Item 6
Racism,
racial discrimination, xenophobia and all forms of
discrimination.
Oral
statement by the Transnational Radical Party, a
non-governmental organization in general consultative
status
Delivered by Paolo Pietrosanti
Geneva,
30 March 1999
Madam Chairperson,
This statement is
delivered also on behalf of the International Romani
Union, a non-governmental organization with status of
Category II.
Children of diplomats,
daughters and sons of many of the distinguished
Representatives of States sitting here, tendentially
go to foreign schools, wherever they live, wherever
the job of their parents brings them. Good mothers,
good fathers care, must care about the education for
their daughters and sons, and where it is possible,
they prefer an education able to transmit and develop
their own culture. Since long time diplomats are more
nomad than Gypsies: the vast majority of Roma people
live permanently in the same place for generations.
Madam Chairperson,
In a country where a
quite vast Roma population has found and brought up
intelligent leaders, a Gypsy school has been created.
In Kolin, 50 km. far from Prague, Czech Republic, a
Gypsy school has been established, thanks to the will
and the intelligence of the local and international
Roma leaders, thanks to the coincident intelligence
of the local Ministry for education and thanks to the
coincident intelligence of private international
foundations.
The Gypsy is always
abroad; and her/his daughters and sons have to go to
foreign schools.
We do not think that a
culture must be preserved at any cost. A number of
cultures have dissappeared, live no more but in books
and universities: this is the phisiology of the human
community. But the Roma people are very far from
dieing, from being estinguished: it is known that
just a few nations have been able not to disappear
even having suffered a genocide, and continuous
discrimination. The Roma Nation has been resisting,
resists, is growing-up; its members live in dozens of
States and mantain their culture and traditions.
The Roma Nation wants
to build Roma schools, where children, girls and boys
can study also - also - in Romanes.
Should States help
this will, this kind of attempt?
No, if it is just for
charity, goodwill. States must look at their own
interests; moreover, the UN Community should look at
the interests of the entire human population.
Well, Madam
Chairperson, in the age of globalization, none but
the Roma Nation is the most adequate one. And the
entire human community has the interest of exploiting
such an example. The reason why States and the UN
Community should look at the Gypsy example is its
adequacy to the world where we all live. It is urgent
to conquer the ability and the adequacy to exploit
the actual example of a culture living its strong
national identity since several centuries, without
any will to create an ethnically homogeneous State.
The history of the
Gypsy Nation itself cuts through the traditional
identity and coincidence between the concept of a
State and the one of a Nation. It is because of it,
it is because of the interest of each and every
individual represented and organized in States that
States themselves and the UN Community should help
the Gypsy Nation, in a mutual exchange.
It is evident and
known that the ancient concept of the state as the
coincidence of a people and a territory does not fit
the new scene of the world anymore. Economy and
information are progressively getting global, and
they move and develop across state and cultural
borders.
Isn't such a
characteristic of the Gypsy culture and tradition and
way of life a treasure for the entire human
community? It is a treasure which should be in the
very core of the current cultural and political
international debates.
We are grateful to
Minister Tarja Halonen of Finland and to Minister
Bronislaw Geremek of Poland who did not forget the
Roma Nation. Minister Geremek said in his speech here
that the need for defending human rights does not
have an end when democracy prevails. That is true,
such as it is true that there cannot be human rights
out of democracy, democratic institutions, rule of
law.
Racism is something
which belongs to the soul and the mind of each and
every human being. Diversities still produce fears.
It is not the psychological racism which can
realistically be eradicated: it belongs to the inner
soul of the human being. The only solution is the
implementation of Right and Law, and of international
and transnational political and juridical
institutions. Racism has always come out of
inadequacy of rules and institutions toward human
needs and changes.
It is of specific
interest of the UN Community exploiting the political
and cultural treasure coming from Gypsies. It is
because of this interest that we ask the UN Community
and States to help themselves, while helping Roma
Nation to create Gypsy schools wherever Gypsies live.
It is for the sake of
You that the future new leading class of Gypsies
should be helped to grow-up.
Madam Chairperson,
while we ask once
again the Commission to charge the Special Rapporteur
to deliver a Special Report on racial discrimination
against Gypsies, since Gypsies are members of one
Nation wherever they live, we ask also the Commission
to invite States to invest in culture, and in a
culture needed by all of us.
There is a Nation, and
it does not want to be a state. Those individuals who
are member of such a Nation can, should have a
status. The International Law knows already juridical
forms in this field - and it is enough to think of
the example of the Knights of Malta. The UN system
can and should go on creating and looking for
juridical institutions able to give an answer to the
new needs of the human community.
In the last days a
working group charged to prepare the World Conference
on Racism and Racial Discrimination has been sitting.
We ask a specific item regarding the Roma Nation to
be included in its agenda. A specific session,
because of the specificity of such a Nation.
Thank You, Madam
Chairperson.
