Senator Iulian Urban, the author of the xenophobic declarations last week
August 4, 2011
ActiveWatch – the Media Monitoring Agency and Policy Center for Roma and Minorities sent today to Mircea Geoană, President of the Romanian Senate to the Permanent Bureau of the Senate and to the head of the parliamentary group of the Liberal Democrat Party a letter in which they highlighted the irresponsible and xenophobic character of Iulian Urban’s declarations, which the Senator published on his blog on the 25th of July 2011.
According to the article, entitled “Breivik did not commit the assault, but the current leaders of the European Union did”, a big part of the blame for these assaults belongs to European politicians, who, by being inconstant in their attitudes towards the immigration problem, especially the Islamic one, created favorable circumstances for anti-immigration feelings to be expressed through acts of terrorism.
In the same article, Iulian Urban shows a visible xenophobic attitude, using expressions such as “the Muslim colonization that is being made in the EU” or ”Muslims are relying only on the state for their livelihoods, […] they refuse to work”. At the same time, in order to connect his racist message to the Romanian political context, Senator Urban gets to the point of saying: “We need to understand something: in Romania Islamism is invisible, it doesn’t exist. We have a similar problem regarding the gypsyes, but of course it’s not the same situation.” The similarity expressed by Urban between the Islamic ideology and a “similar problem” regarding the Roma minority is an unprecedented challenge in the history of Romanian political discourse.
Senator Urban called back upon what he had said in his article, in an intervention at Realitatea TV. The main message of his clarifications was that, once the European population got used to tolerance and multiculturalism, the beginning of anti – immigration policies could create huge tensions for the European societies, as the entire area can become a ticking bomb.
We remain circumspect regarding the honesty of Iulian Urban’s clarifications. His history as a racist and xenophobic promoter shakes his image as a preacher of tolerance and political correctness. It is more probable that he came back upon the article on his blog as a response to the media pressure, since the Austrian right extremist excluded a politician from the party, for similar affirmations.
The case of Iulian Urban’s article emphasizes two important aspects, equally dangerous, regarding the public speech related to minorities: first of all, the lack of a democratic and balanced attitude in public debates related to them, and second, the anticipation of some Romanian politicians in discussing issues related to multiculturalism, while lacking any knowledge about the local inclusion of discriminated minorities.
In relation to the first point, we can notice that the public discourse tends to present the problem of ethnic minorities from two main perspectives: it is used either an extreme political correctness, in which there are no issues regarding the minorities, or an extreme racist and xenophobic approach, emphasizing negative stereotypes, based on personal experiences that are given universal meanings. Iulian Urban’s text falls in the second category, of xenophobia. If we take for granted his clarifications – would they still be necessary in the absence of expressions such as “Muslim colonization” and “Muslims[…] refuse to work”? In relation to the second point, it is extremely serious that Senator Urban allows himself to launch such severe accusations such as the fact that European officials are responsible for a terrorist attack, thus rationalizing and justifying a criminal antisocial reaction.
The two organizations signing the petition are waiting for it to be answered by the empowered institutions.
The petition can be read and signed by its supporters here:
Thursday August 4th, 2011
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