The Government Proxy for Roma Communities Peter Pollák resigned from his post on Monday. The opposition OLaNO party nominee was not re-elected MP in the March general election. His term would have finished on April 30. On Monday, he bid his final farewell in Jarovnice, eastern Slovakia, being the village with the largest Roma settlement in the country.
The ex-proxy said that the reason for his resignation is the lack of support he's felt from both the previous and current governments. Peter Pollák also expressed concerns that the post of government proxy for Roma might be scrapped and replaced by a proxy for ethnic minorities. Nevertheless, other ethnic minorities are largely interested only in cultural affairs, he pointed out. "Roma don't need to learn to sing and dance. We can't put them together with minorities that have problems with presentation of their culture", he added. It isn't clear yet who exactly will take over the post. Most-Híd leader Béla Bugár has already told Hungarian-language daily Uj Szo that there are plans to create a separate institution that would focus on minorities.
Representatives of a petition committee for preserving the Office of Government Proxy for Roma Communities on Monday expressed their "indignation" over the fact that a Most-Híd nominee should replace Roma Peter Pollák in the post. The Roma are unhappy that ethnic Hungarian politicians should now decide on the fate of the second most numerous minority in the country, after Hungarians themselves. "Our concerns are based on experience from the period when Mikuláš Dzurinda was at the pinnacle of power. At the time, attention was paid mainly to issues of ethnic Hungarians, who were concerned chiefly with ethnic education and language", reads a statement of Roma intelligentsia from Banská Bystrica presented to the TASR press agency by Ivan Mako, senior representative of the Young Roma Association.
Meanwhile, Ombudswoman Jana Dubovcová informed the press agency about her latest observations regarding the attitude of the wider public to the Roma minority. According to her, many secondary school pupils and school-leavers possess no critical thinking and know little about history and basic human rights. "I can see it in the questions that I'm asked in discussions at schools. They often ask about solutions to Roma issues, innocently wondering why we couldn't send them to some island where they could live", stated Jana Dubovcová. Some female students have asked whether it would be a good idea for Roma women not to have children. Jana Dubovcová emphasised that students should learn more about human rights and humanism at school. "To be able to see the world through this prism. Maybe they would have been more sensitive when picking their political representation in the latest general election", she stated.
