Patrik Banga: Czech politician causes a media kerfuffle about alleged local crime among Roma, mouths some racism and gets an EU subsidy - is this a good business model?

That’s the kind of information that began to be published by the Czech media at the beginning of August. Naturally, it always included relevant remarks from Čunek himself.

Now the news is reporting that Vsetín has won a subsidy of almost CZK 7 million [EUR 287,000] precisely to address crime in the Romani community. Suddenly it starts to make sense why Čunek began to play the Romani card again in the media. Naturally, this was about money, about pressuring those who decide on such allocations.

When one looks over Čunek’s statements, there are many pearls of wisdom to be found there. It bothers him, for example, that young people wander around town during summer vacation. Not only that, they repeatedly do so at night! They even stand out on the sidewalks and make noise! No, I’m not making this up, these are actual citations of what the recently re-elected mayor has said. Because Čunek has decided to combat all these “inadaptables”, he has once again chosen a fascist key and is singing his swan song about welfare.

Specifically, for news server PrahaIN.cz, the mayor opined that: “The state should cut welfare to those Roma who never work their entire lives and live on social support. That should have happened long ago. There is a big group of people among the Roma who do not work and who live on welfare their whole lives. A change of this kind should happen immediately and the state should uncompromisingly cut welfare for such people.”

One might say this is nothing new. It’s just Čunek being himself. However, the city of Vsetín’s website is reporting they have won a subsidy worth almost CZK 7 million [EUR 287,000] for Romani crime prevention assistants. City Hall has taken advantage of its collaboration with the Agency for Social Inclusion to access that EU money for the next three years. If the mayor had just kept his mouth shut, I’d be shouting “glory, glory, glory”. Could this really not have happened without the addition of his racist “sauce”?

There is probably no point in discussing the fact that most young people spend time outside and are noisy during the summer. I’d just recommend the senator spend two or three months at the housing estate where I live – where there are almost no Romani residents – to test what kind of a mess the local youth are capable of creating there. We suffered different displays of this all summer. Everybody among my neighbors looks forward to the young people going back to school and having no time to get into trouble. To say nothing of the small groups of people who sit inside the local mall for days on end. If our local mayor had to deal with each of those folks, there’d soon be nobody left who would want to manage the city, I think.

What Čunek is discussing, though, is actual crime and security. Something smells fishy there too. All one has to do is to look at the language of numbers, and one ascertains quite easily that the crime rate in Vsetín is not above average. The number of thefts during the last year? Eighty. There were 53 burglaries and 37 cases of violent crime. A total of 170 crimes. Is that a lot? It’s difficult to say.

Šumperk, which is of the same size, has similar numbers. They’re just “ahead” when it comes to violent crime. Records show 100 thefts, 63 violent crimes and 21 burglaries. A total of 184 crimes.

For a third example, look at Orlová. There were 130 thefts, 75 burglaries, 38 violent crimes. A total of 243 crimes. That’s 42.9 % more than in Vsetín.

The question arises: Why Vsetín in particular? Is something different happening there, perhaps, than in the rest of the country?

This was a thought-through publicity tactic to make the problem look bigger than it is so the chance of being granted this subsidy would increase. Did the mayor even need to defend the need for this subsidy? Why would that be? After all, anybody normal would be glad that Romani people would be involved in running the city, I am personally a big fan of all projects that are similar. Why all the media scandal and racism? Is this just Čunek’s “traditional” way of expressing himself, or are we simply living in a country where fascist rhetoric is how we secure financing and votes?

There is nothing special going on in Vsetín. The same crime is happening there as happens everywhere else. Why not try something that really works, though?

This tactic got the mayor re-elected, so he probably thought it would make his chances of getting this subsidy higher, right? Next time, I recommend he turns the tables. Instead of racist speech, present this opportunity as a positive thing. Involving Romani people in local security is something that will be quite functional right now. For Čunek to take that risk, though, he would have to not be the populist he is – one whose six-year mandate in the Senate ends next year.