Commentary: Czech MP Řápková shines again, or, the am ha-aretz speaks of human rights

Ivana Řápková, the former mayor of Chomutov who today is an MP for the Civic Democrats (ODS), is playing another hit song of hers, further proof that she knows nothing about democracy and human rights or the principles they involve. Together with other mayors (see their declaration) she wants to pass a law that would make it possible for towns and villages to ban the perpetrators of misdemeanors from residing in that town or village for one year. Not only that, but she is amazed that Roma people are speaking out against this law.

“Nowhere is it written that this concerns Roma,” Řápková told news server iDNES.cz. “It is not completely clear to me why Roma organizations are the ones speaking out about this. The introduction of this new sanction is meant to address misdemeanors irrespective of who commits them. If the Roma organizations are speaking out, it can only be because they have not read my bill. Or are they trying to say that it is Roma who commit these misdemeanors? That is nonsense from my point of view,” – this from the same Řápková, who as mayor of Chomutov became infamous for a crusade against Roma people which took the form of illegally confiscating their welfare benefits.

Řápková is also sure that these proposals and ones like them will not radicalize society and are not playing iinto the hands of ultra-right extremists. She is seriously a having hard time here. How is she supposed to differentiate herself from the danger of ultra-right extremism when her own actions and verbal nonsense are bringing her closer and closer to the extreme right one gigantic step at a time?

Roma people are speaking up about her idea and the mayors’ declaration because they logically see a new anti-Roma crusade behind it. They are also speaking up because their families endured harsh experiences with bans on residency during the First Republic.

Čeněk Růžička, chair of the Committee for the Redress of the Roma Holocaust in the Czech Republic (Výbor pro odškodnění romského holocaustu v ČR) spoke out vigorously in an open letter to Czech PM Petr Nečas that was published by news server Romea.cz: “We do not not want our lives to be influenced by politicians suffering from anti-Roma phobia. We, the surviving relatives of the Roma victims of Nazism, equipped with the experiences of our parents and of our other Roma relatives who were concentration camp prisoners – experiences which evidently testify not only to Nazism and the relationship of the Protectorate towards it, but also to events during the First Republic – are following very attentively and with concern the development of the deterioration in relations between a large number of inhabitants and leading politicians in the Czech Republic and the Roma people… Heartless reductions to social welfare benefits, combined with rising rents, rising costs for almost everything one needs to live, and the introduction of sanctions banning residency would provoke tragic changes in the lives of impoverished Roma people and others who are socially deprived. Czech society would also radicalize against Roma people even more. The final result of that would fundamentally cost much more in the long term, both as a greater burden on the state budget and in terms of damage to the reputation of our country in the European Union.”

Karel Holomek, another outstanding public personality, spoke out about the mayors’ declaration in an article entitled “Czech mayors’ declaration is amateurish nonsense!” (“Prohlášení starostů – amatérský nesmysl”): “Point 1b calls for banning residency, including a definition of the concept of ‘nighttime quiet’. Nothing against nighttime quiet, but we don’t need a law for that – any town can issue its own decree on that issue. The town cop can keep track of that himself even if the mayor doesn’t order him to. However, it is well-known that it is impossible to ban residency anywhere in Europe, so how is it supposed to become possible in Czech towns and villages? If something like that is going to work, it has to be for legal reasons. A court would have to decide on an individual basis whom such a ban might concern, and why. Clearly, obviously, it is not possible to make this a general option, not to generalize it such that it fits a certain group, which is evidently what the mayors have in mind. We have already said a thousand times that shifting these problems from one community to another is not the solution. That has already been attempted and condemned, hasn’t it?”

Luckily, ODS still has some democratic politicians in its ranks. Czech Justice Minister Jiří Pospíšil (ODS) has already said he sees a problem with MP Řápková’s idea because only the courts can prohibit people from residency. Řápková responded to that clear statement as follows: “We will discuss that soon. I have spoken with my fellow MPs who have also been mayors, and they are in favor of it.”

The severity of war, the experience with Nazism, the deprivations suffered during communist totalitarianism, and the “goulash” that was the normalization era each constituted significant setbacks to the way human rights are regarded in this country. Politicians like Řápková want to return us to the days prior to WWII. The experiences of those days, the misery they produced, is fading away, as if nothing happened in the 20th century from which we should learn a lesson. It seems the infection these politicians carry is becoming a pandemic.

In Yiddish, European Jews used to call such people the am ha-aretz. This word had multiple meanings: A blockhead, a vulgar, boorish, uneducated person, a heathen, etc. The folk saying is: The am ha-aretz are happy people, because they do not know that they know nothing. The question remains whether such ignoramuses are to govern us.