Czech Roma need political representation: Interview with journalist Patrik Banga · Global Voices
Filip Noubel

Patrik Banga, photo from Wikipedia, used under licence CC BY-SA 4.0
The Roma community is one of the most discriminated against in the Czech Republic, despite having been present on Czech territories for over 600 years, and despite efforts by various Czechoslovak, and later Czech governments to address the issue. The gap between the official and the estimated number of Roma people living in the Czech Republic is an illustration of this discrimination: While about 20,000 people declared themselves as Roma in the 2021 census, the real number is closer to 250,000, as the Czech government acknowledges:
Velká většina Romů nechává kolonku národnost při sčítání nevyplněnou. Jedním z důvodů, proč se Romové k romské národnosti nehlásí, je například historicky podložená obava Romů z možného zneužití údajů získávaných hromadně státními orgány či strach ze stigmatizace okolím.
The vast majority of Roma leave the nationality column empty in the census. One of the reasons why Roma people do not claim their ethnic origin is, for example, the historically-based fear about possible misuse of data collected en masse by state authorities, or the fear of being stigmatized in their environment.
Roma were people forced to abandon their traditional nomadic lifestyle under communism from 1948 to 1989, though some had settled in urban centers before that. They were often given apartments in specific areas of cities, thus creating segregated ghettos. They were also not provided with much in terms of education in their own languages and of cultural recognition.
With the end of state subsidies in 1989 after the fall of communism, many Roma who were often employed in manual jobs lost employment. This set a significant migration from Slovakia to the Czech Republic, but also from the Czech republic to Western Europe and Canada.
Today, according to this 2020 report by the Czech government, the main issue is discrimination in the job and housing markets. At the same time, there is a gradual recognition of Roma identity and culture through music, media, museums — in part also thanks to European Union policies of support to minorities. In December 2022, the government created the position of Special Envoy for Roma Issues.
To understand how Roma people themselves assess their situation, Global Voices interviewed Patrik Banga, a Roma journalist who works as an editor for the major online news portal iDNES.cz, which is the digital interface of the newspaper Mladá fronta Dnes. In 2022 Bangа also published his first book, an autobiography called “Skutečná cesta ven” (The Real Way out) in which he relates the way he grew up in the 1990s, a time of social and economic transition for the country that affected the Roma community even more, how he traveled to Montenegro to help Roma refugees caught in Yugoslav Wars, and his own reflection on relationships between the Roma minority and the white Czech majority.
The first question focused on the reasons why the majority of white Czechs deny there is any form of discrimination against Roma people, and whether this denial comes from the political elites or from average Czechs. According to Banga:
Neřekl bych, že to je většina. Rozhodně je to ale velká část. A podle mě je to taková hra, kdy si tady jako Češi hrajeme na otevřený a vyspělý národ, pokud se ovšem neobjeví nějaká jinakost. Tenhle problém se totiž zdaleka netýká jen Romů. Týká se v podstatě jakéhokoliv jiného etnika.  A ano, je to kombinace všeho popsaného. Politické elity se často chovají rasisticky, proto legitimizují rasistické chování „obyčejných lidí“ a média tomu dávají zvláštní prostor. Prezident republiky Zeman v naprostém klidu řekne romskému redaktorovi zpráv, že devadesát procent Romů nepracuje a bere dávky, což je lež. Ale „obyčejní lidé“ tu lež slyší od politické elity, berou jí tedy za pravdu.
I wouldn't say it's the majority, but it's definitely a big part. In my opinion, there is a sort of game being played here: we, as Czechs, pretend to be an open and developed nation, unless of course something that is visibly different emerges. This problem is far from affecting only Roma people. And yes, it is a combination of everything described. Political elites often behave in a racist way, therefore they legitimize the racist behavior of “ordinary people” and the media gives it extra attention. Zeman, the Czech President, can very naturally say to a Roma news editor that ninety percent of Roma do not work and receive benefits, which is a lie. But “ordinary people” hear the lie from the political elite, so they take it to be true.
In his book “Skutečná cesta ven,” Banga describes his many encounters with the police in Prague of the early 1990s. Global Voices asked him what has and hasn't changed since:
Něco se změnilo. Když mě v Praze zastaví policie na běžnou kontrolu v autě, většinou mi vykají. Což se nedá říct třeba o severních Čechách, kde se mě policista při kontrole naprosto vážně ptal, kde jsem ukradl svůj vůz. Je také naštěstí daleko častěji vidět vzdělané Romy, kteří vzdělání uplatňují. Na druhou stranu, máme tu velké množství vyloučených lokalit nebo ghett, což tu dříve nebylo. Vysvětlování příčin by asi bylo na další knihu, nicméně diskriminace Romů při přístupu k zaměstnání je naprosto běžná a společensky bohužel většinou tolerovaná věc.
Something has changed. When the police stop me in Prague for a routine check in my car, they usually use the polite form of “you” to address me. Which cannot be said, for example, about regions in the north of the country, where a policeman checked me and asked me, being absolutely seriously, where I stole my car. Fortunately, it is also far more common to see educated Roma who find good positions thanks to their education. On the other hand, we have a large number of excluded locations or ghettos, which were not there before. Explaining the causes for this would probably require another book, however, discrimination against Roma in access to employment is extremely common and, unfortunately, mostly tolerated in Czech society.
While civic engagement is on the rise, political participation and visibility remains a challenge, as Banga confirms:
To je jedna z největších bolestí Romů. Nemáme žádného zástupce ve velké politice. Většina politicky aktivních Romů pracuje na lokálních úrovních, v žádné komoře parlamentu ale nemáme zástupce a co je horší, stabilně je nemáme od roku 1993. Jediní čeští poslanci z romské komunity jsou stále bývalí politici Ladislav Body a Monika Mihaličková. A totéž se týká médií. Ve skutečně velkých redakcích mají Romové jen několik redaktorů. V malých je to o něco lepší, ale nemají prakticky žádný prostor.
This is one of the most painful issues for Roma people. We do not have a single representative in big politics. Most of the politically active Roma work at local levels, but we do not have representatives in any chamber of the parliament, and what is worse, this has been the case since 1993. The only Czech parliamentarians from the Roma community are former politicians Ladislav Body and Monika Mihaličková. And the same goes for the media: In really large newsrooms, Roma only have a few editors. It's a little better in the small ones, but in practice, they have almost no space to operate.
Global Voices also asked him about the reception of his books, as Roma authors of fiction and non-fiction remain a very small group of published writers in the Czech Republic, whether in Romani or in Czech. Linked to this is the question of cross-border identity within the many different Roma communities living in Central and Eastern Europe.
Moje kniha byla přijata kupodivu velmi kladně. Ostatně, aktuálně probíhá dotisk, což znamená, že se kniha vyprodala.
Romové mají jednu velkou výhodu a tou je univerzální jazyk. V zásadě celkem bez potíží se domluví romsky Rom z Ukrajiny a Rom z Česka. Ostatně romštinu aktuálně využíváme jako způsob, kterým přinášet třeba rozhovory z ukrajinské fronty. V realitě jsou ale romské komunity odlišné, a to zejména kvůli ekonomickému aspektu žití. Rom v Česku žije v nepoměrně lepších podmínkách, než Rom v Bulharsku nebo Srbsku či Rumunsku. To ale nemění nic na tom, že komunity jsou v kontaktu a vzájemně se podporují, což mě jen utvrzuje v tom, že transevropská romská identita samozřejmě existuje.
My book was received surprisingly well. It is actually being reprinted as of now, which means the book was sold out.
The Roma have one great advantage, and that is their universally shared language. In principle, a Roma from Ukraine and a Roma from the Czech Republic can communicate in Romani without difficulty. After all, we are currently using Romani as a way to report, for example, interviews from the Ukrainian front. But in reality, Roma communities are different, mainly because of the economic aspect of their life. Roma in the Czech Republic live in disproportionately better conditions, compared to Roma in Bulgaria, Serbia, or Romania. But this does not change the fact that all the communities are in contact, and support each other, which only confirms to me that a trans-European Roma identity does indeed exist.