From Roma to Muslim and Back: Anti-Roma and Anti-Muslim Prejudice in the Czech Republic
From Roma to Muslim and Back: Anti-Roma and Anti-Muslim Prejudice in the Czech Republic

Author(s): Zora Hesová
Subject(s): Inter-Ethnic Relations, Ethnic Minorities Studies
Published by: Institut za filozofiju i društvenu teoriju
Keywords: Prejudice; Racism; Exclusion; Roma; Anti-Roma; Anti-Muslim;
Summary/Abstract: If anti-Roma prejudice was a hallmark of the 1990s in Central Europe, anti-Muslim prejudice marked the second half of the 2010s. The change of political and social order in 1989 led to the emergence of political radicalism and open racism. Many Roma became targets of neo-Nazi violence and far right rhetoric. Gradually, the courts, the media and the state have recognized anti-Roma discrimination as a problem and have slowly taken measures to implement anti-racist laws and policies towards a social re-integration of the Roma. Yet in early 2010s, anti-Roma protests erupted again in dozens of peripheral cities in the Czech Republic. There was a feeling that racism was back. It ran against the assumption that anti- Roma prejudice and discrimination was being tackled in the consolidated democratic order. Then, in 2015, along with its Central European neighbors, the Czech Republic was gripped by widespread expressions of anti-Muslim prejudice. The so-called refugee crisis was framed not as a humanitarian challenge but as a threat by Islam to the European tradition and caused large anti-Islam mobilizations. For a while, it seemed that a sort of an extremist rage turned from the Roma against another minority, and that the Muslim refugee replaced the Roma as a target of social frustration and political extremism, driven by the media (Romea 2016). But several years later, openly discriminatory discourse and sometimes violent acts gradually ceased to target perceived Muslims and began targeting LBGTQ persons and as well as the Roma again (Hesová 2022). It confirmed that anti-Roma prejudice remains a constant in the Czech public and that public enmity takes fluid forms.

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