Lefteast
The racialization/inferiorization of Roma has been normalized over centuries and supported by social structures. Therefore, instead of organizing public protest against such statements, we rather tacitly accept and even mainstream these violent discourses. In this sense, the racialization of Roma is not a novelty. However, the way it is framed in illiberal political discourse excludes any other point of view, even if comes from the independent judiciary.
We are publishing this article in cooperation with the Serbo-Croatian web portal Bilten. In the “Offenders in Gabrovo!” Facebook group, natives of the eponymous Central Bulgarian town comment upon all sorts of irregularities: they lambaste the owner of a car parked on the wrong side of the street, mobilize to replace a broken lamp post, […]
Anti-Roma racism, ethnophobia, and prejudice have reached intolerable proportions in Bulgarian government, the Bulgarian public sphere, and Bulgarian society at large. LevFem stands in solidarity with our Roma sisters and brothers who are subjected to incessant daily racist abuse, harassment, violence, and dehumanization, and navigate countless forms of prejudice while surviving an increasingly hostile racist, […]
Note from LeftEast editors: The article was originally published on dversia.net in Bulgarian on the 10.09.2017 At this year’s summit of G20, the newly elected French president Emanuel Macron stated that the problem with the slow economic development of Africa was civilizational. As an example, he noted that African women gave birth to 7-8 children, […]
This video and accompanying abstract is part of our ongoing collaboration with Talk Real. In this episode, held in Cluj-Napoca, Romania, Talk Real discusses the implications of environmental degradation for the local Roma community, and the intersection of systemic racism with environmental neglect. In its post published on October 4, Talk Real writes: Pata Rât […]
Ismael Cortes interviews MEP Soraya Post, on behalf of LeftEast. On the occasion of the International Romani Day, 8th April, the European Parliament hosted the Roma Week in collaboration with different civic organizations. A year has passed since 15th April 2015, when the European Parliament adopted the resolution on anti-Gypsyism and established the European Roma Holocaust […]
Note from LeftEast editors: This article was originally published in Bilten on 22 February 2016. On 20 February Romania celebrated 160 years since the official abolition of Roma slavery. In a typical Romanian way the event was, of course, surrounded by scandals and controversy. They are revealing insofar as they function as a symptom for […]
The commemorative action “We are equal, not illegal!” took place in Cluj-Napoca, Romania on 17/12/2015. It involved people from the marginalized ‘residential’ space of the city (called Pata Rat) and from other areas with precarious and insecure housing conditions, as well as local activists for housing justice. This public event was a moment of joint […]
The following is the last of three articles by Jana Tsoneva and Stanimir Panayotov on the Bulgarian state’s increasingly harsh rhetoric and policy proposals vis-a-vis the country’s Roma minority. Part I showed that while the discourse is focused on the Roma, the measures proposed will cut social provisions for all poor Bulgarians. Part II‘s main argument is […]
Since 2009 Belgrade has become the site of massive interventions in ‘public order’ that revolve around one problematic subject: the ‘informal individual Roma waste picker’. Interventions to restore ‘public order’ usually come under different banners ranging from hygienic living conditions, to security, to civil rights. In the name of realizing common goods these interventions profoundly […]