Romani candidate for Czech Social Democrats: Politicians must have the courage to condemn racist demonstrations

The Czech daily Hospodářské noviny has interviewed David Beňák, a Romani man actively involved in ethnic issues whom the Prague cell of the Czech Social Democrats (ČSSD) has placed as number 9 on their candidate list for the lower house. The 34-year-old social worker says political courage is lacking in the current atmosphere in the Czech Republic.

"The prime minister or any other highly-placed politician should stand up and clearly, sharply denounce the [ongoing anti-Romani] demonstrations. They should be saying, without discussion, that we don’t want this here," Beňák believes.

The candidate has been advising the Office of the Government on the issue of the Romani minority for 12 years. He was born in Teplice and grew up in the village of Bílina. 

Beňák graduated from the Social-Legal High School in Most and then earned his Master’s in education at Charles University in Prague, where he is now completing his doctorate. Since 2005 he has been working as the head of health and social affairs department for the Prague 14 municipality.

"Up until 1989 or 1990, interpersonal relationships, relationships between neighbors, were better here, they were warmer. Then people became estranged from one another. People began to point the finger at the Roma more and more. The anti-Romani movements and sentiments in the north of the country have always been very strong, even in the Moravian-Silesian Region. I experienced a sign that said ‘We don’t serve Roma’ in the restaurant at the train station in Most. It used to be posted in main hall but it hasn’t been there for years. I went there as a high school student. I sat at a table, the waiter avoided me for about 15 minutes, so I stopped him and asked him if I could order something. He told me to read the sign on the door. He couldn’t say it and look me in the eyes," Beňák said in the interview for the Czech daily Hospodářské noviny.    

Beňák hopes the social tensions in the country will not escalate further. "If people were to move from their words to action, there would probably really be pogroms here, as some have been calling them in the media. That fills me with horror, because we are supposed to be a state that doesn’t need to do this kind of thing. The fact that we have a welfare system is legitimate, it’s in order. I don’t understand how people can believe the mendacious stories and rumors going around. There are quite a few crooks in this country, but that doesn’t mean we don’t live under the rule of law. For example, it’s not possible for welfare to be disbursed in any way other than that specified by law. It’s no fun to try to live on CZK 3 000 per month, or for a three-member family to live on CZK 7 000. Yes, there are families that draw CZK 20 000 in welfare monthly, but they have eight members… I am afraid of a situation in which these tensions explode. If they do, no rational argument or explanation will succeed," he said.

Q:  How did you get into social work?

At the age of 19, when I finished the industrial machining school, I decided to continue my education. I applied to a technical school, but my dream was to do social work. I got the chance and I decided to attend a professional college instead of all of the universities that accepted me. That led me to politics. I told myself that the system has to be changed. However, I have been completely unable to do this as a bureaucrat, or as a student. Then I met Vlastimil Aubrecht, an MP for the ČSSD. Of the left-wing parties, the ČSSD seemed like the only possible alternative to me. The right was never tempting to me, I am a social worker in my soul, and I used to connect providing assistance to others with the left. Today I know it’s not like that, it’s mostly about individual people, not necessarily a political direction.

Q:  Have you experienced any other forms of discrimination?

A:  My parents divorced when I was five or six and then my mother went blind, and she decided to raise me and my sister on her own. We came under the supervision of the social welfare department in about 1985. I’m the older sibling, so I did the shopping, made all the arrangements, accompanied my mother whenever she went somewhere – so even after the revolution I became familiar with receiving welfare. I didn’t always like how the bureaucrats behaved toward us, I wanted to change that.

Q:  How did they treat you?

A:  They were cold, a bit superior. Maybe it was because social work was connected with authority, with the exercise of power, and advice and assistance were pushed to the back burner. I didn’t like it that they never explained many things to me. It bothers me to this day, it’s become my parameter for quality.

Q:  You have been leading the Prague 14 social department for eight years. Are you succeeding in changing its approach toward clients?

A:  I think so. I have also encountered female colleagues who were completely clear that a Romani man cannot be their boss, that it was unacceptable to them. I was 26 when I started here, I was young, but I was socially mature because I had always taken care of my mother. The whole approach must be based on respect for people. Everyone, irrespective of whether they are poor or rich, wants to be respected. That means I greet people, shake their hands, offer them a place to sit, ask them what they need in a pleasant way. That’s the basis. Professionalism in this sense is deteriorating. 

Q:  In your experience, is the majority society’s relationship to Romani people deteriorating?

A:  It’s not improving, not even among young people – it used to be said that they wouldn’t have prejudices. They take on these prejudices, they have no experience of their own, but it’s modern to spit at people now, no one will think badly of them for it, they’re practically considered hot shots for doing it. It makes me sick. What is worse now is that in some regions people are living in even worse conditions, unemployment is high, they aren’t accessing housing properly. The state must regulate this, our housing policy is miserable. The state should tell people:  You are at risk, you have a problem, come into the system. If there were affordable housing, it would help solve the problem with the residential hotels. Those have to exist here, they do serve a target group, we don’t want to get rid of them, but it is unacceptable that families with children are living in them in shocking conditions. The children are being exposed to a world they shouldn’t have to see yet.     

Q:  The political parties, however, prefer to avoid the topic of social unrest and no one will want to open this up prior to the elections.

A:  It’s not an electoral topic, many politicians don’t know how to grasp it, they see it in black and white. For example, the Christian Democrats (KDU-ČSL) are proposing enrolling all children into preschools and educating them. Education alone, however, will not solve everything. We have now rolled out a comprehensive project in the municipality where we are connecting care and support for families with housing and jobs. We’re doing it all at once, simultaneously. It costs money, it’s also demanding in terms of energy, time, and the willingness to be flexible, to transform certain aims, approaches, notions and visions. Not everyone has the patience for it, but we must realize that it’s not enough to talk about the fact that children need educating. You need teaching assistants, you need to reconstruct schools so they are wheelchair-accessible, and there are didactic changes, teachers must learn how to work differently. It’s pioneering work, a bit, but it should become standard. In addition there is the question of jobs, the authorities seem to have resigned when it comes to facilitating employment. Any job facilitation activities of any value are now being purchased through employment agencies. True, there is not much to facilitate, for example, in the Most district. However, that means pilot projects would be even more meaningful in such areas. If they pass the test, they should become the standard.

Q:  Isn’t that plan a bit expensive?

A:  I’m not an economist, I don’t have insight into all of the chapters and tables of the state budget. I just believe this is about political decisions and priorities. Some people are cursing the EU funds for losing money and having various degrees of efficiency, but I believe pilot programs make sense. They cost an unebelievable amount of money, the ministries are spending maybe a quarter of a billion crowns on them, but they have to try. Once you have experience, you can’t say "that path won’t lead anywhere". The public administration needs more experience. On the other hand, it is a waste of money when a project meets the test, the experts agree it works, but then it does not become standard practice. The state doesn’t necessarily have to seek expensive solutions, it’s enough to get involved with matters in a timely manner. Why not invite crucial partners like the main enterprises in the country,  why doesn’t the prime minister, or any minister, sit down with them and say:  Look, we have these problems here, we as the state can only do so much, the municipalities and the regions can do this much, let’s try to come up with a way to raise the region up, to give it some stability. In the Šluknov foothills all of the traditional textile industry has disappeared. People are not even starting to work, half of the town is registered with the Labor Office and draws unemployment or aid to those in material distress. How is it possible that the state permits this? Fine, if industry can’t go there because the region won’t make anyone any money, then they can set up services and transportation so that it’s not a problem for people to find jobs elsewhere. However, they’ve even been cutting funding for buses, trains, transportation in general.

Q:  You are a member of the Czech Government Inter-ministerial Council for Roma Community Affairs and of the civic association Slovo 21. How does their communication with the state work?

A:  It’s true that when Petr Fiala became Education Minister the approach to the schools changed, they were no longer blind and deaf, they communicated more. However, it’s not completely as we imagine it should be, the participation of Romani people is missing. This is a shame, our participation in these measures should be visible, politicians should open their doors and say: We are interested, tell us what to do. I am against commissions, but in the case of political inclusion, when it is such an important matter, there must be a commission, there must be order, and everyone must know how to work with the [legislative] commenting system. So far that hasn’t exactly been the way it works.

Q:  What about other institutions?

A: I regret that the fight against discrimination in general is so terribly small-scale here. In the area of the labor market you still see job ads seeking "young and dynamic" people, sometimes they are even so bold as to ask for a 20-year-old. I am amazed this is still possible now that the anti-discrimination law has taken effect. There should be an institution here to find out who is placing these ads and fine them. The same goes for Romani people not being served in restaurants. In some localities this is still a reality, something needs to be done about it. The fines should be harsh, perhaps even enough to put someone out of business. The Czech Business Inspectorate (ČOI) had a brilliant network of Romani people who started working there as inspectors around 1998. That no longer exists. As far as the police go, there was a fantastic course to support various nationalities on the force, the trend was  working, but now it has been suppressed. People of color and different ethnicity must break through into these areas. We don’t have to reinvent the wheel, the Czech Republic was once a top-drawer country when it came to a Roma integration concept. There used to be a Romani adviser at every district authority. Every district had a clear idea and information about what was going on with the Romani community there. Those advisers, however, now remain in place only at the regional level. Now we have this modern word, antigypsyism, and in my view it is very fitting. Racism doesn’t capture the essence of this problem as well.  

Q:  Unfortunately, political parties are starting up here that are not openly racist, but that have such tendencies in their programs and statements, such as Hlavu vzhůru! (Head’s Up!) or Úsvit (Dawn).

A:  That’s because repeating anti-Romani sentiment means there is no doubt that many dissatisfied people will vote for you, and those are votes they can’t afford to lose. When you set up the equation this way I understand it, mathematically I grasp the result, but in principle this is bad. Those people have no qualms about rising to power by trampling on the backs of the most impoverished and the most miserable, making their political career out of such moves. That is distasteful to me. I understand they don’t have to agree with a policy of inclusion, we don’t all have to agree about it, even if it is based on rational reasons, but to do nothing but spit on others, to brandish "welfare abuse" – that term doesn’t even make any legal sense. The law does discuss using benefits in contravention of their purpose, but that means we would have to prosecute everyone receiving the subsistence benefit, which is not intended to cover housing costs, if they used just a single crown of it to pay their rent. That’s nonsense.       

Q:  What, in your view, should be done to calm relations between people?

A:  Bad relations between the gadje and the Roma are age-old. Empress Maria Theresa wanted to settle us, that happened, and what she didn’t manage to do was done by economics, wars, and the arrival in the 1950s of the communists. Historically these relations have been bad, but that doesn’t mean we should resign ourselves to that. There can be change, but we need people like former Czech Government Human Rights Commissioner Petr Uhl, or former Czech Human Rights Minister Michael Kocáb. Sometimes he was viewed as a bit of a comedian, but he did a lot of work without making big declarations. He went to an [anti-Roma] demonstration in Litvínov, stood up there and said "Do you all want to fight me? Let’s go." That has great strength, that kind of moral appeal, and that doesn’t exist here now. When these [anti-Roma] demonstrations are going on, the prime minister or some other highly-placed politician should stand up and harshly, uncompromisingly condemn them. It must be clearly heard from the political sphere that this is unacceptable, no discussion, it can’t go on like this. That has not been said.