Message to Jesse Jackson and the Rainbow Push Coalition

By Romani Rose, YouTube

01 October 20

Romani Rose is Chairman of the Central Council of German Sinti and Roma. He sent a video message to the Rainbow Push Coalition, which was streamed during the Saturday Morning Forum on 26 September 2020.

irst of all, I would like to thank Jesse Jackson, and I am pleased and grateful to him for allowing me to speak to you today.

Jesse Jackson was with me in Auschwitz on August 2, 2019. Auschwitz is the symbol of the industrial murder of 500,000 Sinti and Roma and 6 million Jews. It was a breach of civilization, and after the end of World War II, the United Nations and many countries said, “Never again Auschwitz, never again racism.”

We are witnessing a new form of racism in the United States today, and I would like to express from Germany our solidarity with the Rainbow Push Organization. We see with great concern the violence directed against people because they have a different skin color.

Racism is a virus, and mankind has not yet found an immune system for it. But I also see the developments in Germany with great concern. In Germany, there is a new form of nationalism, as in many European countries, where populists and racists are again blaming scapegoats for a crisis that they either caused or are pushing, in order to maintain their power and to use people’s fears for their own ends.

The Corona Pandemic is, and we know this from history, the plague and cholera in past centuries. Minorities have always been blamed for it and persecuted. And there were even burnings in Europe.

In this context, it is important for me to point out once again the inhumane situation in Eastern Europe. The Corona Pandemic has intensified this situation. The people live in inhumane conditions. They are completely excluded from society. They go to special schools, as was the case in the United States in the twenties, a form of apartheid that is evident in all aspects of social life.

The world has to take a closer look at this. It should be of concern to us and the free world. We have overcome apartheid in South Africa. We must not now allow it in Europe.

The pandemic does not choose “races” as it is sometimes portrayed by others, it chooses people. We must take what we have today. We have democracies and we have the right to vote. We have to elect the democratic parties and we must not be seduced by populists and by false hate messages and hate propaganda.

Once again, our solidarity belongs to our brothers and sisters in America.