Czech School and "Romipen"

The core-identities of a Rom child

By: Milena Hübschmannová, The Charles University, Prague
Paper, 1998

If a decent citizen sees a graffiti Death to Roma painted on a house-wall, he will most probably feel indignant and condemn racism. However the next moment he may say without hesitation: "the Roma problem is serious" or "we have to solve the Gypsy question " because "gypsy-criminality is really high. You can read in newspapers every day".

Stereotype phrases like that, which are currently used in the mass media, by official authorities as well as by the general public, are of course not such an aggressive form of racism as the above mentioned graffiti - but are they really "racist-free"? Doesn't the expression "Roma/Gypsy problem" imply that the Roma are those who cause problems to the rest of the society? Doesn't this hidden implication hinder "us" to admit that it is also "we" who can cause problems to Roma?

Similar statements are used if education of Roma children is discussed? "problems with Roma children at school", "backwardness of Roma children" "inadaptability of Roma children to the educational system". "negligence of Roma towards the value of education", etc.

It is the century's lasting syndrome of gadžo-superiority which brought this terminology into existence. And it is this ethnocentric terminology which is cementing and perpetuating the gadžo-superiority syndrome. Like a tight frame it makes it difficult to come over the limit of the ethnocentric stereotype and to ask: is not also the "inadaptability of the educational system to Roma children" guilty for the educational shortcomings?

Who or "what" is a Rom-child? It is a multidimensional complex of identities. Some of them are permanent some temporary, some individual some shared with others, some can be considered as basic or core-identities.

The most invariable or permanent and at the same time the most "visible" identity of Roma children is their anthropological type; other basic components of their common identity is their ethnicity (including language, cultural habits but also the common origin and history of the Roma people, etc). All this is designated by a Romani term romipen (Romhood). Romipen is the core of the identities shared more or less by most of the Romani children. By their romipen - "nationhood" they differ from their Czech school mates.

What is the attitude of the Czech school towards the romipen-identities of Roma children? To what extent are they respected in the educational process? I shall try to treat the most important ones one after another.

RESPECT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO THE ANTHROPOLOGICAL IDENTITY OF THE ROMA CHILDREN.

Leeuwen-Turnovcová (1993) in her excellent study about Czech argot brings 36 derogatory appellations used for Roma. Most of them are based on the "black color" of the Roma (black mouth, black coal, rubber, black gum, Brazilian, black hose, black shoe polish, etc. p. 144)

In the year 1992 the editors of the Roma monthly Amaro lav distributed a questionnaire (Qu92) among the Roma correspondents asking them about their personal experience of a Rom pupil in the Czech school. One of the eleven questions was: did ever some of your gadžo school fellows call you "black mouth" or some other bad name of this kind? What did you do? Did you tell it to the teacher? How did he/she react?

Out of 41 respondents who filled the questionnaire 38 were frequently/currently/often abused by bad names ridiculing their "black color". What was their reaction? We shall quote some representative examples:

(1) I was ashamed and did not understand what all this meant. At home I was a beloved child - and all of a sudden I became a >black hose<. Why? (2) We simply beat up the Czechs. The teacher came and a11 of us were punished. (3) I was unhappy. (4) I hated the Czechs. (5) I was used to it, what can we do? Just yesterday when I was passing through Vaclavské námêsti (one of the main streets in Prague) a person whom a I had never seen before started to shout at me >black mouth back to India!< I just didn't pay any attention to it.

What was the reaction of the teachers if a Rom child complained about his romipen being offended by some of his Czech school mates? Most of the respondents did not complain. We quote some answers from those who did: (1) I was lucky I had a good teacher and she said to the Czechs that we were honest people. Some of them stopped ridiculing us. (2) Our teacher said: if some of you Gypsies were not so dirty, you would not be so black - I felt very offended because my mother was a >fanatic devil< of cleanliness! (3) The teacher said: you guys don't bother me! Solve your problems yourselves.

The complex of "black color" is one of the very deep Roma-complexes. It is very old; it reaches may be as far back as to the times when 1 500 BC the "white" aryans invaded the Indus valley with its fantastic Mohenjodaro civilization, which was created by "blacks". Krishnam tvaccam (black complexion) was one of the derogatory epithets which the white victorious invaders used for the conquered; it is preserved in the Vedic scriptures (in Rig Veda). Today we may be nearly sure that the pre-ancestors of Roma belonged to the adivasi population, to the natives who inhabited India in the period of the glorious Mohenjodaro civilization.

Two thousand years later the dark color put Roma to the danger of being hanged, drowned, beaten up, mutilated or evicted. Several centuries of Roma's European history are marked by genocidal attempts. On the other hand in some countries and in some periods the gadžos came to terms with Roma who were supplying them with their musical services, black-smiths' products or services of agricultural workers, and in times like that the dark complexion of Roma became "only" a target of condescend mockery and a theme of numerous wits laughed upon in village pubs (You were four month in your mother's womb and five months you were being smoked, weren't you?).

Unfortunately the genocidal attempts are not over. One would have believed that they ended for ever after the nazi empire collapsed and its racist ideology was indignantly condemned by the whole world. But the brutal murders of Roma by skinheads in the post-communist countries show that Roma - and humanity! - are in danger all the time.

Neither the disdainful mockery has stopped. And thus there is no wonder that dark color of complexion is connected with a feeling of danger and with a deep complex of inferiority. This complex is manifested by traditional sayings like: oj šukar sar rakli (she is beautiful like a "white" non-Rom girl), džungalo sar kalo Rom (ugly as a black Gypsy), etc. Even today a girl who is of fair complexion has a better chance to get "well married" than a dark chaj (Rom girl).

Are teachers and pedagogical authorities aware of this fact? How do they try to face it in the educational process? We may be sure that ninety-nine percent of teachers do not abuse their Roma pupils on the basis of their "dark color". Let us believe that a majority of teachers would even admonish the "white" pupils if they call their Roma school-mates black mouth, black hose and the like. But is that enough? What sort of active means are there incorporated into the educational process to teach children from their very young age that people in the world are of different anthropological types and that color of complexion, color of hair or eyes does not make human better or worse?

Offences against Roma by ridiculing their anthropological identity, their "black color", can be qualified as a sort of aggressive discrimination. But the anthropological type can be offended in a much more unobtrusive, subtle, let us say "non-violent" way: if it is ignored, neglected, silently excommunicated from the public. This silent discrimination is manifested by excluding pictures of Roma from the textbooks used in Czech schools, from the colorful, attractive decoration of class-walls and school corridors. As to my knowledge not a single picture of a Rom can be found in any of the school books. Not even in books for the elementary class where illustrations are so important (they replace the written information, motivate the child to get interested in learning, etc.) I believe that the absence or Roma in the pictorial pedagogical materials is rather "absent-mindedness" than intention, absent-mindedness caused by the stereotype ethnocentric thinking of the Czech educational authorities, but its effect is similar.

Most of the Roma children are probably not fully conscious of the fact that their anthropological identity is ignored by the Czech school. However this negligence, inadaptability, failure of the school system supports subconsciously their traditional feeling of being inferior because of their "color". It is one of the demotivating factors which makes them consider the school a "Czech school" with which they, as Roma, do not know how to identify themselves. It makes them paint all the "beautiful princesses with blond hair and blue eyes" and suffer for not being ever able to look like them.

As to the Czech children the official negligence of the Roma's anthropological type supports the traditional syndrome of "white ethnic" superiority. The school misses one chance to put a barrier to the constant flow of verbal offences like black mouth, black hose, black shoe polish - which of course provoke a justifiable defence on the side of the Roma children. And if the retaliation bursts out as an "improper" aggression, it is the Roma children who are punished.

RESPECT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO THE HISTORICAL AND CULTURAL IDENTITY OF THE ROMA CHILDREN

If one goes through the Citanka for the fourth and fifth grade of the elementary school (Praha 1997) one is impressed by invention of its authors, by the illustrations and by the quality of selected texts. Citanka - literally "a reading-book" - is a textbook which intends to make the pupils of ten, eleven years acquainted with the most precious "jewels" of literature, most outstanding writers, poets, painters, with the treasures of folk art, with traditional legends and with the most important and glorious historical events. All items are of course selected with respect to the age of the "young reader". Some of the little poems, riddles, songs or legends are most probably known to the pupils in an oral form as they are communicated in Czech families. Though that in these two inspiring "reading-books" we can find short literary pieces written by R. Kipling, J. Prevert, R.L. Stevenson, H.Ch. Andersen, R. Desnos, the prevailing majority of authors are Czechs, nearly all the folklore items are Czech, Moravian or Slovak. The major part of the books is implicitly or explicitly glorifying Czech history, Czech culture, Czech literature, Czech art. These two ditankas brought also one Romani song, one little poem, three proverbs and two riddles (4th grade) and one Romani song and five riddles (5th grade). Until 1997 there was not a single reference to Roma culture or history in any school-book. In comparison with the former situation are the two ditankas "pioneers" deserving the highest praise. But are the two and a half pages of Roma folklore an adequate information about "national" history and culture which should Roma children get to be equal to their Czech school fellows?

One question in the QU92 was: Did you come to know something about the history and culture of Roma at school? A complementary question tried to find out what would the respondents like to learn if they had chance to attend school again. These questions were answered by all the respondents. Only in two cases the teacher told her pupils that Roma have originate from India. Five other respondents praised their teachers for letting them sing some gypsy songs publicly. Mr. V. Cina (40 years in 1992) wrote:

(1) I was so proud when the teacher told us that Roma come from India. When I told it at home, my grandmother said: nonsense, we come from Stropkov in Slovakia. But my father was extremely happy and he made me to talk about our origin again and again in the gatherings of adult Roma who came to us "pro paramisa" (to tale-telling sessions)." Other answers are rather depressing. (2) How could the teacher teach us anything about Roma culture when she herself did not know anything about it. (3) At school we were never taught anything about Roma. Neither culture, nor history. Sometimes the teacher would say to a Czech child: go and wash your hands. you are dirty as a gypsy. (4) yes we were taught about Roma culture: the teacher looked into our hair whether we are not lousy. She never inspected the hair of the Czechs. I believed that we have "lousy culture". (5) I don't remember that ever during my school years I would have heard anything about our history or about some famous Rom. My father wanted very much that I should learn. Today I know that I was doing a great mistake: I was running away from school, we went with other Rom boys to the park and we smoked and played guitar I hated school. Today I would like to learn. If I could know something about our history I would be the happiest person in the world. The Rom journalist Jan Horvath wrote: (6) I would like Roma history to be taught not only to us but to the Czech children too. I am sure they would have more respect for us if they come to know that even among Roma there were famous personalities like Cinka Panna [the famous violinist from Slovakia, 18th century), Mateo Maximoff, the Polish Rom poet Papusha, etc.

Only the recent mass emigration of Roma from the Czech Republic made the official authorities think how to fill the gazing gap of ignorance with adequate information about Roma's culture, history, language and the positive values of their romipen. Of course, the immediate impulse to emigrate is not the absence of ethnocultural information at school. It is the fear of the skinheads, the discrimination in the labour market, discrimination in public places which makes Roma try to find a more secure place to live. But the major catalisis-factor of all the discrimination is the totally imbalanced information about the negative and positive aspects of the Roma community. People (Roma and gajos both) are currently informed by mass media about the "gypsy criminality" - but the general public has very little chance to get informed about the connection of Roma's ancient history with the glorious Mohenjodaro civilisation (3000-1500 BC), with famous musicians who used to play at royal balls and at kings' weddings, about Roma writers like Mateo Maximoff, Katarina Taikon, Filomena Franz, Papusha, Ilona Lackova, Leksa Manush and dozens other, about Roma painters, film directors, theatre directors and other great Roma personalities. It is at first place the school which should communicate these information to Roma children as well as to their gadzo school-mates. The absence of information about positive values of Roma has a disastrous effect on Roma as well as on gadzos. It supports and fosters the deep complex of inferiority on the part of Roma, it makes them to imitate the surface values of the qadzos, it leads them to apathy or to aggression. And the gadzos are supported in their ethnocultural superiority, in their traditional despise for Roma.

Recently the agency Median did a research of patriotic feelings among Czechs. The initial hypothesis was that patriotism would decrease due to the present political scandals in the Czech Republic, to growth of inflation and unemployment. However the results of the research showed the opposite: about 80 % Czechs are proud of being Czechs. The reason why is very interesting: 78% are proud because of the rich Czech history (!!!), 72 % because the Czech country is beautiful, 71 % because of Czech culture. This research shows clearly that even the Czech criminality - which at present is very high - has not endangered the self confidence of the Czechs, the integrity of their personalities. Neither members of other nations would probably say that the Czech nation is a nation of criminals. It is due to positive values of Czech history and culture which compensate the present negative "behaviour" of the Czech nation. The positive values are propagated. Children learn about them at school. Everybody is made to know about them and to appreciate them. While the positive values of Roma culture and history are totally ignored. And thus they seem not to exist.

RESPECT OF THE SCHOOL SYSTEM TO THE ROMANI LANGUAGE

On the 8th of April 1958 at the meeting of the central committee of the Communist party of former Czechoslovakia the official policy towards the citizens of gypsy origin was formulated. It was a policy of total ethno cultural assimilation. According to the communist ideology ethnic assimilation was the conditio sine qua non for raising the social and cultural level of Roma, The heaviest pressure was concentrated on full destruction of Romani. In a document O práci medzi cigánskym obyvátelstvom v CSR (About the work among the Gypsy population in Czechoslovakia) it was written: It is necessary to reject a11 the artificial attempts of some cultural workers who try to create a literary language from the gypsy dialects, to create Gypsy literature or to establish classes where the Gypsy language would be used... Such an effort would slow down the process of reeducation (!) of the Gypsies. it would isolate the Gypsies from the working masses and it would help to conserve the old, primitive gypsy way of life. (A. Jurova, 1993, p. 52).

The prohibition of Romani was exerted with "creative invention". Some teachers introduced fines for each gypsy word pronounced at school. Mr. Jan Sikl who worked as an educational assistant in a Children's home witnessed that Roma children were clean-shaved for using Romani. In Rokycany they were threatened to be excluded from the pioneer organization. I could go on enumerating examples like that on many pages.

Two three generations ago Roma children would come to the first class of school with perfect knowledge of Romani which was fully sufficient and efficient as a means of communication of a six years old child. Communication within his own Roma community. But it did not help him in the ethnocentric Czech school.

The respondents of the QU92 have presented a shocking testimony about their language experience at school. (1) The most difficult thing for me at school was to speak Czech. I was afraid to say a sentence not to make a mistake. Often I guessed what the teacher asked me but I did not reply simply because I was stressed and was not sure whether I shall use the correct Czech word. (2) We had a good teacher. If some child did not understand something she would stand by him or her, she would pat us and try to explain us what she had said. She was very kind to me but I understood half of what she was saying. I was extremely ashamed that I could not have made her happy. (3) At school they wanted to turn us into Czechs. Every day I heard again and again: don't speak the gypsy lingo! Don't you want to become civilized? The experience of Mr. Stefan Miko from the town Rokycany (West Czechia) was recorded in Romani. I would like to quote the transcription of the interview. Mr. Miko was 36 years old in 1992. He is an excellent musician but earns his living as a bricklayer. (The translation of the interview is shortened)

Until the age of six years I was the happiest child in the world. My family did not live in luxury, on the contrary. My father had to earn livelihood for ten people - because we were eight children. My father was a professional bricklayer - there were not many professional bricklayers among Roma that time!- - but still he had to do his best to buy food and cloths for all of us. But we didn't mind our poverty. We lived happily. Every evening Roma were gathering in our flat, they were talking singing, playing. I was not yet six years old when I tried to play the guitar.

Then I came to school. and for the first time in my life I experienced how it feels to be shifted aside. I found out that I was something different than other children. I found out what it means to be unhappy. First of all I did not understand at all about what the teacher and the Czech boys were talking. My parents would speak Romani with us but Czech too. I was convinced that I knew Czech. But the Czech of my mother and the Czech of the teacher was completely different. The teacher was not bad. When the Czech children called me >black mouth< she was angry with them. But I did not understand her. When we wanted me to do something I did not know what she wanted.

I was constantly afraid that the teacher will ask me something. When she asked I was shocked. I was just standing as a stupefied fool and other children were laughing. And my teacher was saying in a sad voice: Stephan, Stephan, you do not learn! You do not pay attention. Today I would know how to explain my condition to her - but when I was a child of six seven year I did not know!

At home I knew perfectly well what was I expected to do, to say, how was I expected to behave. I knew that in the presence of my mother, father or some elderly person I was not allowed to say a single dirty word. It would have been a terrible shame. Among us boys we used dirty words and considered it a sort of bravery -but in the presence of adults it was out of question!

If it happened that my mother of my father rebuked me, I knew perfectly well why. I knew that I deserved to be rebuked. My parents were never beating us. Roma parents would never before beat their children - this bad habit they have Learned from the Czechs.

But when the teacher shouted at me I didn't understand why. At school I lost my place among other people. I started to hate the school. I was running away from school. My mother and father were very angry because as a punishment they did not get the children allowance. Besides I was in danger that the social worker will send me to the children's home as it happened to so many Roma children who did not attend school properly. My mother was weeping and said: I will kill myself if they steel you and send you to the children's home. Go to school, please, for heaven! And I said: Daddy, at school I don't understand anything! The bloody Czechs call me >black mouth<. " But you are a black mouth! " my father said. "We are Roma people. We are different from them. Don't you hear that at home we speak a different language?" "But tell me, why don't they speak at school the same as we do at home?" "Because the qadjo people are more than we are and because they are many, the power is in their hand." "The boy is clever" said my mother who was listening our discussion. Yes. at home I thought I was clever, at school I taught that I was the silliest of the silliest.

Then I continued to go to school because I was so sorry for my parents who suffered so much that I hated school.

After forty years of heavy handed assimilation many Roma children know Romani only passively. Few parents speak Romani to their children because they sincerely and ardently want them to "get civilised". The assimilators have inflicted into their mind conviction that the only way to "civilisation" is to forget Romani and romipen. But the deprivation of Romani does not bring in its wake an adequate knowledge of Czech. The Czech used by most of the Roma children is a Romani ethnolect of Czech: the deep structure of Romani translated to the surface structure of Czech. Inadequate pronunciation, inadequate grammar, limited vocabulary, incorrect use of words and improper stylistics.

Besides the Roma children and many Roma in general have acquired a schizophrenic attitude towards their language - as towards the whole complex of their basic identities, to their romipen. In the Romani "sector" of their personality they are proud of it, they love it - in the "gadzo sector" of their bilingual, bicultural and biethnic personalities they despise it, detest it, they are afraid of it and they would like to get rid of it as of a heavy burden, as of a stigma which hinders them to be accepted by "the society".

In the past the share of the "gadzo-sector" in a Rom was very limited. Roma lived their life in their community and its values and evaluations were relevant for each individual. The values and evaluations of the gadzos were relevant only to the extent whether they enabled Roma to survive. Today the situation has changed. Isolation of ethnic minorities. more over dispersed ethnic minorities as the Roma are, is hardly possible. The gadzo societies try to integrate Roma by all means but at the same time they make the integration impossible by recurrent waves of hostility, antagonism and discrimination - and by continuous disregard to romipen. By ignoring the complex of Roma's basic identities.

This "subtle" form of discrimination, the continuously exerted syndrome of the gadzo ethno cultural superiority perpetuates a phenomenon which has existed since Roma appeared in Europe and which constantly holds back the solution of the "gadzo-Roma problem". There always have been individual Roma who by the stroke of good luck, by strong will, by extraordinary intelligence succeeded to become "integrated" into the society as priests, generals, doctors, teachers, etc. They trespassed the limit of their traditional jati (cast)-profession of blacksmiths, musicians, basket weavers, horse-dealers, they adopted the gadzo language and culture in such a way that it enabled them to become rich, educated, prestigious, accepted. But by leaving the persecuted, ignored, derogated gypsyhood, they left also their romhood - their romipen. They emigrated from the stigmatized ethnicity to the prestigious one. They were lost for their community. Social prestige was incompatible with being a Gypsy. When Franz List wrote about the fantastic Rom musician János Bihari, he qualified him as the best Hungarian music interpreter of all times. When in the Expo 1967 in Montreal the Roma blacksmiths from Podunajské Biskupice (dist. Bratislava) exposed their artistic product, these were presented as Slovak folk art. In a conference about education of Roma children in Nitra, Slovakia 1995 it was stated that 6000 Roma have accomplished University education. How many of them pass as Roma?

The trouble is that the "emigration" from the disrespected Roma ethnicity often does not protect the "emigrant" from the danger of racism. When Mr. Berki was killed by a squad of skinheads on the 12th May 1995, his wife said in a TV interview: we are not Gypsies! We do not consider ourselves to be Gypsies! And could not understand why her husband, an "integrated" citizen, a decent baker appreciated by all the neighbors was killed. The Rom writer Ilona Lacková, the Rom lawyer Emil Scuka, the ex-member of parliament Mr. Ondrej Gina and many many other educated, decent Roma, University graduates were refused the entrance to restaurant - not because being thieves, criminals, asocial persons - but because being Roma.

The constant escape of educated, "integrated", "decent" Roma from the Roma community does cement the disastrous false believe that Roma are a marginal group of uneducated people on the edge of criminality, of people who cause the eternal Gypsy problem.

There is a strong feed-back between the perpetual negligence and non-acceptance of Roma's ethno cultural identity by the gadzos and between the perpetual escape of Roma from their ethno cultural identity. This feed-back creates a vicious circle of cumulative cause.

Where should this circle be cut? Who should cut it? The representatives of the gadzo society who do not want to "suffer from the Roma-problem" or the Roma political representatives, the educated Roma, who do not want to suffer by the problems which the gadzo society is causing to them?

I leave this question open - but still I would like to express my opinion. It is the school and the educational system which is committed to the task of "educating" people. It is the school which is a decisive agent in forming the mentality, opinions and attitudes of people from their very childhood. It is the school which should give children information necessary of becoming really human and efficient members of the society. There fore the teachers, the pedagogical workers and the educational authorities are those who should know and realize what are the real reasons of the unsatisfactory communication between Roma and gadze, the unsatisfactory results of communication between a Czech teacher and a Rom pupil. They have no excuse in indulging in their syndrome of ethnic superiority. They have no excuse in thoughtlessly using stereotype phrases like inadaptability of Roma children to the educational process. Their duty is to think about the inadaptability of the educational process to the Roma children.

POST SCRIPTUM

It would be unfair not to mention positive attempts which aim at introducing more information about romipen into the school system. These attempts could start only after 1989 when the policy of assimilation was rejected. At least officially as a declaration. Of course, in eight years the stereotypes lasting eight hundred years cannot be changed rooted out. any little positive step is important.

In 1991 Romani and romistics became a university subject and is being taught in a five years' course. The first two graduates of this subject are working in a foundation Nová Skola (New school) the activities and results of which are remarkable: training of Roma assistants in classes with Roma children, lectures about romipen for (Czech) teachers, a literary competition in Romani for children from 7-15 years, etc. More detailed information yields the paper of Helen Jirincová. One of the graduates in romistics teaches this subject at a pedagogical faculty in the town Usti nad Labem. There are optional lectures in Romani at the pedagogical faculty in Prague. The pedagogical faculty in Olomouc has published several very good books about Roma history and culture. A fantastic experiment is running in the private school of Premysl Pitter in Ostrava directed by the directress Helena Balabánová: Roma parents take part in the educational process as assistants.

A most useful requalification course for adult Roma has started in September 1997. It is organized by the Foundation of Rajko Djuric. Roma attend lectures of sociology, psychology, Czech and also of Romani history and language. Eighty students have recently passed successfully the first exams and proceed in further studies. In their evaluation of the course many of them express deep gratefulness for the information about Roma history and about famous Roma personalities which they never ever before had chance to get. At last I found my identity and only now I am really proud of being a Romni wrote a 19 Years old girl from Milevsko. The ministry of education as well as some publishing houses are interested to incorporate information about Roma and their history, culture and famous personalities in school-books. There are not enough specialist who could meet all these demands and it definitely will take time to fill the gap of ignorance by valid, reliable and non-ethnocentric information. However there is good will - and as it is said: where there is will there is also way.

REFERENCES

• Jurová, Anna, Vyvoj rómskei problematiky na Slovensku po roku 1945, Bratislava 1993

• van Leeuwen-Turnovcová, Jirina, Historisches Argot und neuer Gefangnisslang in Böhmen, Berlin 1993