News server Novinky.cz has published an extensive interview with former Czech Human Rights Commissioner Michael Kocáb. Romea.cz is publishing in translation the sections of that interview related to his most recent time in politics, including his approach toward Romani issues.
Q: You were Human Rights Minister for almost two years. Besides gaining weight, what else did that experience give you?
A: The Czech Presidency of the European Union was an incomparable experience. I gave a speech to the UN General Assembly on behalf of all 27 EU Member States, and the very next day another big speech to the European Parliament. I ran several ministerial meetings in Brussels and many European conferences on the agenda I was responsible for, and there were a lot of them.
Q: How did you do?
A: I think I didn’t make any fundamental mistakes. I managed the agenda through careful preparations. Despite that, unexpected problems arose.
Q: Such as?
A: The discussions start going around and a lady might raise her hand and you haven’t the slightest idea who she is. You feverishly page through the participant list: What country is she from, how do you pronounce her name correctly? Blunders happen there most of all — often someone other than the name you have in your materials turns up. They just have a little flag in front of them and maybe its turned so you can’t even see it right. It was rather nerve-wracking, I mainly studied all the state flags in a hurry.
Q: What else did you take away from your time in politics?
A: That you can have a clean conscience even working as a minister. For example, no one ever even attempted to bribe me.
Q: Wasn’t that also because there isn’t much big money flowing through the human rights section?
A: Certainly, but a minister is not just responsible only for his section, he is primarily a member of the Government. I do not doubt that such things occur, but I personally never experienced it. The Government meetings take place correctly, all decisions are taken under the close inspection of many people. You won’t find many discrepancies in the Government’s materials, and if there is one, a member of the Government will always draw attention to it. Only the appropriate minister, however, can access the internal files of a section in which corruption might be taking place. The only reason for him to review such materials is in order to prevent such offenses. I think I passed muster in that respect.
Q: What took most of your energy?
A: The Romani issue. Someone was always constantly pointing out to me that during the 700 years Romani people have been with us, this issue has never been resolved, so I shouldn’t have any illusions that I would move it forward. However, I know that when people want something, it works, and I really did succeed with a thing or two. I raised money and with great effort enforced the provision of improvements to the Romani Holocaust sites at Lety by Písek and Hodonín by Kunštát. I also succeeded in boldly expanding the agenda of the Romani issue at EU level. In many West European countries they were already essentially getting somewhere with the Romani issue – in Britain, France, Germany, Spain.
Q: Please give us an example.
A: A mid-sized French town invests the equivalent of up to CZK 10 billion over 10 years into building social apartments for their Romani people. People must have somewhere to live and a way to afford it, otherwise it is hard to prevent what is called the debt spiral. I have seen these French apartments and I can say the Romani people living in them appreciated the town’s intervention and were maintaining the apartments in good repair. The situation there is incomparably better than it is here. The mayor of Dijon laughed at me when I told him that we let gambling halls set up near socially excluded areas. He closed all of the gambling halls in his town with the exception of a few small casinos in the very wealthiest quarter. In our country we have a tendency to make money on poverty.
Q: What else are we doing wrong?
A: We generalize. For example, we have a tendency to label all Romani people thieves. How many Czech people have done lousy things, how much money have they stolen – and I mean big money, much more than Romani people ever could? Does anyone here say "All Czechs are grand larcenists?" The media also do not familiarize the public with examples of good practice in coexistence between the majority population and Romani people – rather, they talk about failures and problems. That was perhaps best demonstrated by that guy in Břeclav who made up a story about being seriously injured by Romani people and slowly but surely we had a pogrom against them on our hands.
The full interview (in Czech only) can be read at:
http://www.novinky.cz/zena/styl/281335-michael-kocab-korupce-je-nasi-spolecnosti-prolezla-jako-rakovina.html
