Bulgaria: Two Sides of Every Story

Last night more than 200 Roma gathered in a Sofia district, most of them armed with pitchforks, stones, axes, and cudgels, for a retaliation of Monday night’s mass brawl. The spontaneous gathering of outraged Roma people was triggered by an alleged attack of a bunch of skinheads over some Roma teenagers. This event bristled up Sofia for the whole night. Not only that, but such a clash between the Roma minority and Bulgarian skinheads burst out into a wave of racism and mutual accusations.

Me, being unable to take either side in the conflict, chose to take in a third direction. Here is how it goes:

The story according to the Roma:

"We are constantly bullied by the Bulgarian, we are poor, uneducated, unemployed, the country and the Bulgarians do nothing at all to integrate us in the society, but we also have our human rights, despite being a minority. People look down on us, because we have nothing. We came out on a spontaneous riot because this is the only way to protect ourselves. Some of our people were attacked Monday night and now we fight back."

The story according to a large part of the Bulgarians:

"Those filthy gipsies do not have any right whatsoever to riot! They do not want to work, do not want to go to school, they do not pay their electricity, water and gas bills and they steal and beg for a living. Still they get social payments, which they spend for alcohol, they build own buildings whenever they wish, they do not fear police or army – because they have rights!"

The same old story all over again. Everybody jumping on everybody, racism, hatred, violence, anger… all of them leading only to suffering for the both sides. But suffering then leads to anger, anger leads to hatred, hatred leads to violence.

This hellish vicious circle can only be broken of both sides just shut up, bury the tomahawks and sit and talk. Like humans. Because we are all the same. Humans, breathing oxygen, dreaming, living, falling in love. Social status, skin colour, religion do not matter at all if they lead to violence. The guy that created us gave us the gift of speech and thought not to trash, kill and offend one another, but to live together.

No governmental, or any institutional money spent for minorities’ integration and social tolerance can solve the problem with racism. Talking does.