WORLD WORLDWIDE CZECH News Journal Update - (en) Czech, AFED: A3: Hate does not replace dignity (ca, de, it, pt, tr)[machine translation]

 By being marginalized (instead of targeting the right targets) by hating other

marginalized groups, they will not gain dignity.  ---- The tragic event that
occurred on June 12 in Brno and its reverberations lead to many thoughts. What
happened? Very briefly: The young Roma Nikolas was supposed to be noisy on the
tram, which allegedly was not liked by the thirty-seven-year-old man originally
from Ukraine. There is an incident after which Nikolas dies. ---- Generally
speaking of the parentage of anyone, whether victim, perpetrator or bystander, is
misleading and discriminatory, given that when it comes to a member of the
majority (however we define it), parentage is never given. This then leads,
intentionally or not, to the false impression that the problems lie outside the
majority.

After the news of Nikolas's death spread, including information about the origin
of the two actors in the conflict, another tragedy was started, this time
collective and in a way moral. Part of (not only) Brno Romani men and women
responded with hateful attacks (usually verbal) on Ukrainians living in the Czech
Republic.

Among other things, this reaction fully revealed how a significant part of the
Roma minority is influenced by conspiracy theories, hoaxes and shorthand false
claims. No wonder. The influence of such "news" and "information" is clearly
visible precisely among the poorest strata of the population, because they do not
have the slightest reason to believe the official claims of ruling politicians.
And mainly due to structural segregation, they belong to the poorest Roma men and
women. But let's not be mistaken, even university-educated people can succumb to
similar nonsense.

Conspiracies, if we can sum up the whole range of so-called fake news, have a
similar effect to religion - they provide an explanation for everything, you just
have to believe and the rest will come naturally. However, they also have other
"advantages" compared to religion - they are fluid, that is, they can change,
even take on completely contradictory forms, move from one topic to another. Just
as confession can relieve sin, conspiracy can relieve one's responsibility. It is
precisely because of this effect that conspiracies are so sought after - they
point to the alleged "culprits". Which is a kind of false hope in the times of
capitalist ruthlessness, when the ruling ideology imposes on us that we have only
ourselves to blame for our successes and failures. Therefore, it is easier to
believe that someone else is to blame, no matter how meaningless a particular
construct may be at first glance. And it suits the capitalist system - because
the new belief in conspiracies preserves and develops the capitalist ideal of
ruthlessness and the absence of solidarity among workers, and moreover it diverts
attention from the real causes of social problems. These causes are actually due
to social inequality, where on the one hand a small handful of the richest
appropriate most of the social wealth and the rest of the population struggles
with things such as unaffordable own housing, expensive rents, debt traps, rising
food prices, unavailability of various services, low wages...

At the same time, conspiracies are a trade item of the so-called hate merchants -
political shills, usually from the right end of the political spectrum. But let's
not be mistaken - all political parties that fight for power or want to stay in
power can do political business like this. Such politicians know how to bend the
fact that capitalism robs people of their dignity. Instead, they offer them its
substitutes, which manifest themselves in various forms of racism, nationalism,
homophobia... In their presentation, pride is supposed to replace hatred. It can
turn in different directions, but most often it is towards those who are
marginalized and cannot adequately defend themselves. Sometimes it is about the
Roma, then about immigrants, Muslims, the so-called non-adaptable, recipients of
various benefits, homeless people, LGBT+, but perhaps also non-profit
organizations, vaccinologists,

Some Romani men and women who encounter contempt, insults and attacks on a daily
basis have thus sensed an opportunity to assimilate into the majority through
what they continuously feel from it - through hatred. And that by pointing to a
common (artificially created) enemy, which Ukrainians are today for nationalists
and conspiracy believers. So they can feel their five minutes of false pride when
together with the hate mongers they can curse migrants from Ukraine. And all this
until the time when, according to the principle of collective guilt, which is
connected with this misguided thinking, all Roma men and women will be branded as
the enemy with a whip.

But it is heartening that some are aware of this paradox and refuse to accept the
simplistic view of collective guilt, which is nothing more than the most blatant
expression of racist thinking. And so we could also see Roma men and women
standing together with Ukrainian men and women and showing mutual solidarity
based, among other things, on shared experience with manifestations of
discrimination. And this is exactly what makes people different from each other,
not by any nationality or skin color.

A3 ( June 2023) can be downloaded HERE .

Download, print, share!

The A3 wall newspaper is published by the Anarchist Federation every month. They
are mainly intended for dissemination through plastering in the streets or
posting in workplaces and schools.

https://www.afed.cz/text/7963/a3-nenavist-dustojnost-nenahradi
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