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My aim today is to bring to your attention what I think is one of the currently hot issues
we are faced with: dealing with alterity under the pressure of redefining sensitive concepts such
as national identity.

To begin with, the contemporary multicultural paradigm faces multiple challenges,

somewhat paradoxically, given the democratic prerogative of asserting identity in terms of
ethnicity, religion and gender. The first two are interlocked most of the times as they constitute
the main sources of cultural identity. The answer at hand has been merely reshaping the legal
aspects concerning elimination of discriminatory and segregating attitudes. Has this been
necessary? Most definitely, yes. Has it been sufficient? Clearly, not. The turmoil we witness,
whether it is radicalized, therefore more visible within the media, or milder and treated as a
logistic problem, as it happens most of the times, is deeply rooted into how we historically regard
key concepts such as culture, alterity and image. A dilemma emerges from simply stating this.
How do we expect to solve an issue concerning axiological differences and cultural anthropology
through administrative and political policies? In my opinion, and hopefully I will be able to get
this idea through, the changes are to occur at the same depth, the perception and understanding of
the otherness. Sounds a little philosophical, I agree, however, axiology is increasingly gaining
attention as a viable solution.

Value, thats what this comes down to. The balance between self value and the others
recognition of you as equally valuable gives the level of satisfaction, crucial for constructive
intercultural exchanges. There are two aspects to be considered when dealing with how such
balance could be achieved: how dominant axiological sets impose themselves at the level of a
society and how the image of the other is reflected in the collective consciousness.

The concept of collective representation, coined by Durkheim summarizes exactly what

interests us, a distinct and somewhat independent entity including direct and indirect perceptions
of the otherness and resulting in stereotypes which substitute knowledge. The good news is that
stereotypes can be changed, in time and with a certain amount of effort, but they can be altered
quite significantly, at least this is what authors such as Joep Leerssen claims, and I agree with
him. Current stereotypes have taken quite some time to form, time during which the information
has been mostly second hand, therefore biased. This, combined with the classical definition of
stereotypes as shortcuts we use in order to deal with the differences we notice in the surrounding
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world, result in distorted images of various groups and populations amongst which the Rroma
population, who have been a subject of prejudice for as long as they have been in Europe and
that is almost a thousand years.

All these lead me to yet another question: what makes us chose a certain path when
creating shortcuts into knowing others. One extremely credible answer is provided by Ernst
Cassirer: the capacity to invest objects and processes with symbolism instills in us the tendency
to consider our own values as more relevant and more significant than of the others. Such
proneness is valid at the level of an individual but even greater at the level of a culture. Europe
has been on the map for long enough to experience multiple layers of cultural identity, starting
with national and culminating with the so called Western culture which became a predominant
paradigm worldwide. Within this paradigm certain values imposed as common and central.
Among them, the evaluation criteria commonly used in establishing culture hierarchies.
According to these criteria, a civilized culture is settled, urban and developed in terms of
technology. What chance does a basically nomad population stand to avoid being a target of
prejudice in this respect? None. Moreover, prejudices formed as the aftermath of the evaluation
based on civilization level have gradually been transformed into issues to be solved through what
has commonly been referred to as the integration, respectively social integration process. Before
I continue I would like you to ask yourselves whether you have ever had any prejudice against
the Roma population and if you had what they were.

According to authors like Emmanuele Pons and others who have studied the Roma social
image, the most common prejudices dating back into the traditional Romanian folklore refer to
negative features such as laziness, savageness and immorality. Coincidentally or not, these
characteristics are generally associated with nomad populations. Even important thinkers as early
as the 17th century referred to this minority in pejorative terms. A suggestive example is Dimitrie
Cantemir, an educated ruler of Moldavia at the time, declared that gypsies are lazy and prone to
stealing. The estrangement was so deep that it has led to absurdities such as the association of
Roma women with witchcraft, association still common nowadays. The other was feared and
qualified as evil.

At the level of the modern society these prejudices persist. The terminology may be
different: social inadaptability, refusal of formal education, failure to adapt to communal norms,
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use of alternative judicial and administrative structures. All in all they are still regarded as a
subculture. However, does their rejection attitude translate into resistance to civilization or does
it simply mean that their culture is different? I tend to agree with Albena Bakratcheva who views
a successful globalization founded on intercultural influences, on becoming educated in each
other's realities. Interestingly enough the author is Bulgarian, Bulgaria being another country
which deals with the so called integration issue.

In Romania communism used the ostrich strategy to deal with the Roma population
issues. Nothing transpired in the news, there was no debate, no public display of any information
dealing with schooling, employment, social integration aspects. Since 1989 things have, not
really successfully, started to change. The otherness scholars increased preoccupation with
modern societys melting pots does not seem to have made the matter less foreign to the average
major culture citizen. On the contrary, the pressure on the members of this minority has steadily
grown. On top of the already set negative social image Romanians associate with them, we can
place a relatively new escape goat role falling on the shoulders of the Roma population. In our
turn, as new comers in the larger European Union family, we Romanians display a form of
inferiority complex derived from the same major/minor culture classification. It is difficult for
the average citizen to accept that the cultural differences are not grounds for rejection but a
natural challenge to be encountered when faced with the alterity. The otherness should be
regarded as an opportunity to enrich knowledge and widen perspectives. How could this type of
positive attitude be adopted at the level of an individual? What about a society? First of all,
leveling has to be forgotten, even if socially speaking it is more efficient to assimilate a
population rather than shape the major community towards embracing diversity in any form.
Lets look at education for a moment, shall we? The education system found a recipe which
apparently works-standardization. I agree that standardization plays a major role. However, I
tend to accept its necessity mainly from the formal evaluation point of view. Teaching and
learning are a different matter. Since 2012 the Romanian education system has officially applied
a non segregation policy that I most definitely salute. The problem is that mixed classes are
practically Romanian classes, meaning that the content and resources never relate to the Roma
culture or history. The children in this community learn to be westerners. The result? Two
outcomes are most obvious. On the one hand, an increasingly larger part of the community
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ceased to declare themselves as belonging to the Roma ethnic minority sometimes going as far as
deliberately refuse teaching the Roma language and traditions to their children. On the other
hand, we have a rebellious attitude, a natural resistance they put up against a society that does
not treat them as peers many times. The latter leads to illiteracy, antisocial behavior and conflicts
with the Romanian community.

Each culture is immensely valuable, has its own growth rhythm and parameters and its
own particularities. However, investing the alterity with value has to overcome powerful barriers
such as ethnocentrism. Until the 20th century the concept of national identity had shaped under
the influence of thinkers like Voltaire or Montesquieu later developing into acute forms which
regarded nations as distinct ethnic layers. Belonging to a nation or the other was a matter of
cultural geometry, a term coined by Hippolyte Taine in the 19th century. Cultural geometry
consisted of a measurement method designed to establish the national spirit of a cultural product.
In this context, the alterity remained a strange presence to be perceived as foreign and mostly
inferior. The Roma population at the time had just been freed after 300 years of slavery; therefore
they were only tolerated, never considered to constitute a culture. Things started changing only
after the World War culminating with Ernest Gellner who viewed national identity as a
retroactive concept formed in the 19th century through the syndrome of false memory. However,
the Roma population did not benefit much from this change of paradigm. After slavery was
abolished the newly freed community had little chance to rebuild their resources. Traditional
trades disappeared and the fight for survival started with all its implications. Scholars identify
this as being a turning point and I agree. Europe denied them the right to develop and grow in
their own terms and now we sometimes continue to do exactly the same thing but with more
democratically acceptable methods: assimilation.

I will end my talk with a quote from a law in force in 1873 in Transylvania:

The gipsy children are to be relocated every two years in surrounding localities

The gypsies are not allowed to go to fairs or anywhere else unless necessary and only
with special approval

Speaking Roma language is to be punished with 24 bat strikes

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Marriages between gypsies are forbidden.

There are many more and they sound very much like extermination laws. Nowadays we
pretend all integration policies failure is to be blamed on inadaptability. To say the least, double
standard still holds. Thank you for listening. Now if there are any questions I will gladly try and
answer them.

Albena, Bakratcheva. (2000). From interculturality to Multiculturality in Humanitarian

Education, Sofia: Fourth Fulbright Conference;

Bourhis, R, Leyens, J. (1997). Stereotipuri, discriminare i relaii intergrupuri, Polirom;

Bhikhu, C., Parekh. (2002). Rethinking Multiculturalism:Cultural Diversity and Political

Theory, Harvard UP;

Emanuelle, Pons. (1999). iganii din Romnia, o minoritate n tranziie, Bucureti: Ed. Altfel;

Ian ,F., Hancock. (1987).The pariah syndrome: an account of Gypsy slavery and persecution,
Karoma Publishers;

Marioara, R.,Iulian, S.,Simona, I., Stefnia, T., Alin. A.(2012). Roma Inclusion in
Romania:Policies, Institutions and Examples, Soros Foundation Romania;

Neculau, A., Fereol, G. (2000). Minoritari, marginali, exclui, Polirom.