Georgi Parushev/Sofia Echo
Roma women (top) often get married young and
stop going to school. Roma men in Dupnitsa
(bottom) greet the new year with music during
the shooting of a film last December dedicated to
their ethinc group.
Roma activist Georgi Parushev calls his people poor, ignorant and marginalised outsiders.
Parushev, executive director of the foundation Support for the Roma 2000, sounds bitter at the way Bulgarians treat their fellow citizens of Roma origin.
“We don’t know each other, there is no exchange between our ethnic groups, Roma are accepted only as something exotic,” he said.
Yet, the Roma have inhabited the Balkans since times unknown, arriving from India in the region long before the Bulgarian state was created. Bulgarians and Roma have lived next door to each other for centuries.
“We know you, you don’t know us” is the motto of the documentary series Zaedno (Together) which Parushev produces for Bulgarian National Television (BNT). So far, 22 documentary films about the Roma problems in Bulgaria have been broadcast.
“Taking a question why she does not use condoms, asked by one of our reporters in a recent film, a Roma woman answered ‘I am not a whore,’” Parushev recounted, underlining one of the pressing problems of the minority.
He said Roma have a patriarchal attitude towards the family.
And while Parushev’s production remains on screen, the only Roma presenter on BNT, Violeta Draganova, was removed two weeks ago and will no longer host the morning show of the national media. She will only have five or 10 minutes a week for an ethnic report.
The reported motive of Nina Spassova, director of the “News and topical broadcasts” department at BNT, was that Draganova has secondary education and was not good enough.
Yet the Roma presenter was mentioned in the report on Bulgaria’s political development in 2001, prepared by the European Commission, as a positive example of tolerance in the country.
On January 16, Minister of Culture Bozhidar Abrashev awarded Draganova for her contribution to upholding Roma identity.
“Violeta is like a dancing bear, a beautiful Gypsy on the national television,” Parushev said, commenting on the attitude to successful Roma, which he described as resembling the attitude to a popular attraction.
In his view, recently too many people became doctors of social science on the back of Roma people.
“Roma don’t need American observers, psychologists and sociologists,” he said. “Roma need opportunities.”
Parushev criticised a number of recent projects proposed or funded by the Government that seemingly promote better life, employment and education for the Roma.
The most popular ones were the Roma cable television that acquired a licence to operate in Vidin, the education desegregation project and the Roma street theatre workshops in Rousse.
“The person who got the TV licence is an ignoramus,” Parushev said.
He said the education desegregation initiative would involve only about 50 children, while more than 70,000 young Roma do not go to school.
“Roma are used to spending life as an eternal holiday, they have emotion in their genes, but this does not make them cultivated,” Parushev said, commenting on the Roma theatres as a not-too-helpful idea.
“The Bulgarian National Theatre ‘Ivan Vasov’ has no funds to support itself, let alone a Roma theatre,” he also said.
“During the time of communism Roma were used to the state taking care of them and they needed no education because they could be employed in a factory which required no skilled labour,” Parushev said.
“They knew only the spade.”
Speaking about education, however, he said he sees it mostly as a personal choice and a matter of bringing up in the family.
“My mother has never forced me to go to school,” he said.
Regarding the participation of Roma in the political life of the country, Parushev was also skeptical about any improvement. During the rule of Jean Videnov’s Government, there was only one Roma MP in the National Assembly.
At the time of Ivan Kostov’s government, Roma had one representative in Parliament, too. The current National Assembly has two Roma MPs, one from the Coalition for Bulgaria and one from the National Movement Simeon II.
“Politicians go to the Roma ghettos with kebapcheta and beer, they rely on the ignorance of the gypsies and thus win their votes,” Parushev said.
Most Roma people are struggling for a basic animal survival, while the designer perfumes of the politicians cost as much as the household lot of a Roma person.
“Our way to Europe does not pass through the ghetto, and it should,” Parushev said. In the reports of the European Commission and Human Rights Watch (HRW) for last year, “Bulgaria’s human rights record remained poor in 2001, Roma faced official and private discrimination and abuse.”
HRW reported that Roma were beaten by police in at least five cases, including a June 26, 2001 assault at Pleven police station in which a Roma suspect was allegedly tortured with electricity.
“Arsonists burned down a Roma home in Sofia on March 15, 2001. In August, villagers from Oriahovica formed a committee to prevent Roma families from registering as residents of the village,” the 2001 HRW report on Bulgaria read.
“It is a national crime to keep 800,000 people in such a wretched condition,” Parushev said.
Speaking about the Roma national identity, he said that people congregate on the basis of a national cause, institutionalised economy and politics, which the gypsies do not have.
Too many Roma, according to Parushev, are proud of their descent but do nothing to climb the social ladder and boast with one exceptional qualification – “profession Roma”, as he put it.
On the other hand, some cultivated Roma people are embarrassed to mention their ethnic background.
“During the communist era, it was a crime to call oneself Roma,” Parushev recalled.
He said that the national census is not representative of the number of Roma in Bulgaria, because questioners tended to ask closed-end questions like “Are you a Bulgarian citizen?” and not “What is your ethnic background?”
Data from the 2001 census of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) shows that almost 366,000 Bulgarian citizens define themselves as Roma. According to Parushev, Bulgarian gypsies are approaching a million, definitely the largest Roma minority in any country around the world.
People of Roma descent are almost equally poor, irrespective of their position on the globe, said Parushev, who has travelled to many European countries and most recently to Macedonia, where “the predominant standard of living of gypsies is destitute”.
“Bulgarian gypsies are a mass that has been brought down to a mere physical survival and marginalised in ghettos,” he said, coming back to the topic of the lifestyle of his Roma compatriots.
“Politicians have always acted as if Roma do not exist, but a lot of us have participated in building the Bulgarian state, its infrastructure and industry,” he said.
Parushev, executive director of the foundation Support for the Roma 2000, sounds bitter at the way Bulgarians treat their fellow citizens of Roma origin.
“We don’t know each other, there is no exchange between our ethnic groups, Roma are accepted only as something exotic,” he said.
Yet, the Roma have inhabited the Balkans since times unknown, arriving from India in the region long before the Bulgarian state was created. Bulgarians and Roma have lived next door to each other for centuries.
“We know you, you don’t know us” is the motto of the documentary series Zaedno (Together) which Parushev produces for Bulgarian National Television (BNT). So far, 22 documentary films about the Roma problems in Bulgaria have been broadcast.
“Taking a question why she does not use condoms, asked by one of our reporters in a recent film, a Roma woman answered ‘I am not a whore,’” Parushev recounted, underlining one of the pressing problems of the minority.
He said Roma have a patriarchal attitude towards the family.
And while Parushev’s production remains on screen, the only Roma presenter on BNT, Violeta Draganova, was removed two weeks ago and will no longer host the morning show of the national media. She will only have five or 10 minutes a week for an ethnic report.
The reported motive of Nina Spassova, director of the “News and topical broadcasts” department at BNT, was that Draganova has secondary education and was not good enough.
Yet the Roma presenter was mentioned in the report on Bulgaria’s political development in 2001, prepared by the European Commission, as a positive example of tolerance in the country.
On January 16, Minister of Culture Bozhidar Abrashev awarded Draganova for her contribution to upholding Roma identity.
“Violeta is like a dancing bear, a beautiful Gypsy on the national television,” Parushev said, commenting on the attitude to successful Roma, which he described as resembling the attitude to a popular attraction.
In his view, recently too many people became doctors of social science on the back of Roma people.
“Roma don’t need American observers, psychologists and sociologists,” he said. “Roma need opportunities.”
Parushev criticised a number of recent projects proposed or funded by the Government that seemingly promote better life, employment and education for the Roma.
The most popular ones were the Roma cable television that acquired a licence to operate in Vidin, the education desegregation project and the Roma street theatre workshops in Rousse.
“The person who got the TV licence is an ignoramus,” Parushev said.
He said the education desegregation initiative would involve only about 50 children, while more than 70,000 young Roma do not go to school.
“Roma are used to spending life as an eternal holiday, they have emotion in their genes, but this does not make them cultivated,” Parushev said, commenting on the Roma theatres as a not-too-helpful idea.
“The Bulgarian National Theatre ‘Ivan Vasov’ has no funds to support itself, let alone a Roma theatre,” he also said.
“During the time of communism Roma were used to the state taking care of them and they needed no education because they could be employed in a factory which required no skilled labour,” Parushev said.
“They knew only the spade.”
Speaking about education, however, he said he sees it mostly as a personal choice and a matter of bringing up in the family.
“My mother has never forced me to go to school,” he said.
Regarding the participation of Roma in the political life of the country, Parushev was also skeptical about any improvement. During the rule of Jean Videnov’s Government, there was only one Roma MP in the National Assembly.
At the time of Ivan Kostov’s government, Roma had one representative in Parliament, too. The current National Assembly has two Roma MPs, one from the Coalition for Bulgaria and one from the National Movement Simeon II.
“Politicians go to the Roma ghettos with kebapcheta and beer, they rely on the ignorance of the gypsies and thus win their votes,” Parushev said.
Most Roma people are struggling for a basic animal survival, while the designer perfumes of the politicians cost as much as the household lot of a Roma person.
“Our way to Europe does not pass through the ghetto, and it should,” Parushev said. In the reports of the European Commission and Human Rights Watch (HRW) for last year, “Bulgaria’s human rights record remained poor in 2001, Roma faced official and private discrimination and abuse.”
HRW reported that Roma were beaten by police in at least five cases, including a June 26, 2001 assault at Pleven police station in which a Roma suspect was allegedly tortured with electricity.
“Arsonists burned down a Roma home in Sofia on March 15, 2001. In August, villagers from Oriahovica formed a committee to prevent Roma families from registering as residents of the village,” the 2001 HRW report on Bulgaria read.
“It is a national crime to keep 800,000 people in such a wretched condition,” Parushev said.
Speaking about the Roma national identity, he said that people congregate on the basis of a national cause, institutionalised economy and politics, which the gypsies do not have.
Too many Roma, according to Parushev, are proud of their descent but do nothing to climb the social ladder and boast with one exceptional qualification – “profession Roma”, as he put it.
On the other hand, some cultivated Roma people are embarrassed to mention their ethnic background.
“During the communist era, it was a crime to call oneself Roma,” Parushev recalled.
He said that the national census is not representative of the number of Roma in Bulgaria, because questioners tended to ask closed-end questions like “Are you a Bulgarian citizen?” and not “What is your ethnic background?”
Data from the 2001 census of the National Statistical Institute (NSI) shows that almost 366,000 Bulgarian citizens define themselves as Roma. According to Parushev, Bulgarian gypsies are approaching a million, definitely the largest Roma minority in any country around the world.
People of Roma descent are almost equally poor, irrespective of their position on the globe, said Parushev, who has travelled to many European countries and most recently to Macedonia, where “the predominant standard of living of gypsies is destitute”.
“Bulgarian gypsies are a mass that has been brought down to a mere physical survival and marginalised in ghettos,” he said, coming back to the topic of the lifestyle of his Roma compatriots.
“Politicians have always acted as if Roma do not exist, but a lot of us have participated in building the Bulgarian state, its infrastructure and industry,” he said.
