{"id":65418,"date":"2003-01-10T00:00:00","date_gmt":"2003-01-10T00:00:00","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/01\/10\/parler-seculier\/"},"modified":"2003-01-10T00:00:00","modified_gmt":"2003-01-10T00:00:00","slug":"parler-seculier","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/2003\/01\/10\/parler-seculier\/","title":{"rendered":"Parler s\u00e9culier<\/em><\/strong>"},"content":{"rendered":"

Parler s\u00e9culier<\/h2>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t9 janvier 2003 C’est une curieuse circonstance, nous dit le Financial Times<\/em> du 7 janvier 2003. Nous en convenons, puisque voici Javier Solana, habituellement ouvert, souriant, presque patelin, soudain devenu s\u00e9rieux, voire d’une gravit\u00e9 compl\u00e8tement inhabituelle. Il nous parle des diff\u00e9rences culturelles entre deux soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, aujourd’hui, maintenant, l’une est religieuse et l’autre s\u00e9culi\u00e8re, et cela lui cause bien des soucis. Ce n’est pas du tout que l’une est chr\u00e9tienne et occidentale, et l’autre islamique et sur notre Orient ; changement de point de vue : l’une est la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine, l’autre la soci\u00e9t\u00e9 europ\u00e9enne.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

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\t\u00ab And despite rhetoric about the values that bind both sides of the Atlantic, Mr Solana says Europe and the US are growing further apart. The reason, he says, is a cultural phenomenon, one that goes beyond the pattern of US foreign policy swinging between unilateralism and multilateralism. This time the unilateralist pendulum is different. It is, says Mr Solana, being swung by religion.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb The US was increasingly looking at things as if in a religious context. It is a kind of binary model,says Mr Solana, reverting to language he used when he was a professor of solid-state physics. t is all or nothing. For us Europeans, it is difficult to deal with because we are secular. We do not see the world in such black and white terms.Although well aware of the strength of the religious right in the administration, Mr Solana is surprised at how religion has permeated the White House’s thinking.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNowhere is this more obvious, he says, than in the language used by the Bush administration since the September 11 attacks: with us or against us, rogue states, axis of evil, right and wrong, good and bad.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb The choice of language on the two sides of the Atlantic is revealing,<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tSans aucun doute, r\u00e9p\u00e9tons-le, voil\u00e0 le plus frappant. Solana est connu comme un homme arrangeant, un homme de compromis au sourire qui arrange les choses. Il ne nous a pas habitu\u00e9s \u00e0 de telles d\u00e9clarations. Ce qu’il nous dit est si \u00e9norme qu’il n’y a gu\u00e8re eu de commentaires (il en viendra, plus tard, des USA, o\u00f9 l’on note et o\u00f9 l’on n’oublie pas cette sorte de d\u00e9clarations venue de gens qu’on estime acquis \u00e0 la cause commune, et l’on sait ce que parler veut dire dans ce cas). C’est un signe de notre temps historique : lorsque des choses importantes sont dites, et qu’est-ce qui peut \u00eatre dit d’important, sinon dans les relations entre les USA et l’Europe, entre les USA et le reste du monde ? on d\u00e9tourne la t\u00eate et on fait silence. C’est ainsi, les Europ\u00e9ens sont, avec l’Am\u00e9rique, devant une \u00e9nigme qui a parfois des tours si mena\u00e7ants, qu’on pr\u00e9f\u00e8re souvent retourner \u00e0 des occupations quotidiennes lorsque la r\u00e9alit\u00e9 se fait un peu plus visible.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tIl n’emp\u00eache, ce qui est dit est dit et ce qu’a dit Solana est confondant. Cela vient au moment o\u00f9 Tony Blair, le fid\u00e8le Tony Blair, ne dit rien d’autre \u00e0 ses ambassadeurs promptement r\u00e9unis \u00e0 Londres ; il leur dit qu’il y a une crise am\u00e9ricaine et que, peut-\u00eatre, elle est plus grave que la crise du terrorisme,<\/a> jusqu’\u00e0 cette \u00e9vocation o\u00f9 le PM verrait bien \u00ab the world splitting into rival poles of power; the US in one corner; anti-US forces in another<\/em> \u00bb. Et, dans cette division o\u00f9 \u00ab the US in one corner<\/em> \u00bb, c’est-\u00e0-dire les US seuls, il faudra bien que les autres se situent.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tCes d\u00e9clarations extraordinaires, venant d’hommes qu’on peut soup\u00e7onner de bien des pens\u00e9es impies mais certainement pas de l’impie parmi les impies (l’antiam\u00e9ricanisme), signifient que, si personne ne commente tout le monde y pense, et qu’un sentiment identique ne cesse d’enfler dans les r\u00e9flexions intimes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tEt Solana en rajoute. Il transcrit cette extraordinaire diff\u00e9rence culturelle qu’il a d\u00e9busqu\u00e9e en une r\u00e9alit\u00e9 politique, qui concerne la crise qui requiert tous les jours notre attention. C’est m\u00eame \u00e0 ce propos que les r\u00e9flexions gravissimes lui sont venues : l’homme de l’action politique et bureaucratique (l’homme de terrain, dit-on) en est venu \u00e0 ses constats intellectuels sous la pouss\u00e9e de la force des choses. Le ph\u00e9nom\u00e8ne a pris son temps pour incuber. Il est d\u00e9sormais aussi solide que du roc. Il ent\u00e9rine une extraordinaire incommunicabilit\u00e9 pour des gens qui copinent et se jurent fid\u00e9lit\u00e9 et bonheur en commun depuis un gros demi-si\u00e8cle.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\t\u00ab For the Bush administration, <\/em>[Solana] says, the September 11 attacks were an act of war and an expression of evil. Europeans, who unreservedly condemned them, saw the attacks through a different lens: as the most extreme and reprehensible symptom of political dysfunction, operating from within failed states such as Afghanistan.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb What for the US is a war on terrorism, for Europe is the fight against terrorism, he says. The Europeans, continues Mr Solana, have tried to persuade the US to move beyond this binary view of the world by going through multilateral institutions, in particular the United Nations, to explore and exhaust diplomacy before deciding to launch a military attack against Iraq.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb While that binary view has been compromised by North Korea where in the face of outright aggression Mr Bush has chosen negotiation over confrontation Mr Solana senses Washington will stick to its black and white world view. The moral certainty of religious America, he argues, is difficult to replicate in a largely secular Europe. A religious society, he theorises, perceives evil in terms of moral choice and free will while a secular society seeks the causes of evil in political or psychological terms.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb Just as important, the White House world view has enormous implications for foreign policy. It explains why US and European foreign policy when the Europeans actually manage to achieve a united stance are often so far apart. The US, for example, sees terrorism as the overriding threat to international security and order. This partly explains why the Bush administration, backed by an influential Israeli lobby, is unwilling to deal directly with Yassir Arafat, the Palestinian leader. Many in Washington see him as a terrorist; and the Europeans, by trying to keep a door open to the Palestinian leadership, are often accused of being anti-Semitic or even supporting terrorists.<\/em><\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\t\u00bb We just have a very different political analysis over how to deal with Arafat or indeed Iran, where we try to pursue engagement rather than isolation, says Mr Solana.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tThe differences go further. Europeans argue that terrorism is one of many threats that also include poverty, regional conflicts, diseases and climate change. And unlike the US administration, they also talk about conflict prevention, crisis management such as in the Balkans and sustainable development as ways to increase security.<\/em> \u00bb<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

<\/p>\n

\tLe probl\u00e8me est d’une ampleur et d’une profondeur prodigieuses. Ce que dit Solana, in fine<\/em> mais pas loin d’ouvertement, c’est que le choc des civilisations est bien West versus West<\/em>. Et alors, que va-t-on faire ? Continuer comme si de rien n’\u00e9tait, en affichant nos soi-disant valeurs communes, us\u00e9es jusqu’\u00e0 la corde, dont la journaliste du FT (Judy Dempsey) fait une allusion avec une pudeur qu’on comprend, en passant vite fait sur le concept, et exp\u00e9diant le tout sous une expression qui en dit long (\u00ab rhetoric about the values<\/em> \u00bb).<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNous aurions bien des r\u00e9serves sur la cat\u00e9gorisation offerte par Solana (une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 religieuse versus<\/em> une soci\u00e9t\u00e9 s\u00e9culi\u00e8re). Nous pensons qu’il faudrait appliquer \u00e0 cette appr\u00e9ciation la finesse, le refus du noir et blanc dont Solana nous dit qu’ils sont l’apanage de l’esprit europ\u00e9en, qu’il n’y a pas un esprit religieux contre un esprit non-religieux, que la religiosit\u00e9 am\u00e9ricaine laisse si terriblement \u00e0 penser qu’elle m\u00e9riterait qu’on s’y attache au-del\u00e0 de la question de la religion, que le s\u00e9cularisme europ\u00e9en laisse \u00e9galement \u00e0 penser et qu’il y a l\u00e0 aussi mati\u00e8re \u00e0 \u00e9tude. Par contre, sur l’essentiel, sur l’opposition entre un \u00e9tat d’esprit absolu et un \u00e9tat d’esprit relatif, certes, nous y sommes.<\/p>\n<\/p>\n

\tNous n’avons pas fini d’entendre rouler le tonnerre que constitue, dans les milieux du pouvoir en Europe, la reconnaissance, progressive mais tragique, de ce qui est le principal, le seul probl\u00e8me de la crise de notre temps historique.<\/p><\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Parler s\u00e9culier 9 janvier 2003 C’est une curieuse circonstance, nous dit le Financial Times du 7 janvier 2003. Nous en convenons, puisque voici Javier Solana, habituellement ouvert, souriant, presque patelin, soudain devenu s\u00e9rieux, voire d’une gravit\u00e9 compl\u00e8tement inhabituelle. Il nous parle des diff\u00e9rences culturelles entre deux soci\u00e9t\u00e9s, aujourd’hui, maintenant, l’une est religieuse et l’autre s\u00e9culi\u00e8re,… <\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"","ping_status":"","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"neve_meta_sidebar":"","neve_meta_container":"","neve_meta_enable_content_width":"","neve_meta_content_width":0,"neve_meta_title_alignment":"","neve_meta_author_avatar":"","neve_post_elements_order":"","neve_meta_disable_header":"","neve_meta_disable_footer":"","neve_meta_disable_title":"","_jetpack_memberships_contains_paid_content":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[10],"tags":[3779,3778,3777,1205],"class_list":["post-65418","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-faits-et-commentaires","tag-ouest-ouest","tag-religion","tag-solana","tag-transatlantique"],"jetpack_featured_media_url":"","jetpack_sharing_enabled":true,"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65418","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=65418"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/65418\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=65418"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=65418"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/new.dedefensa.org\/index.php\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=65418"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}