Virtual Library Document

Immigrants into Citizens: Political Mobilization in France And Canada

By
Sarah Virginia Wayland

Dissertation submitted to the Faculty of the Graduate School
of The University of Maryland in partial fulfillment
of the requirements for the degree of
Doctor of Philosophy
1995

Abstract/Preface/Dedication/Acknowledgements/Table of Contents/List of Figures
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Appendix/Bibliography

CHAPTER FIVE:

ORGANIZATIONAL STRUCTURES

AND MOBILIZATION IN FRANCE AND CANADA

Organizations are crucial to the study of ethnoracial minority mobilization in two regards. First, a number of theorists have argued that the organizational bases found in established associations frequently serve as catalysts for the emergence of social movements (McCarthy and Zald 1977; Gamson 1975; Tilly 1978). With the exception of spontaneous riots, collective action requires considerable contact and planning among challengers. As noted in previous chapters, the role of social movement organizations (SMOs) are "effective means of articulating and representing interests" (Lowi 1971: 5). As Tarrow elaborates, the role of SMOs "is critical in framing new codes of meaning, placing new ideological packages before the public, and challenging elites and authorities with new models of collective action" (Tarrow 1989b: 15). Organization lies at the heart of the resource mobilization theory of collective action. Some SMOs are so successful in developing routine ties with the state that they become established interest groups.

Second, immigration encourages the creation of communal organizations in the settlement countries, and continued immigration will enhance their persistence (Olzak 1992: 40). Associations are an important means by which immigrants and ethnoracial minorities come together to express their fears, frustrations, and goals. Moreover, associations serve as agents of integration into the settlement society (Rex 1987; Layton-Henry 1990a). In a California-based study, Schmidt (1992) found that ethnic organizations offer more hope for facilitating the political incorporation of immigrants than did the other institutions examined: public schools, political parties, and labor unions. As will be shown in this chapter, this national, ethnic or racial solidarity provides a natural base from which to launch collective action efforts. Mobilization is not achieved easily however: associations face numerous challenges, especially concerning access to resources and fragmentation among and within communal groups.

The existence of associations as described here is also relevant to the state, which -- egalitarian intentions notwithstanding -- rarely pursues policies neutral to groups within the broader population (Brass 1985: 7-9). Host governments seek to establish ties with associations through funding, supervising, and even policing their activities, thereby establishing over the decades a pattern of clientage and patronage in which associations may become entirely dependent on the government for direction and funding (Rex 1987: 10). The impact of government policies and funding programs on the formation, perpetuation, and objectives of communal and intercommunal associations cannot be overestimated.

This chapter examines the relationship between associations, mobilization, and the state in the Canadian and French contexts. First, a general typology of immigrant and ethnoracial associations is presented, followed by a discussion of obstacles to mobilization faced by such associations. This section is much informed by the study of Canada and France, but it is also based upon broader sources of information, particularly in the European context. For France and then Canada, an overview of associational life is provided, including how organizations are financed and how their ties with government are in keeping with respective republican and multicultural traditions. In addition, other forms of political representation for immigrants and ethnoracial minorities are described for each country. Lastly, an overview of collective action -- with particular emphasis on the 1980s -- is provided for France and Canada. These mobilization histories reveal the extent to which associations have been instrumental to collective action efforts. As well, they demonstrate how French and Canadian political culture as manifested in "national identity structures" have influenced the strategies, issues, and outcomes of collective political mobilization.

Typology of Associations

This research is primarily concerned with associations which were created by and/or serve migrants and ethnoracial minorities. This includes "solidarity" associations, whose members are not immigrants, but usually have leftist, sometimes communist, leanings. Solidarity associations may also have religious affiliations. They are interested in immigrant and minority rights and the fight against racism.

Associations correspond to minority presence in a city, region, or country. The age of an association generally corresponds to how long its ethnoracial constituency has had a significant presence in the area. Thus, associational presence reflects changes in minority composition. In Toronto, this has meant a rapid transformation of existing structures as well as creation of new ones. To illustrate, prior to the massive influx of African immigrants and refugees to Canada in the 1980s, only a handful of African associations existed. Today, Metro Toronto hosts an estimated seventy African community agencies which receive 30,000 clients annually (Opoku-Dapaah 1993a: 2).

There is a wide range of associations which were created by or serve migrants and ethnoracial minorities. Given the multiple functions they fulfill and their often ephemeral nature, there can be no mutually exclusive typology of associations. A comprehensive way of looking at such associations then is to dissect them in several ways. Here I consider the range of associations first by function, then by geographical scope, and third by membership.

The most specific means of distinguishing between associations is by function. The activities and objectives of associations fall between two poles. At the first pole, we find the desire to maintain the "original" culture of an immigrant group. Kinship, cultural, social, economic and sometimes political links with the country of origin are maintained. Associations may provide development assistance or attempt to influence political conflicts from abroad. The second pole is the tendency towards incorporation into the host society. Activities are aimed at promoting kinship, social, cultural, and even political ties with the country of residence. While this dichotomy represents almost all migrant associations in Europe and North America, it is important to note that few associations favor one pole exclusively. Rather, most combine the two poles to a certain extent, with both of them being viewed as important for facilitating migrant incorporation (Grudzielski 1990b: 7).

The objectives and activities of ethnoracial associations are generally one or more of the following:

Social assistance: providing culturally, racially, and linguistically appropriate services to one or more ethnoracial communities. These include legal aid, settlement assistance, interpretation services, language training, tutoring, information, protection of rights, housing and employment referrals, and crisis intervention in family problems such as spouse abuse. Social service agencies are especially important in areas hosting large numbers of recent arrivals and serve to supplement services provided by the state. In some cases, persons form groups to provide development assistance to their country, region, or village of origin.

Cultural promotion: maintaining contact with the culture of the community of origin through recreational outlets such as sports, folklore (food, dance, customs, dress), and native language instruction. Some organizations sponsor visits to the country of origin, particularly for youth who are born in the settlement country.

Religious activity: maintaining channels of religious instruction through the establishment of places of worship. This is particularly important for Muslims whose first duty is to establish places of prayer in the country of settlement. Although Muslims have received the most attention in this respect, migration almost always involves differences between the religion of the migrants and that of the host country, even among Christians.

Political mobilization: organizing and lobbying for political issues, focusing either on the country of origin or on the country of settlement. In case of the latter, numerous minority communities may act in concert, such as in the Coalition of Visible Minority Women in Canada. In Europe, foreigners have attempted to become more directly involved in politics by mobilizing for the right to vote. Associations may try to lobby their "host" government on foreign policy issues which concern the countries of origin, including on issues of trade, aid, human rights, refugee resettlement, and family reunification.

In a broader sense, one can consider almost all the objectives and activities of minority associations to have some political significance. The restricted political rights of foreigners, their generally low levels of political efficacy, and their often poor socioeconomic status mean that social and economic issues -- such as working and housing conditions and relations with the police -- take on political salience (Miller 1981: 22-3). This "politicization of the nonpolitical" underscores the important role that associations play in advocating for their constituents. Associational life is a concrete form of democracy (Fonda 1983: 43). In creating informal political processes, some have contributed to the local redefinition of new politics, with new actors. That migrants and their descendants maintain ties with two or more states causes John Rex to posit a "striking possibility" of immigrant associational life: "that the very boundaries of political organizations as they have been understood in the nation state will be undermined..." (1987: 9). Others have argued that the transnational concerns of associations are subversive to existing political systems (Wihtol de Wenden 1990b).

No association can tackle all of these activities, but some do more than others. General focus associations are each involved with a variety of issues such as cultural expression, sports, immigration issues, and anti-racism efforts. Although they often provide information on where to access services, they are generally not direct social service agencies. They usually consist of a single ethnoracial or national group. In contrast, single issue organizations have one particular focus. These include women's issues, religious expression, AIDS education, and problems faced by youth. For example, the Ghana Refugee Group was created in Toronto in 1991 by Ghanaians who were dissatisfied with the existing Canadian refugee determination process.

Associations can also be divided according to the geographical scope of their activities. First, associations may have a local focus. They provide a forum for neighbors with similar concerns to come together. Activities may be publicized through word of mouth or posted around the neighborhood or city.

Secondly, there are regional and national organizations which generally focus on a broader set of issues and may seek to influence national policies. Some of these are umbrella organizations, or coordinating bodies which have other organizations as members. In most cases, the coordinating agency focuses on lobbying or advocacy work while its member agencies are direct service providers. The largest, most established of these in Ontario is the Ontario Council of Agencies Serving Immigrants (OCASI) which has 135 member organizations throughout the province. In other cases, the coordinating bodies are loose coalitions which are held together by volunteers from their constituencies. Often, these will have neither permanent office space nor any paid staff.

Some national associations have official ties to the government of the country of origin. Such formal organizations were particularly important during periods of temporary foreign worker recruitment as a means for the home country to maintain contacts with its citizens living abroad. The Algerian arm in Europe, the Amicale des Algeriens en Europe, once boasted a membership of ten percent of all Algerians living abroad (Miller 1981: 35-8). Some are surveillance-type organizations, to ensure that citizens living abroad are not engaged in any subversive political activity. Others are fraternal organizations. Italy, for example, provides funding for religious, trade union, and social welfare organizations to set up abroad, but the state does not closely control the organizations (Miller 1981: 40). With the decline of guestworker recruitment in Europe and the onset of permanent migration, the power of government-sponsored and financed organizations has waned.

Lastly, there are transnational networks or federations. These often serve as umbrella organizations for national or regional associations, providing guidance and facilitating contacts between dispersed members of the same communal group. Such transnational agencies may also attempt to obtain recognition from international organizations such as United Nations agencies or European institutions.

Transnational associations are more established in Europe than elsewhere, particularly with the advent of European Union (EU). To illustrate, the European Commission has invited 67 associations to participate in a "migrants' associations forum" which is to allow the voices of such associations to be heard at the EU level and to disseminate information on the EU among their members (Grudzielski 1990b: 12). In addition, the European Centre for Work and Society has launched MAINE, the Migrants' Associations Information Network in Europe. MAINE provides a descriptive directory of associations in Europe (500 were listed in 1990), a newsletter, an annual report on the status of migrants' association in the context of social policies (cf. Grudzielski 1990a), organization of educational fora to provide associational representatives with migration-related information, and research on topics related to the interests of migrants' associations (Grudzielski 1990b: 13-4). Networks such as MAINE are fairly new, and their impact remains to be seen.

Another way of differentiating between associations is by generational membership. First generation organizations are generally formed by migrants from the same country. If the population of immigrants is relatively small and is perceived as having similar interests with a broader group, associations may be based upon a region or even continent of origin, such as the Federation of African Workers in France (FETAF). An organization may consist of members of a subnational group such as Sri Lankan Tamils. In either case, these associations are a natural outgrowth of the need for migrants to find familiarity amid new surroundings. Migrants can share news from the home country, communicate in their native tongue, and foster ethnic networks. In brief, such associations preserve cultural links with the home country. In addition, organizations may be created to support or oppose existing political regimes in the home country or, especially in European countries, as worker organizations. Today, many such associations focus on integration into the settlement society while retaining cultural ties with the country of origin.

"Second generation" associations have members who may have never lived outside the settlement country and who, depending on the country's citizenship laws, may or may not have citizenship in the settlement country. Membership in such associations often crosses national lines, as with Beur associations in France whose members are of North African origin. The term "second generation" may be used loosely to mean "youth." These associations are created for various reasons, such as combatting the tedium of ghetto living (galère des banlieues) with theatrical and various social programs, and are generally very loose structurally, having no elected leadership and little funding. Most second generation organizations are small and locally-based, but some have achieved national recognition, such as SOS Racisme and France Plus in France. In the French context, much tension existed between local and national organizations in the 1980s.

This generational distinction is not always clear. For example, eager to retain their membership, some of the more established male-dominated associations have broadened their agendas to incorporate women and youth. Once comprised of male workers, the Association of Tunisians in France has followed this model by recruiting youth and women into its structures.

In brief, associations can be categorized in numerous ways, each of which reveals only part of the distinctions. In addition to division by function, geographical scope, and membership, associations could also be divided according to financial sources, ideology, and ethnoracial composition of the organizations. The extreme diversity of associations makes it difficult to make generalizations. In many cases, it is incorrect to use the appelation "foreigner" or "immigrant" association, as members may have citizenship in the country of residence or may be the descendents of immigrants. Although such terminology is not used in the French context, it is more accurate to speak of ethnic, ethnospecific, ethnocultural, or racial minority associations.

Obstacles to mobilization. The above discussion illuminates the positive role that associations play in facilitating integration of their constituents. Associations serve as intermediaries between local and national institutions and foreign populations. As agents of communication, they are able to mobilize constituencies around certain issues such as those affecting their legal and political rights.

In terms of mobilization potential, however, ethnoracial associations face numerous obstacles. The primary weakness of immigrant associations is their fragmentation. Coming from different backgrounds and possessing divergent interests, migrants and their descendants rarely constitute a viable collective force. This hinders their efforts to be recognized, much less to exert influence. In France, this fragmentation has hindered the Beur movement in particular. Although various associations and collectives have fought to control it, none ever gained wide acceptance.

In Canada, talk of a "third force" to counter English and French powers has rarely been translated into action. Efforts are being made to establish closer networks and unite around particular causes. This has been accomplished in the past as well (Miller 1981) -- not always in associational form -- but mobilization potential has yet to be realized.

The second principal weakness of associations is their chronic shortage of financial resources. Although most associations rely on donations of individual members, they depend heavily on external funding sources, including from solidarity associations, local churches, countries of origin, and -- most importantly -- various government agencies. Financial dependency compromises the autonomy of these organizations. This is evidenced by the fact that, in order to secure funding, the objectives and activities of associations often conform to demands of those doing the financing. This is even more true in that many states, including France and Canada, fund activities or projects as opposed to structures. Thus, an association receives funding only if it institutes certain programs as determined by the state. Not surprisingly, the activities of many immigrant associations vary considerably over time, in accordance with where the funding is. Thus, public funding may mean that associations lose sight of their original agendas in pursuit of continued funding. Similarly, the demands of grant applications processes may mean that associations use their limited resources towards administrative ends to the detriment of their own activities. In addition, the nature of the funding process makes any long-term planning next to impossible. In brief, the structure of associations, their objectives, and their declared activities vary considerably according to their means of financial support. This is true in both France and Canada.

Third, the clientage and patronage relationships established between associations and the state often entail the cooptation of minority leadership. Contact with and funding from the state is viewed as a sign of integration, and of recognition of a particular leader's efficacy. These leaders may pursue political careers or be appointed to administrative positions. Although this facilitates the integration of elites as individuals, the institutionalization and professionalization of minority leaders cuts them off from their base. This phenomenon was particularly noteworthy in France in the 1980s. With recognition and financial support for foreigners' associations came the creation of an elite, notably the second-generation "Beurgeoisie." Many small associations cannot survive without effective leadership.

Before turning to specific discussions of the ethnoracial minority associational scene in France and Canada, a few words are in order about associational life in general in the two countries. Comparative research on voluntary associations in Western Europe and North America has revealed that whereas Americans and Canadians are most likely to be active members of an association, Italy and France reported the lowest levels of participation (Curtis et al. 1992). Thus, we are dealing with contrasting contexts in which to study the associational activities of immigrant minorities.

Since the late 1970s in France, however, associational activity has increased greatly (Wilson 1987). When left-wing municipal governments came to power across France in 1977, they encouraged and subsidized local community action groups. This trend accelerated with the 1981 Socialist victory in the national elections: legislation encouraged associational formation, including tax deductions for contributions to voluntary organizations (Ehrmann and Schain 1992: 102-3). This trend may be short-lived, but it does indicate that the French situation may no longer be characterized by the extremes for which it is known.

Nonetheless, in contrast to the significant role of interest groups in Canadian politics, attempts to create a pluralist style of politics simply has not worked in France. Associations find themselves in a precarious position, having to negotiate between total absorption into public institutions on the one hand, or "being marginalised by exclusion from the system and thereby reduced to impotent if vociferous dissent" on the other (Hayward 1982: 6). We now turn to a more in-depth examination of migrant and minority associations in France.

Organization and Mobilization in France

This section is divided into four parts which discuss foreigners' associations, other forms of minority representation, the funding of associations and its links to republicanism in France, and mobilization by immigrants and ethnoracial minorities in France. Mobilization efforts have reflected the strength of associational life -- its ebb and flow -- as well as the power of France's republican model of minority incorporation.

Foreigners' Associations. On the eve of World War II, France restricted the legal right of foreigners to create their own associations, heretofore overseen by a 1901 law. A foreigners' association was defined as one which had foreign headquarters, foreign leadership, or one quarter of whose members were of foreign nationality. All such associations had to receive authorization from the Ministry of the Interior, subject to refusal or revocation if declared goals were not maintained.

The 1939 law was maintained after France's liberation and was used in attempts to prevent the organization of Algerian nationalists during their war for independence (Amer and Milya 1990: 60-3). Instead, networks were established by the National Liberation Front (FLN) within existing social service associations. When Algerian independence was granted, the FLN's presence in France took the form of the Amicale des Algériens en France (AAF) which was a powerful force working to resettle Algerian workers in France during the 1960s. As France's Algerian workers became more established and were joined by their families -- that is, as it became evident that much of the migration was permanent -- the influence of the AAF waned. The monopoly of the amicales from Algeria, Morocco, and Tunisia was challenged by the emergence of more autonomous, less centralized associations which in some cases were tolerated by public authorities and in others operated underground. De facto foreigners' associations also existed in the form of residents' associations or planning committees for cultural events (Fonda 1991: 17-20).

Several large marches of foreign workers and their families during the 1960s demanded revocation of the 1939 law on associations. While this demand was voiced by various immigrant worker associations, it was also supported by foreigners' rights groups (FASTI, GISTI, CIMADE, CLAP) as well as by anti-racist, Christian, and leftist organizations including the LDH (Ligue des Droits de l'Homme or League for the Rights of Man) and MRAP (Movement against Racism and for Friendship among Peoples) (Jazouli 1986: 75-6). These "solidarity" associations formed an ad hoc committee in 1977 to repeal the 1939 law (Fonda 1991: 21-2). Their backing lent legitimacy to immigrants' causes, including amnesty for illegal immigrants, legislation against racism, and improved housing and work conditions.

Upon election in 1981, Socialist President François Mitterrand and Prime Minister Pierre Mauroy repealed the restrictions on foreigners' associations. This 9 October 1981 law reintegrated foreigners' associations into the 1901 common law, eliminating the need for special authorization and administrative control and allowing them to qualify for public funding through the Fonds d'action sociale (FAS). Not surprisingly, the Socialists' actions caused a veritable explosion of associations, many of which had existed informally prior to 1981. In the five months before the repeal of 1939 law, the creation of 122 foreigners' associations had been declared. The figure for the succeeding five months was 402 (Fonda 1983). Today, at least 5,000 immigrant associations are estimated to exist in France, and the right to association of foreigners in France is one of the most liberal among EU member countries (Fonda 1991: 25).

Members of the new immigrant associations desired not only more independence from the countries of origin and their official amicales -- whose mission was becoming less political and more bureaucratic, for example, overseeing passports and cash transfers -- but also from the French solidarity associations. Organizations such as the LDH, MRAP, and GISTI had long played an important role -- linking immigrants with French society, lending legitimacy to their efforts, and providing legal and administrative support -- but Mitterrand's actions in 1981 meant that foreigners in France could act more autonomously. In addition, the rise of youth-based associations in the early 1980s tended to eclipse the established organizations, particularly as their political base in left-wing politics eroded (Schain 1988: 603-7). However, these solidarity associations would remain key players in many of the mobilization efforts to come.

In a ten-year evalution of the mouvement associatif immigré, as it is called, Fonda -- the central monitoring agency of associational life in France -- concluded that there are an insufficient number of comprehensive, empirical studies on "immigrant" associational life (Fonda 1991). There are some estimates as to the number of associations in France which were created by or serve persons of immigrant origin. In 1984, an estimated 4,200 of them existed, including 940 Portuguese, 850 Maghrébin, 500 Italian, 450 Spanish, 350 Turkish, 300 Yugoslavian, 250 Southeast Asian, and 200 to 250 Polish (Wihtol de Wenden 1988: 364). This estimate was made during a period of rapid associational growth and thus was likely to be an undercount. In the years immediately preceding the 1981 law, about 300 foreigners' associations were being authorized by the Interior Ministry each year. By the end of the decade, that figure had jumped to between 500 and 800 (Fonda 1991: 72). Indeed, FAS was funding 4,000 associations by 1990, up from 3,000 in 1980.

In addition, several recent directories of "immigrant associations" exist (ADRI 1988; CIEMI 1991), as well as the Journal Officiel government publication which contains information on formally declared associations. None of this information is comprehensive, however. The short-lived or evolving nature of many ethnoracial associations, coupled with their often informal structures, means that any attempt to document all of them would be necessarily out-of-date and incomplete. Moreover, lists of organizations do not reveal the extent of their activities and membership. In some cases, even researchers willing to expend considerable time and effort are unable to obtain detailed information about the goals, activities, and membership (cf. Bozarslan 1988). Researchers viewed with suspicion or may simply be a low priority for the already-busy leadership.

The following brief overview of "immigrant" associations in France is based on existing research as well as on my interviews with a number of associations in metropolitan Paris.

Maghrébin associations in France are among the most documented. Algerians have a long tradition of organization in France which was especially significant during the struggle for independence in the 1950s and until 1962. Moroccan activity in France dates from the creation of the Association des Morocains en France in 1961 whose prominence was eclipsed by the more powerful ATCMF, a federation created in 1973 which groups together 128 amicales. The dispersion of the smaller Tunisian population in France has meant that Tunisian-based associations have little real impact on immigration issues in France (Palidda 1987: 166-7). In addition to these national-oriented organizations, Maghrébins have come together in protests over living and working conditions. The rise of youth-based associations has somewhat rejuvenated the more established Maghrébin associations, at least causing them to attempt to incorporate women and youth into their structures and to focus more on problems in France rather than in North Africa.

Indeed, the "second generation" Beur associations have been considerably active and have been able to change both the repertoires and the aims of collective action (as shown below). Emerging in the late 1970s, these associations have both cultural and political import. The majority of them non-practicing Muslims educated in France but who still uphold aspects of Islamic culture, Beurs have created a unique sociocultural identity. The rise of Beur associations, and their failures, have been widely studied (Boubeker and Beau 1986; Jazouli 1986; Amara and Idir 1991; Begag 1990; Bettagay 1990; Bouregba-Dichy 1990; Negrouche 1992a; Poinsot 1991; Wihtol de Wenden 1992). Local and national associations, despite addressing certain social problems, are seen as having fostered the development of a "Beurgeoisie" which profited from government funding yet did not provide leadership to marginalized youth. Beurs have the only well-documented "second generation" associations in France, other youth of immigrant origin being either too small in numbers (sub-Saharan Africans) or easily assimilated into French society (Italians, Spanish, and Portuguese). Thus, in the French context, "second generation" is basically synonomous with Beur.

Membership in Maghrébin and Beur associations overlaps somewhat with participation in religious organizations. A revitalization of Islam in France has been marked by the emergence of Islamic associations which oversee religious education, pilgrimmages, dietary restrictions, the establishment of places of worship, the "re-Islamization" of neighborhoods, and the general promotion of Islamic culture (Diop and Kastoryano 1991; Kepel 1987). While these associations seek to enhance Muslim identity, they must also limit their identity-based strategies in order to obtain public resources and compete with the secular associations who also represent immigrant minorities (Leveau 1992). By the late 1980s, more than 600 places for Islamic worship were governed by France's 1901 law on associations (Fonda 1991: 54-6). In the wake of the 1989 "Islamic scarf affair," the French government created the Conseil de réflexion sur l'islam en France (Corif), which today consists of fifteen Muslim leaders who as individuals represent the Muslim community in France and provide counsel to the government on issues of concern to Muslims in France. The Corif has been important consultative body in that Islam recognizes no central authority and it is therefore difficult to settle issues which have emerged over time (Guellouz 1992). It is also testament to the permanent presence of Islam in France.

Associations of immigrants from Southern Europe -- Italy, Spain, and Portugal -- generally try to attract as many migrants as possible by offering diverse activities, ranging from sports to language courses to cultural events. The Portuguese community, numerically the largest group of immigrants in France, has established the most dense and active associational network in the country (Hily and Poinard 1987). Largely self-financed and autonomous in nature, Portuguese associations nonetheless have low visibility and are not politically active. There are only about half as many Italian associations as Portuguese. In actuality, the number of associations is probably higher -- especially after 1981 (Campani et al. 1987: 179). Spanish associations enjoy close ties with the Spanish state, as evidenced by the 1991 merging of two large state-affiliated Spanish federations into one entity which represents as many as 70 percent of Spaniards living in France (Dianteill 1992).

Although their numbers are no doubt greater (as many as 2,000 by one estimate), CIEMI documented 424 African associations in France in 1986: 125 of them were multinational or pan-African, 244 of them were of a national character (91 from Senegal alone), and 26 were formed by emigrants from a particular village or region. While most of these are relatively small and informal, one association claims to have 6,000 members (cited in Diop 1987: 212-4). Diop claims that associational activities are mostly oriented around administrative, orientation, and educational needs; protection of rights; and cultural activities. Approximately 70 percent of Africans in France are in the Paris region where they have encountered difficulties in finding adequate housing, particularly as many of them want to live collectively as they did in Africa. Housing has been the subject of much collective action, including by displaced Africans who erect "tent cities" in public spaces to draw attention to their plight. Some African associations, especially those comprised of immigrants from the same villages of Senegal, Mali, and Mauritania, appear especially focused on providing development aid to the village of origin. The French government has recognized the importance of using particular African associations, including women's associations, to act as intermediaries with the larger African population in France (Secrétariat 1992: 88).

Migration from Turkey is of a recent nature and much of it is illegal, but there was already a significant number of Turkish associations in France by the mid-1980s (Catani 1987: 244). Turkish associations are quite fragmented, their divisions being based above all on political ideology and religious belief. Many of them are focused on life in Turkey rather than on integration into French society. One exeption is the Maison des Travailleurs de Turquie (Elélé) or House of Turkish Workers which not only has a secular, integrationist stance but also has Kurdish members.

Southeast Asians residing in France hail largely from the former French colonies of Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. Their associational life is not well-documented, but one study divides their organizations into pro-government (towards country of origin), anti-communist, Buddhist, and Roman Catholic (Khoa 1987). Khoa documents the emergence of some "second generation" activity as well. These have developed autonomously and -- as is the case for the Beurs -- are characterized by broad cultural interest in identity and origins as opposed to upholding a particular national origin.

The vast majority of membership in the ensemble of associations described above is male. This reflects both the predominantly male migration to France in the past and the roles that men had assumed in their countries of origin as community leaders. As migration to France became increasingly comprised of women and children, however, associations were created by women of immigrant origin. Prior to 1981, women organized groups within existing immigrant associations or around political issues in the country of origin, as was the case for the Groupe des femmes algériennes or Algerian Women's Group. After 1981, a variety of women's organizations sprang up. The Collectif femmes immigrés formed in 1982, bringing together women from North and South America, the Iberian peninsula, Africa, and France. This unusually multinational association fought for the recognition of immigrant women's rights (Fonda 1991: 48). Other associations pursue women's rights, provide space for women to escape daily pressures, offer language training, and embark on economic ventures such as restaurants and cultural shows. The principal factors motivating women to join associations are their lack of work, education, and language skills. Immigrant women have among the highest unemployment levels in France. African and Maghrébin women have been among the most active associationally, especially among the younger generation for the latter (Fonda 1991: 50-2). Feminist associations such as Les Nanas Beur and Expression Maghrébine au Féminin were created by young women of Maghrébin origin to fight for the autonomy of women in France and in the Maghreb.

One final group of associations in France deserves mention. The Council of Immigrant Associations in France, or CAIF, is the most noteworthy attempt in France to create an umbrella organization of immigrant associations, both European and non-European. Officially created in 1984, CAIF has roots in the radical Maison des Travailleurs Arabes which later became the Maison des Travailleurs Immigrés. It regroups more than a dozen federations, most of them founded by first generation workers such as the Association of Moroccans in France. CAIF serves as a network sharing information on concerns relevant to immigrant minorities and refugees and instigating action around these concerns. One of its ongoing battles has been for foreigners' voting rights in municipal elections. It has also been working with the Migrants' Forum in Brussels to examine how European unification will affect non-EU foreigners living in EU countries. In recent years, CAIF has experienced financial difficulties and today, although it receives some funding from FAS, subsists on voluntary labor. The CAIF rhetoric is still strong, but the mobilization is not there to back it up.

In sum, the evolution of the mouvement associatif in France can be characterized by increasing diversity. The term "foreigners' association" no longer adequately reflects the reality of networks which exist between foreigners, naturalized French citizens, and persons of foreign origin who or may not have French nationality. Today's associations reflect the changing nature of immigration in France: amicales and strictly worker organizations serving the needs of foreigners temporarily residing in a country have given way to second-generation, women's, and family-oriented associations which recognize that immigrants and ethnoracial minorities are here to stay. Their primary objective is to negotiate integration into the settlement society.

Other Representation. In addition to associations, migrants have other means of institutional or political representation in France. Foreigners have enjoyed at least a consultative role in municipal affairs in some French cities. Following a 1983 law urging their creation, extra-municipal commissions of foreigners exist in 100 or so French towns. Commission membership is often based on arbitrary nominations. As a result, the commissions are rarely representative bodies, reflecting the conceptions of those elected more than the local social reality. Although these commissions possess limited power, they often constitute the central structure where local treatment of immigrant problems is laid out. Critics claim that their existence masks the absence of a real local politics for immigrant populations (Frybès 1992: 107-8).

In a few instances, foreigners have participated as special delegates to municipal councils. This was conceived of as an intermediary step towards the right to vote in local elections. Elected by foreigners, these "associate councillors" have very limited powers and do not even have a vote in council meetings. This was instituted in 1985 in Mons-en-Baroeul and existed in Amiens from 1987 until 1989 when a rightist (UDF) mayor was elected. The presence of non-voting foreign councillors is viewed by many as tokenism, and there have been low interest levels by both foreigners and local authorities. In light of the lack of enthusiasm by local authorities for extra-municipal commissions, France has offered grants to finance specific measures for migrant insertion into the local community (contrats d'agglomération).

On the national level, the National Council for Immigrant Populations (CNPI) was created in 1984. Composed of representatives of immigrant communities, trade union and business delegates, civil servants, and association leaders, the CNPI served as a consultative body to the Ministry of Social Affairs (now the Ministry of Life, Integration, and Health) on issues such as equal rights, family reunification, and undocumented labor. According to one foreigner member, the CNPI's biggest achievement is that it allowed for consultation between immigrants and public institutions which had not existed before. Renamed the National Council for Integration of Immigrant Populations (CNIPI), the Council's mandate was renewed in March 1993.

The results of these forms of representation are mixed. While consultative bodies do have some impact, they do not permit foreigners full representation. The relegation of special positions to foreigners is viewed as tokenism by some, as a breach of the republican model by others. Foreign activists argue that they will never be fully part of French society until they can vote in local elections. Unfortunately for them, however, the right to vote has remained linked to nationality in France: foreigners can become voters only through naturalization. As detailed in Chapter Six, although local voting rights have been granted in several European countries without much controversy, the idea of a foreigners' vote in France is very unpopular among French citizens.

Funding. The mouvement associatif d'origine immigrée is evidently less precarious today than it was prior to 1981. Recognition of and support for foreigners' associations by the French state has been viewed as a positive development by a majority of minorities of immigrant origin. Public funding is considered to be proof of integration of leadership and, thus, of their competence as interlocators. There are drawbacks to this support, however. While it may be viewed as legitimate support for community-specific sociocultural activities, public financing may also be perceived as a method of control of the associations.

Some former militants believe that financial dependence on the French state has stymied mobilization efforts. The funding process has stimulated the development of bureaucratic associations run by intellectual elites who are not representative of their own membership. The institutionalization and professionalization of leaders has cut them off from their base and helped to eliminate the smallest associations. Some scholars go so far to argue that government subsidies have "killed immigrant associations instead of helping them to transform themselves" (Frybès 1992: 103). Most associations have nominal membership fees, but many activists emphasize the need for more self-financing. This must remain a long-term goal, but one that does not seem attainable in the near future. Moreover, financial autonomy brings with it new stresses.

Others see government subsidies as part of a wider evolution of the repertoires of collective action. As evidenced by the flowering of associations in the early 1980s, mobilization has become more conventional and less contentious and therefore more likely to attract government support. In the words of one long-time activist,

You can't have it both ways, relying on funding and then complaining that funding did you in. It's true that nobody gives away money for nothing, including the state which is interested in supporting certain objectives. If those aren't your goals, finance yourself... When I was fighting for the rights of illegal aliens in 1973 [through hunger strikes], I certainly didn't ask for government aid.

By this logic, closer contact with the state reflects a conscious decision on the part of activists, and its consequences must be accepted.

The largest subsidizer of immigrant associations in France is the Fonds d'Action Social (FAS), or Social Action Fund, which was created in 1958 as the "Social Action Fund for Algerian Muslim workers in Metropolitan France and their families." FAS was created in the context of a rapidly growing Algerian presence in France, a majority of whom were deemed by the Interior Ministry to be "poorly housed." FAS was to finance housing developments for Algerian workers and was instrumental in setting up cités de transit (Elkarati 1988: 7). In 1964, following the independence of Algeria, the mandate of FAS was extended to all foreign workers and in 1966 was again expanded to include "social groups posing problems of adaptation comparable to those of foreign workers, whatever their status in terms of nationality" (decree of 14 September 1966, No. 66-674). In other words, FAS was to aid minorities of immigrant origin. This ambiguous mandate has given flexibility to FAS but has also imposed the difficulty of manoeuvring between setting quotas for funding of foreigners and discounting the influence of national origin altogether (Yahiel 1988: 110).

Over the next two decades, as the nature of migration to France evolved, so did FAS. Public housing was a decreasing part of the budget, although still constituting more than 60 percent of it in the 1970s, and FAS became increasing involved in funding the training and sociocultural activities of migrants and their descendants. In addition, FAS has evolved from a funding agency into a vocal social institution with its own identity and role in coordinating with different ministries which come into contact with immigrant populations (Elkarati 1988; Neveu 1990). The downside of this dynamism is that other institutions have largely left immigrant concerns, especially funding, to be dealt with by FAS.

In 1983, FAS was decentralized into regional structures, thereby permitting closer contact with funded associations and with local government agencies. Organizationally, Regional Commissions for the Insertion of Immigrant Populations (CRIPI) were created. The CRIPI have a consultative role to FAS's executive branch, the 34-member Administrative Council. As of 1986, each CRIPI consisted of 29 members, at least six of whom had to be immigrants (Khellil 1988: 418).

FAS-financed associations. According to a FAS publication, the number of organizations funded by FAS expanded to 4,500 in 1992, 1,000 of which were first funded in 1991. In particular, FAS funded local associations and youth associations which "permitted the development of the number and the quality of operators of integration" (Fonds d'action sociale 1992). A few organizations received the bulk of the FAS funds, with the rest dispersed between a multitude of small associations. Some associations depend exclusively on FAS for funding. Indeed, the material stakes in the grant-getting process are important. According to a study by a group of French political scientists, an "ordinary" association can pretty easily obtain a grant of 100,000 francs (Leveau and Wihtol de Wenden 1990).

The French Center for the Study of Interational Relations (CERI) undertook a study of the "insertion of persons of Islamic culture" in France (Leveau and Wihtol de Wenden 1990). Their research found that half of the associations studied benefitted from sort of subsidy. Only 4.2 percent claimed to receive funds from the country of origin (the study did not include amicales), although more benefitted from indirect aid such as the supply and support of imams (Muslim religious leaders) and sponsorship of youth voyages to the country. Other associations were either against the current regime in their country of origin or were wary of homeland control of their association. As for financial support from France, 39 percent received funds from FAS, ranging from 8,000 to 60 million francs annually. Fifteen percent reported receiving aid from various ministries, 13.5 percent from the municipal government (mairie), and five percent from regional or departmental agencies. 8.4 percent received funds from private charities. In addition, various government programs to combat unemployment and support internships permitted associations to hire full- or part-time workers without denting their budgets. Aside from such programs, only 22 percent of those associations sampled had any permanent, paid staff members (Neveu 1990).

In an amateur survey of 49 associations attending its January 1986 Forum of Associations, CAIF found that 33 of them were financed through membership fees, 30 through volunteer support, and 28 through subsidies. Of the 33 who had applied for funding (mostly to FAS), 30 received some grants but only 12 of them received more than 50 percent of what they had requested, nine received between 25 and 50 percent, and nine received less than 25 percent (CAIF 1986: 38-9).

One of the biggest complaints of associations funded by FAS is the tardiness of payment (Neveu 1990). According to several of the associations interviewed, the FAS funds may not arrive until the end of the year for which the funding was to cover. In the meantime, associations either have to forego their activities, dismiss some of their staff, or obtain bank credit (CAIF 1986: 26). According to a FAS official, although ideally funding is given one to four months from the time an application is submitted, in reality it could take up to a year. To be sure, FAS faces constraints of its own. Its 1992 budget was reduced by one-quarter from 1991, thereby necessitating some unpopular funding decisions.

FAS and Republicanism. The evolution of the structure and mission of FAS reflects the changing nature of immigration in France, namely that -- because of the French nationality code -- much of its target population is French. Although the funding of programs for minorities of immigrant origin may appear to contradict France's republican model, the existence of FAS is often justified on two grounds. First, FAS is only one among many public funding agencies. Just as French associations can apply for funding to various sources, this right was granted to foreigners' associations upon their 1981 reintegration into the 1901 law on associations. Foreigners' associations can receive funding from various state ministries besides FAS. Second, the existence of FAS is seen as temporary. It is viewed as a supplementary provider of public funds to those who by virtue of lack of education and language skills are unable to take advantage of existing public institutions. FAS works to fill in the gaps left by the common law agencies, with the intention that these gaps will someday be eliminated and that FAS will no longer be required. When asked whether the existence of FAS contradicted the republican model, one of the FAS officials interviewed asserted that it did not, that FAS was "always targetting a better insertion and integration. There's not the communalism (communitaurisme) that exists in the U.S. that could push us towards ethnic ghettos."

Such arguments for the republican nature of FAS are not well grounded however. In reality, FAS is not just another funding agency: it is the most important source of funding to immigrant-related associations. Its grants target specific groups of people living in France and exclude others. Some associations which have long existed thanks to FAS would be eligible to receive funding from other public funds but need not bother. In addition, FAS fulfills a role that would not be easily transferable to other public agencies. Its staff is trained to deal with specific types of problems encountered by immigrant minorities -- illiteracy and culture shock for example. Normal bureaucrats are not trained to take these needs into account. Moreover, the problems of exclusionism in France show no signs of diminishing. In sum, the very existence of FAS today poses challenges to France's republican model.

We have seen that FAS has shifted the definition of who it aids from non-citizens to minorities. It was originally created to better the living conditions of Algerian workers in France, not to facilitate their permanent integration. FAS thus stands as a legacy of colonialism and has become a means for the de facto recognition of minorities by the French state (Bauer 1991). Indeed, the four principal missions recently outlined by FAS indicate some recognition of cultural pluralism in France (Fonds d'action sociale 1993: 2):

-the development of personal autonomy of people of foreign origin; this development includes initial insertion (notably linguistic and social) but also the fight against exclusion, whose contributing factors may be encountered more frequently by them.

-the maintenance of relations between these persons and their origins, respecting the values of the Republic; this reinforcement of cultural, temporal, and especially spacial references is an element of social cohesion.

-the fight against discrimination, an additional factor of exclusion for persons of foreign origin, particularly concerning access to housing and work.

-the evolution of the behavior of economic, social, administrative, educational, and cultural agents related to integration.

This statement recognizes that persons of foreign origin encounter discrimination and difficulties of adaptation. FAS seeks to counter these problems in order to facilitate integration. Just as these minorities are marginalized by French society, so they are treated distinctly by FAS, but with a view towards integration.

In order to deflect the charge that FAS marginalizes migrants and minorities through special treatment, FAS is demanding that other government ministries take up the responsibility of financing immigrants as well. If taken to the extreme, FAS would eliminate itself because foreigners could apply for funding elsewhere. This would also help associations become more independent, although they might be even less certain of funding renewals and even more geared toward grant-writing. More funding for local associations, for example, would come from the municipalities. In sum, the funding process in France, notably the existence of FAS, poses the fundamental question of whether state-based financing should be specific or accessible to all. One risks isolation and marginalization, the other discrimination and imbalance between needs and funds (Neveu 1990).

Despite the constraints placed on associations by state subsidization, associations have been instrumental to minority mobilization in France. The trajectory of associations in the 1980s -- from the lifting of the ban on foreigners' associations and the subsequent explosion of "immigrant" associational life to the disillusionment that was prevalent by the end of the decade -- is reflected in the mobilization efforts examined below. Particular attention is paid to collective action by Muslim North Africans and their descendants, as they have by far been the most politically active minorities in France in recent decades.

Mobilization. Although foreign workers had mobilized previously, the beginning of "modern" collective action can be traced to May 1968, when student protests and workplace strikes virtually brought France to a halt. Foreign workers took part in strike actions and joined protest marches, setting a precedent for future protest and articulation of demands (Miller 1981: 84-5). Increased consciousness of their underprivileged position in society as well as of the potential gains of mobilization were the legacies of 1968.

Perhaps the most noteworthy foreign worker campaigns of the 1960s and 1970s occurred over housing conditions. French attempts to evict foreign workers from notorious shantytowns or bidonvilles before adequate replacement housing was available caused the first open resistance by foreign workers -- often with the aid of French leftists -- to government policies. A successful year-long rent strike by Malians in the Paris suburb of Ivry in 1969 involved the arrest of hundreds of foreign workers and their supporters. Similar conflicts occurred throughout France. By the mid-1970s, foreigners began working to coordinate their own efforts in a more organized fashion, thereby relying less on the aid of leftist sympathizers. This was evidenced by the autonomous nature of the rent strikes in the government-built SONACOTRA housing, lasting from 1975 through the end of the decade and involving as many as 20,000 foreign strikers. The strike leadership was primarily foreign and included members of the Mouvement des Travailleurs Arabes (MTA), an outlawed Marxist-Leninist organization comprised mainly of North Africans. However, the outcry of solidarity associations over the expulsion of strike leaders was instrumental in securing their return. In May 1976, over 10,000 persons -- mostly foreign workers -- marched in Paris in support of the strikers despite not being granted a police permit for the demonstration. In brief, housing protests illustrate the emergence of largely autonomous foreign worker activism, publicized and legitimized by the support of solidarity associations (Miller 1981: 85-91).

Housing conditions were but one of many causes for protest among foreign workers in the 1970s. Miller's thorough study of the period documents wildcat strikes, factory occupations, growing militancy in the workplace, outcry over racist attacks, and protests against immigration policies, especially against the Marcellin-Fontanet decrees which restricted the issue of work and residence permits. Protests against immigration policies included hunger strikes in 1972 and 1973 by illegal immigrants, Tunisians in particular, fearing deportation. Many of these actions were organized by the outlawed MTA, sometimes against the wishes of the amicales. In addition, the MTA sponsored France's first foreign worker "congress," which was held in April 1974 in Marseille for 300 delegates from foreign worker associations throughout the country. According to Miller (1981: 103), the congress improved coordination efforts against the Marcellin-Fontanet decrees but was more noteworthy for its promotion of foreign worker autonomy on political questions.

With the halting of foreign labor recruitment in 1973 and ongoing family reunification, France's "immigrant" population no longer consisted merely of foreign workers: it was increasingly comprised of families, and of youth who were either born in France or had come to France at an early age. These youth were more socially and culturally homogeneous than their parents had been, and they were more ready to call France their home and to integrate into French society. In contrast to their parents, many of them held French citizenship, did not remember 1968 or colonialism, and were not familiar with communist ideology. The younger generation of ethnoracial minorities refused to accept the conditions under which their parents lived, and they called into question the role of French institutions -- school, police, justice system, workplace -- in their marginalization. In brief, they viewed their problems as distinct from those of their parents.

The earliest collective action of these youth, particularly those of North African origin -- called Beurs -- stemmed from rage over exclusion, racism, suicides, and the expulsions of friends and family members. Local groups formed in response to a specific murder or an expulsion, often led by persons with ties to the far-left. Attempts to form an informal coordinating body resulted in "Rock against Police" which sponsored the first free concert by "immigrant youth and suburban proletariats" in April 1980, drawing a crowd of 3,000 in Nanterre, a Paris suburb.

Beur collective expression was centered on racism, identity, and general lack of opportunity rather than on workplace conditions. Racist incidents in particular sparked the creation of theatrical groups which staged productions aimed at migrants and their children. Performances targetting family separation, poor living conditions, and the difficulties of migration became a forum of expression and interchange between generations. Though at first largely male like foreign worker activism, women were gradually incorporated into the productions (Jazouli 1986: 92-108; Amara and Idir 1991: 21-2).

Members of one theatrical troupe joined with the 1972-73 hunger strikers and MTA members to create a journal entitled Sans Frontières, or Without Borders. Sans Frontières was led by and focused on Maghrébins, especially Moroccans and Tunisians, but did have a few Africans and Caribbeans on the staff. Some of the core participants were living in France illegally, having been previously expelled from the country. The first issue was published in March 1979, and the journal quickly became an important forum for cultural and political expression throughout France. Sans Frontières changed the repertoire of immigrant activism, breaking ties with the countries of origin and seeking recognition as de facto citizens of France (Polac 1991). In 1983, Im'media was launched, a press agency which produced video documentaries, audiocassettes, and written accounts of "immigrant" life in France.

In April 1981, a hunger strike was launched to protest the expulsion of Franco-Maghrébin youth. The three strikers, including Catholic priest Christian Delorme, helped draw public attention to the right of these youth to live in France and to their marginalization in general. The introduction of non-violent protest techniques shifted the direction of Beur activism away from autonomous violence to more focused efforts which encouraged solidarity with French sympathizers, mainly religious groups and trade unions. The strike was a success, eliciting support from presidential candidate François Mitterrand who, upon his election in May, suspended all expulsions of foreigners born or arriving in France at a young age. This was the first decisive victory for the Beurs and would play a fundamental role in shaping their future actions (Jazouli 1986: 67-71).

Nothwithstanding, continued unrest in immigrant ghettos erupted in the "hot summer" of 1981, particularly in the outskirts of Lyon where "rodeos" of stolen cars and hostile relations between youth and the police received considerable media attention. The rapid repression of the rodeo instigators, including heavy prison sentences, caused their peers to turn towards the formation of associations as a means of organized and collective action. The Socialists acted preventatively with "anti-hot summer" efforts in 1982. The programmed activities were a success, though some activists saw it is as institutional cooptation.

Almost immediately upon taking power in May 1981, Socialist President Mitterrand suspended expulsions (temporarily), gave amnesty to illegal aliens, and granted the right of association among foreigners. De facto associations -- some of them radio stations -- became de jure organizations eligible for government grants and other forms of funding. And hundreds of new associations were created. The mouvement associatif, as it is called, was by no means an organized movement but rather expressed a diversity of goals and interests seeking broader recognition. The sanctioning of foreigners' associations allowed immigrants, and especially their leaders who acted as "cultural intermediaries," to further their own agendas within the French social and political system rather than in opposition to it (Leveau and Wihtol de Wenden 1990).

One association with a political agenda was the Collectif pour le développement des droits civiques, or Collective for the Development of Civic Rights, launched by Sans Frontières in the fall of 1982 to reflect on possible conditions of immigrant political participation in France. Immigrant scholars such as Adil Jazouli and Abdelmalek Sayad participated in the collective, viewing it as an avant-garde battle for improvement of the conditions of immigrants through direct, deliberate political action (Sayad 1985: 3). The Collective organized an "immigrant vote" to parallel the 1983 municipal elections. Though the vote was not counted as part of the official election returns, it served to demonstrate the potential electoral strength of foreigners.

Between the fall of 1981 and 1984, workers in several large

automobile plants went on strike. In some of the plants, over half of the blue collar workers were immigrants. The strike movement posed a political problem for the Socialist Party who would normally be sympathic to workers seeking "dignity" but, given the stakes of the March 1983 municipal elections, did not want to be seen as too supportive of migrants against French industry. Socialist ministers chose to depict the strike movement as a challenge of fundamentalist Islam, instigated from abroad (Le Monde, 29 January and 11 February 1983). In actuality, the strikers had expressed a set of universal demands which did not include any reference to Islam. While the strike movement was an organizational success for immigrants, many of whom were promoted to leadership positions by the unions, the popular portrayal of these strikes as an Islamic threat helped to further politicize immigration issues in France. It also served to bolster the cause of the rising anti-immigrant party, the Front National (Wihtol de Wenden 1988: 356-61; Schain 1993: 16-25).

By 1983, the euphoria with which immigrants had regarded the Socialists' election had all but disappeared. In March 1983, the FN tasted its first electoral victory, winning a municipal election in Dreux which ousted long-time immigrant supporter Françoise Gaspard. Sensing the political stakes of immigration issues, the Socialists reinstituted subsidies for migrants to return to their countries of origin and cracked down on border controls with the Maghreb countries in an effort to halt illegal immigration. Although migrants themselves were excluded from conventional political participation, they were fast becoming a central political issue in France. Moreover, racist and xenophobic crimes were continuing unabated. The summer of 1983 saw almost twenty young Maghrébins wounded or killed by the police.

This was the context in which the March for Equality and against Racism was born. One of the summer's casualities had been Toumi Djaidja, leader of a hunger strike in March and April in the Minguettes suburb of Lyon. Searching for a novel means to draw public attention to their problems, Toumi's peers -- led by Catholic priest Christian Delorme -- seized upon the idea of a non-violent national march, a repertoire of collective action which was new to these youth and to French social movements in general (Jazouli 1986: 118). Nicknamed the Marche des Beurs, the march began as a small party leaving Marseille on October 15. En route, the marchers denounced racist violence and advocated the recognition of a multiracial France. Six weeks later, the arrival of the forty marchers in Paris was met by a euphoric crowd of more than 100,000 persons. Moreover, the marchers were given an audience with President Mitterrand in which, among other things, they demanded the right to vote for foreigners in local elections. In direct response to the 1983 march, the government introduced a single ten-year residency and work permit for foreigners, alleviating a chronic source of insecurity. The march restored hope to immigrant youth, as evidenced by a flourishing of new immigrant, second-generation, and anti-racist associations. To the broader public, the 1983 Marche des Beurs signified the advent of the Beur movement. To the Beurs, it provided a glimpse of the potential gains of further collective action (Boubeker and Beau 1986).

Further unified action would prove elusive, however. When the marchers disbanded, they had made no plans for ongoing action aside from the division of interested associations into three geographical collectives. The Collectif des jeunes de Paris, or Paris Youth Collective, which had been formed between the Association de la Nouvelle Génération Immigrée (ANGI, Associations of the New Immigrant Generation), Radio Beur, and other associations to make preparations for the arrival of the Marche des Beurs, attempted to form some more lasting structures but had fallen apart by 1984 due to internal conflicts. One of its failed efforts had been to show solidarity with striking automobile workers at the Talbot plant in February 1984. ANGI President Saliha Amara complained that Beurs failed to see the continuity between their own struggles and those of their parents (cited in Polac 1991: 43).

The Rhône-Alpes (Lyon region) collective organized a national meeting, underwritten by FAS, in June 1984. The meeting was to be a place for Beurs -- and Beurs only -- to come together to share their associational experiences. The conference was attended by almost 400 persons representing 50 associations who divided into three working groups on associational life, equal rights, and "police-justice." Disagreement and uncertainty over the movement's foundations quickly surfaced. Points of contention included whether the movement was to be strictly Beur or multicultural in character; where the movement stood on assimilation versus promotion of communal identity; and the extent of autonomy desired from existing foreigners associations and from solidarity associations. Cleavages over these issues existed not only between associations but within them as well. In the aftermath of the conference, the participating collectives disbanded and disappointment prevailed (Jazouli 1986: 140-8).

Attended by half as many delegates, another national meeting held at Saint-Etienne in September was also marked by internecine struggles but was able to organize another march, entitled "Convergence '84 for Equality." Convergence '84 promoted the intermixing of races and cultures and criticized solidarity based strictly on communal lines. The march, which consisted of youth on motorcycles departing from five cities to converge on Paris, promoted the slogan "Let's live equally with our resemblances, whatever our differences." Some associations refused to support the march, as did the journal Sans Frontières, and the campaign suffered from lack of publicity. Sympathetic Frenchpersons attempted to draw attention to the march, but Beurs saw themselves being pre-empted by allies who did not know firsthand about racism. In her speech to the receiving crowd of 30,000 in Paris, Convergence leader Farida Belghoul denounced the march's non-Beur supporters, fomenting resentment among the well-intentioned French and causing more ruptures within the Beur movement (Jazouli 1986: 148-53).

Heretofore the divisions among Beurs had been serious but not well-known; the problems of Convergence '84 had now rendered them public. The Beur movement, if it could still be called a movement, suffered from incongruous goals and a lack of any nationally recognized leadership. It was into this vacuum that a newcomer to the associational scene was able to capture much attention. The attention began at the Paris reception of Convergence '84, when five thousand badges proclaiming "Hands off my buddy" were disseminated by members of the then unknown SOS Racisme. Within six months, SOS Racisme had sold half a million of its badges. The following summer, the first of numerous free rock concerts sponsored by SOS Racisme drew 300,000 persons. By 1985, SOS Racisme had become a household word in France.

From the beginning, the multicultural but heavily Jewish SOS Racisme was viewed suspiciously by both established anti-racist organizations as well as by ethno-specific -- especially Maghrébin -- youth organizations which had a physical presence in France's marginalized regions. SOS Racisme originally wanted no part of existing anti-racist organizations such as LDH, MRAP, and Licra (International League against Racism and Anti-Semitism) which were viewed as too established, too bureaucratic, and too passé to fight racism effectively. Although SOS Racisme leader Harlem Désir claimed that SOS could neither rely on the Socialist Party (1985: 25), in fact the organization enjoyed close ties with the Socialists, including financial support. According to its critics, SOS had a catchy slogan and political backing before it had any real agenda or membership: SOS was simply a tool to advance the political ambitions of its leaders (cf. Malik 1990). Even Désir's own account of the origins of SOS Racisme (1985) reveal only the shortest-term planning and the absence of any ideology besides anti-racism. Nonetheless, SOS Racisme was initially extremely successful in its strategy of heavy reliance on favorable media coverage to attract young followers.

SOS Racisme's one failure was its inability to attract many Beurs to its ranks. According to Désir, SOS Racisme had attempted to participate in the planning of Convergence '84 but had been rebuffed by Christian Delorme and Convergence leader Farida Belghoul (1985: 27-30). A fractious meeting between SOS Racisme and members of Maghrébin community early in 1985 ensured the parting of the two camps. The spring 1985 issue of IM'média magazine featured prominent Beurs such as Farida Belghoul and Mogniss Abdallah speaking out against the media domination by the "anti-racist lobby."

The emergence of SOS Racisme led to a revitalization of Beur associations, whose agendas began to turn to the possibilities of political participation. The Collectif pour le développement des droits civiques, which had been mobilizing for voting rights for foreigners, gradually shifted its focus to the political rights of the foreigners' children. The Collective's voter registration drive in the outskirts of Paris for those of Maghrébin origin who enjoyed French citizenship met with little success, however.

Instead, the electoral mobilization of Beurs became the battlehorse of France Plus, a national organization formed in October 1985 by Algerian-born economics teacher Arezki Dahmani (Libération, 4 October 1985). France Plus encouraged full use of the citizenship rights available to those born in France, rights which had been unattainable by their parents. Activities centered around voter registration and on encouraging Beurs to stand as candidates in local elections. Though publically nonpartisan -- Beur candidates represented all parties except the Front National -- the left-leaning association also had powerful backing from the Socialist Party. France Plus followed an assimilationist line, opposing any reference to the cultural difference of Beurs and espousing le droit à l'indifference ("the right to indifference"). Indeed, France Plus brought the descendents of repatriated French Harkis into its ranks, heretofore largely ostracized by Maghrébins and French alike.

The first campaign by France Plus was another march on Paris, the 1985 March for Civic Rights. During the six week march, participants encouraged Franco-Maghrébin youth to register to vote and to make use of their political rights. This march was aimed strictly at Beurs, excluding SOS Racisme which in turn organized its own march. The combined turnout of both demonstrations was scarcely that of Convergence '84, itself only a fraction of the 1983 march (Hargreaves 1991: 361). Judged by many to be an unsuccessful sequel to the previous marches, organizer and Radio Beur cofounder Nacer Kettane argued that the March for Civic Rights gave both an identity and an agenda to the Beur movement by advancing a series of claims which, although not new, had never been taken to a national level (Kettane 1986: 103-5). The march raised awareness that as French citizens, Beurs could be essential link in fight for equality through voting and fighting for equality.

In the mid-1980s, there were an estimated 800,000 potential voters of North African origin in France, half of them repatriated French Harkis and their descendants. Although the Interior Minister keeps no voting statistics according to ethnic group, registration rates of Maghrébin voters for the March 1986 parliamentary and regional elections were believed to be quite low (Hargreaves 1991: 362). Not surprisingly, then, the 1986 election results were not encouraging for France Plus. In fact, a center-right government was elected which, led by Prime Minister Jacques Chirac, sought to amend the French nationality code to make it more difficult for the "second generation" to acquire French citizenship.

Ironically, right and far-right attempts to restrict access to French citizenship only served to increase awareness among Franco-Maghrébins of their political rights. By the time of presidential and parliamentary elections in the summer of 1988, France Plus claimed a registration rate of over fifty percent among potential voters of Maghrébin origin. By the end of the year, their claims had risen to 70 percent (Hargreaves 1991: 364). France Plus was better able to bargain for winnable positions for Beur candidates on the lists being prepared by the major parties for the March 1989 municipal elections. Indeed, France Plus announced after the elections that of 1,000 or so Beur candidates, 562 had been elected. Although later investigation revealed a number closer to 150 or 200 elected, some of the candidates denying any affiliation with France Plus, the 1989 local elections were nonetheless a step forward for French citizens of Maghrébin origin: in the 1983 local elections, only twelve Beurs had gained office.

France Plus and the Nationality Code issue were instrumental to the electoral mobilization of youth of immigrant origin. The prominence of France Plus, however, was short-lived. France Plus was not as successful in the June European elections, though two women of Algerian origin were elected, one an activist with SOS Racisme and the other President of the fiercely autonomous Jeunes Arabes de Lyon et sa Banlieue (JALB). JALB President Djida Tazdait had only acquired French citizenship several months before her election so that she might stand as a candidate. Electoral participation was no longer the exclusive domain of France Plus.

The emergence of nationally-known SOS Racisme and France Plus had shaken the young mouvement associatif in France. Although these associations attempted to fill a leadership void for youth of recent immigrant origin, their actions were not always welcomed by existing local associations who were oriented around the problems of day-to-day life in suburban ghettoes. The problems of police, delinquency, boredom, housing, and expulsions had not been personally experienced by most of the elite leadership of France Plus and SOS Racisme. Claims by the media savvy national organizations to represent all youth or all Beurs were viewed as attempts to co-opt local associations and use them towards their own ends. In many cases, local associations could not keep members from jumping ship to join the more glamourous SOS Racisme or France Plus (Bettegay 1990).

If SOS Racisme and France Plus were unable to move beyond the national level and organize locally, so were local associational leaders unable to organize nationally, as was evidenced by the failed national meeting of Beurs in 1984. The most successful attempt to build a federal structure of local associations was spearheaded by Texture, an association based in the northern town of Lille. Led by the scholarly Said Bouamama, Texture was active around the theme of "new citizenship" and the importance of participation within local regions (Poinsot 1991). Texture, the umbrella organization CAIF, and other associations interested in new citizenship were instrumental in convening a "States General of Immigration" in May 1988 which brought together a hundred local associations to discuss the possibility of forming a federation. A few months later, Mémoire Fertile was born as a regroupment of intellectuals, immigrant associations (especially members of CAIF), "second generation" associations, and long-time militants on immigration issues. Mémoire Fertile made some gains over the next two years, notably in drawing attention to the idea of new citizenship. Ultimately, however, it was unable to overcome the obstacles inherent to any attempt to federate local structures: internal tensions between associations and leaders; conflicts over the objectives of the federation; and especially the difficulties of moving between national and local political action (Poinsot 1993).

The failure of Mémoire Fertile marked the end of a decade which had seen much associational activity but which to activists fell short of its potential. The 1980s has witnessed a marked trend away from associational autonomy and solidarity and towards financial dependence and individual promotion. To illustrate, in the Paris suburb of Nanterre the Gutenburg association was active around the issues relevant to urban youth from 1982 until 1984 when residents of the cité were relocated and the network fell apart. Part of the "true base" of urban youth, Gutenburgers had espoused a Maoist ideology, sometimes advocated violence, and looked with hostility upon national associations claiming to represent them. In place of the Gutenburg association arose a variety of organizations, run by the French-educated younger generation who took advantage of funding available from municipalities. These associational leaders eschewed violence, were willing to negotiate and compromise with the municipality, and were on the whole not representative of marginalized youth. The president of the 400-member sociocultural and athletic association Chabab, for example, was also involved with the Amicale des Algeriens, a vice president of France Plus, and had ties with the Socialist Party. Associations had become a means for individual advancement, and they had also become institutionalized and heavily dependent on public funds. In fact, in Nanterre, most local associations were unable to maintain credibility with both the municipality and their own adherents and were thus short-lived (Dazi-Heni and Polac 1990).

The situation in Nanterre is generally representative of what occurred in other regions around France. Militant and ideologically driven activists were marginalized by the emergence of the Beur movement and by their own heretical discourses which, in the cases of Sans Frontières and Mémoire Fertile, included tearing down the barriers between nationals and non-nationals so that all would have the same rights, including political rights (Polac 1991). Such views could never be mainstream in the way those of SOS Racisme and France Plus were. Acceptable discourse had to be framed in terms that appealed to central values of the French political community: republicanism, human rights, and the values of integration. The leadership of SOS Racisme were socially and politically integrated and media smart, and were thus recognized as legitimate spokespersons on immigration and anti-racism.

In large part, the mouvement associatif of the 1980s had passed through a cycle: liberation, national recognition, dependence, and finally a return to the local. Some urban youth have come full circle, resorting to the violence that first drew attention to their situations. Once again, there were riots in the outskirts of Lyon in early October 1990 and then in Sartrouville, a Paris suburb, in March 1991. Some violence was the doing of organized gangs (Louis and Prinaz 1990). Other urban youth -- including Toumi Djaidja, the inspiration for the Marche des Beurs -- embraced Islam and wanted no part of political activism. Most, however, remain passive and unrepresented. Farid Aïchoune, journalist and cofounder of Sans Frontières, concludes his memoire (1991) with a sad assessment of the Beur movement and anti-racist mobilization in the 1980s.

On the national level, SOS Racisme lost considerable popularity with its position in favor of the foulards in 1989 (see Chapter Six) and especially when it came out against the 1991 Persian Gulf War. Relations between Jewish and Arab members within the association became even more strained than usual. Hostility between SOS Racisme and France Plus, which was against the foulards and supported the war, was more evident than ever. A more serious accusation levied against SOS Racisme is that it contributed to the "banalization" of racism. Although SOS had wanted to destroy FN leader Le Pen, its actions had in some ways been counter-productive. Immigrants and minorities quick to cry "racism" in any situation have generated resentment among the French populace, and particularly among the police (Wieviorka 1992: 225-76). In addition, anti-racism in the 1980s drew attention to ethnic and racial differences and therefore served to undermine the republican model of integration (Yonnet 1993).

In the early 1990s, SOS Racisme went through some internal restructuring and proved able to survive the departure of leaders Julien Dray, who had been elected on a Socialist ticket to the National Assembly, and Harlem Désir, who toyed with starting his own political party. SOS Racisme has abandoned its free concerts to embark on some concrete local programs such as Organization des banlieues unies, whose director Fodé Sylla -- a naturalized Frenchman of Senegalese origin -- is now president of SOS Racisme. The Secretary General Pascal Cherki is a Beur. SOS organized a march on 25 January 1992 which drew 100,000 persons.

France Plus has not fared as well, experiencing both internal schisms and financial crises. Complaining of authoritarianism, a number of leaders of local branches of France Plus quit the organization in 1992, many of them taking their constituencies with them to form new associations (Le Monde, 25 April 1992; L'Evénément du jeudi, 22-28 October 1992). Simultaneously, France Plus was audited by FAS and was found to have run up some unjustifiable expenses. FAS limited its 1992 grant to France Plus to 450,000 francs, one-quarter of its 1991 grant (Le Monde, 26-27 July 1992). By 1993, France Plus was a skeleton of its former self, unable to staff its tiny office or to grant interviews to doctoral students.

In brief, there is widespread agreement that, parallel to the Socialist party, the mouvement associatif and migrant mobilization in France is in decline. This may just be part of a cycle -- or a changing repertoire of political action. In contrast to the more marginal politics of 1970s, there has been a push since the late 1980s towards more conventional political participation, an option which did not exist for the previous generation. At any rate, we can note a "centering" of "immigrant" actors in the late 1980s: professionalization of association leadership, a greater willingness to have French nationality (aided by attempted Nationality Code reform and the emergence of the far-right), and widespread support among immigrant populations for Mitterrand in the 1988 presidential elections. In addition, migrants and their descendants are looking towards Europe-wide space with transnational, even universal, values.

Mobilization has not disappeared in France, but it has not captured much media attention in the 1990s. Large public demonstrations in solidarity with migrants occur almost annually, but they are largely symbolic and have a general, virtually static platform. The 6 February 1993 march in Paris demanded the right to vote for foreigners, defense for the right of asylum, equality in the freedom of circulation (of EU and non-EU nationals between EU countries), equal rights for all, and the elimination of "double penalty" (Le Monde, 10-11 January 1993). Organized by SOS Racisme, MRAP, Licra, CAIF, and FASTI, the march was supported by leftist political parties, trade unions, and dozens of immigrant associations. Between 20,000 and 30,000 persons turned out, many of them promoting their own particular causes (Libération, 8 February 1993). A similar demonstration in June 1993, to protest immigration-related policies of the new Balladur government, drew about 20,000 marchers.

By contrast, in the 1990s specific protests have had less support, and have been less publicized. When a Reims baker was acquitted of shooting to death a French-born Beur for stealing some croissants, there was greater outcry among members of France's administration and Danièle Mitterrand, wife of the president, than by immigrant minorities. A march to protest the acquittal on 21 November 1992 drew only 1,500 to 2,000 persons, including the leaders of SOS Racisme and MRAP. The acquittal had not gone unnoticed; potential protesters were simply disheartened.

One of the most active, and most autonomous, associations to emerge in recent years is the Comité national contre la double peine (National Committee against Double Penalty). The Committee was created in 1990 to advocate on behalf of foreigners who face expulsion from France because of criminal offenses. "Double penalty" refers to the fact that these persons first serve time in French prisons and are then subject to expulsion. Run by a small group of activists who are extremely knowledgeable of relevant laws, the Committee works with lawyers and neighborhood support groups on some 1,500 cases. The Committee has been able to rally considerable grass roots support, winning widespread sympathy for what is viewed as a just cause, but still faces the difficulties of mobilizing very marginalized groups. More than any other association to gain national recognition in France since the mid-1980s, the Committee is built on the legacy of foreign worker activism and a drive for autonomy. However, its vocal rejection of solidarity assistance as evidenced during the June 1993 march against racism, risks alienating many of its French sympathizers.

A related issue which saw mobilization was that of expulsion of unsuccessful applicants for political asylum. Associations concerned with these expulsions -- including CAIF, CIEMI, CIMADE, FASTI, MRAP and various foreigners' associations -- formed the "Information and Solidarity Network" in December 1990. The network drew 2,000 persons to its first meeting but was unable to gain concessions from the government. Frustrated and facing expulsion, asylum seekers launched a series of hunger strikes in the spring of 1991 which over the next year would involve 1,500 strikers in 44 cities around France, some of which were forcibly halted by the police. The network continued its negotiations and on 25 May 1991, 10,000 persons marched in Paris in solidarity with the strikers, most of the marchers illegal immigrants themselves. Some concessions were made to the strikers, including the regularization of 7,000 to 15,000 rejected applicants among an estimated population of 80,000 to 100,000 living in France (Simeant 1993).

In conclusion, mobilization by immigrants and ethnoracial minorities in France is increasingly aimed at France and reflects a fading myth of return. The evolution of Beur collective action in particular reveals the extent to which the goals of radical activists were abandoned in favor of more republican discourse. Even the anti-racist rhetoric of SOS Racisme appeals to republican, egalitarian values. Though collective action is often accompanied by emerging ethnic and cultural identity, demands remain universal for the most part, rarely ethnic or communal or linked to a specific country of origin. This reflects the strength of France's assimilationist tradition.

Organization and Mobilization in Canada

The situation in Canada differs markedly from that of France in several regards. Although probably as numerous, the presence of migrant and minority associations in Canada has been considerably less charged. In contrast to the liberty of association granted to foreigners in France in 1981, there was no such turning point in associational formation in Canada. As well, there has been no marked cyclical nature of mobilization -- no apparent rise and decline of a movement -- and immigration issues have not yet reached the level of political controversy that they have in France. As a result, organization and mobilization by migrants and their visibly distinct descendants in Canada has remained relatively undocumented. While this lack of documentation poses challenges for researchers who seek to gain a perspective on associational activities a decade ago, it does not mean that there has been a lack of activity.

Ethnoracial Minority Associations. Historical accounts reveal that immigrant and ethnic associations have long existed in Canada (Palmer 1975). In general, they were first created for economic assistance and integration problems, and before 1920 most were tied to churches. Persons of the same national origin came together during World War II in their common concerns for the homeland, leading to the birth of umbrella associations such as the Ukrainian Canadian Comittee and the Canadian Polish Congress. A proliferation of associations in the aftermath of the war was caused by the number of new migrants, their tendency to create new associations rather than join existing ones, and their varied educational and associational experiences (Burnet 1988: 190-1).

Today, Canada's white ethnocultural groups are overwhelmingly not immigrants. Their more established organizations fear their own decline, given the difficulties they face in recruiting their Canadian-born offspring (cf. Radecki 1979). In contrast to these older organizations which face shrinking membership and fewer activities, membership in visible minority associations is perpetuated through ongoing immigration, barriers to entering Canadian society (linguistic, social, and racial), and the much-needed social services provided by many of the newer associations.

Toronto has been designated by the United Nations as the world's most multicultural and multiracial city. To illustrate, Toronto's Regents Park -- Canada's largest public housing project -- is home to 102 ethnicities. Not surprisingly then, Toronto boasts a wide range of ethnic, racial, and immigrant associations. The approximately fifty associations with which I had contact have memberships from literally all over the world, identifying themselves either by religious, regional, or national origin: South Asian (Muslim, Hindu, Sikh, Indian, Pakistani, Tamil); Middle Eastern (Arab, Afghani, Turkish); African (Somalian, Ghanan, Ethiopian); Caribbean (West Indian, Jamaican, Trinidadian, Haitian); Asian (Chinese, Japanese, Korean, Vietnamese, Laotian, Cambodian, Filipino); and Latin American (Hispanic, Spanish speaking).

Despite -- or perhaps because of -- this diversity, there have been very few surveys of visible minority associations in Canada. Directories of minority associations in Canada provide us with some basic information but are generally incomplete and quickly outdated (cf. Black Secretariat 1990; Cross Cultural 1991; Markotic 1983; Ruprecht 1990). One exception is the work of Edward Opoku-Dapaah (1993a; 1993b) on the growing African community in Metro Toronto. Based on interviews with leaders of African community groups, he claims that 95 percent of all African immigrants and refugees to Canada have resettled in Toronto. Toronto is attractive because of socioeconomic opportunities, its large concentration of service agencies for migrants, its cultural and racial diversity, and most of all, its existing support base of Africans. The vast majority of African associations have been formed over the past decade, in response to the influx of Africans to Canada. The greatest problems they face are chronic underfunding (90 percent of the associations surveyed cited it as a major constraint affecting operations), lack of facilities, and lack of recognition of the services they provide (Opoku-Dapaah 1993b: 8).

Canadian Blacks and Caribbeans have a longer history in Canada, with the presence of Blacks in Nova Scotia dating from the seventeenth century. The "Black and West Indian community," as it is referred to in the aggregate, has a strong if somewhat fractured organizational presence in Metro Toronto. Divisions between associations are based on place of origin (especially the divide between long-time Canadians and immigrants) as well as on approach to working with the government. As will be seen in the section on mobilization below, some associations have favored government financing and extensive cooperation while others have taken a more independent stance, being openly critical of state institutions and refusing to accept state funds. Two prominent Caribbean associations which illustrate this dichotomy are the Jamaican Canadian Association (JCA) and the Black Action Defense Committee (BAD-C). Created in 1962 in response to increasing Jamaican immigration to the Toronto area, the JCA today has a budget of approximately one million Canadian dollars -- mostly from government sources -- and provides extensive social services to its constituents. BAD-C was officially formed in 1988 in response to police shootings of Blacks, has been very outspoken about racism in the police force, no longer participates in government consultations, and accepts no state funding.

In addition, immigrant women have been active in community organizing in Ontario since at least the 1950s (Das Gupta 1986). The Coalition of Visible Minority Women was formed in the aftermath of a 1983 conference on visible minority women sponsored by the governmnent of Ontario (Hernandez 1988). Other associations include Women Working with Immigrant Women and the Riverdale Immigrant Women's Centre. Government-supported research and workshops have been instrumental in calling attention to racism and other human rights violations experienced by minority women (Lee and Chaddock 1988; Wallis 1988).

Much of the information on associations serving immigrants -- not all of which were created by immigrants -- has been gathered by OCASI, the Ontario Coalition of Agencies serving Immigrants. OCASI is an umbrella organization of 135 associations which provide services to about 450,000 immigrants and refugees across the province. About 70 percent of OCASI member agencies' clients come from source countries outside of Europe and the United States, and about two-thirds of the clients are racial minorities (OCASI 1994b: 6).

This very brief sketch of Toronto's African associations, Black and West Indian organizations, immigrant women's groups, and immigrant serving agencies provides only a glimpse of the fabric of social, cultural, and political organizing that goes on within Toronto's various ethnoracial and immigrant communities. They reflect the minority of communities whose activities have been at least partially documented.

One additional association deserves mention for its efforts to unite ethnic groups across Canada. Formed in 1980, the non-partisan Canadian Ethnocultural Council (CEC) brings together more than 35 national ethnic organizations "for the purpose of furthering the multicultural reality of Canada, thus ensuring equality of all Canadians in one united Canada" (CEC brochure). The CEC addresses human rights, race relations, heritage language, immigration policy, settlement issues, employment, education, culture and broadcasting, and women's and youth issues. Based in Ottawa, the CEC has been active in numerous government consultations on these issues. At the CEC biennial conference in 1986, one of the resolutions adopted aimed for increasing political involvement of ethnic Canadians.

The goals, objectives, and activities of associations vary according to the needs of the communities they serve. In general, the more established organizations serving those of European origin tend to focus on cultural and language retention and to serve as recreational outlets. New associations, on the other hand, tend to be involved in social service provision. In particular, they provide settlement services such as orientation, language training, employment counselling, housing locator services, and support groups. Other activities include educational seminars on various topics such as race relations, employment equity, and domestic violence; community development; health services; legal services; and projects aimed at youth or senior citizens.

Associations are also active in advocacy or lobbying around issues concerning immigrants and refugees. Interestingly, the vast majority of advocacy-oriented associations surveyed for this research claim to work consistently with the government as opposed to engaging in higher profile activities. For example, when asked about organizing marches or demonstrations, most responded that they either participated in but did not organize such activities or did not participate at all. Most associations interacted with various levels of government not through direct confrontation but rather through organizing meetings, attending consultations, and submitting briefs. Mobilization for or against certain government action is more likely take the form of a "FAX campaign" coordinated among associations or a joint press release rather than any type of mass-based activity. Mobilization efforts are further documented in the next section.

Many associations exist expressly to facilitate integration of their constituents into Canadian society. This was the impetus for the creation of organizations as diverse as the Association of Women of India in Canada, the Canadian African Newcomer Aid Centre of Toronto, and the Canadian Hispanic Congress. Similarly, OCASI's mission is "the achievement for immigrants of equality of access and participation in every aspect of Canadian life." The West Indian Volunteer Community Association in Etobicoke seeks to "enhance the skills of fellow West Indians to ensure active community participation."

Organizational goals evolve over time as communities become more established. For example, the Society for Aid to Sri Lankan minorities was founded in 1983 to aid Tamil refugees in Canada through counselling, information sharing, and employment advice. Since its creation, enough Tamils have settled in Metro Toronto to have created new family and community networks. In 1992, the Society's members decided to review the association's mission and to revamp organizational activities accordingly. Although it will still focus on social services, those services will be along the lines of parent-youth relations and health needs, not settlement services. In brief, associations adapt to meet the needs of their constituents, most of which continue to be tied to integration.

Other representation. Because Canada has only a three-year residency requirement for naturalization, a large proportion of its immigrants hold Canadian citizenship, thereby opening the door for conventional political participation. Although the participation of visible minorities is believed to be lower than that of the Canadian population overall, this cannot be confirmed by hard data since racially-based voting statistics are not kept. Moreover, all citizens are automatically registered to vote in Canada; voter registration drives do not exist. Office-seekers do recognize the potential voting strength of ethnic collectivities, particularly where they are heavily concentrated. As such, it is common to see campaign literature printed in several languages.

Another means of assessing minority participation in elections is to examine the seekers and winners of public office (Browning, Marshall, and Tabb 1984). In Canada, elected racial minorities are few at the federal and provincial levels. Until the October 1993 elections, there were only two visible minorities in the Canadian Parliament. In 1993, at least seven visible minorities -- all of them Liberals -- captured parliamentary seats across Canada, including the first Sikh ever elected (The Globe and Mail, 26 October 1993). There are only two Black members of the 120-member Provincial Legislature in Ontario.

Visible minorities have been more active on the local level, though in Metro Toronto they were less likely to run for office and those running were less likely to win than the population taken as a whole (Wayland 1992: 9-11). Part of this can be explained by the fact that few of the racial minority candidates were incumbents. Many of them were not serious contenders for the offices they sought, either due to inadequate campaign financing or low name recognition. Moreover, most racial minority candidates emphasized neither their own minority status nor their concerns for minority issues. In terms of racially-based political mobilization, Metro Toronto's 1991 elections were not promising for minorities. These factors may change, but -- in the absence of more racially-oriented campaign issues -- changes are likely to come slowly.

Although racial minorities have not run for office in large numbers, their potential contributions to political parties in terms of votes and in shaping policies are being recognized. In power since 1990, Ontario's New Democratic Party (social democrats) established advisory committees as early as 1986 which represent different ethnoracial constituencies. These committees serve two functions: (1) to advise the NDP, especially the party leader, Premier Rae, on issues of concern and (2) to help explain NDP policy to their own ethnoracial communities. Of the seven such committees, four represent visible minorities: Blacks, Chinese, Koreans, and South Asians. Each advisory committee's membership is composed of all constituency members of the Ontario NDP, thus the Black Advisory Committee is composed of all Black members of the Ontario NDP. Active membership is of course much smaller, and the committees tend to be Metro-driven.

Each committee functions as a separate organization, with regular meetings in addition to an annual general meeting where officers are elected. The committees make recommendations on issues of concern to their particular ethnoracial communities. Recent issues include employment equity, police shootings of Black youths, access to trades and professions for those educated outside Canada, and refugee services. In addition, there is an ethnic liaison committee composed of representatives from each of the seven committees which meets monthly to discuss issues of mutual concern. This committee drafted a multiculturalism policy for the NDP which was passed unanimously at convention. An officer of the South Asian Advisory Committee stated that these committees have had a real impact on NDP policy and that ethnoracial diversity within the party has greatly increased since 1986.

The Liberal Party has also taken measures to include minorities. In power prior to the current NDP government, the Federal Ontario Liberal Satellite (FOL Sat) was created in 1986 with the mandate of bringing minorities into the party and educating them about liberalism. FOL Sat was comprised of organizations such as the Black and Caribbean Liberal Association (BCLA), whose founding president went on to be become the Vice President of Policy for the Liberal Party. The BCLA still exists, but it is not as active as it was when the Liberals held power.

The Progressive Conservative Party (PC) has also experimented with minority advisory committees. There was a Multicultural Committee which was active between roughly 1985 and 1990 and whose activities included appearances on multicultural television shows and in local ethnic festivals. The committee lost momentum after the 1990 elections, and many of its members joined regular riding committees on issues such as housing and community safety. According to an executive assistant to leader Michael Harris, there was some concern that placing ethnoracial minorities on a specific committee to address minority concerns was a form of ghettoization. It was felt that having minorities on regular committees served to better integrate them into party issues. At this point, however, there is some interest in reviving the Multicultural Committee, so minorities may have their own committee as well as serve on others.

Another form of minority representation which is somewhat unique to Canada occurs through goverment consultations. Before policies are legislated at the federal, provincial and municipal levels, the government may hold consultations on the issue at hand in which various constituencies can express their views, either in writing or in public fora. Although the government is usually careful to include visible minorities in consultations on issues of concern to them, there are at least three criticisms of the consultation process voiced by racial minorites. Some minorities claim that it is merely tokenism. According to this view, the government "consults" briefly with representatives of various minority groups, then implies it had their consent for resulting policy. Second is the resources it ties up. One organization's coordinator said that her organization has stopped attending any consultations, unless it is paid to do so, because it is a drain on scarce resources and there are no visible results. Third, those critical of the consultation process also claim that governments have "pet" minorities, either individuals or organizations. When bureaucrats need minority views, the critics claim, they contact the individuals they know, who usually represent an organization. There is little involvement by the "average" person on the street.

Most associations, however, are quite willing to participate in consultations, believing that they must have a hand in any change, even if it is only gradual. Racial minorities have been especially active around the issues of employment equity, access to social services, policing, and anti-racist education.

Funding. The existence of communally-based organizations is viewed as consistent with the perpetuation of Canada's "cultural mosaic" and, not surprisingly, organizations are often dependent upon financial support from various government programs. Indeed, the funding process itself encourages the formation of associations. For example, the federal government gives aid for maintenance of cultural diversity only to organized groups, not individuals. Some associations have even been directly created with government monies.

Most funded ethnic, racial, and immigrant-serving associations receive grants from several levels of government. The most common sources of funding are the Department of Canadian Heritage, which includes the Multiculturalism program; the Canadian Ministry of Citizenship and Immigration; the Ontario Ministry of Citizenship; the Ontario Ministry of Community and Social Services; and various branches within the Metropolitan Toronto and municipal governments. In addition, numerous one-time grants are awarded for specific projects.

While some associations are run on an entirely voluntary basis, having no office space or paid staff, those associations involved in service provision are likely to rely heavily on government funding. OCASI reports that its members rely on the government and on community appeals (primarily the United Way) for 90 percent of their funding. Federal and provincial funds each account for one-third of the total (OCASI 1991). The impact of these funds cannot be overestimated. As an OCASI publication notes, "The ability of community agencies to meet the service needs of their immigrant and refugee clients is ultimately determined by their funding base, particularly the commitment of government funders" (OCASI 1991: 1).

Ethnic associations have long received government assistance, but it has become greater and more publicized since the advent of the Multiculturalism policy in 1971 (Burnet 1988: 194). Although the multiculturalism policy is reponsible for only a minor portion of associational funding, it remains the most well-known and perhaps the most criticized of government funding programs to ethnic and racial minorities. In the next sections, we turn to the particulars of the multiculturalism programs, followed by a discussion of how the funding process has evolved over the past few decades.

Multiculturalism Policy. The approximately $27 million budget for multiculturalism has remained fairly constant in the early 1990s, with the exception of an across-the-board cut of five percent in 1994 which was made to all federal grant programs. The Department of Multiculturalism and Citizenship, which existed from 1991 to June 1993, specified funding programs within three broad areas:

1. Race relations and cross-cultural understanding: to eliminate racism and race-based discrimination, to promote understanding. $7 million. programs:

-work with institutions (business, labor, police, education) to help them respond to multiculturalism

-support public educational activities

-assist issue-oriented organizations such as the Urban Alliance for Race Relations in Toronto

2. Community support and participation: to promote the "integration and full participation of ethnic, cultural, and visible minorities." $14 million. programs:

-assist community-based ethnocultural groups, multicultural centers and associations

-assist immigrant-serving organizations, immigrant and visible minority women's coalitions, voluntary associations in the health, social, and educational services sectors

3. Heritage cultures and languages: to nurture multicultural heritage, to bring minority artists into the mainstream. $6 million. programs:

-provide opportunities for access to art and cultural institutions

-assist the development of and appreciation of creative work reflecting multicultural Canada

-support research and study of culture and learning of heritage languages (Canada 1991: 13-4, 25-7).

Less than one million dollars goes to the performing arts, the "song and dance" activities that are equated with multiculturalism in the popular mindset. These funding programs have remained constant since the multiculturalism policy was placed within the Department of Canadian Heritages in 1993.

Multiculturalism's modest budget has risen to about one dollar per capita, up from just over $1.8 million in fiscal year 1971-72. The program budget did not cross the $10 million threshold until 1980-81. In addition to its relatively meager funding, that multiculturalism has been bounced around from department to department and that its ministers have enjoyed little influence with the cabinet reveal that multiculturalism was never meant to be more than a marginal government policy (Stasiulis 1988: 94-5). Though the 1988 Multiculturalism Act provided the first legislative basis for the policy and programs, the act included little provision for support and implementation structures. Thus, it was viewed by minority community leaders as acknowledging ethnic diversity but maintaining the marginalism of multiculturalism (Stasiulis 1988: 97; see The Globe and Mail, 2 December 1987).

The ideology of multiculturalism, however, reaches far beyond the policy's budget and funding abilities. There are several aspects to this. First, verbal support from the government for cultural maintenance encouraged the formation of ethnic associations perhaps more than actual grants did. For example, there were few South Asian associations in Canada in 1971, but by the mid-1980s there were at least 250, 60 of which were in Metro Toronto and many of which were not government supported (Buchignani and Indra 1985: 184). Although the policy particulars are unlikely to be known to newcomers to Canada, the idea of multiculturalism -- that Canada accepts and even promotes the maintenance of one's cultural heritage -- is known around the world. As one long-time immigrant activist stated, "There's no doubt that that particular program (multiculturalism) has been responsible for a different approach towards respect for people of different cultural backgrounds than you would find in most other countries."

Second, the 1988 Multiculturalism Act specifies that all federal departments and agencies are responsible for implementing the multiculturalism policy. Thus, aside from the implementation of funding programs, the ideal of multiculturalism is supposed to be found throughout government. Whether or not this is actually case remains an open question.

Critics of multiculturalism point out that the federal program serves to divide ethnoracial minority groups by encouraging them to compete among themselves for funding and other forms of government legitimization. As well, bureaucrats have favored moderate organizations over more radical ones, as was the case with the National Black Coalition of Canada discussed below. Stasiulis (1988: 98) claims, "Funding through multiculturalism has also bolstered community factions that enjoyed little popular support in their communities, yet have been perceived as moderate, responsible, and therefore acceptable to the funding agency." According to Ontario's first Race Relations Commissioner, "That policy (multiculturalism) planted the seeds of inter- and intra-communal tensions in Canadian society" (Ubale 1991: 219). In 1986-87, the then Multiculturalism Sector provided operational support to about 50 associations, especially umbrella organizations, giving priority to those representing visible minorities.

Multiculturalism in Canada, both as an ideal and as a policy, has encouraged the formation of ethnoracially-based associations. Though some organizations do exist which unite minorities across ethnoracial, cultural, and religious cleavages, multiculturalism does not particularly encourage minority leaders to transcend such cleavages. As such, some critics argue that multiculturalism ghettoizes minority groups. Others, however, are eager to live in a society which truly promotes diversity. Multiculturalism has been controversial since its official inception in 1971, but there is no doubt that the policy has cemented Canada's commitment to cultural pluralism.

Multiculturalism is only one of many sources of government funding for ethnoracial minority associations in Canada. Whereas in France, most funding of "immigrant" associations is funnelled through one large government agency, the Social Action Fund (FAS), associations in Canada tend to apply for funding from several levels of government and possibly several different programs within the same level of government. The availability of alternative funding sources has its benefits, but it also requires more work for the funded associations. Already overworked staff members have to keep track of where funding may be coming available, complete grant applications, and stay on top of the paperwork that comes with every grant. One immigrant activist stated that taking a job in 1979 as both funding coordinator and front-line counsellor with the Centre for Spanish Speaking Peoples was

a real eye-opener in terms of the difficulties of the agencies providing settlement services and the way they were treated by funders, the nature of the job itself, which is an extremely difficult job and generally very poorly paid, much worse paid than it is now, and the whole sort of balancing act that someone as a funding coordinator has to do in one of those agencies in order to deal with multiple funders and different sorts of criteria.

Another community worker claimed that organizing activities so as to meet the requirements of a variety of funders can lead to "schizophrenic programming" (cited in Estable and Meyer 1989: 42). These claims are worth examining in more detail.

The evolution of funding practices. In general, there are two types of government funding: (1) core or operational grants, which are maintained from year to year, and (2) project grants, which are one-time grants for a specific program or research. Although associations not surprisingly prefer core funding, there has been a shift in government emphasis towards project funding. For example, the Korean Canadian Women's Association had a $120,000 budget in 1992, 70 percent of which came from various government agencies. Only 10 percent was core funding, however. The rest was one-time project funded. Instead of receiving money to carry out their own agendas, organizations are now confined to those projects which various government agencies want funded. Programs are determined by the funders rather than by the needs of the clients as reported by the front-line staff. It becomes clear how this type of funding can easily cause associations to alter their goals so as to be able to obtain more money (cf. Ng 1988).

In the overall social services sector, the shift from core to project funding does not impact all agencies equally. It has better served the more established, "mainstream" agencies who deliver services mainly in English. Not only have they retained more of their core funding, they have specialized staff who work solely on fundraising, including project application work. Ethnoracial organizations have had difficulty competing because they tend to have smaller staffs for whom English is usually a second language and who are not as familiar with the Canadian bureaucracy. According to a recent report which compared access to family services between the two types of agencies, the ethnoracial agencies "reported many difficulties with funding, including lack of access to funding information such as available programmes, guidelines and criteria, and lack of clarity and equity in funding policies" (Medeiros 1991: 4). According to a 1989 report on the settlement needs of immigrant women,

the limited duration of most funding periods makes serious evaluation of the effectiveness of particular program approaches or components impossible. The requirement to continually search and apply for short-term grants from different government sources, keeping up with the latest 'target groups' identified by various departments and using the most recent jargon to describe programs and needs so they appear innovative and worthy of funding, also drains the energies and creative talents of many community workers (Estable and Meyer 1989: 42).

The report also states that community workers are continually pressed to provide services that are not covered under their grant program, in this case the Immigrant Settlement and Adaptation Program (ISAP). When they do stray from the ISAP-mandated program, for example in order to provide counselling or to help refugee claimants (who are not funded by ISAP), they cannot add these to their ISAP statistics (Estable and Meyer 1989: 40). In sum, in addition to the pressures placed upon community workers by funding requirements, the activities of the service providing agencies are checked by bureaucratic constraints.

In exceptional cases, the immigrant community has been able to push for new core funding programs. Two complete funding programs, one federal and one provincial, were created directly through the actions of OCASI: the Ontario Settlement and Integration Program, and the Citizenship and Community Participation Programme which was given $2 to 3 million in its first year of operation and which since has become the largest program funded under Multiculturalism. Although the CCPP has been implemented differently from what it was created to do, most of its funds go to immigrant service agencies. In addition, OCASI receives core funding from the multiculturalism program, despite the program's criteria having drifted away from sustained funding grants.

The vast majority of government funds to immigrant minorities flow through social service agencies. There are, however, grants which go towards other types of minority activities, such as recreation and the maintenance of community centers. The Metro Toronto government, for example, has a large social services grants program and a smaller fund for voluntary activities, both of which provide project funding only. The 1994 grants for voluntary activity total $286,000 (a 7.5 percent reduction from the previous year), out of which 35 of 66 requests for money were funded. According to a Metro Toronto civil servant who works in community relations, the grants are made with primary consideration given to equity in terms of factors such as geography and national origin. Thus, the process is really a political one:

The problem is that public sector grants programs go out with more concern with equitable distribution, and are not concerned with impact. So that what we provide in many instances is enough money to fail. Rather than giving fewer grants to fewer organizations and giving more substantial money so that they can do something, we're doing the opposite. So they're constantly being constrained.

By this logic, grants are given to organizations not so that they may be effective, but because it is a means for the government to have good public relations with various minority communities. As with the federal multiculturalism program, financial support may be just enough to establish an office but not to accomplish anything substantive.

In conclusion, the current funding model followed by various levels of government is to provide small bits of money for specific programs. The proliferation of small grants has meant that associations have sprung up to receive them. These associations face challenges of fragmentation and isolation and are often unable to keep up with developments within the community and within the government. Some critics of this system claim that the government sets up fragile structures just to fail, while others recognize the fiscal restraints that all governments are facing in the early 1990s.

Many activists favor a model in which more money would be granted to fewer associations, a model in which there would be less required accountability and more freedom to implement substantive programs. Given that government handouts are at least in part about maintaining a good rapport with a wide variety of groups, however, the basic funding model does not seem likely to change. Despite the constraints placed on associations by state subsidization, various associations have been instrumental to minority mobilization in Canada, as presented below.

Mobilization. In contrast to France, Canada does not have a recent history marked by immigrants, racial minorities, and their allies taking to the streets in large numbers to voice their grievances. Whereas French political traditions include such confrontational tactics, Canadian political discourse tends to be consensus-oriented, with debates seeking avoidance of conflict. As a result, mobilization efforts have been less visible, less adept at drawing media attention, and often more oriented toward long-term results. This also means that it is often more difficult to evaluate the outcomes.

In this study, I have given special consideration to the demands of Blacks and Caribbeans in Toronto. These have by far been the most visible, the most confrontational, and the best documented, notably through the community newspapers Share and Contrast. As well, unlike some other communities which have had fairly specific grievances, Blacks have been involved in a wide variety of issues.

Stasiulis' (1982) study of ethnic collective action in Toronto in the 1970s centered on South Asians and West Indians (Caribbeans). She noted that the South Asian attempts to seek redress for racial grievances used "quiet diplomacy," occurring mainly via cultural associations and a few emergent political organizations. West Indians, on the other hand, acted through cultural development and sociocultural organizations, sometimes with confrontational strategies and sometimes through consensus-seeking.

Among the reasons for the visibility of Black activism are that Blacks have a long presence in Canada, and their numbers have been bolstered by more recent immigration from the Caribbean islands and most recently from Africa (though Africans have not yet joined forces with other Blacks to the extent that they might once they become more settled in Canada). In addition, Blacks are the most marginalized minorities. In a survey of six minority groups by The Toronto Star (7 June 1992), Blacks were perceived to be subject to the most prejudice and discrimination (53 percent). In the popular mindset, Blacks -- especially Jamaicans -- are linked to violent crime. Some of the most dangerous neighborhoods in Toronto are inhabited mostly by Blacks. Indeed, the widely publicized 1992 Stephen Lewis report on race relations to Ontario Premier Bob Rae focussed almost exclusively on Blacks in Toronto. In brief, although there is no religious tension (aside from hostility towards Rastafarians), Blacks in Canada share a status similar to North Africans in France.

In the wake of immigration policy liberalization in the late 1960s, the arrival of new immigrant groups to Toronto sparked an increase in hate crime. Several studies documented the presence of racism in Metropolitan Toronto in the mid-1970s, noting the harrassment of South Asian businesspeople, the verbal and physical harrassment of children, repeated attacks on houses and worship places, and assault in the subway system (Metropolitan Toronto 1977; Ubale 1977). As well, the Ontario Human Rights Commission raised concerns in its 1977 Annual Report about the dramatic increase in reported incidents of assault and verbal abuse.

A study which analyzed perceptions of racial minority immigrants about discrimination in housing, employment, and access to community sources found that almost 90 percent of Blacks and 72 percent of South Asians felt "some" or a "great deal" of discrimination, compared to 35.3 percent of immigrants from Europe (Head 1981). Most Blacks (63.7 percent) and South Asians (67.7 percent) reported having been subject to racial discrimination in Toronto.

In addition to immigration reform and the subsequent influx of Caribbeans, the U.S. civil rights movement transformed politics within the Black community. Black activists were motivated by the gains they saw being made by Blacks south of the border. Most notably, an illegal sit-in protesting an unresolved case of discrimination by a white professor at Sir George Williams University in Montreal in February 1969 led to the arrest of 96 students, including 45 Blacks, and the sentencing of three Black students to prison terms, one of whom was subsequently deported.

This affair politicized Black students in Toronto who pressured the newly formed, moderate National Black Coalition of Canada (NBCC) to become more critical of "the establishment." When the founding convention of the NBCC -- held in Toronto on 18 October 1969 -- did not include the Sir George Williams affair on its agenda, students complained of the absence of Black pride and accused the NBCC of having been coopted by the federal government (Contrast, October 1969). The NBCC continued to be supported by established moderates, having 28 member organizations, including the Jamaican Canadian Association.

Inspired by the success of a 1968 Canadian Black student conference which had been addressed by Black Power activist Stokely Carmichael, another Black people's conference was held in February 1971 to promote themes of Black Power, Pan-Africanism, and anti-imperialism. Drawing over 2,000 delegates, the conference emphasized "developing a revolutionary concept to replace the attitude of those who expect change to come from Ottawa" (Contrast, 8 March 1971), a thinly veiled attack on the NBCC. According to Stasiulis (1982: 93-4), the conference only served to alienate many immigrants and longer-established Caribbean leaders. Although the students criticized the NBCC as elitist, they themselves tended to be affluent and did not enjoy widespread support from the community.

Where the student activism was successful was in causing "mainstream" Blacks to become more politically outspoken, as well as in raising concerns in government institutions about this increasing vocalism. The Metro Toronto Police beefed up its intelligence bureau, and the RCMP employed an informant and agent provocateur to infiltrate the fledging Black movement (Stasiulis 1982: 95).

In addition, student activism encouraged the formation of Black self-help organizations such as the Black Education Project (BEP) which was established in 1969 by university students with the support of the Universal African Improvement Association and the Home Service Association, both long-established Black organizations. In 1970, the Afro-Caribbean Theatre Workshop was created to promote Black theatre. Not wanting to compromise their positions, these did not at first take public funds. Following the leadership role of BEP, by the early 1970s Blacks were enjoying an "unprecedented level of Black community services and mass-based protest" (Stasiulis 1982: 97-8).

The poverty of the Black community made it difficult to sustain independently-supported programs, especially in the face of growing federal government intervention in the voluntary sector. To illustrate, in 1972, the Brotherhood Community Centre Project (BCCP) brought together 38 organizations in an ambitious effort to provide solutions to collective Black problems. Radicals and conservative Blacks joined forces with the central objective of building a community center. Although the BCCP wanted to operate with a "spirit of economic and financial self-sufficiency" (Contrast, 9 February 1973), it began its efforts by soliciting government funds for the project. The BCCP received an initial grant of $35,000, with the promise of more money if certain conditions were met, including the production of a report on the Black community's needs. In the end, producing the report and hiring a fundraiser used up a majority of funds. The project collapsed in 1974, having focused on the report to the detriment of establishing more grass roots support for the community center (Contrast, 4 October 1974; see Stasiulis 1982: 99-102). Concurrently, other Black associations were turned down for funding, the reason given being that "their" funding had been given to the BCCP. This led to competition among Black organizations and a debate (which still continues today) over whether certain organizations can claim to represent the entire Black population.

The moderate NBCC faced problems of its own, creating a task force chaired by York University professor Wilson Head to determine the future of the organization which appeared irreparably divided and was $20,000 in debt (Contrast, 19 January 1978). Fifty delegates attended a conference in Ottawa in June at which they voted not to disband the NBCC, despite the task force's conclusion that the NBCC "had lost its credibility and could no longer play an effective role as a national Black organization" (Contrast, 22 June 1978). Wilson Head became the Interim Chair of the NBCC.

Since the late 1960s, Black community development organizations had been created out of collective discrimination experiences and minority group deprivation. Immigration-related issues remained important causes of activism, especially Bill C-24 on immigration which led to the formation of the Coalition against the Immigrant Bill, spearheaded by the Black Education Project between 1975 and 1978. By the late 1970s, the issue of police harrassment of Blacks was beginning to provoke more protest from Black organizations than any other issue. Police harrassment of Charles Roach, a lawyer and prominent Black activist, on his own street after he resisted showing identification caused outrage among Blacks (Contrast, 23 March 1978). Two shootings of Black men by police officers in 1978 and 1979 symbolized police racism to Blacks and became the focus of significant Black mobilization that continues to this day.

Nova Scotia-born Andrew "Buddy" Evans, 24, was shot to death outside a Toronto nightclub on 9 August 1978. In contrast to the police constable's claims that he shot in self-defense, witnesses said Evans had been unarmed. Black leaders along with the Canadian Civil Liberties Association called for indepedent investigation into the shooting. In the aftermath of the shooting, one hundred Blacks marched at Queen's Park, home of Ontario's legislative assembly, amidst the presence of forty police officers (Contrast, 24 August 1978). Several more rallies were held in the following weeks by the Committee for Due Process, which had been formed in response to the Evans shooting and was led by Charles Roach who claimed there was a police cover-up. At a rally at City Hall, Dudley Laws of the Universal African Improvement Association said that Black community-police relations had reached a "crisis point" (Contrast, 31 August & 5 October 1978). The newly reconstituted NBCC passed a resolution in support of the efforts of the Committee for Due Process, its Interim Chair proclaiming that the most pressing national issue for Blacks and Asians were recent police confrontations (Contrast, 28 September 1978).

The Evans case was heard by a coroner's inquest, which, after numerous delays, did not conclude until October 1979. A small number of protestors picketed throughout the trial, calling for an independent investigation. At the end, the constable who had killed Buddy Evans was exonerated of any wrongdoing, but the jury itself called for the need for independent juries for similar cases in the future.

Before the Evans inquest had even concluded, Jamaican Albert Johnson became the victim of a police shooting in his home on 26 August 1979. Widespread protest erupted in Toronto's Black community. This time, the protest base was considerably larger, probably because it followed so closely on the heels of the Evans shooting, because Johnson's being Jamaican mobilized Toronto's Caribbean population, and because he was shot in his own home. Calls for an independent investigation were repeated, including by Dudley Laws of the Universal African Improvement Association who would go on to establish the Black Action Defense Committee in 1988. More than 2,000 people marched eight miles to protest the Johnson killing. In its 6 September 1978 issue, Contrast ran a feature entitled "You and the Police: a six-page look at decaying relationships." The same month, the Toronto City Council passed a resolution of non-confidence in the Metro Toronto Police Force. The police officers involved in the Johnson shooting were later charged with manslaughter.

With the conclusion of the Evans inquest, 1,200 to 2,000 persons rallied against racism and police violence. The rally was sponsored by the Sikh-led Action Committee Against Racism. Although the shootings remained primarily a "Black issue," other communities complained of discrimination by the police, more often the lack of police action rather than the harrassment experienced by Blacks. When the Metro Police Association magazine featured two articles attacking Blacks, Jews, Pakistanis, and gays, a meeting at City Hall drew 300 persons (Contrast, 29 March 1979).

Black leaders pursued two strategies over relations with the police. Some leaders tried to work with authorities and to use the media to voice their concerns, while others preferred direct confrontation. This sort of "divide and conquer" strategy worked well for Blacks, as long as they viewed their counterparts as playing an important role in the same struggle. Even the more confrontational activists, however, engaged only in rallies and provocative statement-making. Protests in Canada have tended to remain non-violent, and Blacks have hardly tested the possibilities of collective action through strikes, boycotts, hunger strikes, or public violence.

Except for policing issues, Black organizations dealt with racism without mass mobilization, at least in part because of limited size and commitment of membership. It was feared that a poor turnout for a publicized rally would lead authorities to believe the anti-racist cause not worth supporting. Public funding had become important to Black organizations because Caribbeans and Canadian Blacks tended to have low incomes and organizations had not been successful in attracting corporate support. Also, the financial dependency had been cultivated by the federal and provincial governments in their attempts to incorporate the threat of Black power (Stasiulis 1982: 390).

The Universal African Improvement Association, which dated from 1919, had been self-supporting until 1972 when it solicited government funds to help deal with the increasing Caribbean population. The Black Education Project (BEP) had operated until 1973 with virtually no government support. Despite the decision to take state money, its financial situation remained unstable because its grants were mostly short-term. BEP's militancy declined, and the association became more hierarchical and removed from its popular base. Government spending reductions in the late 1970s meant the demise of numerous Black associations, including BEP, whose funding was halted in 1979.

The moderate NBCC, on the other hand, had been resurrected with government support. Glaring misuse of funds caused the organization's virtual collapse, until it was jump-started with seed money from the Secretary of State for a full-time staff position in 1978, concurrently with the feared unrest over police-Black relations. Under the leadership of the widely-respected Wilson Head, the NBCC took a more vocal stance on police violence. As well, Head criticized the creation of the Organization for Caribbean Canadian Initiatives in March 1981, claiming that the group's focus on Canadians of Caribbean heritage served to divide Blacks rather than to unite them.

In the early 1980s, there was much action on the associational scene, though it remained somewhat fragmented. In January 1981, Toronto mayor Art Eggleton established the Toronto Mayor's Committee on Race Relations, which has since become a widely respected body of citizen volunteers who monitor Toronto's race relations climate. The Jamaican Canadian Association initiated plans to unite some forty Black organizations in Toronto to work on pressing issues facing youth and to develop leadership strategies for the 1980s (Contrast, 11 February 1983). After a year of inactivity, the Toronto branch of the NBCC elected a new executive in April 1983, prompting former NBCC National President Wilson Head to asked whether the coalition was still relevant (Contrast, 29 April 1983). The federal NBCC had received $173,000 from the government over the preceding four years (Contrast, 5 August 1983). A meeting of the Universal African Improvement Association ended in an uproar when a few members disapproved of the meeting being chaired by a man of South Asian origin. The incident resulted in a wider debate over relations between minority groups (Contrast, 20 May 1983). The Council of Jamaicans in Ontario was formed to promote unity and loyalty among Jamaicans. The Council grew out of a 1982 conference which had received $10,000 in government funds. Also formed as a result of a government-sponsored conference was the Coalition for Visible Minority Women (Contrast, 7 October 1983). In 1984, the Afro-Canadian Congress held its first conference, pledging to build a national organization for Canadians of African origin.

In 1984, the House of Commons Special Committee on Visible Minorities released its report, entitled Equality Now (Canada, Parliament 1984). The committee found that many people "are angry, frustrated, denied a sense of belonging and clearly denied equality of opportunity." Among its 80 recommendations, the report recommended mandatory affirmative action in the business sector after five years if voluntary programs did not work. A few months later, the Progressive Conservative Party won a landslide victory in the federal election and the Equality Now recommendations were all but forgotten in Ottawa.

In November 1985, the Harambee Multi-service Centres were launched in Ottawa. Established to provide an integrated range of support services in a culturally appropriate manner, Harambee created regional representatives in nine areas of Canada. The "Harambee Principle" included self-reliance, tackling problems with culturally sensitive approaches, pride in heritage, and the development of self-sufficiency. The launching of the Toronto branch the following month was hailed as timely, signifying the trend toward self-help for Blacks, and much needed insofar as the presence of many Black coalitions had nonetheless failed to achieve unity or provide leadership for youth (Contrast, 13 & 20 December 1985).

A few months later, the Vancouver NBCC President accused Harambee and the federal government of dividing Canadian Blacks by withdrawing NBCC funding in order to support Harambee. She claimed that Harambee duplicated services offered by the NBCC. The Harambee President responded by pointing out that the NBCC was a political lobby organization while Harambee was service-oriented, but a government representative stated that only one major organization could be funded each year, and that it was going to be Harambee (Contrast, 4 April 1986). By 1987, the NBCC had been reduced to five chapters, all in Canada's western provinces. The chapters operated independently of government funds, and plans to seek state support again never materialized (Contrast, 22 April 1987).

By the late 1980s, racial minorities were getting involved in collective action for affirmative action -- "employment equity" as it came to be known. The Ontario Black Coalition for Employment Equity (OBCEE), a coalition of thirty organizations, proposed and drafted its own piece of legislation which it presented to Liberal Premier David Peterson on April 28, 1987 (Whylie 1988). In June 1987, the Governor of Ontario announced the establishment of province-wide employment equity for government. The Alliance for Employment Equity criticized the government plan as inadequate, as did the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, whose president called the plan "a small step" (Share, 15 July 1987).

The Scarborough-based Women of Many Cultures, a multicultural coalition of social service agency representatives, released a report endorsing the OBCEE's draft legislation (Share, 30 September 1987). The Movement for Mandatory Affirmative Action drew fifty marchers to Queen's Park in May 1988, including Black, South Asian, and Chinese persons as well as labor groups and the Coalition of Visible Minority Women (Share, 4 May 1988). Ontario opposition leader Bob Rae criticized the lack of Liberal action on the issue, and the Movement continued to hold press conferences and small rallies. Affirmative action was discussed at conferences of the Jamaican Canadian Association and the Congress of Black Women of Canada in June 1988 and was promoted by the head of the Ontario Human Rights Commission. The Urban Alliance on Race Relations began holding annual conferences on employment equity, the first one in January 1989 drawing 200 persons.

Several improvements in police-minority relations were made in early 1987. In January, the Metro Toronto Police Force made a formal commitment to affirmative action for visible minorities and women. In February, JCA President Roy Williams became the first Black man to be appointed to the five-person Metro Toronto Board of Commissioners of Police. However, the November 1987 fatal shooting of unarmed Anthony Griffin, 19, by a Montreal police constable revived the issue of police violence in Toronto as well. When it became known that the constable involved had been formally charged with racism in 1981, for which he had paid $2,000 to the victim, Blacks were once again incensed. One thousand marched in Montreal, including members of the Montreal branch of SOS Racisme, but only 25 braved the subfreezing temperatures to protest in Toronto.

On 9 August 1988, Jamaican Lester Donaldson was shot to death by Toronto police. Donaldson, who had once been diagnosed as a paranoid schizophrenic, had been crippled by a police bullet to the hip in April. 400 marched in his memory, and Black leaders demanded an independent inquiry. They were joined by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations. The Black Action Defense Committee (BAD-C) was created out of the killing and included long-time activists Dudley Laws, Charles Roach as well as the President of the Black Secretariat, the Executive Director of the Jamaican Canadian Association, the President of the National Council of Jamaicans, and the President of the Congress of Black Women. At a news conference, the Metro Police Association described the activists as communists, socialists, and radicals not representative of the Black community (Share, 17 August 1987). Metro government created a task force to look into the Donaldson shooting.

When 17-year-old Michael "Wade" Lawson fell victim to a police shooting on 8 December 1988, BAD-C organized a press conference for Lawson's family. More than 200 people marched in protest of the shooting, and 900 attended his funeral. In the aftermath of the shooting, a closed-door meeting was held between the Ontario Solicitor General, Ontario Minister of Citizenship, and Black leaders.

Less than 24 hours after the three-hour meeting, the province created the Ontario Race Relations and Policing Task Force, headed by Clare Lewis. The task force assumed the work of the Metro-level task force which had been created in the wake of the Donaldson shooting, but on which little action had been taken. The task force was to probe relations between the police and racial minorities, though Dudley Laws called it a "diversion" and an editorial in Share claimed that task forces had never helped in the past. Dr. Ralph Agard, President of Harambee Services, was appointed to the task force. At a press conference held in January 1989, Agard encouraged Blacks to take advantage of the opportunity to give input. BAD-C called the task force a "whitewash," and 500 attended a rally demanding police reform (Share, 11 January 1989). The task force report, released in April 1989, called for hiring and promotion of more visible minorities in the police force and the establishment of a province-wide civilian review body to monitor race relations.

Before the end of the year, Jamaican-born Sophia Cook, 23, was shot by a police officer in what appeared to be a case of an accidentally charged firearm. It seemed unlikely that Cook would walk again. An Ad Hoc Women's Coalition against Racist and Police Violence was formed, claiming to represent 80 women's organizations in Toronto, and held frequent protests outside the Metro Police headquarters during which members called for the suspension of the officer involved. Outrage ensued when the officer was charged only with "careless use of a firearm." In March 1990, Cook took a few steps before a crowd of 2,000 at the International Women's Day rally (Share, 8 March 1990).

In May 1990, Black teen Marlon Neal was shot three times by a Metro Police constable at a radar trap. The constable was suspended, and hundreds marched eight miles to show their displeasure with Metro Police. The march was organized by BAD-C which took another opportunity to call for independent investigation into the shooting. A provincial police investigation resulted in new charges against the constable: attempted murder, aggravated assault, and discharging a firearm with the intent to wound (Share, 7 June 1990).

In the aftermath of the Neal shooting, Black leaders led by the Black Business and Professional Association organized a "town meeting" at Ryerson University with the purpose of consolidating concerns and establishing priorities; suggesting strategies and timetables for action; forming a steering committee to develop, implement, and coordinate an action plan; and reporting back to the community at regular meetings. More than 300 attended the meeting, including high profile Black leaders, and it was decided to support Clare Lewis for standing up for Blacks and to call for the resignations of Metro Police Chief William McCormack and Metro Council Chairman Alan Tonks (Share, 7 June 1990). A second meeting was held in the Jane-Finch neighborhood, drawing about 175, during which more people wanted to speak than time allowed. Many concerns were voiced, but no action was taken, leading some participants to conclude that the gathering was a waste of time (Share, 12 July 1990).

In the spring of 1990, the Royal Ontario Museum (ROM) mounted an exhibit which explored nineteenth-century Canadian views of Africa, using subtle irony to depict the way missionaries viewed Africans. The Black community had not been consulted about the exhibit in advance and expressed outrage over how the exhibit depicted Blacks. The Coalition for Truth about Africa, which represented about twenty Toronto Black organizations, charged that "Into the Heart of Africa" was racist and demanded that the exhibit be closed. Beginning in April, there were demonstrations outside the museum every Saturday for over four months until the exhibit ended. When police tried to remove protestors on June 3, three policemen were injured and eight persons were arrested after scuffles broke out. The weekly demonstrations took on a larger significance for Blacks who used the forum to protest what they perceived to be other racial injustices in Metro Toronto. A meeting between museum officials and members of the Coalition for Truth about Africa, moderated by Dwight Whylie of the Black Business and Professional Association, ended in stalemate. Though the ROM exhibit did not close prematurely, the two other Canadian museums scheduled to show the exhibit cancelled, citing the controversy generated the protests (The Globe and Mail, 21 September 1990). The ROM apologized several times for the Africa exhibit and worked closely with a group of Blacks to bring a new exhibit to the museum entitled "Caribbean Celebrations."

During this time, a third Black "town meeting" was held, the theme for which was "Issues for the Election" and was to include discussions of employment equity, education policy, and police-community relations. A summary of the debate was to be presented to the three political parties as priorities for the Black community in the upcoming provincial elections. Eighty people showed up for the meeting which was held in Scarborough, an east Toronto suburb. When members of the Coalition for Truth about Africa brought their own microphone and tried to seize the floor -- claiming that their concerns had been left off the agenda -- confusion ensued and Dwight Whylie was physically attacked, seemingly by members of the Coalition. The meeting was suspended, but an impromptu meeting ensued which came up with a very different agenda which included unity, the role of "Europeans" in town meetings (two had been expelled from this one) and police issues (Share, 16 August 1990). The Black Business and Professional Association issued the following statement in Share: "...we condemn any group which tries to impose its view by force; or that makes demands, instead of engaging in debate, and disrupts free and open meetings instead of participating in them" (6 September 1990). No further attempts to hold "town meetings" were made.

In September 1990, the New Democratic Party was swept into provincial office with a 74-seat majority. Two Black NDP candidates were elected -- Alvin Curling and Zanana Akande -- but the two incumbent racial minorities lost their seats to NDP candidates.

In November 1990, the constable who shot and killed Lester Donaldson in 1988 was found not guilty of manslaughter. Critical statements to the press were made by BAD-C and the Ontario Federation of Race Relations Organizations, and the Urban Alliance held a "healing session" for persons to vent their frustrations over the acquittal. During a small rally of 25 organized by BAD-C to protest the acquittal, speakers once again called for a civilian body to investigate police misconduct. Premier Bob Rae told Share that he would wait and see whether the newly-created Special Investigations Unit (SIU) satisfied this demand before taking any further action (6 December 1990). Concurrently, the Metro Toronto Police Force released its new race relations policy amidst great fanfare by the government (Share, 29 November 1990). Tensions between police and Blacks continued unabated.

Six months later, the Metro Police Association launched a defamation suit against Dudley Laws for calling the police force "the most brutal and murderous in North America" (Share, 30 May 1991). When criminal charges against the constable who had shot Sophia Cook were dismissed, Cook -- now walking with a cane -- announced her plans to sue the police for $5 million (Share, 13 June 1991). An unarmed Black man became the victim of a police shooting in Montreal in July, prompting the Chief of the Montreal Urban Community Police to admit that a mistake had been made and to opine, "These things should never happen" (Share, 11 July 1991). When a Metro officer shot a fleeing, unarmed seventeen-year-old Black youth in the Toronto suburb of Scarborough in September, BAD-C called for an independent investigation into the shooting. The response by some was more muted, however: the police officer was also Black (Share, 26 September 1991).

In October, Dudley Laws was arrested and charged with smuggling illegal aliens over the US-Canada border. Laws claimed that he was being framed. The same month, the police officer implicated in the 1990 Neal shooting was found not guilty on the three charges laid, including attempted murder. Afterwards, members of the Black community refused to comment.

A few weeks later, 22-year-old Black burglary suspect Jonathan Howell was critically shot by a police officer in Etobicoke, just outside Toronto. The Law Union of Ontario and BAD-C held a press conference to draw attention to the fact that police guns are drawn more frequently when the police are confronting Black suspects. In most of the situations where Blacks had been shot, they stated, regulations did not allow that firearms be drawn by officers (Share, 14 November 1991). Though the SIU was to investigate the Howell shooting, an agreement between the police and the SIU giving precedence to investigation by the police was uncovered by The Toronto Star (25 July 1991; 30 July 1991; 17 November 1991). Outraged Blacks called for the resignation of the SIU Director, who in turn agreed to issue a new set of guidelines on crimes investigated by both the the police and the SIU.

In early December, a 19-year-old Black youth was shot by a police officer, though not critically. Again, protests over the shootings included rallies of 75 to 100 persons. In mid-December, various organizations met with Premier Rae and the Ontario Attorney General to express concern over police use of force, demanding that reports be filed every time a firearm is drawn and that the SIU be overhauled. The delegation included representatives from BAD-C, the Ontario Federation of Labor, the Urban Alliance on Race Relations, the National Association of Japanese Canadians, and the Chinese Canadian National Council (Share, 24 December 1991).

On 8 April 1992, an all-white jury found the two officers implicated in the 1988 fatal shooting of 17-year-old Wade Lawson not guilty. Melee ensued outside the Peel courthouse, and five days later more than 300 persons protested the acquittal by blocking traffic in downtown Toronto. The fact that no officer had been convicted in a shooting incident since 1978 quickly became a rallying point within the Black community, prompting a flood of letters to local newspapers and an scathing editorial on policing and the justice system in Share entitled "We're angry." BAD-C held several protest rallies. Only a few weeks later, on May 2, Jamaican-born Raymond Lawrence died from two shots to the chest at close range by a Metro police officer.

It was in this period of heightened racial tensions that the most widely publicized collective action of the early 1990s occurred: the Yonge Street "riots" or "uprisings" (depending on one's perspective), which began on 4 May 1992. They started as a demonstration outside the American Embassy to protest the acquittal of police officers in the beating of Rodney King in Los Angeles. Organized by the Black Action Defense Committee, the demonstration took a different turn because of the recent Lawrence shooting. The 1,000 person demonstration escalated in Toronto's downtown shopping district where hundreds of rioters looted and vandalized stores, and threw rocks and eggs at police. Thirty-two persons were arrested, some of them white and Asian youths. A smaller skirmish involving 150 youths and riot police occurred the following night. A few days later, 1,000 people rallied against racism amidst a huge police presence.

Whether or not disaffected youths took advantage of a legitimate protest to engage in "hooliganism," the impact of the riots has been significant (Toronto Star, 5-8 May 1992). Although these riots were small in comparison to what was simultaneously occurring in Los Angeles (there were not even any injuries), the violence was unprecedented in recent Toronto history. Despite insistances that the rioting was not racial but rather a youth issue, these riots prompted Premier Rae to appoint former Canadian Ambassador to the United Nations Stephen Lewis to give a report on race relations in Ontario.

After spending four weeks meeting with various visible minority constituencies in Ontario, Lewis concluded that systemic racial discrimination against visible minorities existed in Ontario and particularly noted "anti-Black racism." Lewis's recommendations included legislating employment equity, making efforts to ensure access to trades and professions for those educated outside Canada, maintaining English as a Second Language programs in public schools, reconstituting the Race Relations and Policing Task Force, and establishing more controls on police use of deadly force. Despite an angry reaction from police officials, Premier Rae agreed to adopt most of the specific recommendations proposed in the 37-page report.

At the heart of the Lewis Report was the call for an inquiry into the justice system. Not surprisingly, Black community leaders generally responded favorably to the Lewis Report. Several other minority leaders, however, claimed that it overemphasized the problems of Ontario's Blacks and minimized those of other visible minorities (Ubale 1992). Moreover, there were some complaints that a violent rampage had resulted in considerable action while those working quietly behind the scenes were not making as much progress.

The other major protest event of the early 1990s was over the musical Show Boat which inaugurated a $51 million public theater in the Toronto suburb of North York, a municipality with a significant Black population. Blacks objected to Show Boat on the grounds that it was racist and romanticized the lives of Blacks living in the American South in the late nineteenth century. The Coalition to Stop Show Boat was formed, declaring that "the entire play, its plot and characterizations demean black life and culture" (The New York Times, 7 May 1993). The dispute also stirred tensions between Toronto's Blacks and Jews after a Black school trustee and the publisher of Share both made public statements that Jews, including the creators and current producers of Show Boat, were responsible for most cultural works which denigrate Blacks (Share, 1 April 1993). Further complicating the issue was the involvement of the United Way, an important funder to Black service organizations, which had planned a fundraiser around Show Boat. When it was decided to go ahead with the fundraiser, 19 of the 22 members of the United Way's Black and Caribbean Fund-Raising Committee resigned in protest.

The protestors were accorded little credibility in the mainstream media where the issue evolved into a debate over censorship and whether history should be rewritten to appease Blacks (Nourbese Philip 1993; cf. Knelman 1993). In fact, The Toronto Star, Canada's largest newspaper, was a financial investor in Show Boat. Share served as the forum in which the protestors could be heard, but its credibility was harmed by the editorial addressed to Jews.

The show went on as planned, though many who were involved in the debate thought riots and violence might erupt. This, however, was not the case. Opening night protests of 240-340 persons were over-policed because 1,500 to 2,500 protestors had been expected. The second protest drew only 40. Despite the weak protest presence and the endorsement of the production by African-American celebrities such as James Earl Jones and Henry Gates, support for the Coalition to Stop Show Boat appears to have been more than marginal. Resignations from the United Way were viewed as a victory for Blacks, but the overall outcome of the protest reinforced their sense of powerlessness. The very legitimacy of the protest has been called into question by the fact that when the same version of Show Boat opened on Broadway on 2 October 1994, not only were there no equivalent protests by African-Americans, but two African-American newspapers gave the show rave reviews for developing the musical's Black characters (The Globe and Mail, 22 October 1994).

Over the past few years, new activist organizations and coalitions have sprung up which are multiracial and multiethnic in character. The most notable of these are described here. In the midst of activity around the police shootings, a working group was launched which was to facilitate quick and collective responses to ethnic and race-related crises. Entitled "Toronto Cares," its members included the B'nai Brith League for Human Rights, Canadian Jewish Congress, Jamaican Canadian Association, Toronto Mayor's Committee on Race Relations, North York Committee on Race Relations, and the Urban Alliance on Race Relations (Share, 8 November 1989).

The "Toronto Cares" network never really got off the ground, but it paved the way for its successor, the Anti-Racism Response Network, which has been coordinated by the Urban Alliance on Race Relations since 1992. The ARRN was created to provide coordination and resources to community organizations in Metro Toronto which are involved in combatting direct and indirect forms of racism. In the fall of 1993, it held a community roundtable with all of its member networks, which now number 146, to discuss the needs of the members and the direction the network should take. Due to lack of resources, however, most the recommendations could not be implemented. In October 1994, the ARRN received a $240,000 grant from the Jobs Ontario Community Development Program and subsequently held another meeting to prioritize the implementation of the recommendations. In the meantime, its visible activities have not been very successful: a March 1994 anti-racism rally held to commemorate the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Discrimination brought out only about fifty persons (The Toronto Sun, 21 March 1994).

Aside from the efforts of the well-established Urban Alliance on Race Relations, other coalitions illustrate that anti-racism has become more acceptable, even fashionable, among youth. Anti-Racist Action (ARA) is a militant coalition of students, gays and lesbians, and the far left which formed in September 1992 to counter the presence of white supremacists and fascists in Metro Toronto. One-third of ARA's members are visible minorities, and -- like its adversaries -- its biweekly meetings are held at secret locations. ARA has attracted media attention over its sometimes violent clashes with the white supremacist group Heritage Front which had been running a telephone "hot line" to spread racist sentiment. ARA's tactics, which included vandalizing the home of a Heritage Front leader in June 1993, have not been welcomed by all minority activists (The Toronto Star, 14 June 1993).

On 28 June 1993, 2,000 persons marched in Toronto to protest three racist attacks on Tamil men that month. Over fifty organizations were in attendance. The attacks sparked the formation of the Toronto Coalition against Racism (TCAR) whose aim, according to its brochure, is to "build a broad, mass action coalition which will represent and be led by the communities targeted by racists and fascists." Although run by a small core of activists, TCAR has been involved in a wide variety of immigration and race issues and was quite vocal at the immigration consultations held in June 1994. Neither ARA nor TCAR receive government funds for their activities.

In addition to these protests, there have also been smaller demonstrations which are not well-publicized. They were promoted in ethnoracially-owned stores, through organizational networks, and through simple word of mouth. For example, the Caribbean student associations at Toronto's universities have a communications network which enables members to keep abreast of current protest efforts. Nonetheless, the existence of these demonstrations remains almost completely undocumented.

This presentation of collective action by Blacks in Metro Toronto was based on newspaper searches and thus is biased towards higher profile activities such as marches, yet it provides a glimpse into issues around which Blacks have mobilized as well as into the organizational bases of mobilization. Above all, it reveals the extent to which mobilization efforts have been fragmented, spearheaded by a small number of activists and associations, and especially focused on relations with the police. Only in the cases of the recently emerging multicultural coalitions detailed immediately above have minority groups been able to overcome the fragmenting cleavages which prevent them from wielding more power. Nonetheless, immigrant and ethnoracial minority activists have not hesitated to stake their claims as equals in Canadian society and to publicly denounce what they view as acts of racism. Today's discourse calls for "anti-racism," a stronger term than "race relations" and one which makes no claims about the need for assimilation into Canadian society. This reflects Canada's affirmation of cultural pluralism as a societal strength.

In the following two chapters, we turn to specific mobilization efforts -- three in France and three in Canada -- which add more detail to the mobilization chronologies presented in this chapter. As well, the outcomes of the mobilization efforts are discussed. Particular attention is given to how the issues and outcomes of collective action were influenced by national identity structures in each country.

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Abstract/Preface/Dedication/Acknowledgements/Table of Contents/List of Figures
Chapter 1 - Chapter 2 - Chapter 3 - Chapter 4 - Chapter 5 - Chapter 6 - Chapter 7 - Chapter 8 - Appendix/Bibliography

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Virtual Library		Updated February 09, 2004