A critical look at Europe's policy on Roma

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Mar 14, 2016, 4:39:05 PM3/14/16
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Sent: Saturday, March 12, 2016 23:25
Subject: RE: [Romani_Studies_Network] A critical look at Europe's policy on Roma

This is a significant intervention, and it would be good to have a text, including a transcript of the answers to questions, to enable closer study.  Just as in those 19th century editions of John Locke's foundational texts of British empirical philosophy that included extracts from his letters answering critics and enquirers, so the answers to questions here show both nuances and clarifications of Yaron's developing positions that confound simple-minded or static objections to his positions.

This lecture provides a relatively concise overview of where Yaron has got to in his ongoing transition from pillar of European Romani Studies and policy to radical critic of the European Romani Studies and policy establishment, and includes one of the most devastating and concise critiques of the policy of the European Union and the Council of Europe that I have ever heard. The tone is not polemical - he acknowledges the value of the pressure of these transnational bodies on national governments, but shows this is often a matter of form and not of substance, with ruthless logic and a clear use of evidence.

Second, it is interesting to see how Yaron is shifting his presentation of the origins of Roma and the Romani language. He actually says, in answer to one questioner: "Romani is the Indic language that formed in Europe". He does argue that one can trace the roots of Romani much earlier to Indian developments, but he no longer treats the consolidation of particular elements in the precursors of the  Romani language as identical to ethnogenesis, but rather suggests that the linguistic evidence suggests a relatively rapid migration from India to Anatolia of the core of the ancestors of those who would create modern Romani, even if some of the migrant groups from India, some of whom might have married into the Romani speaking population, might have arrived much earlier.  So even if Yaron does not have yet a coherent social theory or hypothesis about Romani ethnogenesis, he now clearly at least senses the need for one.

So, although probably neither professor would like the comparison, it is possible to see echoes in the radicalisation of Yaron's position, and the accompanying epistemological changes about how linguistic evidence can be used in conjunction with that from other disciplines, of the changes which accompanied Ian Hancock's process of radicalisation which began 15-20 years ago.  In both cases that radicalisation is not born of optimism, or any sense of the inevitability of progress, but out of a deep but defiant disappointment and pessimism about the situation of Roma, and about the way the complexity of reality is regarded by many people either almost as some kind malicious incompetence of the creator, or as deliberate obfuscation by scholars. This then requires almost the creation of a counter-simplification in the interests of the truth.  But to do that demands at least the temporary setting aside of positivist methodology, the embracing of at least situational legitimacy of ad hominem arguments. So, in comparison with his recent popular book, one can already see him moving to minimise both causes of offence, and possible openings for criticism. Several people have remarked to me how Yaron's response to the recent relatively sympathetic criticisms of Huub van Baar, on this mailing list, side-stepped rather than really confronted them, even raising the question of whether he fully understood them. Whether or not he has fully understood them, this lecture shows he is capable taking note of them, of reformulating his narrative. Also interesting is the continuation of his recognition of the effects of his own personal biography and culture on his own intellectual achievements. This is not a fully-fledged embracing of standpoint theory; he repeats his caricature of the arguments about the necessary role of scholars themselves of Roma, Gypsy and Traveller heritage; but at least we have the beginning of a systematic reflexivity.

Are there causes for concern? My main concern is that in identifying the way in which European bureaucrats resurrect the "Gypsy/Cigany sterotypes" (which he treats as an undifferentiated corpus) but simply attach them to their newly defined concept of Roma, he simplifies Roma/Gypsy /Traveller politics.

There are perhaps two main general tendencies of international Romani politics. One draws, like Zionism and Paestinianism on the classical tropes of European nationalism, to produce Roma nationalism: Roma politics for Roma people, but this time not made of cheese. The other, one might describe as the "Rainbow Alliance" approach, linking together the different victims of anti-Gypsyism in a common opposition to racism, discrimination and genocide. 

The IRU from its very inception has tried to ride both of these horses at the same time, often using the language of the first to justify the practice of the second. One might describe the whole intellectual trajectory of the late Nicolae Gheorghe as a slow movement from the first position to the second position.

Yaron's lecture helps to build the intellectual foundations for a radical Roma nationalist critique of European policy; and he shows there are many easy targets at which such a politics can take aim; but at the same time there is a danger of conflating the "Rainbow Alliance" approach with the Roma-as-Cigany-stereotyping approach of European bureaucrats, and even blaming it for them, because, it is asserted,  they do not have a clear idea of who Roma are and what their culture is. 

Some little slips show in this: Yaron suggests that Roma are the people who call themselves Roma as an ethnonym, and that "only Roma speak Romani." But of course it is not true that only Roma, thus defined, speak Romani as a mother-tongue; it is also spoken as mother-tongue by some Sinte and Kaale, at least.  In answer to a question he gives a detailed and insightful answer which shows that the integration and intermarriage of English Gypsies and Irish Travellers in England does not preclude clear consciousness of the ethnic boundary between the two cultures.  But somehow he combines this awareness of longstanding intermarriage - which probably goes back to the first Dom "Egyptians"  who had to learn Romani to get along with their Rom in-laws in 11th century Anatolia - with the atavistic, almost Michael Daduc-like,  belief that there is a clear boundary between those who are of Indian origin and those who just ain't.

Another revealing remark occurs where Yaron contrasts Welsh and Polish in the UK. People do not realise Polish is more widely spoken than Welsh, because Welsh is spoken in Wales, but Polish is neglected because "it is spoken everywhere".  But it could be argued that the concentration of Welsh linguistic nationalists on the territory of Wales is one of the reasons why Welsh linguistic nationalism is only a little more successful in practice than that of the Irish government. The two largest urban concentrations of Welsh mother-tongue speakers are reputed to be in (1) London and (2) Liverpool.

One other enduring myth of relatively recent creation to which Yaron continues to subscribe is  that "The extension of the European Union and the freedom of population movement within it has brought the status of Europe’s Romani minority to the attention of political institutions. Efforts have been underway to tackle discrimination and support social inclusion of Roma since the early 1990s.."
In fact the European Union spent most of the early 1990s simply suppressing and indeed trying to erase from the historical record its existing policy on Roma embodied in the resolutions of the Council of Ministers of 22nd May 1989, which were more far-reaching than the policies adopted in 2011.  What was going on the 1990s was not the slow stirring of sympathy from European institutions but a panicked reaction by Western European governments to the possibility of mass migration of Roma from East to West.  By its relentless rubbishing of the West European scholars and Roma/Gypsy Traveller organisations who helped to negotiate these policy positions in the 1980s,  the organisation that Yaron worked for between 1988 and 1995 must bear at least some responsibility for this collective amnesia. In their legitimate demand for the rights of East European Romani immigrants, they perhaps overlooked that they were imposing an East European model of ethnic or "national minority" politics on the Roma/Gypsies/Travellers/Sinte of Western Europe.

None of the points I have made above mean, of course, that this lecture is not a profoundly impressive and important analysis and position statement, which deserves to be read widely once published, and which will challenge sloppily held and argued positions, and elevate and refine the whole debate about European Roma policy. It is a lecture given in good faith, sincerely seeking to advance the cause of Romani people, seeking to build the common narrative that can do so. I hope that its text, and a transcript of the question and answer session, are published in written form soon.

Thomas Acton

To: romani_stud...@yahoogroups.com
From: romani_stud...@yahoogroups.com
Date: Fri, 11 Mar 2016 22:49:58 +0000
Subject: [Romani_Studies_Network] A critical look at Europe's policy on Roma

 

My lecture from last week at the University of New England in Portland, Maine, on 'A critical look at Europe's policy on Roma', is now available online:

http://www.une.edu/calendar/2016/yaron-matras-a-critical-look-europe%E2%80%99s-policy-roma-gypsies

Yaron Matras


----------------------------
Professor Yaron Matras
School of Arts, Languages, and Cultures
The University of Manchester
Oxford Road
Manchester M13 9PL
United Kingdom

Tel.+44-161-275 3975
http://mlm.humanities.manchester.ac.uk

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Posted by: Yaron Matras yaron....@manchester.ac.uk
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