David C. Murphy - a man at home in the NGO sector

Listeners of "Czech Books" will perhaps already be familiar with Jan's guest in today's One on One - David C. Murphy who works at one of Prague's prominent NGOs Nova Skola - New School - aimed at promoting multiculturalism and helping minorities in the Czech Republic. Recently Jan met with the charismatic American at Prague's Imperial Café, asking David Murphy why he chose Prague in the early 90s, as well as how he looked back on his involvement in the not-for-profit sector over the years.

David C. Murphy

"When I finished my studies I took the advice of a professor of mine who told me that if I had the opportunity to return to Europe I should do so before graduate school or working, because otherwise I would regret it, spending just two weeks in Europe every three or four years! So, I arranged an internship through an organisation called 'People to People International', started by Eisenhower, and I was given a choice: I could either go to Brussels and work in the European Parliament or I could come to Prague and work with a grass-roots NGO. I chose to come to Prague obviously! However, when I came to do this internship the war started in Yugoslavia. This NGO that I was working for had contacts all around Europe and the Balkans, so we became heavily involved in humanitarian aid relief, at which time I took a further leap of going to Croatia to work with refugees in refugee camps."

How did working with refugees in the former Yugoslavia affect your outlook?

"It was one of the difficult... I think it was one of the most difficult experiences of my life. For one thing we lived in the same conditions that they lived in, which meant that we lived in what were basically cargo crates that were loaded onto the backs of trucks and four to six people slept in one of these. On one side while we were helping the immediate situation of trying to make them comfortable and trying to even deal with some of their psychological problems we did various programmes... going around the camp, registering everybody, finding out what jobs they used to do, trying to establish a school, and trying to create different "job pools" to make the camp more like a functioning community. But the overall situation was so bleak that it really made you feel powerless. You know, one of the meaningless things that I did there was teaching one hour of English every night. And after about two days I realised that no one was there to "learn English". At the same time I tried to make it entertaining, so I basically did a stand-up comedian act for one hour a night, just so people wouldn't have to think about what was going on back at their village or with their loved ones or family members."

These refugees were primarily from Bosnia?

"Yeah, yeah, eastern Bosnia. Most of them had arrived from Bosnia on foot, travelling hundreds of kilometres, some of them were brought in with assistance by the UN, then dispersed to various camps."

Being in contact with people who had gone through this you must have been in touch on a personal level - how did you feel about hearing personal stories from people who had really seen the worst?

"Well, there was one boy there in particular - his name was Idin - who was 12 years old and we got to be pretty good friends and I got to know his family pretty well. He spoke English extremely well though his parents didn't speak any. But, we would go and have dinner together, which meant that I would eat in their truck cabin. And that was pretty tough actually, because obviously when it came time to leave it was a very difficult thing."

Obviously you have a deeply-rooted impulse to work with people in all kinds of situations, to try and make a difference... where does that impulse come from in you?

"I think a lot of people are interested to be involved in their local communities and I think a lot of people have this desire to do something that they feel is positive, it's just that a lot of the time life intervenes! You don't feel like you have the time to get involved: you have to work, you have a family, a whole lot of different reasons why you don't actually end up doing it."

Today you work with Nova Skola which runs a whole series of programmes towards helping minorities in the Czech Republic, towards promoting multiculturalism...

"Well Nova Skola has had a couple of very important programmes that have been very successful. Along with an organisation called the Association of Roma in Moravia Nova Skola was an organisation that led to the Education Ministry's accepting of Roma teaching assistants into Czech schools. We were instrumental in the whole programme of training Roma teaching assistants. At the moment we're helping young minority students and students from disadvantageous backgrounds improve their academic performance, helping them choose secondary schools, and helping them prepare for entrance exams. That is just a small part of what we do. Once they're in secondary school we support them through mentoring programmes so we work directly with young people. We also have three new sub-programmes in the area of Romany teaching assistants - helping them earn their diplomas so that they can become certified teachers themselves, and doing joint-training with the assistants and the teachers - sounds academic but this is actually an area that is very important and often overlooked. So, generally, I think that Nova Skola is doing programmes that are going to be very influential in the future."

How has the attitude towards the Roma changed during your time in Prague? It's one of the things that is often discussed as a glaring negative in the Czech Republic. Has it improved?

"I think it has improved a bit. One thing is that the issue is now talked about. It's also talked about within the Roma community with Roma leaders, whereas in the past the issue was really brushed under the carpet, it really wasn't dealt with openly. Obviously there is still a long, long way to go. The thing is, is that there seems to be a certain "schizophrenia" in dealing with Roma issues, in as much as you speak to Czechs who are open-minded and have well-informed opinions about a number of topics, even controversial topics, even racism. But when it comes to the Roma it's as if a different personality takes over and this otherwise open-minded person suddenly falls back on cliché phrases about how "you don't understand - the Roma are different" - it's incredibly illogical."

There are also two pictures of the Czech Republic nowadays: on the one hand its become a desirable destination country for some immigrants, on the other it was not so long ago that Roma were applying for asylum in droves in places like Great Britain, Canada, and France? How do you reconcile the two? Where do you find a balance?

"For a country like the Czech Republic which has a homogenous population where ninety-five percent of the population consider themselves to be ethnic Czechs - even if their mixed Slovak, Polish, German, whatever - integration of minorities is always going to be a problem. This goes back to the expulsion of the Germans after the Second World War; the Czech Republic has to deal with, first of all, its past, the fact that it expelled, whether for good or bad reasons, whether you agree with it or not, the German population. The loss of the German minority contributed to attitudes that are prevalent today about minorities in general. There are a number of different things, I mean, it has to start from the top. The leaders in this country, whether they are political, social, cultural, academic, have to create an atmosphere in which difference is appreciated and not feared, where people look at someone from a different culture and say first and foremost "what can that person bring" to this society that's positive. Not "this person's a threat". Because it's a necessity: the Czech Republic is not absolutely independent of other countries, it is not a country that can survive without the input of people from different cultures."