The people from a small village in Western Bulgaria turned nine children away from the local school because…they are different. And to be more precise, because they are refugee children from Afghanistan. This shameful act on the first school day in the village of Kalishte cast a shadow over the ordinarily festive atmosphere on 15 September, the day when children in this country return to school after their summer vacation, usually marked with much pomp and ceremony. And triggered a weave of comments, discussion and questions: How can this happen in Bulgaria, a country that likes to take credit for its “ethnic tolerance”? For thousands of years Bulgarians, Roma, Armenians, Jews have lived in peace side by side here. Next to the Christian church there is usually a mosque and a synagogue. Have we suddenly found there is not enough room to take in refugees? Or have we become bigots?

The village mayor, the school headmistress and the parents of the first-graders certainly have. The refugee children are “disease carriers, they are intellectually backward, so there is no room at the school for them”, they say. As a matter of fact, events in Kalishte and a few months earlier in Rozovo village near Kazanluk, are the fruit of the inadequacy and ignorance of the state authorities, the media and the whole of society, planted and nurtured through the years. Man is not born tolerant. And it is in this that the state institutions, school and family have failed most abysmally. The above events are just the tip of the iceberg.

The refugee wave from Syria and other volatile points in Asia and Africa was not unexpected, but caught Bulgaria completely by surprise. As it turned out, the State Agency for Refugees has neither the administrative nor the practical capacity to accommodate asylum-seekers. Bulgarian politicians were also caught off-guard by the speed with which the reception centres along the country’s borders were filling up because they didn’t seem to think there was any need to deal with the issue before the wave of immigrants had reached our borders. By force of habit, when something is of no interest to politicians it is of no interest to the media either. Not to mention the school teachers – thorny issues like this one are far detached from their fossilized teaching methods. Parents, wrapped in their daily cares, do not deem it necessary to discuss other people’s problems with their children. So, how can we expect a healthy curiosity in other people to be nurtured and from there – a desire to get to know the world?

Against this background the Kalishte clash was only to be expected – after long years of turning a blind eye, the time has now come when the refugee wave is sweeping away the smugness of everyday lives. And it never occurred to anyone to sit down and talk to the people in Kalishte and tell them there were first-grade children from Afghanistan coming to their school. The locals were simply confronted with a fait accompli. From this angle, it is not hard to explain their hostile and bigoted reaction.  Pity that the school headmistress never thought to organize a children’s party with typical national cuisine, for example or an evening of music for the children to get to know each other, and for that matter – the parents too. Dull village life would certainly have been enlivened. Instead, nine children and their families were driven away. Pity for the first-grade children in Kalishte and elsewhere in Bulgaria – their curiosity about how other people live may never be awakened. Nor will their tolerance of all those who are different.

English version Milena Daynova