Some Queries: Bulgarian Acceptance of Minorities
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From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Date: Fri, 22 Dec 2000 09:40:06 +0200 (EET)
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Subject: Some Queries: Bulgarian Acceptance of Minorities
From: MINELRES moderator <[email protected]>
Original sender: Roy N. Freed <[email protected]>
Some Queries: Bulgarian Acceptance of minorities
I am an American retired lawyer who favors social amity and who became
involved with Bulgaria in 1987 by shear fortuity. I do not have any
usual affinity for Bulgaria through birth or study, and I learned what
I know about its people by being a Fulbright Teaching Scholar at Sofia
Univ. in early 1989 and returning there nine additional times,
including Oct. 2000, for teaching, work on projects, and seeing close
friends. Also, I have countless warm Bulgarian �migr� friends here in
the U.S.A.
1) I have heard, and have come to believe based on my study,
experience, and observation, that Bulgarians have for millennia
readily accepted ethnic and religious differences in their truly
multi-ethnic society, except for their Roma people about whom I write
separately, to an extent that makes them quite unique in that respect.
I would welcome comments and observations on the real extent, nature,
and significance of that claimed Bulgarian acceptance that will
confirm or negate my belief about it. Furthermore, if my belief is
significantly accurate, I would welcome suggestions of the reasons why
Bulgarian behave that way.
2) I have heard, and have come to believe based on my study,
experience, and observation, that Bulgarians have for millennia been
uniquely free from significant anti-Semitism, despite the fact that
the vast majority of them are assumed to be identified with the
Christianity of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church.
This freedom is said to be exemplified by the claimed saving of the
entire 50,000 Bulgarian Jews within Bulgaria's pre-WW II borders from
deportation to Treblinka under pressure by its Nazi ally during WW II.
This saving is ascribed largely to the action of its three
Metropolitans of the Bulgarian Orthodox Church, Stefan, Kyril, and
Neofit; the action of Dimitar Peshev in persuading 42 other members of
Parliament to sign a petition against that action; and vigorous
demonstrations against that step by various professional groups, and
to the absence of popular anti-Semitism among the people at large.
This saving is entirely distinct from the deportation of 12,000 Jews
from Thrace and Macedonia, areas under the nominal administration of
the Bulgaria Army granted by the Nazi occupying army, carried out
overnight during the occupation of the Nazis, who perpetrated the
destruction of the Jewish population of the essentially Jewish city of
Salonika.
I would welcome comments and observations on the validity of this
claim that Bulgarians have been distinctly free from significant
anti-Semitism, which, if true, appears to contrast sharply with the
situation in other countries in the area and elsewhere. Moreover, if
the Bulgarians were truly so free, I would welcome suggestions of
reasons why they were so different?
3) I have heard, and have come to believe based on my study,
experience, and observation, that, despite apparent discrimination
against Roma people similar to that found in many other countries,
Bulgarians have recently taken, on their own initiative, a number of
significant steps to ameliorate the longstanding discrimination in
their country against Roma people. Among the steps I have heard of
are a project funded by the American organization the International
Research and Exchanges Board (IREX) and carried out within the past
six years by a leading Bulgarian psychiatrist, a leading Bulgarian
social work educator, an American social worker, and a Roma teacher,
to tackle discrimination against Roma by the social workers of the
Ministry of Social Care who were supposed to provide welfare money,
that resulted in the establishment of a program to train Roma people
to be special social workers and work in the Ministry with Roma
applicants, and the employment of Roma as police officers.
I would welcome any comments on this type of action in Bulgaria,
suggestions of further steps that seem feasible, and the like, on the
chance that significant actions are being taken that make it appear
that Bulgarians are starting, however modestly, to act toward their
Roma in a manner that reflects what I believe to be their traditional
acceptance of ethnic and religious differences.
Roy N. Freed
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