EXBERLINER Issue 170, April 2018

ROMA BIENNALE
Berlin’s Romani
rabble-rouser
Performer, activist, troublemaker; proud
Roma and father... “And don’t forget I’m
politically queer!” he likes to add. Hamze
Bytyçi is arguably one of the most recognisable
and personable faces of Berlin’s Roma
community. This month, he’s inviting all
Berliners to “come out” in celebration of
International Roma Day at Gorki’s first-ever
Roma Biennale.
By Ruth Schneider
VERBATIM
After years of being avoided by official community representatives
for his brazen outspokenness and unruly ways (including
crashing Merkel’s unveiling of Germany’s Sinti and Roma
Memorial), Bytyçi has become the go-to Roma when things turn sour.
When he’s not mediating between fellow Roma, police and lefty protestors
or combating Antiziganismus in schools, he’s running for local
office on Die Linke’s ticket. Or he’s on the Gorki Theater stage donning
a wedding gown and a pair of fake lashes as part of Roma Armee.
We met in a tiny office on Leipziger Straße, from which Bytyçi
and partner Veronika Patočková run the cultural and political advocacy
non-profit RomaTrial.
RomaTrial is only the most recent of the Roma-related organisations
you’ve founded over the past 12 years. Berlin has
plenty of Sinti and Roma groups, Germany has the Roma Central
Council (Zentralrat)... Why did you feel there was a need
for more? You’re right, there are too many out there, we should
just get rid of them! [laughs]. It’s good they are there: the more,
the better. But you need to understand that those organisations
were involved with the German Sinti and Roma minorities. There
has been almost nothing for Roma refugees, all those people who,
like me, came from the Balkans decades ago, or the new ones who
keep coming – the Zentralrat was actually afraid that those migrants
had a negative impact on their image.
So why did you decide to start Amaro Drom in 2005? I founded
it with the mother of my son, when I realised how little she knew
about my culture. I would be like, “Oh damn, I can’t cut my nails,
the sun is down!” And she: “What?!” So it was a stupid thing –
nails! – but she actually motivated me to explain my culture to
her. And I thought, if we don’t make the effort, it’ll all be lost for
the next generation...
Was it also about explaining your culture to your own son? Does
he know it’s bad luck to cut one’s nails when the sun’s down?
Yes, and now he does it on purpose! So he definitely knows,
and he’s found his own way of acknowledging his Roma culture
[laughs]. Meanwhile, he has long hair, painted fingernails, and
wears pink and purple – which totally freaks out his Roma grandparents,
they think he’s so incredibly queer! He so doesn’t give a
Hamze Bytyçi
Born 1982 in Prizren, Kosovo, Hamze
Bytyçi came to Germany as a refugee
with his parents and older brother
in 1989. They eventually settled in
Freiburg, where Bytyçi studied acting
and founded Roma youth organisation
Amaro Drom (Our Way) in 2006.
He moved to Berlin the following year,
where he founded the organisations
Amaro Foro (Our City, 2010), RomaTrial
(2012) and BundesRomaVerband (Federal
Council of Roma, 2012) as well as
performing in and directing productions
at Ballhaus Naunynstraße and
the Maxim Gorki Theater, among them
the interactive performance Hilton 437
(2013) and last year’s Roma Armee. Since
2017, he has served on the Berlin executive
board for Die Linke.
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EXBERLINER 170