MRAP (French NGO)

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MRAP stands for Mouvement contre le racisme et pour l'amitié entre les peuples (Movement Against Racism and for Friendship between Peoples), and is an anti-racist French NGO, created in 1941. It is currently headed by Mouloud Aounit, who became in 1989 its first leader not to belong to the French Communist Party (PCF).

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[edit] Creation

The Mouvement national contre le racisme (National Movement Against Racism) was created in 1941 by several Resistants who considered that a specific struggle against racism had to be headed in the global frame of France's liberation from German occupation. It had as aims to save as much Jewish children from deportation, coordinating its actions with the Protestant and Catholic Church. Two clandestine newspapers, J'accuse in the North zone and Fraternité in the South zone, were charged of countering the Nazi's and Vichy's racist ideology.

The MRAP was created on May 22, 1949 around former MNCR members and various personalities, such as the painter Marc Chagall or the Social Catholic leader Marc Sangnier. It took the name of Mouvement contre le racisme, l'antisémitisme et pour la paix (Movement Against Racism, Anti-Semitism and for Peace) in a period during which the dominating questions were neo-nazism, anti-Semitism and the Cold War.

[edit] Post-World War

The colonial wars and the recourse to a immigrated manpower during the Trente Glorieuses, extending from 1945 to 1974, changed the positions of the struggle against a racism that began to take various forms. The MRAP supported anti-colonialism and was opposed to the Algerian War (1954-62). It was one of the rare organizations to condemn the methods of the police prefect Maurice Papon and the October 17, 1961 massacre in Paris.

The MRAP obtained the vote of the Pleven Act on July 1, 1972, which condemns incitations to racial hate and permits anti-racist associations to depose courtsuits against those who commit such hate speech.

It became the Mouvement contre le Racisme et pour l'Amitié entre les Peuples in 1972, its current and present name.

The MRAP is also engaged in international issues. It was active against apartheid in South Africa and now struggles against racism in the United States (in particular by defending Black Panthers member Mumia Abu-Jamal).

[edit] Today

It continues to be engaged against anti-Semitism (despite the suppression of the term in its title in 1972), defends the right of immigrants, Gypsies (gens du voyage) and more generally all forms of racism. It is also engaged in anti-fascist actions against the far right, as well as the right wing. In some cases, it has also criticized the Socialist Party, criticizing Ségolène Royal, the Socialist contender for the 2007 presidential election, when she exposed her program on security issues, stating that she was versing in the "most dangerous kind of populism".[1]

The MRAP was engaged in the creation of ATTAC alter-globalization NGO during its creation in 1998. Currently, it concentrates its action against immigration-restricting laws and in favor of immigrants' rights, as well as denounciation of racism on the internet and against historical revisionism (courtsuit deposed against Bruno Gollnisch, member of the Front National).[2].

[edit] References

  1. ^ MRAP press release, June 1, 2006 (URL accessed on July 12, 2006)
  2. ^ National Consultative Commission on Human Rights, "Racist Internet in French Language"

[edit] See also

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