Marc님의 프로필Nulla dies sine linea사진블로그리스트기타  |  도구 도움말 |
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5월 31일 Live: R.E.M. at Hollywood BowlThe chant from the audience at the Hollywood Bowl on Thursday welled up after R.E.M. had played seven songs. Was the two-syllable chorus a spontaneous cheer for one of the musicians? A mass request for a particular song? No, as it came into focus, the crowd's message was clear: "Lou-der. . . . Lou-der."
You don't often see a rock band being asked to turn it up, but it was a reasonable demand given the somewhat sedate nature of the show to that point. The music sounded bright and clear enough, but it didn't reach out into the broad amphitheater and embrace the fans in its spell, nor punch them in the gut, the way this band has done for nearly three decades. That sonic reticence might have served as a handy symbol of R.E.M.'s diminished presence in recent years. It's been an up-and-down decade for the Athens, Ga., band, which almost single-handedly created the template for the indie-rock ideal. Doubts about the band's very existence followed drummer Bill Berry's 1997 departure, and when singer Michael Stipe, guitarist Peter Buck and bassist Mike Mills did return to action, they made albums that marked R.E.M.'s commercial and critical low points. At the same time, they showed they could soldier on, and while they might have drifted musically, they never squandered the integrity that made them the shining role model for bands such as Radiohead, which was once their opening act and absorbed much about career conduct from their example. You can bet that this tour's support bands, the National and Modest Mouse, are learning some lessons as well. That integrity, combined with a vast repertoire of songs both familiar and obscure, means that even a routine R.E.M. concert will have a firm foundation. But this time around the band found a way to make it a cut above the routine. Their new album, “Accelerate,” has been welcomed as a return to form, with a rawness and immediacy that provide a palpable spark of renewal. And without making a big point of it, the band included nearly all the songs in Thursday's two-hour concert. They opened the show with one of their older songs, "Pretty Persuasion," and then got right to it with the new "Living Well Is the Best Revenge," a scathing assertion of independence from demagogues, whether religious or political. Like many of the other "Accelerate" songs, "Revenge" fit snugly in the R.E.M. oeuvre while adding some freshness. The atmospheric "Houston" is a sort of meditation on Glen Campbell's Jimmy Webb-written hit "Galveston," with Mills playing organ, but the emphasis is on energy and release. The set-closing "I'm Gonna DJ" arrives as a worthy replacement for "It's the End of the World as We Know It," their apocalyptic party song, and the encore-opening "Supernatural Superserious" riffed with serious force. This shot of the new was like a serum in the bloodstream, reinvigorating the panoramic career overview that rounded out the set. As the show proceeded, the sound seemed to improve (at least there were no more complaints from the crowd), and Stipe, a lanky, rubbery-bodied genie in a sharp suit, became an increasingly involving host. His politicking (for Obama, against Bush) was familiar but concise, and he illuminated some of the songs with introductions tailored to the occasion. Before playing "Electrolite," he dedicated the song to Los Angeles, "the city of dreams," and explained that it came from the time he lived in Santa Monica and would go to Mulholland Drive with his friends to look at the lights. He later asked if anyone had been here the last time they played the Hollywood Bowl and remembered his taking a header on the second song. "Do you want to see the scar?" he asked, pulling up his pants leg. Whatever issues R.E.M. might have sustaining its artistry and keeping its direction, the band never just goes through the motions. They were happy to include the very early song "Sitting Still" in response to a request made of Stipe at a book signing, and they played the arty ballad "I've Been High" under the yellow flag of "We're still figuring this one out." "Not bad for the third night of the tour," Stipe commented near the end. True enough. The band (supplemented by guitarist Scott McCaughey and drummer Bill Rieflin) kept the focus on the voice and melody, driving those qualities with the ringing, rough-hewn, guitar rock that's defined them throughout their career. They aren't architects of sonic grandeur like U2 or Radiohead, or virtuosic instigators of rock catharsis like Springsteen and the E Street Band. But R.E.M. remains in that rarefied company because of an inner fire that insists on a connection with the listener, a shared sense of wonder and outrage at the world. It was there Thursday. All it needed was a little more volume.  Richard Cromelin, The Los Angeles Times, 31.05.08
Bien entouré, MC Solaar retourne au jazz avec bonheurMC Solaar renoue avec le jazz. Landerneau tressaille. Roy Hargrove (trompette) et son RH Factor l'invitent, avec un contrebassiste de luxe, Ron Carter (né en 1937, présent à ce jour dans 2 003 albums). Théâtre du Châtelet archi-comble, vendredi 30 mai, festival de numériques filmeurs, ambiance à l'enthousiasme consensuel. Comme si cette jolie jeunesse découvrait le Bal nègre de la rue Blomet en 1924. Certes, dans les rangs, nul délégué de la "caillera" qui faisait fête à Solaar en ses débuts, au petit théâtre de Boulogne-sur-Mer par exemple. Simple signe des temps.
Sommet de la soirée : un Everytime We Say Good Bye pris sur un tempo casse-gueule à force de langueur par Hargrove et Ron Carter. Sérieux, triste, musical. Ou encore : les interventions de MC Solaar, même si, en duo avec Ron Carter, sa chanson sur les anges, la souple exactitude du géant aux longs doigts, lui donnent du fil à retordre. Mais enfin, on était venu avec la boîte à ironie. On a tout remballé. De toute façon, un garçon capable de rapper aujourd'hui "Je préfère l'intellect à la haine" tient en éveil. Et puis, c'est vrai, on croyait qu'il avait viré Guy Béart mâtiné de Soeur Sourire, mais non : c'est troussé, ça pulse, la confrontation tient le coup. En face, le RH Factor. Même son côté caméléon, un coup Miles 1980, un coup Dizzy, un coup Pink Floyd, un petit coup effets électroniques (à dégager d'urgence), un gros coup Cab Calloway, un énorme coup musique d'autoroute, ça roule. Les trois derniers quarts d'heure ont, bien sûr, évoqué ce moment pénible où vous lâchez le rouleau de Sopalin : lequel se dévide sans fin, il faut bien trois plombes pour le rembobiner, d'ailleurs mal. Bref, une excellente soirée de ce qu'on appellera de la musique de parents, avec au passage un arrangement assez compliqué (très joli) d'Au clair de la lune à la quinte. Résumons : du génie, de la guimauve, des pépites, du tralala. A quoi il pense, l'alto, quand il déchaîne cette extase en servant un chorus de faux fou ? A quoi il pense au juste ? De toute façon, il sait. Rap et jazz ? Vieille lune. De Miles à Shepp en passant par Steve Coleman, ils le disent tous : be-bop, scat, rap, slam, même combat. Fomenter une rencontre MC Solaar, Roy Hargrove et ce Ron Carter qui n'apporte que la musicalité - mais quelle musique ! - sur la feuille de match, c'est du Domenech. Par chance, il est des liaisons d'anges heureux.
Francis Marmande, Le Monde, 31.05.08 Los chiíes de Irak se oponen al acuerdo militar con EE UUEl máximo dirigente espiritual de los chiíes de Irak, el gran ayatolá Alí al Sistani, a través de su portavoz Ahmed al Safi, se manifestó ayer en contra del acuerdo de cooperación que el Gobierno de Nuri al Maliki negocia desde marzo con Estados Unidos, para que las tropas norteamericanas puedan permanecer en Irak sin que la ONU tenga que extender anualmente su permanencia. "No queremos que Irak firme tratados y se comprometa con nuevas obligaciones que le traerán nuevos problemas y afectarán a su soberanía", dijo en el sermón del viernes.
En términos más duros se pronunció el clérigo radical Múqtada al Sáder, miles de cuyos seguidores se manifestaron sin incidentes en Bagdad y otras ciudades del sur del país. "Ese acuerdo confisca la soberanía de Irak", rezaban muchas de las pancartas de los manifestantes. Según la resolución 1790 del Consejo de Seguridad de la ONU, aprobada el 18 de diciembre de 2007, la fuerza multinacional que dirige Estados Unidos en Irak puede permanecer en ese país árabe hasta el fin de 2008, aunque, como ocurre desde 2005, la estancia podría prorrogarse otros 12 meses con una petición expresa del Gobierno iraquí. Al Maliki y la Administración de Bush quieren establecer de forma bilateral el futuro de la presencia militar estadounidense, de ahí el interés por firmar antes de que finalice el año un Acuerdo de Cooperación y Amistad a largo plazo. Entre la cooperación, la militar ocupa un lugar destacado y prevé el establecimiento de bases militares permanentes en el país. "Ese acuerdo dejará ciego a Irak. Dará el 99% de nuestro país a los estadounidenses y meterá un soldado norteamericano en cada una de nuestras casas", declaró el jeque Mohannad al Gazawi, uno de los dirigentes políticos sadristas. Al Sáder exige la inmediata salida de las tropas ocupantes de Irak y es uno de los oponentes más viscerales al Gobierno de Maliki, al que le reprocha las relaciones que mantiene con el invasor. El clérigo ha pedido a sus seguidores que se movilicen para impedir la firma de un pacto con el ocupante y pretende que todos los viernes, después de la plegaria, haya manifestaciones pacíficas por todo el país. Múqtada al Sáder sostiene que el Gobierno de Al Maliki no puede firmar un acuerdo de tanta relevancia para el futuro sino que debe de convocar un referéndum sobre su aprobación. "Es peor que la ocupación", "es una guerra contra los iraquíes", proclamaban las pancartas de los manifestantes de Ciudad Sáder, uno de los barrios más populosos y deprimidos de Bagdad, habitado por chiíes. "Las manifestaciones son el principio de lo que se espera que sea una larga y feroz batalla de los iraquíes contra la futura presencia militar estadounidense en Irak", dijo un portavoz de Al Sáder. Mientras, el poderoso vecino iraní también hizo ayer un llamamiento a los iraquíes para que rechacen un acuerdo que prolonga la presencia militar estadounidense más allá de 2008. "La nación iraquí debe resistirse con coraje contra un pacto de seguridad estadounidense al igual que se ha resistido hasta ahora contra los ocupantes", dijo el presidente del Parlamento iraní, Alí Lariyaní, durante una visita a la ciudad sagrada de Qom, el Vaticano de los chiíes. "La retirada de los ocupantes es la única forma de establecer la seguridad en Irak", añadió el antiguo jefe de las negociaciones sobre el programa nuclear iraní. Pero no sólo los chiíes se oponen al pacto, la Asociación de Ulemas Musulmanes, la máxima autoridad suní en Irak, lo ha descrito como "un nuevo mandato sobre Irak".
El Pais, 31.05.08 Bin Laden turns his mind to IsraelAl-Qaida is focusing its rhetoric on fighting Israel as it competes with more successful militant groups for legitimacy and popularity
Osama bin Laden has plenty on his mind but he managed to pay close attention this month to the events surrounding Israel's 60th anniversary and the parallel commemoration of the "nakba" - the catastrophe - that the creation of the Jewish state in 1948 meant for the Palestinians. Twice in three days Israel and Palestine were the focus of carefully-crafted messages from the al-Qaida leader, broadcasting via Islamist websites from his hideout in the badlands of the Pakistani tribal areas. First he attacked western leaders — George Bush most obviously — for taking part in Israel's birthday celebrations, vowing that Muslims would fight and not give up "one inch of Palestine". Two days later he urged Muslims to smash the Israeli-led blockade of the Gaza Strip and fight Arab governments that deal with the Jewish state. The Palestinian cause has not always been uppermost in Bin Laden's mind, at least in terms of explicit political demands. From 1996 his focus was on the US presence in Saudi Arabia, his estranged homeland. In his 1998 fatwa declaring war on "Crusaders and Jews" Palestine was mentioned only third, again after American bases in Saudi Arabia and UN sanctions on Iraq. Yet in one recent statement he called Palestine "my nation's pivotal issue". It was, he declared, "an important factor in giving me since childhood, and giving the 19 free men (who carried out the 9/11 attacks), an overwhelming feeling that we must stand by the oppressed and punish the unjust Jews and their backers."In fact, Palestine has never been an operational priority for the group. Al-Qaida's achievements on that front consist of attacking a synagogue in Tunisia and Israeli tourists in Kenya – perhaps simply because such targets are hard to hit. Analysts say Bin Laden is talking about Israel now because of al-Qaida's failures in Iraq and the large number of innocent Muslims who have been killed in its war against the Americans and the Iraqi government. Another broader reason is that the organisation's legitimacy is being undermined by criticism from repentant takfiri thinkers such as Sayid Imam al-Sharif, the once revered founder, with al-Qaida's no 2 and ideologue Ayman al-Zawahiri, of the Egyptian Jihad group. "Bin Laden and co have not followed through," argues Thomas Hegghammer, an al-Qaida expert at Princeton University. "They are on the defensive. Tapping into the Palestinian issue is a way of combating that. It's the deepest reserve, the safest bet. But it does reflect a sense of weakness." For Mamoun Fandy, an Egyptian scholar at the International Institute of Strategic Studies in London (IISS), this is a significant shift in al-Qaida discourse. "Anti-Americanism by itself can't keep the attention of the Arab world, so resorting to traditional symbols of mobilization is the best way," he says. "And Palestine is the quintessential way to do that. People say OK, Bin Laden is fighting the Americans, but what about the Zionists?" The sense that al-Qaida is on the back foot is partly due to its own failures but partly to the success of two other Islamist nationalist organizations: Hamas in the Palestinian territories and Hizbullah in Lebanon, which reject a jihadist, takfiri agenda and seek to liberate territory and operate within a state framework. "Al-Qaida has a real problem dealing with Hamas because it is quite popular in the Arab and Islamic worlds," says Brynjar Lia of the Norwegian Defence Research Establishment, which monitors jihadi websites. "It enjoys a legitimacy as a liberation movement that al-Qaida doesn't. It's a vulnerable point." The same is true of Hizbullah, which claims credit for driving Israel out of Lebanon in 2000 and keeping alive the flame of resistance ever since, through the 2006 war, when its leader, the charismatic Hassan Nasrallah, acquired rock star status all over the Arab world. Unlike al-Qaida, both these movements have strong social bases and political as well as armed wings. Both are sworn enemies of Israel and are boycotted as terrorist organisations by the US and the EU. Both are ideological but are capable of behaving pragmatically. Both take part in elections. Hamas was part of a unity government headed by the western-backed Palestinian president Mahmoud Abbas and has signalled readiness for a long-term ceasefire with Israel. Hizbullah's attitude to Palestine is ambiguous. In Lebanon, its priority is to hang on to its weapons and operate within the system. Zawahiri has attacked both organisations in his statements, punning on the Arabic name Hizbullah (The Party of God) to insinuate that it serves many gods, not just Allah. He lambasted Hamas for "falling into the swamp of surrender" by accepting the Saudi-brokered Mecca deal with Abbas and for pursuing democratic methods. Bin Laden singled out Nasrallah for failing to liberate Palestine and agreeing in 2006 to the deployment of "Crusaders" (UN peacekeepers) in south Lebanon "to protect the Jews". Muslim sectarianism is part of this story: Hizbullah, backed by Iran, is a Shia movement, hated by the extremist Sunnis of al-Qaida and by the small like-minded groups that have proliferated in Lebanon in recent years but done nothing to fight Israel. Al-Qaida watchers agree that by his own lights Bin Laden needs to raise his profile on Palestine. "The fact is that they haven't got a very good story to tell and they need something better," argues Nigel Inkster, former deputy head of Britain's MI6 and now at London's IISS. "The focus on Israel is partly a function of the need for a new narrative." "People are expecting something by al-Qaida against an Israeli target," says Hegghammer. "That would be the most logical thing to do." Palestine, suggests Khaled Hroub, an expert on Hamas and Sunni (Salafi) fundamentalism, is al-Qaida's Achilles heel. It is, he says, "desperate" to set foot in the Gaza Strip, though there is no hard evidence that it has done - yet. That could change if the blockade and suffering continues. "In the past it was a question of those who didn't like the PLO ending up with Hamas," Hroub warns. "Now, if they don't like the radical Islamists of Hamas they can wait for al-Qaida instead."
Ian Black, The Guardian, 30.05.08 Anglophone et produite en France, Feist est une championne de l'exportUn an après la sortie de son troisième album,The Reminder, la chanteuse canadienne Feist, qui jouera à guichets fermés, à Paris, au Grand Rex les 3 et 4 juin, peut s'enorgueillir d'un joli succès. Plus de 1,2 million d'albums vendus dans le monde, dont 510 000 aux Etats-Unis, 240 000 au Canada, 150 000 en France, 100 000 en Grande-Bretagne ; un tube, 1234, fredonné partout ; un accueil critique dithyrambique ; quatre nominations aux Grammy Awards. Cela pourrait paraître banal pour une vedette pop anglo-saxonne. Ça ne l'est pas quand on sait que cette jeune femme, née il y a trente-deux ans en Nouvelle-Ecosse, a été produite en France par la branche locale de Polydor, un label d'Universal.
Si la France a su exporter des artistes étrangers dans le domaine du jazz ou des musiques du monde, rarissimes étaient jusque-là les artistes pop-rock anglo-saxons à s'imaginer l'Hexagone comme tremplin international. Après avoir autoproduit au Canada un très confidentiel premier album, Monarch (Lay Your Jewelled Head Down), Leslie Feist a choisi de s'exiler en Europe. "C'était un choix de vie, explique aujourd'hui la chanteuse, une façon de m'enrichir artistiquement et de profiter d'un art de vivre qui fait défaut à l'Amérique." Elle s'installe d'abord à Berlin, proche d'une communauté d'artistes parmi lesquels son compatriote le pianiste Gonzales, demeuré son fidèle complice. Après un séjour à Rome, elle emménage finalement à Paris et enregistre les maquettes d'un nouvel album, Let It Die, avec Gonzales et l'ingénieur du son français Renaud Letang. La filiale anglaise de Mercury, autre label d'Universal, courtise la demoiselle. Pourtant, Feist signe chez Polydor France. "Un contrat en France, rapporte Robbie Lakritz, le manageur de la Canadienne, était une façon d'éviter l'uniformisation." "J'ai senti que je pouvais ici obtenir une liberté artistique totale", estime Feist. Séduit par une voix "à la fois énergique et émotive" et des chansons batifolant avec grâce entre pop contemporaine et musiques d'avant le rock, le directeur artistique de Polydor, Jean-Philippe Allard, relève un sacré défi. "Produire en France un artiste anglo-saxon est compliqué, dit-il. La loi sur les quotas oblige les radios à ne passer que 40 % de chansons non francophones. Cette part est presque entièrement occupée par les tubes internationaux. Difficile de développer une nouvelle artiste dans ces conditions." Solution : parier sur l'export, "mais il faut beaucoup de temps et investir beaucoup d'argent dans les concerts, dans les clips". Grâce, entre autres, à l'utilisation du titre Mushaboom dans une publicité pour un parfum, Let It Die reçoit un bel accueil international. Pourtant, même avec 500 000 exemplaires vendus dans le monde (dont 190 000 aux Etats-Unis), Polydor France perd de l'argent.
UN PUBLIC DE JEUNES ADULTES
Enregistré de nouveau avec Gonzales et Renaud Letang, dans un manoir de la région parisienne, l'excellent The Reminder sort fin avril 2007. La carrière de ce nouvel album repart là où s'était arrêtée celle de son prédécesseur. Les mises en place dépassent les prévisions. Aux Etats-Unis, The Reminder entre à la 16e place du classement des meilleures ventes de disques. Une première pour un Anglo-Saxon produit en France. Signes précurseurs du succès, les bons résultats des téléchargements payants : "Cela signifiait que l'on touchait un public de jeunes adultes, décrypte Jean-Philippe Allard, moins adepte du piratage et au pouvoir d'achat plus fort que les ados." Dans un marché du disque sinistré, les artistes ont besoin d'autres accélérateurs pour franchir de nouveaux paliers. Quelques mois après la sortie de l'album, Apple adopte le titre 1234 et sa vidéo pour une publicité. La carrière de Feist a profité de ce coup de pouce, de la même façon que celle de la Franco-Israélienne Yael Naim a récemment bénéficié de l'utilisation de sa chanson New Soul pour une autre publicité du même géant de l'informatique. Après la diffusion de la pub, les téléchargements payants de 1234 passent de 2 000 à 73 000 ventes par semaine. Classé en 102e position dans le hit-parade britannique, le single remonte à la 8e place. La réussite n'aurait pu se focaliser que sur ce tube. "En fait, explique le manager de Feist, les ventes de l'album se sont accrues sur le même tempo." Encouragé par ce succès, Jean-Philippe Allard a produit depuis d'autres anglophones, comme la chanteuse folk nigériane Ayo et l'Australienne pop Micky Green, dont les disques sortent cet été dans de nombreux pays. Devenu depuis responsable des éditions BMG-Universal, il a aussi signé des Français chantant en anglais, comme le groupe The Do ou la chanteuse Soko. Il en est convaincu, "dans un marché en forte baisse, l'espoir peut venir de l'exploitation internationale".
Stéphane Davet, Le Monde, 31.05.08 La ecología cambió la visión del mundo"La 'contaminación' está de moda hoy en día..." Esa moda intolerable, era la que denunciaba Guy Debord ya en 1971. En nuestro presente la contaminación traspasó los límites de la moda y se instaló como uno de los pilares fundamentales de la problemática ecológica global. El título del ensayo de Debord era El planeta enfermo. Eso no ha cambiado, el paciente sigue con diagnóstico reservado, pero ya no es posible ser indiferente. Sigue Debord: "La época que posee todos los medios técnicos para alterar totalmente las condiciones de vida sobre la Tierra es también la época que, en virtud del mismo desarrollo técnico y científico separado, dispone de todos los medios de control y previsión matemáticamente indudable para medir por adelantado adónde lleva –y hacia qué fecha– el crecimiento automático de las fuerzas productivas alienadas de la sociedad de clases: es decir, para medir el rápido deterioro de las condiciones mismas de la superviviencia, en el sentido más general y más trivial de la palabra".
Muestras. El Protocolo de Kyoto se ha transformado en un tema de conversación que puede instalarse en cualquier mesa de bar. Pocos sabrán lo que implican esas tres palabras, pero todos alguna vez habrán oído esa expresión que se enlaza directamente con una palabra que tampoco nadie desconoce: ecología. Por supuesto, sabemos que la Tierra se está calentando, y que por consiguiente el cambio climático está transformando nuestras vidas. Y este nuevo estilo de vida se evidencia con la aparición de tsunamis, terremotos, huracanes, inundaciones, pero también sequías, escasez de agua. Allí, el hombre actúa indirectamente, pero en otros casos lo hace con todo el peso de su protagonismo como cuando dinamita montañas en busca de metales o elige semillas modificadas genéticamente que alteran la alimentación de toda la humanidad, por ejemplo. La ecología, el estudio de la relación entre los seres vivos y su ambiente, del planeta, ya dejó de ser una bandera defendida solamente por pioneros, y también por esnobs, partidos "verdes" y biólogos, especialistas, para convertirse en una parte importante de la educación, un paquete de medidas propuesto por casi todos los partidos políticos, un lugar importante en la organización del Estado, y en algunas empresas, y un espacio definido en las agendas de negociaciones internacionales. Las iglesias se preocupan por el futuro del mundo, las maestras tratan de concientizar a sus alumnos del cuidado del agua, las advertencias circulan en cadenas interminables por Internet para advertir que una gran extinción de especies está en marcha. Olores, humos, esmog, olas desorbitadas, temperaturas insólitas, enfermedades, escasez de agua, inundaciones, sequías... Los males producidos por el calentamiento global están asolando el planeta y son muy pocos los que desarrollan políticas concretas para detener o cambiar esta situación. "El precio de la civilización fue la traición a la naturaleza" dice el biólogo estadounidense Edward Wilson en su libro La creación y agrega que la revolución neolítica, caracterizada por la aparición de la agricultura y de las primeras aldeas, se nutrió de la prodigalidad de la naturaleza. Esa revolución del neolítico abonó la ilusión de que una pequeña proporción de plantas y animales domesticados podía sustentar indefinidamente la expansión humana. Hasta no hace muchos siglos, el empobrecimiento de la fauna y la flora parecía un precio aceptable, pero borrar la naturaleza es una estrategia muy peligrosa. "Tenemos por delante un largo camino que habrá que recorrer para hacer las paces con el planeta y entre nosotros. Equivocamos el rumbo cuando nos lanzamos a la revolución neolítica. Desde entonces, siempre seguimos una dirección ascendente desde la naturaleza, en lugar de elevarnos hacia ella", advierte el biólogo. Cuento japonés El Protocolo de Kyoto fue firmado en 1997 y exige que 37 naciones industrializadas reduzcan sus emisiones de gas de invernadero entre 2008 y 2012 en un promedio de 5% por debajo de los niveles de 1990. La intención es lograr que el próximo tratado genere mayores reducciones a partir de 2013. La Unión Europea ha propuesto que para 2020, los países industrializados reduzcan sus emisiones entre 25% y 40% por debajo de los niveles de 1990. En tanto, Estados Unidos ha rechazado las metas nacionales obligatorias de reducción de contaminantes, como las que fueron convenidas durante el Protocolo de Kyoto. Esta semana el presidente brasileño Lula da Silva dijo: "El Protocolo de Kyoto fracasó, fue bonito firmar. Todo el mundo firmó, pero quien tenía que tomar medidas para cumplir el Protocolo no lo refrendó, somos nosotros quienes refrendamos". De este modo, Lula se refería al uso de etanol de caña de azúcar con que Brasil redujo en 800 millones de toneladas sus emisiones de CO2. No ocurrió lo mismo con la actitud de Estados Unidos, o el resto de los países del llamado Primer Mundo. El medio ambiente se transformó en un peligroso ring donde se enfrentan el mundo desarrollado contra el subdesarrollado y donde, consecuencia de la globalización, los humos que se emiten en Estados Unidos, el calor de las fábricas chinas, la radiación de los arsenales nucleares soviéticos, los basurales de Nápoles, los ríos contaminados de la India, expanden hedores por todo el planeta, elevan su temperatura y son capaces de torcer el rumbo y la intensidad de los fenómenos naturales. Hacia el año 2001, el programa de Medio Ambiente de la ONU sostenía que algunos de los cambios climáticos se podían atribuir a la interferencia del hombre. Seis años después los especialistas concluyeron que existen muchas más evidencias de que el hombre es el responsable por la emisión de los gases de carbono que aumentan el natural "efecto invernadero" en la atmósfera. "Se acerca el día en que el calentamiento climático escapará de todo control: estamos en las puertas de lo irreversible en un límite donde no se puede dar marcha atrás", dijo Jacques Chirac, ex presidente de Francia. "Este siglo puede ser el siglo final de la civilización como la conocemos. La civilización deberá adaptarse a vivir en un ciclo distinto de alimentos, tormentas, altas temperaturas, desertificación y disminución drástica de los estándares de confort a los que se había habituado gran parte de ella", opinó el antropólogo español Juan Reinoso. La globalización no trae buenas noticias, sino los humos y la basura del vecino. "Los peligros medioambientales y técnicos provienen ante todo de las victorias imparables de una industrialización lineal y ciega a sus consecuencias que devora sus propios fundamentos naturales y culturales", dice el sociólogo alemán Ulrich Beck en su último libro La sociedad del riesgo mundial. También sostiene que los peligros medioambientales son, por lo tanto, constructos de "consecuencias directas latentes de decisiones industriales" (de las empresas y de los Estados y evidentemente, también de los consumidores y los individuos particulares). En la segunda mitad del siglo XIX y principios del XX la atención de los estados se dirigió a problemas cotidianos "visibles" como el esmog que provocaban las chimeneas y los escapes de los autos. De forma lenta se fueron incorporando otros temas a la agenda de discusión. Las empresas se concentraron primero en los riesgos de seguridad de sus propias fábricas y trabajadores y con el tiempo empezaron a percibir los problemas del ambiente exterior como propios, es decir los efectos a largo plazo que las llamadas infracciones de las normas sanitarias tenía sobre poblaciones lejanas. En cuestión de peligros ecológicos globales –explica Beck–, vuelve a ser sobre todo el progreso científico el que coloca en el campo visual de la percepción colectiva la invisibilidad y el (des)acoplamiento espaciotemporal de decisiones y consecuencias. "Cuanto más nuevos, más inabarcables son los problemas y globales los peligros que plantean, caracterizados por: la complejidad de las interacciones entre Estados nacionales, el alcance especialmente difícil de concebir de las causas, las dinámicas y los efectos, la gran distancia temporal entre actividad y transformación del contexto global de la energía y las materias primas, la separación geográfica entre las regiones que causan los problemas y aquellas donde se manifiestan las consecuencias, la complejidad de los efectos recíprocos entre sistemas humanos y físicos o la lenta acumulación de alteraciones y daños materiales". Probablemente, dice el sociólogo alemán, las crisis del futuro –y la dinámica política de su superación– se deberán menos a los peligros locales que a estos peligros globales. Por esto último, ya existen proyectos que hablan de un "derecho cosmopolita del riesgo" para referirse a acuerdos y pactos entre estados que sometan a denuncia y penalización, por encima de las fronteras, a los causantes de lesiones y destrozos. El riesgo es mundial. ¿Cómo puede llamarse la atención global sobre esos problemas, especialmente la atención del mundo en vías de desarrollo?, se pregunta Beck y dice: en lo que respecta al papel más bien irrelevante de las ciencias sociales, no podrá consistir ni en analizar comparativamente las diversas constelaciones de riesgos transnacionalregionales así como su dependencia inmanente de la posición que ocupan en la sociedad del riesgo mundial; es decir, en institucionalizar una mirada cosmopolita sobre la dinámica de conflicto y desigualdad que se despliega a la par que los riesgos globales. ¿Sin futuro? "Es verdad que la tala de bosques o la transformación de bosques naturales en monocultivos de pino y eucalipto para materia prima industrial generan ingresos y crecimiento. Pero ese crecimiento se fundamenta en robar a los bosques su biodiversidad y su capacidad para conservar suelos y agua. Ese crecimiento se basa en el robo de las fuentes de alimento, forraje, combustible, fibra textil, medicinas y protección contra las inundaciones y la sequía que tienen las comunidades forestales. " La argumentación es de la ecologista y física india Vandana Shiva quien se ha puesto al frente de la lucha contra los alimentos y cultivos transgénicos, como los de la soja, productos de una agricultura globalizada e industrial que se basa en el uso de semillas modificadas genéticamente y los cambios que esto ha implicado en la vida de los campesinos de todo el mundo y consiguientemente con el medio ambiente. Los defensores de las semillas transgénicas sostienen que "preocuparse por el hambre de las generaciones venideras no les dará de comer. La biotecnología de los alimentos, sí. Habrá que labrar tierrras como las de las selvas tropicales. El empleo de fertilizantes, insecticidas y herbicidas aumentará a escala mundial". Shiva acusa y dice que la agricultura industrial no ha producido más comida, que ha destruido fuentes de comida diversas y ha robado alimentos de otras especies para aportar mayores cantidades de productos específicos al mercado, utilizando en el proceso enormes cantidades de combustibles fósiles, de agua y de productos químicos tóxicos.  Héctor Pavón, Revista Ñ, 31.05.08
The day of judgmentEnd-time thinking - the belief in a world purified by catastrophe - could once be dismissed as a harmless remnant of a more superstitious age. But with the rise of religious fundamentalism, prophets of apocalypse have become a new and very real danger, argues Ian McEwan
Since 1839, the world inventory of photographs has been accumulating at an accelerating pace, multiplying into a near infinitude of images, into a resemblance of a Borgesian library. This haunting technology has been with us long enough now that we are able to look at a crowd scene, a busy street, say, in the late 19th century and know for certain that every single figure is dead. Not only the young couple pausing by a park railing, but the child with a hoop and stick, the starchy nurse, the solemn baby upright in its carriage - their lives have run their course, and they are all gone. And yet, frozen in sepia, they appear curiously, busily, oblivious of the fact that they must die - as Susan Sontag put it, "photographs state the innocence, the vulnerability of lives heading towards their own destruction ..."
"Photography," she said, "is the inventory of mortality. A touch of the finger now suffices to invest a moment with posthumous irony. Photographs show people being so irrefutably there and at a specific age in their lives; [they] group together people and things which a moment later have already disbanded, changed, continued along the course of their independent destinies."
We are well used to reflections on individual mortality - it is the shaping force in the narrative of our existence. It emerges in childhood as a baffling fact, re-emerges possibly in adolescence as a tragic reality which all around us appear to be denying, then perhaps fades in busy middle life, to return, say, in a sudden premonitory bout of insomnia. One of the supreme secular meditations on death is Larkin's "Aubade": ... The sure extinction that we travel to We confront our mortality in private conversations, in the familiar consolations of religion - "That vast moth-eaten musical brocade," thought Larkin, "Created to pretend we never die." And we experience it as a creative tension, an enabling paradox in our literature and art: what is depicted, loved, or celebrated cannot last, and the work must try to outlive its creator. Larkin, after all, is now dead. Unless we are a determined, well-organised suicide, we cannot know the date of our demise, but we know the date must fall within a certain window of biological possibility which, as we age, must progressively narrow to its closing point. Estimating the nature and timing of our collective demise, the end of civilisation, of the entire human project, is even less certain - it might happen in the next hundred years, or not happen in two thousand, or happen with imperceptible slowness, a whimper, not a bang. But in the face of that unknowability, there has often flourished powerful certainty about the approaching end. Throughout recorded history people have mesmerised themselves with stories which predict the date and manner of our wholescale destruction, often rendered meaningful by ideas of divine punishment and ultimate redemption; the end of life on earth, the end or last days, end time, the apocalypse. Many of these stories are highly specific accounts of the future and are devoutly believed. Contemporary apocalyptic movements, Christian or Islamic, some violent, some not, all appear to share fantasies of a violent end, and they affect our politics profoundly. The apocalyptic mind can be demonising - that is to say, there are other groups, other faiths, that it despises for worshipping false gods, and these believers of course will not be saved from the fires of hell. And the apocalyptic mind tends to be totalitarian - which is to say that these are intact, all-encompassing ideas founded in longing and supernatural belief, immune to evidence or its lack, and well-protected against the implications of fresh data. Consequently, moments of unintentional pathos, even comedy, arise - and perhaps something in our nature is revealed - as the future is constantly having to be rewritten, new anti-Christs, new Beasts, new Babylons, new Whores located, and the old appointments with doom and redemption quickly replaced by the next. Not even a superficial student of the Christian apocalypse could afford to ignore the work of Norman Cohn. His magisterial The Pursuit of the Millennium was published 50 years ago and has been in print ever since. This is a study of a variety of end-time movements that swept through northern Europe between the 11th and 16th centuries. These sects, generally inspired by the symbolism in the Book of Revelation, typically led by a charismatic prophet who emerged from among the artisan class or from the dispossessed, were seized by the notion of an impending end, to be followed by the establishing of the Kingdom of God on earth. In preparation for this, it was believed necessary to slaughter Jews, priests and property owners. Fanatical rabbles, tens of thousands strong, oppressed and often starving and homeless, roamed from town to town, full of wild hope and murderous intent. The authorities, church and lay, would put down these bands with overwhelming violence. A few years or a generation later, with a new leader, and a faintly different emphasis, a new group would rise up. It is worth remembering that the impoverished mob that trailed behind the knights of the first crusades started their journey by killing Jews in the thousands in the Upper Rhine area. These days, when Muslims of radical tendency pronounce their formulaic imprecations against "Jews and Cru-saders", they would do well to remember that both Jewry and Islam were victims of the crusades. Now, the slaughter has abated, but what strikes the reader of Cohn's book are the common threads that run between medieval and contemporary apocalyptic thought. First, and in general, the resilience of the end-time forecasts - time and again, for 500 years, the date is proclaimed, nothing happens, and no one feels discouraged from setting another date. Second, the Book of Revelation spawned a literary tradition that kept alive in medieval Europe the fantasy, derived from the Judaic tradition, of divine election. Christians, too, could now be the Chosen People, the saved or the Elect, and no amount of official repression could smother the appeal of this notion to the unprivileged as well as the unbalanced. Third, there looms the figure of a mere man, apparently virtuous, risen to eminence, but in reality seductive and Satanic - he is the anti-Christ, and in the five centuries that Cohn surveys, the role is fulfilled by the Pope, just as it frequently is now. Finally, there is the boundless adaptability, the undying appeal and fascination of the Book of Revelation itself, the central text of apocalyptic belief. When Christopher Columbus arrived in the Americas, making landfall in the Bahaman islands, he believed he had found, and was fated to find, the Terrestrial Paradise promised in the Book of Revelation. He believed himself to be implicated in God's planning for the millennial kingdom on earth. The scholar Daniel Wojcik (in his brilliant account of apocalyptic thought in America, "The end of the world as we know it") quotes from Columbus's record of his first journey: "God made me the messenger of the new heaven and the new earth of which he spoke in the Apocalypse of St John ... and he showed me the spot where to find it." Five centuries later, the United States, responsible for more than four-fifths of the world's scientific research and still a land of plenty, can show the world an abundance of opinion polls concerning its religious convictions. The litany will be familiar. Ninety per cent of Americans say they have never doubted the existence of God and are certain they will be called to answer for their sins. Fifty-three per cent are creationists who believe that the cosmos is 6,000 years old, 44 per cent are sure that Jesus will return to judge the living and the dead within the next 50 years. Only 12 per cent believe that life on earth has evolved through natural selection without the intervention of supernatural agency. In general, belief in end-time biblical prophecy, in a world purified by catastrophe and then redeemed and made entirely Christian and free of conflict by the return of Jesus in our lifetime, is stronger in the United States than anywhere on the planet and extends from marginal, ill-educated, economically deprived groups, to college-educated people in the millions, through to governing elites, to the very summits of power. The social scientist JW Nelson notes that apocalyptic ideas "are as American as the hot dog". Wojcik reminds us of the ripple of anxiety that ran round the world in April 1984 when President Reagan expressed that he was greatly interested in the biblical prophecy of imminent Armageddon. To the secular mind, the polling figures have a pleasantly shocking, titillating quality - one might think of them as a form of atheist's pornography. But perhaps we should enter a caveat before proceeding. It might be worth retaining a degree of scepticism about these polling figures. For a start, they vary enormously - one poll's 90 per cent is another's 53 per cent. From the respondent's point of view, what is to be gained by categorically denying the existence of God to a complete stranger with a clipboard? And those who tell pollsters they believe that the Bible is the literal word of God from which derive all proper moral precepts, are more likely to be thinking in general terms of love, compassion and forgiveness rather than of the slave-owning, ethnic cleansing, infanticide, and genocide urged at various times by the jealous God of the Old Testament. Furthermore, the mind is capable of artful compartmentalisations; in one moment, a man might confidently believe in predictions of Armageddon in his lifetime, and in the next, he might pick up the phone to inquire about a savings fund for his grandchildren's college education or approve of long-term measures to slow global warming. Or he might even vote Democrat, as do many Hispanic biblical literalists. In Pennsylvania, Kansas and Ohio, the courts have issued ringing rejections of Intelligent Design, and voters have ejected creationists from school boards. In the Dover case in 2005, Judge John Jones III, a Bush appointee, handed down a judgment that was not only a scathing dismissal of the prospect of supernatural ideas imported into science classes, but was an elegant, stirring summary of the project of science in general, and of natural selection in particular, and a sturdy endorsement of the rationalist, Enlightenment values that underlie the Constitution. Still the Book of Revelation, the final book of the Bible, and perhaps its most bizarre, certainly one of its most lurid, remains important in the United States, just as it once was in medieval Europe. The book is also known as the Apocalypse - and we should be clear about the meaning of this word, which is derived from the Greek word for revelation. Apocalypse, which has become synonymous with "catastrophe", actually refers to the literary form in which an individual describes what has been revealed to him by a supernatural being. There was a long Jewish tradition of prophecy, and there were hundreds, if not thousands of seers like John of Patmos between the second century BC and the first century AD. Many other Christian apocalypses were deprived of canonical authority in the second century AD. Revelation most likely survived because its author was confused with John, the Beloved Disciple. It is interesting to speculate how different medieval European history, and indeed the history of religion in Europe and the United States, would have been if the Book of Revelation had also failed, as it nearly did, to be retained in the Bible we now know. The scholarly consensus dates Revelation to AD95 or 96. Little is known of its author beyond the fact that he is certainly not the apostle John. The occasion of writing appears to be the persecution of Christians under the Roman emperor Domitian. Only a generation before, the Romans had sacked the Second Temple in Jerusalem and are, therefore, identified with the Babylonians who had destroyed the First Temple centuries earlier. The general purpose quite likely was to give hope and consolation to the faithful in the certainty that their tribulations would end, that the Kingdom of God would prevail. Ever since the influential 12th-century historian Joachim of Fiore, Revelation has been seen, within various traditions of gathering complexity and divergence, as an overview of human history whose last stage we are now in; alternatively, and this is especially relevant to the postwar United States, as an account purely of those last days. For centuries, within the Protestant tradition, the anti-Christ was identified with the Pope, or with the Catholic Church in general. In recent decades, the honour has been bestowed on the Soviet Union, the European Union, or secularism and atheists. For many millennial dispensationalists, international peacemakers, who risk delaying the final struggle by sowing concord among nations - the United Nations, along with the World Council of Churches - have been seen as Satanic forces. The cast or contents of Revelation in its contemporary representations has all the colourful gaudiness of a children's computer fantasy game - earthquakes and fires, thundering horses and their riders, angels blasting away on trumpets, magic vials, Jezebel, a red dragon and other mythical beasts, and a scarlet woman. Another familiar aspect is the potency of numbers - seven each of seals, heads of beasts, candlesticks, stars, lamps, trumpets, angels and vials; then four riders, four beasts with seven heads, ten horns, ten crowns, four and twenty elders, twelve tribes with twelve thousand members ... and finally, most resonantly, spawning 19 centuries of dark tomfoolery, "Here is wisdom. Let him that hath understanding count the number of the beast; for it is the number of a man; and his number is six hundred, three score and six." To many minds, 666 bristles with significance. The internet is stuffed with tremulous speculation about supermarket barcodes, implanted chips, numerical codes for the names of world leaders. However, the oldest known record of this famous verse, from the Oxyrhynchus site, gives the number as 616, as does the Zurich Bible. I have the impression that any number would do. One senses in the arithmetic of prophecy the yearnings of a systematising mind, bereft of the experimental scientific underpinnings that were to give such human tendencies their rich expression many centuries later. Astrology gives a similar impression of numerical obsession operating within a senseless void. But Revelation has endured in an age of technology and scepticism. Not many works of literature, not even the Odyssey of Homer, can boast such wide appeal over such an expanse of time. One celebrated case of this rugged durability is that of William Miller, the 19th-century farmer who became a prophet and made a set of intricate calculations, based on a line in verse 14 of the Book of Daniel: "unto two thousand and three hundred days; then shall the sanctuary be cleansed." Counting for various reasons this utterance to date from 457BC, and understanding one prophetic day to be the equivalent of a year, Miller came to the conclusion that the last of days would occur in 1843. Some of Miller's followers refined the calculations further to October 22. After nothing happened on that day, the year was quickly revised to 1844, to take into account the year zero. The faithful Millerites gathered in their thousands to wait. One may not share the beliefs, but it is quite possible to understand the mortifying disenchantment. One eyewitness wrote: [We] confidently expected to see Jesus Christ and all the holy angels with him ... and that our trials and sufferings with our earthly pilgrimage would close and we should be caught up to meet our coming Lord ... and thus we looked for our coming Lord until the bell tolled twelve at midnight. The day had then passed and our disappointment became a certainty. Our fondest hopes and expectations were blasted, and such a spirit of weeping came over us as I never experienced before. It seemed that the loss of all our earthly friends could have been no comparison. We wept, and wept, till the day dawned. One means of dealing with the disillusionment was to give it a title - the Great Disappointment - duly capitalised. More importantly, according to Kenneth Newport's impressive account of the Waco siege, the very next day after the Disappointment, one Millerite leader in Port Gibson, New York, by the name of Hiram Edson had a vision as he walked along, a sudden revelation that "the cleansing of the sanctuary" referred to events not on earth, but in heaven. Jesus had taken his place in the heavenly holy of holies. The date had been right all along, it was simply the place they had got wrong. This "masterstroke", as Newport calls it, this "theological lifeline" removed the whole affair into a realm immune to disproof. The Great Disappointment was explained, and many Millerites were drawn, with hope still strong in their hearts, into the beginnings of the Seventh Day Adventist movement - which was to become one of the most successful churches in the United States. In passing, I note the connections between this church and the medieval sects that Cohn describes - the strong emphasis on the Book of Revelation, the looming proximity of the end, the strict division between the faithful remnant who keep the Sabbath, and those who join the ranks of the "fallen", of the anti-Christ, identified with the Pope whose title, Vicarius Filii Dei (vicar of the son of God) apparently has a numerical value of 666. I mention Hiram Edson's morning-after masterstroke to illustrate the adaptability and resilience of end-time thought. For centuries now, it has regarded the end as "soon" - if not next week, then within a year or two. The end has not come, and yet no one is discomfited for long. New prophets, and soon, a new generation, set about the calculations, and always manage to find the end looming within their own lifetime. The million sellers like Hal Lindsey predicted the end of the world all through the seventies, eighties and nineties - and today, business has never been better. There is a hunger for this news, and perhaps we glimpse here something in our nature, something of our deeply held notions of time, and our own insignificance against the intimidating vastness of eternity, or the age of the universe - on the human scale there is little difference. We have need of a plot, a narrative to shore up our irrelevance in the flow of things. In The Sense of an Ending , Frank Kermode proposes that the enduring quality, the vitality of the Book of Revelation suggests a "consonance with our more naive requirements of fiction". We are born, as we will die, in the middle of things, in the "middest". To make sense of our span, we need what he calls "fictive concords with origins and ends. 'The End', in the grand sense, as we imagine it, will reflect our irreducibly intermediary expectations." What could grant us more meaning against the abyss of time than to identify our own personal demise with the purifying annihilation of all that is. Kermode quotes with approval from Wallace Stevens - "the imagination is always at the end of an era". Even our notions of decadence contain the hopes of renewal; the religious minded, as well as the most secular, looked on the transition to the year 2000 as inescapably significant, even if all the atheists did was to party a little harder. It was inevitably a transition, the passing of an old age into the new - and who is to say now that Osama bin Laden did not disappoint, whether we mourned at the dawn of the new millennium with the bereaved among the ruins of lower Manhattan, or danced for joy, as some did, in the Gaza Strip. Islamic eschatology from its very beginnings embraced the necessity of violently conquering the world and gathering up souls to the faith before the expected hour of judgment - a notion that has risen and fallen over the centuries, but in past decades has received new impetus from Islamist revivalist movements. It is partly a mirror image of the Protestant Christian tradition (a world made entirely Islamic, with Jesus as Mohammed's lieutenant), partly a fantasy of the inevitable return of "sacred space", the Caliphate, that includes most of Spain, parts of France, the entire Middle East, right up to the borders of China. As with the Christian scheme, Islam foretells of the destruction or conversion of the Jews. Prophecy belief in Judaism, the original source for both the Islamic and Christian eschatologies, is surprisingly weaker - perhaps a certain irony in the relationship between Jews and their god is unfriendly to end-time belief, but it lives on vigorously enough in the Lubavitch movement and various Israeli settler groups, and of course is centrally concerned with divine entitlement to disputed lands. We should add to the mix more recent secular apocalyptic beliefs - the certainty that the world is inevitably doomed through nuclear exchange, viral epidemics, meteorites, population growth or environmental degradation. Where these calamities are posed as mere possibilities in an open-ended future that might be headed off by wise human agency, we cannot consider them as apocalyptic. They are minatory, they are calls to action. But when they are presented as unavoidable outcomes driven by ineluctable forces of history or innate human failings, they share much with their religious counterparts - though they lack the demonising, cleansing, redemptive aspects, and are without the kind of supervision of a supernatural entity that might give benign meaning and purpose to a mass extinction. Clearly, fatalism is common to both camps, and both, reasonably enough, are much concerned with a nuclear holocaust, which to the prophetic believers illuminates in retrospect biblical passages that once seemed obscure. Hal Lindsey, preeminent among the popularisers of American apocalyptic thought, writes: Zechariah 14:12 predicts that "their flesh will be consumed from their bones, their eyes burned out of their sockets, and their tongues consumed out of their mouths while they stand on their feet." For hundreds of years students of Bible prophecy have wondered what kind of plague could produce such instant ravaging of humans while still on their feet. Until the event of the atomic bomb such a thing was not humanly possible. But now everything Zechariah predicted could come true in a thermonuclear exchange! Two other movements, now mercifully defeated or collapsed, provide a further connection between religious and secular apocalypse - so concluded Norman Cohn in the closing pages of The Pursuit of the Millennium. The genocidal tendency among the apocalyptic medieval movements faded somewhat after 1500. Vigorous end-time belief continued, of course, in the Puritan and Calvinist movements, the Millerites, as we have seen, and in the American Great Awakening, Mormonism, Jehovah's Witnesses, and the Adventist movement. The murderous tradition, however, did not die away completely. It survived the passing of centuries in various sects, various outrages, to emerge in the European 20th century transformed, revitalised, secularised, but still recognisable in what Cohn depicts as the essence of apocalyptic thinking - "the tense expectation of a final, decisive struggle in which a world tyranny will be overthrown by a 'chosen people' and through which the world will be renewed and history brought to its consummation". The will of god was transformed in the 20th century into the will of history, but the essential demand remained, as it still does today - "to purify the world by destroying the agents of corruption". The dark reveries of Nazism about the Jews shared much with the murderous antisemitic demonology of medieval times. An important additional element, imported from Russia, was The Protocols of the Elders of Zion , the 1905 Tsarist police forgery, elevated by Hitler and others into a racist ideology. (It's interesting to note how the Protocols has re-emerged as a central text for Islamists, frequently quoted on websites, and sold in street bookstalls across the Middle East.) The Third Reich and its dream of a thousand-year rule was derived, in a form of secular millennial usurpation, directly from Revelation. Cohn draws our attention to the apocalyptic language of Mein Kampf : "If our people ... fall victims to these Jewish tyrants of the nations with their lust for blood and gold, the whole earth will sink down ... if Germany frees itself from this embrace, this greatest of dangers for the peoples can be regarded as vanquished for all the earth." In Marxism in its Soviet form, Cohn also found a continuation of the old millenarian tradition of prophecy, of the final violent struggle to eliminate the agents of corruption - this time it is the bourgeoisie who will be vanquished by the proletariat in order to enable the withering away of the state and usher in the peaceable kingdom. "The kulak ... is prepared to strangle and massacre hundreds of thousands of workers ... Ruthless war must be waged on the kulaks! Death to them!" Thus spoke Lenin, and his word, like Hitler's, became deed. Thirty years ago, we might have been able to convince ourselves that contemporary religious apocalyptic thought was a harmless remnant of a more credulous, superstitious, pre-scientific age, now safely behind us. But today prophecy belief, particularly within the Christian and Islamic traditions, is a force in our contemporary history, a medieval engine driving our modern moral, geopolitical, and military concerns. The various jealous sky-gods - and they are certainly not one and the same god - who in the past directly addressed Abraham, Paul, or Mohammed, among others, now indirectly address us through the daily television news. These different gods have wound themselves inextricably around our politics and our political differences. Our secular and scientific culture has not replaced or even challenged these mutually incompatible, supernatural thought systems. Scientific method, scepticism, or rationality in general, has yet to find an overarching narrative of sufficient power, simplicity, and wide appeal to compete with the old stories that give meaning to people's lives. Natural selection is a powerful, elegant, and economic explicator of life on earth in all its diversity, and perhaps it contains the seeds of a rival creation myth that would have the added power of being true - but it awaits its inspired synthesiser, its poet, its Milton. The great American biologist EO Wilson has suggested an ethics divorced from religion, and derived instead from what he calls biophilia, our innate and profound connection to our natural environment - but one man alone cannot make a moral system. Science may speak of probable rising sea levels and global temperatures, with figures that it constantly refines in line with new data, but on the human future it cannot compete with the luridness and, above all, with the meaningfulness of the prophecies in the Book of Daniel or Revelation. Reason and myth remain uneasy bedfellows. Rather than presenting a challenge, science has in obvious ways strengthened apocalyptic thinking. It has provided us with the means to destroy ourselves and our civilisation completely in less than a couple of hours, or to spread a fatal virus around the globe in a couple of days. And our spiralling technologies of destruction and their ever-greater availability have raised the possibility that true believers, with all their unworldly passion, their prayerful longing for the end times to begin, could help nudge the ancient prophecies towards fulfilment. Wojcik quotes a letter by the singer Pat Boone addressed to fellow Christians. All-out nuclear war is what he appears to have had in mind. "My guess is that there isn't a thoughtful Christian alive who doesn't believe we are living at the end of history. I don't know how that makes you feel, but it gets me pretty excited. Just think about actually seeing, as the apostle Paul wrote it, the Lord Himself descending from heaven with a shout! Wow! And the signs that it's about to happen are everywhere." If this possibility of a willed nuclear catastrophe appears too pessimistic or extravagant, or hilarious, consider the case of another individual, remote from Pat Boone - President Ahmadinejad of Iran. His much reported remark about wiping Israel off the face of the earth may have been mere bluster of the kind you could hear any Friday in a thousand mosques around the world. But this posturing, coupled with his nuclear ambitions, becomes more worrying when set in the context of his end-time beliefs. In Jamkaran, a village not far from the holy city of Qum, a small mosque is undergoing a $20m-expansion, driven forward by Ahmadinejad's office. Within the Shi'ite apocalyptic tradition, the Twelfth Imam, the Mahdi, who disappeared in the ninth century, is expected to reappear in a well behind the mosque. His re-emergence will signify the beginning of the end days. He will lead the battle against the Dajjal, the Islamic version of the anti-Christ, and with Jesus as his follower, will establish the global Dar el Salaam, the dominion of peace, under Islam. Ahmadinejad is extending the mosque to receive the Mahdi, and already pilgrims by the thousands are visiting the shrine, for the president has reportedly told his cabinet that he expects the visitation within two years. Or again, consider the celebrated case of the red heifer, or calf. On the Temple Mount in Jerusalem, the end-time stories of Judaism, Christianity, and Islam converge in both interlocking and mutually exclusive ways that are potentially explosive - they form incidentally the material for the American novelist Bob Stone's fine novel, Damascus Gate . What is bitterly contested is not only the past and present, it is the future. It is hardly possible to do justice in summary to the complex eschatologies that jostle on this 35-acre patch of land. The stories themselves are familiar. For the Jews, the Mount - the biblical Mount Moriah - is the site of the First Temple, destroyed by Nebuchadnezzar in 586BC, and of the Second Temple destroyed by the Romans in AD70. According to tradition, and of particular interest to various controversial groups, including the Temple Institute, the Messiah, when he comes at last, will occupy the Third Temple. But that cannot be built, and therefore the Messiah will not come, without the sacrifice of a perfectly unblemished red calf. For Muslims of course, the Mount is the site of the Dome of the Rock, built over the location of the two temples and enclosing the very spot from which Mohammed departed on his Night Journey to heaven - leaving as his horse stepped upwards a revered hoofprint in the rock. In the prophetic tradition, the Dajjal will be a Jew who leads a devastating war against Islam. Any attempt to bless a foundation stone of a new temple is seen as highly provocative for it implies the destruction of the mosque. The symbolism surrounding Ariel Sharon's visit to the Mount in September 2000 remains a matter of profoundly different interpretation by Muslims and Jews. And if lives were not at stake, the Christian fundamentalist contribution to this volatile mix would seem amusingly cynical. These prophetic believers are certain that Jesus will return at the height of the battle of Armageddon, but his thousand-year reign, which will ensure the conversion of Jews and Muslims to Christianity, or their extinction, cannot begin until the Third Temple is built. And so it came about that a cattle-breeding operation emerges in Israel with the help of Texan Christian fundamentalist ranchers to promote the birth of the perfect, unspotted red calf, and thereby, we have to assume, bring the end days a little closer. In 1997 there was great excitement, as well as press mockery, when one promising candidate appeared. Months later, this cherished young cow nicked its rump on a barbed wire fence, causing white hairs to grow at the site of the wound and earning instant disqualification. Another red calf appeared in 2002 to general acclaim, and then again, later disappointment. In the tight squeeze of history, religion, and politics that converge on the Temple Mount, the calf is a minor item indeed. But the search for it, and the hope and longing that surround it, illustrates the dangerous tendency among prophetic believers to bring on the cataclysm that they think will lead to a form of paradise on earth. The reluctance of the current US administration to pursue in these past six years a vigorous policy towards a peace settlement in the Israel-Palestine dispute may owe less to the pressures of Jewish groups than to the eschatology of the Christian Right. Periods of uncertainty in human history, of rapid, bewildering change, and of social unrest appear to give these old stories greater weight. It does not need a novelist to tell you that where a narrative has a beginning, it needs an end. Where there is a creation myth, there must be a final chapter. Where a god makes the world, it remains in his power to unmake it. When human weakness or wickedness is apparent, there will be guilty fantasies of supernatural retribution. When people are profoundly frustrated, either materially or spiritually, there will be dreams of the perfect society where all conflicts are resolved, and all needs are met. That much we can understand or politely pretend to understand. But the problem of fatalism remains. In a nuclear age, and in an age of serious environmental degradation, apocalyptic belief creates a serious second order danger. The precarious logic of self-interest that saw us through the cold war would collapse if the leaders of one nuclear state came to welcome, or ceased to fear, mass death. The words of Ayatollah Khomeini are quoted approvingly in an Iranian 11th grade textbook: "Either we shake one another's hands in joy at the victory of Islam in the world, or all of us will turn to eternal life and martyrdom. In both cases, victory and success are ours." And if we let global temperatures continue to rise because we give room to the faction that believes it is God's will, then we are truly - and literally - sunk. If I were a believer, I think I would prefer to be in Jesus's camp - he is reported by Matthew to have said, "No one knows about that day or hour, not even the angels in heaven, nor the Son, but only the Father." But even a sceptic can find in the historical accumulation of religious expression joy, fear, love, and above all, seriousness. I return to Philip Larkin - an atheist who also knew the moment and the nature of transcendence. He once wrote a famous description of a church: A serious house on serious earth it is, And how could one be more serious than the writer of this prayer for the interment of the dead, from the Book of Common Prayer, an incantation of bleak, existential beauty, even more so in its beautiful setting by Henry Purcell: "Man that is born of a woman hath but a short time to live, and is full of misery. He cometh up, and is cut down, like a flower; he fleeth as it were a shadow, and never continueth in one stay." Ultimately, apocalyptic belief is a function of faith - that luminous inner conviction that needs no recourse to evidence. It is customary to pose against immovable faith the engines of reason, but in this instance I would prefer that delightful human impulse - curiosity, the hallmark of mental freedom. Organised religion has always had - and I put this mildly - a troubled relationship with curiosity. Islam's distrust, at least in the past 200 years, is best expressed by its attitude to those whose faith falls away, to apostates who are drawn to other religions or to none at all. In recent times, in 1975, the mufti of Saudi Arabia, Bin Baz, in a fatwa, quoted by Shmuel Bar, ruled as follows: "Those who claim that the earth is round and moving around the sun are apostates and their blood can be shed and their property can be taken in the name of god." Bin Baz rescinded this judgment 10 years later. Mainstream Islam routinely prescribes punishment for apostates that ranges from ostracism to beatings to death. To enter one of the many websites where Muslim apostates anonymously exchange views is to encounter a world of brave and terrified men and women who have succumbed to their disaffection and intellectual curiosity. And Christians should not feel smug. The first commandment - on pain of death if we were to take the matter literally - is "Thou shalt have no other gods before me". In the fourth century, St Augustine put the matter well for Christianity, and his view prevailed for a long time: "There is another form of temptation, even more fraught with danger. This is the disease of curiosity. It is this which drives us to try to discover the secrets of nature which are beyond our understanding, which can avail us nothing, and which man should not wish to learn." And yet it is curiosity, scientific curiosity, that has delivered us genuine, testable knowledge of the world and contributed to our understanding of our place within it and of our nature and condition. This knowledge has a beauty of its own, and it can be terrifying. We are barely beginning to grasp the implications of what we have relatively recently learned. And what exactly have we learned? I draw here from a Steven Pinker essay on his ideal of a university: among other things we have learned that our planet is a minute speck in an inconceivably vast cosmos; that our species has existed for a tiny fraction of the history of the earth; that humans are primates; that the mind is the activity of an organ that runs by physiological processes; that there are methods for ascertaining the truth that can force us to conclusions which violate common sense, sometimes radically so at scales very large and very small; that precious and widely held beliefs, when subjected to empirical tests, are often cruelly falsified; that we cannot create energy or use it without loss. As things stand, after more than a century of research in a number of fields, we have no evidence at all that the future can be predicted. Better to look directly to the past, to its junkyard of unrealised futures, for it is curiosity about history that should give end-time believers reasonable pause when they reflect that they stand on a continuum, a long and unvarying thousand-year tradition that has fantasised imminent salvation for themselves and perdition for the rest. On one of the countless end-time/rapture sites that litter the web, there is a section devoted to Frequently Asked Questions. One is: when the Lord comes, what will happen to the children of other faiths? The answer is staunch: "Ungodly parents only bring judgment to their children." In the light of this, one might conclude that end-time faith is probably as immune to the lessons of history as it is to fundamental human decency. If we do destroy ourselves, we can assume that the general reaction will be terror, and grief at the pointlessness of it all, rather than rapture. Within living memory we have come very close to extinguishing our civilisation when, in October 1962, Soviet ships carrying nuclear warheads to installations in Cuba confronted a blockade by the US Navy, and the world waited to discover whether Nikita Khrushchev would order his convoy home. It is remarkable how little of that terrifying event survives in public memory, in modern folklore. In the vast literature the Cuban missile crisis has spawned - military, political, diplomatic - there is very little on its effect at the time on ordinary lives, in homes, school, and the workplace, on the fear and widespread numb incomprehension in the population at large. That fear has not passed into the national narrative, here, or anywhere else as vividly as you might expect. As Spencer Weart put it: "When the crisis ended, most people turned their attention away as swiftly as a child who lifts up a rock, sees something slimy underneath, and drops the rock back." Perhaps the assassination of President Kennedy the following year helped obscure the folk memory of the missile crisis. His murder in Dallas became a marker in the history of instantaneous globalised news transmission - a huge proportion of the world's population seemed to be able to recall where they were when they heard the news. Conflating these two events, Christopher Hitchens opened an essay on the Cuban missile crisis with the words - "Like everyone else of my generation, I can remember exactly where I was standing and what I was doing on the day that President John Fitzgerald Kennedy nearly killed me." Heaven did not beckon during those tense hours of the crisis. Instead, as Hitchens observes, "It brought the world to the best view it has had yet of the gates of hell. I began with the idea of photography as the inventory of mortality, and I will end with a photograph of a group death. It shows fierce flames and smoke rising from a building in Waco, Texas, at the end of a 51-day siege in 1993. The group inside was the Branch Davidians, an offshoot of the Seventh Day Adventists. Its leader, David Koresh, was a man steeped in biblical, end-time theology, convinced that America was Babylon, the agent of Satan, come in the form of the Bureau of Alcohol, Tobacco, and Firearms and the FBI to destroy the Sabbath-keeping remnant, who would emerge from the cleansing, suicidal fire to witness the dawn of a new Kingdom. Here is Susan Sontag's "posthumous irony" indeed, as medieval Europe recreated itself in the form of a charismatic man, a messiah, a messenger of God, the bearer of the perfect truth, who exercised sexual power over his female followers and persuaded them to bear his children in order to begin a "Davidian" line. In that grim inferno, children, their mothers, and other followers died. Even more died two years later when Timothy McVeigh, exacting revenge against the government for its attack on Waco, committed his slaughter in Oklahoma City. It is not for nothing that one of the symptoms in a developing psychosis, noted and described by psychiatrists, is "religiosity". Have we really reached a stage in public affairs when it really is no longer too obvious to say that all the evidence of the past and all the promptings of our precious rationality suggest that our future is not fixed? We have no reason to believe that there are dates inscribed in heaven or hell. We may yet destroy ourselves; we might scrape through. Confronting that uncertainty is the obligation of our maturity and our only spur to wise action. The believers should know in their hearts by now that, even if they are right and there actually is a benign and watchful personal God, he is, as all the daily tragedies, all the dead children attest, a reluctant intervener. The rest of us, in the absence of any evidence to the contrary, know that it is highly improbable that there is anyone up there at all. Either way, in this case it hardly matters who is wrong - there will be no one to save us but ourselves.
The Guardian, 31.05.08 Liban : les boucliers du HezbollahLa guerre de Baalbek n'a pas eu lieu. Entre le 8 et le 12 mai, on s'est battu à Beyrouth et à Tripoli, la grande ville du Nord. On s'est aussi étripé dans le Chouf, chez les Druzes. Ouvertes par le Hezbollah, qui domine l'opposition, en représailles à une décision gouvernementale jugée "provocatrice", les hostilités ont fait, au total, 67 morts et 200 blessés avant que les belligérants, chiites, sunnites et druzes parviennent, avec les chrétiens qui n'ont pas participé à ces combats-là, à éviter le pire : une nouvelle guerre civile généralisée.
A Baalbek, rien. Capitale de la vallée de la Bekaa, la ville compte pourtant, sur 125 000 habitants, un tiers de sunnites, une poignée de chrétiens et une forte majorité chiite. Sur le boulevard Ras-Al-Ain, juste avant les sublimes colonnes du temple de Baal et de Bacchus, deux cafés-restaurants avec terrasses ombragées se font face. Chez Hassan, n'était le soleil de cette fin mai qui brûle déjà la grande plaine, on pourrait commander un whisky glaçons. En face, chez Ali, militant encarté du Hezbollah, on ne sert que des jus de fruits. "Lui a les femmes voilées et les enfants, Hassan, les hommes et les filles branchées", plaisante Hikmat, notre guide en ces lieux. Les deux cafetiers sont chiites, l'un est plutôt laïc, l'autre religieux. Chez l'un comme chez l'autre, des affiches à la gloire du Parti de Dieu accueillent les clients dès l'entrée. Comment expliquer ce phénomène ? Pourquoi les chiites sont-ils devenus le meilleur bouclier du parti ? "C'est son omniprésence sociale qui explique tout", estime Hikmat. Jadis, sur cette terre, le dieu Baal phénicien obligeait quasiment ses adeptes aux bacchanales les plus licencieuses. Trois mille ans après, au début des années 1980, avec les soldats de Syrie et les gardiens de la révolution islamique d'Iran en parrains et accoucheurs, est née l'une des formations politiques les plus "coincées" du pays en la matière : le Hezbollah. Aujourd'hui, si chacun a son avis sur la politique du parti, les populations se sont habituées à sa forte présence. "Dommage qu'il n'ait pas lancé d'assaut ici, regrette Ali Wahabeh sans cesser d'attiser le feu sous son étal de brochettes. S'il l'avait fait, ma belle voisine sunnite qui ne me regarde même pas aurait peut-être accepté de m'épouser. Et puis je serai devenu le patron de la boutique !" Ahmed, le gros boucher moustachu qui emploie Ali-le-chiite, a tout entendu. Sunnite, comme beaucoup autour du square Nasser, il fait mine de botter le train de l'employé, le manque et se marre : "Cause toujours imbécile ! Mais accélère, les clients attendent." C'est une constante de survie dans ce pays à la fois tragique et jouisseur : ses 18 communautés peuvent bien s'être livrées, presque chacune à son tour, à d'épouvantables massacres entre 1975 et 1990, l'immense majorité des 4 millions de Libanais a toujours su garder le sens de l'ironie. "Envoyez-nous des clowns professionnels !" titrait à la mi-mai un article du Daily Star, le quotidien anglophone de Beyrouth. "Les nôtres ne nous font plus rire", ajoutait l'auteur, les chefs de parti en ligne de mire. Depuis, une entente a été trouvée. Après dix-huit mois de crise, un président de la République a été élu et le Hezbollah, qui a obtenu ce qu'il voulait, doit revenir dans un "gouvernement d'union nationale". Après le coup de force de mai, une paix, armée, s'installe. Mais le Parti de Dieu et, surtout, ses armes, reste au centre des débats. Y compris parmi ses sympathisants et ses électeurs. "Moi, je soutiens le Hezbollah dans sa lutte contre l'occupation de nos terres libanaises par Israël. Pas au-delà." Costume impeccable, cravate bleue, Talal Shreif n'est pas un politicien traditionnel. Modeste homme d'affaires et petit propriétaire terrien, monsieur le Maire, 56 ans, règne depuis 2004 sur un village tribal de 5 000 âmes au-dessus de la Bekaa, dans les contreforts du mont Liban. Nous sommes à 1 600 m d'altitude. Située à moins d'une heure de route au nord-ouest de Baalbek, Yammouneh est une perle dans un écrin de verdure : pommiers, eucalyptus, champs de tomates et de pommes de terre à perte de vue. Un peu de cannabis aussi... Le village, dont la mosquée n'est pas très fréquentée, est entièrement chiite, entièrement tribal et entièrement Hezbollah. Mais, il y a "un problème avec eux, dit Ali Sharif, un membre de la tribu, ils veulent tout contrôler. Or, nous, ici, on n'aime pas qu'on nous dise comment on doit se vêtir, se raser (lui l'est de près), comment on doit prier ni qui l'on veut épouser". Dans la banlieue sud de Beyrouth, "la Dahiyah", où vivent près d'un demi-million de chiites presque tous acquis au Hezbollah, un intellectuel chiite laïc nommé Lokman Slim nous disait à peu près la même chose, vitupérant, entre autres, contre "le côté totalitaire du parti" et surtout "la relation servile qu'il entretient avec ses créateurs et financiers iraniens". A l'ombre des portraits géants de Khomeiny et de son successeur Khamenei, omniprésents dans leurs villes et leurs quartiers, les populations chiites du Liban (entre 35 % et 40 % de la nation, délibérément aucun recensement n'a eu lieu depuis 1932) peuvent se sentir matraquées par la propagande. Dans la "Dahiyah", la "capitale de la résistance" dans la terminologie du parti, les panneaux de "Remerciements à Téhéran" sont partout. C'est la "Dahiyah" qui a subi, avec les villages du Sud et Baalbek, les bombardements israéliens massifs de juillet-août 2006 - 1 200 tués, des milliers de blessés et au moins 90 000 logements détruits ou endommagés. L'Iran a beaucoup donné pour une reconstruction, déjà en voie d'achèvement. Dans tout le "pays chiite", les routes, les ponts, les parcs et les immeubles bâtis ou rebâtis avec son argent, via le Hezbollah, se comptent par milliers. "Cela ne leur donne pas le droit de nous imposer quoi que ce soit, s'énerve Ali Sharif, le quadragénaire libertaire de Yammouneh. Téhéran fournit l'entraînement militaire, OK. Mais ce sont quand même les hezbollahis libanais qui se battent." Les portraits colorés des jeunes "martyrs" accrochés à tous les lampadaires, aux vitrines et sur les immeubles, sont là pour rappeler l'ampleur du sacrifice : 1 400 "soldats", selon le parti, sont tombés au combat contre Israël depuis vingt-cinq ans. Dans le coquet salon de Mohamed Mahdi Berro, souriant propriétaire de la "meilleure" pâtisserie-confiserie du quartier d'Al-Assahéra, à la sortie de Baalbek, trône, comme dans presque tous les foyers visités, un portrait d'Hassan Nasrallah, le charismatique patron du Hezbollah, idole des chiites et héros patenté de la lutte antisioniste pour beaucoup d'Arabes, sunnites compris. Mohammed, 58 ans, ne milite pas au Parti de Dieu mais le soutient "sans réserve". Ses biens, comme tant d'autres tout autour, ont été bombardés par Israël. L'agression a fait 17 morts et des dizaines de blessés à Baalbek. "Ma maison, l'atelier et mes équipements ont beaucoup souffert : 116 000 dollars de perte sèche", confie-t-il. Depuis, tout a été reconstruit. Par le Hezbollah. "J'ai reçu 43 000 dollars de compensation, dont 8 000 seulement de l'Etat", note M. Berro. Rien de neuf sous le soleil libanais : l'absence de l'Etat dans de nombreuses régions chiites, la corruption de ses élites et de ses fonctionnaires, font le lit du "proto-Etat" patiemment mis en place par le parti de Nasrallah. Comme des dizaines de milliers de familles chiites à travers le pays, notre hôte envoie ses fils dans les écoles du parti. Ici comme ailleurs, s'ils tombent malades, ils vont à l'hôpital ultramoderne du Hezbollah. Quand ils étaient petits, ils allaient à la crèche du parti. Le jeudi, quand ils ne regardent pas Al-Manar, la chaîne du Hezbollah, n'écoutent pas le nouveau rap islamique diffusé sur Al-Noor, sa radio, ou ne lisent pas les pages pour ados d'Al-Ahd, son hebdomadaire, ils assistent aux cours de religion dispensés par un mollah du parti. Le week-end, ils militent chez les scouts du Hezbollah. S'il était pauvre, M. Berro pourrait solliciter des prêts sans intérêt auprès des établissements financiers gérés par le parti. "Quand je serai grand, rêve Hussein, 12 ans, je serais combattant du Hezbollah." Le père sourit tendrement. Selon les estimations, les combattants "de carrière" de la milice seraient autour de 10 000, plus 15 000 "réservistes" - l'armée nationale du Liban, elle, a 70 000 hommes. Si Hussein devait tomber au combat sous l'uniforme camouflé de "la résistance", toute la famille serait prise en charge par le parti. En attendant, le garçon passe ses loisirs à regarder des films américains en vidéo. Ceux produits par les amis du Hezbollah sont encore trop souvent ennuyeux. En revanche, des jeux vidéo où les "méchants" à éliminer ne sont pas des Arabes mais des combattants américains et israéliens commencent à voir le jour. Sohair Nasrallah - sans parenté avec "le Sayyed" comme tout le monde appelle le patron du Hezbollah au Liban - combat elle aussi, à sa manière. "Je milite au parti parce qu'ils sont les plus honnêtes et les plus patriotiques, nous dit-elle d'une petite voix fluette. Deux de mes frères aînés sont dans la résistance." Sohair a 24 ans, ses parents sont morts très tôt. Avec l'aide financière du parti, elle fait des études en sciences politiques à l'université américaine de Beyrouth. Avertie de notre arrivée, elle a posé un épais voile noir sur ses longs cheveux de jais et enfilé l'ample abaya noire réglementaire sur le tee-shirt et les jeans portés à la maison. Jusqu'au coeur des fiefs du Hezbollah, à Baalbek comme à Beyrouth-Sud, les jeunes chiites, si elles ont souvent la tête enroulée dans un voile, n'hésitent pas à porter en dessous des corsages ou des jeans qui semblent avoir été cousus sur elles. "La pression culturelle, sociale et normative du Hezbollah a commencé à diminuer au début des années 1990, nous expliquera Sabrina Mervin, chercheuse au CNRS, détachée à l'Institut français du Proche-Orient de Beyrouth (IFPO) et maître d'oeuvre d'un ouvrage de référence sur le parti (Le Hezbollah : état des lieux, Actes Sud, 2008, 364 p., 24 euros). Les femmes sont encouragées à étudier, à travailler, à choisir elles-mêmes leur mari, bref à être indépendantes." Comme la communauté dans laquelle il a grandi et qui compte à présent une bourgeoisie prospère et une classe moyenne bien éduquée, le "parti des déshérités" a énormément évolué. "Loin des clichés qui le présentent, au mieux, comme une formation islamiste, au pire, comme une milice intégriste", remarque Sabrina Mervin, le Parti de Dieu est devenu, en vingt-cinq ans d'existence, "un fait social absolument incontournable".
Patrice Claude, Le Monde, 31.05.08 Joan Laporta garantiza la transparencia en la mociónEl presidente del FC Barcelona, Joan Laporta, ha hecho esta tarde una comparecencia institucional para defender su gestión al frente del club y asegurar que, tanto él como su junta directiva, merecen acabar su mandato. El primer dirigente azulgrana ha garantizado que la moción se desarrollará con la máxima transparencia y se ha mostrado confiado que la Mesa velará por la "pureza" del proceso.
Con un comparecencia breve y en la que no se han admitido las preguntas de los periodistas, Laporta ha dado la primera réplica a la moción de censura impulsada por el abogado Oriol Giralt, que ayer presentó en las oficinas del club 9.473 firmas de apoyo a esta iniciativa, superando con creces las 5.882 necesarias para que el proceso siguiera adelante.
La Vanguardia, 30.05.08 Monks Succeed in Cyclone Relief as Junta FaltersThey paddle for hours on the stormy river, or carry their sick parents on their backs through the mud and rain, traveling for miles to reach the one source of help they can rely on: Buddhist monks.
At a makeshift clinic in this village near Bogale, an Irrawaddy Delta town 75 miles southwest of Yangon, hundreds of villagers left destitute by Cyclone Nargis arrive each day seeking the assistance they have not received from the government or international aid workers. Since the cyclone, the Burmese have been growing even closer to the monks while their alienation from the junta grows. This development bodes ill for the government, which brutally cracked down on thousands of monks who took to the streets last September appealing to the ruling generals to improve conditions for the people. The May 3 cyclone left more than 134,000 dead or missing and 2.4 million survivors grappling with hunger and homelessness. This week, some of them who had taken shelter at monasteries or gathered on roadsides were being displaced again, this time by the junta, which wants them to stop being an embarrassment to the government and return to their villages “for reconstruction.” On Friday, United Nations officials said that refugees were also being evicted from government-run camps. The survivors have little left of their homes and find themselves almost as exposed to the elements as their mud-coated water buffaloes. Meanwhile, outside aid is slow to arrive, with foreign aid agencies gaining only incremental access to the hard-hit Irrawaddy Delta and the government impounding cars of some private Burmese donors. In a scene the ruling generals are unlikely to see played out for themselves, a convoy of trucks carrying relief supplies, led by Buddhist monks, passed through storm-devastated villages in the delta this week. Hungry children and homeless mothers bowed in supplication and respect. “When I see those people, I want to cry,” said Sitagu Sayadaw, 71, one of Myanmar’s most respected senior monks. Village after storm-hit village, it is clear who has won people’s hearts. Monks were among those who died in the storm. Now, others console the survivors while sharing their muddy squalor. With tears welling in her eyes, Thi Dar, 45, pressed her hands together in respect before the first monk she saw at the clinic here and told her story. The eight other members of her family were killed in the cyclone. She no longer had anyone to talk with and felt suicidal. The other day, word reached her village that a monk had opened a clinic six miles upriver. So on Thursday, she got up early and caught the first boat. “In my entire life, I have never seen a hospital,” she said. “So I came to the monk. I don’t know where the government office is. I can’t buy anything in the market because I lost everything to the cyclone.” Nay Lin, 36, a volunteer doctor at the clinic, one of the six emergency clinic shelters Sitagu Sayadaw has opened in the delta, said: “Our patients suffer from infected wounds, abdominal pains and vomiting. They also need counseling for mental trauma, anxiety and depression.” While the government has been criticized for obstructing the relief effort, the Buddhist monastery, the traditional center of moral authority in most villages here, proved to be the one institution people could rely on for help. The monasteries in the delta that are still standing have been clogged with refugees. People who could help went there with donations or as volunteers. Monasteries that served as religious centers, orphanages and homes for the elderly have also become shelters for the homeless. The interdependence between monks and laypeople is age-old. Monks receive alms from the laity and offer spiritual comfort in return. In villages without government schools, a monastic education is often the only option. “The monks’ role is more important than ever,” said Ar Sein Na, 46, a monk in the delta village of That Kyar. “In a time of immense suffering like this, people have nowhere to go except to monks.” Kyi Than, 38, said she traveled 15 miles by boat to Sitagu Sayadaw’s camp. “Our village monk died during the storm,” she said. “Monks are like parents to us. The government wants us to shut up, but monks listen to us.” Faced with the deadliest cyclone to hit Asia in 38 years, senior monks have organized their own relief campaigns. Every day, their convoys head down delta roads. A leading figure in these efforts is Sitagu Sayadaw, whose name invariably draws a thumbs-up sign here. “Meditation cannot remove this disaster,” he said. “Material support is very important now. Now in our country, spiritual and material support are unbalanced.” Trucks of rice, beans, onions, clothes, tarpaulins and cooking utensils, donated from all over Myanmar, pulled into his International Buddhist Missionary Center in Yangon from early morning on. Each day, shortly after dawn, a convoy of trucks or a barge on the Yangon River departs for the delta, loaded with relief supplies and volunteers. Sitagu Sayadaw sat on a wooden bench in his field headquarters as people lined up to pay their respects. Villagers came to present lists of their most urgent needs. Monks from outlying villages came asking for help to repair their temples. Wealthy families from towns knelt before him and donated bundles of cash. However, like other senior monks here, he must strike a careful balance. He has the moral duty to speak out on behalf of his suffering people, but in order to protect his social programs and hospitals, which provide free medical care to the destitute, he must try not to anger the government, which views such private undertakings as a reproof. Nonetheless, speaking at his shelter as an afternoon monsoon rain drummed against the roof, Sitagu Sayadaw sounded frustrated with the government. “In my country, I cannot see a real political leader,” he said. “Gen. Than Shwe’s ‘Burmese way to democracy?’ ” he said, referring to the junta’s top leader. “What is it?” He defended the monks’ uprising last September, saying the government’s failure to provide “material stability” for the people undermined the monks’ ability to provide “spiritual stability.” Among monks interviewed in the delta and Yangon, there was no sign of imminent protests. Still, a 40-year-old monk at Sitagu Sayadaw’s camp who spoke on condition of anonymity for fear of official retribution said that “monks are very angry” about the government’s recent move to evict refugees from monasteries, roadside huts and other temporary shelters, even while the state-run media are filled with stories of government relief efforts. “The government doesn’t want to show the truth.” A young monk in the Chaukhtatgyi Paya monastery district in Yangon predicted trouble ahead. “You will see it again because everyone is angry and everyone is jobless,” said the monk, who said he joined the September “saffron revolution” and had a large gash over his right eye from a soldier’s beating to show for it. A monk from Mon State in southern Myanmar, who was visiting the delta to assess the damage and arrange an aid shipment, said, “For the government, these people are no more than dead animals in the fields.” The simmering confrontation between the pillars of Myanmar life was evident at the village level after the cyclone. Shortly after the storm, a monk in Myo Thit, a village 20 miles from Yangon, walked around with a loudspeaker inviting victims to his monastery and asking people to donate. The monk had to stop, villagers said, after a township leader affiliated with the government threatened to confiscate the loudspeaker.
The New York Times, 31.05.08 http://www.nytimes.com/2008/05/31/world/asia/31myanmar.html?pagewanted=1&ref=asia Amorce de dialogue entre Niamey et les rebelles touaregsUn dialogue va-t-il s'ouvrir au Niger entre les rebelles touaregs et les autorités ? Rien n'est acquis, mais deux initiatives récentes pourraient déboucher sur des négociations entre le Mouvement des Nigériens pour la justice (MNJ), en dissidence dans le nord du pays, et le pouvoir.
La première vient d'un groupe de notables touaregs dont les tribus vivent entre le Niger, le Mali et la Libye. Appuyés par le président libyen Mouammar Kadhafi, ils sont venus récemment à Niamey proposer leur médiation dans une crise qui, depuis un an, a fait une centaine de morts et accentué la paupérisation du nord du Niger, pays parmi les plus pauvres du continent. Recevant, mercredi 28 mai, la délégation, qui arrivait du Mali, également confronté à une dissidence touarègue, le président nigérien, Mamadou Tandja, leur a indiqué qu'il entendait privilégier, dans un premier temps, un autre canal pour amorcer avec les rebelles du MNJ un dialogue qu'il avait jusqu'à présent refusé. Le chef de l'Etat veut s'appuyer sur une commission nationale composée de députés, de chefs de tribus et de notables locaux. Cette commission de paix a pris langue avec les rebelles du MNJ. "On a eu des contacts indirects avec eux", confirme le numéro deux du Mouvement, le capitaine Mohammed Acharif. Joint par téléphone, le vice-président du MNJ, installé dans les montagnes au nord du pays, assure que, pour qu'un dialogue effectif s'ouvre, il faut, en préalable, que soit levé l'"état de mise en garde" (état d'urgence) imposé dans le nord. "L'état de mise en garde pénalise les populations locales. Il faut les rassurer. Le lever sera un signe positif et on pourra s'asseoir entre nous ; sinon, il n'y aura aucun contact entre le régime et notre mouvement", estime le numéro deux du MNJ. A l'inverse des rebelles présents sur le terrain, les représentants du MNJ en Europe continuent à camper sur une ligne plus radicale. "Le dialogue suppose aussi la reconnaissance officielle du MNJ et la désignation d'un médiateur international qui pourrait être la France. Aucun dialogue n'est possible avant de réunir ces conditions", affirment-ils. Ce qui pourrait être un signe d'ouverture de la frange du mouvement installé dans le nord du Niger intervient alors que le Mouvement accuse les militaires nigériens d'avoir assassiné, il y a quelques jours, neuf civils au cours d'une opération présentée par l'armée comme une offensive victorieuse contre le MNJ.
Jean-Pierre Tuquoi, Le Monde, 31.05.08 El mayor éxito de The Police cumple 25 añosEs una canción de una letra de tono obsesivo, pero el público la entendió como de fidelidad y amor y aunque se compuso en media hora y su base musical es elemental, el Every breath you take de la banda británica The Police, se convirtió desde su lanzamiento en el mayor éxito de la banda.
Mañana se cumplen 25 años del lanzamiento de la canción, primer single del disco Synchronicity, que estuvo ocho semanas como número uno en las listas de éxitos de EE UU, cuatro en Reino Unido, y que ganó el premio Grammy a la mejor canción del año, en 1983. Las críticas fueron duras, pese al éxito. "La letra es tan banal que sólo puede estar concebida así a propósito", decía la revista estadounidense No. 1. "Sting se toma una tarde libre de su filosofía y nos sacude con una canción de medio tiempo minuciosamente normal", publicó el Record Mirror. La banda del cantante de éxito Sting sólo sobrevivió un año a su canción, y se separó en 1984. "Me levanté en medio de la noche, con un verso en mi cabeza. Me senté en el piano y estuve escribiendo durante media hora", explicó el cantante sobre la composición de la canción en 1993. "La melodía era genérica, una amplia de tantas otras, pero las palabras eran interesantes. Sonaba como una canción de amor, pero no me di cuenta en el momento de lo siniestro que era". En el fondo, explica Sting en la misma entrevista, la canción es mucho más siniestra. "En ella subyace el pensamiento del Gran Hermano, de la vigilancia y el control. Era el año de Ronald Reagan y La Guerra de las Galaxias con la URSS". La banda, compuesta también por Andy Summers y Stewart Copeland, ha sido homenajeada desde entonces con diferentes versiones de su canción, como las de UB40 y Puff Daddy. En 1997 se publicó de nuevo la canción bajo el título I'll be missing you en EE UU, lo que supuso la primera pieza para la reconciliación de los tres miembros del grupo en 2003, cuando la interpretaron en la ceremonia que les hizo miembros del Rock & Roll Hall of Fame.
Mateo Sancho, El Pais, 31.05.08 Horrors we have no choice but to forgetI have a clear memory of a terrible crime that was committed in southern Lebanon in 1978. Israeli soldiers, landing at night on the beach near Sarafand – the city of Sarepta in antiquity – were looking for "terrorists" and opened fire on a car load of female Palestinian refugees.
It took the Israelis a day before they admitted shooting at the car with an anti-tank weapons, by which time I had watched civil defence workers pulling the dead women from the vehicle, their faces slopping off on to the road, an AP correspondent holding his hands to his face in shock, leaning against an ambulance, crying "Jesus Christ! Jesus Christ. I suppose all this is because of what Hitler did to the Jews." Save for his remark, however, all I remember is silence. As if the whole scene was muted, sound smothered by the dead. Yet I was running a tape recorder for part of the time, and when I listened to the old tape again a few days ago, I could hear many women, weeping, cars passing, honking horns above the shrieks of grief. My own original notes state, in my handwriting, that "a throng of women stood crying and wailing". Yet all I remember now is silence. A child was on a stretcher, cut in half, a girl in the back seat of the car, curled in death into the arms of an older woman. But silence. I was reminded of all this by an especially powerful interview conducted at Cannes with the Israeli director Ari Folman, who has made a remarkable film – Waltz with Bashir – about Israel's later, 1982 invasion of Lebanon and about the "collective amnesia" of the soldiers who participated in this hopeless adventure. Bashir Gemayel was the name of Israel's favourite Christian Maronite militia leader who was elected president but almost immediately assassinated. It's an animated film – a film of cartoons, if you like – because Folman is trying to fill in the empty space which the war occupies in his mind. Because he can't remember it. "I never talked about my army service," Folman said. "I got on with my life without talking about it, without thinking about it. It was like something I didn't want to be connected with whatsoever." In one astonishing scene, Israeli soldiers come ashore in Lebanon – only to find that there is no one there. They are entering an empty country, washed clean of memory. Alas, Lebanon was not empty; more than 17,000 Lebanese and Palestinians, almost all civilians, died in that terrible war, and at the end of Folman's movie, the animation turns to reality with photographs of some of the 1,700 Palestinian dead of the Sabra and Chatila massacre, murdered by Israel's Phalangist allies while the Israelis watched from high-rise buildings. It is Folman's dream that this film should be shown in an Arab country – given the dotage and stupidity of most Arab ministers, that is surely a hope that will not be realised – but it did almost win the Palme d'Or at Cannes. Amnesia is real. And it afflicts us all. But it is also a block to memory. Take my old letter-writing friend, poet Don Newton. He dropped me a note the other day, asking why humans have to create wars and mentioning, at the start, that he remembered the Second World War and, in 1944, Germany's V2 missiles. What grabbed me by the throat, however, was the penultimate paragraph of his letter, written with an eloquence I cannot match – and whose power and suddenness will shock you, as readers, just as it shocked me. This is what Don wrote: "I saw some of my friends killed around me when I was 12, when a V2 punched into the road near where we were playing ... I was lucky and survived but ran over the road to find my father lying dead by our front gate. He looked for all the world like a grey, dusty broken puppet with his left arm laying next to him. It had been sliced off just above the elbow by a piece of shrapnel that had also cut through the oak gatepost behind him. "Strangely enough, that sight seems to have wiped from my conscious mind all but a handful of memories of him and those are mostly unpleasant in their associations, like the time I burst into the toilet when I was only six, to find him sitting reading a newspaper, and blurted out that my younger brother by a year had been run over. Peter died in hospital the next day without ever recovering consciousness. This 'amnesia' is, I suppose, a defence mechanism but I find it weird and unable to break. I am struggling to put this problem into a poem and, hopefully, when it is out on paper maybe the fog will clear?" I find this letter – horror and the mundane inextricably, unbelievably mixed together – unanswerable. The V2 explosion turns into a father's death, the interruption in the lavatory into a child's death. And a poem to clear the amnesia? Only a poet could suggest that. I didn't see my father die but I was sitting beside my own mother when she died from the results of Parkinson's. My memory is clear – she choked on her own saliva because she could no longer clear her throat – and I do remember sitting by her body and thinking (and here I quote another Israeli, a fine and brilliant novelist), "I'm next!" So I turned, of course, to a haiku in Don's latest collection of poetry, The Soup Stone, called "Mum's Death, 1982" – the same date as Folman's Israeli invasion when he (and I) were trying to stay alive in Lebanon: "Just sitting, waiting, For your last slow breath. Suddenly – it's here." Which is about as close to death as you can get in verse. And there really is a silence at the end.
Robert Fisk, The Independent, 31.05.08 Le Vatican défend le regroupement familial pour les immigrésDix jours après que le gouvernement italien a adopté des mesures plus restrictives contre l'immigration, le Vatican a affirmé vendredi 30 mai que "le maintien de l'unité de la famille" et les regroupements familiaux pour les immigrés sont "un objectif fondamental" de l'Eglise catholique.
Dans la mesure où les immigrés, même clandestins, "représentent une ressource pour les sociétés où ils travaillent (...), il ont droit à ce que l'on affronte le problème des familles séparées", poursuit le Conseil pontifical de la pastorale pour les immigrés dans un document adopté à l'issue d'une assemblée plénière, selon l'agence ANSA. "Cela peut être fait avant tout en favorisant le regroupement familial dans le pays d'accueil", souligne le Vatican. TESTS ADN Le projet de loi adopté le 21 mai par le nouveau gouvernement Berlusconi prévoit de limiter le regroupement familial aux seuls enfants et parents, en introduisant des tests ADN. En France, dans le cadre de la loi sur la maîtrise de l'immigration du ministre Brice Hortefeux, le recours aux tests ADN pour des candidats au regroupement familial a été adopté en octobre par le Parlement, puis validé par le Conseil constitutionnel en novembre. Cependant, les Sages français ont émis de nombreuses réserves d'interprétation qui, selon des spécialistes du droit, rendent cet amendement sur les tests ADN inapplicable. Le Vatican estime lui qu'il est possible de faire face à la séparation des membres de la famille "en examinant les causes profondes des migrations et le rôle que le développement [économique] peut jouer dans la recherche d'une solution".
Le Monde, 30.05.08 África, fantasmalEra uno de esos sábados próximos a la Navidad en los cuales todos se echan a las calles. Se apresuraba como el resto, impaciente por concluir la absurda ceremonia de los regalos. En una tienda Benetton en el Soho neoyorquino un jovencito con pinta anglo le hacía una señal inequívoca: está cerrado. Dentro, un grupo de personas blancas compraba jerséis para sus madres y Patricia Williams, la conocida jurista afroamericana, reflexionaba sobre la tiranía de quienes niegan la entrada a los que "no tienen buena pinta": "La mala pinta está relacionada con asuntos raciales...". El problema se inscribía en la tradición de exclusiones que rige nuestra cultura. Lo probaba la prestigiosa revista jurídica que hizo a Williams el mismo gesto inequívoco. Al recibir los comentarios a su ponencia para el simposio Voces excluidas, donde incluía este relato, observó perpleja cómo la palabra Benetton estaba borrada -no se admitían nombres de marcas-, igual que "todas las referencias a mi raza... porque era parte de su 'política editorial' no permitir descripciones fisonómicas". Quién sabe si esas exclusiones obligaron a aquella mujer negra a embadurnarse el cuerpo con harina, intento obstinado de mejorar su pinta. Era un trabajo presentado durante la Bienal de Venecia de 2001, en una muestra que, creo, hablaba de África. Tal vez esas mismas exclusiones impidieron que muchos lo vieran o lo comentaran en los innumerables artículos sobre el evento. Las malditas exclusiones han borrado los detalles de mi memoria. Por eso, ahora que desde la intrascendencia se habla de China como el nuevo lugar de consumo exótico -después de Rusia y Latinoamérica-, vamos a volver a hablar de esa África que vive en Londres y en Nigeria, que ha generado entre los africanos un "nuevo debate étnico". Lo comentaba en el catálogo de la Bienal de Dakar de 2002 Jean Loup Pivan: ¿hay grados diferentes de "africanidad" para los que viven en París o Nueva York y Harare o Douala?
Había en el debate ciertos ecos de la negritude de Aimé Césaire, político, fundador de periódicos, apóstol de la descolonización y, sobre todo, extraordinario poeta de la Martinica, recientemente fallecido. "Mi negritud no es piedra -escribe en Cuaderno del retorno al país natal- (...) tiene sus raíces en la materia ardiente de lo telúrico". De esa África presente en cada África hablaba en otro cuaderno del retorno hacia una especie de imaginario país natal Michel Leiris, colaborador de Documents y autor de un texto sobre Césaire en 1965. Invitado en los treinta a la misión Dakar-Djibouti, escribía El África fantasmal (Pre-Textos, 2007) -por fin traducido al castellano-, una extraordinaria muestra de autoetnografía en la cual dejaba clara la lección de África. Sintiéndose desfallecer en medio del trayecto, entiende de pronto cómo el acontecimiento está siempre lejos, quizás porque, como dijo un amigo senegalés al despedirnos y explicarme que seguiríamos juntos algunos días, el alma tarda más en llegar, de modo que se está sin remedio en un lugar distinto al que habita nuestra consciencia. Por eso hay que hablar de África y pensar en África. Y buscarla, cada uno a su modo, igual que hiciera la brasileña Tarsila do Amaral, quien la descubrió durante los años veinte y no olvidó la lección jamás. También sus obras, impregnadas de sus viajes, tienen algo de cuaderno del retorno a un país natal. Se han vuelto a ver en la Pinacoteca de São Paulo y en el MALBA de Buenos Aires. Tarsila viajera se llamaba la muestra.
Estrella de Diego, El Pais, 31.05.08 http://www.elpais.com/articulo/arte/Africa/fantasmal/elpepuculbab/20080531elpbabart_3/Tes/ Hillary's last standThe epic struggle between Hillary Clinton and Barack Obama for the Democratic nomination passes another milestone today, at a hotel near Washington's famous zoo.
With hundreds, perhaps more, vociferous and mostly female supporters of Mrs Clinton gathered outside, some 30 party apparatchiks will file into the Wardman Park hotel under the glare of the world's media. They are attempting to resolve the most hotly contested issue in the hopelessly tangled Democratic race: how many of the disputed delegates from Florida and Michigan should be seated at the party's nominating convention in Denver. With more upsets, reversals and comebacks in a primary season than anyone can remember, the contest for the Democratic presidential nomination is believed to be in its final days. A decision could be taken today to seat at least some of the disputed delegates who Mrs Clinton says are being disenfranchised. But there was no guarantee last night she would accept such a compromise, despite mounting pressure from party elders for her to step down. The New York Senator continues to insist she would be a stronger opponent to Republican John McCain in the November election, hinting she might yet take her battle all the way to the convention floor – conceivably via the courts. The critical session of the party's rules committee comes as the official primary campaign enters its final four days. Tomorrow, Puerto Rico votes in a primary Ms Clinton is expected to win convincingly. On Tuesday, the scantily populated Great Plains states of South Dakota and Montana hold primaries, where Mr Obama is likely to prevail It is hoped that, by late August, a Democratic presidential candidate will be crowned unopposed. Yesterday, top party figures called for a rapid end to the battle, after five virtually non-stop months of primaries and caucuses. "We're going to urge folks to make a decision quickly – next week," Harry Reid, the Senate majority leader said. "We agree there won't be a fight at the convention." Meanwhile, Nancy Pelosi, the House Speaker who has also been neutral in the contest, told the San Francisco Chronicle that if the nomination was not resolved by the end of June, she would step in to settle it. All 300 tickets for today's committee meeting, an event that is usually ignored, were snapped up within minutes and the world's media will be on hand to record the comings and goings at the hotel when proceedings start at 9.30am. The Democratic National Committee panel on rules is already stacked with Clinton supporters, a legacy of 15 years of the husband and wife's dominance of the party apparatus. The committee is expected to decide to increase the number of delegates a candidate must reach to secure the party's nomination and put the finishing line just out of Mr Obama's reach. Mrs Clinton is demanding that all the disputed delegates be seated at the convention but few expect that to happen. It would still not be enough for her to close Mr Obama's delegate lead, which stands at 200 delegates more than her. To clinch the nomination, a number of the 200 uncommitted superdelegates (party officials with voting rights) are expected to jump to his side at a signal from the campaign. "After 3 June, you're going to see a wave of superdelegates beginning to go Obama's way," the Democratic consultant Chris Kofinis said yesterday. "And when Senator Obama reaches the magic number, whenever that is, Senator Clinton is going to do what every Democrat will do – acknowledge he is the Democratic nominee and help unify the party to defeat John McCain in the November election." Mr Obama said: "We've got three contests in succession and, at that point, all the information will be in. There will be no more questions unanswered." Once he has a mathematical majority, he told reporters, "then I'm the nominee." Not so fast, say Mrs Clinton's backers, who will be out in force to make their point today. Upset at the way the media has declared the contest unwinnable for their candidate and determined to ensure that every vote is counted in all the Democratic primaries, they are making the case that Mrs Clinton may yet win a majority of the Democratic popular vote. Florida and Michigan have a combined total of 368 delegates. The most widely canvassed compromise, and the one recommended by top party lawyers is for both states to seat half their delegates. If so, the winning post would shift from 2,026 to 2,118. Even if Ms Clinton is awarded a majority of the re-admitted delegates, it would not overturn Mr Obama's lead. But it might allow her to claim a majority in the raw national primary vote – a "victory" that conceivably could form the basis of a legal challenge. A big win in Puerto Rico and a favourable decision over the "Florigan" delegates – as network television calls the Florida, Michigan dispute –might keep Mrs Clinton battling all the way to the convention. A doomsday scenario as far as the party is concerned. The delegate debate What started it all? Democratic Party chiefs barred Florida and Michigan delegates from the August convention to punish them for holding their primaries earlier than allowed. Both candidates agreed not to campaign there, although Hillary Clinton left her name on the ballot in Michigan. What's the meeting about? The two states have challenged their exclusion. Together they account for about 10 per cent of the delegates and the party is wary of alienating voters in what are likely to be important battlegrounds in the November presidential election. Who is on the committee? Most of the 30-strong panel are long-time party activists. They include Harold Ickes, a key Clinton aide, and Donna Brazile, who ran Al Gore's campaign in 2000. What's likely to happen? The party's legal team says the panel has the authority to reinstate half of the states' delegate power, either by including half the delegations or giving the full delegation half a vote. The Clinton campaign challenges that and is pressing for the delegate count to reflect the popular vote from the January primaries, which she won.
Rupert Cornwell and Leonard Doylein, The Independent, 31.05.08 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/americas/hillarys-last-stand-837425.html Vladimir Poutine : "Elargir l'OTAN, c'est ériger de nouveaux murs de Berlin"Votre dîner avec Nicolas Sarkozy, jeudi soir, révèle une ambiguïté : qui dirige la politique étrangère russe? Vous, ou Dmitri Medvedev ?
Il n'y a aucune ambiguïté. Nous avons fait connaissance, avec M. Sarkozy, à l'époque où j'étais encore président. Des liens d'amitié se sont noués. (…) L'humble serviteur que je suis s'occupe avant tout des questions économiques et sociales. En tant que membre du Conseil de sécurité de la Russie, je suis aussi concerné par les autres questions abordées avec le président français. Quant à la répartition des pouvoirs en Russie, le président a sans conteste le dernier mot. Et le président, aujourd'hui, c'est M. Medvedev. Le pouvoir russe a deux visages. Est-ce une solution transitoire, ou souhaitez-vous devenir l'équivalent d'un chancelier allemand ? La Russie est une république présidentielle. Nous ne modifierons pas le rôle clé du chef de l'Etat dans le système politique. Le fait que je dirige le gouvernement est une curiosité dans notre histoire. Mais l'essentiel est ailleurs : je dirige en même temps un parti qui occupe un rôle de premier plan dans la vie politique du pays et qui a une majorité stable au Parlement. C'est un signe incontestable que, en Russie, nous sommes attachés au système multipartite et à une valorisation du rôle du Parlement. C'est ça, le vrai message politique. En Russie, on dit que M. Medvedev et vous êtes au pouvoir pour vingt ans. Dans quelles circonstances pourriez-vous quitter vos fonctions ? (…) La Russie fait face à de nombreux défis. Nous sommes décidés à agir de façon parfaitement honnête vis-à-vis de nos concitoyens, sans nous occuper de politique politicienne. Si nous y parvenons, l'organisation du pouvoir au plus haut niveau ne sera pas si importante que cela. Les objectifs communs, voilà l'essentiel. L'équipe en place actuellement est très compétente, très professionnelle, composée de spécialistes, ainsi que d'élus, au sein du Parlement, qui nous soutiennent. On va essayer de garder cette unité le plus longtemps possible. La façon dont se partagent les rôles et les ambitions est secondaire. Que répondriez-vous à Dmitri Medvedev s'il sollicitait votre avis sur un allégement de la peine ou l'amélioration des conditions de détention de l'ex-patron de Ioukos, Mikhaïl Khodorkovski ? Je dirais qu'il doit prendre cette décision en toute indépendance. Comme moi auparavant, il doit s'appuyer sur la législation. Lui et moi avons fait les mêmes études universitaires à la faculté de droit de Saint-Pétersbourg. Nous avons eu de très bons professeurs, qui nous ont administré un vaccin : le respect de la loi. Je connais M. Medvedev de longue date. Il va respecter la loi, il l'a d'ailleurs dit à plusieurs reprises publiquement. Si nos lois le permettent, il n'y aura aucun obstacle. (…) La loi permet d'améliorer les conditions de détention… Bien sûr, mais pour cela, il faut que les personnes détenues satisfassent aux obligations prévues par la loi. Comment la Russie peut-elle prétendre partager les valeurs européennes, quand la concurrence, en économie et en politique, n'est pas admise ? Je ne vois aucune contradiction. La concurrence, c'est la lutte. Si l'une des parties prend l'avantage puis l'emporte, cela veut dire que la concurrence existe. Dans tout pays, les acteurs économiques tentent d'êtres proches du pouvoir et d'obtenir des avantages. Nous avons évoqué un des "capitaines" de l'industrie pétrolière russe. A une époque, ces personnes se voyaient refuser le visa d'entrée aux Etats-Unis; on considérait qu'ils étaient liés à la mafia. Soulager son existence en prison, ne serait-ce pas faire deux poids, deux mesures ? La lutte pour les privilèges a toujours existé et existera toujours. La Russie n'est pas un cas unique. Nous nous sommes efforcés de tenir à distance égale les représentants du monde des affaires, plutôt avec succès me semble-t-il. Il a finalement obtenu ce visa, alors que d'autres entrepreneurs, comme M. Deripaska, ne l'ont pas. J'ai demandé à mes collègues américains s'ils avaient des raisons de ne pas lui délivrer de visa. S'ils ont des documents sur des activités illégales, qu'ils nous les donnent : nous les exploiterons. Ils ne nous donnent rien, ne nous expliquent rien et lui interdisent l'entrée. [Oleg Deripaska] n'est ni mon ami ni mon parent. Il représente le grand business russe. Il a des affaires de plusieurs milliards de dollars dans différents pays du monde. Pourquoi restreindre ses déplacements? Si vous n'avez rien, levez les entraves. Concernant [Mikhaïl] Khodorkovski, le problème n'est pas ses voyages à l'étranger, mais le fait que la loi a été enfreinte à plusieurs reprises et brutalement. Il a été établi par la justice que le groupe dont il faisait partie a commis des crimes contre des personnes, et pas seulement de nature économique. Ils ont tué plus d'un homme. Une telle lutte concurrentielle est intolérable, et nous allons bien sûr y mettre fin par tous les moyens. (…) La guerre en Tchétchénie, les prises d'otages de Beslan et de Nord-Ost sont les pages noires de votre présidence. Aurait-il été possible d'agir autrement ? Non. Je suis sûr que si nous avions essayé d'agir autrement, tout cela aurait duré jusqu'à aujourd'hui. Nous devions contrer les tentatives de déstabilisation de la Russie. Tout pays faisant des concessions aux terroristes essuie au final des pertes plus grandes que celles subies dans les opérations spéciales. Au bout du compte, cela détruit l'Etat et alourdit le nombre des victimes. Je ne le crois pas. Rien ne l'indique. Les Iraniens sont un peuple fier. Ils veulent jouir de leur indépendance et utiliser leur droit légitime au nucléaire civil. Je suis formel : sur un plan juridique, l'Iran n'a rien enfreint pour l'instant. Il a même le droit d'enrichir [de l'uranium]. Les documents le disent. On reproche à l'Iran ne pas avoir montré tous ses programmes à l'AIEA [Agence internationale de l'énergie atomique]. Ce point reste à régler. (…) J'ai toujours dit ouvertement à nos partenaires iraniens que leur pays ne se trouvait pas dans une zone aseptisée, mais dans une région explosive. Nous leur demandons d'en tenir compte, de ne pas irriter leurs voisins ou la communauté internationale, de prouver qu'ils n'ont pas d'arrière-pensées. (…) Sur le plan des principes, l'Iran, en tant que grande puissance, peut-il prétendre à l'arme nucléaire ? Nous sommes contre. C'est notre position de principe. (…) Utiliser l'arme nucléaire dans une région aussi petite que le Proche-Orient serait synonyme de suicide. Quels intérêts cela servirait-il ? Ceux de la Palestine ? Alors, les Palestiniens cesseront d'exister. (…) Nous allons, par tous les moyens, empêcher la prolifération. Nous avons proposé un programme international d'enrichissement de l'uranium, car l'Iran n'est qu'une pièce du problème. Beaucoup de pays émergents se trouvent face au choix de l'utilisation de l'énergie nucléaire à des fins civiles. Ils vont avoir besoin d'enrichir de l'uranium, et pour cela de créer leur propre circuit fermé. Il y aura toujours des doutes sur l'obtention de l'uranium à des fins militaires. C'est très difficile à contrôler. C'est pour cela que nous proposons que l'enrichissement se fasse dans des pays au-dessus de tout soupçon, car ils ont déjà l'arme nucléaire. Pour engager ce processus, les participants devront être certains de recevoir les quantités nécessaires, et qu'on leur reprendra le combustible usagé. (…) En quoi une éventuelle adhésion de l'Ukraine et de la Géorgie à l'OTAN serait-elle une menace pour la Russie ? Nous sommes opposés à l'élargissement de l'OTAN en général. L'OTAN a été créée en 1949. (…) Son objectif était la défense et la confrontation avec l'Union soviétique, pour se protéger d'une éventuelle agression, comme on le pensait à l'époque. (…) L'Union soviétique n'existe plus, la menace non plus, mais l'Organisation est restée. D'où la question : contre qui faites-vous "ami-ami" ? Admettons que l'OTAN doive lutter contre les nouvelles menaces : la prolifération, le terrorisme, les épidémies, la criminalité internationale, le trafic de stupéfiants. Pensez-vous que l'on puisse résoudre ces problèmes au sein d'un bloc militaro-politique fermé ? Non. (…) Ils doivent être résolus sur la base d'une large coopération, avec une approche globale et non pas en suivant la logique des blocs. (…) Elargir l'OTAN, c'est ériger de nouvelles frontières en Europe, de nouveaux murs de Berlin, invisibles cette fois mais pas moins dangereux. La défiance mutuelle s'installe, c'est néfaste. Les blocs militaro-politiques conduisent à une limitation de la souveraineté de tout pays membre en imposant une discipline interne, comme dans une caserne. Nous savons bien où les décisions sont prises : dans un des pays leaders de ce bloc. (…) Nous craignons que l'adhésion de ces pays à l'OTAN ne se traduise par l'installation, chez eux, de systèmes de missiles qui nous menaceront. (…) On parle sans arrêt de la limitation des armements en Europe. Mais nous l'avons déjà fait ! Résultat : deux bases militaires ont émergé sous notre nez. Bientôt il y aura des installations en Pologne et en République tchèque. (…) Je ferai une autre remarque : la démocratie, c'est le pouvoir du peuple. En Ukraine, près de 80 % de la population est hostile à une adhésion à l'OTAN. Nos partenaires disent pourtant que le pays y entrera. Tout se décide donc par avance, à la place de l'Ukraine. L'opinion de la population n'intéresse plus personne ? C'est ça, la démocratie ?
Propos recueillis par Marie Jégo, Rémy Ourdan et Piotr Smolar, Le Monde, 31.05.08
El triángulo vital de SaramagoEl pueblo natal del premio Nóbel de Literatura José Saramago, Azinhaga, en el Ribatejo portugués, se hermanará el sábado con las otras dos localidades importantes en la vida del escritor, Tias, en Canarias; y Castril, en Granada. El hermanamiento de estos tres pueblos se debe a que todos, por distintas razones, tienen un papel protagonista en la vida del literato luso.
Azinhaga, que es donde se celebrará la ceremonia, fue la que vio nacer al escritor hace 85 años. Tias, es la localidad canaria en la que Saramago vive desde hace 15 años; y Castril, en Granada, es la tierra materna de Pilar del Río y en la que el verano pasado renovaron sus votos matrimoniales. Del Río será nombrada Hija Adoptiva de Azinhaga y tendrá una plaza con su nombre en la localidad natal de su marido. En esta jornada que será muy emotiva para el escritor, también se inaugurará la sede local de la Fundación José Saramago, en Azinhaga, en la que se mostrarán algunos documentos, entre ellos el original de 'Las pequeñas memorias', el libro en que Saramago relata su niñez y sus andanzas en la aldea. También se podrán ver algunas piezas que explican modos de vivir en la aldea en la época en que nació el escritor. También objetos personales del escritor como la cama de sus abuelos, citada en varios escritos y en el discurso de recepción del Premio Nobel. Jerónimo y Josefa se llevaban a la cama, para darles calor con sus cuerpos, a los lechones más débiles cuya vida podía peligrar por los fríos del invierno. En esa cama, ahora recuperada, durmió cuando era niño José Saramago. Las celebraciones culminarán con una cena al aire libre ofrecida por los vecinos de Azinhaga, en la que participarán además del matrimonio Saramago, las autoridades y vecinos de Trias y Castril, que se han desplazado hasta el Ribatejo portugués para asistir a la ceremonia y compartir con el Nóbel estos momentos.
El Pais, 30.05.08 http://www.elpais.com/articulo/cultura/triangulo/vital/Saramago/elpepucul/20080530elpepucul_4/Tes Into the death zoneThe attempt by some of the world's best climbers to reach a dying mountaineer on Annapurna has redeemed a sport once known for its selfishness
Mingma Sherpa ran through the narrow winding streets of Kathmandu engaged in a desperate search. The Nepalese logistics expert employed by a Spanish mountain rescue team had been looking for help all night. It was not until 5am, shortly before dawn in the Himalayan capital, that he found the man he was looking for and began banging on his door.
Inside his hotel room, the Kazakh climber Denis Urubko was sleeping off the effects of a gruelling expedition to climb Makalu without oxygen. For the mountaineer, his conquest of the 8,463m (27,765ft) peak just a few days earlier was the 15th time he had ventured higher than the 8,000m mark – the point which signifies the start of the Death Zone above which human life is unsustainable. Yet, despite his state of near exhaustion, he was unable to refuse the Sherpa's urgent pleas. He got up, packed and immediately left for the airport prepared, without hesitation, to go straight back into that most lethal of places. As Urubko and the Russian Serguey Bogomolov, himself recovering from severe frostbite after an 8,000m climb just two weeks earlier, boarded the first helicopter out of Kathmandu armed with bottles of oxygen and a medical kit, about 100 miles west of the capital, high up on Annapurna, the Spanish climber Inaki Ochoa de Olza lay motionless in his tent. Unbeknown to him, what was unfurling on the mountains around him was an unprecedented international rescue operation conducted by some of the world's elite mountain climbers. The story of the heroic actions of the rescuers, though ultimately unsuccessful, is only now beginning to emerge to worldwide acclaim among devotees of a sport long dogged by reports of climbers prepared to abandon each other to their deaths in pursuit of the most glittering prizes. Three teams were eventually mobilised on Annapurna last month, drawn from nearly a dozen nationalities. All wereco-operating with the single aim of bringing back one of their own from a height so great that helicopters are unable to fly there and from which few, if any, casualties ever return alive. Ochoa's expedition ran into trouble the day before Urubko's early morning call. Heavily frost- bitten and having deemed himself ill-prepared for the final push towards the peak, the Spaniard had turned back. "We had run out of rope to fix and there was still a delicate section on the way to the summit," he told his support team over a faltering satellite phone, perilously low on batteries. "I didn't want to take risks with my hands in such a poor state," he added. Ochoa's decision to go back was a calculated response fitting for a climber who, at the age of 40, already enjoyed a towering reputation in the highly competitive world of high-altitude adventure. The Navarran-born mountaineer, a veteran of 30 previous Himalayan expeditions, was tantalisingly close to completing his ambition of climbing all 14 of the world's 8,000m-plus peaks. Annapurna, at 8,091m, was to be his 13th. Half an hour after he and his climbing companion, the Romanian Horia Colibasanu, took the decision to descend to a lower camp on the mountain's treacherous south face, Ochoa suffered a catastrophic stroke. The Spaniard began coughing and vomiting before slipping into a state of semi-consciousness. To make matters worse, the team's third member, the Russian Alexey Bolotov, was missing and the weather conditions were beginning to deteriorate. Colibasanu, himself a highly experienced climber who had partnered Ochoa on many perilous expeditions in the past, did what he could. He wrapped his companion in every item of clothing available and administered drugs to combat the effects of high altitude. He fired up the satellite phone. After seeking advice from a doctor in Romania, he made an emergency call to base camp where the leading Swiss climber Ueli Steck was about to embark on his own expedition. Under darkening skies, Steck, who a few months earlier had set a new speed record for climbing the north face of the Eiger, set off with his climbing partner and fellow Swiss Simon Anthamatten. It was now a race against time and, by the following day, the Swiss pair were just one camp below the stricken climber and his partner. But it had become clear to everyone now involved in the increasingly complex rescue effort that more people were needed on the mountain if the Spaniard was to live. The helicopter carrying Urubko and Bogomolov from Kathmandu had touched down briefly in the tranquil lake resort of Pokhara, picking up Don Bowie. The Canadian-born adventurer had volunteered to join the rescue effort despite quitting the ill-fated climbing team after a bitter row with the Spaniard. But the weather was conspiring against them. Heavy cloud forced the chopper to land at Chomrong, a seven-hour hike from base camp. As the Canadian and Kasakh set off on foot, Bogomolov waited for the third back-up team now on its way from the Nepalese capital. The climber's friends and family had been inundated with offers of help. As well as being provided with weather reports, top medical advice and logistical back-up including chopper lifts, leading climbers had also offered their services. The third back-up team soon contained more Russians, Poles, Romanians and Nepalese. After two agonising days alone, Steck eventually reached the tent sheltering the two climbers. Ochoa was by now seriously ill and Colibasanu, too, was suffering the severe effects of several days at high altitude. The Romanian was ordered to descend while the Swiss took over the job of nursing the dying man. But moving him would prove impossible. Last Friday, after five days stricken on the mountain, the Spaniard suffered further pulmonary complications and died. By that time, the mountain, first conquered in 1950 and which until recently had claimed the lives of four out of every 10 climbers that summitted, was crawling with rescuers. Both back-up rescue teams were in place despite the return of heavy snow and declining visibility. The first, containing Bolotov, who had been previously unaccounted for, had climbed back up to the second camp laden with oxygen cylinders. Bowie and Urubko were just a few hundred metres from their friend. A total of 14 climbers tried to reach Ochoa and now they themselves faced heavy snow, fog and avalanches as they attempted to descend Annapurna's treacherous south face. It was two days before everyone was safely down. This week, the Spaniard's mother, father and three brothers issued an emotional thank you to the climbing world. "The loss of someone as healthy and strong, so bright and joyful as Inaki has awakened a movement of solidarity among those in tune with his way of life and love of mountains, far above our expectations. By noticing the help you all wanted to bring him, risking death, you allow us to believe and feel there are reasons not to forget his joy, and to hope his example will help others to build their own love of freedom," they said. The story of the rescue has caused deep pride in the climber's hometown in northern Spain. Navarra's regional government announced this week that all 17 who took part in the rescue would receive the prestigious Gold Medal for Merit in Sport. A posthumous one would be awarded to Ochoa. Plaudits were continuing to be paid yesterday. Among them was the mountaineer Sir Chris Bonington. He has been a fierce critic of climbers driven by so-called "summit fever" who ignore the plight of fellow travellers on the mountain in their single-minded determination to reach the top. But according to Bonington: "This was the community of mountaineers – the world's serious climbers – who have a terrific common spirit ... everyone did everything in their power to help and this is something we would like to see everywhere." Ochoa's body will remain on the mountain, in line with his family's wishes, a fitting monument to the solidarity of purpose that should always bind the spirit of those who enter the Death Zone.
Jonathan Brown, The Independent, 31.05.08 http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/asia/into-the-death-zone-837419.html La mort de son chef pourrait menacer l'unité des FARCLa dernière grande guérilla marxiste d'Amérique latine va-t-elle survivre à la mort de son dirigeant historique, Manuel Marulanda ? Les familles des otages aux mains des Forces armées révolutionnaires de Colombie (FARC) s'inquiètent. Analystes et "farcologues" s'interrogent.
"Rien ne nous permet d'espérer que les choses vont changer à court terme. La guérilla campe apparemment sur ses positions guerrières, le gouvernement d'Alvaro Uribe aussi", avance Juan Carlos Lecompte, le mari d'Ingrid Betancourt qui se sent "désespéré". La mort du fondateur des FARC remonte au 26 mars, mais elle n'a été connue que le week-end des 24 et 25 mai. Dans une vidéo diffusée par la télévision vénézuélienne, le chef rebelle chargé d'annoncer la nouvelle a également fait savoir qu'Alfonso Cano avait succédé à Manuel Marulanda. L'inhabituelle qualité technique de l'enregistrement - trois caméras ont filmé la scène - a conduit à s'interroger sur sa provenance. Jeudi 29 mai, Caracas a démenti qu'elle ait été tournée au Venezuela. Mardi, le ministre colombien de l'intérieur, Carlos Holguin, avait réitéré l'objectif de son gouvernement "d'exterminer" les chefs guérilleros, avant de déclarer que "les portes de la négociation restaient ouvertes". "La politique sécuritaire engagée depuis six ans est en train de porter ses fruits. On ne voit pas pourquoi le gouvernement, en position de force sur le plan militaire, accepterait de céder aux FARC", note Rodrigo Pardo, directeur de l'hebdomadaire Cambio. Depuis dix-huit mois, les FARC accumulent les revers militaires. Deux membres du "secrétariat" - la direction collégiale de l'organisation armée - et trois commandants guérilleros importants ont été tués. Les progrès réalisés en matière d'interception des communications, grâce à l'aide et à la technologie des Etats-Unis, donnent désormais à l'armée un avantage décisif. Manuel Marulanda était un paysan. Il est remplacé par Alfonso Cano, que les médias présentent comme l'idéologue des FARC, chef de file supposé des modérés au sein de l'organisation. Mais, selon le général Mario Montoya, qui dirige l'armée de terre : "Il ne faut pas se faire d'illusions, Alfonso Cano est tout aussi terroriste que les autres." "Seule la pression militaire pourra contraindre les FARC à négocier", juge Marta Lucia Ramirez, ancien ministre de la défense. Elle veut croire "qu'Alfonso Cano, un homme intelligent et cultivé, va comprendre qu'il n'a d'autres choix que de négocier très vite la libération des otages". "Les FARC préféreront se faire exterminer plutôt que de négocier en position de faiblesse", affirme Esteban, un ex-guérillero qui a déserté après dix-sept ans passés dans le maquis. Il doute que les chefs guérilleros se sentent vraiment menacés. "Pourquoi accepteraient-ils de négocier avec un gouvernement fragilisé par les scandales politiques ?", s'interroge-t-il. Une trentaine de députés de la majorité sont sous les verrous, soupçonnés d'avoir entretenu des liens avec les milices paramilitaires d'extrême droite. En rappelant que "quarante-quatre ans de léninisme ont forgé une culture politique solide", le déserteur juge que "l'unité des FARC n'est pas menacée par la disparition de Manuel Marulanda". Mais Alfonso Cano saura-t-il imposer son autorité aux autres membres du secrétariat et aux 9 000 combattants de base que compte encore l'organisation ? Confronté au défi de la succession, il est peu probable que le nouveau chef des FARC prenne à court terme le risque d'un revirement sur le dossier des otages. De l'avis des observateurs, les risques de fragmentation des FARC sont réels. Répartis sur le territoire national, isolés les uns des autres, les différents bataillons pourraient être tentés de jouer la carte de l'autonomie. "Les fronts qui détiennent des otages pourraient alors être tentés de les négocier au meilleur prix, sans consulter la direction", pointe un fonctionnaire du ministère de la défense. Un scénario qui n'est pas forcément encourageant pour les familles des otages. Comme le note Juan Carlos Lecompte, "c'est paradoxalement la force des FARC qui a, jusqu'à présent, garanti la sécurité de leurs victimes".
Marie Delcas, Le Monde, 31.05.08 |
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