of expelled Germans.

In the popular book and lm SkrÏ ivancõ´ na niti (made in 1969 but banned thereafter) contrasts are drawn between the condition of Czechs and Roma. Average Czechs are incarcerated in a labour camp and suffer at the hands of Czech communists; Czech communist of cials spend their leisure time bathing Romani children. In the co-ed camp two Czech prisoners decide to wed but are unable to consummate their marriage because the groom is forcibly removed by guards as punishment for a trivial indiscretion. Meanwhile, a Czech prison guard from the camp marries a Romani woman; she is depicted as unable to adapt to living in a at, engaging in pastoral Romani practice, including starting a camp re in the at and throwing what would appear to urban Czechs as a wild, destructive party for her Romani family and friends.107 Thus under communism Czechs could develop, or continue to develop, negative views of Roma, views heightened by the sense of communist favouritism towards Roma and injustice towards Czechs. But the average Czech would be unaware of the

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measures taken against Roma by the communist regime, such as the forced sterilisation of Roma women.108 And while the communist regime propounded equality, it nevertheless undertook measures to erase, even criminalise, Romani lifestyle. Furthermore, some Czech sociological studies suggested that ‘the latent racism covertly encouraged by the communist regime took on, in November 1989, new and open forms’, of which the most evident was from skinheads.109 The communist-era legacy extends further to the limitations of post-communist organisation of Czech Roma. The Czechoslovak regime, along with its Bulgarian counterpart, can be seen as the most consistently repressive among East European communist governments towards its Roma, and where they have been ‘most comprehensively uprooted from their traditional culture’.110 Whereas in Poland or Hungary Romani organisations were permitted or even encouraged, Czechoslovakia adopted a deliberate policy of atomising Romani society and associations. The Czechoslovak regime also extended particular discrimination among its minorities, considering that it accorded rights to its Hungarian minority, while the Bulgarian regime is viewed as having been equally discriminatory against its Turkish and its Roma population.111 Czech sociologists have claimed that the wider implications of the ‘aversion’ to Roma and other minorities ‘can be easily transformed into an aversion against homeless people, drug addicts, the mentally handicapped or the long-term unemployed’.112 Has the post-communist transition contributed speci cally to Czech attitudes towards the Roma?

Post-communism and transition The Czechs have undertaken several policies that demonstrate ambiguous liberal tendencies, particularly ones that invoke collective guilt. These include the restitution of property con scated under communist rule, the ‘lustration’ act that arguably imposed collective guilt on a whole cadre of communist-era of cials and bureaucrats and barred them for rst 5 and then a further 5 years from posts in government, media, military and education, and relations with the Sudeten Germans over their collective expulsion after World War II. Relations with the Roma could be placed in a similar context, but other factors are relevant as well. Some Czech commentators, while acknowledging that racism has always been present in society, give it greater play during times of socio-economic dif culty.113 The undertone of the British television documentary ‘Gypsies, Tramps and Thieves’ was that the Czechs are discharging their frustrations from the post-communist socio-economic transition on the Roma.114 And, as was discussed earlier on societal relations, post-communist transitional problems inevitably aggravate Roma– Czech relations. The large size of Romani families incline Czechs, for example, to think that Roma are receiving disproportionately great governmental assistance, even though Romani kindergartens were among the rst social services to be cut as governmental expenditure came under strain in the early 1990s.115 While socio-economic changes may exacerbate existing tensions, they cannot account for everything.

Rather, a 1994 assessment drew wider lessons from the Czech experience. Written when the Czech economic transformation was at its most successful, it contended that

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the situation in the Czech Republic ‘illustrates that racism and racist violence are not necessarily related to economic performance’.116 It is likely that both the features distinct to Czech historical development and the impact of the post-communist transition are mutually reinforcing. The standard dictionary de nition of the Roma illustrates this. The 1952 Dictionary of the Czech Language de ned ‘gypsy’ as a ‘member of a wandering nation, a symbol of mendacity, theft, wandering jokers, liars, imposters, cheaters’. This was a de nition, as Josef Kalvoda observed, that was issued just 2 years after the Czechoslovak communist regime outlawed any discrimination based on colour.117 These may be relevant but another issue is also central both to an explanation of Czech–Romani relations and to the speci c paradox of Czech liberalism. This is the role and nature of the Czech elite.

Elite divisions and divisions between elite and masses The previous discussion of of cial Czech responses to Romani issues has already indicated an important trend: that some Czech public of ce-holders are highly sympathetic toward the Romani situation while others are indifferent, and still others intend to exacerbate it.

President Havel typi es the rst elite outlook. To be certain, he has undertaken measures of exceptional conciliation. He was also aware of moral decay in post-communist society. His New Year speeches came to carry great political signi cance for the country (and wider, philosophical value, being translated and published in numerous august Western intellectual publications). In his rst and second New Year addresses he noted the degree of moral rot in Czechoslovak society. He was able to criticise (albeit perhaps illiberally attributing collective guilt) society, including himself, for moral fallibility. In his 9 December 1997 State of the Nation address to a joint session of parliament he said culture had to be measured not by the visit of rock stars to the Czech Republic or the display of wares by prominent fashion designers. Rather, he said, it was what skinheads chanted in a pub, how many Roma were lynched or killed, or the appalling behaviour of some of ‘our people’ to others on the basis of the colour of their skin. Later in the speech he also rejected identity as being determined by genes or blood.118 Havel’s behaviour and attitude towards the Roma is atypical among Czech politicians. One striking example was the presidential pardon he issued to two Roma who attacked right-wing leader Sla´dek. It is dif cult to imagine any other Czech leader doing so, and in fact none endorsed Havel’s action. Other Czech public gures have also taken positive stands towards improving Czech–Romani relations. Still other mainstream Czech politicians, as we have seen, have been indifferent or hostile to the Roma.

Another related factor may be a perception that the nature and quality of political leadership has declined since 1992. By illustration, Jan Rusenko, a representative of the Romani Civic Initiative, explained that only members of Civic Forum, the Evangelical Church and students were responsive to the Roma following the rst post-communist skinhead attacks.119 The broad-based umbrella grouping of Civic Forum that led the 1989 revolution had disintegrated by 1991 under pressure from

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some members, led by Klaus, for a hardline approach to market reforms. The former dissident Eva KantuÊ rkova´ wrote that after the June 1992 elections a poorer quality of people came to power, including entrepreneurs, who were aggressive and immoral.120 This assessment might explain how some politicians, particularly in the national centre rather than the municipalities, can be openly hostile towards the Romani community. This is in addition to what can be seen as the prevalence of Klaus’s ethos, stated bluntly, that Czechs should enrich themselves; by implication, a general commitment to morals took second place. The section on varying governmental responses above may also indicate the particular indifference of the Klaus government to domestic and especially international criticism of its policies towards the Roma.

Conclusion The sources of relations between Roma and Czechs are deeply rooted, and related to and reinforced by the vicious circle of cultural distinctiveness, marginalisation from society and societal non-conformity. While Roma may argue they have been given insuf cient means and opportunity to integrate into Czech society, many Czechs argue that the Roma have been unwilling and unable to do so. Various Czech concerns should be acknowledged—for example, the non-maintenance of standards of social health and welfare—and Romani leaders themselves concede a high incidence of crime among their population. Furthermore, as this article has noted, the social manifestations described here in majority–Romani relations are demonstrated elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe, and the aversions that many Czechs show to Roma are evident in Western Europe as well. Indeed, West European governments have seemingly contradictory attitudes to the Roma: while the Czech Republic has been rebuked for its apparent mistreatment of the Roma, and even accused of institutionalised racism, European governments have rejected Romani claims for asylum.

However, several features make Czech–Romani relations more singular than elsewhere in Central and Eastern Europe. This includes a perception within at least some Czech and many Western circles of the Czechs being tolerant, liberal and democratic. Indeed, Czech society and polity were hailed after 1989 as almost a paragon of liberal virtue in the post-communist world. Against this political legacy stand the strained relations between Czechs and Roma: the citizenship law, the MaticÏ nõ´ Street wall, the Lety pig farm and the rst and largest ‘exodus’ of Roma.

The international consequences of these developments have potentially been greater for the Czech Republic than elsewhere, including explicit and consistent criticism from a range of international governmental and non-governmental organisations, and the use of superlatives regarding the Romani situation in the country. The practical international consequences have also been distinguished, including plans for the travel documents of suspected Roma to be marked at Prague airport to facilitate immigration checks in the destination country (the UK), and negotiations between the British and Czech governments to allow the former to screen visitors to the UK before they checked in at Prague airport, a measure practiced in July and August 2001.

If indeed Czech liberalism is placed in contrast to Czech–Romani relations, this paradox may in part be explained by Ladislav Holy’s distinction of the ‘little’ and the ‘great’ Czech nation: the former representing petty, circumscribed, parochial thinking,

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the latter being the grand humanist and universalist aims that have punctuated Czech philosophy and history throughout centuries. The paradox may also in part be rationalised through divides in the population, especially a liberal intellectual population divided from the less liberal masses, a feature arguably heightened by the exit from political life of certain personalities after 1992 and the subsequent accentuation of other values. These individuals may perhaps be acting because of the posts they hold, which would suggest that changes to judicial, institutional and bureaucratic practices in themselves can and will result in ameliorated practice towards the Roma.

Thus, as with Havel, individual political personalities are attempting to make positive changes. However ultimately contextualised, Czech relations with Roma will continue to be deeply vexing for domestic Czech affairs and for the international reputation of the Czechs and the Czech Republic.

University of St Andrews Research for this article was supported by a grant from the Carnegie Trust for the Universities of Scotland. The author wishes to thank those who gave comments, often off the record, for this study. Will Guy kindly agreed to provide an advance copy of his excellent forthcoming chapter ‘Another False Dawn?—The Roma of the Czech Republic and Slovakia’ as this article went to press. Particular thanks Ï ulõ´k for his extremely perceptive and helpful comments, but neither of them bears are owed to Jan C responsibility for its contents.

1 Different spellings and terminology are used in English for the Romani people. The article employs ‘Rom’ when referring to a single person, ‘Roma’ for the group, and ‘Romani’ as an adjective.

2 Some Czech commentators insist that such Western thinking about Czech ‘liberalism and tolerance’ is misguided, including one of the specialist reviewers of this article. Features of recent Czech politics have come under increasing criticism, such as the ‘Velvet Corruption’ depicted in the penultimate chapter of Aviezer Tucker, The Philosophy and Politics of Czech Dissidence from PatocÏ ka to Havel (Pittsburgh, University of Pittsburgh Press, 2000). Societies and polities differ from ideals and this is considered in Rick Fawn, The Czech Republic: A Nation of Velvet (Amsterdam and Reading, Harwood Academic Publishers, 2000). A senior Czech of cial said that the views of the book were much more optimistic than his.

3 Ï TK, Czech Prime Minister MilosÏ Zeman admitted this, for example, during a state visit to Latvia. C 1 November 1999.

4 Rob McRae, Resistance and Revolution: Va´clav Havel’s Czechoslovakia (Ottawa, Carleton University Press, 1997), p. 321.

5 Sharon L. Wolchik, ‘The Czech Republic and Slovakia’, in Zoltan Barany & Ivan Volgyes (eds), The Legacies of Communism in Eastern Europe (Baltimore, Johns Hopkins University Press, 1994), p.

169. For the comparative public opinion she cites ‘Attitudes toward Jews in Poland, Hungary, and Czechoslovakia: A Comparative Survey’, American Jewish Committee and Freedom House, January 1991.

6 Lidove´ noviny, 3 February 1995.

7 Zemedelske´ noviny, 10 July 1995; see also Fedor Ga´l, O jinakosti (Prague, G plus G, 1998).

8 Jack Snyder, From Voting to Violence (New York, W.W. Norton, 2000), p. 73, also citing the then forthcoming book by John K. Glenn now published as Framing Democracy: Civil Society and Civic Movements in Eastern Europe (Stanford, Stanford University Press, 2001).

9 Estimating the number of Roma has always been dif cult for social and political reasons; in the post-communist era governments potentially have an interest in underestimating numbers and Romani organisations the opposite.

10 The Economist, 11 September 1999, p. 59. For an assessment of the dif culties of establishing exact numbers for the Roma, especially in the early period of post-communism, see Andre´ Liebich, ‘Minorities in Eastern Europe: Obstacles to Reliable Count’, RFE/RL Research Report, 1, 20, 15 May 1992, pp. 32–39.

11 Cited in Isabel Fonseca, Bury Me Standing: The Gypsies and Their Journey (London, Chatto & Windus, 1995), p. 293. On p. 14 she gives the full phrase as ‘the Gypsies are a litmus test not of democracy but of a civil society’.

CZECH ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ROMA 12

1217

Linda Grant, ‘In the Ghetto’, The Guardian Weekend, 25 July 1998, p. 17.

As is discussed elsewhere, gures from various sources place unemployment among Czech Roma at as high as 80 or 90%.

14 This is not to suggest that every member of a nation can be said to hold the same view, although these opinions were frequently and clearly articulated, and none wished to have a name recorded. These extreme views, including reference to biological criminality, have been made by the far-right Republicans. This is discussed below.

15 Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 7 February 1998.

16 Report on the Situation of the Romani Community in the Czech Republic and Government Measures Assisting its Integration in Society, 1997b, Section I, p. 17, amended quotation from Will Guy, ‘Another False Dawn? The Roma of the Czech Republic and Slovakia’, in Will Guy (ed.), Between Past and Future: The Roma of Central and Eastern Europe (Hat eld, University of Hertfordshire Press, 2001).

17 Ï eske´ Slovo, 12 April 2000.

See C 18 Petr JanysÏ ka, ‘MensÏ ina a veÏ tsÏ ina’, Respekt, 1, 6 January 1992.

19 Czech Helsinki Committee, Report on the State of Human Rights in the Czech Republic in 1995, January 1996, p. 37.

20 A pub owner convicted of refusing to serve Roma was subsequently acquitted for lack of evidence establishing a pattern of discrimination. Human Rights Watch, World Report 1999: Czech Republic, http:hrw.org/ hrw/worldreport99/ europe/ czech.html.

21 Czech Helsinki Committee, Report on the State of Human Rights in the Czech Republic in 1995, January 1996, p. 37.

22 Fonseca, Bury Me Standing , p. 145.

23 Ï CTK, 18 October 1999, and RFE/RL Newsline, 19 October 1999.

24 Statement from the British Embassy entitled ‘Pre-Clearance Checks at Prague Airport’, 17 July 2001.

25 See Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 20 July 2001, and Petra Breyerova´, ‘Czech Republic: Don’t Get on That Plane’, Transitions-on-Line , 17–23 July 2001, http://www.tol.cz/week.html.

26 Kate Swoger, ‘Britain Screens Travelers’, The Prague Post, 25 July 2001.

27 Lidove´ noviny, 8 March 1996, citing Czech non-governmental organisations.

28 United States Department of State, Human Rights Report, The Czech Republic, 1999, p. 21.

29 Reported in Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 24 May 1997.

30 This thinking is routinely expressed by Czechs of all ages, educations and professions. The quotation is cited in Jaroslav Spurny´, ‘Ha´dka u vy´stavisÏ teÏ ’, Respekt, 42, 21 October 1991.

31 Some Roma have assimilated, including taking on routine work and in these cases seem to be accepted by workmates.

32 Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 23 March 1996.

33 Nova Television, 4 May 2000; see also BBC Monitoring, http://www.centraleurope.com/ features.php3?id 5 157200.

34 Political Extremism and the Threat to Democracy in Europe (London, Institute of Jewish Affairs for CERA, 1994), p. 19.

35 Lidove´ noviny, 12 June 1995.

36 Fedor Ga´l, in ZemeÏ deÏ lske´ noviny, 10 July 1995.

37 Randall Lyman, ‘Mixed Reviews: A Human Rights Report on the Czech Republic’, Prognosis, 7 December 1994.

38 Ï TK, 13 October 1999.

See Czech media commentary in C 39 Grant, ‘In the Ghetto’, p. 19.

40 Stanislav Penc & Jan Urban, ‘Extremist Acts Galvanize Roma Population’ , Transitions, 5, 7, July 1998, p. 39.

41 Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 23 March 1996.

42 See the summary in Human Rights Watch Report, Czech Republic: Human Rights Developments (1999), http://www.hrw.org/hrw/wr2kEca-08.htm.

43 Kathleen Knox, ‘Government Steps Up Fight Against Hate Crime’, The Prague Post, 11 July 1995.

44 Re ex, 25 August 1995.

45 Stated on Romani affairs programme ‘O Roma Vakeren’, 21 April 2000, Czech Radio, BBC Monitoring transcription.

46 Human Rights Watch, Human Rights Developments: Czech Republic, http:www.hrw. organization/ hrw/wr2k/Eca-08.htm.

47 Ï CTK, 14 March 2001. This is not to say that Romani activists felt the sentences were suf cient.

Said one: ‘I cannot blame the judge. But given the great social threat which the behaviour of the accused skinheads represents, the sentences could have been tougher’.

13

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RICK FAWN

48 See the overview and categorisation of Romani educational provision in Jaroslav Balvõ´n, ‘Vy´chova a vzdeÏ la´va´nõ´ RomuÊ ’, Listy, 1996, 3, pp. 68–73.

49 Fonseca, Bury Me Standing , p. 163.

50 Human Rights Watch World Report, http://www.hrw.org/ wr2k1/europe/ czech.html.

51 Ï CTK, 20 May 1997.

52 Bella Edginton, ‘For the Czech Republic’s Gypsies, discrimination starts at school. Now that might be about to change’, http://www.vso.organization.uk/ pubs/ orbit/67/closeup.htm.

53 Balvõ´n, ‘Vy´chova a vzdeÏ la´va´nõ´ RomuÊ ’, p. 72.

54 Van der Stoel’s senior assistant Walter Kemp said of the 2000 report: ‘I think it’s fair to say that the problem is most pronounced in the Czech Republic and this is something that’s brought out in the high commissioner’ s report. He actually was scathing in his criticism of the so-called “special schools” and strongly suggested that they be phased out as soon as possible’ . Cited in Roland Eggleston, ‘OSCE: Report Details Discrimination Against Roma’, RFE/RL special report, 18 April 2000.

55 Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 11 May 1999.

56 http://www.romove.cz/ romove/jan98.html.

57 Randall Lyman, ‘Mixed Reviews: A Human Rights Report on the Czech Republic’, Prognosis, 7 December 1994.

58 Ibid.

59 For the view of Czech sociologists on the citizenship law see JirÏ ina SÏ iklova´ & Marta Milusakova´, ‘Denying Citizenship to the Czech Roma’, East European Constitutional Review, 7, 2, Spring 1998.

60 Emma McClune, ‘Government Moves to Change “Racist” Law’, The Prague Post, 20 February 1996.

61 Guy, ‘Another False Dawn? The Roma of the Czech Republic and Slovakia’.

62 Cited in ‘Czech Republican Party Chairman Miroslav Sladek spews anti-Roma racism’ (report of Parliamentary session of 25 July), Carolina (electronic newsletter of Charles University students), 212, 2, August 1996, in ibid.

63 Ï CTK, 9 January 1996.

64 Ï CTK, 1 May 2000.

65 Pra´vo, 18 August 1997, and RFE/RL Newsline, No. 98, 19 August 1997.

66 Ï TK, 13 October 1999.

Statement cited on C 67 For an article discussing the banning of ‘blacks’, the Czech slang for Roma, see Martin Kontra & JindrÏ ich SÏ ´õ dlo, ‘Cika´nuÊ m vstup zaka´ za´n!’, Respekt, 33, 15 August 1994.

68 See FrantisÏ ek RocÏ ek’s important and useful Zed’: MaticÏ nõ´—dokument o nejslavneÏjsÏ ´õ ulicÏ ce sveÏ ta ´ stõ´ nad Labem, Muzeum meÏ sta U ´ stõ´ nad Labem, 1999).

(U 69 See also the press release of the European Roma Rights Centre, 14 October 1999.

70 See the comments in Kate Connolly, ‘Concrete and steel to wall in Gypsies’, The Guardian, 16 October 1999.

71 Ï CTK, 1825 GMT, 14 October 1999.

72 Pavel TosÏ ovsky´, cited in The Times, 20 October 1999.

73 See the summary in RFE/RL Newsline, 4, 74, Part II, 13 April 2000.

74 Ï CTK, 10 October 1999.

75 Zemske´ noviny, 14 October 1999.

76 Ï CTK, 11 April 2000.

77 Ï CTK, 10 April 2000.

78 Ï CTK, 19 May 2000.

79 Cited in Michael Thurston, ‘Unblushing Locals Want Czech “Wall of Shame” Strengthened’ , Agence Press France, 18 October 1999.

80 See Zoltan Barany, ‘Living on the Edge: The East European Roma in Postcommunist Politics and Societies’, Slavic Review, 53, 2, Summer 1994, p. 336.

81 Lidove´ noviny, 8 March 1996.

82 Kontra & SÏ ´õ dlo, ‘Cika´nuÊ m vstup zaka´ za´n!’.

83 RFE/RL, 4 December 1998.

84 The Economist, 11 September 1999, p. 59.

85 Ï CTK, 24 March 2000, 19:03 GMT. 86 Ï TK and its contents broadcast at 19:39 GMT on 7 October The ROI statement was given to C 1999. Government Human Rights Commissioner Petr Uhl called the claims unfounded.

87 Ï CTK, 21 March 2000, 19:47 GMT. 88 See Ga´l, O jinakosti, pp. 79 and 81.

89 Kathleen Knox, ‘Klaus Terms Brutal Murder of Romany the “Last Straw” ’, The Prague Post, 30 May 1995.

90 This was part of the ‘opposition agreement’ struck between Zeman and Klaus after the June 1998

CZECH ATTITUDES TOWARDS THE ROMA

1219

elections whereby the latter agreed that his party would not vote against, and thus defeat, the minority Social Democrat government, in return for which Klaus became Chairman of the Chamber of Deputies, the equivalent of Speaker.

91 Connolly, ‘Concrete and steel to wall in Gypsies’.

92 The Guardian, 19 October 1999.

93 Ï CTK, 24 September 1999.

94 Ï TK, 16 May 2000, 12:10 GMT. Cited on C 95 See Martin Koma´rek in Mlada´ fronta Dnes, 14 October 1999.

96 Re ex, 25 August 1995. See, however, note 37 above, which cites van der Stoel’s report of 2000 calling the Czech Republic’s special schools the worst of the region.

97 Carol Skalnik Leff, National Con ict in Czechoslovakia, 1918–1987 (Princeton, Princeton University Press, 1988), p. 93 98 See JirÏ ´õ Pehe, ‘Slovaks in the Czech Republic: A New Minority’, RFE/RL Research Report, 4 June 1993, pp. 59–62.

99 It may be argued, as Leff does, that the expulsion of Sudeten Germans was ‘a spasm of postwar Czech nationalism’ ; see Carol Skalnik Leff, ‘Czech and Slovak Nationalism in the Twentieth Century’, in Peter F. Sugar (ed.), Eastern European Nationalism in the Twentieth Century (Washington, The American University Press, 1995), p. 142. This might therefore be construed as one example of nation-state building within the Czech lands.

100 Ladislav Holy, The Little Czech and the Great Czech Nation (Cambridge, Cambridge University Press, 1996), p. 64.

101 See Josef Vohryzek, ‘Anatomie rasismu’, Respekt, 11, 15 March 1993.

102 Recounted privately by two foreign diplomats.

103 Comment by Petr Horvath, head of the Moravian Romani Community, at the time of the Ï TK, 14 October 1999, 11:39 GMT. construction of the MaticÏ nõ´ street divider, C 104 Quoted in Tibor Papp, Who is In, Who is Out? Citizenship, Nationhood, Democracy, and European Integration in the Czech Republic and Slovakia (Florence, EUI Working Paper No. 99/13), p. 14.

105 See the commentary by Marek SÏ vehla on an IVVM poll, ‘Mezi na´mi obcÏ any’, Respekt, 25 March 1996, although he writes that it is not simple to make such statements and that conducting a public opinion poll provides the venue for so doing.

106 Penc & Urban, ‘Extremist Acts Galvanize Roma Population’ , p. 39.

107 Reference to the lm is given as a further suggestion as to how Czechs might have perceived a tremendous contrast between communist treatment of them and the Roma. Bohumil Hrabal, author of the novel on which the lm was based, also wrote the novella Prõ´lisÏ hlucÏ na´ samota (Too Loud a Solitude) whose hero’s love, a Romani woman, dies in a concentration camp.

108 For an account of non-consensual sterilisation of Romani women see Paul Hockenos, Free to Hate: The Rise of the Right in Post-Communist Eastern Europe (London and New York, Routledge, 1993), p. 220.

109 Renata´ Weinerova´, Romanies—In Search of Lost Security? (An Ethnological Probe in Prague 5) (Prague, Institute of Ethnology of the Academy of Sciences of the Czech Republic, No. 3, 1994), p.

5.

110 Fonseca, Bury Me Standing, p. 113.

111 See the comparative analysis made in Zoltan Barany, ‘Politics and the Roma in State-Socialist Eastern Europe’, Communist and Post-Communist Studies, 33, 4, 2000, pp. 421–437, esp. at pp.

428–429.

112 Petr MaresÏ , Libor Musil & Ladislav RabusÏ ic, ‘Values and the Welfare State in Czechoslovakia’ , in Christopher Bryant & Edmund Mokrzycki (eds), The New Great Transformation (London and New York, Routledge, 1995), p. 91.

113 See the commentary by Fedor Ga´l in Zemedelske´ noviny, 10 July 1995.

114 Ï ulõ´k, ‘If you prick us, do we not bleed?’, Central For a commentary on the documentary see Jan C Europe Review, 2, 4, 31 January 2000, http//www.ce-review. org/00/4/culik4_document.html.

115 Edgington, ‘For the Czech Republic’s Gypsies’.

116 Political Extremism and the Threat to Democracy in Europe (London, Institute of Jewish Affairs for CERA, 1994), p. 19.

117 Cited in Josef Kalvoda, ‘The Gypsies of Czechoslovakia’ , Nationalities Papers, 19, 3, 1991, p.

269.

118 Ï eske´ republiky, 9 Projev prezidenta republiky Va´clava Havla k obema komoram Parlamentu C prosince 1997, Prague, 9 December 1997.

119 ‘Abychom se museli stydeÏ t’, Respket, 11, 23 May 1990.

120 Ï esky´ spisovatel, 1994). KantuÊ rkova´ was herself an MP Eva KantuÊ rkova´, Pama´tnõ´k (Prague, C in the post-communist Czechoslovak parliament from 1990 to 1992.