Identity and the Integration Process in Bulgaria: the Case of the Roma Minority

by Plamena Ivanova

History and Origin of Roma

Origin of Roma and First Migrations to Europe

Roma, widely known as gypsies, are one of the biggest and most quintessential minority group in Europe. Although Roma have lived in Europe for more than 500 years and are estimated to be around twelve million now, they are still considered strangers who are alienated from the majority of the population. They have never had a country of their own or a government in the places in which they lived. Their origin and identity are also quite controversial. As Roma do not have written history, the theories of their origin and migrations are mainly based on legends, linguistics and anthropology. Many theories about the origin of Roma hold that they came from Egypt and consequently that was the reason for giving them the name “gypsies”. Linguistic evidence, on the other hand, suggests that they are of diverse Indian origins that also followed the Indian caste system (Gresham et. al., 2001). What is known about Roma, however, is the fact that they first came in Europe about a thousand years ago to the Byzantine Empire. They travelled as extended families, sometimes reaching up to hundreds of people. Their migration movements here in Europe are marked by three significant events. The first one was in the end of 19^th century, after the gypsy slavery in Romania was abolished. The second one was when Roma were persecuted out of Yugoslavia in the 1960s and 1970s and the third one was just a decade ago when Roma had to flee because of the political and economic changes in Eastern Europe (Reyniers 1995, see Gresham et al., 2001). Nowadays, Roma can be found everywhere in Europe, from Finland to Greece and from Ireland to Russia (Tanner, 2005). The greatest numbers of Roma, however, are still concentrated in Central and Southeast Europe – 90% of Europe’s Roma population.

History of Roma in Bulgaria

In Bulgaria, Roma were first recorded to be present in the 13^th and the 14^th century. From their coming onwards, they were at the bottom of society and lived outside the boundaries of the residential areas. Later, during the World War II, Bulgaria allied with Germany and introduced many restrictive laws for Roma. In the capital, Roma were denied from central places, they couldn’t use public transport and were given smaller food rations than the rest of the population. Despite the many violations of Roma rights during that period, however, Bulgarians do not feel guilt for their actions because Bulgaria was maybe the only German ally who didn’t agree to submit its Jews and gypsies to concentration camps abroad. After the World War II, the Communist regime in Bulgaria established special policies for Roma which differed in their core idea and implementation. The communist regimes of postwar Eastern Europe approached the “Gypsy problem” from a different angle, viewing it as a social problem that could be solved by settling and proletarianizing the Roma (Cooper, 2001/2002). Firstly, Roma were depicted as lazy, irresponsible and lacking culture and those stereotypes were the main reason for the government to proclaim the struggle for their “full integration in the construction of socialism and their transformation from beggars and robbers into conscientious and good constructors of socialism” (SCCBCP, 1959; see Spirova, 2000). At the beginning of these policies, the government tried to disintegrate the already formed Roma communities and to scatter Roma families among Bulgarians. The chief goal with this policy was to permanently erase Roma identity and language and to blur all the differences between Roma and the rest of the population. The communist times for the Roma in Bulgaria were times of desegregation and then forced assimilation. In 1956, the national census was the last one that mentioned the Roma as a minority in Bulgaria (Spirova, 2000). After that, the Bulgarian authorities didn’t recognize the existence Roma community anymore. In addition, the Bulgarian word for “gypsy” - “ciganin”, was officially considered offending and inappropriate to use. This item of the assimilation policy was not really based on the concern of offending Roma or not but it mainly tried to forward the process of assimilation of Roma into the Bulgarian society. Even nowadays in Bulgaria, to call the Roma “gypsies” is considered politically incorrect.

Another item from the policies was the forcedly changing of names of the citizens from Romani and Turkish origin – also a form of erasing deviations from Bulgarian identity. In the late 1960s, the effectiveness of the already implemented policies was still not visible enough. Forced assimilation couldn’t erase effectively the lasting-for-centuries inequality between Roma and non-Roma. Although by the end of the 1980s most of the Roma had Bulgarian names, spoke Bulgarian and were officially called, “Bulgarians of Gypsy origin”, they were never considered de facto part of Bulgarian society by either the authorities or -even more- by the rest of the population (Eminov, 1997:119; see Spirova, 2000). Despite the widely-accepted notion of the failure of the communist assimilation policies, however, the life of this minority group under communism was pretty tolerable – they had access to housing, health care and jobs - things which they barely have access to nowadays. What is more, the communist period was maybe the only period in which Roma had the chance to study in mixed schools and to improve their social status equally with the rest of the people. The cost which Roma had to pay in order to be able to go to mixed schools was that they had to agree to conceal or deny their ethnic identity.

After the fall of Communism in 1989, the situation in Bulgaria sharply deteriorated for the whole population. Roma, however, were the first to feel the “wind of change” and to suffer from the worst economic situation. Roma were the first to get unemployed when factories closed down. What is more, after the agricultural cooperatives dissolved (agricultural cooperative was a communist idea of appropriating people’s land into one common regional cooperative and making everyone work on this land and later share the production equally), Roma also lost their agricultural jobs but at the same time they couldn’t appropriate any land for different reasons. With the advent of democracy, Roma unemployment reached much higher levels than the average for the country. In 1994, 76 per cent of working-age Roma were unemployed with the number reaching even 90 per cent in some regions, while only about 10-20 per cent held steady jobs (Tomova, I., 1995:71-78; see Spirova, 2000). According to data from 2004, today one in every five Roma has been unemployed for more than 10 years, while one in two have been unemployed for more than 5 years (Ministry of Labour and Social Policy 2004: 52; see Gounev, 2006). Due to the fact that the Constitution of Bulgaria forbids the establishment of political parties based on ethnic or religious grounds, Roma didn’t have any political party which could actively protect their interests. The mass poverty, as well as the state’s withdrawal from the problems of Roma created conditions that resulted in many Roma being involved in petty crimes outside their communities. Gradually, organized crime groups started to involve some Roma communities in various low-level forms of organized crime, such as drugs distribution, illegal timber and scrap metal trades, tax fraud schemes, usury, prostitution rings, and human trafficking (Ministry of Interior, 2002; see Gounev, 2006).

Current Situation of Roma

Although, for the majority of people Roma are seen as a unified group who are illiterate, depersonalized and lacking work discipline, the reality behind these ideas is a bit different. Roma throughout Europe represent a very heterogeneous group separated along religious, professional, linguistic and family lines. In Bulgaria alone there are more than fifty socially diverse Romani populations, talking approximately six different Roma dialects. But despite the differences within them, Roma arouse similar notions and ideas to the majority almost everywhere. According to the results of surveys on attitudes, stereotypes, prejudices and social distance toward ethnic and religious minorities in all the countries of Central and Eastern Europe, the Roma are the most rejected of all minority groups (Csepeli et al., 2000; see Csepeli, 2004). Formal and informal discrimination and racism are everyday practice in Bulgaria and statements such as “The Roma are genetically inclined to commit crimes”, “You can’t trust or rely on Gypsies” or “Gypsies are lazy and irresponsible”, have been conspicuously rising. Many people in Eastern European countries strongly support the thesis that Roma live solely on welfare and charity and because of the fact that this “technique” of theirs is working they do not bother to do anything else. On the other hand, development projects, which aim at building houses for Roma and helping them change the infrastructure of their slum-like segregated neighborhoods additionally cause friction and reluctance among the majority of Bulgarians who never had such governmental assistance for themselves. People cannot realize that until the country does not do anything for Roma and their way of living, it is impossible for them to be integrated. According to an official survey, Roma homes are on average inhabited by 6.9 persons (compared to 2.6 for a Bulgarian home), while only 34.7 per cent of those homes have main water supply and a sewerage system (in comparison to 66.1 per cent for the Bulgarians) (Official census, as cited in Tomova, I., 1995:68; see Spirova, 2000).

In many Bulgarian criminal reports Roma ethnicity and delinquency very often go hand in hand and this correlation is one the most frequently implied. It is a widely-known problem that police officers treat Roma by excessive use of force and sometimes even torture. But the facts and figures would also find it difficult to prove that Roma do not represent a big percentage of those who commit crimes. According to statistics of the Ministry of the Interior, Roma carries out 31.7 per cent of all crime in Bulgaria (Spirova, 2000). These findings, to some extent, illustrate how a classic ‘‘underclass’’ has become over-criminalized but, in essence, they bring up the question of agency, as they demonstrate the role and importance of law-enforcement institutions in enforcing and reinforcing a socially imposed exclusion and criminalization (Parenti 2000; see Gounev, 2006). Very often representatives of Eastern European countries attribute the bad reputation of the region and the country under question to the illegal Roma migrants to the West. Representatives from many Eastern European countries tend to believe that the international prestige of their homeland without the Roma citizens would be much higher (Csepeli, 2004).

The media in Bulgaria also attribute a lot for the negative attitude towards Roma by doing anti-Roma coverage and depictions which further influence the already long-established stereotypes. Recently, ultra-nationalistic parties in Bulgaria are also on their peak. They are gathering significant percentages of votes by emphasizing on Roma, the crime rates of their community and their alienation which will be impossible to overcome. Founded just two months before the Bulgarian parliamentary elections, the ultranationalist Ataka (Attack) party won 8.75 percent of the popular vote and is now controlling 21 seats in the legislature (Vassilev, 2006). Paradoxically, such attitudes are surfacing at the end of Bulgaria’s transition to democracy, which has so far enjoyed relatively peaceful interethnic relations (Gounev, 2006).

The social and demographic outlook of the Roma minorities which are different from those of the majority of the population are also factors which influence the negative attitudes towards Roma; the majority rarely have enough tolerance for the “otherness” of Roma and to their different lifestyle and values.Roma in Bulgaria are estimated to be around 577,000 and 600,000. The number of Roma on official papers is around 313 396. But the official data shouldn’t be taken for granted, because in national censuses many Roma hide their ethnic origin from fear that they could be discriminated against and stigmatized if they say they are Roma. The more interesting thing is that Bulgaria still does not officially recognize Roma as a minority group. Some have claimed that national minorities can only be ethnic groups that have a “mother country” (Spirova, 2000). This fact leaves Roma as an ethnic group, rather than a minority. Some have even argued against the use of the term minority in Bulgaria as a whole (Rudnikova, 1998; Spirova, 2000).

The high birth rate of Roma in Bulgaria is also a factor adding to the animosity of the majority of the population. The poor education of Roma, the lack of information among them, as well as the cultural practices of getting married at an early age are some of the influences for the high birth rate among them. Since 1992, while the overall population in Bulgaria dropped by 6.6%, the Roma population increased by 18.1%, according to the national census data (National Statistics Institute 2005b; see Gounev, 2006). The Bulgarian population, as a response, perceived a threat from Roma and their high birth rate and this further influenced the social intolerance among the two groups. The fear that the target group may pose a political danger to one's state or personal security may appear completely real to an individual yet have no objective basis (McIntosh, 1995). In particular, individuals who feel their cultural or political status is declining relative to a minority group in a society, may feel partially threatened and react, in a "status backlash," to restrict the rights of the threatening group (McIntosh, 1995). Such reactions can be either rational or irrational, although the prevalence of conspiracy theories in the media additionally feed this “Quondam Complex” and would rather influence the majority into irrational, psychologically motivated responses towards Roma. Thus, the more threatened one feels, the more probable it is that he is intolerant towards a minority group. Merton's typology (1976) on prejudice and social tolerance also shows that how one acts toward minorities is a friction not only of one's feelings toward the group but also of normative expectations and societal constraints (McIntosh, 1995). The facts and figures on the birth rate in Bulgaria are also quite worrisome. Bulgarian authorities are worried (although such worries are rarely expressed in public) by the fact that 60-70 % of all newborns in 2003 and 2004 came from the country's minority groups - Roma, Turks, etc. Such a tendency could reduce the share of Slavic Bulgarians to less than 60 percent of the total population by 2050 (Vassilev, 2006). Such data is showing that a seemingly inevitable demographic development could further the already existing ethno-religious tensions between the majority and the minority in Bulgaria.

Professor Zoltan Barany, an expert on gypsy issues, says that gypsies are certainly having trouble keeping in pace with change. ''If they aren't educated, they could become a population time-bomb. They'll have nothing to lose, and could create social havoc or a social-services crisis'' (Burke, 1995). Although such statements are easily used by human rights movements to emphasize the existence of negative attitudes and animosity towards Roma even among those in higher positions in society, it is a fact that integration policies are not working and if this doesn’t change, the predictions cannot be any positive. and at the same time they are internally divided in their own community. Roma themselves discourage intermarriage with other ethnic groups. Intermarriage is not only discouraged by Roma but also by the majority of the population in Bulgaria, as well as by the rest of the minority groups. According to the International Centre for Minority Studies and Inter-cultural Relations (ICMSIR) survey, Roma are viewed by all Bulgarian Christians, Turks, and Bulgarian Muslims as a lazy, irresponsible, untrustworthy, and highly homogeneous group with which nobody else should mix (ICMSIR, 1994:117; see Nenkova et al., 2002). Such factors make it even harder to come up with efficient policies and later, by the help of Roma, to try to implement them. Just as always, there is lack of state policies which aim at the integration of Roma. The problems are many and the discussion around them can go on forever. So, the rest of this research paper will mainly focus of educational policies and reforms done in education of Roma children and their integration into society.

Education of Roma: the case of Bulgaria

The education of Roma in Bulgaria is a long-living problem which seems quite difficult to tackle. Eighty per cent of the Roma in Bulgaria are uneducated and illiterate. From the rest (20%), there are 10% who have finished only primary school, 5% who have finished secondary school and the most striking percentage – 0.17% who have a university degree. The Roma illiteracy rate is 15 times higher than the rate for the non-Roma population (Ringold et al. 2003; see Gounev, 2006). More than 70% of the Roma in Bulgaria who go to school actually go to segregated schools and the rest who go to mixed schools are very often segregated into classes consisting only of Roma children. Another common practice in Bulgaria today is to put a big number of healthy Roma into specialized schools for children with mental disabilities or some kind of deviant behaviors. From these basic facts and statistics on the education of Roma it is clear that schooling is one of the main contributors for the exclusion of Roma from the Bulgarian society. The ineffective school policies for Roma keep them unprepared for the challenges of the labor market by keeping them uneducated and even functionally illiterate.

Roma and Education in the Past

The low level of literacy among Roma is a trend which has existed in Bulgaria for a long time. At the beginning of the century, the literacy rate among Bulgarian Roma was 3%, while the one among Bulgarians was 47% (Crowe, 1996:13; see Spirova, 2000). However, in the years 1901-1925 the literacy of Roma tripled due to the new policies which were implemented. During the communist period, Roma were also getting educated and going to mixed schools. Education in Bulgaria became compulsory first for eight years and later for twelve, as parents who didn’t insist their children to go to school were punished with fines or compulsory labour. The school was seen as the main socialization agent, tasked to erase any differences among children from different ethnic and religious communities and to transform them into ‘builders of the new socialist system’ (Csepeli, 2004). Roma parents were pressured to send their children to school but many parents also saw their children’s going to school as a bargain. The state offered free education, free teaching materials, free meals and clothing. What is more, many teachers were responsible for taking care of all their students both in and out of the school. They were paid extra hours for going to people’s homes by the end of the day and checking if children are there and if they did their work for the next day. Although Roma parents agreed to some extent to send their children to school, even during communist times, the educational ethic did not become part of the values of Roma. Any time when something ‘important’ happened - e.g. taking care of younger children in the family, visiting relatives, emergence of some temporary job or something else - the children were not sent to school (Csepeli, 2004). Children’s numerous absences from school further influenced their lagging behind. Additional factor was that many children did not have command of Bulgarian language which made them even more vulnerable to their own failure. There was a great need for pre-school classes but the linguistic barriers and the socio-linguistic codes which Roma children were unaware of were entirely neglected by those responsible for the educational system in Bulgaria. As a result, Roma children were often claimed to be retarded, and put in special schools for mentally disabled students. Attempts to reduce differences in social, educational and cultural status between Roma and non-Roma by coercion and avoiding Roma participation in the decision making process also had negative outcomes (Csepeli, 2004). Under the forced assimilation, many Roma developed dysfunctional strategies of coping such as ‘learned helplessness’ and striving for instant gratification when doing something which is beneficial for no one else but themselves.

The education of Roma today

The moment when Roma were segregated from the rest of the children (a process which was not forced but happened gradually), their educational level deteriorated significantly. Those who still went to mixed schools felt discriminated against and the extra attention which they needed in order to learn Bulgarian language before starting with real education was still not offered to them. The Roma children’s specific cultural and social characteristics like their skin colour, their mother tongue and dressing made them suffer from the poor treatment from both teachers and students (Mihailova, 1993:27-29; see Gouneva, 2000). As a result from, children developed negative attitudes towards schooling and were not stimulated anyhow to keep the good work. They were still absent from classes and additionally started getting involved in petty crimes, which again seemed good enough reasons for the specialized schools to enrol them as problematic children with minor mental retardations or deviant behaviour. The fact that these special schools also provided social assistance in the form of food, clothing, shoes, and free textbooks was an additional stimulus for some poor families to enroll their children in such schools (Nenkova, 2002). About 65% of the total number of children in institutions now are of Roma origins, even though the Roma make up only 8% of the country’s population, according to data from the National Statistical Institute (Nenkova, 2002). In addition, the children can not rely on the support of their family - a handicap to them for which the state school system never provided any compensation (Courthiades, 2000; see Gouneva, 2000). Interesting is also the fact that many Roma parents actually want to enroll their children in specialized schools, merely because they themselves have studied in such schools. What is more, as illiteracy among adult Roma is also very common, it deprives Roma children from having a good example to on with their studies.

Roma minority are often accused of not valuing education, and some Roma activists admit that education is “not a high priority” among the general population (Cooper, 2001/2002). This is, however, also very influenced by the high institutional discrimination which Roma in Bulgaria face no matter if they are educated or not. What is more, the aim to attract Roma teachers and thus make children in segregated schools feel more comfortable to learn Bulgarian through their own language is almost impossible to achieve because there are very few educated persons among the Roma. The cultural practice of Roma to marry earlier while still in school is also a factor which influences the educational careers especially of Roma girls. In addition, in Roma families children’s labour is often needed to contribute to the family income which is another reason to break up with school for both boys and girls. The poverty among Roma and the lack of money to buy their children books, clothes and sometimes even bus tickets are also quite important reasons for the reluctance of Roma parents to educate their children. Another important aspect for the failure of Roma in education is the fact that the teachers in the segregated Roma schools are very often those who were sent by the government as a punishment for not doing their job properly or teachers who already retired and continue teaching just for extra income.

New Educational Policies for Roma, Their Implementation and Effectiveness

The previously-stated social ills of Bulgarian society and the inability of the country to effectively integrate its minority groups, namely Roma, are visible from any aspect in the life of Roma. Schooling, however, seems to be the most damaged and ineffective domain for the integration of the minority group. Although the issue of quality education for minority children currently continues to be an area of activism exclusively by NGOs, the state has also taken some measures in this sphere of key importance to integration (Cohen et al., 2005).

The first and the utmost priority in the educational policies for Roma was the full integration of these children through desegregation of schools. Hopefully, Bulgarian government finally realized that you cannot integrate through segregation and that separate by coercion means unequal. But despite the criticism from 1989 on, for the segregated schools in Bulgaria, nothing seems to have changed. As of 1998, there were around 100 of these schools in Bulgaria (Nunev, 1998:17; see Spirova, 2000). Today, the outlook of the education in Bulgaria is still the same.

After the inability of local authorities to close down segregated schools and to make a shift towards desegregation, the Ministry of Education recommended at least levelling the educational standards in segregated schools to those of the educational system. There is still not much progress in this either.

The second most important policy which was considered was the prevention of the common practice to send healthy Roma children to special schools. The results from these policies are still to be seen, despite the fact that those policies were implemented a few years ago. The main excuse for the Bulgarian government is lack of appropriated funds to carry these programs out.

At a minor level, there have been important changes, some of which mark a good start for the integration of Roma. The provision of free textbooks for Roma and free breakfast every morning before school already exist in the educational practices. Roma in desegregated schools once again benefit from going to school and hopefully their parents would once again see this development as a bargain for schools covering some of the needs of their children. There are also some NGOs which provide Roma families with clothes and shoes for their children – a problem occurring to many Roma families especially in the winter season. Next to such subsidies, some schools are now providing transportation to the secondary schools and are farther trying to take the parents’ burden of spending money on their children’s education. Another development is the practice of social workers and teachers who personally visit Roma families in which there are children who are about to start their schooling and persuade the parents to send their children to school when school year starts. Very often social worker try to make sure that the parents will do what they promised, so they visit the families a few times before school starts. Although this practice may seem somehow pushy and invading families’ personal space, it proves useful in most of the cases. Another aspect of positive change is the special training of teachers, qualified and re-qualified for working in mixed classes. Nowadays, many teachers are sent on different educational programs aiming mainly at the integration of Roma in the classroom. The inclusion of Roma teachers in the curricula is also a new approach to the integration of Roma. But as the number of teachers from Roma background is really small, those Roma who work in the educational system are mainly assisting the real professionals. Additionally, there are preparatory Bulgarian language classes for Roma children (a year earlier before starting school) in which Roma assistants are the leading educational forces who prepare the children for their first year at school. Roma participation has been the "core" of the project since its conception - Roma are involved in setting the agenda and goals, and they will be involved in the oversight and monitoring process over the next 10 years (Tanner, 2005). Additionally, the educational system for Roma includes bilingual pre-school books, special primers for bilingual children and teachers’ manuals on the language education of Roma children and so on and so forth. According to the Ministry of Foreign Affairs of the Republic of Bulgaria, the teaching of the Roma language and culture has been allowed since 1992, and in 1994, a special decree extended this right for children from the first through the eighth grade (Spirova, 2000). This change, however, seems to be bit inefficient and difficult to follow. By early 1997, only 500 students had expressed an interest in studying Romani and there were only 10 teachers qualified to do that (MFA, 1997:7; see Spirova, 2000). Apart from the fact that there are not enough Roma teachers who can teach Romani language, there is lack of interest from Roma parents to have their children study Romani. What is more, although the idea of a Romani alphabet is more than a century old, the first international Romani alphabet, or rather, a decision on how to use the alphabet in the various dialects, was adopted in 1990 (Liegeois, 1997:62; see Spirova, 2000). The dynamics of the various Roma dialects make the standardization of the Romani language virtually impossible (Liegeois, 1997:61; see Spirova, 2000). Only 37% of the Roma population in Europe speak Romani, the same holds true for the Roma in Bulgaria – only 50% speak Romani at home on a regular basis. In Bulgaria, Romani is defined as a “mother tongue” by the Constitution, and thus can be studied up to four hours per week as an elective course in schools (Marushiakova, et al., 1997:4; see Spirova, 2000). But with the inclusion of Romani in the curriculum and with studying Romani in school, some Roma children actually run the risk to study Bulgarian in a language which they are totally unaware of. In recent years, some elements of multicultural education in the field of music, literature and history have also been introduced. Today teachers receive special manuals from which they can also educate minority children on the subject of culture, customs and festivities of the Bulgarian macro- and micro-society. Such cultural classes aim at reinforcing Roma identity and instilling ethnic pride among Roma children. Another, maybe more important development for the education of Roma is the return of the night school for elderly Roma who want to become literate but did not use this opportunity when they had to.

Universities also did some changes in their curriculum with the hope that they can attract Roma people. For example, the American University in Bulgaria, sponsored by the Open Society Foundation, Sofia, which for several years funded approximately 30 Roma students to attend a one-year program at the university, where they studied English, computer skills and so forth (Max van der Stoel, 2000: 92; see Spirova 2000). The St. Kliment Ohridski Sofia University and the New Bulgarian University have established courses in Roma culture and folklore. Programs on Roma language and culture have been established in these universities with main goal to educate and train more Roma language school teachers. Additionally, as the freedom of the press in Bulgaria is relatively broad after 1989, there are many newspapers and magazines in Romani language. The problem with the printed press for Roma is that not all of the Roma who speak Romani can actually read in this language. What is more, not many Roma families can afford to buy such newspapers and magazines. The issue of minority broadcast media, which is maybe the more useful means of media for the Roma, is a grey area in the media legislation in Bulgaria (Nenkova, 2002). Although, the Turkish minority in Bulgaria managed to achieve news in Turkish language on national television, Roma are not that strongly represented in government and are far from achieving something similar. What is more, Roma lack support from their “mother country” on such minority issues.

To wrap up with, there are programs and policies which aim at the better integration of Roma in the educational system, but as you see the most important changes are dormant and the minor ones are not really well-considered for the disadvantages they carry.

Conclusion

In conclusion, this research paper showed that even today Roma in Bulgaria are discriminated against in all spheres of social life. At the same time, we can argue that the Bulgarian government throughout all these years did not really show interest in making better the conditions for Roma and did not combat their illiteracy and poverty so that they will cease being vulnerable to discrimination and prejudice. It is a fact that there are minor changes in the educational system which are for the benefit of Roma but these changes do not specially address the problem of Roma segregation. Poverty, unemployment, appalling living conditions, high crime rate, and maltreatment by the police and state authorities, illiteracy and school drop out rates are only some of the Roma’s problems (Nenkova, 2002). Today, even after Bulgaria acquired the long-awaited membership in the European Union and the Western World, it still has its Roma ghettos which resemble, or are maybe even worse, than the enclaves of the third world. The cycle of poverty, illiteracy and dependency in which the Roma are held, needs to be stopped, not only for the Roma but the entire Bulgarian society and European Community.

* the picture is taken from www.changemakers.net

References:

• Burke, J. (1995). An anti-Gypsy fervor sweeps east Europe. Christian Science Monitor, 87(194).
• Cohen, E. et al., (2005). Human Rights In Bulgaria In 2004. Annual Report of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee.
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• Gounev, P., & Bezlov, T. (2006). The Roma In Bulgaria's Criminal Justice

System: From Ethnic Profiling To Imprisonment. Critical Criminology: Center for the Study of Democracy, 14, pp. 313-338.

• Gresham, D. et al., (2001). Origins and Divergence of the Roma (Gypsies). American Journal of Human Genetics, 69(6), pp. 1314 - 1331.
• McIntosh, M. E., Iver, M. A. M., Abele, D. G., & Nolle, D. B. (1995). Minority Rights and Majority Rule: Ethnic Tolerance in Romania and Bulgaria. Social Forces, 73(3), pp. 939-968.
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Annual report of the Bulgarian Helsinki Committee

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a healthy mind in a healthy body

I've always considered the maxim "a healthy mind in a healthy body" to be one of the few which hold true in any occasion...It seems, however, that I was a bit wrong...

When sports, money and education mix together the meaning of the maxim gets blurred and one of the three has to take a leading position before the other two.

The cause for this post is a problem which recently occurred in the media, namely a problem in many US universities and their craze about college sports and keeping the above-stated maxim up to date for most of their college students.

The problem is that by following the sports craze, many universities in the US forget their chief goal - to educate and to reach academic achievements.

Sports in American colleges are well embedded in their curriculum. Almost no other universities or colleges in the world have so many sports facilities or such a great variety of sports offered. Such diversity in sports makes the US colleges envied a lot.

I remember that when first came to my Dutch college, I was a bit disappointed from the fact that I had to choose taking sports which I never did before in my life - field hockey, basketball, swimming, and rowing. The sports in which I felt stronger at and willing to do (volleyball and athletics) were not much competitive and in the case of athletics - not offered at all.

But as I see now, being offered many sports at a higher than just a hobby level, can be also detrimental for some universities.

William Bowen, a former president of Princeton University, who's done research on college sports and educational values, says that sports in universities are educative but very often a too much focus on sports gets universities astray from their chief goal - to effectively educate at an academic level.

Many students who are accepted to universities because of their sports achievement continue to be good at their sport but do not pay much attention to their academic life.
Many of the students who've been accepted mainly because of their "healthy bodies" do not even happen to graduate university.

What is more, many alumni from certain universities give shit loads of money to support their ex-college team and in some universities in America you can also see that the richest universities (sponsored mainly for their sports achievements) have twice less numbers of books compared to the poorer, not that famous at sports, universities. The sports-oriented universities are also amongst the richest in the US and at the same time, the least focused on academic prosperity.

Sports in American universities bring a lot of money and without money not many university can offer its students everything needed in their academic environment. On the other hand, in order to be the best college in sports you need a lot of practice, good instructors and most of all a lot of spare time and devotion to the sport...In the cases in which this was achieved, education and academic training went to the background. The top priority shifts from the one pole to the other.

The problem with US colleges is that plenty of them have sold their soul to win.

"Individual institutions that decide to invest more money in their sports facilities and instructors in the hope of raising more funds or improving their applicant pools may be throwing good money after bad, and would be wiser to spend the money in other ways" the Knight Foundation Commission on Intercollegiate Athletics reported several years ago.

It is a lot easier for alums to rally around the basketball or football team than the classics department.

Very few are the colleges in the US coped to develop both sports at a professional level and a good academic reputation. Duke University is a good example, where basketball have enjoyed considerable success without violating the integrity of the institution.

Unfortunately, the institutions which can handle the combination of sport and education effectively without making compromises on behalf of the one are very few.

By reading about this trend the maxim which comes to my mind is that excess leads to regress and I start holding to the idea that sport in university has to be nothing much than a hobby, something which you do just to forget for an hour or so about all the academic load you have to finish by midnight :)

"The Suffering of the Migrant" Abdelmalek Sayad (preface by Pierre Bourdieu)

What a nice book :) it didn't happen to me for a long time to be so impressed by a "social science a.k.a sociology" book.

At the beginning when people discussed the book I hadn't read it but what most of them commented on was that the book is too much exaggerated and that it is not possible immigrants to suffer mentally and physically at such a great extend. After all, immigration be it for studying, practicing profession or, as it is in the book, being a guest worker, is personal choice. What is more, motives for immigration are as numerous as people's music preferences.

Having in mind Bourdieu's scientific negativism about the social world, I thought that the focus of the book would be more or less also focused only on the negative aspect of immigration and thus maybe a bit exaggerated BUT after reading the book I was struck.

Sayad displayed immigrants' feelings and thoughts so objectively and precisely that I cannot say anything else than just admire his book. I think that the book holds true not only for legal guest immigrant workers or illegal ones - everyone who's been an immigrant for a longer period of time had at some point in time at least one of the thoughts revealed in the book. And only those who haven't experienced anything about living in a different country can say it is exaggerated or subjective.

This is my personal opinion...however...who knows? Maybe I have experienced the bitter part of immigration, despite coming as a legal foreign student :)

Sayad is an Algerian who lived for quite a long time in France and his story is actually about Algerian migrants in France...disturbing picture...surely a lot has to be done in France on migration and integration issues...

"How bitter you can be, my country, when one dreams of leaving you. And how desirable you are, oh France, before one knows you! All because our village is full of France and nothing but France- France is all people talk about. From our village, we have more people in France than in the village." A. Sayad

“No, they never explained to us what France was really like before we got to know it. We see them coming home, they are all well dressed, they bring back full suitcases, with money in their pockets, we see them spending that money without even thinking about it; they are handsome, they are fat” A. Sayad

“You come to France for a while, you act as though you were here for a while, but, year after year, then it’s five years, then ten years, then twenty years, and then you retire! When you add it up it’s your whole life.” A. Sayad

“None of the emigrants interviewed had attempted or had been tempted to try to find work in an Algerian town.” A. Sayad à funny ah?

“It’s not only the ‘behavior of a holiday-maker’ that the emigrant introduces into his group. He also introduces a great number of attitudes imbued with a calculating spirit and the economic and social individualism that goes with it, and these have more serious implications.” A. Sayad

“When we speak of the emigration of families, we are therefore dealing with assimilation, no matter what terms of euphemistic variants (adaptation, integration, insertion etc.) are used to designate that social reality.” A. Sayad

“What one vision of the phenomenon of immigration sees as a ‘cost’ can be seen as a ‘benefit’ by another and conversely.” A. Sayad

“When I am alone, I think about it all, I think everything over, I examine it from every point of view. I try to understand; I try to understand how things happen. Do the things that happen really depend on me, or do they happen by themselves?”

Migration Report for Bulgaria

by Plamena Ivanova

Nowadays, the accelerated pace of globalization, the tendency of borderless regional integration organizations and the free movement of people, goods and commodities makes the issues on migration and integration policies more and more significant and worth discussing. Every country has its migration history and more or less every country has faced problems in dealing with this phenomenon. This report tries to look at the migration and integration trends in Bulgaria by briefly looking back at its history of migration and discussing in detail the current trends of migration in Bulgaria today.

Immigration and Internal Population Movements in Bulgaria:

Migration has become a significant point of discussion for Bulgaria a bit later in time, having in mind the political situation of the country before 1989. Like almost all ex-communist countries, Bulgaria had minor migration issues to deal with during communist time because of the fact that communist policies were quite restrictive on the movement of people, equally holding true for going abroad, moving within the country or visiting Bulgaria.

Historical Background: Migration and Ethnic Problems in Bulgaria before 1989:

Bulgaria’s first biggest migration movement was a mass exodus of Turkish population due to Bulgaria’s liberation from a 500-year of Ottoman yoke. Considerable numbers of Turkish people left the country because it was not under the rule of their own country anymore. Many Turks, however, stayed in Bulgaria because Bulgaria was the place in which they’ve always lived. Later in time, by the end of the communist regime, another mass movement of Turkish people out of Bulgaria took place. The migration of 218 000 Turks in 1989 was a result of the Bulgarian Government’s assimilation policies (Bobeva,1996; see UN Secretariat, Population Division). The so called “national revival” policies forced Turkish people to change their names to Christianized ones, denied them to observe Islamic holidays and forbade them to learn Turkish language in schools. The chauvinist “national revival” campaign still remains a shame for Bulgaria because it merely violated basic human rights. From 1990 to 1992, flows to Turkey declined but still accounted for 80% of all flows. Nevertheless, ethnic Turks still made 9.7% of the population of Bulgaria in 1992 (Bobeva, 1996; see UN Secretariat, 2002).

Current Trends of Bulgarian Immigration-Policies:

Nowadays, the fact that Bulgaria is already a member of the European Union changed the migration policies of the country to fit European policies of migration. Bulgaria implemented new international legal regulations, changed its domestic legislation, ratified international treaties and, quite important to say, ratified all twelve international legal instruments related to the fight against terrorism. The spheres which are the most unified to the European policies concern issues such as citizenship, civil registration, identity documents and policies on asylum seekers and refugees. Slightly different from the EU migration policies is the visa-free policy for citizens of the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia. According to recent data (March 2004), there are 2 530 foreigners in Bulgaria holding an application permit for permanent residence permit in Bulgaria (Poptodorova, 2004). Those residents are mostly coming from Macedonia (2000), Turkey (1685) and Russia (1270). In 2002 there were 7500 applications for Bulgarian citizenship, while in 2003 there were 14 306 (Poptodorova, 2004). Many Moldavians are also, and reasonably, claiming Bulgarian citizenship, mainly claiming their Bulgarian origin and self-awareness. The non-accredited Bulgarian community in Moldova speaks fluent Bulgarian language, observe Bulgarian traditions and send their children to the only Bulgarian-speaking University in Moldova.

Illegal Migration and Human Trafficking:

The geographical location of Bulgaria makes it a main country of transition for illegal migration and traffic of people. The illegal foreigners in Bulgaria are estimated to be around 10 000, but this number is estimated to be relatively low compared to other European countries (OECD, 2001; see UN Secretariat, 2002). However, a significant number of migrants do not stay in Bulgaria but proceed to other European countries (UN Secretariat, 2002). Migrants who use Bulgaria for international migration are mostly Iraqi, Pakistani and Algerians. A big number of transit migrants are also victims of human trafficking. Women are mainly the victims of this kind of trans-migration. In 2003 a law on human trafficking was adopted and its victims are now granted a special residence status. International cooperation is also one of the most useful ways for preventing human trafficking. Bulgaria cooperates with a number of countries on this issue. The UN also helps Bulgaria by developing anti-trafficking training modules for judges and prosecutors and encouraging the inclusion of this regional curriculum in the regular training in relevant institutions.

Refugees and Asylum Seekers:

Refugee issues and providing asylum for those who need are issues which Bulgaria is also concerned with. According to an assessment made by the European Commission in 1999, Bulgaria had made a substantial progress in implementing immigration and asylum regulations, even though its institutional capacity to manage migration remains weak (OECD, 2001; see UN Secretariat, 2002). One of the criteria of the EU for Bulgaria was also the changes that needed to be done in the facilities for asylum seekers and refugees. Nationals of Afghanistan, Yugoslavia, Iraq and Armenia are those who come in Bulgaria for asylum. Of the 1 750 decisions made in Bulgaria between 1995 and 1999, however, less than 600 resulted in the granting of refugee status and 290 in granting the humanitarian status (UNHCR, 2000).

Modern Migration and Investment:

“Modern migration” is the so called phenomenon recently seen in Bulgaria (and countries similar to it) in which people with money migrate to places in which the local population are relatively poor and where they can have a life which they would difficultly find or even afford in their own country. This trend for Bulgaria is mainly followed by people coming from Great Britain. There are whole villages in the mountains in which the bigger percentage of the houses belongs to Englishmen. An article in Independent says that the English who decide to immigrate permanently in Bulgaria are people who want to start a new way of living in a place where “a pint of beer costs 40 cents and one can buy an apartment for 25 000 pounds”. The good part from this type of immigration is the fact that the places of “foreign demand” are really prospering from this type of migrants – there are more investments and the payment in these particular villages has grown. Recently, Bulgaria is also making a profit from a great foreign interest to invest in the country and thus there is another reason for immigrating in the country. There are quite a big number of foreign factories (Greece and Turkey) whose leaders are also foreigners, companies working in the tourist field from Germany and Spain, and other more specialized companies. Such companies open many working places for Bulgarians and thus help the economic growth.

Emigration and Movements of People out of Bulgaria:

Causes for Emigration and Main Destinations for Bulgarians:

In spite of the growing favorable economic conditions in the country, the emigration from Bulgaria is also growing. After 40 years of restrictions on free movement till 1989, a big wave of Bulgarian migrants flew out of the country. This trend, however, got normalized quite fast. At the beginning the main reasons for emigration were mainly political and ethnic (the exodus of Turks from Bulgaria). But the main reason for Bulgarian people to migrate now to other countries is the classical one - leaving for economic reasons. Bulgarians are immigrating to countries with higher living standards and very often they have only vague ideas of how they are going to be successful. Every year around 22 000 people leave Bulgaria (Poptodorova, 2004). And according to data from the National Institute for Statistics, during the past eight years 196 000 Bulgarians emigrated and 19 000 have returned (Poptodorova, 2004). The most preferable destination for Bulgarians is Germany (23%), followed by the USA (19%) – mostly Chicago (60 000 BG), Greece (8%), Spain (8%), Great Britain (6%), Italy (6%), Canada (5%) and France (4%). Immigration rate for Central and Eastern European countries is almost negligible. The data of the Agency for the Bulgarians (2001) shows that there are 4 million Bulgarians living abroad (the population of Bulgaria at the moment is less than 8 million) (Poptodorova, 2004). A sociological research done in Bulgaria in 2001 showed that 8% of the population between 15 and 60 year-old were potential emigrants who would like to leave. On the other hand, those who think they will not travel or go out of the country represent 70% of the population. 47% per cent of the emigrants leave the country to cope with financial problems, while only 5% leave in order to become better in their professional field and 4% emigrate to finish education abroad. When people emigrate to work or practice their profession the country of destination is Germany, other countries considered favorable for solving financial problems are Greece, Spain, England and Italy. An interesting fact, however, is that there are almost no remittances going in Bulgaria. Turkey, Russia and Morocco are among the highest recipients of formal remittances, given their migration rates, while Pakistan, Indonesia, Bulgaria and Romania record only small remittances despite high net out migration levels (Lucas R., 2005).

Ethnic Emigration:

The ethnic composition of the emigrants reflects the ethnic composition of the country: around 80% Bulgarian, 12% Turkish and 4% Roma. Recently, the Migration Department of Bulgaria’s Police in collaboration with Italian National Police discovered and ceased the existence of a channel for taking Bulgarian Roma children between 6 and 12 year-old out of Bulgaria and bringing them to Italy to beg on the streets. The worst part of the story was that the grown-ups involved in this trafficking were relatives of the children or friends of their parents.

Bilateral Agreements:

In the situation of Bulgaria bilateral agreements for exchange of labor force seem to be the most reasonable, legal and effective way for controlling migration. No much ago, Bulgarian university students received the chance to go to the USA and do different seasonal work there through summer student work programs that have been functioning with the United States. Each year 5 000 to 6 000 Bulgarian students go to the United Stated for various kinds of seasonal work (Poptodorova, 2004). The oldest bilateral agreement for exchange of labor was between Switzerland and Italy (1964). Many bilateral agreement were entered by western European countries with the former communist countries, notably Germany (with the Czech Republic, Poland, Slovakia and Romania), Greece (with Bulgaria and Albania), Spain (with Poland and Romania), France (with Poland), and Italy (with Albania) (Abella, 2006). Spain has concluded eight bilateral agreements: Morocco (1999), Colombia, Ecuador and the Dominican Republic (2001), Romania and Poland (2002) and Guinea-Bissau (2003) and Bulgaria (Abella, 2006).

Brain Drain:

Every country which can be characterized with relatively big outward movements of migrants experiences social “brain drain”. Bulgaria, as a country with constant emigration tendencies also faces the spell of brain-drainage. Numbers of intellectuals in the developing Eastern European countries (Bulgaria included) are more and more migrating to countries in which they will have better opportunities and better appreciation for their potential. The problem with intellectuals leaving their countries is not the most important factor to think about because developing your own potential at a better place is more than good for sciences. Problems occur, however, when those intellectuals decide to stay where they are and not go back to their come countries. The reasons for intellectuals are many and as diverse as the reasons everyone else who decides to migrate. Better opportunities for research, better payment or acceptance to innovative ideas are pull factors for migration, while career limitations, underestimation and declining prestige of certain spheres are very often main push factors for migration of intellectuals. According to a sociological study, the brain drain from Bulgaria is intensifying. The fields that are principally affected are the medical sciences, biology, chemistry, the technical sciences, and computer software (Vizi E., 1993). 70% of the scientists who leave their own countries have no intention of returning home. Bulgaria has already lost many scientists to the brain drain, and is still losing about 20 000 every year, mostly to Germany, Italy, France, and England (Vizi E., 1993).

Conclusion:

This report tried to show the tendencies at work in Bulgaria on both two sides of the migration process. To conclude with, the report reveals both the progress Bulgaria made on its migration policies and the inability of the country to deal with some emigration issues, the inability of the country to keep down those emigrating.

References:

Abella, M. (2006). Policies And Best Practices For Management Of Temporary Migration. International Symposium On International Migration And Development.

Lucas, R. E. (2005). International Migration Regimes and Economic Development. Swedish Ministry of Foreign Affairs.

Martin, P. (2006). Managing Labor Migration: Temporary Worker Programmes For The 21st Century. International Symposium On International Migration And Development.

Poptodorova, E. (2004). Bulgaria’s Migration Policy. Mediterranean Quarterly.

Secretariat, U. N. (2002). International Migration from Countries with Economies in Transition : 1980-1999. Department of Economic and Social Affairs.

Vizi, E. S. (1993). Reversing the Brain Drain from Eastern European Countries: The “Push” and “Pull” Factors. !rwmozogy in society, 15, 101-109.

speech on globalization

Today I am going to write about globalization and the way it affects people all over the world.

I am glad that I feel like writing on this topic because I believe that we have the potential to work for a change and to contribute considerably for people’s well-being.

My main goal with this piece of writing is to put across a message which has been often ignored by those who are now capable of making a difference, merely because the statement that this message supports is anything else but advantageous for those individuals.

One of the most thorough definitions of globalization says that it is a historical process involving a fundamental shift or transformation in the spatial scale of human social organization that links distant communities and expands the reach of power relations across regions and continents.

Or just to simplify this definition - Globalization represents the widening, deepening and speeding up of worldwide interconnectedness.

Proponents of globalization say that it helps developing nations "catch up" with industrialized nations much faster through access to free markets, increased employment and technological advances.

But such attributions to globalization reveal many cracks and fissures beneath their high-gloss surface.

The idea of interconnectedness and involvement to any single state in the world system may sound quite liberal but what this idea actually brings about seems to be anything else but liberal.

There are too many facts and too much evidence that prevent the idea of globalization from keeping its shiny outlook.

The statement I am about to argue today is that globalization is a self-serving myth or ideology which reinforces world inequality.

First, I would like to focus on the fact that the noble goals of globalization such as combating poverty and hunger by giving access to global markets to the developing countries is working exactly in the opposite direction.

Second, I will argue about the harmful effects of globalization by giving you an example with the case of Tanzania.

And third, I will talk about the fact that globalization is just reinforcing Western hegemony on a world scale.

So, now I start with one of the biggest problems of our age, namely hunger.

Never before in our human history we have been so rich and at the same time so poor;

so overwhelmed with products and so much lacking basic food that contributes for our survival.

The causes of hunger are many.

But globalization certainly has a big share in this problem.

Globalization and the integration of developing countries into the global market allow products from those countries to enter our never-having-enough societies and at the same time leave people from those countries die from hunger.

Hunger in the Third World countries is not caused by underproduction or less fertile soil in those regions.

Hunger in the developing countries is caused by our Western fuss of when we go shopping to be able to choose between 7 types of African peaches, 15 types of fish coming straight from Lake Victoria and 20 types of rice produced in India, Bangladesh and China.

Hunger in the Third World countries is caused by the artificial needs we have obtained due to globalization and the accessibility of everything we would like to have access to.

The UN Food and Agriculture Organization estimates that although there is enough grain alone to provide everyone in the world with 3600 calories a day (just to clarify the UN’s recommended minimum intake per day is 1200 calories) there are still over 800 million hungry people.

Furthermore, critics note that the Third World, where the majority of starving people are found, produces much of the world’s food, while those who consume most of it are located in the Western World.

Amartya Sen’s pioneering book called Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation shows results from an empirical research work on the causes of famine which conclude that hunger is due to people not having enough to eat, rather than there not being enough to eat.

One of the main reasons for those people to be hungry is globalization.

The responsibility for people not having enough to eat is of those who want to make a greater profit from supplying us with a huge variety of extremely cheap imported products. The responsibility of growing inequality among people can be reasonably attributed to globalization.

One of the best documentaries ever called “Darwin’s Nightmare” clearly shows the effects of globalization on the poor countries by focusing on Tanzania.

I have to admit that the documentary is striking.

No other movie shows so clearly the devastating effects of globalization.

The fact that there are basically no borders at a global level makes the rich –richer and the poorest become even poorer.

Tanzania has one of the biggest natural fish resources, the Lake Victoria.

Every day Tanzania exports fish which feeds 2 million people in Western Europe, while at the same there are 8 million people in that same Tanzania who are dying from hunger.

This is just unacceptable my dear friends.

This is just another proof of the dehumanization of humanity.

This is just the real face of globalization and the real problems it brings about.


Some of you may ask yourselves about the actions that the rich Western countries take to prevent the ongoing inequality phenomenon.

My dear friends, the countries we are living in, the rich countries, do not care about world inequality as long as they are leading world figures.

What is more distressing, however, is the fact that the easiest way to keep on top is to be a proponent of the ideas of globalization and to make use of them.

Globalization is the greatest tool for preserving world inequality.

A clear example is the fact that one of the biggest resources for increasing Western power and wealth are the big Western companies situated in Third World countries.

These companies use the filthy excuse of increasing employment by expanding their businesses, but all they do is making huge profits from the Third World workers whom they pay the equivalent of 2 US dollars per day.

One contemporary anti-globalists (call her even neo-Marxist as you like), the Canadian scholar Naomi Klein, writes in one of her books that

the global village we live in is a village where some multinationals, far from leveling the global paying field with jobs and technology for all, are in a process of mining the planet’s poorest back country for unimaginable profits.

The travels of Nike sneakers have been traced back to the abusive sweatshops of Vietnam, Barbie's little outfits back to the child labourers of Sumatra,

Starbucks' lattes to the sun-scorched coffee fields of Guatemala,

and Shell's oil back to the polluted and impoverished villages of the Niger Delta.


This is global village, my dear friends, is also the village where bill Gates lives,

amassing a fortune of 55 billion while a third of his workforce is classified as temporary workers, many of whom are seventeen-year old girls living in Third World countries who assemble CD-ROM drives in the great number IBM sweatshops in those regions.

This is my dear friends, the result of globalization.

This is, my dear friends, the representation of the words of the Indonesian writer Mangunwijaya who wrote that

“We might not see things yet on the surface, but underground, it’s already on fire”

Dear friends, let us hope that this fire will soon be extinguished from its core;

References (APA style):

• Baylis, J., & Smith, S. (2005). The Globalization of World Politics: An Introduction to International Relations (3rd ed.). New York: Oxford University Press Inc. [textbook]

• Klein, N. (2000). No Logo. Great Britain: Flamingo. [book]

• Sauper, H. (Writer) (2004). Darwin's Nightmare. In E. Mauriat (Producer). France. [documentary]

• Sen, A. (1981). Poverty and Famines: An Essay on Entitlement and Deprivation Oxford: Clarendon Press. [book]