The Condition of the Roma after the 1989 December Revolution in Romania

There were around 10 million Roma living in Romania and Southern Europe by 2011. I had never once learnt about the Roma minority in the history classes during my school formative years in Romania. Roma was recognized as an ethnic minority group in Romania only in 1991.  Roma can be found mainly in Europe, in countries like Romania, Bulgaria, Hungary, Macedonia, Slovakia, Serbia, Greece, Spain. Many Roma have migrated to other parts of the world, to other countries such as the USA and North Africa, but most of them still live mainly in Europe.  Their raising voices need to be heard as they are trying to identify their ethnic identity and fight for the equal rights they are entitled to have as the rest of the population of the countries they were born and have been living in.

I remember that growing up I was always fascinated by the Roma caravans that would pass on our street. Romanians called them “Gypsies” (Ţigani). Sometimes they would stop and set up camp in one of the fields close to the house my family was living in, and many times they would come to our gate and ask for water, so they could cook their meals. My parents were very hospitable people, and they would also share with them some of the food we had, not only water, and I remember how me, and my younger sister used to go to their camp and play with their children. They spoke both Roma and Romanian language.  As a token of their appreciation, they would give my parents different objects carved out of wood (spoons, spindles, barrels). The only thing I knew about them was that they were nomads and that they loved to travel. In her book Szeman mentions that “most scholars divided Roma in Romania into several groups, based on traditional occupations, structures of social organization, family configuration and religion (13)”.  According to this classification, Roma in Romania are Vlach (agriculture workers), Kelderara (coppersmiths), Argintari (silversmiths), Lautari (musicians), Lovara (horse traders), Ursara (bear handlers), Ciurara (knife makers), Fierari (smiths), Pieptanara (comb makers), Rudara (goldsmiths, later woodcarvers), Karamidarja (brick makers), Boldeni (flower sellers).

Today it is known that the history of Roma is full of discrimination and oppression. The vast majority of Roma population is not integrated, they are outcasts not only in Romania but also in the other European countries, and they are denied the opportunity to be integrated in society. Roma population was enslaved in Wallachia and Moldavia (principalities that preceded the modern Romania) since the 13th and 14th centuries until slavery was abolished in stages during the 1840s and 1850s, and was completed in 1864, “when Prince Ioan Cuza, the ruler of the two principalities, fully released the Roma slaves residing in Romania” (Oprean 16) and gave them the rights to live in the areas where they had previously worked in. It is estimated that there were around 600,000 freed Roma slaves residing in Romania at that time. Many Roma left Romania for Western Europe and North America, and those who chose to stay realized after a while that their faith was not improving because they were free, as they were not granted any money or land to start their new lives.  They had to continue to do the work they had done during the enslavement period, thus maintaining their status of poverty and discrimination. Although many of the abolitionists supported the assimilation of the Roma in the Romanian nation, the social integration of the former slaves was carried out only for a part of them, many remaining outside of the social organizations of the Romanian society.  The General Union of Roma in Romania was created in the early 1930 in Bucharest, and it was promoting the idea of equal rights for Roma of Romanian nationality. Unfortunately, the spread of fascism ended this fight, and furthermore the beginning of communism after the Second World War took away any chance of establishing any Roma organization until after the fall of the communist regime in 1989.  Both Romanians and Roma thought that after the fall of the communism their future is going to be better, but soon everybody realized that it was going to take many years for change to happen, especially the Roma population, because in some cases their social and economic situation became worse. During the communism in Romania, for most of the Roma population, the socialist welfare provided stable social services and jobs although not always adequate, because the socialist state required a large labor force without a high level of education. In the 1990s Romania faced many challenges with the political and economic transition processes. The lack of education of the Roma population they had received during the communist regime contributed to the unemployment of the Roma men and women. Roma population had to accept jobs as farmer helpers or working for the sanitation system, as street sweepers. For some of them, like Kelderara, this was an opportunity to start their own small business by trading the special copper pots they made for the people who wanted to make their own plum brandy. I remember my father becoming friends with such a Roma family: they used to stay at our parents’ house for weeks until they finished selling all their copper pots.

But for most of the Roma population, the end of communism resulted in lower living standards, as well as rising discrimination against them. There were job ads that were specifically excluding the Roma applicants. After 1989, discrimination against the Roma people led sometimes to acts of cruelty, including burning down their houses and being forced to leave the villages where they had their homes. One of the most important events in the violence history against the Roma took place in February of 1990 when the coal miners from Valea Jiului, Romania, were called to Bucharest to “protect” the newly elected democratic government. I was a student at the Bucharest University, and the day when those events started, I was inside the University Library, studying, when policemen came in and rushed us to evacuate the building. I was shocked to see in the Aula of my faculty tens of angry miners shouting profanity words at us. Police officers escorted us outside and urged to leave immediately as fast as possible because things were going to get out of control. And they did. Later I found out that the newly elected government lost control of the miners who became violent, occupied the capital, damaged several public institutions (including the University), injured people, and attacked the areas around the capital, where the Roma lived, injuring many of them. Even worse was the fact that neither the miners nor the Romanian government apologized to the Roma for those events. During the following years, there were other incidents when Roma people were injured or forced to leave their homes, and many times the conflict escalated to have the whole community involved. According to research conducted by Helsinki Watch in 1991 the authorities failed to prosecute non-Roma for the crimes committed against Roma and to protect the Roma. The research also revealed that there was no political request in Romania to stop the racial violence against Roma. In many instances, it was proved that in some cases the prosecutor’s office seemed to attempt to make scapegoats of Roma who were present at those locations during that time.

A study conducted in 1992 by a team of researchers from the University of Bucharest and the research Institute for Quality of Life, revealed that “the vast majority of the Roma 79.4 percent) have no profession, only 16.1 percent are qualified in a modern profession, while 3.9 per cent are qualified in traditional professions” (Achim 203). This is a result of the lack of education that Roma suffered. During my entire school years, I remember having only one Roma classmate in elementary school. After she graduated the 4th grade she stopped attending the school. I had no Roma colleagues in high school or in college. I had the opportunity to work with an amazing Roma professor, after I graduated college. How was she able to become an English professor? She was born in Bucharest, the capital of the country, and her parents had a job and were able to enroll and keep her in school. Most of the Roma population lived in villages where there were no schools, and they had no means to send their children to the nearest locality with schools. So, their children were raised to work the land or learn the trade of their parents: learning to become musicians and make a living from the gigs they got at weddings, or to carve objects out of wood, making copper objects, or harvesting wild fruits (blueberries, raspberries, blackberries, wild strawberries) that they would sell to the other people. The study also revealed the big difference between Roma and the majority population living standards, Roma population living well below the standards of civilization. The schooling among Roma population is very low, because of the low level of school attendance on the part of the Roma. As   The way the land reform law of 1991 was implemented, resulted in the exclusion of most of the Roma people from owning land, the land that they worked in the agricultural co-operatives during communism, leaving them with no means of earning. Roma people were forced to leave the villages and their homes for the cities and even go abroad. The lack of education, qualifications and resources that are required by the current market in the country make the Roma population vulnerable and more marginalized.

After 1989, Romania recognized the Roma population as a national minority and guaranteed them rights alongside the other citizens of the country. According to Achim, during the past decades “a series of leaders have emerged … some are of a traditional type, others are modern leaders, represented by Roma intellectuals, who speak on behalf of this population” (215). So, Roma started to manifest themselves as an ethnic group and find their ethnic identity, and civic and political organizations, including political parties emerged. The Roma minority is represented in the political scene of Romania by the Party of the Roma. The Roma population have a deputy in the parliament, and there is an Office for Roma within the Romanian government that deals with problems related to the Roma population. There is also a Department for the Protection of National Minorities (DPNM) within the Romanian government. The European Union has been providing considerable funding to Romania, aiming to improve the Roma situation between 1993 and 2004. Romanian government started its contribution to the programs for Roma in 2001 (Oprean 42). In 1998 the Romanian government created an Inter-Ministerial Sub-Commission for Roma Issues that was co-presided by the head of the DPNM and a representative of the Working Group of Roma Association. PHARE programs also provided financial support for the Roma in Romania. The government agencies need to follow through with the implementation of these initiatives and ensure that the Roma are offered the same opportunities as the rest of the citizens of the country.

Roma musicians and performers are activists for their ethnicity, and through their performances they are fighting to have their ethnic identity included in the Romanian society. Manele, the songs performed almost exclusively by Roma singers are an active part of the Romanian pop culture. Some Roma bands like Taraf de Haidouks, a prestigious group of “lautari”, traditional Roma musicians, well known in many European countries are promoting the old Roma music.  Mass media is playing an important role too in supporting the Roma people to assert their identity. There are several TV shows that have as guests Roma performers who are sharing their story about the way they became successful: musicians that had no opportunity to go to the arts school but had a chance to be discovered by other successful Roma musicians and launched in the music industry. Although they are rich and successful, most of these artists are humble, generous, and proud of their ethnicity. Their fans are not only the Roma minority but many Romanians as well. These shows are a way of educating the Romanians about the Roma minority. In her book Staging Citizenship: Roma, Performance and Belonging in EU Romania, Szeman talks about “… the citizenship gap in the everyday lives … and the way they resist that citizenship gap through dance and performance”, which she analyzes “as expression of cultural citizenship”. Romanians need to value and acknowledge the Roma folklore that gave them all the artists they enjoy and love so much. Progress has been made, and if before there was no state sponsored ethnocultural institution for Roma, today some have been established: “the National agency for Roma … and the … Museum of Roma Culture, an important and long-overdue institution” (Szeman10).  Other surveys revealed that although overall the school attendance among Roma is four times lower than that of the Romanian population, there was some progress made during the last couple of decades, because of the state regulation that families are entitled to receive a social security allowance for their children when the children are attending school. There are also some schools with most of the students of Roma ethnicity. The new generations of Roma will keep advocating for their rights, and fight against racism and intolerance and social exclusion. Their voices need to be heard and more of the rest of the citizens need to understand and support them in asserting their own identity, because Roma is an important part of the European population, and they are entitled to have the same equal rights as the rest of the people.

After 1989, the market economy offered opportunities for many of the Roma to enter business and become entrepreneurs (in general different small businesses, carried out at the limits of legality and sometimes beyond). Some Roma accumulated considerable wealth and they “show off” their wealth in ostentatious ways. During my last trip to Romania, my family took me to the “Gypsy palaces” quarter to show me the imposing houses, miniature castles, built by the rich Roma. Many of the owners of those mansions were also “public” figures and they would make the headlines of some media outlets. The contrast between the rich Roma and most of the Roma population is striking. With no job security and the reduction of the state social allowances, most of the Roma population is experiencing a social and economic deterioration. Sometimes, members of the Roma find themselves in situations where they commit all sorts of crimes and other offences to make a living. This situation raises problems within Romanian society, and tensions are growing between Roma and the majority population, Roman the rural areas, where the number of Roma is high. A survey regarding the ethnic relations in Romania concluded that “40 percent of the population has very negative feeling with regard to the Roma, 34 per cent had unfavorable feelings, while only 19 percent have favorable feelings…Rejection is due to the lifestyle of Roma” (Achim 210).  In 2020, the Romanian Institute for Evaluation and Strategy published a survey revealing that 72 percent of Romanians do not trust Roma people and they have negative opinions about them. There are Roma people who make a living from having their children begging or committing petty thefts. People living in the rural areas who have Roma as neighbors are afraid that they might steal their firewood or other goods. The consensus among Romanians is that Roma people are lazy, and they don’t want to work, misconception rooted in the lack of knowledge regarding the history of this minority. There were numerous incidents in Romania in which Roma people were injured, or driven away from their homes, because of escalated situations between Roma and non-Roma conflicts, that sometimes involved the entire communities. Helsinki Watch reported that during the 1990, in Romania there was no political interests to combat racial violence against Roma, and several cases were reported in which the authorities displayed anti-Roma attitudes, by declaring “that the burning of Roma homes was in the public interest” (Oprean 27). Other reports revealed that the Romanian authorities had the tendency to label Roma as criminals, e.g. the statistics published by the police, that emphasize specific offences by Roma thus deepening the false impression that Roma people are nothing but criminals. Also, the politicians in Romania have been expressing their racist thoughts against Roma population without any censorship. One of the most vocal anti-Roma politicians was Vadim Tudor, the leader of an extremist party (the Great Romania Party) who also served as a senator in Romania’s Parliament. His ten-point “program to run the country” included the isolation of all Roma “criminals” in special colonies (Oprean 32). The discrepancy between the living standard conditions of the Roma population and the non-Roma is dramatic. There are villages in the country where the Roma people do not receive the social assistance they need, they have no jobs because of their lack of education, and they cannot afford to send their children to school. They have a “formal” identity card; they do not own anything (not even the land their houses are built on). They make a living as farm helpers for the neighboring Romanian villagers who own land, harvesting wild berries, and selling them on the side of the road to the people passing through their village. A relevant story is the long-lasting friendship between my mother and a Roma woman who used to come to our city and go to people’s houses to sell her harvest. Mom used to give her all kinds of food supplies, clothes, and shoes, besides money. One summer, in early 2015, when I was visiting my family, I had a chance to see the Roma woman again. She was older, like my mom, and she was not able to wander the hills anymore to harvest wild berries. Mom told me that she had been helping her for some years with money, food supplies, and even some basic medicine (aspirin and other cold medication) because she had no pension or other means to live. Her husband passed away several years before, and all her children were in different countries all over Europe, working mainly as farm helpers. She was all alone.  Mom told me that she was not the only one in that situation, and almost all the Roma people who were living in a nearby village were extremely poor. Most of the Roma population living in the countryside did not have the necessary skills to survive in the market economy that emerged after December 1989.

Roma people suffered abuses and discrimination not only in Romania but also in the countries across the Eastern and Central Europe. In her book entitled Staging Citizenship: Roma, Performance and Belonging in EU Romania, Szeman brought to the attention of her readers the numerous incidents that happened in Europe in the last two decades, although one of the European Union main points of their agenda is the minority rights for Roma. Some of the incidents she mentioned are the “police violence against Roma in Western Europe, including the fingerprinting of Roma in Italy in 2008”, as well as “the expulsion of Romanian and Bulgarian Roma from France from 2010 onwards” (Szeman 3,4).  Romanian Roma living in camps in Italy were deported to Romania, although they had a legal status. Roma people were EU citizens, and yet they were abused and refused their citizenship rights. The negative way the Romanians were perceived in France after the expulsion caused frustration and animosity towards the Roma population in Romania, and a deeper racism, manifested even by the politicians. Some members of the Romanian parliament proposed to replace the ethnicity name of Roma with “Tigani”, to eliminate any confusion that might arise between Roma and Romanians, forgetting that the Roma people were recognized as a minority of Romania in 1991!

Historic and linguistic data show that Roma arrived in the Balkans, Europe around 1350, and they came to the Romanian territory in 1370. They were enslaved until the mid-19th century. The end of their slavery did not gain them any rights. They continued to suffer discrimination and to be marginalized. They were persecuted in World War II, when during the General Antonescu Regime, 25,000 Roma were deported to Transnistria where almost half of them lost their lives. During the communist regime they were forced to integrate into society and were not recognized as an ethnic minority, being mainly used as labor to build the socialist republic. After the Revolution of December 1989, the inter-ethnic conflicts increased, many of them being fueled by the local authorities as well as politicians, although Roma had the status of citizens of the country: they were acknowledged as a minority by the Romanian state in 1991. The integration process of the Roma people into society continues to be difficult because of the major economic and social inequality.  Roma have lived with the Romanians and the other minorities (Hungarian and Schwab) on the Romanian territory for hundreds of years. They need to be accepted and treated with respect as we treat all the citizens of our country and of all the countries around the world. They are citizens with equal rights, they have their own ethnic identity, and the richness of their cultural traditions need to be recognized as an important contributing factor to the Romanian culture.

I just want to end my essay with a personal story. Some years ago, my husband gave me an Ancestry DNA kit as a Christmas present. It was no surprise for me to find out that my ancestors were from the Eastern part of Europe. But I was surprised when towards the end of last year, I received a notification from Ancestry that they have new results regarding my origin. I had 1% of Eastern European Roma in my ancestry. This made me think of how many of the Romanians and other Europeans are carrying the Roma heritage within them without knowing it. Isn’t it time to just let go of hate and discrimination and embrace people as diverse as they might be?  I remember dad talking about the Roma people when we were asking him a million “why” questions when the Roma caravans were passing by our house: “Girls, they are people like us; they have their way of life, their families and traditions, and we need to accept and respect them”. I have accepted and respected them all my life and I am proud that I have Roma heritage in my identity!

Works Cited

Achim, V. (2004), The Roma in Romanian History, “The Current Situation of the Gypsies (Roma) in Romania”, Central European University Press, 2004  https://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lwtclearningcommons-ebooks/detail.action?docID=3137208&pq-origsite=primo

Oprean, Oana, “The Roma of Romania” (2011). College of Liberal Arts & Social Theses and Dissertations. 96. https://via.library.depaul.edu/etd/96

Szeman, Ioana. Staging Citizenship: Roma, Performance and Belonging in EU Romania, Berghahn Books, Incorporated, 2017. ProQuest Ebook Central, http://ebookcentral.proquest.com/lib/lwtclearningcommons-ebooks/detail.action?docID=5340148.

https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Slavery_in_Romania#The_condition_of_the_Roma_after_the_abolition