city:frankfurt

  • All We Need Is #acid | Episode 4
    http://www.radiopanik.org/emissions/all-we-need-is-acid/all-we-need-is-acid-episode-4

    Une chope de bière à la main il est temps d’aller explorer les terres acid du côté de nos voisins allemands. Depuis la chute du mur de #berlin en 1989, les germaniques ont la réputation de savoir faire la fête et plutôt deux fois qu’une ! Et n’allez pas croire que la capitale est le seul point sur notre carte musicale, dans ce numéro nous ferons également escale à Frankfurt, à Köln ainsi qu’à Tbilissi qui n’est pas en Allemagne mais semble avoir pris la relève en matière de contestation à 140 bpm.

    Les morceaux de l’émission :

    Umo Detic // Fahrenheit // ICM // 1989 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pk7xoqXiRPg

    Mark N.R.G // Turn the bass // 1992 : https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=YJKYGKmZm1c

    Ongaku // Mihon #3 // Pod Communication // 1992 : (...)

    #techno #tb303 #awnia #djnormal4 #allweneedisacid #berlin,techno,acid,tb303,awnia,djnormal4,allweneedisacid
    http://www.radiopanik.org/media/sounds/all-we-need-is-acid/all-we-need-is-acid-episode-4_06023__1.mp3

  • Pan Am Flight 103 : Robert Mueller’s 30-Year Search for Justice | WIRED
    https://www.wired.com/story/robert-muellers-search-for-justice-for-pan-am-103

    Cet article décrit le rôle de Robert Mueller dans l’enquête historique qui a permis de dissimuler ou de justifier la plupart des batailles de la guerre non déclarée des États Unis contre l’OLP et les pays arabes qui soutenaient la lutte pour un état palestinien.

    Aux États-Unis, en Allemagne et en France le grand public ignore les actes de guerre commis par les États Unis dans cette guerre. Vu dans ce contexte on ne peut que classer le récit de cet article dans la catégorie idéologie et propagande même si les intentions et faits qu’on y apprend sont bien documentés et plausibles.

    Cette perspective transforme le contenu de cet article d’une variation sur un thème connu dans un reportage sur l’état d’âme des dirigeants étatsuniens moins fanatiques que l’équipe du président actuel.

    THIRTY YEARS AGO last Friday, on the darkest day of the year, 31,000 feet above one of the most remote parts of Europe, America suffered its first major terror attack.

    TEN YEARS AGO last Friday, then FBI director Robert Mueller bundled himself in his tan trench coat against the cold December air in Washington, his scarf wrapped tightly around his neck. Sitting on a small stage at Arlington National Cemetery, he scanned the faces arrayed before him—the victims he’d come to know over years, relatives and friends of husbands and wives who would never grow old, college students who would never graduate, business travelers and flight attendants who would never come home.

    Burned into Mueller’s memory were the small items those victims had left behind, items that he’d seen on the shelves of a small wooden warehouse outside Lockerbie, Scotland, a visit he would never forget: A teenager’s single white sneaker, an unworn Syracuse University sweatshirt, the wrapped Christmas gifts that would never be opened, a lonely teddy bear.

    A decade before the attacks of 9/11—attacks that came during Mueller’s second week as FBI director, and that awoke the rest of America to the threats of terrorism—the bombing of Pan Am 103 had impressed upon Mueller a new global threat.

    It had taught him the complexity of responding to international terror attacks, how unprepared the government was to respond to the needs of victims’ families, and how on the global stage justice would always be intertwined with geopolitics. In the intervening years, he had never lost sight of the Lockerbie bombing—known to the FBI by the codename Scotbom—and he had watched the orphaned children from the bombing grow up over the years.

    Nearby in the cemetery stood a memorial cairn made of pink sandstone—a single brick representing each of the victims, the stone mined from a Scottish quarry that the doomed flight passed over just seconds before the bomb ripped its baggage hold apart. The crowd that day had gathered near the cairn in the cold to mark the 20th anniversary of the bombing.

    For a man with an affinity for speaking in prose, not poetry, a man whose staff was accustomed to orders given in crisp sentences as if they were Marines on the battlefield or under cross-examination from a prosecutor in a courtroom, Mueller’s remarks that day soared in a way unlike almost any other speech he’d deliver.

    “There are those who say that time heals all wounds. But you know that not to be true. At its best, time may dull the deepest wounds; it cannot make them disappear,” Mueller told the assembled mourners. “Yet out of the darkness of this day comes a ray of light. The light of unity, of friendship, and of comfort from those who once were strangers and who are now bonded together by a terrible moment in time. The light of shared memories that bring smiles instead of sadness. And the light of hope for better days to come.”

    He talked of Robert Frost’s poem “Stopping by Woods on a Snowy Evening” and of inspiration drawn from Lockerbie’s town crest, with its simple motto, “Forward.” He spoke of what was then a two-decade-long quest for justice, of how on windswept Scottish mores and frigid lochs a generation of FBI agents, investigators, and prosecutors had redoubled their dedication to fighting terrorism.

    Mueller closed with a promise: “Today, as we stand here together on this, the darkest of days, we renew that bond. We remember the light these individuals brought to each of you here today. We renew our efforts to bring justice down on those who seek to harm us. We renew our efforts to keep our people safe, and to rid the world of terrorism. We will continue to move forward. But we will never forget.”

    Hand bells tolled for each of the victims as their names were read aloud, 270 names, 270 sets of bells.

    The investigation, though, was not yet closed. Mueller, although he didn’t know it then, wasn’t done with Pan Am 103. Just months after that speech, the case would test his innate sense of justice and morality in a way that few other cases in his career ever have.

    ROBERT S. MUELLER III had returned from a combat tour in Vietnam in the late 1960s and eventually headed to law school at the University of Virginia, part of a path that he hoped would lead him to being an FBI agent. Unable after graduation to get a job in government, he entered private practice in San Francisco, where he found he loved being a lawyer—just not a defense attorney.

    Then—as his wife Ann, a teacher, recounted to me years ago—one morning at their small home, while the two of them made the bed, Mueller complained, “Don’t I deserve to be doing something that makes me happy?” He finally landed a job as an assistant US attorney in San Francisco and stood, for the first time, in court and announced, “Good morning your Honor, I am Robert Mueller appearing on behalf of the United States of America.” It is a moment that young prosecutors often practice beforehand, and for Mueller those words carried enormous weight. He had found the thing that made him happy.

    His family remembers that time in San Francisco as some of their happiest years; the Muellers’ two daughters were young, they loved the Bay Area—and have returned there on annual vacations almost every year since relocating to the East Coast—and Mueller found himself at home as a prosecutor.

    On Friday nights, their routine was that Ann and the two girls would pick Mueller up at Harrington’s Bar & Grill, the city’s oldest Irish pub, not far from the Ferry Building in the Financial District, where he hung out each week with a group of prosecutors, defense attorneys, cops, and agents. (One Christmas, his daughter Cynthia gave him a model of the bar made out of Popsicle sticks.) He balanced that family time against weekends and trainings with the Marines Corps Reserves, where he served for more than a decade, until 1980, eventually rising to be a captain.

    Over the next 15 years, he rose through the ranks of the San Francisco US attorney’s office—an office he would return to lead during the Clinton administration—and then decamped to Massachusetts to work for US attorney William Weld in the 1980s. There, too, he shined and eventually became acting US attorney when Weld departed at the end of the Reagan administration. “You cannot get the words straight arrow out of your head,” Weld told me, speaking of Mueller a decade ago. “The agencies loved him because he knew his stuff. He didn’t try to be elegant or fancy, he just put the cards on the table.”

    In 1989, an old high school classmate, Robert Ross, who was chief of staff to then attorney general Richard Thornburgh, asked Mueller to come down to Washington to help advise Thornburgh. The offer intrigued Mueller. Ann protested the move—their younger daughter Melissa wanted to finish high school in Massachusetts. Ann told her husband, “We can’t possibly do this.” He replied, his eyes twinkling, “You’re right, it’s a terrible time. Well, why don’t we just go down and look at a few houses?” As she told me, “When he wants to do something, he just revisits it again and again.”

    For his first two years at so-called Main Justice in Washington, working under President George H.W. Bush, the family commuted back and forth from Boston to Washington, alternating weekends in each city, to allow Melissa to finish school.

    Washington gave Mueller his first exposure to national politics and cases with geopolitical implications; in September 1990, President Bush nominated him to be assistant attorney general, overseeing the Justice Department’s entire criminal division, which at that time handled all the nation’s terrorism cases as well. Mueller would oversee the prosecution of Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, mob boss John Gotti, and the controversial investigation into a vast money laundering scheme run through the Bank of Credit and Commerce International, known as the Bank of Crooks and Criminals

    None of his cases in Washington, though, would affect him as much as the bombing of Pan Am 103.

    THE TIME ON the clocks in Lockerbie, Scotland, read 7:04 pm, on December 21, 1988, when the first emergency call came into the local fire brigade, reporting what sounded like a massive boiler explosion. It was technically early evening, but it had been dark for hours already; that far north, on the shortest day of the year, daylight barely stretched to eight hours.

    Soon it became clear something much worse than a boiler explosion had unfolded: Fiery debris pounded the landscape, plunging from the sky and killing 11 Lockerbie residents. As Mike Carnahan told a local TV reporter, “The whole sky was lit up with flames. It was actually raining, liquid fire. You could see several houses on the skyline with the roofs totally off and all you could see was flaming timbers.”

    At 8:45 pm, a farmer found in his field the cockpit of Pan Am 103, a Boeing 747 known as Clipper Maid of the Seas, lying on its side, 15 of its crew dead inside, just some of the 259 passengers and crew killed when a bomb had exploded inside the plane’s cargo hold. The scheduled London to New York flight never even made it out of the UK.

    It had taken just three seconds for the plane to disintegrate in the air, though the wreckage took three long minutes to fall the five miles from the sky to the earth; court testimony later would examine how passengers had still been alive as they fell. Nearly 200 of the passengers were American, including 35 students from Syracuse University returning home from a semester abroad. The attack horrified America, which until then had seen terror touch its shores only occasionally as a hijacking went awry; while the US had weathered the 1983 bombing of the Marine barracks in Beirut, attacks almost never targeted civilians.

    The Pan Am 103 bombing seemed squarely aimed at the US, hitting one of its most iconic brands. Pan Am then represented America’s global reach in a way few companies did; the world’s most powerful airline shuttled 19 million passengers a year to more than 160 countries and had ferried the Beatles to their US tour and James Bond around the globe on his cinematic missions. In a moment of hubris a generation before Elon Musk and Jeff Bezos, the airline had even opened a “waiting list” for the first tourists to travel to outer space. Its New York headquarters, the Pan Am building, was the world’s largest commercial building and its terminal at JFK Airport the biggest in the world.

    The investigation into the bombing of Pan Am 103 began immediately, as police and investigators streamed north from London by the hundreds; chief constable John Boyd, the head of the local police, arrived at the Lockerbie police station by 8:15 pm, and within an hour the first victim had been brought in: A farmer arrived in town with the body of a baby girl who had fallen from the sky. He’d carefully placed her in the front seat of his pickup truck.

    An FBI agent posted in London had raced north too, with the US ambassador, aboard a special US Air Force flight, and at 2 am, when Boyd convened his first senior leadership meeting, he announced, “The FBI is here, and they are fully operational.” By that point, FBI explosives experts were already en route to Scotland aboard an FAA plane; agents would install special secure communications equipment in Lockerbie and remain on site for months.

    Although it quickly became clear that a bomb had targeted Pan Am 103—wreckage showed signs of an explosion and tested positive for PETN and RDX, two key ingredients of the explosive Semtex—the investigation proceeded with frustrating slowness. Pan Am’s records were incomplete, and it took days to even determine the full list of passengers. At the same time, it was the largest crime scene ever investigated—a fact that remains true today.

    Investigators walked 845 square miles, an area 12 times the size of Washington, DC, and searched so thoroughly that they recovered more than 70 packages of airline crackers and ultimately could reconstruct about 85 percent of the fuselage. (Today, the wreckage remains in an English scrapyard.) Constable Boyd, at his first press conference, told the media, “This is a mammoth inquiry.”

    On Christmas Eve, a searcher found a piece of a luggage pallet with signs of obvious scorching, which would indicate the bomb had been in the luggage compartment below the passenger cabin. The evidence was rushed to a special British military lab—one originally created to investigate the Guy Fawkes’ Gunpowder Plot to blow up Parliament and kill King James I in 1605.

    When the explosive tests came back a day later, the British government called the State Department’s ambassador-at-large for combating terrorism, L. Paul Bremer III (who would go on to be President George W. Bush’s viceroy in Baghdad after the 2003 invasion of Iraq), and officially delivered the news that everyone had anticipated: Pan Am 103 had been downed by a bomb.

    Meanwhile, FBI agents fanned out across the country. In New York, special agent Neil Herman—who would later lead the FBI’s counterterrorism office in New York in the run up to 9/11—was tasked with interviewing some of the victims’ families; many of the Syracuse students on board had been from the New York region. One of the mothers he interviewed hadn’t heard from the government in the 10 days since the attack. “It really struck me how ill-equipped we were to deal with this,” Herman told me, years later. “Multiply her by 270 victims and families.” The bombing underscored that the FBI and the US government had a lot to learn in responding and aiding victims in a terror attack.

    INVESTIGATORS MOVED TOWARD piecing together how a bomb could have been placed on board; years before the 9/11 attack, they discounted the idea of a suicide bomber aboard—there had never been a suicide attack on civil aviation at that point—and so focused on one of two theories: The possibility of a “mule,” an innocent passenger duped into carrying a bomb aboard, or an “inside man,” a trusted airport or airline employee who had smuggled the fatal cargo aboard. The initial suspect list stretched to 1,200 names.

    Yet even reconstructing what was on board took an eternity: Evidence pointed to a Japanese manufactured Toshiba cassette recorder as the likely delivery device for the bomb, and then, by the end of January, investigators located pieces of the suitcase that had held the bomb. After determining that it was a Samsonite bag, police and the FBI flew to the company’s headquarters in the United States and narrowed the search further: The bag, they found, was a System 4 Silhouette 4000 model, color “antique-copper,” a case and color made for only three years, 1985 to 1988, and sold only in the Middle East. There were a total of 3,500 such suitcases in circulation.

    By late spring, investigators had identified 14 pieces of luggage inside the target cargo container, known as AVE4041; each bore tell-tale signs of the explosion. Through careful retracing of how luggage moved through the London airport, investigators determined that the bags on the container’s bottom row came from passengers transferring in London. The bags on the second and third row of AVE4041 had been the last bags loaded onto the leg of the flight that began in Frankfurt, before the plane took off for London. None of the baggage had been X-rayed or matched with passengers on board.

    The British lab traced clothing fragments from the wreckage that bore signs of the explosion and thus likely originated in the bomb-carrying suitcase. It was an odd mix: Two herring-bone skirts, men’s pajamas, tartan trousers, and so on. The most promising fragment was a blue infant’s onesie that, after fiber analysis, was conclusively determined to have been inside the explosive case, and had a label saying “Malta Trading Company.” In March, two detectives took off for Malta, where the manufacturer told them that 500 such articles of clothing had been made and most sent to Ireland, while the rest went locally to Maltese outlets and others to continental Europe.

    As they dug deeper, they focused on bag B8849, which appeared to have come off Air Malta Flight 180—Malta to Frankfurt—on December 21, even though there was no record of one of that flight’s 47 passengers transferring to Pan Am 103.

    Investigators located the store in Malta where the suspect clothing had been sold; the British inspector later recorded in his statement, “[Store owner] Anthony Gauci interjected and stated that he could recall selling a pair of the checked trousers, size 34, and three pairs of the pajamas to a male person.” The investigators snapped to attention—after nine months did they finally have a suspect in their sights? “[Gauci] informed me that the man had also purchased the following items: one imitation Harris Tweed jacket; one woolen cardigan; one black umbrella; one blue colored ‘Baby Gro’ with a motif described by the witness as a ‘sheep’s face’ on the front; and one pair of gents’ brown herring-bone material trousers, size 36.”

    Game, set, match. Gauci had perfectly described the clothing fragments found by RARDE technicians to contain traces of explosive. The purchase, Gauci went on to explain, stood out in his mind because the customer—whom Gauci tellingly identified as speaking the “Libyan language”—had entered the store on November 23, 1988, and gathered items without seeming to care about the size, gender, or color of any of it.

    As the investigation painstakingly proceeded into 1989 and 1990, Robert Mueller arrived at Main Justice; the final objects of the Lockerbie search wouldn’t be found until the spring of 1990, just months before Mueller took over as assistant attorney general of the criminal division in September.

    The Justice Department that year was undergoing a series of leadership changes; the deputy attorney general, William Barr, became acting attorney general midyear as Richard Thornburgh stepped down to run for Senate back in his native Pennsylvania. President Bush then nominated Barr to take over as attorney general officially. (Earlier this month Barr was nominated by President Trump to become attorney general once again.)

    The bombing soon became one of the top cases on Mueller’s desk. He met regularly with Richard Marquise, the FBI special agent heading Scotbom. For Mueller, the case became personal; he met with victims’ families and toured the Lockerbie crash site and the investigation’s headquarters. He traveled repeatedly to the United Kingdom for meetings and walked the fields of Lockerbie himself. “The Scots just did a phenomenal job with the crime scene,” he told me, years ago.

    Mueller pushed the investigators forward constantly, getting involved in the investigation at a level that a high-ranking Justice Department official almost never does. Marquise turned to him in one meeting, after yet another set of directions, and sighed, “Geez, if I didn’t know better, I’d think you want to be FBI director.”

    The investigation gradually, carefully, zeroed in on Libya. Agents traced a circuit board used in the bomb to a similar device seized in Africa a couple of years earlier used by Libyan intelligence. An FBI-created database of Maltese immigration records even showed that a man using the same alias as one of those Libyan intelligence officers had departed from Malta on October 19, 1988—just two months before the bombing.

    The circuit board also helped makes sense of an important aspect of the bombing: It controlled a timer, meaning that the bomb was not set off by a barometric trigger that registers altitude. This, in turn, explained why the explosive baggage had lain peacefully in the jet’s hold as it took off and landed repeatedly.

    Tiny letters on the suspect timer said “MEBO.” What was MEBO? In the days before Google, searching for something called “Mebo” required going country to country, company to company. There were no shortcuts. The FBI, MI5, and CIA were, after months of work, able to trace MEBO back to a Swiss company, Meister et Bollier, adding a fifth country to the ever-expanding investigative circle.

    From Meister et Bollier, they learned that the company had provided 20 prototype timers to the Libyan government and the company helped ID their contact as a Libyan intelligence officer, Abdelbaset Ali Mohmed Al Megrahi, who looked like the sketch of the Maltese clothing shopper. Then, when the FBI looked at its database of Maltese immigration records, they found that Al Megrahi had been present in Malta the day the clothing was purchased.

    Marquise sat down with Robert Mueller and the rest of the prosecutorial team and laid out the latest evidence. Mueller’s orders were clear—he wanted specific suspects and he wanted to bring charges. As he said, “Proceed toward indictment.” Let’s get this case moving.

    IN NOVEMBER 1990, Marquise was placed in charge of all aspects of the investigation and assigned on special duty to the Washington Field Office and moved to a new Scotbom task force. The field offce was located far from the Hoover building, in a run-down neighborhood known by the thoroughly unromantic moniker of Buzzard Point.

    The Scotbom task force had been allotted three tiny windowless rooms with dark wood paneling, which were soon covered floor-to-ceiling with 747 diagrams, crime scene photographs, maps, and other clues. By the door of the office, the team kept two photographs to remind themselves of the stakes: One, a tiny baby shoe recovered from the fields of Lockerbie; the other, a picture of the American flag on the tail of Pan Am 103. This was the first major attack on the US and its civilians. Whoever was responsible couldn’t be allowed to get away with it.

    With representatives from a half-dozen countries—the US, Britain, Scotland, Sweden, Germany, France, and Malta—now sitting around the table, putting together a case that met everyone’s evidentiary standards was difficult. “We talked through everything, and everything was always done to the higher standard,” Marquise says. In the US, for instance, the legal standard for a photo array was six photos; in Scotland, though, it was 12. So every photo array in the investigation had 12 photos to ensure that the IDs could be used in a British court.

    The trail of evidence so far was pretty clear, and it all pointed toward Libya. Yet there was still much work to do prior to an indictment. A solid hunch was one thing. Having evidence that would stand up in court and under cross-examination was something else entirely.

    As the case neared an indictment, the international investigators and prosecutors found themselves focusing at their gatherings on the fine print of their respective legal code and engaging in deep, philosophical-seeming debates: “What does murder mean in your statute? Huh? I know what murder means: I kill you. Well, then you start going through the details and the standards are just a little different. It may entail five factors in one country, three in another. Was Megrahi guilty of murder? Depends on the country.”

    At every meeting, the international team danced around the question of where a prosecution would ultimately take place. “Jurisdiction was an eggshell problem,” Marquise says. “It was always there, but no one wanted to talk about it. It was always the elephant in the room.”

    Mueller tried to deflect the debate for as long as possible, arguing there was more investigation to do first. Eventually, though, he argued forcefully that the case should be tried in the US. “I recognize that Scotland has significant equities which support trial of the case in your country,” he said in one meeting. “However, the primary target of this act of terrorism was the United States. The majority of the victims were Americans, and the Pan American aircraft was targeted precisely because it was of United States registry.”

    After one meeting, where the Scots and Americans debated jurisdiction for more than two hours, the group migrated over to the Peasant, a restaurant near the Justice Department, where, in an attempt to foster good spirits, it paid for the visiting Scots. Mueller and the other American officials each had to pay for their own meals.

    Mueller was getting ready to move forward; the federal grand jury would begin work in early September. Prosecutors and other investigators were already preparing background, readying evidence, and piecing together information like the names and nationalities of all the Lockerbie victims so that they could be included in the forthcoming indictment.

    There had never been any doubt in the US that the Pan Am 103 bombing would be handled as a criminal matter, but the case was still closely monitored by the White House and the National Security Council.

    The Reagan administration had been surprised in February 1988 by the indictment on drug charges of its close ally Panamanian dictator Manuel Noriega, and a rule of thumb had been developed: Give the White House a heads up anytime you’re going to indict a foreign agent. “If you tag Libya with Pan Am 103, that’s fair to say it’s going to disrupt our relationship with Libya,” Mueller deadpans. So Mueller would head up to the Cabinet Room at the White House, charts and pictures in hand, to explain to President Bush and his team what Justice had in mind.

    To Mueller, the investigation underscored why such complex investigations needed a law enforcement eye. A few months after the attack, he sat through a CIA briefing pointing toward Syria as the culprit behind the attack. “That’s always struck with me as a lesson in the difference between intelligence and evidence. I always try to remember that,” he told me, back when he was FBI director. “It’s a very good object lesson about hasty action based on intelligence. What if we had gone and attacked Syria based on that initial intelligence? Then, after the attack, it came out that Libya had been behind it? What could we have done?”

    Marquise was the last witness for the federal grand jury on Friday, November 8, 1991. Only in the days leading up to that testimony had prosecutors zeroed in on Megrahi and another Libyan officer, Al Amin Khalifa Fhimah; as late as the week of the testimony, they had hoped to pursue additional indictments, yet the evidence wasn’t there to get to a conviction.

    Mueller traveled to London to meet with the Peter Fraser, the lord advocate—Scotland’s top prosecutor—and they agreed to announce indictments simultaneously on November 15, 1991. Who got their hands on the suspects first, well, that was a question for later. The joint indictment, Mueller believed, would benefit both countries. “It adds credibility to both our investigations,” he says.

    That coordinated joint, multi-nation statement and indictment would become a model that the US would deploy more regularly in the years to come, as the US and other western nations have tried to coordinate cyber investigations and indictments against hackers from countries like North Korea, Russia, and Iran.

    To make the stunning announcement against Libya, Mueller joined FBI director William Sessions, DC US attorney Jay Stephens, and attorney general William Barr.

    “We charge that two Libyan officials, acting as operatives of the Libyan intelligence agency, along with other co-conspirators, planted and detonated the bomb that destroyed Pan Am 103,” Barr said. “I have just telephoned some of the families of those murdered on Pan Am 103 to inform them and the organizations of the survivors that this indictment has been returned. Their loss has been ever present in our minds.”

    At the same time, in Scotland, investigators there were announcing the same indictments.

    At the press conference, Barr listed a long set of names to thank—the first one he singled out was Mueller’s. Then, he continued, “This investigation is by no means over. It continues unabated. We will not rest until all those responsible are brought to justice. We have no higher priority.”

    From there, the case would drag on for years. ABC News interviewed the two suspects in Libya later that month; both denied any responsibility for the bombing. Marquise was reassigned within six months; the other investigators moved along too.

    Mueller himself left the administration when Bill Clinton became president, spending an unhappy year in private practice before rejoining the Justice Department to work as a junior homicide prosecutor in DC under then US attorney Eric Holder; Mueller, who had led the nation’s entire criminal division was now working side by side with prosecutors just a few years out of law school, the equivalent of a three-star military general retiring and reenlisting as a second lieutenant. Clinton eventually named Mueller the US attorney in San Francisco, the office where he’d worked as a young attorney in the 1970s.

    THE 10TH ANNIVERSARY of the bombing came and went without any justice. Then, in April 1999, prolonged international negotiations led to Libyan dictator Muammar Qaddafi turning over the two suspects; the international economic sanctions imposed on Libya in the wake of the bombing were taking a toll on his country, and the leader wanted to put the incident behind him.

    The final negotiated agreement said that the two men would be tried by a Scottish court, under Scottish law, in The Hague in the Netherlands. Distinct from the international court there, the three-judge Scottish court would ensure that the men faced justice under the laws of the country where their accused crime had been committed.

    Allowing the Scots to move forward meant some concessions by the US. The big one was taking the death penalty, prohibited in Scotland, off the table. Mueller badly wanted the death penalty. Mueller, like many prosecutors and law enforcement officials, is a strong proponent of capital punishment, but he believes it should be reserved for only egregious crimes. “It has to be especially heinous, and you have to be 100 percent sure he’s guilty,” he says. This case met that criteria. “There’s never closure. If there can’t be closure, there should be justice—both for the victims as well as the society at large,” he says.

    An old US military facility, Kamp Van Zeist, was converted to an elaborate jail and courtroom in The Hague, and the Dutch formally surrendered the two Libyans to Scottish police. The trial began in May 2000. For nine months, the court heard testimony from around the world. In what many observers saw as a political verdict, Al Megrahi was found guilty and Fhimah was found not guilty.

    With barely 24 hours notice, Marquise and victim family members raced from the United States to be in the courtroom to hear the verdict. The morning of the verdict in 2001, Mueller was just days into his tenure as acting deputy US attorney general—filling in for the start of the George W. Bush administration in the department’s No. 2 role as attorney general John Ashcroft got himself situated.

    That day, Mueller awoke early and joined with victims’ families and other officials in Washington, who watched the verdict announcement via a satellite hookup. To him, it was a chance for some closure—but the investigation would go on. As he told the media, “The United States remains vigilant in its pursuit to bring to justice any other individuals who may have been involved in the conspiracy to bring down Pan Am Flight 103.”

    The Scotbom case would leave a deep imprint on Mueller; one of his first actions as FBI director was to recruit Kathryn Turman, who had served as the liaison to the Pan Am 103 victim families during the trial, to head the FBI’s Victim Services Division, helping to elevate the role and responsibility of the FBI in dealing with crime victims.

    JUST MONTHS AFTER that 20th anniversary ceremony with Mueller at Arlington National Cemetery, in the summer of 2009, Scotland released a terminally ill Megrahi from prison after a lengthy appeals process, and sent him back to Libya. The decision was made, the Scottish minister of justice reported, on “compassionate grounds.” Few involved on the US side believed the terrorist deserved compassion. Megrahi was greeted as a hero on the tarmac in Libya—rose petals, cheering crowds. The US consensus remained that he should rot in prison.

    The idea that Megrahi could walk out of prison on “compassionate” ground made a mockery of everything that Mueller had dedicated his life to fighting and doing. Amid a series of tepid official condemnations—President Obama labeled it “highly objectionable”—Mueller fired off a letter to Scottish minister Kenny MacAskill that stood out for its raw pain, anger, and deep sorrow.

    “Over the years I have been a prosecutor, and recently as the Director of the FBI, I have made it a practice not to comment on the actions of other prosecutors, since only the prosecutor handling the case has all the facts and the law before him in reaching the appropriate decision,” Mueller began. “Your decision to release Megrahi causes me to abandon that practice in this case. I do so because I am familiar with the facts, and the law, having been the Assistant Attorney General in charge of the investigation and indictment of Megrahi in 1991. And I do so because I am outraged at your decision, blithely defended on the grounds of ‘compassion.’”

    That nine months after the 20th anniversary of the bombing, the only person behind bars for the bombing would walk back onto Libyan soil a free man and be greeted with rose petals left Mueller seething.

    “Your action in releasing Megrahi is as inexplicable as it is detrimental to the cause of justice. Indeed your action makes a mockery of the rule of law. Your action gives comfort to terrorists around the world,” Mueller wrote. “You could not have spent much time with the families, certainly not as much time as others involved in the investigation and prosecution. You could not have visited the small wooden warehouse where the personal items of those who perished were gathered for identification—the single sneaker belonging to a teenager; the Syracuse sweatshirt never again to be worn by a college student returning home for the holidays; the toys in a suitcase of a businessman looking forward to spending Christmas with his wife and children.”

    For Mueller, walking the fields of Lockerbie had been walking on hallowed ground. The Scottish decision pained him especially deeply, because of the mission and dedication he and his Scottish counterparts had shared 20 years before. “If all civilized nations join together to apply the rules of law to international terrorists, certainly we will be successful in ridding the world of the scourge of terrorism,” he had written in a perhaps too hopeful private note to the Scottish Lord Advocate in 1990.

    Some 20 years later, in an era when counterterrorism would be a massive, multibillion dollar industry and a buzzword for politicians everywhere, Mueller—betrayed—concluded his letter with a decidedly un-Mueller-like plea, shouted plaintively and hopelessly across the Atlantic: “Where, I ask, is the justice?”

    #USA #Libye #impérialisme #terrorisme #histoire #CIA #idéologie #propagande

  • Event : #blockchain Summit #frankfurt
    https://hackernoon.com/event-blockchain-summit-frankfurt-e5549f83337a?source=rss----3a8144eabfe

    Blockchain Summit Frankfurt is a 2-day conference and exhibition connecting over 2,000 industry leaders, business decision makers, tech innovators and investors.Blockchain Summit has grown exponentially in content and audience size.Based on unrivalled content and exceptional networking opportunities, Blockchain Summit Frankfurt is part of the largest dedicated Blockchain Event Series in the World. No co-located side events. A purely Blockchain focused audience.Join the Summit keynote programme for unparalleled discussion with 100 visionary speakers. Cutting edge case studies offer a “how-to” approach to deploying Blockchain technologies across industries like finance, insurance, logistics, utilities, media and entertainment, and more.Roundtable discussions and hosted networking sessions (...)

    #blockchain-frankfurt #blockchain-summit #blockchain-event

  • The Kaiser goes : the generals remain - Theodor Plivier
    https://libcom.org/history/kaiser-goes-generals-remain-theodor-plivier-1932

    Text entier en anglais : https://libcom.org/files/TheKaiserGoesTheGeneralsRemain.pdf https://libcom.org/files/TheKaiserGoesTheGeneralsRemain.mobi

    Du même auteur : Stalingrad (1945), Moskau (1952), Berlin (1954), une trilogie sur la guerre contre les nazis. Je n’ai pas encore trouvé de version en ligne.

    This is an amazing novel about the German Revolution, written by a participant. Republished here in PDF and Kindle formats.

    I’m republishing a novel about the German Revolution called The Kaiser Goes: the Generals Remain, written by a participant in the naval mutinies which kicked the whole thing off. But the novel doesn’t just concern rebellion in the armed forces, there’s all kinds of other exciting events covered too!

    I first became aware of the novel when I noticed some quotations from it in Working Class Politics in the German Revolution1, Ralf Hoffrogge’s wonderful book about the revolutionary shop stewards’ movement in Germany during and just after World War I.

    I set about finding a copy of The Kaiser goes..., read it, and immediately wanted to make it more widely available by scanning it. The results are here.

    Below I’ve gathered together all the most readily accessible information about the novel’s author, Theodor Plivier, that I can find. Hopefully, the sources referenced will provide a useful basis for anybody who wants to do further research.

    Dan Radnika

    October 2015

    THEODOR Otto Richard PLIVIER – Some biographical details

    Theodor Plivier (called Plievier after 1933) was born on 12 February 1892 in Berlin and died on 12 March 1955 in Tessin, Switzerland.

    Since his death Plivier/Plievier has been mostly known in his native Germany as a novelist, particularly for his trilogy of novels about the fighting on the Eastern Front in WWII, made up of the works Moscow, Stalingrad and Berlin.

    He was the son of an artisan file-maker (Feilenhauer in German) and spent his childhood in the Gesundbrunnen district in Berlin. There is still a plaque dedicated to him on the house where he was born at 29 Wiesenstraße. He was interested in literature from an early age. He began an apprenticeship at 17 with a plasterer and left his family home shortly after. For his apprenticeship he traveled across the German Empire, in Austria-Hungary and in the Netherlands. After briefly returning to his parents, he joined up as a sailor in the merchant navy. He first visited South America in 1910, and worked in the sodium nitrate (saltpetre) mines in 1913 in Chile. This period of his life seems to have provided much of the material for the novel The World’s Last Corner (see below).

    He returned to Germany, Hamburg, in 1914, when he was still only 22. He was arrested by the police for a brawl in a sailors’ pub, and was thus “recruited” into the imperial navy just as the First World War broke out. He spent his time in service on the auxiliary cruiser SMS Wolf, commanded by the famous Commander Karl August Nerger. It was he who led a victorious war of patriotic piracy in the Atlantic, the Indian Ocean and the Pacific, seizing enemy ships and their cargo, taking their crews prisoner, and returning in glory to Kiel in February 1918. The activities of SMS Wolf are described in fictional form in the final chapter of Plivier’s The Kaiser’s Coolies (see below). The young Plivier didn’t set foot on land for 451 days, but while at sea he became converted to revolutionary ideas, like thousands of other German sailors. Nevertheless, he never joined a political party. In November 1918, he was in Wilhelmshaven and participated in the strikes, uprisings and revolts accompanying the fall of the German Empire, including the Kiel Mutiny. He also played a small role in the November Revolution in Berlin.

    He left the navy after the armistice (11 November 1918) and, with Karl Raichle and Gregor Gog (both sailor veterans of the Wilmhelmshaven revolt), founded the “Green Way Commune”, near Bad Urach. It was a sort of commune of revolutionaries, artists, poets, proto-hippies, and whoever turned up. Two early participants were the anarchist Erich Mühsam and Johannes Becher (see below), who was a member of the German Communist Party (KPD). At this time several communes were set up around Germany, with Urach being one of three vegetarian communes set up in the Swabia region2.

    It was the beginning of the anarchist-oriented “Edition of the 12” publishing house. Plivier was certainly influenced by the ideas of Bakunin, but also Nietzsche. Later he took on some kind of “individualist anarchism”, ensuring that he didn’t join any party or formal political organisation.

    In Berlin in 1920 he married the actress Maria Stoz3. He belonged to the circle of friends of Käthe Kollwitz4, the radical painter and sculptor, who painted his portrait. On Christmas Day 1920 he showed a delegation from the American IWW to the grave of Karl Liebknecht5. In the early ‘20s he seems to have associated with the anarcho-syndicalist union, the FAUD (Free Workers’ Union of Germany), and addressed its public meetings6.

    Plivier underwent a “personal crisis” and began to follow the example of the “back to nature” poet Gusto Gräser7, another regular resident of “Green Way” and a man seen as the leading figure in the subculture of poets and wandering mystics known (disparagingly at the time) as the “Inflation Saints” (Inflationsheilige)8. In the words of the historian Ulrich Linse, “When the revolutionaries were killed, were in prison or had given up, the hour of the wandering prophets came. As the outer revolution had fizzled out, they found its continuation in the consciousness-being-revolution, in a spiritual change”9. Plivier began wearing sandals and robes…10 According to the Mountain of Truth book (see footnote), in 1922, in Weimar, Plivier was preaching a neo-Tolstoyan gospel of peace and anarchism, much influenced by Gräser. That year he published Anarchy, advocating a “masterless order, built up out of the moral power of free individuals”. Supposedly, “he was a religious anarchist, frequently quoting from the Bible”11. This was not unusual amongst the Inflationsheilige.

    His son Peter and his daughter Thora died from malnutrition during the terrible times of crisis and hyper-inflation in 1923. A year later he began to find work as a journalist and translator. He then worked for some time in South America as a cattle trader and as secretary to the German consul in Pisagua, Chile. On his return to Germany he wrote Des Kaisers Kulis (“The Kaiser’s Coolies”) in 1929, which was published the following year. It was a story based on his days in the Imperial Navy, denouncing the imperialist war in no uncertain terms. At the front of the book is a dedication to two sailors who were executed for participation in a strike and demonstration by hundreds of sailors from the Prinzregent Luitpold12. Erwin Piscator put on a play of his novel at the Lessingtheater in Berlin, with the first showing on 30 August 1930. Der Kaiser ging, die Generälen blieben (“The Kaiser Goes: The Generals Remain”) was published in 1932. In both novels Plivier did an enormous amount of research, as well as drawing on his own memories of important historical events. In the original edition of Der Kaiser ging… there is a citations section at the end with fifty book titles and a list of newspapers and magazines consulted. This attention to historical fact was to become a hallmark of Plivier’s method as a novelist. The postscript to Der Kaiser ging… clearly states what he was trying to do:

    “I have cast this history in the form of a novel, because it is my belief that events which are brought about not by any exchange of diplomatic notes, but by the sudden collision of opposed forces, do not lend themselves to a purely scientific treatment. By that method one can merely assemble a selection of facts belonging to any particular period – only artistic re-fashioning can yield a living picture of the whole. As in my former book, The Kaiser’s Coolies, so I have tried here to preserve strict historic truth, and in so far as exact material was available I have used it as the basis of my work. All the events described, all the persons introduced, are drawn to the life and their words reproduced verbatim. Occasional statements which the sources preserve only in indirect speech are here given direct form. But in no instance has the sense been altered.”

    His second marriage (which didn’t produce any children) was to the Jewish actress Hildegard Piscator in 1931. When Hitler came to power as Chancellor in 1933, his books were banned and publically burnt. He changed his name to Plievier. That year he decided to emigrate, and at the end of a long journey which led him to Prague, Zurich, Paris and Oslo, he ended up in the Soviet Union.

    He was initially not subject to much censorship in Moscow and published accounts of his adventures and political commentaries. When Operation Barbarossa was launched he was evacuated to Tashkent along with other foreigners. Here, for example, he met up (again?) with Johannes Robert Becher, the future Culture Minister of the DDR! In September 1943 he became a member of the National Committee for a Free Germany (NKFD), which gathered anti-Nazi German exiles living in the USSR – not just Communist Party members, although there were a fair number of them involved. In 1945 he wrote Stalingrad, based on testimonies which he collected, with official permission, from German prisoners of war in camps around Moscow. This novel was initially published in occupied Berlin and Mexico, but ended up being translated into 14 languages and being adapted for the theatre and TV13. It describes in unflinching and pitiless detail the German military defeat and its roots in the megalomania of Hitler and the incompetence of the High Command. It is the only novel by Plievier that was written specifically as a work of state propaganda. It is certainly “defeatist”, but only on the German side – it is certainly not “revolutionary defeatist” like Plievier’s writings about WWI. The French writer Pierre Vaydat (in the French-language magazine of German culture, Germanica14) even suggests that it was clearly aimed at “the new military class which was the officer corps of the Wehrmacht” in an effort to encourage them to rise up against Hitler and save the honour of the German military. The novel nevertheless only appeared in a censored form in the USSR.

    He returned to Weimar at the end of 1945, as an official of the Red Army! For two years he worked as a delegate of the regional assembly, as director of publications and had a leading position in the “Cultural Association [Kulturbund] for German Democratic Renewal” which was a Soviet organisation devoted to changing attitudes in Germany and preparing its inclusion into the USSR’s economic and political empire. As with so much else in Plievier’s life, this episode was partly fictionalised in a novel, in this case his last ever novel, Berlin.

    Plievier ended up breaking with the Soviet system in 1948, and made an announcement to this effect to a gathering of German writers in Frankfurt in May of that year15. However, Plievier had taken a long and tortuous political path since his days as a revolutionary sailor in 1918… He clearly ended up supporting the Cold War – seeing the struggle against “Communist” totalitarianism as a continuation of the struggle against fascism (logically enough). What’s more, his views had taken on a somewhat religious tinge, talking of a “spiritual rebirth” whose foundations “begin with the Ten Commandments from Mount Sinai and end with the theses of the Atlantic Charter”! Although it can be read as a denunciation of the horrors of war in general, it’s clear that Berlin, his description of the collapse of Nazi Germany in 1945, is far more of a denunciation of Soviet Russia than anything else. The character Colonel Zecke, obviously a mouthpiece for Plievier’s views, even claims that Churchill and Roosevelt only bombed Dresden because they wanted to please Stalin. If you say so, Theo…! One virtue of Plievier’s single-minded attack on the Russian side is that he draws attention to the mass rape of German women by Russian soldiers. This was a war crime which it was not at all fashionable to mention at the time he was writing, despite the existence of perhaps as many as two million victims16.

    Berlin ends with one of the recurring characters in Plievier’s war novels being killed while participating in the East German worker’s revolt in 195317. Despite his conservative turn, Plievier obviously still has some of the spirit of Wilhelmshaven and can’t restrain himself from giving the rebellious workers some advice about how to organise a proletarian insurrection – seize the means of production! Another character says:

    “What use was it raising one’s fists against tanks, fighting with the Vopos [Volkspolizei – People’s Police], trampling down propaganda posters – one has to get into the vital works, to get busy at the waterworks, the power stations, the metropolitan railway! But the workers are without organisation, without leadership or a plan –the revolt has broken out like a steppes fire and is flickering away uncoordinated, in all directions at once.”

    He went to live in the British Zone of Occupation. He got married for a third time, in 1950, to Margarete Grote, and went to live next to Lake Constance. He published Moscow (Moskau) in 1952 and Berlin in 1954. He moved to Tessin in Switzerland in 1953, and died from a heart attack there in 1955, at the age of 63.

    His works – particularly the pro-revolutionary ones – are almost unknown in the English-speaking world (or anywhere else) today. The republication of The Kaiser Goes: The Generals Remain in electronic form is a modest attempt to remedy this!

    Finally, please read Plivier’s novels! Even the reactionary ones…

    #Allemagne #histoire #révolution #littérature

  • Sociologie de l’espace

    http://journals.openedition.org/lectures/19530

    Martina Löw, précurseure décisive du spatial turn, détaille dans ce livre à la fois rigoureux et foisonnant l’espace comme produit social et sa constitution comme acte performatif. Son idée phare : l’espace émerge de l’interaction entre objets, structures et culture. Cette théorie dynamique de l’interdépendance des dimensions matérielles, sociales et symboliques de l’espace permet un nouveau regard sur l’architecture, le développement urbain et l’action sociale, éclairé par la sociologie de la culture.
    L’auteure lance ainsi un des grands défis pour l’avenir : établir la typologie et comprendre les mécanismes relationnels comme des organisations spatiales du social qui engagent notre quotidien et déterminent nos choix de vie. L’ouvrage combine des analyses théoriques approfondies avec de nombreux exemples scientifiques, historiques, littéraires et cinématographiques. Paru une première fois en 2001 dans sa version originale et réédité maintes fois depuis, il est devenu l’un des travaux sociologiques les plus influents de ces deux dernières décennies.
    Haut de page

    Auteur

    #Martina_Löw

    Martina Löw est professeur de sociologie de planification et d’architecture à l’Université Technique de Berlin. Elle a obtenu en 1993 sa thèse de sociologie à l’Université de Johan Wolfgang Goethe à Frankfurt/Main et en 2000 son habilitation à l’Université Martin-Luther à Halle/Saale, département d’histoire, Philosophie et sciences sociales. Ses domaines de recherches portent sur la sociologie urbaine et la théorie de l’espace.

    #sociologie #espace #territoire

  • Migration: the riddle of Europe’s shadow population
    Lennys — not her real name — is part of a shadow population living in Europe that predates the arrival of several million people on the continent in the past few years, amid war and chaos in regions of the Middle East and Africa. That influx, which has fuelled Eurosceptic nativism, has if anything complicated the fate of Lennys and other irregular migrants.

    Now she is using a service set up by the Barcelona local administration to help naturalise irregular migrants and bring them in from the margins of society. She is baffled by the anti-immigrant rhetoric of politicians who suggest people like her prefer living in the legal twilight, without access to many services — or official protection.❞

    The fate of Lennys and other irregulars is likely to take an ever more central role in Europe’s deepening disputes on migration. They are a diverse group: many arrived legally, as Lennys did, on holiday, work or family visas that have since expired or become invalid because of changes in personal circumstances. Others came clandestinely and have never had any legal right to stay.

    The most scrutinised, and frequently demonised, cohort consists of asylum seekers whose claims have failed. Their numbers are growing as the cases from the surge in migrant arrivals in the EU in 2015 and 2016 — when more than 2.5m people applied for asylum in the bloc — work their way through the process of decisions and appeals. Almost half of first instance claims failed between 2015 and 2017, but many of those who are rejected cannot be returned to their home countries easily — or even at all.

    The question of what to do about rejected asylum applicants and the rest of Europe’s shadow population is one that many governments avoid. Bouts of hostile rhetoric and unrealistic targets — such as the Italian government’s pledge this year to expel half a million irregular migrants — mask a structural failure to deal with the practicalities.

    Many governments have sought to deny irregular migrants services and expel them — policies that can create their own steep human costs. But authorities in a growing number of cities from Barcelona to Brussels have concluded that the combination of hostile attitudes and bureaucratic neglect is destructive.

    These cities are at the frontline of dealing with irregular status residents from Africa, the Middle East and elsewhere. Local authorities have, to varying degrees, brought these populations into the system by offering them services such as healthcare, language courses and even legal help.

    The argument is part humanitarian but also pragmatic. It could help prevent public health threats, crime, exploitative employment practices — and the kind of ghettoisation that can tear communities apart.

    “If we provide ways for people to find their path in our city . . . afterwards probably they will get regularisation and will get their papers correct,” says Ramon Sanahuja, director of immigration at the city council in Barcelona. “It’s better for everybody.”

    The size of Europe’s shadow population is unknown — but generally reckoned by experts to be significant and growing. The most comprehensive effort to measure it was through an EU funded project called Clandestino, which estimated the number of irregular migrants at between 1.9m and 3.8m in 2008 — a figure notable for both its wide margin of error and the lack of updates to it since, despite the influx after 2015.

    A more contemporaneous, though also imprecise, metric comes from comparing the numbers of people ordered to leave the EU each year with the numbers who actually went. Between 2008 and 2017, more than 5m non-EU citizens were instructed to leave the bloc. About 2m returned to countries outside it, according to official data.

    While the two sets of numbers do not map exactly — people don’t necessarily leave in the same year they are ordered to do so — the figures do suggest several million people may have joined Europe’s shadow population in the past decade or so. The cohort is likely to swell further as a glut of final appeals from asylum cases lodged since 2015 comes through.

    “The volume of people who are in limbo in the EU will only grow, so it’s really problematic,” says Hanne Beirens, associate director at Migration Policy Institute Europe, a think-tank. “While the rhetoric at a national level will be ‘These people cannot stay’, at a local community level these people need to survive.”

    Barcelona: cities seek practical solutions to ease migrant lives

    Barcelona’s pragmatic approach to irregular migration echoes its history as a hub for trade and movement of people across the Mediterranean Sea.

    It is one of 11 cities from 10 European countries involved in a two-year project on the best ways to provide services to irregular status migrants. Other participants in the initiative — set up last year by Oxford university’s Centre on Migration, Policy, and Society — include Athens, Frankfurt, Ghent, Gothenburg, Lisbon, Oslo, Stockholm and Utrecht.

    A report for the group, published last year, highlights the restrictions faced by undocumented migrants in accessing services across the EU. They were able to receive only emergency healthcare in six countries, while in a further 12 they were generally excluded from primary and secondary care services.

    Some cities have made special efforts to offer help in ways that they argue also benefit the community, the report said. Rotterdam asked midwives, doctors, and schools to refer children for vaccinations, in case their parents were afraid to reveal their immigration status.

    The impact of some of these policies has still to be demonstrated. Ramon Sanahuja, director of immigration at the city council in Barcelona, says authorities there had an “intuition” their approach brought benefits, but he admits they need to do a cost-benefit analysis. As to the potential for the scheme to be exploited by anti-immigrant groups, he says Europe needs “brave politicians who explain how the world works and that the system is complicated”.

    “A lot of people in Barcelona are part of the system — they have [for example] a cleaning lady from Honduras who they pay €10 per hour under the counter,” he says. “Someone has to explain this, that everything is related.” Michael Peel

    https://www.ft.com/content/58f2f7f8-c7c1-11e8-ba8f-ee390057b8c9?segmentid=acee4131-99c2-09d3-a635-873e61754
    #naturalisation #villes-refuge #ville-refuge #citoyenneté #sans-papiers #migrerrance #régularisation #statistiques #chiffres #Europe #Etat-nation #limbe #pragmatisme #Barcelone

    cc @isskein

    –----

    Au niveau de la #terminologie (#mots, #vocabulaire), pour @sinehebdo:

    Belgian policy towards irregular migrants and undocumented workers has stiffened under the current government, which includes the hardline Flemish nationalist NVA party. It has prioritised the expulsion of “transmigrants”— the term used for people that have travelled to Europe, often via north Africa and the Mediterranean and that are seeking to move on from Belgium to other countries, notably the UK. Several hundred live rough in and around Brussels’ Gare du Nord.

    –-> #transmigrants

    • Rick Roderick on Marcuse - One-Dimensional Man [full length] | 45 Min.

      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=WNAKr1TQ0xc

      This video is 4th in the 8-part video lecture series, The Self Under Siege: Philosophy in the Twentieth Century (1993). Lecture Notes:

      I. Marcuse became a pop figure, the philosopher of the 60s. He expressed a key contradiction in modernity. Modernity is “enlightenment”, the end of myth and dogma, the power of reason; but it is also the rise of technology, capitalism, specialization, instrumental reason and the return of myth and dogma. The enlightenment built an intellect powerful enough to surrendering dogmatically before the powers of technology. This is the “Dialectic of Enlightenment” as analyzed by Herxheimer and Adorno and popularized by Marcuse. II. Instrumental rationality, information-based individual reason, leads to irrational outcomes. Individual monologic rationality is not rational in the totality of overall system. How did the force of the love of reason become itself unreasonable? The self cannot escape siege under the sway of instrumental reason alone, it drains the world of meaning and leads to the entwinement of myth and enlightenment. The film “Dr. Strangelove” is one long example of the contradictions outlined by Marcuse. III. Instrumental reason is the product of a one-dimensional society that produces one-dimensional human beings. Marcuse criticizes our society along at least two dimensions. First, the inner dimension: anxiety, despair, nausea and a massive industry in drugs to deal with these pathologies. A society of addicts. Second, the outer social world: alienation (separation from the subject and the object and the self in Marx’s sense); rationalization (bureaucracy and technical action in Weber’s sense). These produce a one-dimensional culture or banality which reduces human suffering and human desire to trivia and image.

      IV. Such humans have by now become deeply skeptical and cynical about almost everything; in particular, the government and the culture industry. Beyond that, we are becoming skeptical about our history, our meaning, our purpose and the general fate of the species.

      V. Marcuse’s method of criticism is called internal critique which measures a society against its own historically accumulated concepts and ideals in order to point out the gap between the actual social practices and the principles.

      VI. Marcuse also never lost faith in the human species to reconstruct itself, to begin anew. This hope of liberation transcended the field of economics and standard Marxism, as well as the achievements of the so-called free and democratic world of today. He also rested his hope in the possibility of that the self could be won against the odds. Today, unfortunately, this view will seem to many quaint.

      For more information, see http://www.rickroderick.org

    • #lumières #raison #rationalité #séparation #addiction #aliénation #banalisation #complexité #démocratie #désillusion

      –-------------------------

      https://fr.wikipedia.org/wiki/Herbert_Marcuse

      #Herbert_Marcuse, né le 19 juillet 1898 à Berlin et mort le 29 juillet 1979 à Starnberg (Bavière), est un philosophe, sociologue marxiste, américain d’origine allemande, membre de l’École de Francfort avec Theodor Adorno et Max Horkheimer.

      [...]

      Il est notamment l’auteur et de L’Homme unidimensionnel (1964), qui veut démontrer le caractère inégalitaire et totalitaire du capitalisme des « Trente Glorieuses ». Ces affirmations lui valurent des critiques, notamment celle qui proclamerait la tolérance envers toutes les opinions sauf les opinions « qui perpétuent la servitude », malmènent l’autonomie au profit du statu quo répressif et protègent « la machine de discrimination qui est déjà en service »4. Pour Marcuse, la tolérance envers des idées qui servent le système de domination et d’oppression est une dénaturation du concept de tolérance : Marcuse oppose la vraie tolérance, qui est nécessairement émancipatrice, à une perversion opportuniste de l’idée de tolérance, qu’il qualifie de « tolérance répressive ». Selon Marcuse, c’est la « tolérance répressive » qui a autorisé la prise du pouvoir par le parti nazi en Allemagne5. Pour Marcuse, « une des réalisations de la civilisation industrielle avancée est la régression non-terroriste et démocratique de la liberté – la non-liberté efficace, lisse, raisonnable qui semble plonger ses racines dans le progrès technique même ».

      [...]

  • Gregory Klimov. The Terror Machine. Chapter 07
    http://g-klimov.info/klimov-pp-e/ETM07.htm

    In The Control Commission

    One afternoon General Shabalin sent for me. When I reported he handed me an invitation from American headquarters, asking him and his coworkers to take part in a conference at Frankfurt-on-Main to discuss the liquidation of the I.G. Farben Industry. “Take my car,” he said, “and drive to Zehlendorf. Hand in the list of our delegation, and find out when the plane leaves. If there isn’t a plane, obtain passes for us to use our cars for the journey.”

    It was five-fifteen when I arrived outside the American headquarters. ’Well, now I shall have to wait an hour for an interview,’ I pondered. ’And I’ve got to see Eisenhower’s economic adviser, but I haven’t any letter of introduction, only my personal documents.’

    I stopped the car at the gate and took out my documents. The American guard, in white helmet, white canvas belt, and white gaiters, raised his white-gloved hand in salute and seemed to be completely uninterested in my documents. To give some excuse for stopping the car, I asked him some meaningless question. Without speaking, he pointed to a board with an arrow and the one word: ’Information’. I drove past the Information Bureau slowly, and glanced back casually to see whether anybody was watching me. ’I’ll find what I want, myself; it’s a good opportunity to have a look round without trouble. I’ll see what sort of fellows these Americans are. They may not pull me up at once. And if necessary I’ll simply say I took the wrong way.’

    I strictly ordered Misha to remain in the car and not stir a step. Who knows whether he might be kidnapped, and then I’d lose my head!

    I went along a corridor. All the doors were wide open, the rooms were empty. Here and there German women cleaners were sweeping the floors. On each door was an ordinary tablet: ’Major So-and-so’ or ’Colonel So-and-so’, and the name of the department. What on earth did it all means? Not a sign of security precautions. We Soviet authorities did not hang out name-boards on the doors to inform our internal and external enemies who was inside.

    I felt a little uncomfortable, almost queer, with anxiety. As though I had got into a secret department by accident and was afraid of being caught. In search of the right room I looked at one nameplate after another and felt as though I was a spy going through the card index of an enemy General Staff. And I was in full Soviet uniform, too!

    One of our officers had once told me there was no point in visiting an American office after five p. m. “After that they’re all out with German girls,” he explained, and I couldn’t be sure whether his words expressed contempt or simply envy of American methods. “They think anyone who sits in an office after office-hours doesn’t know how to work or arrange his time.”

    ’He was right,’ I thought now. ’The Americans obviously don’t intend to work themselves to death. General Shabalin’s working day really begins at seven in the evening. I suppose I must apply to “Information” after all.’

    In the Information Bureau I found two negroes extended in easy chairs, their feet on the desk. They were chewing gum. I had some difficulty in getting them to understand that I wanted to speak to General Clay. Without stopping his chewing one of them called something incomprehensible through a small window into the next room. Even if I had been President Truman, Marshal Stalin, or a horned devil, I doubt whether he would have removed his feet from the desk or shifted the gum from his right to his left cheek. And yet ’Information’ functioned perfectly: a sergeant behind the window said something into a telephone, and a few minutes later an American lieutenant arrived and courteously asked me to follow him.

    In General Clay’s outer office a woman secretary was turning over the pages of a glossy magazine. ’She’ll probably put her feet on the typewriter too,’ I thought, and prudently sat down at a safe distance. While I was wondering whether to remain silent or enter into conversation with the ’Allies’, a long-nosed little soldier burst through the door leading to the general’s room. He tore through the outer office and snatched his cap down from a nail, saying a few hurried words to the secretary.

    ’The general must be a bit of a martinet, if his men rush about like that,’ I thought.

    At that moment the soldier held out his hand to me and let loose a flood of words which overwhelmed my weak knowledge of English. “General Clay,” the secretary said in an explanatory tone behind my back. Before I could recover my wits the general had vanished again. He wasn’t a general; he was an atom bomb! All I had under-stood was ’Okay’; and that the necessary order had already been issued. And in addition, that here it wasn’t at all easy to tell the difference between a general and a GI The privates stretched themselves out with their feet on the desk while the generals tore around like messenger boys.

    Another officer appeared at the same door, and invited me into his room. This time I prudently glanced at his tabs. Another general! Without offering me a chair, but not sitting down himself, the general listened to me with cool efficiency. Then he nodded and went out.

    I looked round the room. A modest writing desk. Modest inkstands. A thick wad of newspapers. A number of pencils. Nothing unnecessary. A room to work in, not to catch flies in. When a writing desk adequate for General Shabalin’s rank was required, all Karlshorst and all the booty warehouses were turned upside down. The inkstands were obtained specially from Dresden for him.

    A little later the American general returned and told me, apparently on the basis of a telephone conversation, when the aeroplane would be ready. I had plenty of opportunities to see later on that where we Soviet authorities would demand a ’document’ signed by three generals and duly stamped, the Americans found a telephone conversation sufficient.

    I did not have to present the list of the Soviet delegation at all. Here everything was done without resort to a liaison service and without any counter-check by the Ministry of Internal Affairs! The general handed me a packet of materials on the I.G. Farben Industry, so that we could familiarize ourselves with the tasks of the conference.

    Next morning the Soviet delegation, consisting of General Shabalin, Lieutenant-Colonel Orlov, Major Kuznetsov, two interpreters, and myself went to the Tempelhof landing ground. There the sergeant on duty explained that he had been fully informed concerning us, and spent a little time in phoning to various offices. Then he asked us to wait, as our plane would be starting rather later than arranged. I had the feeling that the Americans were holding up our departure for some reason. Machines rolled slowly on to the tarmac in the distance, but not one of them showed the least intention of taking us with it. The general swore, and, as he did not know whom to vent his anger upon, he turned to me. “What did they really say to you yesterday? Why didn’t you get it in writing?”

    “I was quite clearly informed,” I answered; “this morning at ten, the Tempelhof airground. A special machine would be waiting for us, and the airport commandant was notified.”

    The general clasped his hands behind his back, drew his head down between his shoulders, and marched up and down the concrete road outside the building without deigning to give us another glance.

    To pass the time. Major Kuznetsov and I began to make a closer inspection of the landing ground. Not far away an American soldier in overalls was hanging about, giving us inquisitively friendly glances, and obviously seeking an excuse to speak to us. Now a blunt-nosed Douglas rolled up to the start. During the war these transport machines had reached the Soviet Union in wholesale quantities as part of the lend-lease deliveries; every Russian knew them. The American soldier smiled, pointed to the machine, and said:"S-47."

    I looked to where he was pointing, and corrected him: “Douglas.” He shook his head and said: “No... no. S-47. Sikorsky... Russian constructor....”

    ’Was it really one of Igor Sikorsky’s designs?’ I wondered. Sikorsky had been the pioneer of Russian aviation in the first world war, and the constructor of the first multi-engine machine, Ilya Mourometz. I knew that, like Boris Seversky, he was working in the field of American aviation, but I had not known that the Douglas was his job. It was interesting that Pravda hadn’t taken the opportunity to make a big song of it.

    The soldier pointed his finger first at the clock, then into the sky. With his hand he imitated a plane landing, and explained as he pointed to the ground: “General Eisenhower.”

    ’Well, if General Eisenhower’s arriving,’ I thought, ’that probably explains why we couldn’t start.’

    While we were talking to the soldier a machine grounded just behind us, and a group of cheerful old gentlemen poured out of it. Like a horde of children just out of school they surrounded General Shabalin and began to shake his hand so heartily that you would have thought it was the one thing they had flown from America for. The general was carried away by their exuberance and shook their hands in turn. Later it transpired that they had mistaken Shabalin for General Zhukov. Meanwhile, Lieutenant-Colonel Orlov had found out somewhere that these gay old boys were American senators, who were on their way to Moscow. He whispered this news into the general’s ear, but it was too late. Shabalin had already exchanged cordial handshakes with these sworn enemies of the communist order.

    All around them, camera shutters were clicking. The senators seemed to get a great kick out of posing with General Shabalin, holding his hands. The general had little wish to be photographed in such compromising company, but he had to put a good face on it. He was quite convinced that all these photos would find their way into the archives of some foreign secret service, and thence into the archives of the Narcomvnudel. And then the fat would be in the fire.

    Major Kuznetsov asked Lieutenant-Colonel Orlov incredulously: “But are they really senators?”

    “Yes, and the very worst of them all, the Senate Political Commission,” Orlov replied.

    “But they don’t look at all like capitalists.” Kuznetsov still felt dubious.

    “Yes, they look quite harmless; but they’ve got millions in their pockets. They’re cold-blooded sharks,” Orlov retorted. Evidently he regarded it as a mortal sin to have money in one’s pocket. But then, he was a dyed-in-the-wool party man.

    “So they’re the lords of America, and they behave like that. Now if one of our ministers....” Kuznetsov’s reflections were interrupted by the arrival of a column of closed cars, which drove straight on to the landing ground. A group of Soviet officers stepped out. The gold braid on their caps and the red piping on their coats showed that they were generals.

    “Now we’re in for a parade!” Kuznetsov muttered. “That’s Marshal Zhukov and all his staff. We’d better take cover in the bushes.”

    General Shabalin seemed to be of the same opinion. He had not been invited to this meeting, and to be an uninvited guest of Marshal Zhukov was rather a ticklish matter. But his general’s uniform made it impossible for him to hide behind others’ backs.

    In this hour of need the lively old gentlemen from America came to the rescue. With unreserved ’Hellos’, friendly handshakes and back-slayings, an unstained, friendly atmosphere was created. “I like these senators!” Kuznetsov enthused. “They slap hands together like a lot of horse-dealers at a market. Great old boys!” He licked his lips as though he had just drunk to brotherhood with the American senators.

    Marshal Zhukov, a medium-sized, thickset man with a prominent chin, always dressed and behaved with unusual simplicity. He took hardly any notice of the bustle all around him, but seemed to be waiting for the moment when they would come at last to business. Unlike many other generals who owed their career to the war, by all his bearing he clearly showed that he was only a soldier. It was characteristic of the man that, without any encouragement from official Kremlin propaganda, he had become known all over Russia as the second Kutuzov, as the savior of the fatherland in the second great patriotic war.

    The airground grew more and more animated. Forces of military police in parade uniforms marched on. The servicing personnel hurried to and from. A guard of honor took up its position not far from us.

    A four-engine machine landed quietly. The swarm of autograph hunters suffered disillusionment: double rows of guards swiftly and thoroughly cut them off from the landing spot.

    Major Kuznetzov looked at the guards and remarked: “Clean work! Look at those cutthroats. They must have been taken into the army straight from gangsterdom.”

    The first line of military police was certainly an impressive lot. They looked pretty sinister, even though they were clean-shaven. The second line might well have been pugilists and cowboys, mounted not on horses but on motorcycles that made more noise than aeroplanes.

    Meanwhile the guard of honor had begun to perform some extraordinary exercise. The men raised their arms shoulder-high and spread out as though about to do Swedish gymnastics. Decidedly inept and un-military by our standards. “It reminds me of operetta,” Kuznetsov said to the lieutenant-general. “What are they doing that for?”

    Orlov waved his hand contemptuously. “Like senators, like soldiers! They’re chocolate soldiers. Give them black bread to eat and they’d be ill.”

    “Are you so fond of black bread then?” Kuznetsov sneered. “Or are you simply concerned for well-being of your fellowmen, as usual?”

    Orlov ignored the questions. He was attached to our delegation as a legal expert. Also, he was public prosecutor to the military court, and knew well enough what might be the consequences of talking too frankly.

    General Eisenhower stepped out of the plane, wearing a soldier’s greatcoat, the usual broad grin on his face. He greeted Marshal Zhukov. Then he signed a few autographs, asked where they could have breakfast, and took Zhukov off with him.

    Hardly had the distinguished guests departed when the dispatcher announced that our plane was ready to start. Now we knew why we had had to wait so long.

    A man in the uniform of an American brigadier-general addressed General Shabalin in the purest of Russian. Apparently he had learnt that we were flying to Frankfurt, and now he offered us his services. He spoke better Russian than we did, if I may put it so. He had left Russia thirty or more years before, and spoke the kind of Russian common in the old aristocratic circles. Our speech had been modified by the new conditions, it was contaminated with jargon and included a mess of new words.

    I had no idea why Eisenhower and Zhukov were flying to Russia. The Soviet papers carried no official communiqué on the subject. A week later, as I was making my usual report to General Shabalin, he asked me: “Do you know why Eisenhower flew to Moscow?”

    “Probably to be a guest of honor at the recent parade,” I answered.

    “We know how to be hospitable,” the general said. “They entertained him with such excellent vodka that he sang songs all night. Arm in arm with Budionny. They always bring out Budionny as an ornament on such occasions.” Apparently that was all the general knew about Eisenhower’s visit to Moscow; but he put his finger to his lips, then wagged it admonitorily.

    Such small incidents clearly revealed the true position of the man who was deputy head of the S. M. A. He was really nothing but an errand-boy, and only by accident knew what was happening ’above’.

    An American officer stepped into Major Kuznetsov’s room. He thrust his cap in the hip pocket of his trousers, then swung his hand up to his uncovered head in salute. After which he introduced himself in the purest of Russian: “John Yablokov, captain of the American Army.”

    Kuznetsov was a very intelligent man, but he was also a humorist and a bit of a wag. He replied to the American with: “Greetings, Ivan Ivanovich! How do you do!”

    The American Ivan Ivanovich seemed to be no greenhorn, and he did not allow the major’s sneering smile to put him out. In fact, it transpired later that John Yablokov was one of those men who are the life and soul of the party. Either to please us or to show that, although American, he was a progressive; he rejoiced our ears with a flood of Russian oaths that would have brought down the Empire State Building. But that was later. At the moment Captain Yablokov had arrived on an official visit to invite General Shabalin to the first organizational conference of the Control Commission Economic Directorate. The general twisted the invitation and the agenda paper (both were in English) between his fingers. Trying not to reveal that English was all Greek to him, he asked: “Well, what’s the news your way?”

    A second American officer who had accompanied Captain Yablokov answered also in Russian: “Our chief, General Draper, has the honor to invite you to a...” He did not seem very well acquainted with the terminology of Red conferences, and was forced to fall back on the wording of the invitation: “... to a meeting, General.”

    Now the general was seated comfortably in the saddle. He did not know English, but he knew the Stalinist terminology thoroughly. He gave the American the sort of look he had given subordinate Party officials in his capacity as secretary of the Sverdlovsk District Party Committee, and explained in a hortatory tone: “We have to work, not attend meetings.”

    That was a standing Stalinist phrase, which all party officials used as a lash. But at this juncture it sounded rather rude. However, the general held to the principle that too much butter can’t spoil any bread, and that Stalin’s words can never be repeated enough.

    I sat in a corner and enjoyed myself immensely. The general would be starting to give the Americans a lecture on party training next. As was his habit in intercourse with foreigners, he observed the unwritten law never to trust one interpreter and always to apply the method of cross-examination, especially when the interpreter belonged to the other camp. While the Americans did their best to explain what they meant by a ’meeting’, I, too, attempted to help. The general never liked being prompted, but he always snorted afterwards: “Why didn’t you say so before?” So I tactfully observed: “It’s not really important, Comrade General. Let them hold their meeting and we’ll work.”

    After we had settled a number of minor questions the Americans went back to their Chevrolet and drove home. Major Kuznetsov remarked: “But they could talk excellent Russian. The one with the little mustache looked like Douglas Fairbanks.” The general pulled him up: “You can see at once what sort of birds they are. That fellow strikes me as Chinese. They’re spies.”

    The general appeared to fathom the true nature of his future colleagues extraordinarily well! A few days later, during a talk, Captain Yablokov informed me quite frankly that he had formerly worked in the American secret service in China. He did not appear to think he was in any way betraying service secrets. If a Soviet officer had mentioned such a fact he would have been committing a serious breach of his duty.

    Some days later we drove to the first meeting of the Control Commission; we went with the firm intention of working and not holding meetings. The Allied Control Commission had taken over the former Palace of Justice in Elshoizstrasse. The conference hall was almost empty; the delegations were only just beginning to assemble. I felt genuinely afraid that I would be exposed to ridicule: we had no interpreter with us, and I didn’t know English too well. When I mentioned this to the general he told me curtly: “You should know!” Another Party slogan, but it didn’t make things any easier for me. Until the meeting was officially opened we relied on German, for all the Allies without exception could speak German more or less well.

    When the general noticed that I was talking to French and English colleagues he barked at me as he passed: “You wait, Major, I’ll cure you of your mock modesty! You and your ’don’t know English’! Now you’re talking away, even to the French, nineteen to the dozen, but you never told me you knew French.” It was hopeless to think of explaining. And the general would probably stick me in a comer to exercise control over the French interpreters too, as he had done with the Americans.

    That, too, was due to the general’s Party experience. It is a common thing in the Soviet Union for specialists and experts to dodge responsible posts. Gifted engineers, or former directors of large trusts and combines, get appointments as ’technical managers’ to some small factory or a cooperative of war-wounded, which employs only five or six workmen. In such positions they are less exposed to the risk of being flung behind the bars as ’saboteurs’, and so they keep quiet about their abilities and their diplomas. The Party officials are aware of this trick, and do their utmost to round up the ’pretenders’. And so even if you try to escape responsibility you’re in the wrong: you’re a ’passive saboteur’.

    I breathed a sigh of relief when I discovered that the American and British delegations had first-class Russian interpreters.

    Another difficult problem for me was my uniform. I looked as though I had covered the entire journey from Stalingrad to Berlin crawling on my belly. My uniform had been washed in all the rivers of Russia and Eastern Europe, the color had faded from it completely; in addition, I was wearing ordinary military boots. Before we drove to the conference General Shabalin gave me a critical look up and down and snarled: “Haven’t you got any shabbier-clothes you can wear?” He knew quite well that I had left my good uniforms in Moscow as an iron reserve.

    Many of us took the view that, after all, the army wasn’t a puppet-show, and in any case children were running about naked at home. One man had a little sister, another a young nephew. Warm clothes or breeches could be made for them out of a uniform, and the kids would be hugely delighted: “Uncle Gregory has fought in this uniform,” the child would say, pointing proudly to the holes left by the pins of orders. I, too, had left several complete outfits in Moscow. In any case I would be getting the so-called ’Foreign Equipment’ when I reached Berlin. Only I had overlooked the possibility that I would have to take part in meetings of the Control Commission before the new equipment arrived.

    As our Administration for Economy developed its organization and activities, more and more men arrived from Moscow to work with us. Usually, deputies of the People’s Commissars for the corresponding Moscow commissariats were appointed heads of the S. M. A. departments, which in practice were functioning as the ministries of the Soviet zone. One and all, these men were old Party officials, specialists in the running of Soviet economic affairs. When they took over their new posts one could hardly avoid laughing: they were pure crusaders of communism.

    In due course we were rejoiced at the sight of the newly appointed head of the Industrial Department, Alexandrov, and his deputy, Smirnov. They both wore squeaking, highlegged boots of Stalin pattern, which its creator had himself long since discarded. Above the boots they had riding breeches of heavy overcoating material, and to crown this rigout they had dark blue military tunics dating from the period of revolutionary communism. At one time such attire was very fashionable among Party officials, from the local chairmen of Machinery-Tractor Stations right up to People’s Commissars, for it was symbolical not only of outward, but of inward devotion to the leader. For a long time now the People’s Commissars had been wearing ordinary European clothes, and one came across antiquated garb chiefly in remote collective farms. I can imagine what sort of impression these scarecrows made on the Germans; they were exact copies of the Hitlerite caricatures of bolsheviks.

    It was not long before these over-zealous Party crusaders them-selves felt that their historical costumes were hardly suited to the changed conditions, and gradually began to adapt themselves to their surroundings. Later still, all the civilian personnel of the S. M. A. were dressed in accordance with the latest European fashions, and even with a touch of elegance. All the leading officials, especially those occupied in the Control Commission, received coupons en-titling them to ’foreign equipment’ corresponding with their position.

    I stood at a window, talking to the head of the French delegation, General Sergent. Our conversation was on quite unimportant subjects, and I prudently tried to keep it concentrated on the weather. Prudence was always advisable; this Frenchman might be a communist at heart, or in all innocence he might repeat our conversation to someone, and in the end it would find its way... I knew too well from my own experience how thoroughly our secret service was informed of all that went on among the Allies.

    When we Soviet officers working in the Control Commission discussed our impressions some time later I realized why we were all cautioned against talking with foreigners. A captain remarked: “All these stories about spies are only in order to make us keep our mouths shut. It’s to prevent our giving away other secrets.” He said no more; we didn’t talk about those secrets even to each other.

    The Control Commission session began punctually at ten o’clock. After settling the details of the agenda relating to the work of the Economic Directorate, the times of meeting, and the rotation of chairmanship, we turned to drawing up the agenda for the next meeting. The head of the American delegation, which was chairman at this first meeting, proposed that the first item on the agenda should be: ’Working out of basic policy for the economic demilitarization of Germany.’

    The Potsdam Conference had ended the previous week; at the conference it had been decided to demilitarize Germany economically, so that restoration of German military power would be impossible, and to draw up a peacetime economic potential for the country. The decision was remitted to the Allied Control Commission to be put into effect.

    The interpreters now translated the chairman’s phrase into Russian as: ’Working out the policy of economic demobilization.’ Another of those borderline cases in linguistics! The English formula had used the word ’policy’. The interpreters translated this literally into the Russian word ’politik1, although the English word had a much wider meaning, and the Russian phrase for ’guiding principles’ would have been a more satisfactory translation.

    At the word ’politick’ General Shabalin sprang up as though stung. “What ’politick’? All the political questions were settled at the Potsdam Conference!”

    The American chairman. General Draper, agreed: “Quite correct, they were. Our task is simply to translate the decision into action, and so we have to lay down the guiding policy...”

    The interpreters, both American and English, again translated with one accord: “... ’Politick’.”

    General Shabalin stuck to his guns: “There must be nothing about politics. That’s all settled. Please don’t try to exert pressure on me.”

    “But it’s got nothing to do with politics,” the interpreters tried to reassure him. “The word is ’policy’.”

    “I see no difference,” the general objected. “I have no intention of revising the Potsdam Conference. We’re here to work, not to hold meetings.”

    That was the beginning of the first hour-long battle round the oval table. Solely and simply over the awkward word ’policy’, which General Shabalin was not prepared to see in the agenda or in the minutes of the meeting.

    It was often said in the economic spheres of the S. M. A. headquarters that the Kremlin regarded the decisions of the Potsdam Conference as a great victory for Soviet diplomacy. The Moscow instructions emphasized this aspect at every opportunity. At the Potsdam Conference the Soviet diplomats won concessions from the Western Allies to an extent that the diplomats themselves had not expected. Perhaps this was due to the intoxication of victory and an honorable desire to recompense Russia for her heroic exertions and incredible sacrifices. And perhaps it was due to the circumstance that two new Allied representatives took part in the conference, and that President Truman and Mr. Attlee had not yet got to the bottom of the methods of Soviet diplomacy.

    The Potsdam Agreement practically gave the Soviet Union the right of disposal of Germany. Its terms were expressed in very subtle language, and they were open to various constructions later on, whenever it seemed desirable. The task of the S. M. A. now was to extract full value from the advantages won by Soviet diplomacy. “Nothing of politick!” General Shabalin defended himself like a bear threatened with a javelin. And in all probability he was thinking: ’Do you want to send me to Siberia?’ Once more the old reaction of even the highest of Soviet officials, not to do anything on their own responsibility and risk. One reason why all decisions is made from above.

    Subsequently I myself saw that the American or the British delegation could change its decisions in the actual course of negotiations. But the Soviet delegation always came and went with previously formulated decisions, or else with red questionmarks on the appropriate document, which the general kept in a red document-case always under his hand. At the Control Council he acted more like a messenger than an active partner. A question that arose in the course of discussion was never decided the same day, it was only discussed.

    Then the general would return to his office and make direct telephonic contact that night with Moscow. Usually Mikoyan, a member of the Politburo and plenipotentiary extraordinary for Germany under the Ministerial Council of the U. S. S. R., was at the Moscow end of the line. He was in effect the Kremlin’s viceroy for Germany. And during those telephone conversations the decisions were taken, or rather the orders were issued, on which the Allied delegations later broke their teeth.

    Even at that first meeting with the Allies one could not help noticing a great difference between them and us. They welcomed us as joint victors and sincere allies in war and peace. Each of their delegations approached questions from the national aspect. And they considered that there could be no conflict of national interests or antagonisms among us victor powers, neither then nor in the immediate future. They assumed that this was a simple fact that must be as clear to us as it was to them.

    We, on the other hand, regarded the ’Allies’ as the opposing party, as enemies with whom we had to sit at the one table only for tactical reasons. We decided questions from the ideological aspect. The Allies believed that Marx and Lenin were dead. But now the shades of these two men stood behind us in the Control Commission conference hall. The Allies could not understand that? So much the worse for them!

    Generally speaking, the members of the delegations not only represented their state interests, but were also unusually typical representatives of their respective nations. Of course this doesn’t mean that Dimitry Shabalin smoked the coarse Russian Mahorka tobacco or that William Draper chewed gum. Not, at any rate, during the sessions.

    The American delegation was headed by the American director in the Economic Directorate, General William Draper: a thin, athletic figure, with angular, swarthy features-a lively and energetic man. When he laughed, he revealed the spotless white of strong, wolfish teeth beneath his black mustache. Better not put your finger between those teeth! He set the tone at the sessions, even when he was not in the chair. He had an abundance of the healthy energy peculiar to young, self-confident nations. I don’t know how many millions General Draper really had in his pocket, I know only that General Shabalin remarked more than once: “Ah! A millionaire! A shark!” It would have been interesting to know what he based his remark on: his communist beliefs or the reports of our secret service.

    The head of the British delegation and the British director of the Economic Directorate were Sir Percy Mills. A typical Briton. He gave off the smell of fog and Trafalgar Square. He wore a military uniform of thick cloth, with no insignia of rank. From the way everybody deferred to his opinion it was obvious that he was a recognized authority in the economic field. According to General Shabalin he was a director of the large British firm of Metro-Vickers. He was painfully clean-shaven; if he ever thought it necessary to smile, only the folds around his mouth came into action, while his eyes remained fixed on his documents and his ears listened closely to his numerous advisers.

    In the person of Sir Percy Mills, Great Britain worked hard, but always paid attention to the voice of its young ally and victorious rival, America.

    At the conference table of the Control Commission the historical changes that had occurred in the world influence of the various great powers were very perceptible. Great Britain had played out her role, and now, with a pride born of self-confidence, was surrendering her place to the younger and stronger. As befitted a gentleman!

    France was the reflection of all the greatness to be found in European culture. But only the reflection. Her representatives were the successors to Bonaparte and Voltaire, the contemporaries of Pierre Petain and Jean-Paul Sartre. Existentialism. How to keep one’s head above water. The French director of the Economic Directorate, General Sergent, had nothing better to do than to maneuver as tactfully as possible, and not agree too completely with the West, nor be too much in opposition to the East.

    The great Eastern Ally was represented by General Shabalin, a man who had a mortal terror of the word ’politick’, and by Major Klimov, who simultaneously performed the duties of secretary, interpreter, and general adviser. The Soviet side could have been represented just as successfully by one man to act as a postman. However, in those days I still naively believed that something was really being decided in those meetings. And, although we were armed to the teeth with communist theory, I felt really uncomfortable when I noted the large size of the other delegations and the sort of men who composed them.

    ’Nothing new in the West.’ The Allies, as one man, clung to the word ’policy’, while for three hours General Shabalin repeated: “Nothing of politick... At the Potsdam Conference....” In confirmation of his views he took a newspaper from his document-case and pointed to a passage underlined in red. Then his fellow-members in the commission also brought out newspapers and began to compare the texts. Truly, it was very interesting to take part in one session of the Control Commission; it was more interesting than the operetta. But to take part in them week after week was dangerous: one might easily have a nervous breakdown. Half a day spent in fighting over one word in the agenda for the next meeting!

    The members of the other delegations looked more and more frequently at their watches. The Western European stomach is used to punctuality. At last even General Shabalin lost his patience and he officially demanded: “What is it you really want to do to me: violate me? Yes?” The interpreters wondered whether they had heard aright, and asked irresolutely, not knowing whether to regard his remark as a joke: “Are we to translate that literally?”

    “Of course, literally,” the general obstinately replied.

    Sir Percy Mills tried to indicate that he found it highly amusing, and twisted his lips into a smile. The chairman for the session, General Draper, rose and said: “I propose that we adjourn the meeting. Let’s go and have some eats.” It was difficult to tell whether he really was hungry or whether he was fed up with Soviet diplomacy. Everybody breathed more easily, and the sitting ended.

    We departed as victors. We had won a whole week. The same night General Shabalin would be able to ask Comrade Mikoyan whether the word ’politick’ could be included on the agenda or not.

    While we were holding our meeting, the Special Committee for Dismantling, and the Reparations Department, with General Zorin at its head, was hard at work. The Allies would be faced with an accomplished fact. Okay! In the last resort each defends his own interests.

    The Control Commission gave me my first opportunity to get to know our Western Allies personally. During the war I had come across, or rather seen, many Americans and British in Gorky, and later in Moscow. But I had then had no official excuse for personal contact with them, and without the special permission of the Commissariat for Internal Affairs even the most harmless acquaintance, even a conversation with a foreigner, is sheer lunacy in the Soviet True, there is no open interdiction, but every Soviet citizen knows exactly what unfortunate consequences are entailed by such thoughtless behavior. Give a foreigner a light for his cigarette in the street and you are hauled immediately before the Ministry for Internal Affairs and subjected to strict interrogation. That, at the best. At the worst, one disappears into a Minvnudel camp, for ’spying’, and thus one helps to fill out the labor reserve.

    To stop all contact between Soviet people and foreigners, the Kremlin spreads the story that all foreigners are spies. So anybody who has any contact with a foreigner is also a spy. It’s as simple as that.

    One of the Soviet government’s greatest achievements has been to raise lawlessness to a law, with all the paralyzing fear of ’authority’ that follows from it. Every individual lives in a state of anxiety. The Kremlin exploits this mood as a highly effective means of training and guiding the masses. Not even the members of the Politburo are free from it.

    Once, after one of the usual fruitless debates in the Control Commission, Sir Percy Mills proposed that we adjourn, and then invited the members of the other delegations to lunch with him.

    General Shabalin went and rode with his British colleague. I had received no instructions whatever so I got into the general’s seat in our car and ordered Misha to drive immediately behind the one in which our chief was traveling. I entered Sir Percy’s house with decidedly mixed feelings. All the guests left their hats and document-cases on a small table or on the hallstand. The maid-servant took my cap from me, and held out her hand to take my document-case. I was at a loss to know what to do; it was the general’s red case that I was carrying. It had nothing of importance in it: just the minutes of the last sitting, which on this occasion had been sent to us by the British. I couldn’t leave the case in the car, but to leave it on the hall table with the others would have been a crime against the State. Yet to take it with me looked rather silly.

    General Shabalin himself rescued me from my awkward situation. He came across to me and said quietly:

    “What are you doing here. Major? Go and wait for me in the car.”

    I felt relieved, went out, got into our car, and lit a cigarette. A few minutes later a British captain, Sir Percy Mills’ adjutant, came to the door and invited me in again. I tried to get out of it by saying I wasn’t hungry, but he stared at me in such bewilderment that there was nothing to be done but follow him. As I entered the hall where the guests were waiting the general gave me a sidelong look, but said nothing. Later it transpired that our host had asked his permission to send the adjutant for me. The British are justly famous as the most tactful people in the world.

    I gave the document-case to the general. Of all the idiotic possibilities that seemed the most harmless. Let him feel a fool!

    I stood at a great Venetian window looking out on to the garden, and talked to Brigadier Bader. The brigadier was a real colonial wolf. Sandy, sunbleached hair and eyebrows, gray, lively eyes behind bleached eyelashes, a complexion dry with the tropical sun. According to General Shabalin’s amiable description he was nothing less than one of the cleverest of international spies. And now I had the honor of chatting with this distinguished person. We talked in a mixture of English and German.

    “How do you like being in Germany?” he asked.

    “Oh, not bad!” I answered.

    “Everything’s kaput,” he went on.

    “Oh yes, ganz kaput,” I agreed.

    After disposing of German problems we turned to others. The summer of 1945 was unusually hot, and I asked:

    “After the English climate, don’t you find it very hot here?”

    “Oh no, I’m used to the heat,” he smiled. “I’ve spent many years in the colonies, in Africa and India.”

    I carefully avoided addressing my companion directly. What form of address was I to use? ’Herr’? That was rather awkward. To our ears ’mister’ sounds contemptuous. ’Comrade’? No, for the time being I kept off that word.

    Just then I noticed General Shabalin’s eyes fixed on me. In all probability my chief was afraid the brigadier was already enrolling me as his agent. At that very moment a maid came up to us with a tray. Bader took one of the small glasses of colorless fluid, raised it to eye-level, and invited me to help myself. I put the glass to my lips, then set it down on the windowsill. While the brigadier had his eyes turned away for a second I threw the whisky out of the window. Stupid, I know, but it was the only thing to be done. And the worst of it was that the general would never believe I had performed such a patriotic act. Whether flung down my throat or out of the window, that whisky would be put to the debit side of my personal account.

    An air of open cordiality and hospitality reigned in the room where we were waiting for Sir Percy Mills to take us to lunch. This inter-national assembly felt no constraint in face of that variety of uniforms and babel of tongues. Only the Soviet delegate Kurmashev, head of the S. M. A. Fuel and Power Department, sat alone in his easy chair, one leg crossed over the other, and apparently suffering torments. He felt more uncomfortable than a missionary among cannibals; he wiped the sweat from his forehead and looked again and again at the clock. When we were invited to the dining room he clearly heaved a sigh of relief. I am sure he would have been only too glad to talk to his neighbor, even if he had had to resort to sign language; he would have been delighted to laugh and toss off a couple of whiskies. But he was not a man like other men. He was the representative, and the slave, of communist philosophy.

    At table General Shabalin sat on the right hand of his host, who conversed with him through an interpreter. His uniform gave him confidence and certainly more sureness than was possessed by Kurmashev, who was a civilian. But in his civilian clothes Kurmashev tried to show that he was completely indifferent to all that went on around him, and tackled his food with the utmost ferocity. It was no easy task to fill your mouth so full that you couldn’t talk with your neighbors.

    My chief smiled formally and forced out a laugh at Sir Percy’s jokes. But for his part he made no attempt to keep the conversation going. No wonder the British think it difficult to talk to Russians not only at the conference, but even at the dining table. At one time we contemptuously called the English narrow-minded; now the boot is on the other foot.

    I was sitting at the far end of the table, between Brigadier Bader and the British adjutant. As I chanced to look up from my plate I met General Shabalin’s eyes gazing at me keenly. The longer the lunch continued the more the general eased his bolshevik armor plate, and finally he went so far as to propose a toast to our host. But meanwhile he gave me frequent interrogative glances.

    Of course I knew the general was in duty bound to keep an eye on me. But I noticed that he was not so much watching me as attempting to decide whether I was watching him. He was firmly convinced that I had been set to watch over him. Kurmashev was afraid of the general, the general was on his guard against me, and I distrusted myself. The higher one climbs in the Soviet hierarchy, the more one is gripped by this constant fear and distrust.

    And the one who suffers most of all from this remarkable system is its creator. When one observed how Soviet higher officials suffered from fear and distrusts one lost all desire to make a Soviet career. General Shabalin had been unquestionably a much happier man when he was minding sheep or tilling the soil.

    After lunch we all gathered again in the hall. Brigadier Bader offered me a thick cigar with a gold band, and wrapped in cellophane. I turned it over curiously in my fingers. A real Havana! Hitherto I had known them only from caricatures, in which millionaires always had them stuck between their teeth. With the air of an experienced cigar-smoker I tried to bite off the tip, but that damned cigar was tough. I got a mouthful of bitter leaf, and to make matters worse I couldn’t spit it out.

    “How did you like the food?” the brigadier asked genially.

    “Oh, very good!” I answered as genially, carefully blowing the bluish smoke through my nose.

    At that moment General Shabalin beckoned to me. I asked the brigadier’s pardon, prudently stuck the cigar in a flowerpot, and followed my chief. We went out into the garden, as though we wanted a breath of fresh air.

    “What have you been talking about with that...?” the general muttered, avoiding mention of any name.

    “About the weather, Comrade General.”

    “Hm... hm....” Shabalin rubbed his nose with the knuckle of his forefinger, a trick of his during conversations of a semi-official nature. Then he unexpectedly changed his tone:

    “I think there’s nothing more for you to do here. Take a day off. Have my car and go for a drive through Berlin. Take a look at the girls....”

    He made a very frivolous remark, and smiled forcibly. I listened closely as I walked with him about the garden. What did all this condescension and thought for me mean?

    “Call up Kuznetsov this evening and tell him I shall go straight home,” was the general’s final word as he went up the verandah steps.

    So he had no intention of returning to the office today. There all the ordinary routine was waiting for him, to keep him as a rule till three in the morning. That was not compulsory, it was his duty as a bolshevik. He must be around in case the ’master’ called him up in the middle of the night. But now, after a very good lunch and a few glasses of wine, he felt the need to be a man like other men for a few hours at least. The comfort of the villa and the open cordiality of the company had had its effect even on the old Party wolf. Just for once he felt impelled to throw off the mask of an iron bolshevik, to laugh aloud and smack his colleagues on the shoulders, to be a man, not a Party ticket. And he thought of me as the eye and ear of the Party. So he was dismissing me on the pretext of being kind to me.

    I returned to the house, picked up my cap as unobtrusively as possible, and went out. Misha was dozing at the wheel.

    “Ah, Comrade Major!” He gave a deep sigh as I opened the door. “After a lunch like that, what man wouldn’t like to stretch himself out on the grass and sleep for an hour or two!”

    “Why, have you had some lunch too?” I asked in surprise.

    “What do you think! I’ve eaten like a prince.”

    “Where?”

    “Why, here. A special table was laid for us. Like in the fairy story. And do you know what, Comrade Major?” He looked sidelong at me, with all the air of a conspirator. “Even our general doesn’t have such good grub as I’ve had today.”

    After seeing Sir Percy Mills’ house, I could not help comparing it with General Shabalin’s flat. In the Control Commission the habit developed for the directors to take turns in inviting their colleagues home. The first time it was Shabalin’s turn to issue the invitations he ignored the habit, as though he had forgotten it. The real reason was that he had no place to which he could invite the foreigners.

    Of course he could have requisitioned and furnished a house in conformity with his rank. But he could not bring himself to do this on his own responsibility, while the head of the Administrative Department, General Devidov, simply would not do it for him, since under the army regulations such luxury was incompatible with the position of Soviet generals. The authorities had got to the point of providing special ’foreign equipment’, but nobody had yet thought of suitable residences. Shabalin had exchanged his small house for a five-roomed apartment in the house where most of the workers in the Administration for Economy were accommodated. Nikolai, his orderly, and Misha, the chauffeur, had collected furniture and all sorts of lumber from all over the district for the apartment, but it looked more like a thieves’ kitchen than a general’s home. It was impossible to receive foreign guests there: even Shabalin was conscious of that.

    Once more, the contradiction between bolshevik theory and bolshevik practice. The Kremlin aristocracy had long since discarded the proletarian morals they still preached, and lived in a luxury that not every capitalist could afford. They could do so without embarrassment because their personal lives were secured from the people’s eyes by several walls. The smaller leaders tended to follow the same course. The Party aristocracy, men like Shabalin, lived a double life; in words they were ideal bolsheviks, but in reality they trampled on the ideals they themselves preached. It was not easy to reconcile these two things. It all had to be done secretly, prudently, one had continually to be on guard. Here in Germany there was no Kremlin and no area forbidden to the public, here everything was comparatively open. And supposing the lords of the Kremlin started to shout!

    At first General Shabalin had taken his meals in the canteen of the Soviet Military Council-in other words, in the generals’ casino. But now Dusia, his illegal maidservant, was taking the car to the canteen three times a day and bringing the food home. Yet even in such circumstances the general could not invite any guests to his apartment, and visitors, especially foreigners, were not allowed in the canteen.

    Even here, in occupied Germany, where we were not restricted by problems of living space or rationing, and where we could literally pick up everything we liked, even here we kept to our Soviet way of life.

    A little later the S. M. A. staff accommodated itself to circumstances and solved the problem in the old Potiomkin fashion. (Prince Gregory Potiomkin, favorite of Empress Catharine, who organized show-places and even ’model villages’ to impress the Empress. - Tr.). A special club was set up, in which the leading officials of the S. M. A. could hold receptions for their western colleagues. In each separate case an exact list of the proposed guests had to be sent in advance to the S. M. A. liaison service, to be carefully checked by the Narcomvnudel, and to be countersigned by the S. M. A. chief of staff". Of course such a simple form of invitation as that of Sir Percy Mills-"come and have lunch with me, gentlemen", and including even the chauffeurs-was quite impossible in such circumstances.

    During those early meetings with the Western Allies I was seriously afraid that I would be asked too many questions that I could not, or rather that I dared not, answer. But the longer I worked in the Control Commission the less was I able to understand their behavior. The representatives of the democratic world not only made no attempt to ask us political questions, as I had thought was simply bound to happen when representatives of completely opposed state systems came together, but they displayed a perfectly in-comprehensible indifference to the subject.

    At first I thought this was out of tactfulness. But then I felt sure it must be due to something else. The average western man was far less interested in politics and all that goes with it than the average Soviet man. The men of the West were much more interested in the number of bottles of champagne that had been drunk at a diplomatic reception in the Kremlin, and in the evening gown Madame Molotov had worn on the occasion. This was in the best case, but usually they confined their interests to sport and the beautiful girls on the covers of magazines. To any man living in normal conditions this seemed perfectly natural. If the Soviet men could have chosen they would have done the same.

    At that stage the West had no idea of the extraordinary dichotomy of Soviet existence. In thirty years we have changed fundamentally, to a certain extent we are Sovietized. But while becoming Sovietized we have simultaneously become immunized against communism. The West has no suspicion of this. It is with good reason that the Politburo has begun to underpin the Soviet edifice with the old national foundations, which proved themselves so well during the war. After the war the process of giving the rotting state organism a blood transfusion was continued. The method will doubtless meet with success for a time; it will confuse some and arouse illusory hopes in others. But the Kremlin’s plans will not be modified to any extent.

    A small but characteristic example: in occupied Germany all the Russian soldiers and officers suddenly began to use the word ’Rossiia’-’Russia’. The movement was quite spontaneous. Some-times out of habit one would let ’U. S. S. R.’ slip out; but it was corrected to ’Rossiia’ at once. We ourselves were surprised at this fact, but it was so. Yet for twenty-five years anyone who used the word ’Rossiia’ was liable to be accused of chauvinism, and quite possibly to be charged under the corresponding article of the Narcomvnudel code. One could not help noticing this seemingly small detail when one found the word ’Rossiia’ coming to every soldier’s lips.

    Unconsciously he was emphasizing the difference between the concepts ’Soviet’ and ’Russian’. As though in spite, the foreign press confused these concepts. What we ourselves couldn’t stand they called ’Russian’; all that was dear and precious to us they described as ’Soviet’. The Soviet people neither wish to nor do they need to teach foreigners their political ABC. Why risk one’s head simply to satisfy a stranger’s idle curiosity?

    How constrained Soviet people feel in intercourse with ’foreigners’ is shown by the following incident.

    One day, during an interval in the sittings of the Control Commission, several members of various delegations were discussing what they would like to do on the following Sunday. Kozlov, the chairman of the Soviet delegation in the Industrial Committee, let slip the unwise admission that he was going hunting with a group of colleagues. Kozlov’s foreign colleagues were enthusiastic at the idea of spending a Sunday all together, and said they would gladly join the party. Kozlov had to behave as though he were delighted beyond measure.

    On the Sunday the hunters set out in several cars. During the journey the Soviet members of the party racked their brains over the problem of how to give their Allies the slip. But the need to show some courtesy, plus the excellence of the western cars, gave Kozlov no chance of getting away from his unwanted friends. At the rendezvous the Allies got out and lay about on the grass, with the idea of having a little snack and a little chat. To avoid this, Kozlov and the other Russians slipped off through the bushes, and wandered about the forest all day, cursing Fate for pushing such politically unreliable companions on to them.

    In order to secure himself against the possibility of being reprimanded, Kozlov spent all the following week cursing and swearing to other members of the Administration for Economy about his bad luck, and carefully emphasizing his own ’vigilant* conduct. We could not enter freely into intercourse with the West. But what was the West doing to obtain information on Soviet problems?

    I had several opportunities of observing how the West obtained knowledge of Soviet Russia from ’reliable and competent’ sources. Those sources were usually journalists. The American and British journalists went to great trouble to get together with their Soviet colleagues, for they were convinced that these colleagues could and would answer their questions exhaustively and truthfully. Naive fellows! One can no more expect truth from a Soviet journalist than chastity from a prostitute.

    The American journalists in Berlin tried hard to get together with their Soviet brothers, free of constraint. But the Soviet journalists did their best to avoid any such meeting. Finally it had to be arranged: they had to invite the foreigners to their Press Club. It was at least a step forward that the Americans took the opportunity to ask questions which even the very adroit Soviet journalists could not easily answer. All they could do was keep their mouths shut. It was also very good that the Americans gradually realized the true meaning of ’Narcomvnudel’; they thought their Soviet colleagues were victims of the Narcomvnudel and were ringed about with spies, and that a dictaphone was built into every desk. Of course it would have been even more sound to assume that their hosts were themselves Narcomvnudel agents. My experiences in the college had taught me that all the Soviet Union’s foreign correspondents were coworkers of that organization.

    The Americans took their Soviet colleagues’ silent reserve as indicating their anxiety. This was pretty near, but not quite, the truth. Once the Americans even raised the subject of the ’Soul of the Soviet Man’, but they made the mistake of discussing the soul as such. The Soviet soul is a function of the Soviet reality; it cannot be analyzed in isolation from its milieu.

    Our work in the Control Commission was very instructive. From the very first sittings I realized that the widely held view that a diplomat’s life is easy and carefree was false. In reality it is a devilishly hard, or rather a tedious, occupation. One needs to have the hide of a hippopotamus, the sensitiveness of an antelope, nerves of manila rope and the endurance of a hunter. An English saying has it that it is the highest achievement of good manners to be bored to death without showing it. Now General Shabalin gave his colleagues extensive opportunities to demonstrate the truth of this remark. It was astonishing to see how earnestly earnest people could struggle for hours and days on end with an insoluble problem before they would admit that it was insoluble!

    In selecting their diplomats the British act on the principle that the least suitable of all candidates is one who is energetic and stupid; one who is energetic and clever is not very suitable, and the most suitable of all is a man who is clever and passive. The British prefer to be slow in drawing the right conclusion, and they fear nothing more than precipitate unsound decisions.

    This same rule applies to Soviet diplomats, only in reverse. The ideal Soviet diplomat must be exceptionally energetic and exception-ally stupid. He needs no intelligence, as he may not take any independent decisions in any case. On the other hand, energy is a quality needed by every commercial traveler, whether it is razor blades he is trying to sell, or his master’s policy. General Shabalin was an out-standing example of this type of Soviet diplomat. For that matter, all Soviet diplomats are distinguished by their enormous activity. The Kremlin can be charged with anything rather than passivity.

    Our first encounters in the Control Commission were quite educative. Despite my skeptical attitude to the policy of the western powers, I could not help reaching the conviction that they were genuinely anxious to work together with us for the solution of post-war problems. The creation of the United Nations Organization testified to the western democracies’ desire to secure peace to the world.

    Outwardly, we, too, gave out that we were interested in the same thing and wanted to take the same road. But the very first practical measures proposed indicated that the opposite was the truth. Our readiness for collaboration on the problem of world peace was nothing but a tactical maneuver with the object of maintaining the democratic mask, winning time for the reorganization of our forces, and exploiting the democratic platforms in order to sabotage world public opinion. The very first sittings of the Control Commission opened my eyes to all this.

    I recalled Anna Petrovna’s remark, which had so astounded me, when I was in Moscow. From her words I could only deduce that the Kremlin was thinking of active operations for the Soviet fighting forces in the post-war period. Yet it seemed absurd to think of any kind of war plans when we had only just ended terrible battles, and all the world wished for nothing more urgently and passionately than peace. Now, after those first sittings of the Control Commission it was clear, to me at least, who was neither diplomat nor politician, which the Kremlin had not the slightest desire to collaborate with the democratic West.

    The representatives of the western democracies racked their brains to find an explanation for their eastern ally’s extraordinary conduct. They sought persistently for a modus vivendi with the Kremlin. They sought a key to the enigma of the soul of the East, they turned over the pages of the historical tomes; but it never occurred to them to study the million-copy editions of Lenin’s and Stalin’s works. They attached too much importance to the dissolution of the Comintern. They are not acquainted with the winged words by which the Soviet leaders justify their every deviation from the Party general line: “A temporary deviation is completely justified if it is necessary for reorganization and the accumulation of new strength for the next advance.” The inflexible general line can wind like an adder.

    Sommaire https://seenthis.net/messages/683905
    #anticommunisme #histoire #Berlin #occupation #guerre_froide

  • Gregory Klimov. The Terror Machine. Introduction by Ernst Reuter
    http://g-klimov.info/klimov-pp-e/ETM00-re.htm

    The decisive problem of our time is that of relations with the totalitarian Soviet system. Despite all the astonishing results that have been achieved, not only in western Germany but in other European countries during recent years, the quite understandable disposition of a large part of the western world to be concerned with its own anxieties and to devote considerable energy to the restoration of its own conditions cannot dispose of the fact that there can be no peace in the world so long as the Soviet problem is not solved. Today the Soviets stand in the heart of Europe; Lubeck and Hamburg, as well as Kassel and Frankfurt-on-Main, lie in a sense at their gates; the bounds between the two worlds run along the Elbe in Germany, the geographical center of Europe; and countries like Poland, Czechoslovakia, Hungary and Rumania are under the domination of a foreign power which is never prepared to give up its ultimate goal. And all these facts show that there can be no serious peace so long as they endure.

    They cannot endure, because the people living under the Soviet yoke will not regard them as a lasting solution. They could only endure if the western world were to compound with them. But the western world cannot, and dare not, compound with these conditions. It must clearly recognize that this enemy will never abandon his goal, and by his very nature cannot renounce his conquests, still less his aim to incorporate those countries not yet under his subjection.

    Given this situation, which even today is not clearly realized by many millions of the western peoples, it is of decisive importance whether we can keep the way open to the subjected peoples, and also find a way to the peoples who are suffering most of all under the Soviet yoke. I mean the peoples of the Soviet Union, and above all the Russians themselves. More than any other place, Berlin has drunk the bitter cup of Soviet occupation to the dregs, and it is by no means fortuitous that it is in Berlin that the point has been made most persistently and urgently that our spiritual and political dispute is not with the Russian people but with the Soviet system. Again and again, we in Berlin have stressed that we have no hatred and no aversion for the Russian people, whose tremendous cultural achievements we all know and recognize, but that we wish to live and could live in true friendship with that nation.

    In the present historical conditions we are confronted with an unprecedented phenomenon. I refer to the fact that we are witnessing an emigration from Soviet Russia of people who have never consciously experienced any other but the Soviet regime. In all the former periods of world history, emigrants have regularly carried with them memories of the past. When they were compelled to leave their native land they took with them the memory of what they regarded as a better past, the memory of values in which they believed and which they considered it their duty to defend, even in emigration. This is true not only of emigrants from Germany. All through history, every emigration has had this traditional backward look. But now we find that ’Soviet men’, if we may use those dreadful words, are essentially cutting themselves off from the system under which they have grown up, from a system whose horrible and profoundly inhuman nature they have been forced to recognize often against their will, and only after a long inward struggle.

    Today we see that the identification of all Germans with National Socialism, and the consequent demand for ’unconditional surrender’, is one of the mistakes for which all of us, victors and vanquished, must alike pay heavily. It has taken time for this error to be men-tally overcome, and meanwhile tensions have been engendered which it would have been better to avoid. This serious political and psychological error must never be repeated on any future occasion. The Russian people and all the other peoples suffering under the Soviet yoke cannot and must not be made responsible for their regime.

    One of the most important tasks of the present time is to develop the western world’s understanding of the internal struggle and stress of relations inside Soviet Russia. We must work for realization of the fact that often men who carry Soviet passports are even compelled to become members of the Soviet Communist Party; and we must work for understanding of the reason why such men cannot be made politically and morally responsible for the regime under which they are themselves suffering.

    Major Klimov’s book is an unusually valuable contribution to the very difficult problem of understanding what is going on inside Soviet Russia. He gives a frequently dramatic description of his own process of development, and of his very rich experience and observation, which should be studied by all who have the future of the West at heart. Russia’s internal development during the war, the concessions made by the Stalin regime to the natural and inevitable patriotic feelings of the Russians who were called upon to defend, and did defend, their country against an enemy conqueror, but who hoped that something new would emerge out of their very defense, and then the monstrous post-war reaction, provide a key to an understanding of all that is happening in that country. His story shows the profound weaknesses of the regime, it reveals how responsive the Russians will be if the western world becomes convinced that our quarrel is not with Russia as such, but with the Soviet regime.

    In our own German history we have experienced something similar on a small scale. After the “élan” of the war for freedom of 1813 there was a reaction which made genuine freedom, and with it a genuine unification of Germany, historically impossible. We must get out of the habit of regarding this dispute as in the nature of a quarrel between East and West, or even between Germans and Russians. In Germany especially, but, unfortunately, not only in Germany, all old-style politicians are still inclined to think in categories derived from the past. They do not realize that the true realities of life are the hidden forces and processes at work within the people.

    They fail to realize that in our own fight for freedom our strongest allies are to be found in the Russian people themselves: people who are no less, and possibly even more, freedom-loving than those who are so quick to turn up their noses at the alleged and actual cultural backwardness of the East. On a former occasion, in a statement on German-Russian friendship, I said that I still hoped to have another opportunity to eat ’kasha’ with a Russian peasant in his hut. Perhaps those who cannot understand the depth of this longing, since they do not know Russia, will get some understanding of what I had in mind when they read Klimov’s dramatic description of a highly placed Russian Party-general’s visit to his peasant father’s home.

    For those who can read and understand, Klimov’s book gives an unequivocal answer to the question, continually being asked how we are to solve the apparently insoluble problem of dealing with the Soviets. The problem will be solved if all of us, freed from the domination of past power-conceptions, realize that the peoples themselves must be liberated; it will be solved when the peoples realize that their own internal freedom will only be secure again when the freedom of all peoples is secure. Klimov’s book reveals what profound possibilities there are of a solution on the lines of freedom in Russia.

    So it is a message of hope for us all. But it is necessary, too, for the world to understand how difficult, indeed, practically insoluble, is this task for any one people, if it has to live under such a satanic regime as the present Soviet regime. Klimov reveals so impressively the dreadful con-sequences of this regime, with its destruction of all human and natural inclinations and associations, that it is to be hoped the nonsensical idea which millions still hold, that the Russians as such cannot be trusted and that they are responsible for the regime under which they are suffering, will be abolished.

    There are still only a few who realize that we must win the genuine friendship of the Russian people. That realization is more present in the minds of those who are professionally occupied with the question. It must be our task to bring it home to everybody. Out of it a force of explosive effect can develop. No iron curtain, no terror measures adopted by the Soviet regime, will be able to hinder the long-distance effect within Russia of an inner change in the western world’s attitude to that country. In this direction we can forge weapons more effective than tanks, grenades, and atom bombs. In this direction we can forge weapons that will free the world without resort to bloodshed. Our real task is to gather around us men who, like Klimov, have gone through the purgatory of their regime and have retained intact an extraordinary strength of will and a genuine love of truth. I hope that this book will do even more than descriptions by foreign observers to help in shaping our determination to free this world, and with it the whole world too.

    ERNST REUTER,
    Burgomaster of Berlin.
    Aschau (Cheimgau), 21 August 1951.

    #anticommunisme #histoire #Berlin #occupation #guerre_froide

  • https://guyone.bandcamp.com/track/sella-nde-hu-dene

    In 2013, Guy One left #Ghana for the first ever time. A redirected flight found him in Frankfurt with no English skills and just a few scribbled notes to help with translation. Despite the setback he soon made it to Berlin and was almost immediately in the studio With no verbal communication possible due to language barriers, they simply played, the groove and the rhythms dictating the flow of the sessions. A record born from a deep sense of musical intuition, something beyond words and beyond description.

    #Frafra_soul #musique #kologo #Guy_one #Second_jésus

    Frafra ? Le terme désigne la population à cheval entre le nord du Ghana et le sud du Burkina, mais aussi une langue et un style musical basé sur une gamme pentatonique (celle du blues) et des rythmes traditionnels comme le kpanlogo (proche de celui du highlife). Au-delà des termes techniques, Guy One s’impose par un #groove imparable et des tourneries hypnotiques.

    http://www.jeuneafrique.com/mag/538578/culture/musiques-ghana-guy-one-le-berger-du-son-au-groove-imparable


    https://kologomusic.blogspot.fr/p/what-is-kologo.html
    source : jeuneafrique.com
    https://guyone.bandcamp.com/track/bangere-tomme

    #bandcamp

  • Un chiffre d’affaires de 8,3 milliards € pour #RELX (#Elsevier) en 2017
    https://www.actualitte.com/article/monde-edition/un-chiffre-d-affaires-de-8-3-milliards-pour-relx-elsevier-en-2017/87344

    RELX, ex-Elsevier, parmi les plus importants groupes éditoriaux du monde, ne connaît pas la crise : son rapport annuel pour 2017 annonce un chiffre d’affaires de 8,395 milliards €, en hausse de 4 %, et des bénéfices de 2,6 milliards €. Si le géant de l’édition académique et de l’organisation d’événements s’inquiète d’une tendance de la recherche à prôner l’accès ouvert, ses résultats économiques restent stables année après année.

    Frankfurt Book Fair - Elsevier
    Elsevier, désormais connu sous le nom RELX (ActuaLitté, CC BY SA 2.0)

    #édition_scientifique #crapules

    L’édition académique se porte bien, du moins est-ce le cas pour RELX. Le groupe éditorial, spécialisé dans ce domaine, fait état d’un chiffre d’affaires en hausse de 4 % et stable par rapport aux dernières années : en 2015, le groupe que l’on nommait alors Reed Elsevier annonçait déjà des revenus de plus de 8 milliards €. Les bénéfices sont eux aussi au beau fixe, à 2,6 milliards €, en hausse de 6 %.

  • Walter Benjamin et le nouveau désordre mondial
    http://www.dedefensa.org/article/walter-benjamin-et-le-nouveau-desordre-mondial

    Walter Benjamin et le nouveau désordre mondial

    Préambule

    Nous poursuivons (voir le 14 décembre 2017) notre analyse sur l’étrange mutation d’une théorie marxiste de l’hégémonie culturelle qui s’est infiltrée par tous les pores des médias de masse afin de finir par contaminer jusqu’à l’ensemble de nos perceptions. Partant de l’approche gramscienne pour aboutir en plein cœur de l’École de Frankfurt, nous avons décidé de faire un arrêt sur la pensée d’un véritable hérétique, penseur d’une hégémonie culturelle conçue comme l’instrument de subversion par excellence. En effet, Walter Benjamin a été qualifié de « théologien du marxisme » par ses proches et pour cause lorsque l’on prend la peine d’étudier l’étrange parcours intellectuel qui marque son œuvre inclassable. Émule de la Kabbale, Walter Benjamin s’est laissé tenté par (...)

  • Two Germanies (1961-1989)

    http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/sub_document.cfm?document_id=367

    http://germanhistorydocs.ghi-dc.org/map.cfm?map_id=333

    Traffic Near the Inner-German Border (1973-1989)

    The Basic Treaty of 1972 improved opportunities for travel and visitation across the inner-German border. Residents of border regions on both sides (shown in color on the map) were given the right to apply for entry without any particular reason to visit persons on the other side of the border. The map shows the areas in both German states to which this agreement applied. Aside from Eisenach, almost all of the large border cities (Magdeburg, Weimar, Erfurt) on the GDR side were excluded from the purview of this visitation agreement. Likewise, cities on the Federal Republic side were also excluded. They included Kiel, Hamburg, Frankfurt, Würzburg, and Hanover, the latter of which constituted an exclave within this border zone. Thus, large parts of urban populations could not take advantage of the extended visiting privileges. Moreover, there was no legally binding guarantee that citizens of the Federal Republic could enter the GDR. Visitor applications from citizens of the GDR, as a rule, were only approved for women over 60 and men over 65 years of age.

    #ddr #allemagne #histoire

  • Floating States 2018 by Ulysses Belz, painter and printmaker

    http://www.ulysses-belz.de

    Ulysse Belz est un peintre allemand qui vit maintnant à Majorque. Je l’ai rencontré il y a quelques années, aujourd’hui il peint ds cartes dans le ciel avec des nuages...

    Ulysses Belz
    Painter and printmaker

    Floating States 2018

    #Ulysses_Belz was born in Mainz / Germany on 12 of March 1958.

    After school he starts an apprenticeship as a restorator of books at the “Werkstatt Schoy” in Essen and finishes with a diploma in fine bookbinding in 1979.

    In 1980 he is admitted at the Ecole des Beaux-Arts in Paris where he studies until 1984 in the classes of Jean-Marie Granier and Pierre Courtin. Leaving Paris in 1984, he opens a gallery in the old center of Athens, in the Street of the Tripods (Odos Tripodon 18) where he works from 1984 to 1989. The Goethe-Institute Athens shows his work in a first solo exhibition in 1987. After returning to Germany, first solo exhibition at Gallery Gres, Frankfurt 1980, followed by various exhibitions in Frankfurt and Berlin.

    #art #cartographie

  • The Geopolitical Economy of the Global Internet Infrastructure on JSTOR
    https://www.jstor.org/stable/10.5325/jinfopoli.7.2017.0228

    Article très intéressant qui repositionne les Etats dans la gestion de l’infrastructure globale de l’internet. En fait, une infrastructure globale pour le déploiement du capital (une autre approche de la géopolitique, issue de David Harvey).

    According to many observers, economic globalization and the liberalization of telecoms/internet policy have remade the world in the image of the United States. The dominant roles of Amazon, Apple, Facebook, and Google have also led to charges of US internet imperialism. This article, however, argues that while these internet giants dominate some of the most popular internet services, the ownership and control of core elements of the internet infrastructure—submarine cables, internet exchange points, autonomous system numbers, datacenters, and so on—are tilting increasingly toward the EU and BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa) countries and the rest of the world, complicating views of hegemonic US control of the internet and what Susan Strange calls the knowledge structure.

    This article takes a different tack. It argues that while US-based internet giants do dominate some of the middle and top layers of the internet—for example, operating systems (iOS, Windows, Android), search engines (Google), social networks (Facebook), online retailing (Amazon), over-the-top TV (Netflix), browsers (Google Chrome, Apple Safari, Microsoft Explorer), and domain names (ICANN)—they do not rule the hardware, or material infrastructure, upon which the internet and daily life, business, governments, society, and war increasingly depend. In fact, as the article shows, ownership and control of many core elements of the global internet infrastructure—for example, fiber optic submarine cables, content delivery networks (CDNs), autonomous system numbers (ASN), and internet exchange points (IXPs)—are tilting toward the rest of the world, especially Europe and the BRICS (i.e., Brazil, Russia, India, China, and South Africa). This reflects the fact that the United States’ standing in the world is slipping while an ever more multipolar world is arising.

    International internet backbone providers, internet content companies, and CDNs interconnect with local ISPs and at one or more of the nearly 2000 IXPs around the world. The largest IXPs are in New York, London, Amsterdam, Frankfurt, Seattle, Chicago, Moscow, Sao Paulo, Tokyo, and Hong Kong. They are core elements of the internet that switch traffic between all the various networks that comprise the internet system, and help to establish accessible, affordable, fast, and secure internet service.

    In developed markets, internet companies such as Google, Baidu, Facebook, Netflix, Youku, and Yandex use IXPs to interconnect with local ISPs such as Deutsche Telecoms in Germany, BT or Virgin Media in Britain, or Comcast in the United States to gain last-mile access to their customers—and vice versa, back up the chain. Indeed, 99 percent of internet traffic handled by peering arrangements among such parties occurs without any money changing hands or a formal contract.50 Where IXPs do not exist or are rare, as in Africa, or run poorly, as in India, the cost of bandwidth is far more expensive. This is a key factor that helps to explain why internet service is so expensive in areas of the world that can least afford it. It is also why the OECD and EU encourage developing countries to make IXPs a cornerstone of economic development and telecoms policy work.

    The network of networks that make up the internet constitute a sprawling, general purpose platform upon which financial markets, business, and trade, as well as diplomacy, spying, national security, and war depend. The world’s largest electronic payments system operator, the Society for Worldwide Interbank Financial Telecommunications’ (SWIFT) secure messaging network carries over 25 million messages a day involving payments that are believed to be worth over $7 trillion USD.59 Likewise, the world’s biggest foreign currency settlement system, the CLS Bank, executes upward of a million trades a day worth between $1.5 and $2.5 trillion over the global cable systems—although that is down by half from its high point in 2008.60 As Stephen Malphrus, former chief of staff to the US Federal Reserve Chairman Ben Bernanke, observed, when “communications networks go down, the financial services sector does not grind to a halt, rather it snaps to a halt.”61

    Governments and militaries also account for a significant portion of internet traffic. Indeed, 90 to 95 percent of US government traffic, including sensitive diplomatic and military orders, travels over privately owned cables to reach officials in the field.62 “A major portion of DoD data traveling on undersea cables is unmanned aerial vehicle video,” notes a study done for the Department of Homeland Security by MIT scholar Michael Sechrist.63 Indeed, the Department of Defense’s entire Global Information Grid shares space in these cables with the general public internet.64

    The 3.6 billion people as of early 2016 who use the internet to communicate, share music, ideas and knowledge, browse, upload videos, tweet, blog, organize social events and political protests, watch pornography, read sacred texts, and sell stuff are having the greatest influence on the current phase of internet infrastructure development. Video currently makes up an estimated two-thirds of all internet traffic, and is expected to grow to 80 percent in the next five years,69 with US firms leading the way. Netflix single-handedly accounts for a third of all internet traffic. YouTube is the second largest source of internet traffic on fixed and mobile networks alike the world over. Altogether, the big five internet giants account for roughly half of all “prime-time” internet traffic, a phrasing that deliberately reflects the fact that internet usage swells and peaks at the same time as the classic prime-time television period, that is, 7 p.m. to 11 p.m.

    Importance des investissements des compagnies de l’internet dans les projets de câbles.

    Several things stand out from this analysis. First, in less than a decade, Google has carved out a very large place for itself through its ownership role in four of the six projects (the SJC, Faster, Unity, and Pacific Cable Light initiatives), while Facebook has stakes in two of them (APG and PLCN) and Microsoft in the PLCN project. This is a relatively new trend and one that should be watched in the years ahead.

    A preliminary view based on the publicly available information is that the US internet companies are important but subordinate players in consortia dominated by state-owned national carriers and a few relatively new competitors. Keen to wrest control of core elements of the internet infrastructure that they perceive to have been excessively dominated by United States interests in the past, Asian governments and private investors have joined forces to change things in their favor. In terms of the geopolitical economy of the internet, there is both a shift toward the Asia-Pacific region and an increased role for national governments.

    Return of the State as Regulator of Concentrated Markets

    In addition to the expanded role of the state as market builder, regulator, and information infrastructure policy maker, many regulators have also rediscovered the reality of significant market concentration in the telecom-internet and media industries. Indeed, the US government has rejected several high-profile telecoms mergers in recent years, such as AT&T’s proposal to take over T-Mobile in 2011, T-Mobile’s bid for Sprint in 2014, and Comcast’s attempt to acquire Time Warner Cable last year. Even the approval of Comcast’s blockbuster takeover of NBC Universal in 2011, and Charter Communications acquisition of Time Warner Cable last year, respectively, came with important strings attached and ongoing conduct regulation designed to constrain the companies’ ability to abuse their dominant market power.87 The FCC’s landmark 2016 ruling to reclassify broadband internet access as a common carrier further indicated that US regulators have been alert to the realities of market concentration and telecoms-internet access providers’ capacity to abuse that power, and the need to maintain a vigilant eye to ensure that their practices do not swamp people’s rights to freely express themselves, maintain control over the collection, retention, use, and disclosure of their personal information, and to access a diverse range of services over the internet.88 The 28 members of the European Union, along with Norway, India, and Chile, have adopted similar “common carriage/network neutrality/open network”89 rules to offset the reality that concentration in core elements of these industries is “astonishingly high”90 on the basis of commonly used indicators (e.g., concentration ratios and the Herfindahl–Hirschman Index).

    These developments indicate a new phase in internet governance and control. In the first phase, circa the 1990s, technical experts and organizations such as the Internet Engineers Task Force played a large role, while the state sat relatively passively on the sidelines. In the second phase, circa the early to mid-2000s, commercial forces surged to the fore, while internet governance revolved around the ICANN and the multi-stakeholder model. Finally, the revelations of mass internet surveillance by many states and ongoing disputes over the multi-stakeholder, “internet freedom” agenda on the one side, versus the national sovereignty, multilateral model where the ITU and UN system would play a larger role in internet governance all indicate that significant moves are afoot where the relationship between states and markets is now in a heightened state of flux.

    Such claims, however, are overdrawn. They rely too heavily on the same old “realist,” “struggle for control” model where conflict between nation-states has loomed large and business interests and communication technologies served mainly as “weapons of politics” and the handmaidens of national interests from the telegraph in the nineteenth century to the internet today. Yet, nation-states and private business interests, then and now, not only compete with one another but also cooperate extensively to cultivate a common global space of economic accumulation. Communication technologies and business interests, moreover, often act independent of the nation-state and via “private structures of cooperation,” that is, cartels and consortia, as the history and contemporary state of the undersea cable networks illustrate. In fact, the internet infrastructure of the twenty-first century, much like that of the industrial information infrastructure of the past 150 years, is still primarily financed, owned, and operated by many multinational consortia, although more than a few submarine communications cables are now owned by a relatively new roster of competitive players, such as Tata, Level 3, Global Cloud Xchange, and so forth. They have arisen mostly in the last 20 years and from new quarters, such as India in the case of Tata, for example.

    #Economie_numérique #Géopolitique #Câbles_sous_marins

  • Offshore Wind Farms Offer Subsidy-Free Power for First Time - Bloomberg
    https://www.bloomberg.com/news/articles/2017-04-13/germany-gets-bids-for-first-subsidy-free-offshore-wind-farms

    German’s electricity grid regulator approved bids to build what will be the first offshore wind farms that depend entirely on market prices instead of government support and subsidy.

    The decision by Bundesnetzagentur, or BNetzA, grants power purchase agreements for 1,490 megawatts of wind farms to be built in the North Sea. Developers promised to supply power from the facilities at a record-low weighted average of 4.40 euros ($4.67) a megawatt-hour, less than a tenth of the previous offshore wind deal, the regulator said Thursday.

    The bids were “far below any expectations,” said BNetzA President Jochen Homann. They’re well beneath the market price for power in Germany, which has fallen 3.8 percent this year to 30.10 euros a megawatt-hour, according to broker data compiled by Bloomberg.

    • #Eolien en mer : des parcs sans subventions, une première mondiale
      https://www.lesechos.fr/industrie-services/energie-environnement/0211974112436-eolien-en-mer-des-parcs-sans-subventions-une-premiere-mondial

      « L’offre sans #subventions est rendue possible par certaines circonstances propres à cet appel d’offres », a indiqué Samuel Leupold, patron de l’éolien chez Dong, dans un communiqué.

      Il rappelle non seulement que les coûts de raccordement ne sont pas inclus, mais aussi que l’échéance envisagée, 2024, laisse le temps aux fournisseurs (pas encore choisis) de développer la prochaine génération de turbine : il table notamment sur des turbines de 13 à 15 MW - alors que les fournisseurs (Siemens, Vestas, General Electric) proposent aujourd’hui, au mieux, 8 ou 9 MW. Dong souligne aussi que le régime de vent de ces champs est favorable et qu’il bénéficiera de synergies avec des parcs qu’il exploite à proximité.

      [...] Dans les pays nordiques, les autorisations et les études de risques techniques sont aussi prises en charge en amont par l’Etat, ce qui permet aux énergéticiens de réduire leur risque et de proposer des prix plus bas. En France, une nouvelle procédure dite « de dialogue compétitif » vient d’entrer en vigueur pour l’appel d’offres en cours à Dunkerque. Sans éliminer toute part de risque pour les énergéticiens, elle devrait contribuer à réduire les coûts dans l’Hexagone.

      #énergies_renouvelables #électricité

    • Offshore » Wind turbines taller than the Eiffel Tower
      http://www.maritimedenmark.dk/?Id=18974
      (janvier 2017)

      The Danish government has presented a plan for the establishment of giant wind turbines, which with their 330 meters will be taller than the Eiffel Tower. The proposal will now be discussed in conciliation. The industry cheers as the Nature Conservation Association remains skeptical.[…]
      Before the Eiffel Tower sees itself be bested by a wind turbine, the proposal must be discussed in conciliation with Socialdemokratiet, Dansk Folkeparti og SF, be subject to an EIA study, as neighbors and other stakeholders will be consulted.
      The tallest wind turbine is 229,5 meters, was built by Nordex and stands in Germany, 100 km. north of Frankfurt

    • The highest court of Greece will decide on the EU-Turkey Deal

      Athens/Chios/Frankfurt: Today the highest Greek Court will hold a hearing to examine whether Turkey is a “safe first country of asylum”, as presumed by the EU-Turkey Deal. It will hear the case of two Syrians whose asylum applications had been deemed inadmissible on first and second instance examination and who therefore are at risk of being deported to Turkey. Their cases were never examined on the merits. This is the second hearing at the Council of State to be hold about this case. Previously the 4th Chamber of the Council of State decided after a public hearing on 29. November 2016 to refer the case to the plenary given the importance of the issues raised.

      https://www.proasyl.de/en/pressrelease/the-highest-court-of-greece-will-decide-on-the-eu-turkey-deal

  • Push-Backs at the Greek-Macedonian border violate human rights

    Strasbourg/Berlin/Frankfurt, 14 September 2016 – Eight individuals from Syria, Iraq and Afghanistan are resisting the violation of their human rights on the route across the borders of Europe. They submitted a complaint to the European Court of Human Rights (ECtHR) against their unlawful push-back from the Former Yugoslav Republic of Macedonia (FYROM) to the border camp Idomeni in Greece in March 2016. The claimants assert that FYROM’s practice of collective and often violent expulsions breaches the European Convention on Human Rights.

    https://www.proasyl.de/en/pressrelease/push-backs-at-the-greek-macedonian-border-violate-human-rights
    #push-back #refoulement #CEDH #frontières #asile #migrations #réfugiés #Macédoine #Grèce #procès

  • How a mysterious ghost ship brought cosmic disco to Cape Verde | Music | The Guardian
    https://www.theguardian.com/music/2016/may/24/space-echo-mystery-behind-cosmic-sound-cabo-verde

    In a calm morning in March 1968, a shipment carrying the latest Korgs, Moogs and Hammond organs set off from Baltimore harbour, heading for an exhibition in Rio de Janeiro. The sea was steady, the containers safely attached. And yet later that same day, the ship would inexplicably vanish.

    A few months later, it finally reappeared. Somehow, the ship had been marooned on the São Nicolau island of Cabo Verde (now Cape Verde, but then a Portuguese territory 350 miles off the west coast of Africa). The crew were nowhere to be seen and the cargo was commandeered by local police. But when it was found to contain hundreds upon hundreds of keyboards and synths, an anti-colonial leader called Amílcar Cabral declared the instruments should be distributed equally among the archipelago’s schools.

    Overnight, a whole generation of young Cabo Verdeans gained free access to cutting-edge music gear. According to Frankfurt-based rarities label Analog Africa, this bizarre turn of fate can be directly credited with inspiring the island’s explosion of newly electrified sounds following independence in 1975, and has now been documented on its on its latest compilation, Space Echo – The Mystery Behind The Cosmic Sound Of Cabo Verde.

    https://youtu.be/BIK5M1WSxW4

    #musique #cap_vert #synthé #container

  • Présentation du livre de Andrew Duff : un nouveau traité pour la zone euro
    http://www.uef.fr/presentation-du-livre-de-andrew-duff-un-nouveau-traite-pour-la-zone-euro

    L’UEF, le Groupe Spinelli et le European Policy Centre ont organisé mardi 15 mars dernier au Parlement européen une présentation du livre de Andrew Duff « The Protocol of Frankfurt : a new treaty for the eurozone » (le protocole de Francfort : un nouveau traité pour la zone euro). Après l’intervention de Andrew Duff, les députés au Parlement européen Guy Verhofstadt (président du groupe ALDE), Danuta Hübner (présidente de la Commission affaires constitutionnelles) et Pervenche Berès (membre de la (...)

    #Europe

    « http://spinelligroup.eu/sites/spinelli/files/report_frankfurt_protocol_final.pdf »
    « http://epc.eu/documents/uploads/pub_6229_protocol_of_frankfurt.pdf »

  • A #Cologne, l’#agression de dizaines de #femmes au #Nouvel_An suscite l’indignation

    A Cologne, en Rhénanie-du-Nord-Westphalie, la nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre s’est transformée en cauchemar pour des dizaines de femmes, agressées aux abords de la gare centrale.

    http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/01/05/forte-emotion-en-allemagne-apres-l-agression-d-au-moins-90-femmes-dans-la-nu
    #culture_du_viol
    cc @odilon

    • Berlin condamne une vague d’agressions sexuelles lors du Nouvel An

      Le gouvernement allemand a condamné mardi une centaine d’agressions sexuelles commises à Cologne (ouest) la nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre et attribuées par la police à des hommes d’origine nord-africaine, mais s’est refusé à toute « instrumentalisation » visant les réfugiés.

      http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/berlin-condamne-une-vague-dagressions-sexuelles-lors-du-nouve

    • Voici un bel exemple d’#amalgame... La conclusion de ce bref reportage est particulièrement préoccupante...

      Journaliste: «Decine di donne sono state aggredite sessualmente da gruppi di uomini, fino a 30 stando alle testimonianze, di apparenze medio-orientale o nord-africana»

      –-> « Des dizaines de femmes ont été agressées sexuellement par des groupes d’hommes, jusqu’à 30 selon les témoignages, avec une apparence moyen-orientale ou maghrébine »

      Ralf Jaeger, ministre de l’intérieur Rhénanie-du-Nord-Westphalie: «Abbiamo identificato 3 sospetti, spero che capirete che, visto che non abbiamo ancora effettuato nessun arresto, non posso rivelare di più»

      –-> "Nous avons identifié 3 suspects, j’espère que vous comprenez que, vu qu’aucune arrestation

      Conclusion :

      Journaliste: «Per il momento nessuno sa dire se gli autori delle aggressioni siano persone che da tempo vivono in Germania o se si tratti di rifugiati arrivati negli ultimi mesi dal Medio-Oriente. Un’ondata a cui i tedeschi hanno aperto le porte affermando di essere in grado di gestirla. Il dibattito è più che mai aperto, chiunque siano gli autori dei fatti di capodanno»

      –-> « pour le moment personne ne peut dire si les auteurs des agressions soient des personnes qui vivent depuis longtemps en Allemagne ou s’il s’agit de réfugiés arrivés il y a peu du Moyen-Orient. Une vague à laquelle les Allemands ont ouvert les portes en affirmant être en mesure de la gérer. Le débat est plus que jamais ouvert, indépendamment de l’identité des auteurs »

      Source : http://www.rsi.ch/la1/programmi/informazione/telegiornale/Telegiornale-6626707.html
      C’est le reportage intitulé « Aggressioni in Germania, 90 denunce »
      #réfugiés #asile #migrations #préjugés #médias #journalisme

    • Et l’analyse d’un collaborateur de la RSI depuis Berlin... dans l’interview qui suit le reportage dont j’ai relaté ci-dessus.

      Introduction de la journaliste :

      «Una vicenda che capita in un momento particolare, con la Germania che si ritrova a dover far fronte a questo massiccio afflusso di profughi. Ti chiedo come reagisce il paese a questa notizia»

      –-> « Un événement qui tombe dans un moment particulier, avec l’Allemagne qui se retrouve à devoir faire face à un afflux massif de réfugiés. Je te demande comment le pays réagit à cet événement... »

      Regardez l’image :


      le mot en dessus de Rassismus est tellement caché qu’on ne le voit pas...

    • La maire de Cologne moquée pour ses conseils aux femmes après une vague d’agressions

      La maire de la ville allemande de Cologne, théâtre à la Saint-Sylvestre d’une vague d’agressions sexuelles, faisait mercredi l’objet de critiques et quolibets, particulièrement sur Twitter, pour son #conseil donné aux femmes de se tenir à bonne #distance des inconnus.

      http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/la-maire-de-cologne-moquee-pour-ses-conseils-aux-femmes-apres

    • Des policiers attribuent les agressions de Cologne à des réfugiés « tout juste arrivés en Allemagne »
      http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/01/07/la-police-de-cologne-reconnait-avoir-ete-depassee-lors-des-agressions-du-nou

      Les événements de la Saint-Sylvestre à la gare de Cologne sont en passe de devenir un véritable scandale en Allemagne. Selon les informations publiées par le journal Welt am Sonntag, la police de Cologne, contrairement à ce qu’avait au départ déclaré sa direction, dispose d’informations très précises sur les auteurs des agressions sexuelles commises ce soir-là. Les forces de l’ordre auraient en effet contrôlé dans la soirée une centaine de personnes à la suite de ces actes de violence. Quelques-unes d’entre elles auraient été interpellées et placées en garde à vue peu après les faits. « Seule une petite minorité de ces personnes étaient des Nord-Africains, la plus grosse partie était des Syriens », précise le journal.

      Welt am Sonntag, classé à droite dans la presse allemande, s’appuie sur le témoignage anonyme de policiers présents place de la Gare au moment des faits. Blessés par les critiques exprimées par le ministre de l’intérieur, Thomas de Maizière, à leur endroit, les fonctionnaires ont révélé que les informations données par le chef de la police locale, Wolfgang Albers, n’étaient pas justes. Ce dernier avait dit que la police ne disposait d’aucune information sur l’identité des agresseurs. La maire de Cologne, Henriette Reker, avait même ajouté que « rien ne permettait de dire qu’il s’agissait de réfugiés ». (...)

      Jeudi, la presse allemande avait déjà publié des extraits d’un autre rapport de police, celui de l’intervention des forces de l’ordre place de la Gare, le soir de la Saint-Sylvestre. Un récit accablant, qui montre que les violences commises ce soir-là sont bien plus graves que les autorités ne l’avaient reconnu jusqu’à présent.

      Selon ce document qu’ont pu se procurer Bild et le Spiegel Online, la place de la Gare de Cologne s’est transformée ce soir-là en un lieu de violence et de peur, où la police, totalement dépassée, était incapable de contrôler les diverses agressions, vols et attaques aux bouteilles et feux d’artifice contre les passants.(...)

      ...les agressions de groupes d’hommes consistant à encercler des jeunes femmes pour les agresser sexuellement et les voler étaient un phénomène nouveau.

    • En #Suisse et en #Finlande aussi

      Des agressions sexuelles contre des femmes, comparables à ce qui s’est passé à Cologne (Allemagne), ont eu lieu à Zurich la nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre, a annoncé jeudi la police de la ville. « Plusieurs plaintes pour agressions sexuelles et vols ont été déposées », a précisé la police, qui fait le parallèle dans son communiqué avec les événements signalés dans plusieurs villes allemandes. La police, qui a ouvert une enquête, a lancé un appel à témoin et demandé à d’éventuelles autres victimes de venir porter plainte. Environ 25 vols ont été signalés durant la nuit du 31 décembre à Zürich, alors que quelque 120.000 personnes se pressaient autour du lac de la ville. La police, en enquêtant sur ces vols, a découvert que plusieurs victimes ont aussi fait état d’agressions et violences sexuelles. Une demi-douzaine de femmes ont indiqué avoir été encerclées et soumises à des #attouchements par « plusieurs hommes à la #peau_sombre », qui s’étaient mêlés à la foule. La police a précisé que la plupart des plaintes ont été déposées dans les dernières 24 heures.

      En Finlande, la nuit de la Saint-Sylvestre a donné lieu à un niveau inhabituel de harcèlement sexuel à #Helsinki, a annoncé jeudi la police finlandaise. Des forces de sécurité en patrouille la nuit du 31 décembre ont constaté de « nombreux faits de #harcèlement_sexuel » sur une place centrale de la capitale finlandaise, où 20.000 fêtards s’étaient réunis, sans toutefois qu’aucune plainte n’ait été déposée. Trois cas d’agressions sexuelles ont en revanche été rapportés, dont deux ont donné lieu à des plaintes, dans la plus grande gare d’Helsinki, où s’étaient rassemblés quelque 1.000 #demandeurs_d'asile, pour la plupart irakiens, selon un communiqué de la police. Les suspects, trois demandeurs d’asile, ont été placés en détention. « Il n’y a pas eu de tels cas de harcèlement lors de la nuit du Nouvel An de l’an dernier, ni en d’autres occasions... C’est un phénomène totalement nouveau à Helsinki », a déclaré Ilkka Koskimaki, le chef adjoint de la police de la ville. La police a indiqué dans un communiqué qu’elle s’était préparée « de manière exceptionnelle » après avoir reçu des informations selon lesquelles « des demandeurs d’asile auraient eu des projets similaires à ceux concernant la gare de Cologne.

      http://m.leparisien.fr/international/agressions-sexuelles-en-allemagne-seize-suspects-pour-plus-de-120-plain

    • Agressions sexuelles à Cologne : une trentaine de suspects, dont des demandeurs d’asile

      L’enquête sur les violences physiques et les vols dont ont été victimes des femmes le soir du Nouvel An à Cologne continue. Selon le ministère de l’intérieur, la police a établi une liste de « trente et un suspects, dont les noms sont désormais identifiés », de vol et d’agressions, mais pas à caractère sexuel.

      http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/01/08/violences-a-cologne-berlin-annonce-que-sur-31-suspects-18-sont-demandeurs-d-

    • Les femmes suisses et la crainte du migrant musulman

      Des agressions similaires à celles de Cologne ont aussi été constatées à Hambourg, à Helsinki en Finlande, mais aussi à Zurich. De fortes craintes sont exprimées, notamment par la population féminine, face à l’arrivée en grand nombre de réfugiés originaires du monde musulman. Débat entre Myret Zaki, rédactrice en chef de Bilan, et Cesla Amarelle, conseillère nationale socialiste vaudoise

      http://www.rts.ch/audio/la-1ere/programmes/forum/7377093-les-femmes-suisses-et-la-crainte-du-migrant-musulman-08-01-2016.html

      A noter que le journaliste début avec « attention à ne pas faire d’amalgames »... mais... lisez le titre de cette émission :
      « Les femmes suisses et la crainte du migrant musulman »
       :-(

    • Le aggressioni contro le donne a Colonia, in Germania

      Un branco di maschi è un branco di maschi. A qualunque latitudine e di qualunque colore (anzi: “colore presunto”) essi siano. Con rara onestà intellettuale e morale, l’ha ricordato ieri su Repubblica Gabriele Romagnoli, a partire dalla sua propria esperienza di studente universitario bolognese, nonché di “maschio sessualmente arretrato”, che quarant’anni fa partecipava, o assisteva, ai riti goliardici di carnevale che ogni anno contemplavano caccia, molestie e palpeggiamento delle ragazze. E lo si potrebbe ricordare con svariati altri esempi presi dal mondo occidentale, bianco e libero, dove stupri di gruppo, molestie di varia natura, femminicidi di varia efferatezza non smettono di accadere. Oppure con altri esempi tratti dal circuito militare, occidentale e orientale, settentrionale e meridionale, dato che sempre nelle guerre, e in qualunque guerra, le donne continuano a essere la preda succulenta che gli eserciti di maschi si contendono, o il marchio etnico che cercano di conquistare, o la presunta altrui proprietà che cercano di rapinare.


      http://www.internazionale.it/opinione/ida-dominijanni/2016/01/08/colonia-capodanno-molestie
      #patriarcat

    • I fatti di Colonia riguardano tutti noi maschi (non solo i migranti)

      Gli episodi di Colonia hanno squarciato un velo. Nell’Europa multietnica c’è un problema che riguarda il rapporto fra i generi. Un gruppo di uomini ha attaccato un gruppo di donne in un luogo pubblico e le ha sottoposte a violenze, molestie, palpeggiamenti. Sono fatti inaccettabili e non possiamo sottovalutarli. Così come non può essere sottovalutato un dato culturale, e cioè che protagonisti di queste azioni sono migranti provenienti da una specifica regione del mondo, con uno specifico background culturale-religioso.

      In estrema sintesi, i fatti di Colonia ci indicano due errori da evitare: da un lato non si possono negare le insidie del multiculturalismo e il problema di certi ambienti culturali verso la libertà delle donne e delle minoranze, dall’altro la violenza maschile non può essere problematizzata come fatto essenzialmente culturale che riguarda solo gli islamici. Occorre, piuttosto, ribellarsi all’inciviltà in maniera aperta coinvolgendo tutti, a partire dalla comunità di migranti. Ma soprattutto è importante coinvolgere in questo discorso tutti i maschi: la violenza maschile è un nostro problema, una nostra colpa. E non è detto che gli uomini che hanno assalito le donne di Colonia la notte di Capodanno non abbiano agito sotto un arcaico fantasma maschile che riguarda ancora tutti, cristiani, musulmani e atei, occidentali e no, migranti e nativi.

      http://www.huffingtonpost.it/marco-palillo/i-fatti-di-colonia-riguardano-tutti-noi-maschi-non-solo-i-migranti_b_
      #multiculturalisme #masculinité #masculinities

    • Per le strade di Colonia

      E sono sicura di non essere stata sfortunata. Anzi, forse sono stata “fortunata” che in questi dieci e più anni di vita e viaggi in giro per il mondo non mi sia accaduto niente di più grave. Perciò non mi venite a raccontare che è Colonia, che sono gli immigrati nordafricani. Le aggressioni sessuali, più o meno violente, sono tutte figlie di una cultura maschilista di cui sono imbevuti uomini e donne, in Europa e altrove. In cui le donne sono a disposizione, sono di proprietà di un uomo e se non lo sono, se hanno l’ardire di andare in giro da sole, con altre donne, magari pure vestite come pare a loro, allora sono un piatto da buffet per tutti quelli che vogliono ficcarci le mani.
      Se c’è una cosa che Colonia deve insegnare è che il rischio di aggressioni sessuali contro le donne è una cosa quotidiana, che può manifestarsi in ogni momento, in ogni città, e che limita di fatto la nostra libertà di persone di muoverci, di lavorare, di divertirci. Se possiamo trovare una cosa positiva nel post-Colonia è che la società europea potrà a causa di questi eventi rendersi conto di cosa vivano le donne tutti i giorni, e fare di tutto per cambiarlo.


      https://ledonnevisibili.wordpress.com/2016/01/08/per-le-strade-di-colonia
      #sexisme_quotidien

    • Vu le sujet et le contexte, Je reproduis exceptionnellement la lettre hebdomadaire de Léosthène :

      31 décembre, nuit barbare en Europe

      « Je suis Syrien. Vous devez me traiter avec courtoisie. Mme Merkel m’a invité ».
      Témoignage d’un policier allemand de Cologne (voir note 5).

      « Ils voulaient surtout commettre des agressions sexuelles, ou, pour le dire dans leur logique, s’amuser sexuellement ». Ce sont les mots d’un policier allemand rapportés par le journal Welt am Sonntag qui s’appuie sur un rapport de la police de Cologne du 2 janvier. Faits repris par le quotidien Die Welt le 7 janvier (1) et par Le Monde daté du même jour (2). Il aura donc fallu une semaine pour qu’émerge un début d’information fiable sur l’ampleur des « agressions sexuelles de masse » (selon les termes de la police de Cologne) commises simultanément et selon le même mode opératoire dans plusieurs pays européens pendant la nuit du nouvel an : en Allemagne, bien sûr, Cologne d’abord (121 plaintes à ce jour), Hambourg (plus de 50 plaintes), Berlin et Francfort (plaintes isolées pour l’instant), Stuttgart, Salzbourg en Autriche, mais aussi en Suisse, à Zurich (3) et dans la banlieue de Bâle et en Finlande (Helsinki). Le nombre de plaintes augmentant de jour en jour, aucune analyse d’ensemble n’est disponible, à notre connaissance, au moment où nous écrivons. Le recensement le plus complet étant celui du très sérieux Telegraph britannique (4) à la date du 8 janvier.

      Les journaux Bild et le Spiegel avaient, dès le 6 janvier, publié le témoignage d’un chef de patrouille de Cologne (« Un récit accablant, qui montre que les violences commises ce soir-là sont bien plus graves que les autorités ne l’avaient reconnu jusqu’à présent », constate le Monde) : on le trouve traduit en anglais (5) le 7 janvier, comme on trouve via Twitter une très courte vidéo de 51 secondes, depuis censurée mais que nous avons pu regarder (voir ci-dessous) d’une scène d’agression illustrant parfaitement le mode opératoire. Au milieu d’une foule dense d’hommes jeunes, une jeune femme est encerclée par une vingtaine d’agresseurs qui, ensemble, la pressent et se livrent avec violence à des attouchements obscènes. « En dépit des cris des victimes qui demandaient de l’aide », témoigne le chef de patrouille, « les officiers de police ont été dans de nombreux cas incapables de les atteindre parce que la foule se tenait tout autour en groupes importants et en cercles ». Le tout dans un désordre redoutable, la police étant intervenue dès 21H45 sur la place de la Gare (en face de la Cathédrale) où se multipliaient les incidents dans une foule d’hommes agités, « issus de l’immigration », alcoolisés et/ou drogués, jetant des bouteilles, pétards et feux d’artifice – y compris sur les voitures de police. La foule se densifie à ce point que les forces de l’ordre, vers 22H45 et « après consultation du centre de commandement de la police nationale » décident d’évacuer la place « entre la gare et les marches de la Cathédrale ».

      « L’évacuation a commencé à 23H30, des marches de la Cathédrale vers le square (…). Elle s’est achevée à 00H15. Pendant et après l’opération, nous avons eu à gérer de multiples confrontations physiques avec des individus comme avec des groupes de personnes, des vols divers, le tout survenant simultanément en des endroits différents. Après les assauts sévères de migrants masculins, de nombreuses femmes et jeunes filles choquées et en larmes sont venues au bureau de police, et des policiers ont été envoyés sur les lieux des attaques. L’identification des assaillants n’était plus possible. Les forces de l’ordre n’ont pas pu être présentes lors de toutes les attaques, assauts et crimes, qui étaient trop nombreux et menés simultanément ». Et encore : « Les victimes et témoins ont été menacés, et c’est seulement la présence continue de la police et de passants de bonne volonté qui ont empêché les viols » (une ou deux plaintes pour viol avéré avaient été déposées au 7 janvier). « Je n’ai jamais rencontré, en 29 ans de carrière, un tel manque de respect envers les forces de police » (5) concluait ce chef de patrouille courageux, qui démentait les déclarations du chef de la police de Cologne, Wolfgang Albers, qui après avoir nié toute violence (« nuit détendue »), prétendait n’avoir aucune information sur l’identité des agresseurs, comme le faisait Henriette Reker, maire de Cologne (« rien ne permet de dire qu’il s’agissait de réfugiés »), privilégiant la thèse de gangs Nord-Africains.

      Parce, nous dit le Monde, après les informations de son confrère Welt am Sonntag,, « la police de Cologne, contrairement à ce qu’avait au départ déclaré sa direction, dispose d’informations très précises sur les auteurs des agressions sexuelles commises ce soir-là. Les forces de l’ordre auraient en effet contrôlé dans la soirée une centaine de personnes à la suite de ces actes de violence. Quelques-unes d’entre elles auraient été interpelées et placées en garde à vue peu après les faits. « Seule une petite minorité de ces personnes étaient des Nord-Africains, la plus grosse partie était des Syriens » précise le journal » (2). On apprend du même coup qu’il n’y a pas mille mais deux milles personnes en cause, « réparties dans un rayon de deux kilomètres autour de la gare centrale » ou que le chef du syndicat de police en Rhénanie du Nord-Westphalie, Arnold Plickert, qui défend ses camarades (« Je peux comprendre que des collègues diffusent des informations de façon anonyme. Ils veulent se défendre contre les fausses accusations qui circulent »), affirme que « personne ne s’attendait à cela, et personne ne pouvait le prévoir ». Vraiment ? Parce que malgré le chef de la police d’Helsinki, Ilkka Koskimaki, qui a démenti d’abord tout lien ou comparaison avec les événements de Cologne (5), la police finlandaise a publié un communiqué par lequel elle faisait savoir s’être préparée « de manière exceptionnelle », ayant reçu des informations selon lesquelles « des demandeurs d’asile auraient eu des projets similaires à ceux concernant la gare de Cologne » (7).

      Nous lisons bien qu’il y avait bien un « projet » des demandeurs d’asile et que la police en était informée en Finlande ?

      Les modes opératoires sont bien semblables d’une ville à l’autre (le porte-parole de la police de Zurich, Margo Cortesi, confirme bien à l’AFP que ce qui s’y est passé « est un scénario un peu identique à ce qui s’est passé à Cologne et dans d’autres villes allemandes » (3)). Il s’agit bien d’autre part de migrants - pour ceux qui ont été arrêtés parmi les agresseurs de Cologne - si l’on en croit la déclaration de Tobias Plate, porte–parole du ministère de l’Intérieur allemand, le 8 janvier (8). Et le rapport publié par Bild (5) note bien que les policiers ont soupçonné que « les événements de la nuit avaient été planifiés par avance ». Faut-il comprendre que la question est si « politiquement sensible » que les médias ont préféré censurer d’abord les événements de Cologne pendant plusieurs jours (une chaîne publique de télévision allemande s’en est excusée, la presse française est à peu près muette) et ne rapportent les autres agressions qu’en ordre soigneusement dispersé ? Que nous tenons la raison de l’invraisemblable conduite du maire de Cologne, Henriette Reker, qui a nié d’abord toute relation avec les « réfugiés » avant de proposer aux femmes un « code de conduite » (se tenir, entre autre renoncement à sortir seules et à porter des jupes, surtout courtes, à plus d’une ‘distance d’un bras’ des hommes (sic), ce qui fait les délices – et provoque la colère - de Twitter) ? Ou celle des errances des dirigeants allemands, et de leurs déclarations très embarrassées ? Trop tard, souligne notre confrère De defensa (9), qui cite les rares réflexions qui ont suivi l’affaire (Zero Hedge a publié plusieurs papiers (10), Russia Today (RT) lui a consacré un ‘Live’ toujours actif (11) et publié en français une analyse du philosophe et historien britannique John Laughland le 6 janvier) (12). L’affaire est comprise pour ce qu’elle est, même inconsciemment, par tout le monde : « L’incompatibilité de l’immigration massive avec la stabilité des sociétés d’accueil ne peut plus être dissimulée derrière la relative rareté et les caractères spécifiques que cela engendre en temps normal ».

      Pour notre part, nous en resterons, parce qu’il y a « projet » et visiblement projet pensé et actions coordonnées, au constat que nous faisions dans notre dernière lettre. Les stratèges-théoriciens de l’Etat islamique (Abou Moussab al-Souri, ancien compagnon de Ben Laden et le corpus de ses textes (1600 pages), parus en décembre 2004, L’appel à la résistance islamique globale et Abou Bakr al-Naji, L’administration de la sauvagerie : l’étape la plus critique à franchir par la Oumma) ont défini leur objectif – comme l’EI avait annoncé sa volonté d’envoyer un million de migrants vers l’Europe : il s’agit bien de provoquer par la violence et la terreur une situation de chaos destinée à déconsidérer les dirigeants des pays concernés. Honnêtement, nous n’avions pas pensé à ce mode d’action – avec ce que signifie le viol, sa barbarie et sa symbolique. Mais les fanatiques islamistes ont une dangereuse imagination mortifère. Non, les violeurs de Cologne et d’ailleurs ne « s’amusaient pas sexuellement ». Ils propageaient chaos et violence. Et s’il faut avoir peur, c’est des commentaires imbéciles d’Henriette Reker (peut-on porter plainte contre elle pour complicité de terrorisme ?) et de ses émules, tous ceux qui confondent les agresseurs et les victimes désignées comme coupables.

      Quant à Angela Merkel ? Qu’elle se débrouille avec la catastrophe qu’elle a provoquée le nez sur ses besoins en bas salaires - et les conséquences politiques de cette nuit barbare, qui seront graves. Mais surtout qu’elle garde ses « réfugiés » (13% d’enfants, 15% de femmes, ce qui reste sont des hommes jeunes). Nous avons assez à faire avec nos propres affaires.

      Hélène Nouaille


      Vidéo :

      Le témoignage d’un videur de l’hôtel Excelcior de Cologne, face à la Cathédrale (sous-titré en français, 3 minutes 11)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=-fOAcRzHgbg



      La vidéo supprimée de l’agression d’une jeune femme allemande à Cologne le 31 décembre (51 secondes)
      https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P9uteaoPSJQ

      Restait, le 8 janvier, une photo, déjà éloquente :
      https://twitter.com/17Novembre1796/status/685196270701559809


      Notes :

      (1) Die Welt, le 7 janvier 2016, Wolfgang Büscher, Martin Lutz, Till-Reimer Stoldt, « Die meisten waren frisch eingereiste Asyleweber » (« La plupart d’entre eux étaient des demandeurs d’asile de fraîche date »)
      http://www.welt.de/politik/deutschland/article150735341/Die-meisten-waren-frisch-eingereiste-Asylbewerber.html

      (2) Le Monde, le 7 janvier 2016, Cécile Boutelet (Berlin, correspondance), Des policiers attribuent les agressions de Cologne à des policiers « tout juste arrivés en Allemagne »
      http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/01/07/la-police-de-cologne-reconnait-avoir-ete-depassee-lors-des-agressions-du-nou

      (3) Le Temps/AFP, le 7 janvier 2016, Agressions sexuelles à Zurich la nuit du 31 décembre
      http://www.letemps.ch/suisse/2016/01/07/agressions-sexuelles-zurich-nuit-31-decembre

      (4) The Telegraph, le 8 janvier 2016, Two teenage girls gang-raped by four ‘Syrian nationals’ in southern Germany
      http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/germany/12088341/Two-teenage-girls-gang-raped-by-four-Syrian-nationals-in-southern-Germa

      (5) The New Observer, le 7 janvier 2016, Cologne Sex Attack : Horror Police Report
      http://newobserveronline.com/cologne-sex-attack-horror-police-report-revealed

      (6) YLE, le 7 janvier 2016, NBI (National Board Investigation) : no German link in Helsinki train station incident
      http://yle.fi/uutiset/nbi_no_german_link_in_helsinki_train_station_incident/8577608

      (7) 20 Minutes avec AFP, le 8 janvier 2016, Finlande : comme à Cologne, hausse des agressions sexuelles pour la nuit du 31
      http://www.20minutes.fr/monde/1761927-20160108-finlande-comme-cologne-hausse-agressions-sexuelles-nuit-3

      (8) Sputnik en français, le 8 janvier 2016, Cologne : presque tous les agresseurs sont des migrants
      http://fr.sputniknews.com/international/20160108/1020796241/agressions-sexuelles-cologne.html

      (9) De defensa, le 7 janvier 2016, La nuit de Cologne, ou le crash des civilisations
      http://www.dedefensa.org/article/la-nuit-de-cologne-ou-le-crash-des-civilisations

      (10) Zero Hedge, le 7 janvier 2016, Tyler Duden, The « Monster » Unmasked : Cologne Police Admit « Most Of The Attackers Were Refugees »
      http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2016-01-07/monsters-revealed-cologne-cops-say-most-attackers-were-refugees

      (11) RT en continu (‘Live’), le 8 janvier 2016, Le chef de la police de Cologne suspendu suite à la vague d’agressions du 31
      https://francais.rt.com/international/13262-stuttgart-hambourg-ont-aussi-ete

      (12) RT (Russia Today), le 6 janvier 2016, John Laughland, Afflux migratoire en Allemagne : antiracisme et féminisme, des valeurs incompatibles ?
      https://francais.rt.com/opinions/13364-allemagne-immigres-peur-images

    • Allemagne : Merkel pour l’#expulsion des réfugiés condamnés, même avec sursis

      La chancelière allemande Angela Merkel s’est prononcée samedi en faveur d’un très net durcissement des règles d’expulsion de demandeurs d’asile condamnés par la justice en Allemagne, en l’autorisant même pour ceux condamnés à une peine avec sursis.

      http://www.courrierinternational.com/depeche/allemagne-merkel-pour-lexpulsion-des-refugies-condamnes-meme-

      Le débat en Suisse autour de l’#initiative contre les #criminels_étrangers (dite initiative de #mise_en_oeuvre) va être bien bien dur... Et la campagne de votation bien difficile, hélas, vu les faits de Cologne et les prises de positions de l’Allemagne...
      Pour mémoire : http://seen.li/9gbx

    • @reka euh... on doit la prendre au sérieux cette lettre là ? C’est pas un peu exagéré ? Le texte de John Laughland sur RT est bourré de machin masculinistes qui m’ont semblé assez craignos et le commentaire dedefensa est à la limite de l’intelligible... Après bon c’est quand même grave ce qui s’est passé... Je crois qu’il y a eu des viols comme ça sur la place tahir pendant la révolution egyptienne (enfin j’ai vu ça dans un film)... bon. Quelle merde.

    • nan mais euh attends on est sérieux quand on parle d’un événement prévu et calculé là ? C’est ce qu’implique tes tags et j’avoue que... enfin j’arrive pas trop à y croire là

    • Il y a eu un commentaire très intéressant d’un prof allemand (d’un institut de l’immigration et de l’intégration, ou quelque chose comme cela d’une université dont je ne me rappelle plus le nom) qui est passé ce soir à ARTE Journal (09.01.2016), mais malheureusement ARTE n’archive pas online ses journal télé... donc impossible de récouter, re-regarder ou simplement en prendre des notes...
       :-(

    • ben... hystérie collective permise par une bonne vielle culture du viol ? Je disais ça aussi par rapport à la lettre de Léosthène qui parle d’une stratégie de l’EI en Europe et je n’arrive pas à croire à un truc concerté, prévu, décidé à l’avance... Je crois plus à un... truc délirant c’est-à-dire pas prévu. Chai pas...

    • Laideur, ignominie. Oui.
      Comment ça arrive ? Des inclues festives payeraient ici tribu pour toute l’inclusion d’Europe et pour la police et la ville. Leur joie de vivre affichée à cet instant feraient d’elles des trophées pour des mâles sans feu ni lieu. Un moment de revanche. Pour un célibataire endurci par des mois de trajet périlleux qui a dû rompre toute attache (si ce n’est un coup de fil de ci de là) un simple baiser est certainement un luxe inouï [ceci n’est pas une excuse !] .

      Sauf preuve contraire, il n’y a en principe, il me semble, pas besoin de plan et de chef d’orchestre pour que la misère sexuelle ajoutée à une culture machiste et à l’absence de famille et de proches disponibles - là où ont majoritairement lieu les agressions sexuelles et les viols - pour que cela ait lieu dans la rue, lorsque le contrôle qui y règne y est altéré. L’extranéité à une société qui se défend au moins autant qu’elle dit accueillir (cf les centaines d’attaques contre les lieux habités par des migrants en Allemagne ces derniers mois) aurait débouché sur un « carnaval » d’une cruauté injustifiable. Les proies se sont (re)faites prédateurs, se sont sauvées dans la prédation. Le rapport de forces s’inverse, là où c’est - terriblement - encore possible, là où « la femme » peut être vue et prise comme objet et objet d’abus, par des objets d’abus, « chez eux » et ici. Une femme devenue abstraite de ne correspondre, en nul visage, dans aucun bras, aucun sourire adressé, à aucun usage (ni tendresse ni toucher d’aucune sorte), à aucune relation .
      Le réfugié, c’est la figure du gueux, du non citoyen, hors de la fête de « la bonne année » qui vient, célébrée par tous. Et cette fois il en a pris sa part. L’année commence par le vol d’un #contact, voire d’une pénétration. C’est dégueulasse, parfaitement dégueulasse, mais il n’y a pas besoin de manager pour que de telles saloperies arrivent. Il suffit que la situation s’y prête.

      Une alternative à de telles saloperies existe (avec difficultés) lorsque de la barbarie de l’État et de ce « bonheur » que ces fêtes viennent dire, s’écartent des moments de côtoiement, (hautement contradictoires) où cela peut frotter avec des situations où le discours de la modèle (qui fait a postériori sa pub ?) : "Nous ne sommes pas du gibier" est présent en acte. Ensemble nous ne sommes pas le gibier de la police, par exemple, et si celle ci s’en prend à nous, c’est ensemble que nous cherchons à déjouer ce rapport.
      Des expulsions de La Chapelle aux occupations place de la République, il y à un type de rapport qui se cherche, pas harmonieux, pas simple, et bien trop faible, qui modifie l’équation, qui ne laisse que fort peu de temps propice à de telles abjections, qui ne structure pas l’espace en champ de foire où il faudrait rivaliser d’adresse pour montrer que l’on sait s’emparer de force de l’objet interdit (lafame). Et si des hommes migrants y rencontrent des femmes d’ici, c’est autrement.
      Rien d’idéal. Rien d’idéal. Et d’ailleurs, c’est très faible, bien trop faible.

    • Germany’s Post-Cologne Hysteria

      ON New Year’s Eve, hundreds of men gathered in the plaza at the main train station in Cologne, Germany, groping and robbing scores of women as they passed by. By the end of this week the police had received 170 complaints, including 120 related to sexual assault.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/09/opinion/germanys-post-cologne-hysteria.html?smid=fb-share&_r=1
      signalé par @unagi sur seenthis : http://seenthis.net/messages/447751

    • Hemmungslos

      Betrunkene entblößen sich, fassen Frauen unters Dirndl und feuern sich gegenseitig an: Im Bierzelt auf dem Oktoberfest legen manche Männer sämtliche Hemmschwellen ab. Doch die meisten Übergriffe auf Frauen werden nie geahndet.

      http://www.sueddeutsche.de/muenchen/sexuelle-uebergriffe-auf-dem-oktoberfest-entbloessung-im-bierzelt-1.115

      #Oktoberfest
      Selon cet article :
      Une moyenne de 10 cas d’abus sexuels signalés chaque année à la fête de la bière de Munich. Et 200 cas qui ne sont pas signalés à la police.

      Et la question surgit assez spontanément : Combien de musulmans sont présents à la Fête de la bière ?

    • Rape Culture in Germany Is Not an Imported Phenomenon

      Sexual assaults and even rape happen every year at big events like Oktoberfest. “The way to the toilet alone is like running the gauntlet: within 50 feet, you can be sure to tally three hugs from drunken strangers, two pats on the ass, someone looking up your dirndl and some beer purposely splashed right down your cleavage,” wrote Karoline Beisel and Beate Wild in 2011, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung. An average of 10 reported rapes take place each year at Oktoberfest. The estimated number of unreported cases is 200.

      https://www.vice.com/en_uk/read/rape-culture-germany-cologne-new-years-2016-876

    • Studie: Lebenssituation, Sicherheit und Gesundheit von Frauen in Deutschland

      Bei der Studie „Lebenssituation, Sicherheit und Gesundheit von Frauen in Deutschland“ handelt sich um die erste repräsentative Befragung zu Gewalt gegen Frauen in Deutschland.

      Die Studie wertet Interviews von mehr als 10.000 Frauen im Alter zwischen 16 und 85 Jahren aus, die über ihre Gewalterfahrungen in verschiedenen Lebensphasen berichten. Parallel dazu haben weitere Teilerhebungen die Gewaltbetroffenheiten einiger schwer erreichbarer Bevölkerungsgruppen erfasst. Dazu gehörten insbesondere Frauen osteuropäischer und türkischer Herkunft sowie Prostituierte, Frauen in Asylbewerberheimen und Gefängnissen.

      Die Studie schließt damit bestehende Wissenslücken über das Ausmaß von Gewalt gegen Frauen in nahezu der gesamten Bevölkerung. Sie hat die Grundlage geschaffen, um gezielte Maßnahmen und Strategien zum Abbau von Gewalt im Geschlechterverhältnis und zur Verbesserung der Hilfe- und Unterstützungssituation für gewaltbetroffene Frauen zu entwickeln.

      http://www.bmfsfj.de/BMFSFJ/Service/publikationen,did=20560.html

      Avec un résumé en anglais:
      http://www.bmfsfj.de/RedaktionBMFSFJ/Abteilung4/Pdf-Anlagen/kurzfassung-gewalt-frauen-englisch,property=pdf,bereich=bmfsfj,sprache=de,rwb

    • Markus Gabriel: «Nessuno scontro fra culture sono solo criminali»

      «Parlare di culture, in casi come questo, è una sciocchezza. Quello che è successo a Colonia, ma anche ad Amburgo e Francoforte, è un crimine a sfondo sessuale organizzato da bande. Certo, in gran parte commesso da nordafricani o rifugiati, pare. Ma bande. Lo scontro tra culture non c’entra».

      "Il problema è sociale, non culturale. E cioè capire quale antagonismo sociale scatena comportamenti agghiaccianti come quelli di Capodanno e che non può essere risolto se il sindaco Heker consiglia di tenere «a distanza gli sconosciuti». Associarli alla cultura musulmana è un grave errore, perché, per esempio, cose del genere non sono mai accadute nei quartieri islamici in Germania. Si tratta di criminali, come i criminali tedeschi, vedi i neonazi".

      http://www.repubblica.it/esteri/2016/01/09/news/markus_gabriel_nessuno_scontro_fra_culture_sono_solo_criminali_-130884096/?ref=search

    • Planifiées ?
      Les violences de Cologne ont été probablement planifiées, selon le ministre de la justice allemand
      http://www.lemonde.fr/europe/article/2016/01/10/les-violences-de-cologne-ont-ete-probablement-planifiees-selon-le-ministre-d

      Les violences sans précédent contre des femmes à Cologne qui ont scandalisé l’Allemagne ont très vraisemblablement été coordonnées et planifiées, a estimé dimanche 10 janvier le ministre de la justice, Heiko Maas, dans une interview au quotidien Bild :

      « Quand une telle horde se rassemble pour enfreindre la loi, cela paraît sous une forme ou une autre planifié. Personne ne me fera croire que cela n’a pas été coordonné ou préparé »
      Lire aussi : 5 questions sur les agressions massives de femmes lors du Nouvel An à Cologne

      Quelque 379 plaintes ont été déposées à ce jour, dont 40 % pour agressions sexuelles, selon la police. Cette nuit-là, des dizaines d’hommes agissant en bandes s’en étaient pris à des femmes en plein centre-ville, au milieu d’une foule masculine estimée au total à un millier de personnes.

      « Nous devons urgemment clarifier comment on a pu en arriver à de tels actes », a souligné le ministre. Quand bien même des demandeurs d’asile sont suspectés par la police, il a mis en garde contre les amalgames avec tous les réfugiés arrivant dans le pays.

      « Il est hasardeux de faire un lien entre l’origine d’une personne et sa propension à enfreindre la loi », a-t-il dit car les statistiques montrent que les réfugiés « commettent en proportion autant de délits que les Allemands ».

    • De mon point de vue, le véhicule de tout cela est avant tout une culture/éducation patriarcale. Ça vaut pour l’Allemagne et pour la Syrie. Même si on peut noter quelques différences entre les deux cultures, elles sont fondées sur le patriarcat et le sexisme. Sur le mode opératoire, des groupes d’hommes se regroupant autour d’une femme pour lui faire subir des agressions sexuelles, ce n’est pas seulement pour « compenser un manque », cela vise clairement à humilier ces femmes. Ce pourquoi j’ai tagué #viol_de_masse et #viol_comme_arme quelque soit l’origine des agresseurs et violeurs.

    • Vu sur facebook

      Traduction :
      Dans le cas des agressions en Allemagne, ils disent que les musulmans veulent colonisent l’Europe. Et moi je suis devenue, tout à coup, une de « nos femmes ».
      Mais quand j’ai été violée alors que j’étais jeune ils me disaient « tu l’as cherché »

      Tout est dit, je crois.

    • Colonia, violenza è: usare le donne per giustificare il razzismo

      In qualunque stazione – di bus e treni – sono frequenti gli scippi per mano di chi approfitta della confusione per derubarti. Il metodo è sempre lo stesso: due o tre persone si avvicinano. Quando tante persone premono sul tuo corpo non ti rendi conto del fatto che ti stanno derubando. Alla stazione di Palermo, Roma, Bologna, Napoli, Firenze, Milano, gli scippi avvengono per mano di persone del luogo o anche no. Quello che li lega è il fatto che commettono crimini per fare soldi. Il crimine non è di tipo etnico. Lo scippo è una spiacevole faccenda che riguarda il mondo intero. Sui mezzi pubblici poi non passa giorno in cui non sia tastata, spremuta, strofinata, molestata, una donna. Si tratta di molestie, e anche queste riguardano il mondo intero.

      Quando a molestare o a stuprare in branco sono persone di cultura “cristiana” non demonizziamo milioni di persone d’occidente. Se un molestatore è musulmano ciò non vuol dire che tutti i musulmani sono molestatori. Attribuire la violenza misogina solo a uomini di una particolare etnia fornisce l’alibi a chi mette in discussione il fatto che quella è una trasversale violenza di genere e non si fa altro che legittimare le politiche razziste di Paesi che farebbero di tutto pur di negare l’ingresso a chi ha bisogno di una speranza di futuro

      A chi dice che l’attacco a Colonia, e in altre città, sia una tecnica di guerra, scontro di civiltà, contro il nostro civilissimo (si, come no!) stile di vita, ricordo che quello di cui evitano di parlare si chiama violenza di genere. Le donne sono vittime di aggressioni, stupri, violenze, in tempi di pace e di guerra e non serve che paesi noti per aver colonizzato altre nazioni, usando lo stupro come arma di guerra, oggi attribuiscano ad altri quel che hanno commesso i propri eserciti. Parlare di guerra dell’Islam all’occidente, usando l’allarmismo all’insegna di un “salviamo le nostre donne”, è solo uno dei tanti modi in cui le donne vengono usate per realizzare politiche neocolonialiste e razziste. Un po’ come quando iniziò la guerra in Afghanistan per salvare le donne oppresse. Peccato che poi furono consegnate a un governo ancor più violentemente misogino. Ricordate poi che la stessa cosa si diceva degli italiani, un tempo, accusati di essere ladri e stupratori. Ma si sa che abbiamo la memoria corta.

      http://www.ilfattoquotidiano.it/2016/01/09/colonia-violenza-e-usare-le-donne-per-giustificare-il-razzismo/2359054

    • Hollaback

      Six years ago in 2010, our executive director Emily May sat down with Assemblymember Jim Brennan and asked, “what could New York State do to reduce harassment?” They were both determined that increasing criminalization wasn’t the answer, and the two batted around ideas for over an hour.

      One of the problems that concerned them both was how reports of sexual violence on the subway were swept under the rug. The data was difficult to find, and riders were kept in the dark about which trains were safest. This not only silenced survivors — it put riders at further risk, as they didn’t have the information they need to advocate for safer subways.

      Assemblymember Brennan put together a bill that would require the NYPD to submit a report to the City Council annually that detailed subway crimes including, “aggravated sexual abuse,” “sexual misconduct,” “rape,” use of abusive or obscene language or gestures,” and “following,” among other felonies.

      Bill A4310A was consistently shot down by Mayor Bloomberg’s team despite widespread support from New Yorkers for Safe Transit, a coalition of community based organizations. This year, it gained traction. Assemblymember Brennan worked with Senator Golden to push the bill. And we are proud to announce that six years after that first meeting…


      http://www.ihollaback.org
      #cartographie #visualisation #harcèlement_sexuel #harcèlement_dans_la_rue #témoignage #crowdsourcing

    • Statistics – Stop Street Harassment Studies

      Street harassment is an under-researched topic, but each existing study shows that street harassment is a significant and prevalent problem. Read the 2014 SSH national report on street harassment in the USA for the latest research.


      http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/resources/statistics/sshstudies
      #statistiques

      Pour télécharger le rapport :
      http://www.stopstreetharassment.org/wp-content/uploads/2012/08/National-Street-Harassment-Report-November-29-20151.pdf

    • Violences contre des femmes à Cologne : ce qui s’est vraiment passé

      Des heurts ont éclaté samedi en marge d’une manifestation de l’extrême droite dans la ville où les agressions de la Saint-Sylvestre ont déclenché le plus de plaintes. La contre-enquête du JDD met en avant la complexité des faits.

      Selon les informations du JDD, les enquêteurs y voient la main de la #mafia_marocaine, de plus en plus puissante dans la région. Une commission spéciale (Sonderkommission) dite « #Soko_Casablanca » a surveillé plus de 2.000 suspects l’an passé et a alerté en décembre sur l’infiltration de ce #gang de trafiquants et de pickpockets dans les foyers de réfugiés. « Il pourrait s’agir d’une démonstration de force, un fait d’armes pour lequel ils sont allés chercher du renfort parmi les réfugiés arabophones et désœuvrés de la ville », avance Sebastian Fiedler, représentant du syndicat de la police criminelle en Allemagne (Bund deutscher Kriminalbeamter). « On a assisté à une opération similaire à Francfort cet automne : la mafia locale de la drogue a recruté des Érythréens pour un gros coup aux abords de la gare. »

      http://www.lejdd.fr/International/Europe/Violences-contre-des-femmes-a-Cologne-ce-qui-s-est-vraiment-passe-767815

    • « Cologne » et les faits

      – Il s’agit principalement de vols à la tire et de vols par la ruse : des gens se sont fait piquer leur portefeuille, leur smarthpone, etc. On parle de cas d’agressions sexuelles parce que la ruse consiste à harceler les femmes pour les distraire et leur piquer leurs affaires. Ainsi à Cologne, 2 plaintes pour viol ont été enregistrées suite au 31 décembre et toutes les autres concernent des vols, dont 40% avec « harcelement »*.

      – Les voleurs sont recrutés un peu partout par la criminalité organisée. Celle-ci recrute bien entendu là où c’est le plus simple. Visiblement, les centres d’accueils surpeuplés par des personnes qui ont dû se débrouiller pour survivre sont une excellente cible. La police devrait donc protéger ces centres de cette criminalité qui y recrute ses exécutants. Toutefois, le ministre de l’intérieur, Heiko Maas, a précisé aujourd’hui qu’il « existait des données statistiques sur le taux de criminalité auprès des réfugiés.

      le ministre de l’intérieur, Heiko Maas, a précisé aujourd’hui qu’il « existait des données statistiques sur le taux de criminalité auprès des réfugiés. Elles démontrent que ce taux est égal à celui des allemands ». Cf. : http://www.spiegel.de/politik/deutschland/uebergriffe-in-koeln-justizminister-maas-vermutet-organisierte-aktion-a-1071

      https://annelowenthal.wordpress.com/2016/01/10/cologne-et-les-faits

    • Avec plaisir @tintin... C’est que j’ai aussi suivi un peu de près pour préparer mon intervention à la radio ce matin sur le sujet :
      Colonia off limits

      Più video-sorveglianza, più presenza delle forze dell’ordine nelle strade, una giustizia veloce e leggi più dure per i profughi che commettono reati: dopo gli attacchi a sfondo sessuale della notte di San Silvestro a Colonia il Governo di Angela Merkel tira il freno a mano. Pegida ha colto l’occasione per ribadire, attraverso manifestazioni e scontri, il rifiuto degli stranieri e qualcuno preannuncia la fine del multiculturalismo.

      Dopo le aggressioni alle donne a Colonia le denunce per aggressione sono nel frattempo salite a 379 e la società tedesca si interroga sulla gestione della crisi migratoria. La polizia tedesca ha finora individuato 32 persone, per la maggioranza immigrati. Tutti gli uomini identificati, 29 dei quali avevano un permesso di soggiorno in Germania, sono stati accusati di aggressione e furto. Quanto successo ha profondamente scioccato molti tedeschi e la Cancelliera Angela Merkel ha proposto di «togliere il diritto d’asilo, o il diritto alla procedura per ottenerlo, ai profughi che dovessero macchiarsi di reati, anche per quelli per i quali è prevista la sospensione condizionale».

      Per discutere di questa problematica in Germania, avendo anche un occhio di riguardo su quanto succede in Svizzera in materia di integrazione, a Modem intervengono:

      Cristina del Biaggio, Geografa e responsabile di Vivre ensemble, un servizo di informazione sul diritto di asilo;

      Tommaso Pedicini, Capored. redazione italiana di Funkhaus Europa (WDR) Colonia;

      Amina Sulser, Mediatrice interculturale in Ticino, di origine maghrebina.

      Registrato: il prof. Prof. Karl-Siegbert Rehberg, Sociologo dell’Università di Dresda.

      http://www.rsi.ch/rete-uno/programmi/informazione/modem/Colonia-off-limits-6623953.html

    • Sur Facebook, les réfugiés syriens dénoncent les agressions de Cologne

      Les violences de la nuit du réveillon ont fait réagir les Syriens fraîchement arrivés en Allemagne, fustigeant à coups de hashtag ces comportements qui jettent le discrédit sur leur communauté. Beaucoup redoutent l’amalgame et le rejet, certains imaginent un complot de l’extrême droite ou d’Assad.

      http://rue89.nouvelobs.com/2016/01/11/facebook-les-refugies-syriens-denoncent-les-agressions-cologne-2627

      Hashtag #SyrerGegenSexismus

    • Un court commentaire qui me semble bien faire le point. En 1’45 minute :
      Patrick Le Fort : migrants et violences sexuelles, briser les tabous
      A lire ici :

      A l’incompréhension et à la colère vient se rajouter un malaise profond. Les responsables de ces actes sont pour la plupart étrangers. A Cologne, certains d’entre eux sont des requérants d’asile arrivés l’an dernier, d’après les autorités allemandes.

      Peu à peu, la parole se libère. Selon la presse suédoise, des agressions sexuelles commises en 2014 et 2015 dans un festival pour adolescents à Stockholm ont été passées sous silence. Leurs auteurs seraient des demandeurs d’asile mineurs non accompagnés.

      Malgré les craintes de représailles anti-étrangers, malgré les arguments offerts en cadeau à l’extrême droite et à sa rhétorique d’exclusion, nos pays ont le devoir de s’engager dans la voie de la vérité. Ne serait-ce que parce que les mensonges par omission sont autant de bombes à retardement.

      Faire la vérité, puis apporter une réponse. Sanctionner pénalement les auteurs de délits et de crimes. Pour cela, nos Etats de droit disposent déjà des outils juridiques nécessaires.

      Le véritable défi concerne la dimension sexuelle des agressions du Nouvel-An. Les délinquants originaires de pays arabes ont été éduqués dans un autre rapport à la femme.

      Adressons un message sans ambiguïté : nos valeurs ne sont pas négociables. Il faut en finir avec le manichéisme : un migrant n’est pas meilleur ni plus mauvais qu’un homme ou une femme nés ici. En revanche, il pose un défi en matière d’intégration. Dans ce domaine, toutes les solutions devront être analysées, sans œillères et sans tabou cette fois-ci.

      A écouter ici :
      http://www.rts.ch/la-1ere/programmes/signature/7390757-patrick-le-fort-migrants-et-violences-sexuelles-briser-les-tabous-12-01-

    • Un texte qui revient sur le déroulement des événements et du silence de la police
      http://www.buzzfeed.com/rossalynwarren/ce-qui-sest-vraiment-passe-a-cologne
      Agressions sexuelles à Cologne : « C’était dégueulasse. Tout était dégueulasse »
      Je retiens en particulier ceci

      Selon elle, le nombre de femmes à avoir porté plainte pour agressions sexuelles est « extraordinaire » –pas seulement pour le nombre en tant que tel, mais parce que les femmes avec lesquelles elle travaille ont bien souvent trop peur pour aller porter plainte et signaler les violences dont elles sont victimes.

      « Elles se sentent tellement soutenues dans les médias et ailleurs, qu’il est plus facile pour elles d’en parler », déclare Armgard. Mais elle craint que ce niveau de bienveillance envers les victimes ne soit lié qu’à la nationalité des agresseurs. « Les femmes devraient toujours être soutenues de la sorte, mais malheureusement, elles ne le sont pas ».

    • Nouvelle année, nouvelles difficultés pour les réfugiés

      OXFORD, 12 janvier 2016 (IRIN) - Le début de l’année 2016 marque une nouvelle période difficile dans la réponse européenne à la crise des réfugiés. L’année qui commence va-t-elle s’écouler sous le signe d’un nivellement par le bas ? Ou bien les États membres vont-ils tirer les leçons de 2015 et parvenir au consensus nécessaire pour réagir avec humanité à l’arrivée de centaines de milliers de nouveaux réfugiés ?

      http://www.irinnews.org/fr/report/102354/nouvelle-ann%C3%A9e-nouvelles-difficult%C3%A9s-pour-les-r%C3%A9fugi%C3%A9s

    • Commentaire d’une collègue :

      Evidemment, ces actes doivent être jugés pour ce qu’ils sont - des délits et des crimes. En revanche, on ne peut que s’interroger sur le fait que quand un homme blanc agresse une femme, il est considéré comme atteint d’une pathologie et nullement représentatif de son groupe ou de sa culture, au contraire de ces agresseurs de la nuit du 31 décembre à Cologne « pour la plupart étrangers ». Depuis on entend tous les jours qu’il faut « éduquer » les étrangers à respecter les femmes (trois fois ce matin sur rts1). Alors je suis pour une telle éducation, à condition qu’elle commence à l’école et qu’elle soit destinée à tous et toutes - mais là je ne suis pas sûre qu’on atteigne un tel consensus !!!

    • Très bon éditorial du Courrier...

      Condamner ne suffira pas

      On n’a pas fini de parler de la nuit du 31 décembre à Cologne. Il faut dénoncer aussi bien les agressions sexuelles qui y ont eu lieu que la récupération politique et extrémiste dont celles-ci font l’objet. La police de Cologne fait état jusqu’ici du chiffre impressionnant de 516 plaintes ; 40% d’entre elles concernent des agressions sexuelles dont deux viols. La quasi-totalité des suspects sont d’origine étrangère, annoncent les autorités allemandes. Les agressions auraient même été concertées – mais peu d’informations sont disponibles à ce sujet.

      Les ratonnades contre des migrants, elles, ont bien été organisées, annoncées sur Facebook, et menées à Cologne, tandis que, à l’appel du mouvement islamophobe Pegida, des milliers de personnes se rassemblaient dans plusieurs villes pour protester contre l’arrivée massive de réfugiés. L’extrême droite se délecte de ce type de pensées essentialisantes – des étrangers impliqués dans des agressions démontrent la dangerosité de tous les étrangers, qui n’ont donc rien à faire chez nous – qu’elle propage dans la société. La Sontagszeitung tentait dimanche de mesurer le nombre d’agressions sexuelles commises en Suisse tant par des ressortissants suisses qu’étrangers afin de comparer les niveaux de dangerosité respectifs des diverses populations. Si ces comparaisons ne sont pas raison, c’est aussi, comme le rappelle du bout des lèvres le journal dominical, que les hommes jeunes et célibataires sont surreprésentés parmi les demandeurs d’asile – comme dans les statistiques de la criminalité. Et parce que la plupart des migrants vivent des contextes de fragilisation et d’isolement social qui peuvent servir de détonateur. La justice, quand elle fonctionne bien, permet d’apprécier ces éléments, au contraire des raccourcis stigmatisants.
      Depuis le 31 décembre, les nouveaux défenseurs des droits des femmes se nomment donc Pegida ou Marine Le Pen – qui n’a pas manqué de réagir. « La sécurité des femmes n’est plus assurée en Europe », clament-ils. Comme si elle l’avait été jusqu’ici. Ce n’est pas d’aujourd’hui que des femmes allemandes dénoncent les comportements sexistes, le harcèlement sexuel et les viols pendant l’Oktoberfest de Munich. Déplacer l’indignation que suscitent des faits scandaleux sur leurs auteurs permet de fermer les yeux sur la violence contre les femmes qui n’a pas attendu les brassages de population récents pour apparaître. Renvoyer chez eux tous les migrants, comme le réclament certains, ne règlera donc rien.
      Les actes commis le 31 décembre doivent être punis, quelle que soit la nationalité des auteurs. Reste que le travail de prévention est indispensable. Quand Angela Merkel a prononcé son célèbre « Wir schaffen es » (« Nous y arriverons »), elle n’a pas dit quand... A long terme, l’intégration ne doit pas être un vain mot.

      http://www.lecourrier.ch/135649/condamner_ne_suffira_pas

    • #Carnaval de Cologne

      Les autorités de Cologne ont déjà exprimé leurs craintes à la veille du prochain carnaval de la ville. On les comprend, mais peut-être est-ce là l’occasion de réfléchir sur la signification profonde du Carnaval. Cette fête marque au solstice d’hiver la fin d’un cycle et le recommencement d’un nouveau, passage qui se fait pendant quelques jours sur le mode d’un « renversement » généralisé : le temps s’inverse (on remonte aux origines et aux comportements les plus primitifs), les rôles sociaux et sexuels s’inversent selon des rites ancestraux eux aussi, un Roi de substitution prend temporairement le pouvoir, amenant avec lui la levée des interdits et encourageant le port du masque qui rend les transgressions encore plus faciles... Bien évidemment, à la fin de la fête, ce Roi de substitution est brûlé comme le Bonhomme Hiver et les règles de la vie « normale » sont rétablies.

      Cette façon des sociétés de libérer les pulsions pendant un temps limité est tellement « nécessaire » que les religions s’y sont pliées, des religions païennes au christianisme, dans un étonnant syncrétisme qui explique que le Carnaval puisse se dérouler de la Toussaint à l’Avent et de Noël au début du Carême.
      Les débordements de la Saint-Sylvestre peuvent-ils se déchiffrer comme une forme de carnaval improvisé avant le carnaval « officiel », comme un moment de défoulement et d’oubli pour de jeunes immigrés qui vivent dans des conditions particulièrement précaires après avoir évité la mort de justesse. Je ne veux rien excuser. J’essaie simplement de comprendre ce qui a pu se passer. Si des réfugiés ont participé à de tels agissements, il faut certes le dire ouvertement et éventuellement prendre des sanctions. Mais pas les renvoyer à une mort quasi certaine dans leurs pays d’origine et encore moins condamner tous les réfugiés et la politique d’ouverture au nom de telles dérives.

      http://www.lecourrier.ch/135664/carnaval_de_cologne

    • Amnesty condamne la violence sexuelle contre les femmes

      Amnesty International condamne les événements de la veille du Nouvel An à Cologne et dans d’autres villes allemandes comme une violation grave du droit à l’intégrité physique des femmes. Dans le même temps, Amnesty rejette la propagande raciste contre les réfugiés.

      https://www.amnesty.ch/fr/pays/europe-asie-centrale/allemagne/docs/2016/amnesty-condamne-la-violence-sexuelle-contre-les-femmes

    • La Misogynie orientale

      Les honteux événements de Cologne, mais aussi ceux de Zurich, lors de la célébration de la nouvelle année, où des dizaines de femmes se sont fait maltraiter, agressées dans leur intimité et sexuellement par des hommes réfugiés, soulèvent une controverse prenant de l’ampleur et de l’ingratitude envers l’État qui a ouvert ses portes à un million de réfugiés notamment syriens. Ces comportements arriérés et archaïques sont fort nuisibles car qu’ils créent des amalgames entre les familles de réfugiés innocents et les éléments criminels. Ils ont également une incidence significative sur l’affaiblissement de la position des forces progressistes de l’Ouest, ouvertes à la diversité et apportent de l’eau au moulin des populistes et xénophobes, comme le mouvement PEGIDA. Ce dernier utilise ces incidents comme prétexte pour mobiliser davantage le public contre la présence musulmane en Allemagne et continuer d’affaiblir les partis traditionnels et les valeurs d’une société ouverte sur lesquelles est construite l’Allemagne moderne.

      http://www.albinfo.ch/fr/la-misogynie-orientale

    • Publié sur facebook par une collègue spécialiste des migrations :

      Sur les réfugiés en Allemagne, mise au point par mon collègue Klaus-Gerd Giesen
      "Une mise au point au sujet des « événements de Cologne » s’impose : la publication, par les titres sérieux de la presse allemande (dont notamment le « Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung » et le « Süddeutsche Zeitung ») des premiers témoignages de migrants, et celle des rapports de police, fait apparaître que :
      1° les vols à la tire ont été commis, surtout à l’intérieur de la gare souterraine (que je connais très bien), par quelques dizaines de membres de bandes organisées, essentiellement d’origines marocaine et algérienne, qui y sévissent toute l’année et qui, en raison des arrivées et départs massifs de dizaines de milliers de voyageurs en train ou en RER pour participer aux festivités publiques du réveillon, étaient particulièrement mobilisés cette nuit-là. L’une de leurs tactiques consiste à procéder à plusieurs à des attouchements simultanés sur une femme pour détourner son attention le temps de lui dérober ses portable, sac, portefeuille, etc. Hélas !, il ne s’agit pas d’un fait nouveau.
      2° les autres nombreuses agressions sexuelles, parfois plus graves encore, sont pour la plupart le résultat d’une beuverie de Saint-Sylvestre par des hommes de nationalités très diverses (allemande, serbe, syrienne, turque, iranienne, marocaine, américaine, etc.) et agissant souvent la bouteille à la main. Ils n’étaient probablement pas plus d’une centaine, répartis en plusieurs groupes, soit dans la gare, soit mélangés sur la place entre la gare et la célèbre cathédrale à une foule de plus de 2000 personnes qui s’y était donné rendez-vous sur les réseaux sociaux pour assister aux feux d’artifice ou qui étaient simplement de passage vers les quais du Rhin tout proches.
      3° la thèse, largement véhiculée par de nombreux médias à l’échelle quasiment planétaire, d’un « fait culturel islamique », voire d’une incompatibilité des « valeurs islamiques » et des « valeurs allemandes » (sic !), ne tient donc pas du tout debout (islam et alcohol semblent de toute façon plutôt incompatibles).
      4° la thèse d’un crime prémédité et organisé par plusieurs milliers de réfugiés s’est également effondrée.
      5° vu la foule très compacte dans la gare pendant plusieurs heures et la structure quelque peu labyrinthique de celle-ci, la police fédérale, compétente à l’intérieur de la gare et jusque 30 mètres alentour, n’a pas pu faire son travail correctement, et la police municipale, compétente à l’extérieur, a trop tardé à évacuer la place.
      6° la presse locale (par exemple le « Kölner Stadtanzeiger ») avait relaté certains faits dès le lendemain. En revanche, plusieurs titres de la presse nationale, dont notamment le tabloïd « Bild » et le quotidien conservateur « Die Welt », ne se sont emparés des événements que plusieurs jours plus tard, en racontant parfois n’importe quoi, y voyant évidemment une occasion en or pour déstabiliser la politique d’ouverture de la chancelière allemande Merkel à l’égard des réfugiés. De par là, ils portent une grande responsabilité dans la montée en puissance très rapide des sentiments xénophobes et des mouvements d’extrême-droite, tel que Pediga, en Allemagne. De nombreux titres de la presse étrangère, dont même la BBC et « Le Monde », se sont contentés de simplement traduire des extraits de « Die Welt » ou de « Bild am Sonntag », sans chercher à procéder à des vérifications.
      7° les réfugiés et migrants interrogés récemment par la presse dans leurs foyers d’accueil se disent atterrés par, et avoir honte du comportement abject de quelques-uns de leurs compatriotes, et estiment que les lois allemandes en matière d’agression sexuelle sont beaucoup trop laxistes.

    • Colonia, la differenza fra quello che è successo e quello che ci hanno raccontato

      La gestione da parte delle istituzioni delle denunce dei casi di violenza sessuale e il racconto che ne è derivato sui media testimoniano un’impreparazione preoccupante nel comprendere e contrastare certi fenomeni. A partire dai numeri. Che vanno dati e interpretati nella loro interezza e complessità

      http://www.vita.it/it/article/2016/01/12/colonia-la-differenza-fra-quello-che-e-successo-e-quello-che-ci-hanno-/137888

      Ce paragraphe est intéressant :

      Secondo i dati forniti dalla polizia della Westfalia, sono oltre 11.000 i casi accertati di furto e violenza registrati nei dintorni della stazione centrale nel corso degli ultimi 3 anni: quanto accaduto la notte di Capodanno non è dunque un episodio isolato

      –-> 11’000 cas de violences et vols ont été enregistrés par la police de Cologne ces 3 dernières années... il ne s’agirait donc pas d’un cas isolé

      Et ça continue ainsi :

      Nella sola ultima edizione dell’Oktoberfest di Monaco di Baviera la polizia locale ha registrato oltre 40 denunce per molestie sessuali, nessuna delle quali a carico di “uomini di origine araba o africana”.

      –-> dans la dernière édition de l’Oktoberfest de Munich, la police de Bavière a enregistré plus de 40 cas d’harcèlements sexuels, aucune à charge d’un homme d’origine arabe ou africaine

    • Autriche. Cologne : les femmes, le sexe et le patriarcat

      Le journal autrichien Falter revient sur les agressions en masse de femmes à Cologne lors de la Saint-Sylvestre avec un dessin en noir et blanc montrant une foule d’hommes s’en prenant à quelques femmes isolées et à un policier. Pas de gros titre, mais sous le dessin une citation de Simone de Beauvoir : “Personne n’est plus arrogant envers les femmes, plus agressif ou plus méprisant qu’un homme inquiet pour sa virilité.”

      http://www.courrierinternational.com/une/autriche-cologne-les-femmes-le-sexe-et-le-patriarcat

    • New Charlie Hebdo cartoon suggests dead 3-year-old refugee Alan Kurdi would have become sexual attacker

      In hindsight, the death of Alan Kurdi, a 3-year-old Syrian refugee who washed up on a Turkish shore after the boat he was in sank, may mark the high point in European public sympathy for refugees. The widespread reports that refugees and migrants were involved in mass sexual assaults in Cologne and other European cities on New Year’s Eve could well be its nadir.

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2016/01/13/a-new-charlie-hebdo-cartoon-portrays-dead-3-year-old-refugee-aylan-k

    • Derrière les agressions de femmes à Cologne, un choc des cultures ?

      L’agression de centaines d’Allemandes par des groupes de dizaines d’hommes officiellement « originaires d’Afrique du Nord et du monde arabe » a scandalisé l’Europe. Comment l’expliquer ? Par un mépris de la femme propre à certaines sociétés musulmanes ?
      L’idée d’un choc des cultures est d’autant plus abusive que ces immigrants ont un rapport à l’islam très variable. Nombre de jeunes Afghans arrivés récemment en Suisse fuient par exemple le fondamentalisme et apprécient la possibilité de vivre à l’occidentale, sans être contraint de faire leurs prières ou de cacher leur femme.

      http://www.letemps.ch/monde/2016/01/13/derriere-agressions-femmes-cologne-un-choc-cultures

    • Agressions sexuelles en Allemagne : les lacunes de la loi

      Les auteurs des agressions sexuelles de Cologne risquent de ne pas être condamnés ; la faute au Code pénal allemand qui ne prend pas en compte la notion de surprise. Le gouvernement promet d’y remédier.


      http://www.lesnouvellesnews.fr/agressions-sexuelles-en-allemagne-les-lacunes-de-la-loi

    • Viol et fantasmes sur « Europe »

      L’écrivain algérien Kamel Daoud réagit aux agressions sexuelles qui ont bouleversé l’Allemagne à Nouvel An. Des réfugiés, explique-t-il, nous ne voyons que le statut, pas la culture. C’est ainsi que leur accueil est placé sous le signe de la bureaucratie et de la charité, sans tenir compte des préjugés culturels et des pièges religieux.

      http://www.hebdo.ch/hebdo/id%C3%A9es-d%C3%A9bats/detail/viol-et-fantasmes-sur-%C2%ABeurope%C2%BB

    • Colonia e la razzializzazione del sessismo

      Il sospetto coinvolgimento di circa 22 richiedenti asilo e di numerosi nord-africani nei borseggiamenti e nelle molestie sessuali denunciati da decine di donne durante il capodanno nella città di Colonia – e in altre città tedesche – è stato usato dalle destre per brandire l’immagine dell’uomo islamico come minaccia ai diritti delle donne.

      http://www.lavoroculturale.org/colonia-razzializzazione-sessismo
      #racialisation_du_sexisme

    • Syrian refugees in Cologne fear backlash

      Syrian refugees living in Cologne say they’re afraid they’ll have to pay the price for the actions of gangs of men, said to be of Arab and North African origin, who assaulted and robbed women in the city on New Year’s Eve. Twenty-two asylum seekers are reported to be among the suspects that German police have identified so far.

      http://www.irinnews.org/report/102365/syrian-refugees-in-cologne-fear-backlash

    • Racialising sexism is no good for women

      The fact that some two dozen male asylum seekers and numerous men of North-African descent have been linked to the muggings and sexual assaults in Cologne and other German cities on New Year’s Eve is being shamelessly used by various right wing movements to brandish the trope of Muslim men as a threat to women’s rights.


      http://salvage.zone/online-exclusive/racialising-sexism-is-no-good-for-women

    • J’ai pu réécouter l’interview à #Wolfgang_Kashuba (http://www.kaschuba.com) qui était passé à ARTE Journal le 9 janvier 2016. Du coup, j’ai retranscrit, vu que c’est visible uniquement pendant 7 jours...

      « C’est le gros problème. On fait comme s’il s’agissait d’un comportement propre aux réfugiés ou aux étrangers, mais il suffit de lire les rapports de la campagne twitter sur le harcèlement sexuel, il y a 3 ans, de lire les témoignages de femmes agressées dans le métro ou à la fête de la bière de Munich pour se rendre compte que tous ces incidents, attouchements, agressions, font partie du quotidien en Allemagne. Et ne sont pas des événements importés »
      "Certains groupes de réfugiés sont issus ou de milieux sociaux ou religieux qui font preuve de peu de respect à l’égard des femmes, chez nous aussi les comportement à l’égard des femmes ne sont pas homogènes. On ne peut donc pas généraliser. Partant de là, la première mesure à prendre est de durcir les paragraphes de loi correspondants, en précisant que si une femme ou un homme dit ’non’, c’est ’non’".
      « Il faut sortir les réfugiés des foyers, pour qu’ils retrouvent une forme de vie plus sociale, qu’ils suivent des cours d’allemand, de formation, qu’ils trouvent un emploi. Il existe déjà des zones de contact qui vont dans ce sens. Beaucoup de jeunes issus de milieux où les contacts avec les femmes sont rares, se retrouvent dans des situations où les femmes occupent des fonctions de juge, d’enseignante, de professeure. Et je crois que c’est une bonne chose. Il faut insister pour faire valoir nos règles et si cela pose problème, leur expliquer ces règles »

    • L’autre point de vue...
      Agressions, exploitation, #harcèlement_sexuel : le lot des femmes réfugiées en Europe

      Amnesty International a recueilli en Allemagne et en Norvège les propos de quarante réfugiées qui s’étaient rendues en Grèce depuis la Turquie, avant de traverser les Balkans. Elle rapportent avoir vécu dans la peur et la violence permanente.

      http://www.liberation.fr/planete/2016/01/18/agressions-exploitation-harcelement-sexuel-le-lot-des-femmes-refugiees-en
      #victimes

    • Can Germany Be Honest About Its Refugee Problems ?

      Hamburg — FOR all its horror, what happened on New Year’s Eve in Cologne and other German cities might help the Germans solve a longstanding problem. The issue is not the one-million-plus refugees who have come to us in the first place. It is how to deal with problems that immigrants might be, are or will be causing.

      Solutions proposées par l’auteur :

      First, find a way to separate the free riders and criminals from the refugees. Thanks to the lack of identity checks at the borders in the past months, we just don’t know whether many of those who have poured into Germany have done so for good reasons or bad. This has to be established now by all possible means, by taking fingerprints, photos and other personal information and exchanging them with authorities in the home countries.

      Then we need to deport those who have no right to stay, quickly and visibly. The German government says that currently, 8,000 people from northern Africa, mostly from Morocco and Tunisia, are obliged to leave Germany, but they can’t be sent back because their home countries won’t accept them without papers. These countries need to be pressured into cooperation.

      Finally, we have to be willing to intern those who arrive without passports. This sounds harsh, but it is appropriate. People who cross the border without ID must be prevented from roaming freely within Germany. Once in semi-custody (meaning that you cannot get into Germany, but you’re free to go home), it wouldn’t take long to determine where they came from, and why.

      The idea isn’t new: Special sites for people from the Balkans who filed mostly pointless asylum requests after the fighting there were set up in Bavaria. This has reduced the influx from these countries considerably.

      http://www.nytimes.com/2016/01/16/opinion/can-germany-be-honest-about-its-refugee-problems.html?smprod=nytcore-iphone

    • We need to talk about Cologne

      We, refugee and migrant communities settled in different EU countries, from different nationalities and backgrounds, strongly condemn the recent sexual attacks against women in Germany. We would like to express our sorrow and sympathy to the victims of these terrible attacks. We condemn any violence against women, be they nationals or foreigners, perpetrated by foreigners or nationals. Perpetrators should be prosecuted and convicted. It is important now to clarify and understand what happened so that people, in particular women, feel safe again, justice can be done, and further violence prevented. We did not flee violence there to accept it here.
      Refugees arriving are not dangerous but in danger. It would not be fair for a few individuals to make us forget the millions who are doing their best to overcome all the obstacles to settle and integrate into European societies.

      http://www.refugees.gr/en/latest-news/484-we-need-to-talk-about-cologne

    • It’s the culture, stupid! Or is it?

      Returning to the young men in Cologne and their dysfunctional view of women, it is obvious that there is an urgency to the situation at the moment. Pegida are marching, and the extreme right is gloating across the continent now. For starters, the police has to sort itself out and get on with its work. It will then be necessary to enlighten the young men about the German way of life, legislation and values. But at the end of the day, they must be incorporated into social contexts which convince them that they have arrived in an individualist society where independent women are a natural component in all parts of society. Integration is based on experiences, not on courses. This also means that the currently fast flow of refugees into Europe is problematic. For this transition not to fail, they must get something useful and meaningful to do, get to know some natives and pick up the language quickly. It is the responsibility of government at all levels to make these adaptations possible. Should vast numbers of refugees end, unintegrated, on welfare, the only beneficiaries are the extreme movements on either side. They are only capable of creating distrust, divisiveness and mutual suspicion.

      http://thomashyllanderiksen.net/2016/01/16/its-the-culture-stupid-or-is-it

    • Après Cologne, les féministes se divisent sur l’interprétation des agressions

      Les violences du nouvel an à Cologne provoquent un vif débat entre féministes : les unes font du sexisme une spécificité du monde musulman, tandis que les autres, menant de front la lutte contre les crimes sexuels et le racisme, exigent un renforcement de l’arsenal juridique afin qu’« aucune impunité » ne soit plus tolérée.

      https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/international/210116/apres-cologne-les-feministes-se-divisent-sur-l-interpretation-des-agressio

    • Un petit hors pistes. De par mon expérience personnelle, tous les « migrants » venant du Maghreb, Égypte compris et que j’ai rencontrés, sont des gens qui vivent en Europe depuis le début de leur adolescence, mineurs isolés pour une partie, « illégaux » pour tous, et ayant l’expérience de la violence et du racisme institutionnels pour la quasi totalité. Donc des personnes qui sont ballotées de France en Italie, d’Italie en Grèce, de Greèce en... De boulots de merde en boulots de merde, travail au noir, précarité. Une vie d’expulsion.
      Je peux voir Cologne comme conséquence du traitement de l’immigration et des personnes immigrées en France et en Europe et les agressions commises par des personnes qui sont tout a fait au fait de la « culture » occidentale pars qu’ils la pratiquent depuis une quinzaine d’années pour la plupart.
      Dans les centres se sont aussi les gens qui posent le plus de problème par la consommation de drogues et d’alcool, sans compter les problèmes psy d’une vie marginalisée.
      Quand je parle d’expérience personnelle c’est dire que ce que j’ai vu n’est peut être représentatif de rien.

    • No alla violenza sulle donne da chiunque essa provenga...

      “No” è il testo, tutto il testo, di quella che credo sia la poesia più breve in lingua italiana mai scritta (il poeta Franco Fortini dedicò l’epigramma al non amico Carlo Bo). Un analogo “No”, assoluto e senza appello, va agli intollerabili atti di sopraffazione che si sono prodotti a Capodanno a Colonia: una notte buia, quella che ha aperto il 2016, dove si è spenta per un momento troppo lungo la bellezza che è intima sorella della poesia e di ogni essere umano.

      http://www.areaonline.ch/No-alla-violenza-sulle-donne-da-chiunque-essa-provenga-128a4000

    • Stretched to the Limit: Has the German State Lost Control?

      After the violent excesses in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, German government failures have come to light, with many asking if the country is still safe. Police and the justice system have been stretched to their limits. New laws won’t fix the problem, but extra personnel could.

      A good place to start, particularly given the dark events in Cologne, is with the police. How is it possible that the square in front of the train station could morph into a zone of lawlessness? Why was the state not present on that New Year’s Eve night? Was there a lack of police? Where they overwhelmed by the mob?

      The consequences of not being able to deport have become apparent in places like Cologne. Or in the state of Saxony. An Interior Ministry report from the end of 2015 notes that a quarter of all foreigners suspected of committing crimes in the state were Tunisians, despite the fact that they comprise only 4 percent of all immigrants in the state. So far, authorities haven only succeeded in deporting very few. After months of pressure, the Tunisian Embassy recently sent the German government a list of 170 nationals the country would possibly be willing to take back — a token gesture of goodwill.


      http://www.spiegel.de/international/germany/germans-ask-if-country-is-still-safe-after-cologne-attacks-a-1073165.html

    • Cologne : la ligne de crête… vraiment ?

      Le sujet est révoltant, cauchemardesque et fait couler beaucoup d’encre. Entre médiatisation tardive, faillite des forces de l’ordre, prises de position déplacées de certaines autorités (maire de Cologne, Bernard Cazeneuve), diffusion d’informations non vérifiées (vidéo de la place Tahrir), récupération par les milieux anti-migration et enquête qui avance lentement, les évènements qui ont eu lieu le soir de Nouvel An à Cologne cumulent toutes les difficultés d’analyse.

      http://www.hebdo.ch/les-blogs/amarelle-cesla-le-dessous-des-cartes/cologne-la-ligne-de-cr%C3%AAte%E2%80%A6-vraiment

    • An interview with four Syrian refugees in Germany: “Sexually harassing women is completely unacceptable.”

      BY FRIDA THURM AND CHRISTIAN BANGELThey are Muslim men, and they want to stay in Germany. We spoke with four Syrian refugees about good women, bad men and getting used to a new culture’s rules.

      https://espminetwork.files.wordpress.com/2016/02/mohammad-f-links-ammar-b-und-sein-bruder-mohammad-b-re
      http://espminetwork.com/2016/02/01/an-interview-with-four-syrian-refugees-in-germany-sexually-harassing-w

    • Encore??!!??
      German police say major newspaper’s story about a rampaging Arab ‘sex mob’ was wrong

      On Feb. 6, Germany’s most-read newspaper reported that dozens of Arab men, presumed to be refugees, had rampaged through the city of Frankfurt on New Year’s Eve. The men were said to have sexually assaulted women as they went through the streets; the newspaper dubbed them the Fressgass “sex mob,” referring to an upmarket shopping street in the city.

      Bild’s report sparked widespread concern in Germany. The nation has taken in millions of migrants over the past few years, and there had been reports of a similar incidents in Cologne and other cities the previous New Year’s Eve.

      But police investigating the crime now say that the allegations included in the article are “without foundation.”

      https://www.washingtonpost.com/news/worldviews/wp/2017/02/14/german-police-say-major-newspapers-story-about-a-rampaging-arab-sex-

    • La #décolonisation et l’#arabe_sexualisé

      L’affaire des viols de Cologne le jour de l’an 2016 et la façon dont les migrants et plus largement les musulmans ont été visés en tant que prédateurs/agresseurs sexuels du fait d’une culture réputé profondément différente et sexiste – différente parce que sexiste, sexiste parce que différente[1] – est un nouvel épisode qui croise les questions de #migrations et de #sexualité, de sexisme et de #racisme.

      http://www.contretemps.eu/decolonisation-sexualisation-larabe
      #sexisme

    • J’aimerais juste un jour que cette longue veille puisse me servir à écrire quelque chose d’intelligent, mais je ne sais pas si j’y arriverai un jour... mais qui sait, peut-être quelqu’un d’autre, peut-être même toi, @mad_meg ? Cela aurait au moins servi à quelque chose...

  • Greece Loses Last Trace Of Sovereignty After EU Takes Control Of Greek Borders | Zero Hedge
    http://www.zerohedge.com/news/2015-12-05/greece-loses-last-trace-sovereignty-after-eu-takes-control-over-greek-bor

    Banque AIG :
    Bernard ConnollyEurope – Driver or Driven?EMU and the
    Lust for Crisis ACI Congress, May 30, 2008


    "Ever since this summer’s dramatic “referendum” farce, and the subsequent hijacking of the Greek banking system by the ECB’s ELA, Greece has officially been a nation without state sovereignty. Europe reminded Greece of just this a few days ago when days after its waved the carrot before Turkey promising billions in aid, and an EU acceptance fast track, it threatened Greece with expulsion from the Schengen customs union (a union which as a subsequent leak revealed will likely be “temporarily” shuttered for as long as two years unless the refugee crisis is brought under control).

    Perhaps to confirm that few things will stand in its mission-creep to subjugate the sovereignty of European member states, starting with the poorest and most insolvent, namely Greece, we find out that the EU and its border agency, is not only preparing to take over border control of countries that have been found to be “ill-equipped” to deal with the refugee problem, but has already launched this plan into action in Greece.

    Because after being threatened with expulsion from the Schengen zone, Greece (which does not actually share a contiguous, physical border with any Schengen nation) caved in and accepted an offer from the European Union to bolster its borders with foreign guards as well as other aid, including tents and first aid kits. This decision follows reports that Greece was unwilling to accept foreign border guards on its territory, but these were later denied by the government.

    Greece asked #Frontex yesterday to provide rapid intervention teams to the Aegean islands. https://t.co/gLF2D4deEu

    — Frontex (@Frontex) December 4, 2015

    The deployment of additional officers will begin next week.

    As Keep Talking Greece writes, “the masks have fallen. Hand in hand, the European Union and the Frontex want to cancel national sovereignty and take over border controls in the pretext of “safeguarding the Schengen borders”. With controversial claims, they use the case of Greece to create an example that could soon happen “in the border area near you.” And the plan is all German.”

    Paranoia? Or just another confirmation that the Eurozone is using every incremental, and produced, crisis to cement its power over discrete European state sovereignty and wipe out the cultural and religious borders the prevent the amalgamation of Europe into a Brussels, Berlin and Frankfurt-controlled superstate? "

  • Le marché du sexe berlinois révolutionné par des startups libertaires ?
    http://techcrunch.com/2015/08/10/ohlala-an-uber-for-escorts-launches-in-berlin-plans-global-rollout
    Il est loin le monde de Christopher Isherwood et de Bob Fosse et la chanson « Money makes the world go round » interprétée par Sally Bowles, ce personnage immoral cotoyant les pédés et les prostituées dans un monde éphémère ayant disparu avec l’avènement du fascisme allemand.


    Aujourd’hui on est au temps du first app for paid dating proposé dans l’anglais incontournable pour Berlin, Frankfurt (Main), Munich et Hamburg sous Ohlala.com , nom de domaine á l’allure vaguement francaise, si vous voyez ce que je veux dire ...

    Home Gentlemen - Ohlala
    https://www.ohlala.com

    We’re up for it. Are you?
    Meet a beautiful woman. Pay for the date.
    Reliable. Casual. Fun.

    Le métier d’entremetteur est toujours difficile, la preuve est que malgré des millions de clics et une campagne de presse impressionnante (pas étonnant, avec un tel sujet ;-) ) PEPPR n’a pas eu le succès visé.

    Escort Berlin / Frankfurt - Privat Modelle, Escortgirls - PEPPR.it
    https://peppr-app.com/de

    Escortservice Berlin ♡ Escort Frankfurt ♡ Traumgirls für schöne Stunden ♡ diskret & vertrauenswürdig ☛ Buchen Sie jetzt ihre Callgirls in Berlin!

    Face à ce défi les gérants d’Ohlala ont compris qu’il ne suffit pas de chanter l’hymne de la liberté et du sexe propre comme ils l’ont fait pour Peppr.
    http://www.digitaltrends.com/mobile/peppr-app-hooks-up-prostitutes-with-clients

    “We’re trying to revolutionize the image of sex work in general … We’re trying to get it away from its shabby image.”

    Actuellement ils abordent les client et investissuers pontentiels avec des déclarations légèrement modifiées :

    A key aspect is this is that the old tradition of women being “picked” by men is turned on its head and puts the power back in the hands of the women.

    The old escort-booking process worked like this: a guy sends a booking request to a lady and asks if she has time. She most likely won’t reply immediately. He will be frustrated and will cancel. With Ohlala, the women decide who they want to show their profile to.

    “Other sites all go for a list model. We instead flip the booking process in order to realise the on-demand aspect,” Poppenreiter says.

    On Ohlala, the guy says what he is looking for. He pitches a price per hour, duration, place and personal preferences and sends it to available ladies near by. If they find the request interesting they reply to his booking request and then are then able to chat on the platform. But only if the woman explicitly agrees. Until then, her profile is private.

    Malgré toute la bonne volonté du monde on ne change pas les éléments clé des affaires.

    Ohlala plans to verify each profile by having a short phone call in the beginning with the escorts, to ensure they get the “right people” on board. With the men/customers, they won’t verify, but they will manage the sign-ups to balance supply and demand.

    Si vous avez envie de vous engager dans l’industrie du sexe, n’hésitez pas à contacter les gentils investisseurs d’ Ohlala .

    Ohlala closed a small seed round in June to finance the launch, but will fundraise again shortly. The investors are Kodama UG (Ben Kubota); Daniela Klenke; Andreas Hoffelder; Ertler Holding (immonet); Grashopper Holding and Dewald Holding.

    Je trouve ces proxénétres digitaux tout aussi dégôutants que leurs collègues du golden age of porn , à la seule différence que la digitalisation rajoute à la sauce un leger arôme de mutilation á distance type drône US.

    Le marché s’en branle de mon opinion. Avec la disparition de l’ancienne garde la voie et libre pour les jeunes. Pourtant j’ai l’impression qu’il ont tendance á ignorer la lecon du Prince du Stutti qui attribue sa survie au fait qu’il ne s’est jamais faché avec les chefs de la mafia russe.

    Steffen Jacob : Der leise Tod des Puff-Prinzen vom Stutti
    http://www.berliner-kurier.de/kiez-stadt/steffen-jacob-der-leise-tod-des-puff-prinzen-vom-stutti,7169128,2812

    Steffen Jacob wollte nur der Prinz im Rotlichtmilieu bleiben. „König ist man nur, wenn man vier Fuß tief unter der Erde liegt“, sagte er einmal.

    Sex in the City ? Club Lady Nina, Berlins most erotic nightclub is the place to be
    http://www.clubladynina.com


    Le prince est mort au mois aôut 2014 et ce novembre on an enterré le patron du plus ancien bordel de luxe berlinois Lady Nina . Les filles étaient au rendez-vous, la patronne et la famille venue de loin. L’ambiance était conviviale, tout le monde se connaissait, et je crains le pire si un système de réservation digital remplace le peu de confiance personnelle qui peut exister dans un métier si difficile.

    C’est sans doute aussi l’avis des filles, mais l’app est en train de créer un nouveau marché qui sera brutal malgré les affirmations des nouveaux maques.

    Un article dans l’Exberliner arrive implicitement à la même conclusion.
    http://www.exberliner.com/blogs/the-blog/maggie-spooner-sex-and-city-west

    So what with the Russians beefing up the action on one side and cleaner-than-thou Americans on the other (wait, why does that sound familiar?) may be it is time, as the great Erich Schumacher said, to think “small is beautiful.”

    Let the big guys tough it out for real estate around Bahnhof Zoo and high-end call-girl rings. We’ll just stick with the small and medium-sized (sexual services enterprises, that is).

    #Berlin #sexe #prostitution #startups #disruption

  • 100 Gbps DDoS on ProtonMail


    November 3rd 2015 ProtonMail suffered an interesting attack.
    First it received a ransom demand, followed by a typical 15-minute DDoS flooding their IP addresses to prove the attackers meant business. As they did not pay, two separate DDoS effectively managed to shut down its datacenter. (which subsequently affected other companies present in that datacenter).

    Then they paid the 15 BTC (5.380 EUR) ransom but the attacks didn’t stop. Instead, it moved upstream and attacked the ISP’s infrastructure.
    This is a fairly recent and new approach which may have an interesting outcome not in the advantage of the attackers.

    On top of the 15 BTC ransom, ProtonMail also had to pay the ISP and the datacenter for the collateral damage incurred.

    Because ProtonMail was unreachable it had to set up a communication channel via Wordpress:

    https://protonmaildotcom.wordpress.com

    You can find there details about the attack

    This threat was followed by a DDOS attack which took us offline for approximately 15 minutes. We did not receive the next attack until approximately 11AM the next morning. At this point, our datacenter and their upstream provider began to take steps to mitigate the attack. However, within the span of a few hours, the attacks began to take on an unprecedented level of sophistication.

    At around 2PM, the attackers began directly attacking the infrastructure of our upstream providers and the datacenter itself. The coordinated assault on our ISP exceeded 100Gbps and attacked not only the datacenter, but also routers in Zurich, Frankfurt, and other locations where our ISP has nodes. This coordinated assault on key infrastructure eventually managed to bring down both the datacenter and the ISP, which impacted hundreds of other companies, not just #ProtonMail.

    [...]

    The attack against ProtonMail can be divided into two stages. The first stage is the volumetric attack which was targeting just our IP addresses. The second stage is the more complex attack which targeted weak points in the infrastructure of our ISPs. This second phase has not been observed in any other recent attacks on Swiss companies and was technically much more sophisticated.

    It is believed that the ProtonMail attack is likely to have been operated by two separate groups. The first one calls themselves the Armada Collective, and the second attackers exhibiting capabilities more commonly possessed by state-sponsored actors,, ProtonMail said.

    #DDoS
    #ransom #bitcoin
    #Armada_Collective