Ana’s tragedy – and Europe’s a contemplation over Romani, belonging and the conditioned citizenship making in a Europe of migration

When Ana tells about her life, it seems to be a fragmented existence, which is based on the fact that her background is difficult to reconcile with the fact that she now lives in Sweden. Her story is portrayed on the basis of a biological metaphor – Hungarian and Romani blood – on the basis of which affiliation that can be understood as a matter of biological origin. Based on such metaphors migration itself seems to be something problematic, because it involves the circumscription that people basically are understood as naturally resident in certain places, certain related communities, sharing certain values [4].

Taking on the case of Ana’s, this stresses the difficulties for her to avoid or set aside that she has Roma and Hungarian blood, but not Swedish. And that she indeed lives in Sweden, but is not born into “Swedishness” [5]. When the various belongings should be weighed against each other, it is, however, clear from Ana’s story in what manner they are weighted. It’s between the Hungarian and the Swedish that a balance must be found. The Roma enters constantly in the background. This situation leaves us with the picture that Ana is Roma, but do not see herself as a Roma. This pattern that emerges in Ana’s story is part of a larger historical pattern, we argue, where the Roma systematically have been put in the background.

Roma have a long history in Sweden, capsized by persecution and repression. Turning to Sweden, there is for example systematically collected information on groups of travelers from the 1500s onwards, categorized as gypsies or so called “tattare” [tatars]. These groups of travelers were seen as alien elements, sometimes described as exotic, but usually more or less menacing groups outside mainstream society [6].

Over time deep-rooted myths were established, in Sweden as well as in Europe, about these foreign elements, their appearance, background and way of life. According to the stereotype, they were often described as dark or black-skinned, dark-haired, brown-eyed, labor reluctant, dishonest, sneaky, wasteful and temperamental [7]. In brief, they have been a more or less non-adaptive threat to the existing order. Their existence in Europe has in many respects been a dark back – the Others – against which the enlightened European civilization has taken shape. Interestingly, the anti-Semitism and racist anti-Roman positions remaining legacy. These “internal” figures of European otherness are, put differently, the continued form of both European identity that emanates out of the construction and consolidation of European national identities, and different postcolonial constellations of race [8].

Taking on Fanon’s words, it is no coincidence that the Roma according to this stereotype are described as black or dark. The Romani can, more precisely, be seen as Europe’s Negroes, a dark, alien population elements – socially, culturally or racially – one that different agents have tried to restrain and keep in place. Correspondingly, in relation to citizenship, the Romani have – in Sweden as in other European countries – been regarded and treated as non-citizens, with other rights, obligations and substantial living conditions than the rest of society [1,9]. Therefore Fanon’s theoretical outlining of the negro is helpful in understanding colonialism, the colonial fantasy world and the colonized mentality that the Roma activates again and again in Europe.

Further, Fanon argues, that the colonial racist understanding of the world that developed in the current assumedly colonial situation at that time meant a kind of mental straitjacket for the colonized: “Willy-nilly, the Negro has to wear on the livery that the white man has sewed for him.” [1:22] With constant repetition, the usual stereotypes about the different and inferior “negro” eventually converted into the colonized self-image. Deep down, the colonized want to “civilize” themselves by becoming white – and thus annihilate themselves as black: “The colonized is elevated above his jungle status in proportion to his adoption of the mother country’s cultural standards. He becomes whiter as he renounces his blackness, his jungle.” [1:9]

To the aim of this article, the question that rises out of Fanon’s ideas is which tracks that Europe’s “colonial situation” have set out in relation to the Romani and their thinking about themselves in relation to the European society. It is precisely this problem that stands in the foreground and that will continue to follow in Ana’s story about her meeting with Sweden and how she relates to her Roma identity. Before focusing on this meeting, a brief historical overview over the ways of the encounters with Roma in Sweden and in Europe is provided below.

During the 1600s and 1700s, a series of regulations specifically targeted at the travelers, which were intended to keep them out of the borders, or – for those who, after all, spent within the borders – forcing them to become permanent residents and work were introduced in Sweden. In addition, already in 1637 the death penalty for male Gypsies who did not voluntarily leave the country were introduced [7]. Towards the end of the 1800s, there was a comprehensive discussion proposing a series of coercive measures of forcibly assimilating the travelers, including taking care of children traveling [3]. With large-scale disposal it was envisaged that the travelers would automatically become permanent residents and eventually “brought up to decent and industrious citizens.” [7]

Around the turn of the century there was a lively debate about immigration and the need to limit immigration to Sweden [6]. The starting point was a purity ideal: the Swedes were a people, a race, a culture, resident in one location. Immigration and Roma in particular hereby constitute an anomaly. This debate resulted in the introduction of a number of restrictions in the 1914 Aliens Act, including a total ban on Gypsy immigration – all Gypsies who lived in the country would be rejected by the police. The ban was extended in 1927 and 1937, and in 1945 immigration law were applied in practice until 1954. Gypsies fleeing Nazi violence were seeking refuge in the countries where they were welcome. But even though Sweden was an assumedly “neutral” nation state in the Second World War II, the ban was motivated partly due race biological motives: it was considered necessary because the Gypsies were simply not considered possible to be incorporated into Swedish society [10].

Measures to achieve an adaptation of these individuals were considered mostly futile, because their relation to other people to a large extent were determined by their family mentality and they often were considered to lack the psychological conditions for an adaptation to the current moral education and standards of behavior. Both biologically and socially these imaginaries were constituted as being a load factor of Swedish society [7].

Throughout the postwar period extensive reforms to the Roma have been conducted, in order to house the Roma in the Swedish welfare state construction. This political will includes transforming the image of the Roma from being regarded as vagrants to being socially handicapped [11,12] It was state that the Roma was “a poor and impoverished group in need of help to be able to adapt to modern life.” [13] In line with a growing interest at EU level designed Government 2012 “a coordinated and long-term strategy for Roma inclusion 2012–2032” with the goal that when “the Rom is 20 years old in 2032 she or he should have equal opportunities in life as that of non-Roma.” [1:10]

One of the important means mentioned when it comes to “lift Roma exclusion” [15:58] is the EU’s structural funds. A survey of the social projects targeting Roma under the European Social Fund has shown a recurring rationality according to which the Rom still stands out as deviant and the need to adapt to a modern, responsible and equal Swedish normality [14]. Rationality of these projects thus comply broadly with Norma Montesinos and Ida Olsson Al Fakir’s conclusion that “since the 1950s, the expanded Swedish government policy towards the Roma have tended to cement rather than changing the Roma’s position as outsiders in the Swedish society.” [13] A number of studies have shown how the Roma are still victims of discrimination. In the housing policies the Roma are denied housing for example because too many Roma already live in the region in question. In the judiciary, there is a widespread prejudice against Roma, including among prosecutors, lawyers and police [15–17].

In a study in Sweden on Roma experience of discrimination the whole 90% of respondents described Sweden to a large extent as a racist country [16]. A similar proportion described Sweden as partly or largely hostile to Roma. More than 60% also stated that during the past 2 years they had been called “Gipsy bastard” (zigenarjävel) or any other offensive, alluding to their Roma origin. According to a survey from the Swedish National Commission on anti-ziganism, 290 anti-Roma hate crimes were reported in year 2014. The most common places where these crimes were notified was in public places and service points. Of the notifications made in 2013, only three percent were cleared up 2015 [16–18].

It’s not much of this persecution and discrimination history looming in Ana’s story. Her Roma affiliation seems essentially thwarted. Ana’s Roma-hood emerges mostly indirectly – as something she shies away from trying to hide. However, as there are some traces of bygone days of thinking and imagery in Ana’s way to describe the Roma and the Roma situation, we have reason to come back to it in the following.

In Ana’s story the Roma affiliation is a double anomaly – distinct from both the Hungarian and Swedish. It is designed and treated as an anomaly both in Hungary and in Sweden. Living in Sweden has its own problems, but based on experiences of visiting relatives and friends in Hungary, she draws the conclusion that Sweden, as compared to Hungary, is a much more tolerant society: “compared to Hungary, it’s totally different”. Above all, she describes the situation of the Roma in Hungary as very precarious, “you can feel sorry for them, for those who go to work and contribute to the Hungarian society. They suffer and suffer from racism to an extreme. They kill them [the Roma] and they beat them, and afterwards they are exposed to a very extreme racism, I can say.”

Here she describes the challenge to position herself in relation to how people [in Sweden] imagine Roma people. Her strategy has been to avoid telling people about her Roma background. When she speaks about herself, she clearly distances herself from what she describes as “typical Roma people.” “I’m not raised as a typical Roma girl, so to say. You can see if a person is Roma. But me, I don’t think people can see that I’m Roma.” She thus makes a distinction between “Roma” and “Roma people” – the typical Roma people and the few Roma people like herself.

The essential difference between Fanon’s colonized negro and Ana is that she can pass as a non-Roma, if she is not self-disclosing her Roma origin. Negro skin color is black and - on the contrary - always visible. There is no way to get rid of it, other than to annihilate itself – and become white. The same applies to the “typical” Roma, whose appearance and manner of dress makes them easy to identify with the naked eye. Just because Ana has chosen to never talk about her Roma origin. She does not want to risk ending up in a situation where everyone in the environment observes and identifies her as Rom and interprets everything she does from her Roma-hood. She has chosen to be non-Roma.

Ana seems to be eternally grateful that she is allowed to stay in Sweden and be a part of Swedish society. She is also really keen to do the right thing. The rationality is the same as the one that Fanon describes in the Jean Veneuse, the main character in the novel Un Homme pareil aux autres: a black man, born in the Antilles but long accommodation in Bordeaux, “He accepts the drinks, but he buys others in return. He does not wish to be obligated to anyone. For if he does not buy back, he is a nigger, as ungrateful as all the others.” [1:58] As Veneuse, what Ana wants is not to be seen as one of them, the ingrates, those who do not even consider themselves to have a debt to repay. She would rather have earned their rights – and she wants the world to know it.

She finds her experiences and desires to be exemplary also for others: do like me, follow me. The future, as portrayed by her, is a kind of return to a vanished Sweden, a pure and ordering place in the past, where Sweden was still Sweden. Ironically, it was precisely this order of sincerity and ideals that permeated people like her historically and that keeps her locked out today. Yet she chooses to re-establish this tragic pattern – and wants to get others to follow in her footsteps.

If we leave Ana’s story for a while, in order to cast light on Europe as a context in recent years, the Roma have once again come to the fore in public debate, as a result of an increasingly visible presence of poor European migrants in Sweden and elsewhere, primarily from Eastern Europe. Put briefly, within Europe there is an actualized and central issue of the Roma and their presence. The testimonies of how Roma in the new Member States of the enlarged European Union have been persecuted and discriminated in all arenas of society in present times – education, labor and housing, politics and the judiciary – are numerous [21,23,25].

Ana’s story, and her constantly ongoing negotiations for membership in a multiethnic Sweden reflects in some sense the ongoing negotiations on citizenship conducted in light of the situation of Roma EU migrants. Her story may serve as a reminder that the precarious situation of the Roma in Europe can be seen as an illustrative example of paradoxes of citizenship in contemporary Europe [26]: As the Roma in Europe, she is on one hand a fully-fledged citizen, with all the formal rights that citizenship is given. On the other hand, she does not have substantive equal rights, including the right to move freely within the EU’s borders [9].

If we recall a recent event in France in 2010, similar arguments are activated in Ana’s story as those reverberating in this event, where escalating conflicts between Roma and police in camps in Grenoble and Saint Aignan led the French government to take a decision on expelling all Roma from France due to alleged “sources of smuggling, shocking living conditions, prostitution and crime.” [27] The French expulsion illustrates clearly the EU European citizen making paradox. The Roma who were deported from France were formally European citizens, with the rights it guarantees – including the right of free movement. Yet, they were denied the right to move within the EU’s borders. The formal right to free movement, in other words, substantially, a privilege reserved for certain - not Roma [28,29].

The message is that the migrants’ welfare is not the welfare state Sweden’s responsibility. While the statement reflects the tone of a contemporary migration policy debate, it expresses ideas that are familiar from the history. Both the idea of sending clear signals to avoid more traveling migrants and the idea of welfare on a voluntary basis have occurred far earlier in history. In addition, it feeds on an underlying vision of Roma that is familiar from history – the Roma as deviant elements, that profit on the spirit of others’ benevolence, and whose way of life goes on from generation to generation. Out of Ana’s story, Sweden’s and not least Europe’s, we wish to make some concluding remarks on the situation of today and tomorrow.