Jarmila Balážová to become spokesperson for Czech Human Rights Minister

Jarmila Balážová, the chair of the administrative board of ROMEA, o.p.s. and the editor-in-chief of the monthly Romano voďi, is leaving those positions after 12 years. She will become the spokesperson for Jiří Dienstbier, Minister of Human Rights, Equal Opportunities and Legislation who chairs the Czech Government’s Legislative Council, and will also manage a government department.

News server Romea.cz interviewed Ms Balážová about the transition:

Q:  What is it like for you to be leaving the organization you co-founded after 12 years? You and Executive Director Zdeněk Ryšavý led the organization to win several awards, including the prestigious Alice Garrigue Masaryk human rights prize given by the US Embassy.

A:  It’s not exactly easy and I really took a long time to make this decision, almost an entire two months. Whenever I received similar offers in the past I have turned them down immediately, both for the sake of ROMEA and my profession as a journalist. Now, however, this is significantly different. I have done my best, for more than 20 years, to improve coexistence and the position of Romani people in Czech society, and during all that time I have also been a moderator and authored many programs for radio and television.

However, the anti-minority atmosphere in our society has deteriorated further and many previous successes have fallen victim to this, because the degree of poverty has increased and the number of people fighting to cover their basic needs has as well. Demonstrations, human desperation, political incorrectness – all of this is playing a role. I think this may be one of the last opportunities I have to try to achieve something more in my professional life. I also think the current composition of the government and the number of its members who might be able to do something on this issue really does afford us an opportunity to change our society’s view of human rights, its willingness to take an interest in human rights, to view them in a different way.

For all of these reasons, I ultimately agreed to accept the minister’s offer. The human rights agenda has a strong politician heading it now, someone with enough backing from his own party, a strong position with the voters, moral credit, and, at a minimum, allies in the persons of [Labor and Social Affairs Minister] Michaela Marksová Tominová, [Culture Minister] Daniel Herman and his deputy Kateřina Kalistová, and I believe he has an ally in [MP] Lubomír Zaorálek and others. In the long run, the Christian Democrats have also been doing their best for several years to find their own position on these topics – they haven’t always found an appropriate one, but their chair, Pavel Bělobrádek, has a completely different attitude compared to [former chair] Jiří Čunek. The new ANO party may also contribute interesting insights in this regard, and I believe Anna Šabatová at the Office of the Public Defender of Rights can also instil the human rights agenda with a new dimension – so we’ll see.

As for the ROMEA organization, Romano voďi magazine, and our other activities, it is not easy for me to leave them. We built this all up over a long 12 years, from scratch! I think that with a small number of people we have managed to create a respected organization that has a reputation for doing its best to connect the Czech media with Romani people, to influence how the media write about us, how our colleagues report about us. We support students by running a scholarship program, we have the country’s most-visited website on this topic, we help people find jobs, we warn of the dangers of the neo-Nazis and report on their activities, and we are doing our best to activate Romani people themselves. For journalists we represent an interesting, real source of information, and that is why we organize seminars where we can meet our colleagues from the profession.

There is a lot that has succeeded and naturally a lot still to be done. However, I know that the ROMEA association will continue its unfinished work and I believe it will continue to do a quality job, to do it well. Fortunately I am not flying to Mars, I’ll just be trying to help from the other side. I am close to the nonprofit sector, journalism is my life’s work, and I would be glad, should it be possible, to combine my contacts and knowledge from these areas in my upcoming work.                         

Q:  What about Romano voďi? You have led it from the beginning, it is one of only three Romani publications that are printed in the Czech Republic. The magazine is cultivating its own Romani authors.

A:  Well yes, I know, I really was not able to sleep about this for many nights. The decision was not made from one day to the next. Fortunately, I am certain that I am leaving Romano voďi in the good hands of Jana Baudyšová. She writes well, she is honest and responsible, she has a feeling for this issue, she communicates well with authors, including the Romani ones, so the magazine can continue to lead its own life.

I dedicated 11 years and a great amount of effort to the magazine, we found and supported authors that are close to it, and they will help it continue in a high-quality way so our readers will be as satisfied as possible. The great challenge that faces Jana now is distribution, but as I say, I trust her and everyone else at ROMEA. They are passionate about this work, they personally live it, and we will all remain in contact. Now there is nothing left for me to do but believe I can be of benefit also in my new job, that it will fulfill me and that I will have something to offer.

I appreciate Jiří Dienstbier, I consider him to be a competent, correct politician, I genuinely believe I can help him with the human rights agenda and its public perception, and I hope I will shift perceptions of aid so that people understand that for them too, during a certain part of their own lives, situations could arise that might potentially involve and concern each and every one of us. To believe that human rights is just about gays or Roma is such an incomplete, short-sighted view!

Right now an idea is being returned to play that was once proposed by Michaela Marksová Tominová, Jiří Dienstbier is raising it again, and that is that parents who share childcare time should receive a bonus from the state. This concerns everyone, after all! This works in Scandinavian countries, and we are definitely not just talking about making things more equal for women in their professional lives. When the father also spends some time with his child it creates a better relationship between them, he will have to know how to take care of his child in any event – this cultivates all of society, including the firms that will have to accommodate such parents. Just look at what a problem it still is in our country when a father decides to take his own child to the hospital!

Human rights concern everybody, and I firmly hope that as part of my job I will succeed in explaining this. I also hope that compared to previous years, the respectable politicians will start speaking up more often against their colleagues who try to score quick political points with stupid populist speeches. Some voters go for that because of their own desperation, and sometimes because of their naiveté and resentment as well.   

Q:  Do you have any wishes for ROMEA, o.p.s. and the readers of Romano voďi? 

A:  Absolutely, I want to thank everyone for their long years of cooperation, motivation, opinions and reactions. I wish everyone a lot of energy, strength, and the talent to view things with detachment, to perceive what is important in life, and naturally I hope that ROMEA continues to succeed in changing headlines and keeping an eye on politicians – now that also includes me – in its output, and that it won’t ever let itself be pushed into a corner.