Walls are going up again
Eastern approaches 2013-09-11
Summary:
IN A region where walls and fences come with heavy historical connotations, all of them negative, people are again erecting walls. In Slovakia, an increasing numbers of cities and communities are walling off members of the Roma minority making it even clearer how little they want to have to do with them.
Some 14 walls segregating predominantly Roma neighbourhoods have popped up across the country since 2008, the latest erected in the country’s second largest city earlier this month. The walls differ in size and scope, but all are designed to segregate the poorer Roma communities from their neighbours. While such walls exist elsewhere in Europe the Slovak trend is exponentially stronger than anything underway elsewhere, said Dezideriu Gergely, executive director of the Budapest-based European Roma Rights Centre (ERRC). “This reflects and ‘us and them’ rhetoric that says there needs to be a clear distinction,” he said.
Most recently in Košice, Slovakia’s second largest city and one of two European Capitals of Culture for 2013, a wall was erected to separate a densely...Continue reading