Quand un historien s'amuse

Fabrice D'Almeida est un historien français qu'il faut surveiller du coin de l'oeil : toujours prêt à étonner par une audace ou une originalité où pétille le talent et l'humour. Il s'est livré dans les colonnes de Libération à un exercice convenu, se soumettre aux conditions du bac et rédiger un sujet d'histoire.

Et si on refaisait la conférence de Brioni ?

L'historien Fabrice D'Almeida a planché sur l'un des sujets d'histoire-géo proposés ce mercredi matin aux candidats au bac. Exercice de style totalement libre. Voici sa copie.

Fabrice D'Almeida, historien enseignant à Paris II Assas et co-auteur, avec Anthony Rowley, du livre Et si on refaisait l’histoire, s'est prêté au jeu proposé par Libération.fr: plancher sur l'un des sujets de l'épreuve d'histoire-géo du bac. Avec en ligne de mire: se faire plaisir, laisser libre cours à l'imagination. L'idée n'est pas de proposer un corrigé du bac mais un exercice de style, sans aucune contrainte.

Sujet choisi: L'étude de texte sur l'extrait de communiqué de Brioni, publié à l'issue de la rencontre entre Nasser, Nehru et Tito le 19 juillet 1956. (Lire le texte en version pdf ici)

Que trois dirigeants d’horizons aussi différents que Nehru, Tito et Nasser décident de se retrouver dans une jolie petite île au large de l’Istrie, voilà qui pouvait étonner les journalistes en cette année 1956. Certes, à Bandoung l’année précédente, un rapprochement s’était esquissé afin de fédérer les pays qui refusaient l’alternative géopolitique entre communisme du Bloc de l’Est et capitalisme du monde occidental. Mais le rassemblement paraissait fragile.

Or, le 19 juillet 1956, au terme de la discussion, un idéal politique a émergé, celui du non-alignement. Et de fait, les trois figures qui ont produit le texte final du communiqué s’inscrivent toutes en rupture. Tito, l’hôte de la réunion sur cette île où il apprécie de prendre ses vacances, tout le premier.

Dirigeant de la résistance communiste contre l’occupation nazie pendant la Seconde Guerre mondiale, le maître de la Yougoslavie a abandonné le stalinisme et créé son propre modèle de développement. Il rejette les fantasmes soviétiques sur l’industrie lourde, fier de défendre la ruralité de son pays. Nehru, le disciple de Gandhi, a, lui, effectué une double rupture : avec l’empire britannique en menant le combat pour l’indépendance, et avec le pacifisme ensuite en assumant le conflit avec le Pakistan, depuis 1947. Nasser, enfin, vient de prendre la tête de l’Egypte en brisant une monarchie complice des Britanniques et des Français et cherche à imposer une république panarabe.

Un projet pour la planète
Or, la portée du message que les trois hommes lancent au monde va bien au-delà de leurs conflits et intérêts particuliers. Leur proposition de non-alignement est un projet pour la planète. Il se définit autour de trois «dé» qui structurent le communiqué : désarmement, développement et, surtout, décolonisation (aujourd'hui nous ajouterions décroissance). En les appliquant, les relations internationales prendraient un nouvel essor, propice à l’établissement d’une véritable communauté de nations sous l’égide de l’ONU. Sans un tel programme, les pires catastrophes sont envisageables.

Le désarmement? Voilà une première solution pour sauver l’humanité. La glaciation nucléaire est entrée dans la conscience historique des hommes des années 1950. Le souvenir d’Hiroshima est présent dans les esprits. Les actualités filmées ont, dès 1945, montré la violence des impacts des bombes atomiques. Les Etats-Unis et l’Union soviétique sont susceptibles dans leur affrontement d’user de cette arme effrayante. Leur course aux armements entraîne mécaniquement une prolifération nucléaire dont nul ne sait quand elle s’arrêtera. L’Inde, surtout, avec son puissant potentiel scientifique, est lucide sur l’avance que donne un tel arsenal. La peur caractérise aussi les peuples qui cherchent à échapper à l’emprise coloniale.

De fait, la décolonisation est rarement pacifique. Si Nehru et la péninsule indienne ont pu marcher sans que l’occupant britannique ne déclenche une guerre totale, il n’en a pas été de même ailleurs. En Indochine, il a fallu des centaines de milliers de morts et plus de sept ans de batailles pour que naisse le Vietnam. L’Indonésie a vu l’occupant néerlandais conduire de féroces combats avant d’échapper à son emprise. Le Kenya, lui, connaît la rébellion Mau-mau contre les Britanniques.

Mais surtout, l’ONU et l’opinion internationale regardent avec horreur le développement de la répression en Algérie depuis le soulèvement de 1954. L’armée française combat le FLN de toute sa violence, en appelant au contingent et aux auxiliaires recrutés sur place. Elle regarde l’Egypte de Nasser, ami du combat algérien, avec une haine sourde. Il faudrait briser cette base arrière. Cela servirait de leçon à la Tunisie et au Maroc, auxquels il a fallu concéder l’indépendance, sous le vocable pudique d’autonomie.

Brioni, ce petit lieu de paradis
Le développement, enfin, apparaît comme une nécessité absolue. La pauvreté est visible partout dans le monde. Les pays occidentaux, malgré leurs indigents, découvrent sidérés les effets massifs de la malnutrition. Les spécialistes de la toute jeune discipline démographique lancent les premières alertes sur les risques de surpopulation et produisent des rapports sur les ressources inégales. L’opulence, depuis peu retrouvée en Europe de l’Ouest, est un modèle que l’on croit alors exportable. Coopération disent les non-alignés qui sont conscients des carences de leurs pays. Car ils manquent encore de cadres capables d’alimenter une industrie ou d’inventer des solutions inédites. Cela viendra, malgré les résistances des grandes puissances, qui, tard, comprendront que, pour commercer, il ne faut pas être seul.

Plus de cinquante ans sont passés et Brioni, ce petit lieu de paradis, n’a plus l’heur d’être la résidence d’un dictateur. Tito est enterré et avec lui a disparu la Yougoslavie. Nasser s’est éteint laissant un monde arabe déchiré et brutal. Le parti du congrès de Nehru a, lui, connu l’alternance et les assassinats successifs de ses héritiers. Leur hypocrisie sur les inégalités sociales (castes), politiques (clientélisme) et ethniques a été fatal au rêve pacifique qu’ils tissaient. Pourtant, de cette lointaine époque, émerge encore un message de solidarité et d’attention aux autres qui conserve une étonnante vigueur. Les hyper puissances comme la Chine et les Etats-Unis ont pu remplacer les superblocs, elles devront un jour renoncer à leur supériorité et ployer devant le droit international afin qu’émerge une paix juste pour chacun.

Par Fabrice d’Almeida, professeur à l’Université Panthéon-Assas (Paris 2), Institut français de Presse. Dernier ouvrage paru, avec Anthony Rowley, Et si on refaisait l’histoire, Odile Jacob, 2009.

Guerre atomique

L'abri antinucléaire de Kelvedon Hatch dans l'Essex.

Que se serait-il passé en cas de crise nucléaire grave ? C'est un secret encore bien gardé en France ou en Russie. En revanche, l'historien Peter Hennessy a obtenu la publication des rapports britanniques qui organisent en détail la survie du pays en cas de conflagration.

Le journaliste Stephen Bates publie une intéressante recension de cet ouvrage dans les colonnes du Guardian de ce matin.

War Book reveals how Britain planned to cope with nuclear attack

Historian Peter Hennessy persuaded officials to release document kept ready for use from 1960s to 1990s

New details of how Britain would have been governed in the event of a nuclear war from the 1960s into the 1990s have been disclosed with the publication of the secret War Book.

The document, over 16 chapters, gives precise plans and instructions for what would have been done by officialdom during the build-up to an international confrontation and after the bombs started falling.

There are indications that aspects of the arrangements have been adapted for use during other, domestic, emergencies since the cold war, including the fuel protests in 2000.

Although some of the plans have been revealed before – including earlier this year the scripts that would have been broadcast by the BBC in the event of a nuclear war, instructing the public not to panic – governments of the period left nothing to chance, including the censoring of private mail.

The country would have been divided into 12 regions, each governed by cabinet ministers with wide powers, aided by senior military officers, chief constables and judges and based in bunkers. Other senior figures would have retreated to a central government shelter under the Cotswolds.

The plans all assumed that the confrontation would be with the Soviet Union. Among the possible scenarios spelled out in the autumn of 1968 was escalating tension following a Soviet moon landing and troop movements in eastern Europe.

The historian and Whitehall specialist Peter Hennessy, who persuaded officials to release the document, said that the book spelled out what would have happened in detail.

Capable d'abriter 600 personnes, l'abri antinucléaire de Kelvedon Hatch était un des éélments clef du réseau de défense antiaérienne britannique ROTOR.

Hennessy, professor of contemporary history at Queen Mary University of London, told the BBC's Today programme: "The surprise really is the width and magnitude of it – 16 chapters to get the nation from a peacetime footing to a total war footing. It is a remarkable enterprise.

"It was done by people who had to do it. It must have been one of the most terrible jobs in Whitehall during the cold war. It literally was requiring people in immense security to peer into the abyss."

The book apparently formed the basis for regular exercises every two years by senior civil servants, with daily internal briefings, the organisation of national preparedness schemes including the stockpiling of food and building materials for shelters and, as the threat grew more imminent, the removal of art treasures from London to Scotland and the emptying of hospitals of all but the most acutely ill.

David Young, a former Ministry of Defence civil servant who took part in the mock exercises, told the programme: "R-hour would be the final release of nuclear weapons. There may have been an earlier tactical use … but R-hour was [when] everything that's left goes. That's not an easy decision to participate in. Even though you know it is just an exercise, it makes you think."

Young said ministers were not encouraged to take part in the exercises: "They would be disinclined to play by the rules. Some of them quite liked talking, so you'd get behind time and there would be a fear that if they showed a reluctance to do what the military believed was necessary, that this would weaken deterrence."

Another former civil servant, Sir David Ormand, who became permanent secretary at the Home Office, said he took part in exercises into the 1990s.

"My favourite measure, the one which always aroused a lot of debate … was the introduction of censorship for private correspondence. You can imagine that was something that ministers would only agree to right at the very end when it was clear that war was inevitable."

He said that some of the contingency plans had been adapted and brought into use during the 2000 fuel protests, which threatened to cut off petrol supplies: "We took over the bunker and installed a chief constable and representatives of the oil companies and some civil servants and we built from scratch a crisis management machine. That's exactly what you don't want to have to do in a crisis, because a lot of time's spent just organising who's going to talk to who and how it's going to work."

Young told the programme: "I participated in one R-hour in the early hours of the morning and I remember reporting on it afterwards through the newly installed closed circuit TV and foolishly saying, because of the day of the week, 'There we are, R-hour, sic transit gloria Thursday'.

"The exercise was taken very seriously and jokes were frowned on, even if they were elegant puns on Latin phrases - 'so passes the world's glory'. I subsequently learned the foreign secretary, Alec Douglas Home, said: 'Who is that very foolish young man?'"

Visiter également : www.secretnuclearbunker.com

Un journaliste vend la mèche

Sorious Samura, un journaliste courageux.

Sorious Samura, un journaliste africain travaillant pour la presse britannique s'est intéressé au phénomène des viols en bande organisée après avoir appris que sur 92 violeurs interpellés entre 2006 et 2009, 87 étaient non-blancs. En revanche, il ne donne pas l'appartenance raciale des victimes, mais il semble probable qu'elles soient elles aussi majoritairement noires.

Pour quelles raisons ce crime qui en Afrique n'est associé qu'à des situations extrêmes de guerre se répand-il au Royaume-Uni et pour quelles raisons se concentre-t-il parmi les jeunes noirs, mineurs et jeunes adultes ?

Dans son enquête pour The Independent, le journaliste s'est entretenu avec de nombreux jeunes noirs et a découvert consterné qu'ils entretiennent à l'égard des femmes et de la sexualité une attitude très dévalorisante, aux antipodes de ce que les médias diffusent comme idéologie, faite de féminisme et d'homophilie.

Un des problèmes mis en lumière par le journaliste est l'impossibilité de prendre des mesures spécifiques car elles vont à l'encontre de l'idéologie égalitaire en vigueur dans les services sociaux et dans la presse.

Je vous invite à regarder ce reportage sur Channel 4 demain lundi 22 juin à 20 H. Remarquons que sur le site de Channel 4, il n'est à aucun moment question du problème spécifique posé à la communauté noirs par ces viols. La chaîne ne parle que de « jeunes ».

On peut lire ici, ici et ici des articles concernant des cas de viols collectifs. A l'inverse de la presse de gauche, les journaux populaires publient la photo des violeurs.

Gang rape: Is it a race issue?

A high proportion of such attacks appears to be carried out by young black men, according to Metropolitan Police statistics. Sorious Samura investigates this horrendous crime – and what it says about Britain today


In 1999 I witnessed a gang rape in Sierra Leone. I was forced to watch a group of rebel soldiers taking it in turns to rape a young girl in front of an audience of jeering men. It was the height of the civil conflict and rape had become a devastating weapon of war. When I moved to Britain I believed I had escaped such horrific sexual violence. As my Dispatches investigation tomorrow night shows, I was mistaken. Gang rape is happening here – and what I have found most disturbing as an African is that a disproportionate number of these attacks are being carried out by black or mixed-race young men.

Towards the end of last year, police and child welfare experts working on Channel 4's Street Weapons Commission told us of their concerns about gang rape. Then two big cases hit the headlines.

In December, nine schoolboys, some as young as 13 at the time of the attack, were convicted of raping a 14-year-old girl. She was dragged between tower blocks in Hackney where she was threatened with a knife, hit and raped during an ordeal that lasted an hour and a half – some of which was filmed on mobile phones. In January, three men were convicted of gang raping a 16-year-old with learning disabilities for two hours before dousing her with caustic soda in an effort to get rid of the evidence.

How prevalent is this crime and why it is happening in Britain? Despite the seriousness of the crime, I was amazed to discover that no national statistics exist: gang rape is simply not recorded as a separate crime category. So over a period of several months we set about collating our own.

We approached the Crown Prosecution Service, the Association of Chief Police Officers, all 50 police forces, crown courts, barristers and rape referral centres to try to establish the numbers.

One of the few police forces to have begun recording the figures of reported gang rape is the Metropolitan Police. In 2008 alone, they received reports of 85 gang rapes. Using the Met's definition of gang rape – those involving three or more perpetrators – we began to look at the number of convictions. We tracked down 29 cases, from January 2006 to March 2009, in which a total of 92 young people were convicted of involvement in gang rape.

One fact stood out. Of those convicted, 66 were black or mixed race, 13 were white and the remainder were from other countries including Afghanistan, Iraq and Libya.

Clearly this is not a crime exclusive to black communities, but I found it impossible to ignore the fact that such a high proportion were committed by black and mixed-race young men. As a black man as well as a journalist, I wanted to understand what lay behind such attacks. So I spoke to victims, groups of black and mixed-race teenagers, youth and social workers and community leaders.

The groups of young men I met in London expressed some profoundly disturbing attitudes towards girls and sex. The boys explained how they make arrangements for "line-ups" in which one girl has oral sex with up to six or seven of them at one time. These arrangements might be made at school or on mobile phones.

Sometimes these girls initially consent because they want to be popular. But these events can spiral into rape because the boys consider that any girl who is prepared to agree to a line-up can be considered fair game. One boy told me: "If she wants to go and meet a bag of boys then she's probably a jezzie [slut], and if she's going to a house it's over – she's going to get beaten [have sex]."

In other instances, as some of the victims in our film describe, girls can unwittingly walk into a trap, innocently visiting someone's house to listen to music or watch a film only to discover that a group of boys are lying in wait. Or they might be hanging out with friends in a park and suddenly realise they have become surrounded by a group of boys intent on sex.

For both boys and girls, the line between this sort of group sex and rape seems to be blurred. A girl might agree to have oral sex with two or three boys but then be ordered to have sex with six or seven. The teenage girls I met told me that boys simply don't understand what rape is. And yet this is a crime that can ruin lives and is punishable by life imprisonment.

Occasionally gang rape is used to punish a girl for minor transgressions against gang members. In one of my most shocking interviews, I met a girl who admitted she had helped to set up girls for gang rape. As the girlfriend of a gang member, she organised these rapes, partly out of fear and partly to fit in.

She admitted she was terrified of being raped herself and had walked away when witnessing a girl being gang-raped at a party because she feared she might be next: "There was just loads of boys and the girl's tights were ripped up, like, she was bleeding as well, because I think she was a virgin, and they were just taking turns on her basically, and she was crying, and I didn't get involved because I thought if I get involved they're gonna turn on me."

The victims' descriptions of their attacks are horrific. One young victim likened her attack to being "pulled and pushed around like a rag doll", while another 14-year-old girl described her ordeal when she was gang raped by a total of nine boys who told her that she was not the only girl they had attacked. In that case, nine boys were subsequently convicted of raping her. The youngest perpetrator was just 12 years old.

I found there was concern among black communities about this violence. The Rev Joyce Daley, from the Black Parents Forum in Hackney, told me that gang rape is not a rare or one-off phenomenon. It is happening on a regular basis. She said: "It could actually explode on our very streets." Steve Griffith, a youth worker in King's Cross, said: "I see too much abuse of young women on the streets."

Gang rape, while constituting only a tiny percentage of all rapes in the UK, is a horrible reality in this country. The nature of the crime is so appalling that much more research needs to be carried out into its causes. But what seems evident from my investigation is that the key to preventing it will be changing the way young men view women and the kind of group sexual activity they are engaging in at such a young age.

Sheldon Thomas, a youth worker in Brixton, said: "We've got a generation that looks at sex as if it's nothing, and treats disrespecting women as if it's nothing. These guys are like 13, 14 and 15, and their actual attitudes towards young girls – towards sex – is mind-blowing. It's actually leaving you asking: where are their morals, where are their values?"

Sorious Samura presents 'Dispatches: Rape in the City' on Channel 4 tomorrow night at 8pm

Les sacrifices des soldats de 1940

Dans son blog Secret défense, le journaliste de Libération Jean-Dominique Merchet a publié un bref compte rendu de l'ouvrage 100 000 morts oubliés de Jean-Pierre Richardot.

Nous invitons nos lecteur à se rendre sur cette page pour lire le commentaire des lecteurs.

Les soldats oubliés du 18 juin 40

Jean-Pierre Richardot, journaliste à la retraite et historien, vient de publier un livre retraçant les combats de l'armée française en mai-juin 1940. Comme l'avait fait Roger Bruge avant lui, il rend hommage à ces soldats qui se sont beaucoup mieux battu qu'une légende, inspirée de la propagande nazie puis vichyste, le laisse souvent croire. En 47 jours de bataille, 100.000 d'entre eux sont morts. Mais surtout, l'armée allemande a perdu 2.000 hommes tous les jours (tués, blessés, prisonniers, disparus) durant ces combats. Preuve s'il en était besoin que l'armée française et ses alliés n'étaient pas composée que de fuyards...

Le 18 juin, une bataille oubliée s'est déroulée sur le canal de la Marne au Rhin. Jean-Pierre Richardot a bien voulu raconter cet épisode pour les lecteurs de ce blog : "Le 18 juin est l'anniversaire de la grande bataille du Canal de la Marne au Rhin. Les derniers chars français valides sont rassemblés et lancés contre les Allemands dans une contre-attaque sur un front de 125 kilomètres entre Nancy et Sarrebourg. Les Allemands ne croyaient faire qu'une bouchée des Français, mais ils sont très surpris en perdant dans cette seule journée du 18 juin plus de 2000 tués. Il y a environ mille morts du côté français. La veille, 17 juin midi, le maréchal Pétain, nouveau chef du gouvernement, a déclaré sa volonté d'arrêter le combat. Son allocution n'a aucune influence sur la volonté de lutte des soldats du 18 juin : troupes de forteresse, coloniaux, grenadiers polonais. Européens et Africains se battent avec la rage du désespoir. Ils n'ont pas connaissance de l'appel du 18 juin, qui ne sera diffusé de Londres que le soir. Ces combattants sont en quelque sorte gaullistes avant l'heure officielle. Nos soldats étaient partisans de la poursuite du combat, partout où cela était possible, et tout particulièrement dans les airs, sur mer et en Afrique du Nord. J'ai découvert des sacs de courrier postal montrant que de nombreux civils des différentes provinces ont cru jusqu'à la demande d'armistice au mythe d'une nouvelle bataille de la Marne, comme en 1914 "

Jean-Pierre Richardot "100.000 morts oubliés" Le Cherche-midi, 18 euros

Franchement, écrire que les combattants du 18 juin sont en quelque sorte « des gaullistes avant l'heure » est une réécriture de l'histoire qui est risible.

Curieusement, le journaliste ne mentionne aucune des thèses conspirationnistes de l'auteur pour expliquer l'armistice et qui justifient probablement que l'ouvrage ait été publié par le Cherche-Midi éditeur.

Enfin, mentionnons que le chiffre des 100 000 morts se réfère probablement aux morts sur une période plus longue. Les tués au combat en 1940 seraient plutôt 85 000 avec une évaluation des blessés oscillant entre 120 000 et 250 000.

De leur côté, les Belges ont eu 7500 morts, les Hollandais, 2890 et les Britanniques 3457.
Le nombre des tués allemands serait de 45 000.

Eta tue une nouvelle fois

L'attentat de l'ETA a fait la une de la presse en Espagne. A gauche, Gara, quotidien d'extrême-gauche, porte-voix de l'ETA et de sa mouvance. A droite, El Mundo, quotidien de la droite libérale espagnole.

Le groupe terroriste d'extrême gauche ETA vient de tuer dans un attentat spectaculaire à la voiture piégée à Arrigorriaga, Eduardo Puelles Garcia, un des chefs de la lutte antiterroriste.

L'explosion semble en effet avoir été provoquée par une « bombe ventouse» fixée sous le véhicule. Elle s'est produite vers les 9 heures du matin sur un parking, probablement au moment où le policier démarrait son véhicule. L'explosion a provoqué un incendie qui s'est ensuite propagé à d'autres voitures.

«En ces moments si durs et difficiles, je veux dire à la famille du policier qu'elle a toute notre affection et celle de l'immense majorité de la société basque qui ne supporte plus les assassins et canailles de l'ETA», a déclaré en fin de matinée le chef du gouvernement régional basque Patxi Lopez au parlement, où les députés ont observé une minute de silence.

Cet attentat tranche avec les opérations antérieures, marquées par l'improvisation et révélant la désorganisation de la bande.

Pour la première fois depuis longtemps, une attaque terroriste a pour objectif l'appareil policier chargé de la lutte contre l'ETA.

Elle démontre que les terroristes ont conservé non seulement des capacités opérationnelles, c'est à dire la mise au point de l'engin explosif, sa fabrication et son installation, ainsi qu'une réelle capacité de collecte de l'information.

Le policier a été non seulement identifié, localisé mais suivi durant une période de près d'un an, probablement par un voisin ou par une personne en mesure de se déplacer pour pointer ses mouvements.

Le choix de cette cible est, en se plaçant dans la problématique des terroristes, excellent. Il porte un coup sévère aux forces de l'ordre sans pour autant susciter la même réprobation que l'assassinat ignoble du jeune conseiller municipal Miguel Angel Blanco.

Toutefois, la situation globale a changé.

Pour la première fois, le chef du gouvernement régional basque s'est placé en première ligne pour manifester sa réprobation contre l'ETA. Pour la première fois, les uniformes des trois forces de l'ordre qui interviennent au Pays basque ont été vue ensemble aux côtés du cercueil du policier assassiné.

Cette opération tragiquement réussie n'est pas un signe d'une nouvelle vitalité pour l'ETA mais plutôt un chant du cygne. L'organisation, en dépit de tous ses efforts, est sur la pente descendante car son substrat politique et social se délite.

Les opérations policières tant en France comme en Espagne portent des coups constants à l'ETA et l'organisation terroriste doit sans cesse renouveler son personnel avec des recrues chaque fois plus jeunes et moins expérimentées.

Modérer le désir

Pour protéger la vertu de leurs enseignants mâles, un lycée de Chester veut obliger Chloe (à gauche, 14 ans) and Stacey Tate (à droite, onze ans), ici en compagnie de leur mère Donna Parkinson, à allonger leurs jupes ou à porter des pantalons.

Les femmes ont le terrible pouvoir de susciter le désir des hommes. C'est pour cela que les sociétés musulmane et juive, par exemple, prescrivent des règles pour priver le sexe dit faible de ces armes de séduction massive.

Les sociétés chrétiennes ont également eu des règles de cette nature (qui ont survécu dans les habits religieux) mais elles ont progressivement été oubliées.

Mais, dans l'hystérie actuelle qui conduit à un tisser un cocon hyperprotecteur autour des enfants, certaines écoles tombent dans des excès des plus ridicules. Le Daily Mail rapporte que le lycée anglais Upton-by-Chester High School près de Chester a décidé de proscrire les jupes trop courtes car elles interdisent dans les faits l'usage des escaliers aux professeurs mâles de peur que leurs yeux, par inadvertance, puissent contempler l'arrière-train des jeunes filles trop court vêtues.

Cette décision a soulevé un vent de révolte parmi certaines jeunes filles désireuses de préserver l'éternel féminin de toute mise sous tutelle.

Le journaliste a rencontré Chloe et Stacey Tate, deux sœurs qui refusent d'allonger leurs jupes au risque que leur beauté fasse tomber les professeurs dans les rets de leurs charmes.

Je me demande si elle ne sont ou trop naives ou trop présomptueuses

A vous de juger.

Chloe et Stacey Tate refusent de porter des pantalons ou d'allonger leurs jupes.

L'autre église d'Obama

On dirait que titiller le nouveau messie interplanétaire Obama suscite bien plus de réactions que d'autres posts pourtant tout aussi à contre courant.

Mes interrogations sur l'identité religieuse de BHO m'ont conduit à creuser un peu et j'ai retrouvé la tracé de la participation du jeune Obama à un culte chrétien durant son enfance, avant d'émigrer en Indonésie avec son père adoptif.

Alors qu'il résidait à Honolulu, il a régulièrement participé aux activités dominicales de la First Unitarian Church. Toutefois, cette participation a été soigneusement cachée tant par le candidat que l'Eglise elle-même. Pourquoi ? Ce contact précoce avec le christianisme aurait pu jouer en sa faveur.

Mais voilà, alors que son adversaire, le républicain John McCain croupissait dans les geôles communistes et était torturé par les amis de Giap, le jeune Obama assistait de la main d'un de ses grands-parents (blancs) aux services religieux d'une église qui accueillait les déserteurs de l'US Army et ceux refusant le service militaire, une paroisse surnommée « la petite église rouge dans la prairie ».

Voici le long article d'Andrew Walden publié par The American Thinker. Il mérite d'être lu.

Obama's Other Controversial Church

"This is a guy (former Weatherman terror-bomber Bill Ayers) who lives in my neighborhood ... the notion that somehow as a consequence of me knowing somebody who engaged in detestable acts 40 years ago - when I was 8 years old - somehow reflects on me and my values doesn't make much sense." -- Barack Obama on the Campaign trail, 2008

As President Obama prepared to commemorate D-Day, the Associated Press dug up old details and photos to write a warm fuzzy story about the WW2 service record of Obama's maternal grandfather and grand uncle. One could conclude that the actions of these two-nearly 20 years before Obama was born--are the closest Obama ever came to uniformed US military personnel prior to launching his political career.

But Obama has a much closer military connection-one he has not talked about publicly. Had a reporter asked Obama: "So what were you doing during Bill Ayers' fugitive days?" An honest answer would be: "I was going to Sunday school at a church which had provided sanctuary to US military deserters."

While John McCain was being tortured as a prisoner of war in Hanoi, First Unitarian Church of Honolulu -- at which the elementary-age Obama would later attend Sunday school after returning from Indonesia in 1970 or 71 -- was sheltering deserters and AWOLs recruited by ‘flirty fishing' coeds from a Students for a Democratic Society (SDS) group known as "The Resistance". The deserters' exploits were front page news for months on end in mid-1969 Honolulu. They were also proudly trumpeted by the Honolulu SDS tabloid, "The Roach".

The contrast between the war hero POW and the Obama deserters' church would have made a pretty good campaign commercial. But nobody in Honolulu spoke up to claim Obama's First Unitarian connection until after Election Day. Even then it was hush-hush. As the Star-Bulletin explained December 24:

"(Rev Mike) Young, pastor of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu, could only tell his wife and a handful of church administrators that a small, private service was planned for Madelyn Payne Dunham on Dec. 23. It was very hard to keep this secret. ..."

Obama's maternal grandmother had passed away just days before the election. The story of his ties to the church began to emerge only after he attended her memorial service. They have never received wide media attention, but have been published just enough that-after being kept secret in the 2008 campaign -- this chapter of Obama's life can arguably no longer be considered a secret to be revealed in any 2012 campaign. The connection to Vietnam deserters has not been included in any of the Obama-related coverage.

Was sheltering deserters an aberration for First Unitarian Church? No. Long before anybody was thinking of Barack Obama as a Senator, much less a President, the Honolulu Star-Bulletin February 8, 2003 described First Unitarian's 2003 golden anniversary celebration complete with "Liberal Religion for 50 Years" T-shirts:

"The bumper stickers on cars outside the church gave an insight into its members' beliefs: ‘No War.' ‘If you want peace, work for justice.' ‘An eye for an eye makes the whole world blind.'


"Activism for peace and human rights causes has characterized the congregation of the First Unitarian Church of Honolulu since it was organized 50 years ago. Members were instrumental in founding the League of Women Voters and activating a local branch of the American Civil Liberties Union. It offered sanctuary to servicemen who went AWOL to avoid being sent to Vietnam. It helped launch the Save Our Constitution effort to fight the constitutional amendment on same-sex marriages....

"After leaving Hawaii to work at the Unitarian seminary in Berkeley, Calif., (Church co-founder Rosemary) Mattson and her husband were active in the international peace movement. She escorted more than 25 tours of Americans to the former Soviet Union for people-to-people experience...."

But six years later the coverage of the memorial service did not bring out any of this information. At first there was no revelation that Obama had any relationship to the church beyond simply holding the service there. Then a January 6, 2009 article in the Honolulu Star-Bulletin brings out the hidden story of Obama's religious upbringing:

"When (UU Rev Mike) Young reminded Obama that he had attended Sunday School at First Unitarian, ‘his eyes lit up, and he said, ‘Oh that's right!'"

In response to an email query from Hawaii Free Press Rev. Young confirmed the Star-Bulletin's account.

Young also repeated the story in the March 28, 2009 edition of his hometown Tampa (Florida) Tribune:

When Obama was in elementary school in Honolulu, Young recounted in a telephone phone interview, either his grandmother or grandfather (there's confusion over which one) brought him to Sunday school there for several years.

The Dunhams had attended a Unitarian church in the Seattle area when Obama's mother was a teenager. Although there's no record of their attendance at the Honolulu church, Obama writes about it in his memoir "Dreams From My Father," and one family who still attends the church remembers him.

When Young reminded Obama at the memorial service, "his eyes lit up, and he turned to Michelle and said, 'Hey, that's right. This is where I went to Sunday school.'"

Obama spent some time on the second floor, where Sunday school is held, but didn't recognize anything. That's not surprising, Young said, because the church has been renovated over the years.

The Dunhams' Seattle-area Mercer Island Unitarian Church was infamous as "The Little Red Church on the Hill"-Obama's mother's attendance there had been exposed during the campaign-and had been associated with an ambiguous reference to Obama's grandfather Stanley Dunham in Obama's book "Dreams from My Father" (p17).

"In his only skirmish into organized religion, he would enroll the family in the local Unitarian Universalist congregation...."

But knowing Obama's connection to Honolulu's First Unitarian Church, it is possible this passage refers to either church -- or both churches.

Contemporary accounts of the SDS Resistance use of First Unitarian and nearby Church of the Crossroads as part of the 1968-70 sanctuary for deserters movement shows why Obama would not have wanted this information exposed.

Starting in 1966 University of Hawaii students and professors began raising funds to donate directly to the Viet Cong. By 1968 UH Manoa leftist activists had morphed into a chapter of the so-called Students for a Democratic Society and began publishing a newspaper called "The Roach."

On October 26, 1967 Lt. Commander John McCain was shot down over Hanoi. With two broken arms and one broken leg he parachuted into Truc Bach Lake where he was dragged from the water, beaten and bayoneted.

The June 4, 1968 edition of The Roach includes "memo from the resistance"-The Hawaii Committee for Draft Resistance-which urges supporters to show up at a June 10 court hearing for "the ten arrested for loitering when they attempted to block the 29th Infantry Brigade troops leaving Fort DeRussy...." On the very next page Mao Zedong's murderous Red Guards are described as, "...young activists full of joy who understand the potential for their society...."

In mid-1968, the Vietnamese communists realized they held the son of Admiral John McCain-commander of the Pacific Fleet, including US forces in Vietnam. The younger McCain refused an offer of early release because preferential treatment for the son of a high ranking officer would provide a propaganda opportunity for the communists. He would be held five more years.

The September 24, 1968 edition of The Roach describes Resistance leader John Witeck refusing induction right next to articles titled "Pot Talk" and "Revolutionary Orgasm." An obscure article in the October 23 edition mentions "two marines (sic), Young C Gray and Tom Mat, who are now in sanctuary...." This ‘sanctuary' apparently lasted four days.

The Roach, January 15, 1969, describes Gray receiving two years in the stockade after being found guilty of "‘attempting to possess' mescaline and marijuana." The Roach further explains: "Gray had also written some disparaging remarks about NCOs and lifers concerning their intellects and temperaments. These statements appeared in ‘A Call to Join Us', a piece read to the congregation assembled at the Unitarian Church."

After losing 50 pounds while receiving insufficient treatment for his injuries, John McCain was placed in a cell in December 1967 with two Americans who did not expect him to live a week. He was then locked in solitary confinement for two years beginning in March 1968. Here he endured beatings and rope binding tortures but refused to meet with anti-war delegations attempting to visit the POWs.

The August 16, 1969 Star-Bulletin shows deserters going shirtless with some of the dozens of hippy girls who had flocked to the sanctuary churches. The headline: "Hot showers for AWOLs at Church."

By August 23, 1969 the New York Times was reporting "24 G.I. War Foes now in Sanctuary...staying at both the Church of the Crossroads and the Unitarian Church of Honolulu...." The Resistance had grown but all was not well. As The Times explained:

"One of the protesters, Seaman Arthur parker, 17, turned himself in to the authorities at Pearl Harbor yesterday after talking to an Army Chaplain.

"Seaman Parker denounced the protest as ‘a movement to overthrow the government.'"

The Honolulu Star-Bulletin August 22, 1969 had much more of Parker's story.

(Parker) arrived in Honolulu from a Great lakes, (Ill.) boot camp and ... got drunk with buddies at Waikiki last Thursday night.

He told of meeting a young girl the next morning who promised love and relief from the military. Parker disliked violence and war....

"We were walking down the street. Man was I bombed, and these two girls came up and handed me a sheet of paper. It told about the servicemen at the church and what the Resistance stood for.

"I told the girls that I didn't like to hate and I didn't like the war but that all I neeed was love. One of the girls said, ‘Well there's a lot of that at the church.' Then we just talked.

"I went back to the hotel, drank three beers and a half pint of whiskey and then called the Rev Bob Warner to come pick me up....

...On that day the young man from Holland, Mich., became number 18 at the Church of the Crossroads....

"... It isn't a sanctuary anymore. Its become a movement to overthrow the government and I don't stand for that; neither do a lot of the others....

"Even though I don't like the military, I would rather be part of them than what's down at the church. They scare me now."

Four days later the following Letter to the Editor appeared in the Star-Bulletin:

SIR: Whereas the Congregation of the Unitarian Church of Honolulu acted on October 18, 1968, to adopt a policy of offering symbolic sanctuary to those who in conscience oppose the machinery of war by nonviolent means, the Board of the Church, at its regular August meeting, offers its commendation on behalf of the Unitarian Church of Honolulu to the Church of the Crossroads for its courageous support of the men now in sanctuary.

--Martha D. McDaniel, Secretary of the Board, Unitarian Church of Honolulu

On September 12, 1969 the Star-Bulletin reported a broadly sponsored US House resolution, "condemning ‘cruel and barbaric' treatment of American prisoners of war in Vietnam....

"The resolution cites reports that the POWs are subjected to ‘physical torture, psychological terror, public display, neglect of health and are denied dietary and sanitary necessities. They are unable to correspond with their families and are forced to comply with propaganda exploitation."

Just two days earlier the Star-Bulletin had interviewed Rev Donald Adams, a former associate minister of the Church of the Crossroads. Regarding the military personnel in ‘sanctuary' Adams explained:

"I think the majority of them are probably in need of counseling and psychiatric help. After the wraps are off, you find the real internal problems. Psychologically, some men are not for the military. Its not easy in there."

Interviewed for the same article, Church of the Crossroads member Rev. Ted Chinen explained:

"The men come for various reasons. We should look into their previous records. We may be assisting psychopathics or neurotics."

To be considered a deserter, a soldier must be AWOL for 30 days. Eventually the City of Honolulu cited both churches for violations of zoning and health ordinances related to the use of the church buildings for ‘sanctuary'. Then on September 12 military police raided the Unitarian Church, Church of the Crossroads and nearby Wellesley Foundation arresting 12 AWOLs. As many as 15 others evaded arrest.

The Star-Bulletin September 19, 1969 editorialized:

"It seems inconsistent that these men who were so willing to face television cameras and speak up before the nation on conscience-so long as they had the protection of the ‘sanctuary'-could not see their adventure through.

"That gives us reason to believe that these young men are not made of the fiber they would have had us believe.

"Their evasion of the consequences, which they admittedly knew would eventually come, casts a shadow over the sincerity of their convictions.

"We can be thankful that they decided to take their stand in the safe confines of a church.

"Had they gone to the jungles of Vietnam, it is entirely possible that their lack of intestinal fortitude could have got someone else killed."

While the deserters were hiding, the September 15, 1969 Star-Bulletin reports on another group of missing soldiers. A delegation of four women-wives of American MIAs believed to be POWs-went to the Paris Peace Talks. In a statement released to the press they wrote:

"Our husbands have been missing from eight months to four years and we are hopeful North Vietnamese representatives will tell us if we are wives or widows."

The November, 1969 edition of the Hawaii Free People's Press -- successor to The Roach -- recounts the story of a Schofield Barracks deserter who had a different type of relationship with women. The article titled "Fock the draft" begins with the testimony of underground Schofield Barracks stockade escapee Bobby Jay Norton:

"Some five or six months ago I was charged with rape which I did not commit. The girl that charged me with the intentions of rape was pregnant when she came to Hawaii, so instead of her letting her parents know of this, she thought that she could come here and charge rape on someone....

"While we were driving in Waikiki she started screaming louder and louder, so I told her that if she didn't be quiet that I was going to slap the s**t out of her.

"As we came to a stop sign she jumped out of the car and started running down the street crying. I started to go after her but I decided that I had had enough of her crying so I decided to let her go.

"The next day I was informed by some friends that I was being looked for by the H.P.D. and some M.P.s....I had previously gotten out of an assault on a chick."

Above this was an untitled piece by "Private Partz" and a cartoon of a naked general swallowing people whole and defecating them out as soldiers.

These activists eventually won their war against America in Southeast Asia. They and those who admired them are now our professors, our journalists, our ministers, moviemakers, and politicians. One of their understudies is President of the United States.

In 1973 and 1974 Nixon withdrew US troops from South East Asia. When the US war ended the real killing began. The Democrat-controlled Congress cut off US funding to the South Vietnamese and Cambodian governments. By April of 1975 Pol Pot took over Cambodia and began murdering as many as 3 million Cambodians. The Vietnamese communists murdered as many as 1.6 million people and forced millions more into exile as "boat people."

Those deaths and the domestic political means which made them possible are the most accurate reflection on the generation of activists who raised Barack Obama and created his values.

Andrew Walden edits hawaiifreepress.com.