Alina Serban is a young actress and playwright living in Romania. She recently shared her thoughts on art, identity, and attending the first Barvalipe Roma Pride Camp, which took place in Budapest, Hungary, last August.

Tell me about your one-woman play I, Undersigned Alina Serban, Declare. What was your inspiration for it?

The play is autobiographical. It is based on my personal story and explores my identity as a Roma woman. The play features monologues written by me and parts from my personal journals. I always knew myself as a person who makes light of hard moments, so I tried to give a positive tone to my ups and downs in life and show how they made me who I am.

I wanted the play to express my viewpoint on what is happening in society, to be truthful to myself and to allow myself to be vulnerable in front of people, saying "This is who I was, look where I'm from, and who I am now." I worked on this play with director David Schwartz, dramaturg Alice Monica Marinescu, composer and performer Catalin Rulea, and scenographer Adrian Cristea.

Your play focuses on your identity as a Roma woman. As an artist, why do you think identity is an important issue to explore?

My play focuses on many layers, but the most important layer is "how I must be so I'll fit in"—first as an underprivileged girl, and then also trying to fit in as a Roma girl. I think it is very important for an artist to have the ability to create a connection with your audience, and in order to do that one must create, speak, and explore topics that you really believe in. This is what I tried with my play. I hope to be able to explore these issues further and continue to be able to create things that are representative of me.

During Barvalipe, participants visited Auschwitz. You expressed a desire to someday take your own children there. What did the trip to Auschwitz mean to you, and do you think the experience of Roma during the Holocaust is an important part of your own identity?

I will try my best to take my children to Auschwitz, to teach them Romanes, and to tell them about our history. For me personally going to Auschwitz was a difficult step that I had to do in order to be more truthful to myself. I needed to understand more about the suffering and the history of my people. Of course, even though I had the chance to see Auschwitz with my own eyes I still can't believe that the atrocities committed there really happened.

What is so infuriating is just how little we know—even today—about the Roma suffering there. I left Auschwitz with a very bitter taste in my mouth. I had nightmares afterwards. And it was only when I arrived back home in Romania that I was able to really speak about my experience. Now I believe I can defend my people and express our sorrow with more depth then before.

Barvalipe focused on cultivating Roma pride. Do you think the experience will influence your art and how?

I came to the Barvalipe camp looking for the feeling of belonging. I left there with my head held higher. Meeting so many Roma models gave me the confidence to continue what I started and use art to express who I am.

Soccer practice at a recreation center in Borgerhout, Antwerp. Like many European cities, Antwerp is balancing a climate of growing diversity with equal rights and opportunities for all its residents. © Chris de Bode/Panos Pictures for the Open Society Foundations.

“Belgian people look down upon me regardless of the fact that I grew up here, speak Dutch, and have an education.”

“My son had to take a test to measure his proficiency in Dutch because they assumed he could not speak Dutch well. When he came home he was angry. He said: ‘Mamma, what did they do? They wanted to put me in a group of migrants who don’t speak Dutch.’”

“I’m unemployed. They told me I have to take off my headscarf if I want to find a job.”

These are just a few of the comments that came out of focus group discussions with Muslim residents of Antwerp. One of Belgium’s most diverse cities, Antwerp has in recent years pursued a number of innovative programs to promote inclusion; however, feeling at home and being accepted do not always go hand in hand. Although 90 percent of Antwerp’s Muslim residents feel a sense of belonging to their city, some policies—like the ban on headscarves for certain public employees, teachers, and students—have contributed to a sense of exclusion.

These findings are part of a new report released today by the Open Society Foundations. Muslims in Antwerp is the result of more than three years of research involving in-depth interviews and focus group discussions with residents, local government officials, Muslim leaders, academics, journalists, and activists in Antwerp’s Borgerhout district. According to the report, discrimination remains a critical barrier to full and equal participation in Antwerp.

Antwerp, of course, is not alone in its struggle to ensure equal rights and opportunities for all of its residents. Almost 20 million Muslims live in the European Union today; they are a growing and varied population that presents Europe with a major public policy challenge. Yet there is very little official data available on Muslims in Europe and a lack of understanding of the trends, experiences, and concerns of these communities.

Over the last several years the Open Society Foundations have sought to change this situation by examining the social integration of Muslim minorities in 11 European cities. From Copenhagen to Berlin to Leicester, and now Antwerp, the picture of Muslims in Europe is not always one that is expected. The At Home in Europe Project has more information on today's report, the Open Society Foundations' work on inclusion, and research from the 11 cities.

What is the Joint Africa-EU Strategy?

At its narrowest point, only 15 kilometers separate Europe and Africa in the Strait of Gibraltar. Partially due to their close proximity, relations between the two continents have always been intertwined. Throughout history the prosperity, stability, and security of one region has directly affected the other. Recent events in in North Africa, and the influx of Tunisian and Libyan migrants to European shores, have only underscored this connection, and at times, tension.

Migration, however, is but one issue of importance between Europe and Africa. Trade, energy, climate change, democratic governance, and human rights, are among the joint concerns for these regions bound together by history, culture, and geography. Indeed, it cannot be ignored that Europe and Africa share a common future.

Adopted in 2007, the Joint Africa-EU Strategy provides a long-term framework for relations between the African Union and the European Union, based on equality and shared interests. At the core of the strategy is the understanding that relations between the two continents must be premised on equal participation and representation. For the first time, this strategy put both partners on an equal footing and raised expectations that Africans would not be just the “recipients” of prepackaged assistance from the European Union but would sit side-by-side with the EU at the decision-making table.

As a replacement for the EU-Africa Strategy adopted in 2005 to guide EU support for the Millennium Development Goals in Africa, which was marked by an unbalanced donor-recipient relationship, the Joint Africa-EU Strategy promised a new path for engagement.

What is the impetus behind changing the relationship between the two continents from one of donor-recipient to equal participation?

Broadly speaking, two decades ago donors began having growing concerns as to the effectiveness of development cooperation between developed and developing countries, including the EU and Africa. These concerns covered a wide range of areas from the conceptualization of development cooperation to its content and practice. There was increasing recognition that development policies and programs had, at least to a certain extent, failed to deliver meaningful and sustainable development.

Dissatisfaction in donor countries at the poor track-record of development aid, was matched by equal frustration in recipient countries. This frustration was compounded by bitterness and resentment left over by draconian policies imposed on Africans by international monetary institutions. Donors, including the EU, began to feel the need to revise their relationship with beneficiaries.

In the early 1990s, the rise of armed conflicts, on the continent also led to the need for Africans to play an increased role in peace and security matters. However, with increased responsibility came the demand from many African countries that the continent play a more active role in the international community. Europe recognized the evolution taking place and the deepening of Africa’s integration as well as the need for more effective and coherent relations.

What has happened with the Joint Africa-EU Strategy was adopted in 2007?

In 2007, the heads of state and government from 53 African countries and 27 EU member-states launched the Joint Africa-EU Strategy and outlined eight areas of focus: peace and security; democratic governance and human rights; trade, regional integration and infrastructure; Millennium Development Goals; energy; climate change; migration, mobility, and employment; and science, information, society, and space.

The first action plan was launched in 2008 and focused on eight thematic partnerships (peace and security; democratic governance and human rights; Millennium Development Goals; Trade, regional integration and infrastructure; energy; climate change; migration, mobility and employment; science, information society, and space). African and European leaders renewed their commitment to the Partnership at their 3rd Africa-EU Summit held in Libya in November 2010. That summit focused on investment, economic growth, and job creation, and a second action plan for 2011-2013.

Has the strategy been met by any stumbling blocks?

The track record of the partnership is mixed. The strategy was meant to deliver on: a) improved political dialogue and joint positions on shared inter-continental and global concerns; b) closer involvement of non-state actors; and c) stronger European support for continental integration in Africa.

Publicly EU and African leaders claim progress in all these areas. In private there is some recognition that the strategy has highlighted the differences existing between the two regional groupings on fundamental issues such as civil society participation in political processes; the role of the media in promoting democratic accountability and contributing to regime change; and the deep cleavage over international justice (the International Criminal Court being one of the most contentious issues on the table).

The initial enthusiasm has been replaced by a widening gap between the discourse and the reality of the strategic partnership which in turn has led to criticism especially by civil society. EU member-states have also become more skeptical and are thinking of pragmatically reverting to parallel relations with sub-regions.

On the AU side, African decision makers perceive a diminishing enthusiasm in their European partners. In their view the EU is quick to pledge support but does not always keep its commitments. They also question the concrete deliverables of the strategy and find that it is hard to sell at home. Civil society, for its part, criticizes it for being too state-centric and top-down and for failing to inform African citizens about its objectives. The result is civil society’s marginal participation in their definition and implementation. In short, the strategy has failed to convince the wider public of its usefulness.

Beyond explaining the intertwined nature of relations between the two continents, is there something you think the public should understand about the strategy’s importance?

The strategy really lays the groundwork for more mutually respectful relationships between the two continents. Frustrations with the concrete deliverables of the strategy are understandable and it will have to demonstrate its value to improving the everyday life of citizens on both continents.

It must be understood that it is potentially a colossal project that establishes political relations between two continents. As a minimum, it is undertaken with an aim of reducing asymmetries between a politically and economically developed Europe and an African continent that is resolutely reforming and evolving.

As of today, where do things stand with the strategy?

The Joint Africa-EU Strategy is in hibernation. Partners on both sides are at pains to disguise their disappointment. It was set up as a move from a donor-recipient relationship to one of equals. However the intended paradigm shift, to fundamentally alter European and African relations, has not really taken place and it is doubtful whether the partnership can help move it forward.

Europe was meant to treat Africa as one but the existence of several partnership agreements including the Cotonou Agreement—a treaty between the European Union and the African, Caribbean and Pacific Group of States—bilateral agreements on migration, and most recently, the approach to North Africa, indicate that the road toward this change in a long way off. Furthermore, Africans themselves are contradictory at times on this point as they wish their cultural, geographical and social differences to be recognized and valued.

What are the main conclusions from your report?

The first is that significant involvement of civil society in the process is still hampered by the overlap of several institutional cultures and structural limitations. Involvement of civil society actors in the strategy has been slow and limited. There are no agreed procedures for civil society participation and access to working level meetings is mostly ad hoc with each joint experts group establishing their own process for involving civil society organizations.

The strategy offers many untapped opportunities for the role of civil society, opportunities that civil society organizations need to consider how to better explore. For instance the private sector could become more engaged and African diasporas in Europe more involved. Effective implementation of commitments is important and civil society should provide sustainable participation in the informal joint expert groups.

The EU-AU partnership should be a matter for all rather than being confined to experts and officials. However, it is a fairly complex process involving multiple layers of actors and stakeholders across geographical areas and with different cultural and political perspectives. Civil society is ill-equipped to monitor such a gigantic initiative and it is unwise to delegate all monitoring duties to it alone: a multi-layer notion of accountability that enables the private sector, civil society, the justice and legislative sector to promote transparency in the partnership should be promoted.

The second conclusion is that both continents have their own distinctive approaches to issues of democracy and human rights. Both have sensitivities as to how the other perceive and “judge” their achievements in these areas. Hence better reciprocal understanding requires long-term commitment and flexibility on all sides if there is to be progress based on mutual trust, humility, and a clear focus on people-centered deliverables.

The first-ever Central Asian Social Innovation Camp was held last month in Bosteri, Kyrgyzstan. Can you tell me a little bit about the aims of the camp and its participants?

The goal of Social Innovation Camp was to bring together ideas, people, and digital tools to build web-based solutions for some of the most pressing social problems facing the region—from human rights violation to access to information to environmental protections. Participants spent two days in Bosteri learning how web-based technologies could support their ideas for social change.

Two months before the camp began, the foundation announced a competition for applicants to submit ideas for web-based solutions to address local problems. Submissions were judged on four criteria: a clearly defined social problem, a specific technological solution, a description on how to attract users, and a business plan to sustain the project.

Eight ideas were selected from about twenty applications, and a total of eighty team members participated from Kazakhstan, Kyrgyzstan, Tajikistan, and Uzbekistan. Participants ranged from software developers to students to traditional and online media professionals to members of the for-profit and nonprofit world. Professional programmers, designers, and marketing specialists providing expertise and helped the teams bring their ideas to life. All together, the camp in Bosteri was the largest Social Innovation Camp to date.

What is web-based social innovation, and why do you think it's important to promote in Central Asia? Are there any obstacles that stand in the way?

Web-based social innovation is about bringing together ideas, people, and technologies to foster change. The camp teaches participants how to use the power of the Internet and web-technologies to help people connect, collaborate, and network with each other to solve social problems.

The foundation faced significant challenges organizing Central Asia’s first Social Innovation Camp. A number of camps have been held throughout Europe; however, social issues can be dramatically different in the Central Asian context, in addition to differing levels of social and entrepreneurial agility.

Because Social Innovation Camps are driven by the passions of individuals rather than the agendas of organizations, the foundation was also concerned about whether there would be enough dynamic engagement from the camp’s participants, especially because many were used to more passive conference experiences. However, the camp resulted in a strong competition, supported by enthusiastic discussions and dramatic presentations. The winning projects were ones that demonstrated regional urgency, so that software and technologies developed could be shared among countries.

Camp Participants. Photograph: Lira Samykbaeva/Open Society Foundations.

Can you give me an example of some of the more interesting projects that camp participants came up with?

During the camp, eight teams of independent civil activists, software developers, marketing specialists, journalists, and bloggers worked intensively on their projects. Projects tackled issues such as school bullying, recycling, human rights, online journalism, and corruption, and incorporated ideas such as online games, Internet radio, and SMS mapping.

First place went to The Dobro (Donate) Project, which matches those who need help—whether it's blood donations, legal assistance, or volunteers—with those who can help. The website hopes to connect people rather than raise or collect funds directly. The site mock-up showed large buttons for “need help” and “can help,” with a photo and map of the beneficiary. Posts on the Dobro site can be integrated in to social media and membership will be offered to companies who want to sponsor the project—allowing companies to use their charitable spending budgets to select beneficiaries from the site as well as advertise their participation via their logo.

Second place went to The School Racketeering Project, which allows students to report bullying and extortion by classmates. During the camp, participants realized that despite the fact that this is a well-known problem in Kyrgyzstan there are no real statistics about the prevalence of the problem in the country. There also aren’t resources on how to handle the problem, its consequences, or information for students on where they can turn for help. Their site design is intended to be simple enough for young people to use and has a clear “submit a case” form, and the foundation has begun talking with the Bishkek police force about piloting The School Racketeering website in the city.

Third place when to Kelsin SMS, a website where people can send short SMSs reporting incidents of poorly maintained roads, requests for bribes by government agencies, blackouts, etc.. The reports will be used to generate online maps of the various problems. While the project is not trying to solve all these problems, it is creating a platform to expose these issues—essentially putting real numbers behind the problems people frequently cite.

What do you hope participants will do with the information they learned at the camp once they return to their homes?

That it's possible to use online tools to solve offline problems. We hope that after participants return home they will look at their projects from a new perspective. The camp encouraged participants not only to use the Internet to solve problems but to also tap into their frustrations to create projects that utilize social innovation. Because no one can predict which projects will work, it is up to participants to create solutions and test them in the real world.

Can you tell me a little bit more about your work at the Soros Foundation–Kyrgyzstan and how the foundation is working to foster other online initiatives?

Within the Social Innovation Camp we’ve initialized great projects, which need to be fostered by the foundation. We’ve already initiated number of activities on further implementation of these projects, such as our collaborative work with the Bishkek Police department on the School Racketeering Project. Until recently, projects based on SMS mapping were not possible in Kyrgyzstan because our mobile phone operators did not have the infrastructure for geolocating features. After technical market research and numerous discussions about the benefits of crowdsourcing projects, the foundation was able to secure USAID funding for deployment of such a system in Kyrgyzstan.

We hope to use geolocation for mapping electoral and human rights violations during the coming presidential elections in November, monitoring the work of city municipalities on www.point.kg, as well as additional projects that could benefit from crowdsourcing tools.

The May 2011 Social Innovation Camp was supported by the local Open Society foundation, Transitions Online, and the UN Democracy Fund, and partnered with SICAMP.org, Internews, Hoster.kg, and Sun People.

Mona Nicoara is producer and director of Our School, a film about three Roma children who are part of a pioneer initiative to desegregate the local schools in a small Transylvanian town. The film, which received a grant from the Open Society Foundations, will have its North American premiere at the Tribeca Film Festival in New York City later this month. I asked Mona to discuss her film and the challenges facing school desegregation in Europe.

Roma in Europe face myriad problems, from widespread discrimination and unemployment to poor access to health care. Why did you choose to focus on the issue of school segregation for your film?

It’s a truism that education is the key to unlocking the vicious cycle of disenfranchisement, discrimination, and poverty. When it comes to Roma, we, the non-Roma, tend to throw clichés around, unthinkingly: “Get a job!” or “Learn to behave in the world!” But how are you to get a job and learn how to function in the world if the world rejects you at the first contact? If you’re not given a chance in first grade, what’s the likelihood that, as an adult, you are going to access a better life than your parents? How are you supposed to get out of poverty if you don’t have any skills?

But the answer is also personal: Guilt. I went to elementary school with Roma, back in Romania. I saw them drop out after primary school, or simply disappear from the more competitive high schools that me and my friends were going to. As an adolescent, I never investigated why this was happening. I never even paid attention.

But by the time I started to look for schools for my own children (we were living in Hungary back then), I had worked for quite a while as a human rights activist, and I was keenly aware of the fact that the “good” schools we were looking at had virtually no Roma students, not even in the lower grades. I wanted to go back and see where it all went wrong. I wanted to understand what we need to do differently.

What were you expecting to see before you visited Târgu Lăpus, and what, if anything, were you not prepared for?

I confess I went there with at least one preconceived notion: I expected to see Romanian parents oppose integration, as the non-Roma parents had done in other places—in Croatia, Hungary, but also in other towns in Romania. And I had a keen awareness of historical precedent. I didn’t expect anything like the Civil Rights–era anti-integration demonstrations in Little Rock, or the violent anti-busing protests in Boston—this was, after all, a small, peaceful Transylvanian town—but I expected to see some resistance or discomfort on the part of the parents.

So the smooth acceptance of the Romanian parents took us by surprise. It wasn’t just mere tolerance, there was genuine empathy.

Our School teaser from Mona Nicoara on Vimeo.

In Our School you follow three children—Alin, Beni, and Dana. Tell me how you met the children and their families, and what were your impressions of them?

When we first arrived in town, at dusk, we asked several people where the segregated school was. We could not find it, so we assumed we had gotten the kind of imprecise directions that people who live all their life in a place often  give. As it turned out, we had passed by the segregated school several times in our car, but didn’t think that the one-room crumbling exposed-brick building we kept driving by could house a school. Our driver even said, in all earnestness: “I thought that was a public toilet.”

We parked in front of the school, which is right at the edge of a small Roma settlement, and started looking around. These two large, imposing Roma men, who I later realized were Alin’s father and uncle, came over, identified themselves as leaders of the Roma community, and asked us if we wanted them to unlock the school for us to look around.

As soon as we explained what we wanted to do, they started telling stories about their own time in the segregated school—about how the building was made up of bricks hand-crafted by their grandparents, about how Roma in town had always been told that their children belong in the “Gypsy school,” about how it had always been a bad place where kids were kept “like cows in the field,” without being taught anything or challenged to succeed in any way. Despite their anger, they were matter-of-fact, even funny. And there was hope in the air, as the desegregation project was just about to begin.

We didn’t meet the kids until the next day, when we came back during school hours. Dana stuck out right away—at sixteen, she was the oldest in class, and she towered over all the other kids. She was so proud to be the best student in class and to be working after school as domestic help in a Romanian home. And she was just such a typical, coquettish teenager—we would have had to be blind not to realize she was a wonderful character.

Alin reminded me right away of my older son: spirited, very physical, mischievous without being rude, and extremely funny. He was so happy to have someone listen to him. I suspect that’s because he is the middle child in a line-up of nine kids, all with strong personalities, and he doesn’t get much air time at home. We connected to him because he has so much awareness, and he is such an incredible storyteller, and such a great ham! He kept showing up, out of nowhere, mid-shoot. My co-director Miruna Coca-Cozma joked that we couldn’t do this film without Alin even if we wanted to—he is practically in every shot!

Beni is a much quieter presence. It took us a while to realize how thoughtful he was, how much hope and strength resides inside him. I think he gets a lot of that from his own parents, who have faith—in him, in God, and in the idea that all people should be equal. He always asked the hardest questions: “Why is this class for Gypsies only?”  “Why don’t we get the same treatment as Romanians?” In a way, just like the two other Roma children, he chose us—rather than the other way round.

Last but not least, the Romanian boy who befriended Alin and Beni, Boga, is one of those cool kids everyone looks up to. He’s a very good student, so teachers love him. He’s a soccer fiend, so all his schoolmates want to play with him. He’s friendly and unprejudiced, so the Roma children naturally sought his company. And he’s quite a girl magnet, too!

We met his mother, by accident, before we met him: She makes the best, most addictive fried dough in town, and she has a great sense of humor, so we became her regular customers before we even started shooting. She was amused by the attention that her son got from the Roma kids, but never truly bothered by it, and she never discouraged him from hanging out with them.

What do you think viewers will be most surprised to learn about the situation in Târgu Lăpus?

I think it is hard for people who see the film to understand how the current school situation has been so easily accepted by everyone there. If you experience the story from the perspective of the children, as we did, and as our audiences do, you see hope for a better future gradually extinguished within a few short years. But the adults in town did not experience any change—in fact, they only saw more of the same. Everyone, from the Roma parents to the school administrators and the city hall, sees what happened as just par for the course.

There is no tension in the town about it, no sense that what happened, happened on purpose, or that a single person or group should be held responsible. There is no sense of ill will. In a way, this is the true horror of unexamined racism: It shapes the course of events on its own, even going against the peaceful spirit of a small town like that, where everybody knows everybody’s name and no one could even imagine harming a whole generation on purpose.

The children in the film face incredible hurdles just to attend a desegregated school. From your perspective, how can the problem of school segregation for Roma children be resolved?

I wish I had a simple answer, but I took on this project precisely because I knew that we needed to understand the complexity of the problem before we can even begin to think about solutions. It is clear to me that some aspects can be addressed by laws or by courts—matters of principle, like nondiscrimination, resource allocation, and a firm recognition that separate can never be equal where education for Roma is concerned.

There are also structural issues that need to be addressed: housing, the status of Roma settlements (which ties into access to basic utilities such electricity or water), or the availability of early childhood education.

And then there is the battle for our hearts and minds, which is extremely local and personal. I now believe that everyone, every single stakeholder has to be brought on board. Non-Roma parents should be helped to see the value of exposing their children to different cultures, of teaching them empathy, of imbuing them with good values early on. Roma parents have to have faith that their children can succeed even if they themselves did not.

This sounds simpler in theory than it is in practice: It is harder to imagine success if you have never seen it, if you have never experienced a supportive school, or if you have never had a Roma role model to look up to. And Roma children have to learn to push through rejection, rather than give up and retreat. That’s a huge burden for these children, and they’re not going to make it through on their own—they need their parents, their siblings, their friends, their neighbors to cheer them on.

Teachers have to learn that there is an inherent value in a multicultural classroom that goes far beyond test scores, and that a good learning environment for all will raise performance for all. But they can’t do that alone either. They need support from school administrators, local authorities, central decision-makers—things like additional training, additional resources or teaching assistance. Integrating Roma need not be an unmanageable, unfair task for the teachers; instead, it should become one of the ways in which they can get job satisfaction.

Finally, there’s everybody else—local priests, mayors, soccer coaches, you name it. It really takes a village to raise a child, and we all need to learn to be more thoughtful about the messages we send to our children—both Roma and non-Roma. We tend not to think enough about that, to fall back on received notions and racist baggage that we ourselves inherited. The current structures are premised on our inertia—and cannot be broken unless they are confronted with thoughtful consideration, respect for individuals and their rights, an understanding of root causes of segregation, and a willingness to contribute to change.

You can’t really do all of that from a distance—you can do some of that work in Brussels or in Strasbourg, you can take care of some of the issues in national parliaments and central ministries, but the hardest, most important battles are going to be fought locally, almost door-to-door, and the solutions will almost always have to be tailored to the specifics of each place.

Milan’s path to homelessness began in 1991 when Slovenia declared its independence from Yugoslavia. Like all Yugoslav nationals at that time, Milan had dual citizenship—he was both a citizen of the Federation as well as one of its six republics, in Milan’s case Croatia, the country in which he was born.

There was no question in Milan’s mind as to his citizenship. He had always considered himself Slovenian. His parents were Slovenian. He made his life in Slovenia. He even joined the Slovenian military to defend his homeland during the ten-day war following the country’s secession.  Milan had been a registered resident of Slovenia from the time he was seven years old, and after Slovenia declared its independence he waited to be granted Slovenian citizenship.

Instead, on February 26, 1992, Milan’s name—along with the names of 18,304 other Slovenians—were deleted by the government from its official registry of residents.

From that time forward, Milan and 18,304 others were considered foreigners in their own country and denied social services. In an instant, Milan lost his government job, his health insurance, and 21 years of pension contributions. Without options and with no place to go, Milan became homeless.

Milan tried again and again to obtain Slovene citizenship. After years of unsuccessful attempts, Milan and ten other people took their case to the European Court of Human Rights.

In 2007, the Open Society Justice Initiative submitted comments in the case highlighting the plight of thousands of residents of Slovenia who were unjustly “erased” from the government registry. The Justice Initiative argued that the government's action violated Article 8 of the European Convention on Human Rights, which protects individuals' right to sustain the personal, social, and economic relations that link them to the society in which they habitually reside. And just this month the Court agreed that it was unlawful for Slovenia to deny permanent residency status to long-term legal residents in the aftermath of state succession, particularly when it left these residents stateless.

But the ruling came too late for Milan Makuc. He passed away in June 2008 and was buried in the cemetery in Piran.

Citizenship is integral to an open society, something Milan and many others like him struggle for throughout their entire lives. Yet for those of us who never have to fight for our citizenship, we never realize the myriad rights that depend on its recognition.