A GIFT FROM THE GRATEFUL AUTHORITIES
AIM, Skopje, December 5, 1996
The Skopje settlement of Sutka, a suburban favela which won its reputation for providing picturesque setting and a significant share of the casting for Emir Kusturica's film "A Home for Hanging", entered this autumn as nothing less than a center of one of 123 Macedonian communes. It should therefore not be surprising if one of the many grubby and half-naked children which, running around through mud or dragging themselves in the dust, gave a specific charm to life in this sordid cluster of shanties, was now in charge of an entire communal administration.
Namely, the commune of Suto Orizari which, apart from the mentioned suburban settlement, includes several neighbouring villages, was established during the last territorial reconstruction of Macedonia and the consequent reorganization of the local self-administration. However, it turned out that the majority of some twenty thousand inhabitants of the newly established commune were Romanies and thus the Macedonian Romanies got their own, albeit small, "state" and that happy kind that bypassed all minor and major problems rose to the level of a "political nation".
This autumn's electoral procedure made it possible for them to take the majority of places in the communal house of representatives and for the first time in their history to elect their own Mayor, although considering the level of urbanization of this communal center this should be understood rather conditionally, just as in all newly established Macedonian communes. Such an example has surely not been recorded in the political practice of the neighbouring countries, and there is most probably no such experience on the entire planet all over which the wind has scattered Romanies like dandelions. Naturally, except if that does not imply the ritual election of kings, tzars or grand gipsy chiefs in societies in which the minority rights are realized exclusively as part of folklore.
The "rise" of Romanies on the political ladder was practically initiated by their inclusion in the Macedonian Constitution. Namely, together with the Albanians, Turks and Wallachians they have been named autochthonous nations with all the rights that status implies. Some forty thousand Romanies, or 2 percent of the total population as registered by the last census, never hid their pride for being included in the Preamble of the highest state political act. The frontman of the political emancipation of the Romanies and the lifelong president of until recently the only Romany party once literally swore his fellow tribesmen on "treasuring this fact, which all brothers of the world will hold against them". Otherwise, the mentioned Abdi is a paradigm of sorts. During the time of social pluralization this zealous activist of the former Socialist Alliance imposed himself as a sole interpreter of the Romany interests and thus established himself in the "high" politics of the emerging state. The electoral "geography" made it possible for him to grab a seat in the Macedonian Parliament without much trouble so that in a certain sense he became a man of continuity.
Hooked on habits from the period of the Front self-upbringing, Abdi in Parliament usually voted in favour of the proposals of the current authorities, so that his vote was counted on in advance. Consequently, those well-versed in local circumstances link the establishment of the Suto Orizari commune with Faik's cooperativeness, actually see it as a token of appreciation of the grateful authorities.
On the other hand the time of social transition which brought only troubles to some, has proven convenient for the inbred Romany inventiveness. Thanks to its blessings the Macedonian Romanies have gone through a rather quick change of social structure and gradually joined the ranks of those wealthier, if not the wealthiest Macedonians. Businessmen who only yesterday started their business on cardboard boxes or simply sold "the original" jeans they held over their arm, are joining the ranks of the "social elite". Thus today the Romanies occupy a very important place in the economic, cultural and public life, and in accordance with their objective social influence it became necessary to shape the political one too. In addition to the already mentioned Faik Abdi, a place in parliamentary benches also won vivacious Amdi Bajram, a man who is more widely known as that happy father who had his first-born son married in a chartered airliner, and to be sure that the younger one will not hold that against him, he recently chartered a mammoth transport chopper from Bulgaria for his wedding.
According to the good old local custom that wherever there are two men there have to be at least three parties, a split among the Romanies too occurred, so that the formula "one nation, one party" is no longer valid. Faik Abdi has thus lost absolute control over the Romanies, and got a true political opponent in his best man Bajram. In politics too the Romanies behave in conformity with the traditional joviality and that political dishevelment with which they usually interpret life.
Even to elections, to which rigid rules of conduct apply, they go with "songs and guns". Despite all this, their political presence can no longer be ignored in the local social folklore. In any case, in the last election the Romanies' votes were much counted on. Having their "own" commune has put the Romanies into a position of serious political partners who deserve to be included in all negotiations, and not only those concerning communal problems. Therefore, their political emancipation has to be taken as a prestigious compliment to the current administration in this most Southern state formed on the territory of former Yugoslavia, although this does not necessarily imply that inter-ethnic relations have been regulated perfectly. Actually, some analysts think that the pronounced transparency concerning the minority rights is essentially an attempt of the Macedonian nomenclature to turn its back to basic contradictions which can turn the ostensible idyll into a veritable hell.
By: BUDO VUKOBRAT