Edita Stejskalová: Minister Jurečka, Minister Rakušan, Senator Němcová, Senator Čunek, stop spitting on the Czech Constitution!

Radical hysteria

This is not the first time I’ve heard about the radicalization of Romani people in the Czech Republic. Just as in 2013, the same people are speaking about it. They’re wrong. They have been describing Romani extremism and radicalism quite expressively. For example, in 2013, it was possible to read in the Czech media that the Roma in northern Moravia and in Ústí nad Labem had a plan to arm themselves and build militias. Anti-white racism was meant to rise among Romani people. The commentators also did not rule out clashes motivated by revenge. In 2013 there were anti-Romani demonstrations in many of our towns. The passion of the neo-Nazis and their sympathizers was so intensive and socially serious that historians and media abroad (the British newspaper The Times) called the anti-Romani demonstrations pogroms against the Roma. The ex-post reaction from Romani people, though, was balanced and calm. In 2013 there were no militias and no revenge. Today, too, there are no militias and no revenge. Politicians have responded with silence.

Here’s my message!

Romani people have chronically enjoyed low approval ratings in the Czech Republic. As many as 63 % of Czechs feel either aversion or dislike for Romani people (CVVM, 2023). That’s an alarming number. I have something to say about that.

My message to you, Minister Marian Jurečka, Minister Vít Rakušan, Senator Miroslava Němcová and Senator Jiří Čunek, is that you need to tell Czech people to leave us Roma alone. Even better, you should tell them to stop discriminating against us, hating us and insulting us just because we’re Romani people. Tell the other cabinet members and the rest of Parliament that they should push the Health Minister to uphold the law on providing compensation to persons who have been unlawfully sterilized here. Urge Minister Vlastimil Válek to compensate the applicants before they pass away. Tell the other cabinet members and the rest of Parliament that the WWII-era camp for Roma in Lety u Písku was a concentration camp. Tell them how Czechs contributed to that massacre of Roma from Bohemia. Tell them that we’re commemorating the Romani victims of the Holocaust today. Tell your fellow politicians that Romani people were active in the anti-Nazi resistance and active dissidents during communism. Tell them that several Romani people have been brutally murdered by hate in this country. Their loved ones never saw justice. Tell all your fellow politicians, especially Senator Jana Zwyrtek Hamplová, that segregation has no place in our society. Tell your fellow politicians that the early release for the arsonists from Vítkov is an arrogant spitting in their victims’ faces. Tell them all that each call for segregation, every time somebody perpetrates discrimination, it is a fundamental violation of the Constitution and the Czech Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms.  

This spitting on the Constitution and allowing it to be doubted with impunity has been happening on the floor of Parliament for 30 years already. No wonder such spitting has moved onto the squares, into the courthouses, and onto social media and the regular media.

The Interior Ministry and the Social Affairs Ministry are suffering! 

What does this inflated “conflict between Roma and Ukrainians” serve? It distracts people’s attention. Specifically, it distracts people’s attention away from incompetence. It covers over the fundamental problems suffered by the Interior Ministry and the Social Affairs Ministry under the leadership of Rakušan and Jurečka, respectively. 

In the case of Jurečka, his incompetence is shown, for example, by his proposal to raise the retirement age. The citizenry most frequently reads this suggestion as the minister’s cynicism. I often hear people around me predicting they won’t even live to see retirement. Is this being done to save money? I can continue with the minister’s misunderstanding of the purpose of social work, which is also taking a beating on his watch. Then there is his close collaboration with the “Alliance for the Family”, a pro-Russian outfit that is waging jihad against LGBT people here. Generally speaking, that organization demagogically advocates for discrimination, hate, and polarization in society. It is also worth mentioning the draft law on children’s legal and social protection. There are serious indications that the child welfare field here could be privatized in future. Would would that involve? First and foremost, room for clientelism and corruption.

What about Vít Rakušan? How is his competence being displayed at the Interior Ministry? As minister, he has disseminated hate against Romani Ukrainains seeking temporary protection. His disinformation about their alleged Hungarian citizenship made the citizenry believe they are just taking advantage of Czech people’s solidarity with Ukraine. It was not true. A project by PAQ Resarch, “Romani Ukranians in the Czech Republic” (Ukrajinští Romové v České republice – 2022) refuted the “facts” of the Interior Minister, who alleged that a significant segment of Romani Ukrainians fleeing the war held dual Hungarian-Ukainian citizenship. The Interior Minister, and therefore the state, broke the law that covers this situation (Lex Ukrajina). Furthermore, the Interior Ministry drafted a bill on combating disinformation, but the minister doesn’t absolutely know whether we basically need it. He’s not certain? He has had available, since 2022, the “Analysis of the Czech Republic’s Preparedness to Face a Serious Wave of Disinformation”. Rakušan has also been ignoring the information about clientelism and corruption in his own party. All we have to do is recall the scandals of Gazdík, Hluboček and Rédl.

The unshakeable moralists, Jiří Čunek and Miroslava Němcová

Senator Miroslava Němcová recently claimed that if she had known how the scandal of former Prime Minister Nečas and his extramartial affair would eventually turn out [Translator’s Note: The eventual convictions were for far less serious charges than those originally alleged], she would have told him: “No, Petr Nečas, stay in office, all of this is a weak case.” (Blesk, 2023). That is not what she said when the Civic Democratic Party (ODS) and the Nečas administration were collapsing. Why? She was a hot candidate within ODS for the premiership herself. Instead, President Zeman appointed a caretaker Government. When it comes to Němcová, it is also worth mentioning that she has made excuses in the media for saying that she knew nothing about the corruption of her fellow party members Fuksa, Šnajdr and Tluchoř. However, she does claim to have criticized corruption inside the party from behind the scenes. The media have quoted her as saying corruption inside the party “crosses the line” (Seznam, 2018). Is that all? Her critique of corruption in ODS should have been a general one. She never resigned as their party member. She served in the lower house starting in 1998. Currently she’s in the Senate, for a change. This politician is known for keeping her mouth shut and knowing nothing. Or she speaks, but she remains faithful, while she speaks, to the idea that she knows nothing. Her recent message to Romani people certainly serves as an example of that.

The last candidate for most incompetent and useless is Senator Čunek. This former Minister for Regional Development is somebody about whom I seriously have no idea what the citizens will have to thank him for whenever his career in politics finally ends. Maybe it’s that he says out loud what others just think. In 2002 he was suspected of bribery, but the prosecutor did not persuade the court that was the case. Some media reported, nevertheless, that doubts about his honesty remain. However, there is no doubt that Čunek is a calculating racist and a chauvinist – a man who hates women. It remains a bizarre, inescapable fact that in 2007, Čunek admitted to having drawn welfare. At that same time, he suffered a serious loss of memory. He never was able to remember having personally banked millions of crowns. Čunek went even further than that, though. He said that if his application for welfare had been approved, then he must have met the conditions applicable under law. If we translate that into the wording of the Act on Aid to Persons in Material Distress, it means he was unable to overcome his difficult social situation through his own efforts and with the support of his family. Apparently he felt existentially vulnerable. What was Čunek even better at? He was the first member of a Government of the Czech Republic in history to be criminally prosecuted, in 2007. If I were ever to hold a dinner party for an idiot (like they do in the French film Le Dîner de cons), I’d invite Čunek.

A message to all the useful idiots

Now I will quote my favorite film, “Cozy Dens” (Pelíšky): “There’s this mischief that’s spread”. The sack of useful idiots has ripped apart and poured out its contents. They come in a variegated range of ethnicities, professions and social statuses. My message to them is: “Measure twice, cut once.” Otherwise, once the train is set in motion, no useful idiot will be able to stop it. In my opinion, extremism and radicalism are not the domain of the Roma here.