ROMA DISCRIMINATION

MULTI-ETHNICITY AND TRANSNATIONAL PEOPLES IN THE DANUBE BASIN, THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, , ,

Roma settlement, Slovakia

A new actor has emerged in European politics: “the threatened majorities”. They feel like minorities, they talk like minorities and they feel betrayed by their elites. European societies have started to view globalisation as an existential threat to their prosperity. A majority of people already psychologically live with the fear that they have lost control of their own social environment. While the Western European debate has been Islam-centred since the beginning of the 21st century, the Central European debate has been Roma-centred. More than 75% of the Roma community living in Europe is settled in the Danube basin and above all, in the EU accession states of 2004/07. While the fear of Islam is the incarnation of cultural fears of Western European publics, the anti-Roma sentiment in Central Europe is the embodiment of predominantly social fears of post-communist societies. …

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AUSTRIAN ROMA AND SINTI

MULTI-ETHNICITY AND TRANSNATIONAL PEOPLES IN THE DANUBE BASIN, THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, , , , , , , ,

The official estimate for the Roma population in Austria is 10,000-20,000. At the 2011 census a little more than 4,000 Romani speakers with Austrian nationality were recorded and approximately 2,000 with other nationalities. Yet Roma representatives estimate 10,000 autochthonous Roma plus 25,000 – 30,000 Roma immigrants. The Roma are the only ethnic minority group which is since 1993 officially recognized throughout the Austrian territory, whereas the Slovenian, Croatian and Hungarian minority is officially recognised in some federal states only. The Roma Advisory Council was established in 1995. The “Burgenland Roma” are considered as mainly rural, whereas other Roma groups are city dwellers. The majority of autochthonous Roma live in Vienna and eastern Austria. As the religious affiliation of Roma is usually determined by that of the majority population of the respective emigration country which in turn correlates with the socio-cultural background, the “Burgenland Roma” and “Lovara”, the biggest Austrian autochthonous groups, are generally Catholic.…

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MINORITIES IN THE DANUBE REGION AT THE BEGINNING OF THE 21st CENTURY

MULTI-ETHNICITY AND TRANSNATIONAL PEOPLES IN THE DANUBE BASIN, THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, , , , , , ,

 

The current revived nationalism in the region clearly has consequences for minorities, bringing about tensions within and between countries. The present minority issue in the Danube basin most of all concerns the sizable Roma communities in the accession countries of 2004/2007. In the whole of the European Union an estimated 10-12 million Roma live as a transnational minority. Although the adverse situation of the Roma was addressed during the accession process, discrimination and exclusion continue to persist; the situation is sometimes even exacerbated. Many populist and nationalist politicians are hostile towards the Roma, using them as scapegoats and reproducing discriminatory practices. Above all, Roma cannot be regarded in the same manner as other national minorities because they lack a clear territorial base or connection to any nation state. They are transnational people. Clearly the parallel to the position of Jews in the region before World War II is jumping to the eye.…

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JEWISH INTELLECTUAL BOOST IN THE HABSBURG CITIES

MULTI-ETHNICITY AND TRANSNATIONAL PEOPLES IN THE DANUBE BASIN, THE DANUBE REGION: ECONOMIC AND SOCIAL DEVELOPMENTS, , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , , ,

Palais Morpurgo, Jewish industrialists and bankers in Trieste

Any study of intellectual life in the Habsburg Empire must single out the Jews for special attention. No other ethnic group produced so many thinkers of transcendent originality, i.e. theorists like Freud, Husserl, Kelsen, Wittgenstein, Mahler, authors like Schnitzler, Kraus, Broch, Roth. In addition to these creative geniuses, a disproportionate number of productive thinkers in every field were Jewish. In some fields like psychoanalysis and Austro-Marxism, Jews constituted an overwhelming preponderance. The Jewish middle class provided a unique forum for discussion and dissemination of new ideas. Newspapers like the “Neue Freie Presse” and “Wiener Tagblatt”, Karl Kraus’ journal “Die Fackel” were mainly Jewish.…

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