Kamila Plachetková: Collective guilt is a dangerous instrument of hate

This tendency is not just dangerous, but it is also tragically well-known to us Roma from our own history. It is time to recall where collective guilt can lead us.

A history full of pain

Collective guilt is one of the most effective instruments of propaganda. Adolf Hitler managed to abuse its power in a way that horrifies the world to this day.

Thanks to lies and targeted propaganda, Hitler spread hatred of Jews, Roma and other minorities among the Germans. The result was the Holocaust, during which six million Jews and hundreds of thousands of Romani people were murdered.

That tragedy shows us how easy it is for people to become the victims of manipulation once they stop asking questions and start blindly receiving hateful narratives as truth. Another example of the horrors caused by collective guilt are the massacres of the ethnic Germans in Postoloprty and Žatec in the late spring of 1945.

As part of the postwar repressions of ethnic Germans by non-Germans in a reconstituted Czechoslovakia, at least 763 people were murdered, and according to an investigative report released in 1947, the number of victims may have been as many as 2,300 persons. Those people were executed just because of their nationality irrespective of whether they had something to do with the Nazi regime or not.

Roma as victims of collective guilt

The Romani community in the Czech Republic knows the repercussions of collective guilt very well. The tragic case of the arson attack on little Natálka in 2009 is just one of many examples of how far the hatred inspired by prejudice can go.

In February 1991, in the West Bohemian town of Libkov, a racially motivated attack was committed during which a group of more than 30 young non-Romani men beat to death a 22-year-old Romani man, Emil Bendík, and injured three others. In 1993, in the South Bohemian town of Písek, tragedy struck again when a group of skinheads assaulted four young Romani men.

Fearing for their lives, the Roma jumped into the Otava River. Their attackers prevented them from getting out of the water, which led 17-year-old Tibor Danihel to drown.

That case became a symbol of racially-motivated violence in the Czech Republic. Two years later, in 1995, four skinheads broke into the home of a Romani family in Žďár nad Sázavou.

The skinheads assaulted Tibor Berki with a baseball bat. The consequences of their brutal attack were fatal and Mr. Berki died as a result of his wounds.

In 1998, a similar incident transpired in Vrchlabí, where two non-Romani youths chased Helena Biháriová into the Elbe River. Desperate and with no way to escape, she drowned.

That crime sparked a wave of protest and once again drew attention to the deeply-rooted prejudices and violence being committed against Roma in Czech society. Three years later, in 2001, a 30-year-old Romani man named Ota Absolon was targeted with a racially-motivated assault in Svitavy.

Vlastimil Pechanec, a skinhead, stabbed Mr. Absolon to death in a disco. His crime was unambiguously motivated by hatred of the Roma and he was given a long prison sentence.

In 2009, one of the most brutal attacks on Romani people in modern Czech history happened in Vítkov. An extremist group assaulted the home of a Romani family with Molotov cocktails.

During the subsequent fire, two-year-old Natálka was seriously burned and her parents also suffered severe burns. That attack shocked the whole country and the perpetrators were given lengthy prison sentences of either 20 or 22 years in prison.

In 2012 an arson attack was committed against the home of a Romani family in Býchory in the Kolín area. A group of non-Romani youths yelling racist slogans threw a lit torch through the window of the house where five people, three of them young children, were living and another four people were visiting.

Fortunately, the family put out the fire and nobody was physically injured. The main perpetrator was given a four-year prison sentence while his accomplices were given suspended sentences.

In 2012 in Břeclav, a 15-year-old non-Romani boy made up a story about being brutally assaulted by three Romani men. His lie led to rising tensions among non-Romani and Romani locals.

In Břeclav at that time, the Roma rejected the principle of collective guilt and expressed their fears that neo-Nazis might attack them, declaring their readiness to defend themselves as well. Romani people in the Czech Republic in general are frequently accused of abusing welfare benefits, committing crimes, or being unwilling to integrate, even though the majority of the Romani minority lives respectably and does not break the law.

Another example are the ghettos and the segregated schools which spring up on the basis of prejudice and systemic discrimination. Romani children are labeled “problematic”, frequently without proof, and sent to schools for children with special educational needs, intensifying their social exclusion and the impossibility of their improving their life situations as adults.

These cases illustrate the danger of collective guilt and its potential to lead to violent crime against innocent individuals for no reason other than the victims’ ethnicity.

We keep repeating the same mistakes

The exact same application of collective guilt that has impacted the Roma themselves in the Czech Republic in the past is now being blindly applied by some Roma to refugees from Ukraine, without realizing how dangerous and unfair this is. It is alarming to see how some Roma today are being carried away by collective guilt under the influence of extremist propaganda, which takes advantage of people’s fear and frustration to divide society and spread hatred.

Just as lies were spread about Romani people in the past, today lies are being spread about Ukrainians. It is important to realize that just as it is impossible to blame all Romani people for the actions of individual Roma, it is impossible to blame all Ukrainians for the problems resulting from the ongoing war.

Each of us is an individual with our own story, and before we begin pointing the finger at others, we should recall what it is like to be the victim of prejudice ourselves.

Let’s stop this before it’s too late

If we Roma allow ourselves to be swept away by collective guilt and hate, then we are playing exactly by the rules of those who want to divide and weaken society. Let’s not be fooled by propaganda again, let’s remain steadfast in the fight against hatred no matter who the target is.

Hate just breeds more hate. It is time to learn this lesson.