Video: I'm a European Roma Woman
One of my current job's tasks is to monitor European Parliament's debates in those areas of interest to the organization I work for. I am sent off to the Parliament for work purposes, but I have to confess this duty amuses me quite a lot...many languages in my headphone, meeting new people, socio-political VIP's, cool building, unexpected fun at the meetings, a walk through Leopold Park...I like going there.
Often, participation to the meetings turns into an occasion for actual learning and reflection. So it was yesterday. I discovered that Hungary is the only EU member state who has brought a Roma to the European Parliament. Lívia Járóka is one of the new generation of leaders. At EU level, she is on a mission so that Roma can get their voice heard. What strucks me is that in this person, there are all necessary ingredients to bake a quite exotic and unpropable cake: being a woman, being young, Eastern European and from a minority group, certainly not a privileged one. And yet, she made it to the EP. Quite noteworthy!
Stories of Roma, Gypsyes and Sinti have always attracted me and I await the day that the nobel peace prize will be given to the Roma people for moving around pacifically since ages, without harming a soul, without weapons and without starting wars against other nations. Instead, we only know stories of criminality and failed integration, which surely are the only kind of story the newspapers catch and like. I bet the older collegues of Járóka in the EP make it a challange for her to be actually heard and taken seriously. I like this woman. Let's see if we manage to come face to face next time.
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