Analysis: Czech media uninterested in civil society critique of senators' antigypsyism

The Senate of the Parliament of the Czech Republic is part of our democratic system and should therefore honor the Constitution of the Czech Republic, including the Charter of Fundamental Rights and Freedoms that is a part of that constitutional order. Senators who speak during sessions of the upper chamber are representing the Czech Republic as a democratic state governed by the rule of law to the nation and the rest of the world. 

Some senators are evidently unaware of this, as the speeches they made when discussing proposals from the Council of the European Union for improving Romani integration included remarks that no democratic politician should ever make. Examples of those remarks are given here.

The senators primarily involved are Jaroslav Doubrava, Vladimír Dryml, Miroslav Krejča, Jaroslav Kubera, Pavel Lebeda and Jaroslav Zeman. Their speeches (and those of some others) were laced with crassness, ignorance of the issue, lies, myths, racism/antigypsyism, a sense of superiority and the concomitant need to ridicule others, and stereotypes.

Some of the remarks were more than telling about those made them. However, we are also noticing that besides those involved in civil society and two or three politicians, no one else has found the warped ideas of these senators astonishing, and no one else has gotten worked up over them. 

It is also the case that far from everyone has even learned the remarks were made. The media has not bothered to report on this blitz of ignorance, racism and stupidity on the part of our lawmakers in its entirety, but has given just an example of it here and there and then dropped the matter as if nothing very serious has happened.

Of the mainstream media outlets, the opinion of non-politicians about the Senate debate was sought only by Czech Television. News server Aktuálně.cz has also mentioned that news server Romea.cz considers the remarks made during the debate to be crass and based in ignorance of the issue.   

There are many reasons why such matters are ignored by the media. The overarching reason is our societal atmosphere, which has greatly deteriorated in recent years.

As part of the process of globalization, views here on what were once recognized values are changing, and both civil and human rights indisputably belong among the values now being questioned. Postmodern moral relativism is ascendant and is indifferent to democracy and its attributes. 

Also as part of the process of globalization, we are seeing opinions gradually becoming part of public discourse here, primarily through the internet, that would previously only have survived somewhere on the fringes of society. Another reason is the fact that these senators are constantly make the public happy with such xenophobic idiocies by making similar remarks, for example, in the anti-Romani tabloid Parlamentní listy (or "Parliament News", which has no official connection with the Czech Parliament). 

For part of the Czech public, therefore, such sentiments are nothing new. The root causes for this include the poor state of the Czech media, to be specific, the poor state of its editors-in-chief, its journalists, and its publishers. 

The media closely follow various speculations and superficial details of unimportant topics, but what is truly important is ignored as if it didn’t even exist. What is important is political culture, and what is dangerous is when the legitimization of hatred, lies about Romani people, and racism, as well as the presentation of barroom babble as if it were the truth, is being performed by legislators who should be the first to know that such drivel has no place in a respectable society.  

In a normal country, the statements made by these senators would be the subject of arguments, discussions, and a media firestorm, not acceptance and silence. Czech journalists (most of them) pretend such matters are not dangerous for the shaping of our societal atmosphere and its mechanisms;  they feign disinterest in topics connected to the level of our political culture.

Once all these Doubravas, Krejčas, Kuberas and Lebedas have completely taken over this country, it will be too late, because the country will be governed by authoritarians whose political actions are motivated by hatred and primitivism. Maybe that’s precisely what suits (some) journalists.

In addition to the ROMEA association, the actions by the senators described above also bother other representatives of NGOs involved in human rights, such as Amnesty International Czech Republic, the Czech Helsinki Committee, Open Society Fund Prague and others. Individuals including politicians have also objected to them, such as Central Bohemian Coordinator for Romani Affairs and Alien Integration Cyril Koky, Czech Social Democratic shadow government spokesperson for human rights and the family Michaela Marksová Tominová, Green Party chair and former Education Minister Ondřej Liška, and Senator Eliška Wagnerová.  

It could be that others have already joined this chorus of protest or would like to. The media, however, don’t want to report on something like this, so we will probably never hear about it.