Do the Roma ruin everything they touch?
exploring the myth of the Roma leaving desolation in their wake
In the fall of 2020, Martina was part of a meeting between the non-profit ATD and the district mayor of Ilinden, where the quarter of our Romani tribe is located. ATD wanted permission to organize a festival for the children. The mayor spent the meeting venting some racist thoughts in an attempt to make an argument how there’s no point in doing anything for “these” kids.
One of the things he listed out, with disgust, was how, an year ago, when he arrived with the gendarmerie to demolish part of the Romani houses, he discovered in one of them that a woman was sleeping on the ground next to a pig. This was supposed to show that the Roma are subhuman and by demolishing their homes he did everyone - even the Roma themselves - a big favor.
One of the most prevailing stereotypes against the Roma is that they ruin things. This, their critics say, is why they haven’t built anything lasting. And the most common example used to underpin this statement is how when Roma are “given” social housing, they break things and move in their horses.
Across Europe, the Nomadic Roma have often been described as messy and loud, arriving in a pristine location, setting up camp, and leaving everything in disarray when they leave.
How much of this is true?
Sharing a home with pigs and horses
What we find ironic is that outsiders maintain two contradictory stereotypes against the Roma as equally valid, without pausing long enough for cognitive dissonance to set in. “The Roma abuse their animals” and “The Roma share their homes with their animals.”
The reality of Romani communities living in poverty is that they rely on their horses to survive. We have talked about this in depth here:
This is one of several reasons why the horse is regarded with great respect in Romani culture. Horses have been companions and comrades of the Roma for centuries and are seen as members of the family.
So, what happens when a Romani family is plucked from their community and open-air quarter with small houses and put into social housing in a Soviet-era building? What do they do with the horse? Abandon it? Kill it?
“The only possible step is to sell the horse,” Pepi says, “But this is done as a last resort because it means, essentially, that you’re cutting off both your arms.”
Without the horse, the family loses its main source of income and plummets further down in poverty.
So, most Roma bring the horse with them.
“A Romani person would much rather sleep outside so the horse can sleep indoors and have shelter,” Pepi says.
The horse eats before the children. If there’s only enough money or food to feed the horse or the children, it is the children who don’t eat. The horse has to always be comfortable, fed, well-rested, and warm. Romani families sacrifice from their own table if they must, so they can take care of their horse.
The problem with Romani families bringing a horse into a Soviet-style residential building is really not a Romani problem. The real issue is that social policy is inadequate and mainstream society has low emotional intelligence and no understanding of social, economic, and cultural context to see why destroying the house of a Romani family “in the ghetto”, forcing them into a hostile living space and then sitting back and judging while waiting for them to be grateful, is in no way “inclusive” or a solution to anything.
And the woman sleeping on the ground next to a pig? Passing judgement here is not even a racist thing, though racism naturally plays a role. But the big problem is the much deeper disdain, shared far and wide, for people living in poverty. And this, too, is not a Romani problem but very much a problem for our modern, “civilized” world.
But enough about the animals. Because what outsiders blame the Roma for is that they themselves, with their own hands, break and destroy things.
Are the Roma serial destroyers?
We’ve talked before how, after the partial demolition of the Romani quarter of Pepi’s tribe, the majority of families were placed in a crisis center with abhorrent conditions.
All of the families are regularly threatened with eviction, but some more than the others. Because they break things.
It’s always men. 3-4 men in particular. It’s always when they’ve had a little too much to drink. And it’s always when a deep undefined rage sets in and they pummel the window of their single room with their bear hands or kick down the door. Sometimes the sink. “He went wild again,” is what the surrounding community says.
The question here is not the obvious “It’s only 3-4 people, not the entire community.” The question is why do these men destroy the only place they can tentatively call “home”?
It’s an easy answer. It’s not their home. It will never be their home - they are reminded of this constantly by the social workers whose offices are in the same building. Their actual homes were bulldozed to dust.
If your home is destroyed or taken away and you are placed in a bug-infested, decaying building, given a single small room, and there is no escape route, no other place for you to live - won’t you be consumed by a burning rage? When the mayor demolished the quarter he also removed it as an official address, and as a result the majority of the tribe don’t have valid ID documents. Without an ID document, you can’t sign anything, specifically a lease - even if we assume a scenario where a white middle-class homeowner would rent out to a Romani family. Because, as we all know, they break things.
The Roma themselves take care of their rooms in the crisis center. They paint the walls, repair the plumbing, haul in second-hand furniture from besides garbage containers, and do their absolute very best to create a home. But they still grieve for the quarter that they were born and raised in, the small houses that they built with their own hands, and the community that has been living there for a century. So some of the men spiral into a rage when they get drunk and break the room that is both their home and not. And the next day, when they sober up, they repair the damage again with their own two hands.
Pepi’s niece Vela, together with her husband Nicky and their 4 children, was recently evicted from the room they had in social housing since the demolition of their home in 2017.
They left the room in complete disarray when they moved out. Trash, ripped wallpaper, discarded clothes.
“It’s a middle finger to the municipality,” Pepi explains. “They took care of this room for 7 years, only to be thrown out like garbage.”
When Vela and her family moved in 2017, the house had recently been through a fire. The walls were charred black. The boards in the ceiling of Vela’s room were so fragile that her blind cousin on the floor above would fall through Vela’s ceiling. One time he broke his leg.
The fire damage was repaired by Vela herself, her husband, and several other relatives. The municipality refused to reimburse them because they couldn’t show receipts for the repairs, even though the fire was no secret to anyone.
“There is no way they were going to leave this room in a condition ready for someone else to move in,” Pepi says. “They left it in a way that would make the municipality work in order to be able to rent it out again.”
Perception versus reality
In his long rant, the mayor kept repeating that the Roma do not know nor want to take care of their living space. They are surrounded by trash, he said. The river splitting the ghetto in half is full of trash, he said. He has not been alone in this belief - there is an entire Initiative Committee in the neighborhood that has been on a years-long mission to remove the Romani quarter and its inhabitants.
So, are their perceptions true?
“My brother Sadik and his wife Vanya,” Pepi says, “Would wake up at 6 in the morning and start sweeping the entire quarter - from one end to the other. Every day.”
Not only that. The entire community would regularly clear the river, repair broken things, and make their shared space livable and beautiful.
Every single house in the “ghetto” is built, painted, and furnished with their own hands.
“But it’s easy for outsiders to think we lived in the trash,” Pepi says. “If you bring several dozen kilograms of metal or wood or appliances, you store them outside of your house. There’s just no room.”
“An outsider looks at it and thinks, ‘This house is surrounded by garbage,’ Pepi continues. “A Roma looks at it and sees gold. Material to be recycled and sold for scrap. The livelihood of the family for the next week.”
“On the outside, a Romani house might look in decay. But,” Pepi says, “once you open the door you might even feel humbled and unworthy to enter.”
The Roma don’t destroy things. They beautify them, if they’re left alone long enough by a society tearing down their walls.