#Academic_teaching and #trigger_warnings
In a #teaching_pedagogy seminar and in a discussion with the #equal_opportunities_office the topic of trigger warnings, a message about potentially #distressing #content, has been raised recently.
How to deal with it, I mean really practically, in my #courses?
Trigger Warnings | Centre for Teaching Excellence
A trigger warning is a statement made prior to sharing potentially disturbing content. That content might include graphic references to topics such as #sexual_abuse, #self-harm, #violence, #eating_disorders, and so on, and can take the form of an #image, #video_clip, #audio_clip, or piece of #text. In an #academic_context, the #instructor delivers these messages in order to allow students to prepare emotionally for the content or to decide to forgo interacting with the content.
Proponents of trigger warnings contend that certain course content can impact the #wellbeing and #academic_performance of students who have experienced corresponding #traumas in their own lives. Such students might not yet be ready to confront a personal #trauma in an academic context. They choose to #avoid it now so that they can deal with it more effectively at a later date – perhaps after they have set up necessary #resources, #supports, or #counselling. Other students might indeed be ready to #confront a personal trauma in an academic context but will benefit from a #forewarning of certain topics so that they can brace themselves prior to (for example) participating in a #classroom discussion about it. Considered from this perspective, trigger warnings give students increased #autonomy over their learning, and are an affirmation that the instructor #cares about their wellbeing.
However, not everyone agrees that trigger warnings are #necessary or #helpful. For example, some fear that trigger warnings unnecessarily #insulate students from the often harsh #realities of the world with which academics need to engage. Others are concerned that trigger warnings establish a precedent of making instructors or universities legally #responsible for protecting students from #emotional_trauma. Still others argue that it is impossible to anticipate all the topics that might be potentially triggering for students.
Trigger warnings do not mean that students can exempt themselves from completing parts of the coursework. Ideally, a student who is genuinely concerned about being #re-traumatized by forthcoming course content would privately inform the instructor of this concern. The instructor would then accommodate the student by proposing #alternative_content or an alternative learning activity, as with an accommodation necessitated by a learning disability or physical disability.
The decision to preface potentially disturbing content with a trigger warning is ultimately up to the instructor. An instructor who does so might want to include in the course syllabus a preliminary statement (also known as a “#content_note”), such as the following:
Our classroom provides an open space for the critical and civil exchange of ideas. Some readings and other content in this course will include topics that some students may find offensive and/or traumatizing. I’ll aim to #forewarn students about potentially disturbing content and I ask all students to help to create an #atmosphere of #mutual_respect and #sensitivity.
Prior to introducing a potentially disturbing topic in class, an instructor might articulate a #verbal_trigger_warning such as the following:
Next class our discussion will probably touch on the sexual assault that is depicted in the second last chapter of The White Hotel. This content is disturbing, so I encourage you to prepare yourself emotionally beforehand. If you believe that you will find the discussion to be traumatizing, you may choose to not participate in the discussion or to leave the classroom. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so if you leave the room for a significant time, please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.
A version of the foregoing trigger warning might also preface written materials:
The following reading includes a discussion of the harsh treatment experienced by First Nations children in residential schools in the 1950s. This content is disturbing, so I encourage everyone to prepare themselves emotionally before proceeding. If you believe that the reading will be traumatizing for you, then you may choose to forgo it. You will still, however, be responsible for material that you miss, so please arrange to get notes from another student or see me individually.
Trigger warnings, of course, are not the only answer to disturbing content. Instructional #strategies such as the following can also help students approach challenging material:
– Give your students as much #advance_notice as possible about potentially disturbing content. A day’s notice might not be enough for a student to prepare emotionally, but two weeks might be.
– Try to “scaffold” a disturbing topic to students. For example, when beginning a history unit on the Holocaust, don’t start with graphic photographs from Auschwitz. Instead, begin by explaining the historical context, then verbally describe the conditions within the concentration camps, and then introduce the photographic record as needed. Whenever possible, allow students to progress through upsetting material at their own pace.
– Allow students to interact with disturbing material outside of class. A student might feel more vulnerable watching a documentary about sexual assault while in a classroom than in the security of his or her #home.
– Provide captions when using video materials: some content is easier to watch while reading captions than while listening to the audio.
– When necessary, provide written descriptions of graphic images as a substitute for the actual visual content.
– When disturbing content is under discussion, check in with your students from time to time: #ask them how they are doing, whether they need a #break, and so on. Let them know that you are aware that the material in question is emotionally challenging.
– Advise students to be #sensitive to their classmates’ #vulnerabilities when they are preparing class presentations.
– Help your students understand the difference between emotional trauma and #intellectual_discomfort: the former is harmful, as is triggering it in the wrong context (such as in a classroom rather than in therapy); the latter is fundamental to a university education – it means our ideas are being challenged as we struggle to resolve cognitive dissonance.
▻https://uwaterloo.ca/centre-for-teaching-excellence/trigger
Why Trigger Warnings Don’t Work
Because trauma #survivors’ #memories are so specific, increasingly used “trigger warnings” are largely #ineffective.
Fair warning labels at the beginning of movie and book reviews alert the reader that continuing may reveal critical plot points that spoil the story. The acronym NSFW alerts those reading emails or social media posts that the material is not suitable for work. The Motion Picture Association of America provides film ratings to advise about content so that moviegoers can make informed entertainment choices for themselves and their children.
Enter stage right: Trigger warning.
A trigger warning, most often found on #social_media and internet sites, alerts the reader that potentially upsetting information may follow. The words trigger warning are often followed by a subtitle such as *Trigger warning: This may be triggering to those who have struggled with _________. Fill in the blank. #Domestic_abuse. #Rape. #Body_image. #Needles. #Pregnancy.
Trigger warnings have become prevalent online since about 2012. Victim advocate Gayle Crabtree reports that they were in use as early as 1996 in chat rooms she moderated. “We used the words ‘trigger warning,’ ‘#tw,’ ‘#TW,’ and ‘trigger’ early on. …This meant the survivor could see the warning and then decide if she or he wanted to scroll down for the message or not.” Eventually, trigger warnings spread to social media sites including #Tumblr, #Twitter, and #Facebook.
The term seems to have originated from the use of the word “trigger” to indicate something that cues a #physiological_response, the way pollen may trigger an allergy attack. A trigger in a firearm is a lever that activates the sequence of firing a gun, so it is not surprising that the word was commandeered by those working in the field of #psychology to indicate objects and sensations that cause neurological firing in the brain, which in turn cause #feelings and #thoughts to occur.
Spoiler alerts allow us to enjoy the movie or book as it unfolds without being influenced by knowledge about what comes next. The NSFW label helps employees comply with workplace policies that prohibit viewing sexually explicit or profane material. Motion picture ratings enable viewers to select movies they are most likely to find entertaining. Trigger warnings, on the other hand, are “designed to prevent people who have an extremely strong and damaging emotional response… to certain subjects from encountering them unaware.”
Say what?
Say hogwash!
Discussions about trigger warnings have made headlines in the New Yorker, the Los Angeles Times, the Guardian, the New Republic, and various other online and print publications. Erin Dean writes that a trigger “is not something that offends one, troubles one, or angers one; it is something that causes an extreme involuntary reaction in which the individual re-experiences past trauma.”
For those individuals, it is probably true that coming across material that reminds them of a traumatic event is going to be disturbing. Dean’s definition refers to involuntary fear and stress responses common in individuals with Post Traumatic Stress Disorder characterized by intrusive memories, thoughts, or dreams; intense distress at cues that remind the individual of the event; and reactivity to situations, people, or objects that symbolize the event. PTSD can result from personal victimization, accidents, incarceration, natural disasters, or any unexpected injury or threat of injury or death. Research suggests that it results from a combination of genetic predisposition, fear conditioning, and neural and physiological responses that incorporate the body systems and immunological responses. Current theories suggest that PTSD represents “the failure to recover from the normal effects of trauma.” In other words, anyone would be adversely affected by trauma, but natural mechanisms for healing take place in the majority of individuals. The prevalence of PTSD ranges from 1.9 percent in Europe to 3.5 percent in the United States.
The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous.
Some discussions have asserted that because between one in four and one in five women have been sexually abused, trigger warnings are necessary to protect vast numbers of victims from being re-traumatized. However, research shows that the majority of trauma-exposed persons do not develop PTSD. This does not mean they aren’t affected by trauma, but that they do not develop clinically significant symptoms, distress, or impairment in daily functioning. The notion that trigger warnings should be generalized to all social media sites, online journals, and discussion boards is erroneous. Now some students are pushing for trigger warnings on college class syllabi and reading lists.
But what?
Balderdash!
But wait, before people get all riled up, I’d like to say that yes, I have experienced trauma in my life.
I wore a skirt the first time George hit me. I know this because I remember scrunching my skirt around my waist and balancing in heels while I squatted over a hole in the concrete floor to take a piss. We were in Tijuana. The stench of excrement made my stomach queasy with too much tequila. I wanted to retch.
We returned to our hotel room. I slid out of my blouse and skirt. He stripped to nothing and lay on the double bed. He was drinking Rompope from the bottle, a kind of Mexican eggnog: strong, sweet, and marketed for its excellent spunk. It’s a thick yellow rum concoction with eggs, sugar, and almond side notes. George wanted to have sex. We bickered and argued as drunks sometimes do. I said something — I know this because I always said something — and he hit me. He grabbed me by the hair and hit me again. “We’re going dancing,” he said.
“I don’t feel like dancing — “
“Fine. Stay.”
The world was tilting at an angle I didn’t recognize. The mathematician Matt Tweed writes that atoms are made up of almost completely empty space. To grasp the vast nothingness, he asks the reader to imagine a cat twirling a bumblebee on the end of a half-mile long string. That’s how much emptiness there is between the nucleus and the electron. There was more space than that between George and me. I remember thinking: I am in a foreign country. I don’t speak Spanish. I have no money. We went dancing.
Labeling a topic or theme is useless because of the way our brains work. The labels that we give trauma (assault, sexual abuse, rape) are not the primary source of triggers. Memories are, and not just memories, but very specific, insidious, and personally individualized details lodged in our brain at the time of the trauma encoded as memory. Details can include faces, places, sounds, smells, tastes, voices, body positions, time of day, or any other sensate qualities that were present during a traumatic incident.
If I see a particular shade of yellow or smell a sickly sweet rum drink, I’m reminded of my head being yanked by someone who held a handful of my hair in his fist. A forest green Plymouth Duster (the car we drove) will too. The word assault does not. The words domestic violence don’t either. The specificity of details seared in my mind invokes memory.
Last year a driver slammed into the back of my car on the freeway. The word tailgate is not a trigger. Nor is the word accident. The flash of another car suddenly encroaching in my rearview mirror is. In my mid-20s, I drove my younger sister (sobbing, wrapped in a bed sheet) to the hospital where two male officers explained they were going to pluck her pubic hair for a rape kit. When I see tweezers in a hospital, I flash back to that awful moment. For my sister, other things may be triggers: the moonlight shining on the edge of a knife. The shadow of a person back lit in a doorway. An Hispanic man’s accent. If we were going to insist on trigger warnings that work, they would need to look something like this:
Trigger warning: Rompope.
Trigger warning: a woman wrapped in a bed sheet.
Trigger warning: the blade of a knife.
The variability of human #perception and traumatic recall makes it impossible to provide the necessary specificity for trigger warnings to be effective. The nature of specificity is, in part, one reason that treatment for traumatic memories involves safely re-engaging with the images that populate the survivor’s memory of the event. According to Dr. Mark Beuger, an addiction psychiatrist at Deerfield Behavioral Health of Warren (PA), the goal of PTSD treatment is “to allow for processing of the traumatic experience without becoming so emotional that processing is impossible.” By creating a coherent narrative of the past event through telling and retelling the story to a clinician, survivors confront their fears and gain mastery over their thoughts and feelings.
If a survivor has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided.
According to the National Center for Health, “#Avoidance is a maladaptive #control_strategy… resulting in maintenance of perceived current threat. In line with this, trauma-focused treatments stress the role of avoidance in the maintenance of PTSD. Prolonged exposure to safe but anxiety-provoking trauma-related stimuli is considered a treatment of choice for PTSD.” Avoidance involves distancing oneself from cues, reminders, or situations that remind one of the event that can result in increased #social_withdrawal. Trigger warnings increase social withdrawal, which contributes to feelings of #isolation. If a survivor who suffers from PTSD has had adequate clinical support, they could engage online with thoughts or ideas that previously had been avoided. The individual is in charge of each word he or she reads. At any time, one may close a book or click a screen shut on the computer. What is safer than that? Conversely, trigger warnings perpetuate avoidance. Because the intrusive memories and thoughts are internal, trigger warnings suggest, “Wait! Don’t go here. I need to protect you from yourself.”
The argument that trigger warnings help to protect those who have suffered trauma is false. Most people who have experienced trauma do not require preemptive protection. Some may argue that it would be kind to avoid causing others distress with upsetting language and images. But is it? Doesn’t it sometimes take facing the horrific images encountered in trauma to effect change in ourselves and in the world?
A few weeks ago, I came across a video about Boko Haram’s treatment of a kidnapped schoolgirl. The girl was blindfolded. A man was digging a hole in dry soil. It quickly became evident, as he ushered the girl into the hole, that this would not end well. I felt anxious as several men began shoveling soil in around her while she spoke to them in a language I could not understand. I considered clicking away as my unease and horror grew. But I also felt compelled to know what happened to this girl. In the 11-minute video, she is buried up to her neck.
All the while, she speaks to her captors, who eventually move out of the frame of the scene. Rocks begin pelting the girl’s head. One after the other strikes her as I stared, horrified, until finally, her head lay motionless at an angle that could only imply death. That video (now confirmed to be a stoning in Somalia rather than by Boko Haram) forever changed my level of concern about young girls kidnapped in other countries.
We are changed by what we #witness. Had the video contained a trigger warning about gruesome death, I would not have watched it. Weeks later, I would have been spared the rush of feelings I felt when a friend posted a photo of her daughter playfully buried by her brothers in the sand. I would have been spared knowing such horrors occur. But would the world be a better place for my not knowing? Knowledge helps us prioritize our responsibilities in the world. Don’t we want engaged, knowledgeable citizens striving for a better world?
Recently, the idea of trigger warnings has leapt the gulch between social media and academic settings. #Universities are dabbling with #policies that encourage professors to provide trigger warnings for their classes because of #complaints filed by students. Isn’t the syllabus warning enough? Can’t individual students be responsible for researching the class content and reading #materials before they enroll? One of the benefits of broad exposure to literature and art in education is Theory of Mind, the idea that human beings have the capacity to recognize and understand that other people have thoughts and desires that are different from one’s own. Do we want #higher_education to comprise solely literature and ideas that feel safe to everyone? Could we even agree on what that would be?
Art occurs at the intersection of experience and danger. It can be risky, subversive, and offensive. Literature encompasses ideas both repugnant and redemptive. News about very difficult subjects is worth sharing. As writers, don’t we want our readers to have the space to respond authentically to the story? As human beings, don’t we want others to understand that we can empathize without sharing the same points of view?
Trigger warnings fail to warn us of the very things that might cause us to remember our trauma. They insulate. They cause isolation. A trigger warning says, “Be careful. This might be too much for you.” It says, “I don’t trust you can handle it.” As a reader, that’s not a message I want to encounter. As a writer, that is not the message I want to convey.
Trigger warnings?
Poppycock.
▻http://www.stirjournal.com/2014/09/15/trigger-what-why-trigger-warnings-dont-work
Essay on why a professor is adding a trigger warning to his #syllabus
Trigger warnings in the classroom have been the subject of tremendous #debate in recent weeks, but it’s striking how little the discussion has contemplated what actual trigger warnings in actual classrooms might plausibly look like.
The debate began with demands for trigger warnings by student governments with no power to compel them and suggestions by #administrators (made and retracted) that #faculty consider them. From there the ball was picked up mostly by observers outside higher ed who presented various #arguments for and against, and by professors who repudiated the whole idea.
What we haven’t heard much of so far are the voices of professors who are sympathetic to the idea of such warnings talking about what they might look like and how they might operate.
As it turns out, I’m one of those professors, and I think that discussion is long overdue. I teach history at Hostos Community College of the City University of New York, and starting this summer I’m going to be including a trigger warning in my syllabus.
I’d like to say a few things about why.
An Alternative Point of View
To start off, I think it’s important to be clear about what trigger warnings are, and what purpose they’re intended to serve. Such warnings are often framed — and not just by critics — as a “you may not want to read this” notice, one that’s directed specifically at survivors of trauma. But their actual #purpose is considerably broader.
Part of the confusion arises from the word “trigger” itself. Originating in the psychological literature, the #term can be misleading in a #non-clinical context, and indeed many people who favor such warnings prefer to call them “#content_warnings” for that reason. It’s not just trauma survivors who may be distracted or derailed by shocking or troubling material, after all. It’s any of us, and a significant part of the distraction comes not from the material itself but from the context in which it’s presented.
In the original cut of the 1933 version of the film “King Kong,” there was a scene (depicting an attack by a giant spider) that was so graphic that the director removed it before release. He took it out, it’s said, not because of concerns about excessive violence, but because the intensity of the scene ruined the movie — once you saw the sailors get eaten by the spider, the rest of the film passed by you in a haze.
A similar concern provides a big part of the impetus for content warnings. These warnings prepare the reader for what’s coming, so their #attention isn’t hijacked when it arrives. Even a pleasant surprise can be #distracting, and if the surprise is unpleasant the distraction will be that much more severe.
I write quite a bit online, and I hardly ever use content warnings myself. I respect the impulse to provide them, but in my experience a well-written title and lead paragraph can usually do the job more effectively and less obtrusively.
A classroom environment is different, though, for a few reasons. First, it’s a shared space — for the 75 minutes of the class session and the 15 weeks of the semester, we’re pretty much all #stuck with one another, and that fact imposes #interpersonal_obligations on us that don’t exist between writer and reader. Second, it’s an interactive space — it’s a #conversation, not a monologue, and I have a #responsibility to encourage that conversation as best I can. Finally, it’s an unpredictable space — a lot of my students have never previously encountered some of the material we cover in my classes, or haven’t encountered it in the way it’s taught at the college level, and don’t have any clear sense of what to expect.
For all these reasons, I’ve concluded that it would be sound #pedagogy for me to give my students notice about some of the #challenging_material we’ll be covering in class — material relating to racial and sexual oppression, for instance, and to ethnic and religious conflict — as well as some information about their rights and responsibilities in responding to it. Starting with the summer semester, as a result, I’ll be discussing these issues during the first class meeting and including a notice about them in the syllabus.
My current draft of that notice reads as follows:
Course Content Note
At times this semester we will be discussing historical events that may be disturbing, even traumatizing, to some students. If you ever feel the need to step outside during one of these discussions, either for a short time or for the rest of the class session, you may always do so without academic penalty. (You will, however, be responsible for any material you miss. If you do leave the room for a significant time, please make arrangements to get notes from another student or see me individually.)
If you ever wish to discuss your personal reactions to this material, either with the class or with me afterwards, I welcome such discussion as an appropriate part of our coursework.
That’s it. That’s my content warning. That’s all it is.
I should say as well that nothing in these two paragraphs represents a change in my teaching practice. I have always assumed that if a student steps out of the classroom they’ve got a good reason, and I don’t keep tabs on them when they do. If a student is made uncomfortable by something that happens in class, I’m always glad when they come talk to me about it — I’ve found we usually both learn something from such exchanges. And of course students are still responsible for mastering all the course material, just as they’ve always been.
So why the note, if everything in it reflects the rules of my classroom as they’ve always existed? Because, again, it’s my job as a professor to facilitate class discussion.
A few years ago one of my students came to talk to me after class, distraught. She was a student teacher in a New York City junior high school, working with a social studies teacher. The teacher was white, and almost all of his students were, like my student, black. That week, she said, one of the classes had arrived at the point in the semester given over to the discussion of slavery, and at the start of the class the teacher had gotten up, buried his nose in his notes, and started into the lecture without any introduction. The students were visibly upset by what they were hearing, but the teacher just kept going until the end of the period, at which point he finished the lecture, put down his papers, and sent them on to math class.
My student was appalled. She liked these kids, and she could see that they were hurting. They were angry, they were confused, and they had been given nothing to do with their #emotions. She asked me for advice, and I had very little to offer, but I left our meeting thinking that it would have been better for the teacher to have skipped that material entirely than to have taught it the way he did.
History is often ugly. History is often troubling. History is often heartbreaking. As a professor, I have an #obligation to my students to raise those difficult subjects, but I also have an obligation to raise them in a way that provokes a productive reckoning with the material.
And that reckoning can only take place if my students know that I understand that this material is not merely academic, that they are coming to it as whole people with a wide range of experiences, and that the journey we’re going on #together may at times be #painful.
It’s not coddling them to acknowledge that. In fact, it’s just the opposite.
▻https://www.insidehighered.com/views/2014/05/29/essay-why-professor-adding-trigger-warning-his-syllabus
Fleurs de barricade - l’#anarchie chantée en #Italie
Curés, patrons, militaires, flics, chefs d’état : il n’existe aucune catégorie d’oppresseurs qui n’ait été attaquée, insultée, ridiculisée, menacée dans les #chansons_libertaires. Souvent vulgaire et irrévérencieux, toujours exagéré, rhétorique et fataliste, le chant a toujours accompagné les anarchistes dans leurs #luttes quotidiennes contre l’#exploitation, les #inégalités, la #pauvreté, la #répression mais aussi l’allié contre les grands ennemis de toujours : “l’#état, l’#église, la #bourgeoisie cupide”, cette triade arrogante qui depuis toujours opprime l’humanité.
Dans ce spectacle qui mêle musique et histoires, accompagné par un équipage variable en fonction des occasions, #Lorenzo_Valera propose un florilège de chants italiens qui ont accompagné un siècle de luttes libertaires.
▻https://www.terracanto.org/fr/fleurs-de-barricade-lanarchie-chant%C3%A9e-en-italie
#musique_et_politique #chants #chansons
Et ici les paroles des chants traduits en français, à télécharger:
▻https://nextcloud.alekos.net/s/m22dGjNcfBZ96Hi#pdfviewer
ping @sinehebdo @albertocampiphoto @wizo
Les chansons du livret, sélection ci-dessous...
Les Anarchistes — #Battan_L'Otto
#IL_GALEONE - Paola Nicolazzi
La ballata del #Pinelli, déjà signalée ici:
▻https://seenthis.net/messages/812384#message812387
#Giuseppe_Pinelli
#STORNELLI_D'ESILIO - Pietro Gori
déjà signalé ici:
►https://seenthis.net/messages/812384#message812398
Gruppo Z - #L'interrogatorio_di_Sante_Caserio
#Cinturini
déjà signalée ici:
►https://seenthis.net/messages/806126
#Piazza_Fontana
déjà signalée ici:
►https://seenthis.net/messages/812384#message812398
Claudio Lolli - #Dalle_capre
#E_QUANDO_MUOIO_IO NON VOGLIO PRETI
Un #barrage suisse sème le chaos en #Birmanie
L’#Upper_Yeywa, un ouvrage hydroélectrique construit par le bureau d’ingénierie vaudois #Stucky, va noyer un village dont les habitants n’ont nulle part où aller. Il favorise aussi les exactions par l’armée. Reportage.
Le village de #Ta_Long apparaît au détour de la route en gravier qui serpente au milieu des champs de maïs et des collines de terre rouge, donnant à ce paysage un air de Toscane des tropiques. Ses petites demeures en bambou sont encaissées au fond d’un vallon. Les villageois nous attendent dans la maison en bois sur pilotis qui leur sert de monastère bouddhiste et de salle communale. Nous sommes en terre #Shan, une ethnie minoritaire qui domine cette région montagneuse dans le nord-est de la Birmanie.
« Je préférerais mourir que de partir, lance en guise de préambule Pu Kyung Num, un vieil homme aux bras recouverts de tatouages à l’encre bleue. Je suis né ici et nos ancêtres occupent ces terres depuis plus d’un millénaire. » Mais Ta Long ne sera bientôt plus.
Un barrage hydroélectrique appelé Upper Yeywa est en cours de construction par un consortium comprenant des groupes chinois et le bureau d’ingénierie vaudois Stucky à une vingtaine de kilomètres au sud-ouest, sur la rivière #Namtu. Lors de sa mise en service, prévue pour 2021, toutes les terres situées à moins de 395 mètres d’altitude seront inondées. Ta Long, qui se trouve à 380 mètres, sera entièrement recouvert par un réservoir d’une soixantaine de kilomètres.
« La construction du barrage a débuté en 2008 mais personne ne nous a rien dit jusqu’en 2014, s’emporte Nang Lao Kham, une dame vêtue d’un longyi, la pièce d’étoffe portée à la taille, à carreaux rose et bleu. Nous n’avons pas été consultés, ni même informés de son existence. » Ce n’est que six ans après le début des travaux que les villageois ont été convoqués dans la ville voisine de #Kyaukme par le Ministère de l’électricité. On leur apprend alors qu’ils devront bientôt partir.
Pas de #titres_de_propriété
En Birmanie, toutes les #terres pour lesquelles il n’existe pas de titres de propriété – ainsi que les ressources naturelles qu’elles abritent – appartiennent au gouvernement central. Dans les campagnes birmanes, où la propriété est communautaire, personne ne possède ces documents. « Nous ne quitterons jamais notre village, assure Nang Lao Kham, en mâchouillant une graine de tournesol. Nous sommes de simples paysans sans éducation. Nous ne savons rien faire d’autre que cultiver nos terres. »
Le gouvernement ne leur a pas proposé d’alternative viable. « Une brochure d’information publiée il y a quelques années parlait de les reloger à trois kilomètres du village actuel, mais ce site est déjà occupé par d’autres paysans », détaille Thum Ai, du Shan Farmer’s Network, une ONG locale. Le montant de la compensation n’a jamais été articulé. Ailleurs dans le pays, les paysans chassés de leurs terres pour faire de la place à un projet d’infrastructure ont reçu entre six et douze mois de salaire. Certains rien du tout.
Ta Long compte 653 habitants et 315 hectares de terres arables. Pour atteindre leurs vergers, situés le long de la rivière Namtu, les villageois empruntent de longues pirogues en bois. « La terre est extrêmement fertile ici, grâce aux sédiments apportés par le fleuve », glisse Kham Lao en plaçant des oranges et des pomélos dans un panier en osier.
Les #agrumes de Ta Long sont connus loin à la ronde. « Mes fruits me rapportent 10 800 dollars par an », raconte-t-elle. Bien au-delà des maigres 3000 dollars amassés par les cultivateurs de riz des plaines centrales. « Depuis que j’ai appris l’existence du barrage, je ne dors plus la nuit, poursuit cette femme de 30 ans qui est enceinte de son troisième enfant. Comment vais-je subvenir aux besoins de mes parents et payer l’éducation de mes enfants sans mes #vergers ? »
Cinq barrages de la puissance de la Grande Dixence
La rivière Namtu puise ses origines dans les #montagnes du nord de l’Etat de Shan avant de rejoindre le fleuve Irrawaddy et de se jeter dans la baie du Bengale. Outre l’Upper Yeywa, trois autres barrages sont prévus sur ce cours d’eau. Un autre, le Yeywa a été inauguré en 2010. Ces cinq barrages auront une capacité de près de 2000 mégawatts, l’équivalent de la Grande Dixence.
Ce projet s’inscrit dans le cadre d’un plan qui a pour but de construire 50 barrages sur l’ensemble du territoire birman à l’horizon 2035. Cela fera passer les capacités hydroélectriques du pays de 3298 à 45 412 mégawatts, selon un rapport de l’International Finance Corporation. Les besoins sont immenses : seulement 40% de la population est connectée au réseau électrique.
L’Etat y voit aussi une source de revenus. « Une bonne partie de l’électricité produite par ces barrages est destinée à être exportée vers les pays voisins, en premier lieu la #Chine et la #Thaïlande, note Mark Farmaner, le fondateur de Burma Campaign UK. Les populations locales n’en bénéficieront que très peu. » Près de 90% des 6000 mégawatts générés par le projet Myitsone dans l’Etat voisin du Kachin, suspendu depuis 2011 en raison de l’opposition de la population, iront à la province chinoise du Yunnan.
Les plans de la Chine
L’Upper Yeywa connaîtra sans doute un sort similaire. « Le barrage est relativement proche de la frontière chinoise, note Charm Tong, de la Shan Human Rights Foundation. Y exporter son électricité représenterait un débouché naturel. » L’Etat de Shan se trouve en effet sur le tracé du corridor économique que Pékin cherche à bâtir à travers la Birmanie, entre le Yunnan et la baie du Bengale, dans le cadre de son projet « #Belt_&_Road ».
Le barrage Upper Yeywa y est affilié. Il compte deux entreprises chinoises parmi ses constructeurs, #Yunnan_Machinery Import & Export et #Zhejiang_Orient_Engineering. Le suisse Stucky œuvre à leurs côtés. Fondé en 1926 par l’ingénieur Alfred Stucky, ce bureau installé à Renens est spécialisé dans la conception de barrages.
Il a notamment contribué à l’ouvrage turc #Deriner, l’un des plus élevés du monde. Il a aussi pris part à des projets en #Angola, en #Iran, en #Arabie_saoudite et en #République_démocratique_du_Congo. Depuis 2013, il appartient au groupe bâlois #Gruner.
Le chantier du barrage, désormais à moitié achevé, occupe les berges escarpées de la rivière. Elles ont été drapées d’une coque de béton afin d’éviter les éboulements. De loin, on dirait que la #montagne a été grossièrement taillée à la hache. L’ouvrage, qui fera entre 97 et 102 mètres, aura une capacité de 320 mégawatts.
Son #coût n’a pas été rendu public. « Mais rien que ces deux dernières années, le gouvernement lui a alloué 7,4 milliards de kyats (5 millions de francs) », indique Htun Nyan, un parlementaire local affilié au NLD, le parti au pouvoir de l’ancienne Prix Nobel de la paix Aung San Suu Kyi. Une partie de ces fonds proviennent d’un prêt chinois octroyé par #Exim_Bank, un établissement qui finance la plupart des projets liés à « Belt & Road ».
Zone de conflit
Pour atteindre le hameau de #Nawng_Kwang, à une vingtaine de kilomètres au nord du barrage, il faut emprunter un chemin de terre cabossé qui traverse une forêt de teck. Cinq hommes portant des kalachnikovs barrent soudain la route. Cette région se trouve au cœur d’une zone de #conflit entre #milices ethniques.
Les combats opposent le #Restoration_Council_of_Shan_State (#RCSS), affilié à l’#armée depuis la conclusion d’un cessez-le-feu, et le #Shan_State_Progress_Party (#SSPP), proche de Pékin. Nos hommes font partie du RCSS. Ils fouillent la voiture, puis nous laissent passer.
Nam Kham Sar, une jeune femme de 27 ans aux joues recouvertes de thanaka, une pâte jaune que les Birmans portent pour se protéger du soleil, nous attend à Nawng Kwang. Elle a perdu son mari Ar Kyit en mai 2016. « Il a été blessé au cou par des miliciens alors qu’il ramenait ses buffles », relate-t-elle. Son frère et son cousin sont venus le chercher, mais les trois hommes ont été interceptés par des soldats de l’armée régulière.
« Ils ont dû porter l’eau et les sacs à dos des militaires durant plusieurs jours, relate-t-elle. Puis, ils ont été interrogés et torturés à mort. » Leurs corps ont été brûlés. « Mon fils avait à peine 10 mois lorsque son papa a été tué », soupire Nam Kham Sar, une larme coulant le long de sa joue.
Vider les campagnes ?
La plupart des hameaux alentour subissent régulièrement ce genre d’assaut. En mai 2016, cinq hommes ont été tués par des soldats dans le village voisin de Wo Long. L’armée a aussi brûlé des maisons, pillé des vivres et bombardé des paysans depuis un hélicoptère. En août 2018, des villageois ont été battus et enfermés dans un enclos durant plusieurs jours sans vivres ; d’autres ont servi de boucliers humains aux troupes pour repérer les mines.
Les résidents en sont convaincus : il s’agit d’opérations de #nettoyage destinées à #vider_les_campagnes pour faire de la place au barrage. « Ces décès ne sont pas des accidents, assure Tun Win, un parlementaire local. L’armée cherche à intimider les paysans. » Une trentaine de militaires sont stationnés en permanence sur une colline surplombant le barrage, afin de le protéger. En mars 2018, ils ont abattu deux hommes circulant à moto.
Dans la population, la colère gronde. Plusieurs milliers de manifestants sont descendus dans la rue à plusieurs reprises à #Hsipaw, la ville la plus proche du barrage. Les habitants de Ta Long ont aussi écrit une lettre à la première ministre Aung San Suu Kyi, restée sans réponse. En décembre, une délégation de villageois s’est rendue à Yangon. Ils ont délivré une lettre à sept ambassades, dont celle de Suisse, pour dénoncer le barrage.
« L’#hypocrisie de la Suisse »
Contacté, l’ambassadeur helvétique Tim Enderlin affirme n’avoir jamais reçu la missive. « Cette affaire concerne une entreprise privée », dit-il, tout en précisant que « l’ambassade encourage les entreprises suisses en Birmanie à adopter un comportement responsable, surtout dans les zones de conflit ».
La Shan Human Rights Foundation dénonce toutefois « l’hypocrisie de la Suisse qui soutient le #processus_de_paix en Birmanie mais dont les entreprises nouent des partenariats opportunistes avec le gouvernement pour profiter des ressources situées dans des zones de guerre ».
La conseillère nationale socialiste Laurence Fehlmann Rielle, qui préside l’Association Suisse-Birmanie, rappelle que l’#initiative_pour_des_multinationales_responsables, sur laquelle le Conseil national se penchera jeudi prochain, « introduirait des obligations en matière de respect des droits de l’homme pour les firmes suisses ». Mardi, elle posera une question au Conseil fédéral concernant l’implication de Stucky dans le barrage Upper Yeywa.
Contactée, l’entreprise n’a pas souhaité s’exprimer. D’autres sociétés se montrent plus prudentes quant à leur image. Fin janvier, le bureau d’ingénierie allemand #Lahmeyer, qui appartient au belge #Engie-Tractebel, a annoncé qu’il se retirait du projet et avait « rompu le contrat » le liant au groupe vaudois.
▻https://www.letemps.ch/monde/un-barrage-suisse-seme-chaos-birmanie
#Suisse #barrage_hydroélectrique #géographie_du_plein #géographie_du_vide #extractivisme
ping @aude_v @reka
▻https://medium.com/@thegrugq/stop-fabricating-travel-security-advice-35259bf0e869
People who don’t own laptops, tablets and/or smartphones yet travel internationally don’t exist anymore. If you are completely naked of any digital devices but aren’t 2 or 80 years old, then you are extremely anomalous. Most probably someone that should be interviewed by secondary CBP screening…
Si vous contestez le déferlement numérique, on vous conseille quand même d’y prendre part pour évitez des désagréments
Une nouvelle monnaie, le #Léman, s’installe sur la frontière franco-suisse
▻https://www.mediapart.fr/journal/economie/291016/une-nouvelle-monnaie-le-leman-s-installe-sur-la-frontiere-franco-suisse
Claudine Baudin et Paule Génillard, bénévoles à Genève. © Fanny Hardy C’est une première pour la France : la création par des citoyens d’une #monnaie_locale complémentaire qui est transfrontalière, partagée avec la Suisse. Le léman vient de fêter une année de mise en circulation et monte lentement en puissance, se heurtant à un problème, celui du taux de change. Réussira-t-il localement, là où s’arrête la zone euro ? Reportage des deux côtés de la frontière.
Une nouvelle monnaie locale à Strasbourg : le « Stück »
▻http://affaires.lapresse.ca/economie/international/201509/25/01-4903897-une-nouvelle-monnaie-locale-a-strasbourg-le-stuck.php
Quelque 100 000 euros de masse monétaire en Stücks ont été imprimés pour accompagner le lancement de la nouvelle monnaie alsacienne.
Les euros placés par les usagers à la banque serviront notamment au financement de l’économie sociale et solidaire.
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La devise strasbourgeoise pourra ensuite être retirée au Crédit municipal de Strasbourg, faisant office de bureau de change, au cours légal d’un Stück contre un euro.
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Les billets perdront également 2 % de leur valeur tous les 9 mois, dans le but de « décourager la thésaurisation » et d’« encourager la circulation des billets ».
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Abeille (Lot-et-Garonne), Eusko (Pays basque) ou SoNantes (Loire-atlantique) : la France compte actuellement au moins une trentaine de monnaies locales en circulation ou en projet, toutes placées sous la supervision de la Banque de France.
Banque de France, Crédit Municipal... difficile dans ces conditions de parler de monnaie citoyenne ou même de monnaie complémentaire. Plutôt un outils "d’épargne" (à taux négatif) pour financer « l’économie sociale et solidaire ». C’est sans doute pas une mauvaise chose, il faudrait voir en détail, mais j’ai peur que ce soit loin de faire partie des innovations économiques nécessaires.
#Alsace #Argent #Banque_de_France #France #Monnaie_complémentaire #Monnaie_locale #Strasbourg #Stück #Économie