U proteklih nekoliko godina, aktivisti su poduzeli mjere u cilju desegregacije i stvaranja inkluzivnog obrazovanja. Pored zagovaranja promjena u politici i praksi, neophodno je kroz pravni sustav boriti se s institucionaliziranim rasizmom i ksenofobijom. Značajnom pobjedom na ovom polju je presuda Mađarskog vrhovnog suda o segregaciji u školi u Gyöngyöspatu.

Gyöngyöspata je mali grad na sjeveru Mađarske u čijoj su školi učenici romske nacionalnosti više od deset godina bili segregirani od ostalih učenika. Romima je bilo dozvoljeno da se kreću samo u prizemlju škole i nisu smjeli ulaziti u druge prostorije. Nastavni materijali namjenjeni romskoj djeci su se po kvalitetu u mnogome razlikovali od nastavnih materijala za djecu neromske nacionalnosti.

U svrhu borbe protiv diskriminacije, Udruga Šansa za djecu pokrenula je tužbu zbog kršenja prava učenika. Vrhovni sud Mađarske je 2015. godine presudio u korist Udruge.   

Međutim, oštećene obitelji nisu dobile nikakvu naknadu. Zbog toga je 2016. godine pokrenuta nova parnica. Tužbu su pokrenuli pravnici iz međunarodne odvjetničke tvrtke   Allen & Overy, kao pro bono slučaj, odnosno, zastupanje na sudu bez novčane naknade. Nakon dvije godine, koliko je trajao ovaj postupak, Regionalni sud u Egeru donio je presudu prema kojoj vlasti moraju nadoknaditi štetu žrtvama segregacije u školama. Ova presuda je 2019. godine. potvrđena i od strane Žalbenog suda u Debrecenu. Predstavnici Europskog centra za prava Roma izjavili su kako "vlasti trebaju biti financijski odgovorne za štetu prouzrokovanu segregiranjem u obrazovnom sustavu".

Međutim, mađarski premijer Viktor Orbán nije u potpunosti bio suglasan s tim:

"Nisam iz Gyöngyöspata, ali kad bih tamo živjeo postavio bih pitanje kako je moguće da pripadnici određene nacionalne manjine, koja živi sa mnom u istoj zajednici, u istom selu, iz nekog razloga dobiju značajnu svotu novca bez obavljanja nekog posla?."

Osim što ponavlja stereotip kako Romi ne rade i za to dobivaju novac, Orbán nedvosmisleno potkopava temeljna pravna načela. Ne treba ni reći kako u državama u kojima se poštuje vladavina prava, naknada se daje žrtvama u znak priznavanja njihovih gubitaka, patnji ili ozljeda. Nesumnjivo je kako ksenofobna segregacija u školama nanosi ogromnu štetu učenicima koji su njome pogođeni, i prilično je zabrinjavajuće što mađarski premijer to dovodi u pitanje. Štoviše, Viktor Orbán je svojim izjavom otvorio je temu optuživanja žrtvi.

Štoviše, premijer je izjavio da "klasificiranje nekoga po osnovi njegovih sposobnosti za učenje i usvajanja znanja, nije segregacija već nadoknada znanja", sugerirajući da romski učenici imaju slabiju sposobnost učenja.

Pored toga, Orbán je opisao odluku Žalbenog suda u Debrecenu kao kršenje "narodnog osjećaja za pravdu" čime je jasno stavio do znanja da Romi nisu "narod". Nakon ovih izjava i čitave kampanje mržnje usmjerene prema romskoj zajednici, tisuće demonstranata okupile se u veljači ove godine, u Budimpešti, prosvjedujući protiv ksenofobnih napada od strane vlade.

Nekoliko mjeseci kasnije, u svibnju, najviši sud u Mađarskoj potvrdio je prethodnu presudu i naložio da se obiteljima nadoknadi šteta koja je nanesena nezakonitom segregacijom u mađarskom obrazovnom sustavu, koja je trajala godinama.

Međutim, vlada nastavlja izvrtati priču i predstavljati "normalne Mađare" kao žrtve. Laszlo Horvath, posebni izaslanik za rješavanje pitanja koja se odnose na Rome, izjavio je za nacionalnu novinarsku agenciju MTI kako je presuda "loša odluka koja narušava socijalni mir jer jednostrano kažnjava čitav grad zbog stvarnih ili izmišljenih nezadovoljstava manjine".

Taktika vladajuće elite u Budimpešti daleko je od inovativne. Iako je životni standard u Mađarskoj i dalje niži nego u većini drugih zemalja Europske unije, krugovi bliski vlasti se bogate na štetu ostalih stanovnika. Viktor Orbán koristi poznatu taktiku “podijeli pa vladaj”. Dok etničke napetosti, "kulturni ratovi" i sukobi s EU dominiraju javnim diskursom, vladajuća elita učvršćuje svoj politički i financijski položaj.

Romska zajednica, kao nacionalna manjina koja je izložena sustavnoj diskriminaciji i kojoj su oduzete jednake mogućnosti, je ona koja je najviše pogođena političkim trendovima u Mađarskoj. Međutim, nije samo romska zajednica u Mađarskoj pogođena. Čitavo mađarsko društvo pati od nejednakosti, bilo ekonomske ili pravne bilo nejednakosti u pogledu slobode medija. Ovdje je jasno vidljivo kako se društvene podjele, koje elita stalno potiče i produbljuju svojom ksenofobičnom retorikom, mogu izlječiti samo solidarnošću mađarskih građana i istinskim uključivanjem Roma u mađarsko društvo.

 

 

For the last three decades school segregation of Romani children has been an increasingly visible problem in Hungary and several other European countries. Many national and international NGOs, the Council of Europe, the European Fundamental Rights Agency, activists, and scholars have been raising the alarm on the grave impact that educational segregation has on societies and Roma students in particular. However, practices of Roma exclusion from equal schooling have persisted and in many cases have even deepened further.

There is a long record of struggles for desegregation and inclusive education which activists have fought for over the last years. Along with advocacy for change in policy and practice, it has been crucial for Roma communities to challenge institutionalised racism and xenophobia by seeking legal justice. One crucial victory in that respect was the verdict of Hungary’s Supreme Court earlier this month on the school segregation in Gyöngyöspata.

Gyöngyöspata is a small town in Northern Hungary, where Romani students were segregated from other students for more than ten years. The Roma students were restricted to the ground floor of the school and were not allowed to use other facilities in the building. The quality of the materials used by Roma students also differed significantly from the rest of the school.

In order to counter this discriminatory practice, the Chance for Children Foundation took a legal action claiming a violation of the students’ rights. In 2015, the lawsuit ended up with a judgment of the Supreme Court of Hungary, which agreed with the Foundation’s claims.

However, no compensations have been paid to the affected families. For that reason, a new case was opened in 2016 with the help of pro bono lawyers from the international law firm Allen & Overy. Two years later, after a long litigation, the Eger Regional Court ruled that the authorities must compensate victims of school segregation. In 2019, this decision was confirmed by the Court of Appeal in Debrecen. The judgment was clear, the European Roma Rights Centre reports: “the authorities should be financially responsible for the damage caused by segregated education.”

The Hungarian Prime Minister Victor Orbán, however, did not quite agree:

“I’m not from Gyöngyöspata but if I lived there, I would ask after all, how is it possible that members of an ethnic group who live with me in the same community, in the same village for some reason would receive a significant amount [of money] without doing any work?"

Besides reproducing the stereotype that Roma don’t work and get money for “doing nothing”, Orbán unambiguously undermines basic judicial principles. Needless to say, in states where the rule of is respected, compensation is given to victims in recognition of their loss, suffering, or injury. Undoubtedly, xenophobic segregation in school brings enormous harm to the excluded students and it is quite concerning that the head of the Hungarian government calls this into question. What is more, with his statements, Viktor Orbán encouraged the discourse of blaming the victim.

Furthermore, the Prime Minster insisted that „classifying someone on the basis of their capacity for education, their capacity to absorb knowledge […] this is not segregation but catching up", suggesting that Roma students inherently have lower studying abilities.

Additionally, Orbán described the decision of the Debrecen Court as violating “the people’s sense of justice” which made it clear that for him 'the people’ does not include Roma.

Following these statements and the whole hate campaign launched against the Roma community, thousands of protesters gathered in Budapest in February this year to protest the xenophobic attacks coming from the government.

A few months later, in May, Hungary’s top court confirmed the previous verdicts and it ruled from last instance that the families should be compensated for the years of unlawful segregation they suffered in the Hungarian educational system.

Yet, the government continues to invert the story and to present the “normal Hungarians” as the victims in the situation. Laszlo Horvath, Orbán’s special envoy on resolving Roma issues, told the national news agency MTI that the ruling was a “bad decision which upends social peace as it unilaterally and overwhelmingly punishes a whole town for the real or imagined grievances of a minority”.

The tactics of ruling elite in Budapest are far from innovative. While the living standards in Hungary remain lower than most of the other EU countries and the business circles around the government enrich themselves at the expense of everyone else, Viktor Orbán is playing the good old divide and rule. Ethnic tensions, “cultural wars”, and conflicts with the EU among other things are all set to dominate the public discourse while the people in power solidify their political and financial positions.

The Roma community, as a group that has been systematically marginalized and deprived of equal opportunities, is among the ones that are hurt the most by the political trends in Hungary. But they are not an isolated case. The whole Hungarian society suffers from the lack of equality – be it economically, before the law or in terms of freedom of the press. That said it is clear that the societal divisions - carefully reproduced and exacerbated by the xenophobic rhetoric of the elite - can be healed only by solidarity among the Hungarian citizens and that profoundly includes Roma.