Lettre de la Terre promise et sainte

Ces dernières semaines, on assiste en Israël à une recrudescence de la ségrégation des femmes venant des milieux ultra-orthodoxes juifs. Mais je commencerais par une autocritique qui s'impose: nous nous sommes endormis sur des "acquis" qu'on supposait définitifs et nous nous sommes trompés.

L'imagination maladive des intégristes se déploie ces derniers temps comme des ailes de vautours au-dessus de la liberté de vivre ensemble dans une entente qui convient à un état démocratique. "Des oiseaux rapaces" tout de noir vêtus, nous envient, à nous femmes, le peu de place gagnée dans la cité avec tant de difficultés et de luttes.

Une fillette de 8 ans a été agressée parce qu'elle n'était pas habillée assez décemment, une jeune femme est poussée violemment au fond du bus, une soldate se voit interdire une place assise dans un bus, sur des murs des pancartes indiquent: "Trottoirs pour hommes seulement", pour les femmes de l'autre côté, à une manifestation culturelle de l'Armée, des soldats intégristes sortent en claquant les portes pendant qu'un chœur de femmes chante, à la Knesseth, pendant un Colloque sur les problèmes sociaux en Israël, un religieux quitte la salle pour ne pas entendre une femme parler à la tribune.

Vous voulez encore des exemples? Il y en a plein! On le savait mais, comme vous autres, chers amis, on a fait semblant de ne pas le savoir…

Les gens de bonne volonté, des laïcs aussi bien que des religieux, (car ils ne sont pas tous fous et extrémistes), se sont réunis pour une manifestation contre les intégristes. Même Shimon Peres, en tant que Président de l'Etat, est venu à la télé pour appeler les gens à sortir dans les rues, chose rare pour un Président qui, normalement, ne devrait pas être d'un côté ou de l'autre.

Or, mes chers amis, depuis des siècles sans nombre on nous a présenté les religions – et je parle maintenant des trois monothéismes – comme une didactique de l'excellence… La Loi de Moïse, le Sermon sur la Montagne de Jésus ou la Charia des musulmans, voilà autant d'enseignements exemplaires qui avaient pour but de changer l'être humain et le rendant meilleur, plus juste, plus attentif à son prochain, plus spirituel surtout!

Et alors on a le droit de poser cette question à messieurs les religieux de toutes les religions et sectes du monde: comment se fait-il qu'après des siècles de cet exceptionnel enseignement religieux, vous n'êtes pas encore délivrés de vos instincts, de vos haines, de vos désirs débridés, de votre ignominie? On se serait attendu, chez nous, pauvres laïcs pécheurs et malheureux abandonnés de Dieu, que vous soyez meilleurs que nous, que vous représentiez pour nous un exemple à suivre.

Mais rien! Relisez le Décalogue, s'il vous plaît! Vos instincts sont donc encore plus noirs que vos habits si vous avez besoin de couvrir les femmes de la tête aux pieds, de ne pas les écouter, de les maltraiter afin de ne pas succomber à leurs charmes. Mais dites-moi, toi, le grand héros qui t'es attaqué à une gosse de 8 ans, crois-toi que le bon Dieu est sourd-muet comme toi? Quelque part dans la Bible – tu connais ce livre, je suppose! – il est écrit que lorsque Dieu créa l'être humain "homme et femme Il le créa"… C'est tout au début du livre, dans l'Introduction, parmi les histoires avec les oiseaux du ciel et les autres animaux qui eux, ne peuvent certainement pas dominer leurs instincts, mais nous…

Bref, nous nous sommes endormis en veillant sur les libertés acquises. Nous, les femmes et les hommes de tous les pays. Nous nous sommes laissés aller en parlant des "droits de l'homme", concept transformé ensuite en "droits des humains" enfin d'englober aussi les femmes. Mais cela ne suffit pas, notre laïcisme sans profondeur et sans vraie prise sur les réalités de tous les jours doit être revu, nous devons revisiter nos textes et continuer notre lutte d'une autre façon. Le religieux a été souvent occulté, méprisé, d'autres fois complètement oublié du discours social et politique comme s'il n'existait pas. Mais il existe et il faut l'affronter.

Parce que je m'y connais un peu, j'ose vous dire, chers amis, que les trois monothéismes sont des religions totalitaires, que toutes les femmes ne veulent pas être couvertes comme chez les intégristes, les femmes des Talibans non plus, et que l'Europe qui se croyait à l'abri de l'intégrisme ne l'est pas du tout et qu'en fin de compte les Inquisitions se réveillent. Les Inquisiteurs de toutes les nations sont depuis belle lurette au travail.

André Malraux avait dit que le "XXIème siècle sera religieux ou ne sera pas"… Religieux, il l'est, mais certainement pas dans le sens que Malraux le pensait…

Bluma Finkelstein

Haïfa – Israël

http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4167668,00.html

European Winter

   There are places where threats from outside (real or imagined - or both) strengthen the consciousness of common values. In these days we Europeans may feel scolded for being self-convinced, wealthy, for taking many things for granted, for not being able to manage crises. Lack of historical memories? But you just have to meet older people who tell you about the times of the last wars. Even if we were not directly involved, we suffered from various material restrictions. The worst of them was censorship under the regime, that supported Franco's army during the Spanish Civil war and flirted with both sides during WW II. The documentary by João Canijo "Fantasia Lusitana" shows that flirt openly. The Lisbon harbour was busy around the clock, welcoming the vessels of the Allies but also of the German Fleet, shipping the refugees towards the American Eldorado. They all met in Lisbon at the early forties, but hardly came in touch. My city was a marked space and a waste land at the same time.
   We surely welcome the Arab spring, but what we badly need for the moment is a shade of light in the winter. This light comes from dialogue, from stretched hands, from living together as life students."Image-making as global policy is indeed something new in the huge arsenal of human follies recorded in history", wrote Hannah Arendt in the year of 1975, shortly before her death.
   But looking at the naked branches of a winter tree, we may begin imagining the small buds from the next spring. And enjoy the rumour of the sea waves.

TS

Sami Michael: I am an optimistic

The famous Israeli writer Sami Michael was invited by the young leaders of the social protest in Israel to give a speech in the rally and he spoke in Hebrew and in Arabic. The Rally in Haifa was very special thanks to the cooperation between Jews and Arabs.

At age 85, it’s hard to be optimistic but the young generation today makes me feel optimistic.

It is the first time in Israeli history that the fuel and engine joined together, it is the first time that the middle class connects with the rest of the people and it’s the first time that Ashkenazim, Sephardim, Arabs, Jews, Muslims, Christians, Bahais, blacks and whites unite in a common struggle. I don’t remember anything like this in Haifa or elsewhere across Israel.

The impact of the Middle East has reached us, too.

Thanks to the shiny eyes of the young people here I am an optimistic. You, all the young people, don't know what a miracle you are realizing. You by your hands are reshaping anew Israeli society.

It is not enough to demand justice, you have to fight for it. Every revolution movement need continuous regeneration and vision, therefore I am suggesting to pitch a tent in front of the home of every parliament member, 10 protest tents of the home of every minister. In front of the prime –minister home don't pitch any tent, because he is totally detached. We have to help the parliament members and the ministers to remember that they are there for serve the people but not to be the masters of the land. They have to concern the interest of the people but not the rich, not the capital.

Today thanks to you I am an optimistic. Thanks to you I feel as I am twenty years old.

La Métamorphose de Mahmoud Abbas

On le croyait mou, sans grande envergure, facilement manipulable. À la mort de Yasser Arafat, il avait été élu Président de l'Autorité Palestinienne par défaut en quelque sorte, parce que d'autres mieux placés que lui avaient été éliminés, soit par les Israéliens, soit par une faction rivale palestinienne. Mais parfois un homme politique se montre à la hauteur d'un événement historique qui agit comme un révélateur. Ce fut le cas de Mahmoud Abbas, et la chrysalide s'est métamorphosée en un très beau papillon. C'est ainsi un homme transformé par l'Histoire qu'on voit sur les photos remettre à Ban Ki Moon sa demande de reconnaissance par l'ONU du futur Etat palestinien, et ensuite à la tribune de l'Assemblée Générale de l'ONU, faire son discours d'une voix forte et sûre. On ne peut que s'en réjouir.

Zeki Ergas
SG, Pen Suisse Romande

Declaration of the Writers for Peace Committee at the 77th Congress of PEN International in Belgrade, September 2011

We live in an age where a broad and systemic meaning is attributed to the idea of peace. It is conceived as the ability to confront conflicts and a willingness to shepherd open and potential violence into forms of dialogue, in spite of the difficulties involved in such an approach.

This is why our mission as writers is complex, as we must promote a culture of peace not only through our writings, but also as simple citizens of the world. Wherever there is oppression, colonization, or illegal occupation, injustice and violence, whatever the form it takes, peace is a challenge, which we must take up by helping to promote the power of citizens who are confronting the brutality of arbitrary systems.

Therefore, we stress the urgent need to have a viable negotiated solution between all the parties involved in Israel and Palestine, so that their peoples can live in self-determination, liberty, peace and security. A solution must be negotiated for those regions where respect for civil rights and self-determination cannot prevail until an agreement has been reached by the parties.

At the same time we are convinced that the solution to the cultural, linguistic, ethnic, social, and political conflicts in Tibet, in the land of the Uyghurs, Kurds, and Basques, in the Balkans, Mexico, and in so many other countries cannot be found without dialogue.

The Lugano Declaration of 1987, approved at the 50th Congress of International PEN, says that “There can be no freedom without peace, nor peace without freedom.” It also states that “terrorism must be condemned, whether it comes from states or individuals or whether it claims to be justified within the framework of a struggle for liberation.”

Our century should also pay urgent attention to the violent ways through which financial speculation has brought about the impoverishment of a large part of the world population, as well as the increased exploitation of natural resources, endamaging the global climate, and the violent attacks on nature and the environment. It is in this sense that the commitment to making peace always has a political aspect insofar as it is public; it should always be a part of human rights that have as their aim a self-determination that is responsible and cooperative. Nonetheless, it is our deep conviction that all the national PEN centres and above all the members of the Writers for Peace Committee (WfPC) should condemn terrorism and violence in all its forms. Indeed, the WfPC has kept the symbol of “the pen which conquers the sword.”,

Reading Norway, in quiet mourning

Quoting the lines written by Anders Heger (the whole letter can be read under the link
http://www.norskpen.no/English/EnglishDetails/tabid/515/ArticleID/1088/Default.aspx),
one might ask whether sheer fanaticism, megalomania, xenophobia, need to outbreak in such a repulsing form in order to give peace a great chance. This is tragedy, and we are not used to tragedy, even if we perceive it in the satellite news, and not only in Oslo or Utoya:

I really wish you could have seen my city these days. So much is different, we are closer to each other, I am searching for a word to describe the atmosphere, and I can't find anything better than "dignity". Like when the mayor, the king and the prime minister all gave the same message: We are going to meet this the only way we can: With more openness, more democracy, more trust. Or the young survivor who summed it up, still standing shivering with a blanket around her: When one man can have such a hate, imagine how much love we all can create.

Each one of the killed young people could be our son, our daughter. But this is not the case of the assassin, who needs so badly media cover. Let us not give it to him. Let us further ask what we have done to fill the empty spaces between our homes, where we have raised peace-loving children, who respect all living beings, and the hate incubators. The issue may be more complicated that the insight that such creatures, which can kill young people in cold blood, had not enough love. It does not matter so much what such beings failed to get. It matters rather where our responsibility – not guilt – lies from now on.

Is it suitable to say now “All of us are Norwegians”? I do not know. Anyhow, I do not feel this way. And this has nothing to do with a deep concern about what happened to those wonderfully engaged girls and boys. Neither can we ever be sure that such a dreadful action would not happen elsewhere – it did often happen elsewhere, it will happen again elsewhere. Even next to our home – let us keep being realistic, most of all in order not to panic unnecessarily.

Have we become more vulnerable since July 22? I cannot answer to that – but would just like to wish that we have become more attentive to each sign of lack of communication, of isolation, of misunderstanding, all the situations that are thresholds of violence outbursts. But after the waves of violence, it is in our hands to keep moving within the waves of care for the world.

TS

Statement of protest against the situation of the freedom of expression in Turkey

Having observed with great anxiety the situation of the freedom of expression in Turkey,

we, writers representing more than 30 PEN centres from all over the world, gathered at the General Assembly of the Writers for Peace Committee of International PEN, held on the 7th of May 2011 in Bled (Slovenia),

strongly protest against measures infringing freedom of expression in Turkey and demand the immediate release of all detained journalists, writers and translators.

Moreover, we emphasize that the internet is a major area for the freedom of expression and this freedom must not be censored.

Edvard Kovač
Chair of the Writers for Peace Committee
PEN International