Balázs Wizner

The Figures of Deprivation

István Kemény-Béla Janky-Gabriella Lengyel: A magyarországi cigányság 1971-2003 (The Roma in Hungary, 1971-2003) Budapest, Gondolat, 2004, 192 pp.

 

Between 1971 and 2003, István Kemény conducted three comprehensive surveys of the Roma in Hungary. These are the cornerstones of Roma research and major points of reference for policy. Given that it takes into consideration the Roma census of 1893, and the nationwide school survey of 1999/2000, directed by Havas, Liskó and Kemény, The Roma in Hungary, 1971-2003 can be justly said to summarise the results of at least five nationwide studies covering more than a century of social change. Much has changed both politically and socially since Istvány Kemény carried out his first, pioneering survey, but one element has remained the same - Kemény's research method. This is something for which he may be criticised, but for which we can be grateful, as this consistency makes it possible for us to compare the results of surveys done at different times.
Kemény employs the same criterion to determine who is a Roma as was employed in the 1893 survey. He regards as the subject of his research those who are considered to be Roma by non-Roma. As a consequence, in Hungary we have a unique opportunity to follow the evolution of the situation of the Roma minority from the beginnings of modern Hungary through the "socialist" change and to the stabilisation of the new democratic system. By analysing the direct effects of the changeover to multi-party democracy and freemarket development, Kemény's most recent survey is likely to answer the question as to what the majority of the Roma should expect in modern democratic Hungary for some time to come. The diagnosis is anything but encouraging.
The Roma compose roughly six per cent (some 600,000) of Hungary's population. The majority live in regions east and north of Budapest, and there are significant numbers of Roma in southwestern Hungary as well. These areas include some of the poorest regions of the country, those hit hardest by the economic collapse that followed the change in the political system, with distrastrously high rates of unemployment to this day. (In some districts the majority are out of work.) By the end of the 19th century, they had largely settled down and, as a consequence of the integration process begun in the 1960s, the Roma have, despite much lower living standards, segregation and consequent deprivations, adapted to the lifestyles of the majority. For example, the Roma population, once significant linguistic minority (speaking two distinct languages, Roma and Beashi), has become 90 per cent Hungarian-speaking. Industrialisation and urbanisation are rapidly destroying their cultural identity, creating an underclass where poverty, social disadvantages, cultural differences and ethnic discrimination form a particular and complex handicap. In the meantime, the appearance of Roma intellectuals, as well as a will to unify the Roma community, formerly living in innumerable small cultural groups, has become evident. Via numerous civil organisations and minority self-governments, the ability of the Roma to assert their interests is rapidly increasing. Today there are Roma deputies in the Hungarian and the European Parliamen and Roma officials work at the lower levels of government bureaucracy. Enormous progress has been made in that area least, if not in other fields.
Still, the survey demonstrates that segregation of the Roma has intensified. In one of the most discouraging passages, Kemény writes:

One kind of discrimination and segregation, manifest in segregation of domicile, has grown between 1993 and 2003. In 1993, 30 per cent of families asked lived in an overwhelmingly Roma environment, 29 per c e n t lived in a mixed environment, 29 per cent in neighbourhoods where the majority were non-Roma, and 9 per cent in neighbourhoods where there were no other Roma. In 2003, 72 per cent of the Roma families live segregated from the rest of Hungary's population.

What is most worrying about segregation today is that it has developed into forms which are practically impossible to prevent by legislation. People move out of neighbourhoods where Roma reside and remove their children from schools in which the number of Roma children has grown. This results in a deterioration in staff or equipment standards and a breakdown in the institutional infrastructure of the neighbourhood.

In the educational system as well, the gulf between Roma and non-Roma has grown. Nationwide, 88 per cent of 3-5 year olds attend kindergarden, but attendance for Roma children is only 42 per cent. Causes include lack of facilities, available places and equipment - and ever-present discrimination. Although 82.5 per cent of young Roma aged 20 to 24 years have finished eight years of elementary school, a considerable portion of them did so belatedly. In 2000, 5 per cent of all 16-year olds nationwide failed to complete elementary school; for young Roma in 2003, the drop-out rate from elementary school was 36 per cent. Between 1993 and 2003, the number of Roma children classified as mentally handicapped and therefore sent to so-called "auxiliary schools" increased. Approximately 20 per cent of school-age Roma children attend such schools and classes. In 2001, the nationwide ratio of all children entering secondary school was 73 per cent, whereas only a fifth of Roma children get to study in secondary school.

The results of school surveys often fail to show the huge difference in standards between some rural and urban schools. Because schools are supported on a per capita basis, it is in the interest of secondary schools to admit as many pupils as possible, which in recent years has helped to increase the number of Roma continuing their education. Nevertheless, these children enter secondary school with a huge handicap as compared to their urban fellows. Finding it difficult to meet scholastic requirements, they often drop out after a year or two.

Between 1993 and 2003, the position of the Roma on the labour market has not improved. At the beginning of 2003, 21 per cent of Roma between the ages of 15 and 74 were employed, as compared to the 22 per cent registered in the year 1993.

As mentioned above, the proportion of the Roma is the largest in those regions where there is serious unemployment. The former large socialist industrial-agricultural complexes employing unskilled labour in great numbers have vanished, and their disappearance has threatened the livelihood of entire towns.
The situation is all the more distressing, because it was predictable. The 1971 study (quoted in the blurb) indicates that sociologists had warned well in advance of the dangers ensuing from the contradictory nature of the integration policies conducted under the socialist regime. The Roma received less of everything available - in education, auxiliary schools rather than properly functioning ones; in housing, new homes of low quality are as separated and segregated from the non- Roma population as the Roma's old adobe huts at the "wrong end" of the village; in the labour market, the simplest unskilled work, requiring no qualifications, from where it was practically impossible to advance socially or economically. Kemény was forced to leave the country in 1977, but everything he predicted came to pass, and worse besides. Large problems had been observed regarding the employability of unskilled labour during the economic crisis of the 1980s and during the economic meltdown that followed the political changes. The majority of Roma employees found themselves outside the labour market overnight; no positive step has been taken to promote their integration into it since. Policy to this day has been characterised by a disregard for sociological research and by the sacrifice of long-term goals on the altar of short-term interests. (One might mention the anomalies concerning the Minority Act, or the lack of support available for Roma schools to "catch up".) What is generally called the "Gypsy question" combines all problems in all their aspects, like the proverbial illustration of a horse in veterinary medicine textbooks - every possible illness is portrayed on one and the same animal.
One easy explanation for all of this short-sightedness is, of course, that Hungary underwent cataclysmic changes every 20 to 30 years during the past century or so. It has thus been impossible for any process of improvement to run its full course. Economic development (coupled with proper government policy) has never reached a stage at which the poorest could benefit and achieve integration.
The benefits of EU membership are still dubious. The general crisis in the agrarian sector has to be underlined; it seriously affects some 40 per cent of the Roma living in rural areas who, lacking a regular income, work as seasonal agricultural labourers. It is most likely that accession can only bring benefits to them as long as the European Union and Hungary enter a path of stable development - something which seems uncertain. This might improve the situation in entire regions hit today by large-scale unemployment.
Readers of this book will not only find a diagnosis of the situation of the Roma in Hungary today, but will be able to deduce in broad outlines the changes to come in future decades.
As regards the "Gypsy question", István Kemény is still determined to find out how, in a society espousing equal opportunity, large numbers of people can still be born into poverty. For societies and political systems based on the ideals of the Enlightenment, this is a serious failure, a problem which they hesitate to admit to or attempt to circumvent via hypocritical policies meant to mask accountability. For Kemény, "Roma" is a social marker distinguishing the kind of person whom it is easier to get rid of than to accept and absorb. There is an enormous amount of research concerning prejudice showing that people are inclined to accept most readily those who add extra comforts to already comfortable lives. Highly-skilled physicians, engineers and top athletes from anywhere in the world are welcome; not welcome are impoverished refugees and immigrants (including ethnic Hungarians from outside the borders), who are being regularly deported by means of the most sophisticated administrative sleights of hand, while at the same time huge sums are being collected for the victims of distant disasters such as the recent tsunami.

What is it really that the Roma themselves must do to become members of Hungarian society with full rights? The majority of young Roma speak Hungarian, have finished elementary school, have permanent homes and are trying to live normally in modern housing: they are basically culturally assimilated. While at present much stress has been placed on cultural differences, it is generally accepted that they are not of a kind which would seriously hinder assimilation. Much more conspicuous are the social disadvantages - social and domicile segregation - which are both the causes and the results of segregation at school and which, in turn, result in massive unemployment. István Kemény has continuously warned us that the majority of the Roma are burdened by complex synergistically intensifying disadvantages, which can only be alleviated by a comprehensive government programme for integration. He emphasises four major factors which play a crucial role in unemployment and pauperisation. One is segregation at the domicile level; Roma typically live in small villages which are difficult to access in economically backward regions. The "Gypsification" of villages or sub-regions (for instance, the hamlets in the counties of Borsod and Baranya, which are discussed separately by Kemény) contributes to long-term segregation; these regions have no available jobs and lack an institutional infrastructure, which, in turn, intensifies their backwardness. The second key problem is that of schooling. As it now functions, the school entry system relegates Roma children to low-standard training, or they end up in a cul-de-sac - in Hungary's, so-called "medium-standard trade training," which provides no skills and no certification of any use. The third cause is that the unskilled were employed in massive numbers in "socialist times" in precisely those industries which have suffered the most devastating crisis in the aftermath of the political and economic changes after 1989. All this is made worse by ethnic discrimination, based primarily on skin colour, but also on features such as speech, surname and address.
What really makes discrimination especially grave in this case is that the position of these people is extremely fragile. They do not have sufficient resources to compensate them for failures suffered. Discrimination, where it exists, does not hit rich and poor equally; in that sense (or also in that sense) there is an enormous difference between discrimination in general (e.g. the "Jewish question") and the "Gypsy question". Roma poverty is not simply a lack of money. It includes the disadvantages incurred by lack of literacy and organisation, and by a low degree of institutionalisation - that is, the near impossibility of asserting their own interests.
It follows that there is obviously a world of difference between the discrimination suffered by a poor and a well-to-do Roma. For the well-off, even though discrimination is far from negligible, it is not necessarily an obstacle that cannot be overcome; for the poor, the chance of upward mobility is barred ultimately by the same discrimination. The sole possible conclusion is that it is only by dealing with these social disadvantages that integration can be achieved and discrimination overcome. Those who suffer from it are in the best position to combat discrimination. Where the government may help is to place them in a position in which they at least have a chance to succeed in this struggle. Without this, formal "anti-discrimation programmes" and "tolerance-developing programmes" are futile, since they have but a supporting role in the process. Future governments must decide whether they want to take the problem seriously. Sufficient economic resources are now available for various projects. When, however, large sums are spent to help better-off families finance new homes, rather than to launch a welfare programme for building affordable public housing, it becomes painfully clear that no priority has been given to help those who would like to leave an underdeveloped region and seek employment in a better developed one but are prevented from doing so by the absence of an affordable home.
István Kemény, Béla Janky and Gabriella Lengyel's book does not make for easy reading. Some may complain that figures dominate, and the style is rather dry. That, however, is unavoidable, given the purpose of the authors. Their aim, after all, was to provide the hard facts to which people wishing to comment on this subject should refer. They will find them on the relevant pages of this book.

 

Balázs Wizner
is working on his Ph.D. at the Institute of Sociology at Eötvös Loránd University, Budapest. His fields of interest are minorities and civil society.