Political opportunity is one of the indispensable prerequisites of ethnic mobilization. The one significant gain that East European Gypsies made from the postcommunist transition was this chance to freely organize themselves. What were the major issues confronting the Roma at the outset of their mobilizational activities? What type of organizations have they created? What sort of organizational resources have they had, and how have they utilized them? How have Gypsy communities responded to their leaders' activities? How effective have been the Roma's mobilization efforts? The task of this chapter is to answer these questions.

PART I: THE WEAKNESS OF ROMANI IDENTITY

In order to put Romani activism in its proper context, we need to appreciate the extent to which the odds are stacked against it. Gypsy mobilization is still in its infancy: It is little more than a decade old. In Chapter 2 I outlined the prerequisites of successful ethnic mobilization. In the chapters that followed I explained that, in terms of mobilizational experience, the Gypsies have little to draw on. Nonetheless, even in imperial and authoritarian states a small number of Roma proved time and again that they understood the importance of organized political activism. For a variety of reasons, both endogenous and exogenous, they were unable to alleviate their problems. In the socialist period the state succeeded in keeping Romani activism down, though a small but important group of Gypsy intellectuals emerged that was prepared to take mobilization to a higher level.