Printed 03.10.2023 23:53 Much as it did in Czech society, life among the Roma changed drastically after November 1989. A part of the Roma began to search for their identity and to open their culture. They started to put out Romani periodicals and works of original Romani literature, and started to speak of the Roma as a distinct ethnic minority with the right to education in their mother tongue. The post-November developments had another side, however, as the Roma have faced high unemployment (as a consequence of their low skill levels and the prejudice they face from many employers), the loss of the social safety net with which the socialist state ensured their submission (as well as that of the rest of Czech society), and most of all, the rapid rise in acts of physical violence towards the Roma. Copyright © Radio Praha, 1996 - 2003 |