The Roma Café Human Rights and the Plight of the Romani People

The central theme of this book is that the plight of Eastern Europe's Roma is one of the greatest challenges facing the continent. Written in a lively and accessible style, and illustrated throughout with photographs, The Roma Cafe is a poignant and intriguing analysis of the diverse problems facing Europe's gypsy populations, including the largely unacknowledged legacy of the Roma Holocaust. Engaging with a broad range of issues including racism, stereotyping, and political and economic transition in ex-Communist states, Istvan Pogany challenges the most common preconceptions about the Roma. He looks at the specifics of individual Romani lives, particularly in Hungary and Romania. Highlighting the difficulties that all marginal peoples face, Pogany explains how the Roma have been devastated by the economic transition from Communism to open markets since 1989. Poverty, lack of education, as well as widespread anti-Roma discrimination and inadequate legal protection, have left the Roma facing intense hardship since the collapse of welfare states. However, this book is not just a catalogue of the challenges that the Roma face -- it is also a celebration of Roma cultures and of the ac

About the Author
Istvan Pogany is Professor of Law at Warwick University. He teaches courses in comparative human rights and international law. He has written extensively on constitutional transition, human rights and minority rights in Central and Eastern Europe. His previous books include Human Rights in Eastern Europe (Edward Elgar, 1995) and Righting Wrongs in Eastern Europe (Manchester University Press, 1997).

Book Description
Written in an accessible and jargon-free style, The Roma Cafe is an interdisciplinary analysis of the plight of the Roma in Central and Eastern Europe, a region where the Roma people have been particularly savagely affected by the economic transitions after 1989. Already marginal, they have experienced intense hardship with the collapse of any remaining welfare state support.
The Roma have also suffered hugely from the rise in nationalism and racism in Eastern Europe. With many leaving the region because of repression, the old prejudices against the Roma have then resurfaced in the press and elsewhere in the countries they have fled to in Western Europe.

Istvan Pogany sets the record straight for this much maligned and misunderstood minority. The Roma Cafe acts as both a physical reality and a metaphor: the plight of Europe?s gypsy populations, after the holocaust and the tragedies of Yugoslavia, makes the acceptance and celebration of difference even more important in modern multicultural nations.