Evicted Roma in Plekhanovo, Russia, after a local court ruled in favour of destroying their illegally constructed houses. Tula Oblast, April 2016. (c) Andrei Varenkov / RIA Novosti. All rights reserved.Roma have long been reviled as a stubbornly marginal people, steadfast in their purported refusal to assimilate and assume the duties of modern citizenship. Likewise, Roma have been scorned, pitied, and rejected by modern nation-states as a people without a homeland. In the twentieth century, Nazi genocide resulted in the murder of an estimated one quarter of Europe’s approximately one million Roma. Today, the so-called “Roma question” in Europe continues to be framed as the need to solve the “problem” of Roma themselves; too few policymakers instead seek to solve the structural and socio-cultural inequities that have marginalised Roma for generations.
European policymakers have repeatedly denied Roma a claim to rightful belonging, evicting Roma from their villages, cities, and nation-states. In 2013, one French official shamelessly insisted that Romani migrants needed to “return to their homeland.” Persistent anti-Roma attitudes in Europe continue to negatively impact the lives of Roma in the form of racist violence, denial of education, exclusion from jobs, and other human rights abuses.
The “Roma question” in Europe continues to be framed as the need to solve the “problem” of Roma themselves
