The #humanrightsindustry is like a GroundHog Day.
#CoE, while lacking power at this point, has shaped #Romapolitics for some time. In the 2000s it stood as a #white, #elitist organization Roma activists aspired to crawl in, allured by #prestige, #highsalaries, and #benefits, as that is what Roma politics was about; not to criticize the system, but to believe in it, want it, outrun other Roma activists into it.
The #youth programs taught the vocabulary and mannerisms of the elite with the privilege to deal with discourse, rather than meaningful social change. Roma activists were to compete among ourselves to repeat the discourse as if we have the same privilege, and with this, to make white human rights elites say
“This Roma is too hot!
This Roma is too cold!
This Roma is just right!” and take us, usually as tokens.
THEY would save our miserable lives, so that we can have a year of decent living, sustaining our life on a democratic belief in the future in which we get equal chances, and not dread falling back to our generational poverty, depending on the will of #gadjegods of #democracy.
Jovanovic appears old and tired, there seems to be discomfort, skeptical measuring up co-speakers, as Roma know to do, on top of the layers of fear, and anxiety, dreading disapproval, rejection, and mockery, with our imposter syndrome, never good enough, fighting feelings, resisting them, going into the "I will show this dilo gadjo", and there it is, so visible drama on his face. So visible not to exist US and THEM.
The story he told is old. And, regardless of his elite status, I feel sad as for 25 years he has been telling the same story, looking at the same white people, hoping. He, who, as he said, became "somebody", or better was made by gadje as such, somehow now looks indeed tired from talking, or maybe of those same people, or both.
And white CoEs of the world will agree, pat him on his back, and there, he will seem to be a bit more relaxed and cheerful. The gods have provided him with something.
And I feel somehow shame. In the language of emotions so despised, I feel somehow deeply sad, as there is Jovanovic, "the best of US all", being approved. It just got stuck in my mind, the mechanism I remember I witnessed with many older Roma activists on different occasions. When they were really trying and they got gadjo approved in public.
And I guess the shame comes as it brings into my awareness my trauma of gadjo approval, the constant need to prove myself, the training to seek it, and relief when it would happen, although it meant in reality nothing.
I guess it reminded me of the legacy of obedience to white human rights overlords of democracy discourse and Roma politics, who were to be our "colleagues", but to keep their unquestioned right of THEIRS to define democratic conditions of my life, and the lives of US, Roma, to decide
This Roma is too radicalized!
This Roma is too apolitical!
This Roma is just democratically right! 🙄
Multi-Awarded International Investigative Journalist - IFJ - International Federation of Journalists (Homeless since September 2, 2019, Serbian gov threw me out on the street, very brutally, almost like in the Gaza Strip
1moInteresting event. Thanks for sharing! Excuse me, Mr Michael O'Flaherty, what about the serious violation of human rights in Serbia? Do you know anything about it?