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"[I]n Bulgaria the problem with the social and economic segregation of the Roma is viewed as civilizational, which can have negative consequences in the future such as becoming a burden to the social system. This segregation, however, is not examined in the context of the economic changes in the past 30 years and the proportionately growing fascism. Thus, under the pretext that it will fight the profession “socially disadvantaged” and the so-called “gypsy terror”, the government justifies cuts in social spending and the curtailing of labour rights, it increases the police methods of governance, which eventually reflects on us all. By radically eliminating its redistributional policies during the last twenty-five years, post-socialist Bulgaria has become the poorest country in the EU with the largest inequality gap. gypsy wedding dress

Paradoxically, one of the government’s top priorities is to curb the nearly-nonexistent lasting dependence on social security. Only in 8 years, from 2007 till 2015, the poorest Bulgarians benefiting from the social safety net have diminished by 77%, largely because the conditions for qualifying for it have become nearly impossible.

But how did things get to this point, where the Roma are being depicted as a “gangrened wound”, a subject who does not know the laws and is even with a different “cultural DNA insoluble in our civilization”, a comment recently made by the influential sociologist of the postsocialist “transition” Andrey Raychev?"

In this text Rositsa Kratunkova reviews the anti-Roma protest since 2011 onwards, showing how the growing inequality in the country correlates with the growing mystification of its causes, which are attributed to the Roma ethnic group.