Le charme discret de la bourgeoisie

The lawn outside my flat is clean. That might not sound impessive, given that my country of residence is Sweden, but if you'd been here during the weekend you would be surprised. Valborg, the 30th of April, is something like the Swedish "Students Day", and it is celebrated with plenty of alcohol, and tons of litter in the streets. Think food left overs, whine bottles, beer cans, plastic plates, underwear, demolished bikes...



It is somehow odd, when you have once been to countries where people do what they can to avoid dirt, to note that for Swedes, partying is very closely related to dirt. The dirtier the better. It is interesting how a Bulgarian who likes cleanliness is perfectly able to keep a place in order, even if he or she is drunk, whereas a Swede loses this ability after the first beer. Once the party is on, normal values do not apply.

Hold on, you say - not only Swedes live in Sweden. It is a little premature, almost racist to blame this mess on the mentality of the Swedes. True enough - almost a third of the inhabitants of this corner of Sweden would not call themselves Swedes, but if you go to celebrate 30th of April, that is not the impression you'll get. You will rather come to believe the myth that all Swedish peopel are tall and blonde, for the people who ravage in the streets are predominantly blond and tall. All well educated with good manners - le charme discret de la bourgeoisie.

It is the class/ethnic dimension is what makes it worth blogging about the fact that the lawn today, two days later is clean. Who do you think cleaned it? Tall, blonde Swedes? Not so. I saw a few women of Asian descent, who surely didn't take part in the celebrations, and have personally met the slighlty disabled guy who takes care of this specific lawn. He is Swedish, but lacks in education and manners. After all, who minds cleaning up after themselves if there is an under-paied sucker from a different social group who does it for you?

And what is wrong with that? After all, it takes all sorts of people to make the world, and isn't it a decent job also to clean streets and markets. Undoubltly so, but I think most Swedish people visiting Bulgaria reacts strongly on the fact that everyone cleaining the streets is a roma citizen, and Bulgaria has a pretty bad reputation about discrimination. It looks like one kind of poeople cleans up after another kind of people, and we feel that it is scandalous. It is.

But what is different in Sweden? Nothing but the language of the street cleaners. And the fact We not only litter the streets, but indulge in polluting them, perversly enjoying the fact that it is someone else's mess to clean up.

Violence against roma in Romania

In an earlier post I pondered over the fact that violence against roma minorities seemed to be a on the rise in comparatively well-developed central Europe than in poor southeastern Europe. unfortunately I was not right.

Cotidianul reports in a long well written feature article how the Hungarian population in Hargitha attacked their roma neighbours armed with clubs, axes and spades. Unfortunately no one died this time. Hopefully no one will.

Hargitha is a village in the transylvanian part of Romania. it is populated with hungarians, romanians and roma. Of course all groups have a list of complaints about the other. But it is the roma that get hunted with clubs. Society should not try to place blame, but prevent any kind of violence.

Roma woman killed in Hungary. Not in Bulgaria.

Romanian media reports that a 45 year old woman was shot dead and her 13 year old daughter severly wounded yesterday in Hungary. Becasue they were Romas.

It is an enormous tragedy for all families involved, and for the Hungarian nation,of course. It is also a sad news, following similar stories. Roma people, just like Moldovan's turn to Canada as one of the few liberal haven's in the world, not because of povert, then they would go to Paris or Berlin, but because the increased violence agaisnt them in Czech republic.

The Slovak police was humiliated when the humiliation of two roma boys was filmed and spread online. Look at the guys in the film. It looks like this is not the first time they enjoy this entertainment. The video has been REMOVED from both Youtube and Euronews. Youtube blames the undue discussion... couldn't the comments be removed in stead of this very important witness to Europe of today?

It could happen everywhere, of course. The thing is that it doesn't. It doesn't happen in Bulgaria. This kind of reports reach us almost daily, but they don't come from Europe's poorest countries. They come from central European countries, countries that are way ahead of Bulgaria in GNP, civil society development etc. Wolfram Alpha suggests that Hungary's GNP is three times bigger than Bulgarias,just to give a number. (Wolfram Alpha's numbers most likely refer to CIA factbook)

I think it is of outmost importance for everyone, to consider this issue: Why is violence against Roma exploding now, in the most developed parts of ex-communist Europe.

Is Bulgaria more tolerant towards roma? First of all - there are at least as many Roma in Romania or Bulgaria as in Central Europe.

(Picture belongs to Wikipedia Commons)
The first thing a new visitor in Sofia sees are horse carts with roma picking trash. Bulgarians don't do that. Roma don't work in offices. They live encapsulated, and are discriminated in numerous ways. Yet physical violence against Roma is rare, and very few Bulgarians would approve of it, in spite of a strong fascist presencein the parliament.

Anyone that has seen films like Time of the Gypsies or Gadjo Dilo, knows that the relations between Roma and the majority population is far from easy even in these countries

(Footage from Gadjo Dilo)

Yet, these tensions do not turn as nasty as in Central Europe, at least not for now.

Is the economical crisis more severe in Central Europe? Maybe it is. Bulgaria is hit late, and large chunks of the economy are not really for real. The crisis might also seem less critical if you fall from a lower level. (see GNP numbers above). But yet, this is a simplification worthy of dogmatic marxism. If unemployment and poverty in itself generated violence, there would be plenty of violence here. My own experience tells me the opposite.

Maybe the key to understand this kind of violent frustration is in the progress itself. Maybe it is Central Europe's higher GNP, and more developed societies that generate the violence?

We have seen in history how societey turns explosive not in times of absolute depression, but in time of rapid development. Consider the Russian revolution, the -60's or the french revolution. I don't think Bulgaria is remarkably tolerant towards roma. But there is probably a remarkable tolerance towards poverty here. The horse carts are still natural parts of Bulgarian cities. And the roma are still pleased with what they get.

If Bulgaria, and Romania, continues developing like the countries have done until now, which would be a wonderful thing, within a generation there would exist a generation of romas who go to university, and start asking for the same jobs as Bulgarians. That will be an explosive situation.

Justice po Shvedski

Imagine that you have a dad that tend to end up in problem with other people. Imagine that he one day ends up beating another guy up pretty badly, but you don't know if he attacked or defended himself or when the defense became an attack... Bad things happen, don't they? I guess most of us would be able to forgive our dad also this. We might even accept that he has to spend years in jail. But could you imagine that you and your entire family would to go to jail for what your dad had done?

Readers that have vivid memories of Eastern Europe under communist rule, including today's Moldova, might not have too big difficulties imagining even this. But who would imagine that this is happening in Sweden. The year is 2009.

The story has caused quite a lot of media attention in Sweden, more about that later. Recently Maciej Zaremba, a polish born Swedish journalist I hold in high esteem, published an article about what is definitely one of the most rotten juridical scandals in Sweden in modern times. It is called "Another view of Vojakkala".

The village Vojakkala is located in the very very north of Sweden, were people don't speak Swedish but a dialect of finnish called Meänkäli . As you might well imagine, this place is surrounded by myths about men who drink vodka and kill each other with knife from time to time. There is no chance for any police to know what actually happens there. So who would be surprised by a feud between neighbours? That's what those people do, isn't it?

Yes, there is a feud. On the one hand we have the odd family Grönfors. On the other hand a mafiotic group of villagers that claim that the Grönfors destroy their village, and therefor during years have boycotted them. The Grönfors' have not been able to shop in the store in their village store, or to fix cars in the village for years. Because they are... Grönfors.

13 May 2008 one of the neighbours, let's call him S, parked his car outside Grönfors house.S hated the Grönfors more than anyone else did. Strangely enough had gone to some length to hire the house next to theirs.

He walks out of the car and gets beaten down by Allan Grönfors. With an axe. This gives Allan eight years in jail. Fair enough I guess. Allan's sisters get eight months of jail for protecting him, and his brother and father gets 6 years each for planning and helping Allan. In Sweden you get 10 years for murdering someone, but the family Grönfors are sentenced en masse to 22 years of jail. Almost "a 25er" with Solemnization's words.

And after all there are som worrying details. The fact that the murdered S shows up in court with a bandage but as live as I am writing this might indicate that Allan didn't really try to kill him. If you try to kill someone with an axe and fail your a pretty lousy murderer. Allan said that he was afraid and acted in self defense. The two guns and 36 bullets found in S's pockets might indicate he was not there for a cup of coffee.

The Grönfors were not a normal family. Allan had problems with communicating with people and preferred to communicate with animals. The only person he could related to was his mother. The mother died and was buried in Finland. Allan used to travel 350 km every day to visit her grave.

Those who need a word for it say that he had Asbergers syndrome, a light for of autism. Everyone knew that Allan was odd. But if you left him alone he didn't trouble you.

Also S had a history, of course. He was not supposed to be on the spot at all, actually. The police had banned him from coming anywhere near Grönfors, after a serie of verbal attacks and threats. For example he put up loudspeakers next to Grönfors house, saying that he had take his mother from the grave and what he had did with her. Etc. etc.

S was maybe the most active in the anti-Grönfors camp. But he was not alone. A mafia of local shop owners backed him. On internet forums like this it was discussed on how the Grönfors should be dealt with.

Interestingly, none of the close neighbours, except for S himself have had any problems at all with the family.

This could have been just a tragedy. But in stead it turned into a scandal, when the court put some strange sense of "order" above law, and refused to listen to the defendants. It preffered to listen to an angered local opinion that wanted someone punished. An opinion that was served exactly what they wanted by mud crawling local and national media.

This story left such a bad taste in my mouth. It is a shame for Sweden, a country with a good reputation in other European countries. A reputation we owe to people like Zaremba.
Maciej Zaremba is one of the few that has stood up in this case. Not for Grönfors, but for justice. The family was not punished for the crimes committed but for who they were. They were Grönfors. And they were roma.

Is the crisis coming to Bulgaria?

The much talked about international economical crisis has so far been invisible in Bulgaria, at least in Sofia. During the weekend, however, I personally spoke to some persons that spoke about increasing unemployment. Many international observers fear the effects of a jobs crisis in eastern and central Europe, fearing that it will raise the spectre of populism and hatred against minorities.

In Romanian Cotidianul I also read about an alarming increase in kidnappings in Bulgaria. Romanian media tend to be quick to report about whatever is not rigght in Bulgaria, but it does for sure not sound nice.

Hungary is on the front page of the New York Times today, in a feature article of violence against Roma people. And this film from slovakia, showing policemen humiliating roma boys has caused some outcry.


I hope the Bulgarians can keep it together. We're all in this together.

Garbage protests

 As far as I have seen, waste disposal is working normally in Sofia again. But today 300 workers from the company that lost the contract with Sofia Municipality, protested in Sofia.

 Unlike previous protests, this one was aimed at the municipality, and mayor Bojko Borisov, and according to Darik News all protesters were romas.

 The ex-workers protest against the municipality's decision to end the contract, and say that they have been pleased with their emplyer, that payed out salaries in time.

 The fact that all waste disposal workers in fact ARE roma indicates an ethnical dimension that is very clear in Bulgarian society, but has yet to be articulated in a political protest.