On 11 October, František Ryba, chair of the Krušnohor Apartment Construction Cooperative, sent a message to the inhabitants of the town of Most through a spokesperson that they should begin informing the authorities about “Gypsies and inadaptables” if such people are bothering them as their neighbors. Ryba has traditionally always been harsh in his public statements – he does not pull his punches, insults people, and is not afraid to make racist attacks on Romani people.
Ryba does not pretend to be an aristocratic entrepreneur (one who either administers or owns 70 % of the apartments in Most!), but proudly proclaims his rudeness and vulgarity. There is no doubt that he is one of the most influential, powerful residents of Most and that his behavior co-creates norms and sets the tone for interpersonal relationships there.
Now he is creating another norm that is very close to the practices of the State Security forces of Communist Czechoslovakia – snitching and spying. He bears an enormous share of responsibility for how Romani people (as a “group”) are perceived in Most.
For years, Ryba has systematically called these people “Gypsies” and “inadaptables”, alleging in one fell swoop that none of them work, that they all leave a mess behind everywhere they go, that they steal, and that they destroy apartments when they live in them. In the newspaper he publishes, SBD Krušnohor, he is frequently happy to print photographs that he claims are of shabby apartment units “after the Gypsies” have lived in them, placing himself in the role of a defender of “decent” people against the “inadaptables”.
It is Ryba who has created this norm. What’s more, he has induced people to believe him.
What other choice do they have, after all – they live in Ryba’s properties, or they might own a share in an apartment cooperative or condominium where the Krušnohor firm is either the dominant shareholder or, at the very least, manages the building. Nobody actually cares that thousands of Romani people have been living in Most for decades, and that there is no clear reason why they in particular should be attacked by Ryba (or anybody else) just for being there.
When will Ryba fix it?
Through these tactics, Krušnohor is distracting attention away from its own dealings and errors. The cooperative is deceiving the people who are suffering from the steady deterioration of the situation at the housing estates in Most, the destruction of relationships between neighbors, and the cyclical migration of people in and out of the properties.
More and more families are rotating through certain apartment units. These are people who have no future, tarnished pasts, and indebted presents and, reprehensibly, who are being abandoned without any aid or intervention from the authorities that might give them the chance to change their situations.
It is indeed no longer possible for anybody to occupy some parts of the apartment blocks in Most – and not just at the Stovky and Sedmistovky housing estates. Ryba keeps forgetting to mention, though, that he is not just the co-author, but also the main culprit responsible for this situation.
In his public statements, Ryba poses as a victim whose property is being damaged and who must cope with that on his own “regardless of the state”. Instead, what he should be saying to the people who live in “his” properties is: “Forgive me – I messed up, and I’ll fix it.”
What do I mean by that? Krušnohor was instrumental in the final, third wave of privatization of the housing estates in Most.
That real estate has become the private property only of legal entities, especially cooperatives and condominiums. Krušnohor has become dominant again as a result.
By the time Krušnohor undertook to transfer its shares to the individual occupants of the privatized apartments, a significant proportion of those properties had already ended up in the possession of speculators, frequently people who not only do not live in Most, they don’t even live in the Czech Republic. It is those absentee landlords and/or shareholders who are renting their apartment units to risky, short-term tenants, etc.
That is the source of the biggest problem with the administration of these buildings and the coexistence in them. Ryba has yet to explain what he was after when he made those decisions.
He also has not yet said what he actually will do about the currently unsatisfactory situation in the buildings for which he is responsible. Judging from afar, it seems he himself is not certain what to do now.
Water of life for Most
It’s not just the specific occupants of Ryba’s buildings who are suffering from this treatment: All of Most is suffering because of it. This is a town that was already decimated once by the Communist crime of destroying its housing and other landmarks and relocating its inhabitants into gray, prefabricated apartment blocks.
The history and relationships that were severed back then are not being renewed today. Instead, the people of Most find themselves enclosed in a space that has been staked out by Krušnohor, by the mining industry, and by the political elite.
The city has failed to steer itself toward a better future, one that would not only address its lost identity, but also the enormous problems of the present, including the critical levels of unemployment and the destroyed coexistence between neighbors there. What is the Czech Government Agency for Social Inclusion doing about it?
In Most the Agency must start moving beyond the range of its own shadow. It must negotiate a strong position vis-à-vis the municipal government and put in place a team of top employees who will not back down when faced with Ryba or any of the many xenophobic politicians in the Ústecký Region.
The Agency must come up with a solution for the most burning problems facing the city, including the problem of its housing. There is no doubt that Most is currently one of several places in the Czech Republic where the situation in the area of social exclusion is most dramatic and that a clear, large-scale plan for resolving that situation cannot be avoided.
As a side note, I should mention that part of my own family lives in Most in one of those so-called excluded localities. Less than two years ago, before Czech Human Rights Minister Dienstbier dismissed me as director of the Agency for Social Inclusion, I negotiated the outlines of such a solution with the local leadership of Most, including the mayor.
The author is the Director of the Institute for Social Inclusion.
