Bibliography (L) like Labov and Labrie (From La Gorce to Lyons)

Links to my bibliography from A to Z:

A B C D E F G H I J K L (this page)

M N O P Q R S T U V W/X/Y/Z

Last Update: August 12th, 2020

As usual, in the Part 1, you’ll find the full list and Part 2 deals with details.

PART 1:

La Gorce (de), Paul-Marie. 1996. Le Dernier Empire (Grasset: Paris).
Labov. 1997. “Testimony on “Ebonics” given January 23rd before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education of the Senate Appropriations Committee.” In. Washington: Senate.
Labov, William. 1968. “A Study of the Non-Standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City: Phonological and Grammatical Analysis.” In The Use of language in the Speech Community, edited by Paul Cohen. New York: Columbia University.
———. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular (University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia, PA).
———. 1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns (University of Pennsylvania Press: Philadelphia).
———. 1976. Sociolinguistique (Editions de Minuit: Paris).
———. 1982. ‘Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: the case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor’, Language in Society, 11: 165-201.
———. 1993. Le Parler Ordinaire: la Langue dans les Ghettos noirs des Etats-Unis (Editions de Minuit: Paris).
———. 1994. Principles of Linguistic Change: Internal Factors (Blackwell: Oxford, UK and NY, NY, USA).
———. 1998. ‘Co-existent Systems in African-American Vernacular English.’ in Slikoko S. Mufwene, John R. Rickford, Guy Bailey and Baugh John (eds.), African-American English: Structure, History and Use (Rootledge: London).
———. 1999. ‘Foreword.’ in John Baugh (ed.), Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational Malpractice (University of Texas Press: Austin, Texas).
———. 2001. Principles of Linguistic Change: Social Factors. (Blackwell: Oxford, UK and NY, NY, USA).
Labrie, Normand. 1993. La construction linguistique de la Communauté européenne (Champion).
Ladmiral, Jean-René, and Edmond Marc Lipiansky. 1989. La Communication Interculturelle (Armand Colin: Paris).
Lafkioui, Mena. 2011. “French-Based Minority Websites: Multilingualism, multimodality and Identity: Construction in Computer-mediated Discourse.” In Langues en contact: le français à travers le monde. Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg.
Lakoff, G, and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By (University of Chicago Press: Chicago).
Lakshmanan, V. 2010. ” Metaphors as Problematizer in Legal Language translation: A case-Study of the Kushboo Case.” In “Language, Law and the Multilingual State” 12th International Conference of the International Academy of Linguistic Law. Bloemfontein, Free State University.
Lambert, R.D. 1989. “The National Foreign Language System.” In. Washington, D.C.: National Foreign Language Center at John Hopkins University.
Lamont, Michèle (ed.)^(eds.). 1999. The Cultural Territories of Race: Black and White Boundaries (University of Chicago Press).
Lang, Jack. 1982. “Allocution.” In Conférence de Mexico, 6-7. Archives du Ministère de la Culture.
———. 1982. ‘législation’, Journal Officiel: 6-7.
Langan, Fred. 1996. ‘Quebec’s Premier urges Separatists to ease war on English Speakers’, Christian Science Monitor: 6.
Lapaque, Sébastien. 2020. ‘Le livre qui pousse à l’action qui sauve: Dans “La Raison d’être”, le penseur Jacque Ellul développe un commentaire profond de l’Ecclésiaste’, Le Figaro, 14 août 2020, section Petits et grands traités de sagesse #5/5: Des penseurs stoïciens à la philosophie contemporaine, une courte histoire de la pensée du bonheur autour de la méditerranée.
Lapierre, J.W. 1988. Le Pouvoir Politique et les Langues: Babel Et Leviathan (PUF: Paris).
Lave, J. 1988. Cognition in Practive (Cambridge University Press: Boston Massachusetts).
Lazar, Dany, and Nomika Tsion. 2013. “Kol Aher, another voice.” In JCall trip to Israel and Palestinian Territories. Tel Aviv: JCall.
Lazare, Daniel. 2000. ‘UNE DÉMOCRATIE EN VOIE DE FOSSILISATION : Cette pesante Constitution américaine’, Le Monde Diplomatique: 3.
Le Bras, Hervé. 1998. Démon des Origines (Editions de l’Aube: La Tour-d’Aigues).
Leacock, Eleanor. 1986. ‘The Montagnais-Naskapi of the Labrador Peninsula.’ in B. Morrison and Wilson R. (eds.), Native Peoples: the Canadian Experience (McClelland & Stewart: Toronto).
Leap, William L. 1987. ‘American Indian languages.’ in Charles A. Ferguson and Shirley Brice Heath (eds.), Language in the USA (Cambridge University Press: Cambridge).
Lee, Spike. 1987. Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking (Fireside Press: New York).
Leibner, Isi. 2012. “Olmert Honors J Street’.” In.
Lema, Luis. 2003. ‘Petites histoires sans importance: Israël’, Le Temps, 4 octobre, pp. 46.
———. 2003. ‘Vivre à Tel-Aviv: Yehoshua Kenaz: les reflets intimes d’un pays en guerre’, Le Temps, 4 octobre, pp. 46.
Lemco, Jonathan. 1992. ‘Quebec’s “Distinctive Character” and the Question of Minority Rights.’ in James Crawford (ed.), Language Loyalties: A source-book on the Official English Controversy (The University of Chicago Press: Chicago).
Lequeret, Elisabeth. 1998. ‘Un monde de combats, de rêves et de désirs : L’Afrique filmée par des femmes’, Le Monde Diplomatique: Page 11.
Leslie, Peter M. 1994. ‘ Asymmetry: Rejected, Conceded, Imposed.’ in F.L. Seidle (ed.), A la Recherche d’un nouveau Contrat politique pour le Canada: Options asymétriques et options confédérales (Institute for Research on Public Policy: Québec).
Levasseur, Catherine. 2012. “Moi j’suis pas francophone.” In Languages in the City. Berlin.
Marc Levine, The Reconquest of Montreal. Language, Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City, Philadelphie, Temple University Press, 1990
Levy, Jacob. 1997. ‘Classifying Cultural Rights.’ in Ian Shapiro and Will Kymlicka (eds.), Ethnicity and Group Rights (New York University Press: New York).
Li, P.S. 1988. Ethnic Inequality in a Class Society (Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc: Toronto).
Liddicoat, Anthony J. . 2008 “Models of national government language-in-education policy for indigenous minority language groups.” In 2007 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, edited by Timothy J. Curnow. Adelaide.
Livneh, Neri 2010. ‘Perhaps Arabs can save Hebrew from demise’, Haaretz, 7 janvier
———. 2012. ‘Oy Gevalt: The German origins of Hebrew words’, Haaretz, Sep.14.
Lo Bianco, Joseph. 1987. “National Policy on Languages.” In. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.
———. 1997. ‘English and Pluralistic Policies: The Case of Australia.’ in William Eggington and Helen Wren (eds.), Language Policy: Dominant English, pluralist challenges (John Benjamins Publishing Company: Amsterdam/Philadelphia).
———. 1999. “Discussion.” In AILA. Tokyo.
———. 2008. ‘Educational Linguistics and Education Systems.’ in Spolsky Bernard and Hult F (eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Education Linguistics (Blackwell: Maldon and Oxford).
Loban, Walter. 1966. “Language ability, grades seven, eight and nine.” In. Washington, D.C.: US Governement Printing Office.
———. 1966. “The languages of elementary school children.” In. Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.
Lochak, Danièle. 1989. ‘Les minorités et le droit public français: du rfefus des différences à la gestion des différences.’ in Alain Fenet and Gérard Soulier (eds.), Les minorités et leurs droits depuis 1789 (L’Harmattan: Paris).
Lockwood, D. . 1996. ‘Civic Integration and Class Formatio’, British Journal of Sociology, 47: 531-50.
Loewen, J.W. 1995. Lies My Teachers Told Me (Routledge: New York).
Loman, Bengt. 1967. Conversations in a Negro American dialect (Center for Applied Linguistics: Washington, D.C.).
Louisiana, Association of Scholars. 1995. ‘student services and the culture wars’, 1.
Lyons, Charles. 1997. The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars (Temple University Press: Philadelphia).
Lyons, Noel. 1984. “Aboriginal self-government: rights of citizenship and access to government services.” In, edited by Institute of Intergovernmental Relations. Kingston.

PART 2:

La Gorce (de), Paul-Marie. 1996. Le Dernier Empire. Paris: Grasset.

p.16: “l’empire américain est le seul au monde, c’est une hégémonie exclusive, et c’est la première fois que ce phénomène étrange survient dans l’histoire de l’humanité”

Labov. 1997. Testimony on “Ebonics” given January 23rd before the Subcommittee on Labor, Health and Human Services and Education of the Senate Appropriations Committee. Washington: Senate.

Testimony submitted by William Labov, Professor of Linguistics at the University of Pennsylvania, Past President of the
Linguistic Society of America, member of the National Academy of Science.

I am testifying today as a representative of an approach to the study of language that is called “sociolinguistics, ” a scientific study based on the recording and measurement of language as it is used in America today. I am now completing research supported by NSF and NEH that is mapping changes in the English language through all of North America, for both mainstream and minority communities. Since 1966, I have done a number of studies of language in the African American community, beginning with work in South Harlem for the Office of Education that was aimed at the question, “Are the language differences
between black and white children responsible for reading failure in the inner city schools?”

The term “Ebonics,” our main focus here, has been used to suggest that there is a language, or features of language, common to all people of African ancestry, whether they live in Africa, Brazil or the United States. Linguists who have published studies of
the African American community do not used this term, but refer instead to African American Vernacular English, a dialect spoken by most residents of the inner cities. This African American Vernacular English shares most of its grammar and
vocabulary with other dialects of English. But it is distinct in many ways, and it is more different from standard English than any other dialect spoken in continental North America. It is not simply slang, or grammatical mistakes, but a well-formed set of rules of pronunciation and grammar that is capable of conveying complex logic and reasoning.

Research in New York, Philadelphia, Washington, Florida, Chicago, Texas, Los Angeles, and San Francisco shows a remarkably uniform grammar spoken by African Americans who live and work primarily with other African Americans.
Repeated studies by teams of black and white researchers show that about 60% of the African American residents of the inner city speak this dialect in its purist form at home and with intimate friends. Passive exposure to standard English — through the mass media or in school — has little effect upon the home language of children from highly segregated inner city areas. However, those African Americans who have had extensive face-to-face dealings with speakers of other dialects show a marked modification of their grammar..

In the first two decades of research, linguists were divided in their views of the origin of African American English: whether it was a Southern regional dialect descended from nonstandard English and Irish dialects, or the descendant of a Creole grammar similar to that spoken in the Caribbean. By 1980, a consensus seemed to have been reached, as expressed in the verdict of Judge Charles Joyner in the King trial in Ann Arbor: this variety of language showed the influence of the entire history of the African American people from slavery to modern times, and was gradually converging with other dialects.

However, research in the years that followed found that in many of its important features, African American Vernacular English was becoming not less, but more different from other dialects. Research on the language of ex-slaves showed that some of the most prominent features of the modern dialect were not present in the 19th century. It appears that the present-day form of African American English is not the inheritance of the period of slavery, but the creation of the second half of the 20th century.

An important aspect of the current situation is the strong social reaction against suggestions that the home language of African American children be used in the first steps of learning to read and write. The Oakland controversy is the fourth major reaction that I know of to proposals of this kind. Plans for programs to make the transition to standard English have misunderstood as plans to teach the children to speak African American English, or Ebonics, and to prevent them from learning standard English.
As a result, only one such program has been thoroughly tested in the schools, and even that program, though very successful in improving reading, was terminated because of objections to the use of any African American English in the classroom.

At the heart of the controversy, there are two major points of view taken by educators. One is that any recognition of a
nonstandard language as a legitimate means of expression will only confuse children, and reinforce their tendency to use it
instead of standard English. The other is that children learn most rapidly in their home language, and that they can benefit in both motivation and achievement by getting a head start in learning to read and write in this way. Both of these views are honestly held and deserve a fair hearing. But until now, only the first has been tried in the American public school system. The essence of the Oakland school board resolution is that the first method has not succeeded and that the second deserves a trial.

Research on reading shows that an essential step in learning to read is the mastery of the relation of sound to spelling. As
linguists, we know that for most inner city African American children, this relation is different, and more complicated, than for speakers of other dialects. We have not yet been able to apply this knowledge to large-scale programs for the teaching of reading, but we hope that with the interest aroused by the Oakland School Board resolution, this will become possible in the near future.

___1968. A Study of the Non-Standard English of Negro and Puerto Rican Speakers in New York City: Phonological and Grammatical Analysis. In The Use of language in the Speech Community, edited by P. Cohen. New York: Columbia University.

Labov, William. 1972. Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA: University of Pennsylvania Press.

xii: These explorations of the black English vernacular will consider the language, the culture, the social organization and the political situation of the black youth in the inner cities of the United States.
By the “Black English vernacular” we mean the relatively uniform dialect spoken by the majority of black youth in most parts of the United States today, especially in the inner cities areas of New York, Boston, Detroit, Philadelphia, Washington, Cleveland, Chicago, St. Louis, San Francisco, Los Angeles and other urban Centers. I t is also spoken in most rural areas and used in the casual, intimate speech of many adults. The term “Black English” is not suitable for this dialect, since that phrase implies a dichotomy between Standard English on the one hand and black English ton the other. “Black English” might best be used for the whole range of language forms used by black people in the United States: a very large range indeed, extending from the Creole grammar of Gullah spoken in the Sea Islands of South Carolina to the most formal and accomplished literary style. A great deal of misunderstanding has been created by the use of the term, “black English” which replaced our original “Nonstandard Negro English” when the latter became is acceptable to many people.
xiii: Our first research in south-central Harlem)…=preadolescent “Thunderbirds” who lived in a single low income project on 5th ave.
xx: …We developed contacts with another preadolescent group in a neighbouring building, the “Aces” and also began a parallel series of individual interviews and group session with another group in the “Thunderbirds” building, the Oscar Brothers”. We then turned to our major study of adolescent per groups in the tenement area from 110th street to 118th St. between 5th and 7th Avenues. At this point, John Lewis (K.C.) joined our research group. He was one of the young adults that Clarence Robins had first interviewed in our exploratory series, and it was immediately evident to us that John Lewis had a great command of the vernacular and was also an excellent field worker. He was the participant-observer in our work with the “Jets” and the “Cobras”, the two named peer groups in the tenement area we were considering. Lewis rented a “club-house” on 112th St. and associated with the Jets daily though most of 1966. The Jets and the Cobras were then hostile to each other, and Lewis xxi: acted on his own concern as an intermediary and peace maker between the groups. The Cobras were deeply involved in nationalist ideology; as members of “The Nation of Islam” headed by Clarence 13X Smith they became vegetarians, developed a deep knowledge of Islamic lore, and believed for a time that the world was coming to an end on July 4, 1966. ….They became “The Bohemian Brothers” and then simply “The Nation” and they then temporarily broke off all relations with us. The Jets were hostile to Islam and all religious thinking, partly due to the climate of the area in which they lived. The Jets included 37 members when they expanded to include the neighboring block; some of the group sessions included 9 or 10 members and frequently broke into several conversations.
3 (Chap.: Some Source of reading problems for Speakers of the Black English Vernacular) It seems natural to look at any educational problems in terms of the particular type of ignorance which is to be overcome. In this chapter, we will be concerned with two opposing and complementary type: Ignorance of standard English rules on the part of speakers of nonstandard English Ignorance of nonstandard English rules on the part of teachers and text writers.
30 (Chap.: Is the Black English Vernacular a Separate System ?)
If we do not accept the fact that BEV has distinct rules of its own, we find that the speech of black children is a mass of errors and this has indeed been the tradition of early education research in this area (cf.[Loban, 1966 #603; Loban, 1966 #604]). In our early study of the Lower East Side of New York City, it quickly became apparent that black speakers had many more “nonstandard forms” than any other group by a factor of 10 or more. It is confusing and uneconomical to approach these forms in terms of their deviation from other standards.
201: ( Chap.: The logic of nonstandard English)
Black children from the Ghetto area are said to receive little verbal stimulation, to hear very little well-formed language, and as a result are impoverished in their means of verbal expression. They cannot speak complete sentences, do not know the names of common object, annot form concept or convey logical thoughts.
Unfortunately, these notions are based upon the work of educational psychologists who know very little about language and even less about black children. The concept of verbal deprivation has no basis in social reality. In fact, black children in the urban ghettos receive a great deal of verbal stimulation, hear more well-formed sentences than middle-class children, and participate fully in a highly verbal culture. They have the same basic vocabulary, possess the same capacity of conceptual learning, and use the same logic as anyone else who learns to speak and understand English.
203: In speaking of children in the urban ghetto areas, the term lower class frequently is used, as opposed to middle class. In the several sociolinguistic studies we have carried out, and in many parallel studies, it has been useful to distinguish a lower-class group from a working class one. Lower-class families are typically female-based or matrifocal, with no father present to provide steady economic support….The educational problems of ghetto areas run across this important class distinction. There is no evidence, for example, that the father’s presence or absence is closely correlated with educational achievement. The peer group we have studied in south-central Harlem, representing the basic vernacular culture, include members from both family types. The attach against cultural deprivation in the ghetto is overtly directed at family structures typical of lower-class families, but the educational failure we have been discussing is characteristic of both working-class and lower-class children.
(about the double negative issue, p.227-230): 229 what’s wrong with being wrong ?
If there is a failure of logic involved here, it is surely in the approach of the verbal deprivation theorists, rather than in the mental abilities of the children concerned. We can isolate 6 distinct steps in the reasoning which had let to positions such as those of Deutsch (Deutsch, M. (1967). The disadvantaged child. New York, Basic Books.) or Bereiter and Englemann (Bereiter, C. and S. Engelmann (1966). Teaching disadvantaged children in the pre-school. Englewood Cliffs, N.J., Prentice-Hall.):
1. The lower-class child’s verbal response to a formal and threatening situation is used to demonstrate his lack of verbal capacity, or verbal deficit.
2. This verbal deficit is declared to be a major cause of the lower-class child’s poor performance in school.
3. Since middle-class children do better in school, middle-class speech habits are seen to be necessary for learning.
(230)
4. Class and ethnic differences in grammatical form are equated with differences in the capacity for logical analysis.
5. Teaching the child to mimic certain formal speech patterns used by middle-class teachers is seen as teaching him to think logically.
6. Children who learn these formal speech patterns are then said to be thinking logically and it is predicted that they will do much better in reading and arithmetic in the years to follow.
In the preceding sections of this paper, I have tried to shoe that the above proposions are wrong, concentrating on 1,4 and 5. Proposition 3 is the primary logical fallacy which illicitly identifies a form of speech as the cause of middle-class achievement in school. Proposition 6 is the one which is most easily shown to be wrong.
However, it is not too naive to ask what is wrong with being wrong? There is no competing educational theory which is being dismantled by this program, and there does not seem to be any great harm in having children repeat “This is not a box” for 20 minutes a day. We have already conceded that BEV children need help in analyzing language into its surface components and in being more explicit. But there are no serious and damaging consequence of the verbal deprivation theory which may be considered under two headings: theoretical bias and consequences of failure.

___1972. Sociolinguistic Patterns. Philadelphia: University of Pennsylvania Press.

___1976. Sociolinguistique. Translated by Kihm, Alain, Le sens commun. Paris: Editions de Minuit.

___1982. Objectivity and commitment in linguistic science: the case of the Black English trial in Ann Arbor. Language in Society 11 (2):165-201.

Labov, William. 1993. Le Parler Ordinaire: la Langue dans les Ghettos noirs des Etats-Unis. Translated by Kihm, Alain. Paris: Editions de Minuit.

Labov, William. 1998. Co-existent Systems in African-American Vernacular English. In African-American English: Structure, History and Use, edited by S. S. Mufwene, J. R. Rickford, G. Bailey and B. John. London: Rootledge.

…Beryl Bailey, who brought to AAVE the insights form her description of Jamaican Creole English, drawn from her internationalized knowledge as a native speaker
…study of the tense and aspect system of AAVE by Elizabeth Dayton, begun in the 1970s…
Bailey’s approach to AAVE is exmeplified in her first paper on the topic, “A new perspective in Negro Enlgish dialectology” (1965)….reaction aainst the dialectological view of AAVE as a collection of mistakes or deviations from Standard English.
OAD.
The general conclusion that is emerging from studies of the history of AAVE is that many improtant features of the modern dialect are creation of the 20th century and not an inheritance of the 19th. The creole affinities of AAVE and the creole-like structural properties that we do observe are not to be accounted for by direct transmission, but by the more subtle process of substrate influence and by parallel drift or development. (…) If we accept for the moment that AAVE has diverged in many respects from OAD in recent decades, and is continuing to diverge, we tend to draw differnet conclusions about the structure of the dialect.
The most distinctive feature of modern AAVE is the rich development of semantic possibilities in the AA system, possibilities that are unavailable and unknown to seakers of OAD.
The social matrix in which this development has taken place is the asymmetricc position of African Americans in American society. White speakers live in one linguistic world, continually illuminated and informed by borrowings and partial glimpses of African-American lexicon and idiom, but with almost no input from the AA system of AAVE. African Americans live in two worlds.

___1999. Foreword. In Out of the Mouths of Slaves: African American Language and Educational Malpractice, edited by J. Baugh. Austin, Texas: University of Texas Press.

That part of the citizenry who do not place the blame for these problems on the descendants of slaves are more or less in agreement that instittuional racism is the generating cause. They reject the vew that social and educational failure in the inner city is the result of laziness or the intellectual inferiority of African Americans. Yet among these people of good will, many are ready to apply these same labels to the language of African Americans. The dominant view among educators is that the inadequacies of African American langauge are the main obstacles to educational advancement.

As someone who shudders at the exess of medical malpractice lawsuits, I find mysefl wondering why malpractice suits have never been brought against the schools in Harlem and Philadelphia, which regularly fail to teach children to read.

Baugh was the first to demonstrate that African American vernacular English (AAVE) SHOWS ITS CLEAREST AND MOST DISTINCTIVE form among adults who workd and live with other African Americans.

Labrie, Normand. 1993. La construction linguistique de la Communauté européenne, Coll. Politique Linguistique: Champion.

Ladmiral, Jean-René, and Edmond Marc Lipiansky. 1989. La Communication Interculturelle, Bibliothèque Européenne des Sciences de l’Education. Paris: Armand Colin.

Lafkioui, Mena (2011), ‘French-Based Minority Websites: Multilingualism, multimodality and Identity: Construction in Computer-mediated Discourse’, paper given at Langues en contact: le français à travers le monde, Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg, 16-18 septembre 2011.

Minority languages as a source for construction and reconstructing specific group identities. Literacy and electronic media play a significant role.
Particular relationship between linguistic diversity on french based North African minority websites: very advanced and regularly updated, high level of creativity
bladi.net
yabiladi.com
lemondeberbere.com
amazighworld.org
kabyle.com

amazigh and non amazigh websites (www.amazighworld.org) vary

North African language with a symbolic marker (turkish, french, arabic-islamic) and French which is more pragmatic and instrumental, french group in opposition to all other
stratified and layered identities with are semiotic interactive processes

language and identity on Amazigh websites
literary genres serve as a representative basis for constructing and claiming translocal amazigh identities
french is the default language on amazigh websites

multilingualism is a significan aspect of this identity

interactional sociolinguistic approach
most appropriate paradigm and central position of the interactants who jointy contruct and reconstruct meaning

Role language choice and code switching play
NA website with no amazigh
common practice created by digital interactance to adopt numbers to signify sounds (3 for ya3ni) 7 etc…

conclusions

negotiating about the jointly recreated meanings from a symmetrical and relatively more convenient interaction position
websites are institutionalised contexts regroping different institutionalized genres within a wider trans-national “institutional discursive regime” (fairclough 1992)
the internet is a power instrument with powerful symbols
The transfer of these symbols over the internet offers a tremendous semiotic potential for the reconstruction of group identities.

Lakoff, G, and M. Johnson. 1980. Metaphors We Live By. Chicago: University of Chicago Press.

Lakshmanan, V. (2010). Metaphors as Problematizer in Legal Language translation: A case-Study of the Kushboo Case. “Language, Law and the Multilingual State” 12th International Conference of the International Academy of Linguistic Law Bloemfontein, Free State University.

Lambert, R.D. 1989. The National Foreign Language System. Washington, D.C.: National Foreign Language Center at John Hopkins University.

Lamont, Michèle, ed. 1999. The Cultural Territories of Race: Black and White Boundaries. University of Chicago Press.

Lang, Jack. 1982. Allocution. Paper read at Conférence de Mexico.

___1982. législation. Journal Officiel (3 novembre 1982):6-7.

Langan, Fred. 1996. Quebec’s Premier urges Separatists to ease war on English Speakers. Christian Science Monitor (6 mars):6.

Lapaque, Sébastien. 2020. ‘Le livre qui pousse à l’action qui sauve: Dans “La Raison d’être”, le penseur Jacque Ellul développe un commentaire profond de l’Ecclésiaste’, Le Figaro, 14 août 2020, section Petits et grands traités de sagesse #5/5: Des penseurs stoïciens à la philosophie contemporaine, une courte histoire de la pensée du bonheur autour de la méditerranée.

Dans cette lecture suivie de l’un des plus fascinants traités de sagesse de l’histoire de l’humanité, rédigé en hébreu par un Juif de Palestine vers 300 avant Jésus-Christ, Jacque Ellus s’éloigne de l’herméneutique classique. Oubliant l’exégèse, il veut sonder le coeur humain et décrire les moeurs des hommes.
“Havel Havalim hakol havel” dit en hébreu le deuxième verset de Qoheleth, en français l’Ecclésiaste. Il existe peu de phrases pus célèbres ni plus difficiles à traduire dans toute la littérature universelle. Dans la Vulgate, la traduction en latin qu’il a donnée de la Bible à la fin du IVe siècle, saint Jérôme a eu le génie de reproduire ses allitérations et son souffle intérieur: “Vanitas vanitatum et omnia vanitas”. De son côté, l’auteur de la Raison d’être a été retenu par le mot hébreu hevel, Désigne-t-il ce que la langue française nomme la vanité? Ou bien la buée, la fumée, l’inconsistance, l’évanescence, comme le soutiennent certains traducteurs ? Jacques Ellus conserve le mot vanité, mais veut lui donner toutes ses énergies de sens, “Vanité, c’est ce qui est sans avenir, sans issue, parfaitement inutile et sans lendemain. Alors l’Ecclésiaste dit: A quoi bon? Vous travaillez, faites de la politique, gagnez de l’arget…et alors ?`Finalement, quel profit en tire-t-on ? Vain ou pas vain, utile (en vérité) ou inutile….Voilà pourquoi je maintiendrai vanité comme traduciton de préférence.”
Dans le premier verset, l’Ecclésiaste se dit (Salomon, sage qui s’est dévoyé dans la folie des grandeurs, résumé). (…) Au soir de sa vie, Jacques Ellul confiait à Partrick Chastenet: “Je décris un monde sans issue, avec la certitude que Dieu accompagne l’homme dans son histoire” (A contrecourant, Entretiens, La Table Ronde, 2014). ette présence du Dieu caché au coeur du nihilisme ancien et moderne résume de manière fulgurante l’Ecclésiaste tel que le lit le théologien qui cessa de considérer la quesion de la “concurrence” entre la liberté et la grâce comme un objet de scandale en lisant son correligionnaire Karl Barth. (…). Car l’Ecclésiaste, malgré de supposés accents pessimistes, est un libre qui pousse à l’action qui sauve. Lorsqu’il nous dit que tout est illusion, ce n’est pas pour nous faire craindre le le retour éternel de ces illsions -puisque, par définition, les illusions n’existent pas- , mais pour commander unretour à lsa seule véritable réalité.
Le théologien Ellul, qui se distingue du sociologue mais ne s’en sépare pas, ne croit pas aux “espérances trompeuses” dont parle Bussuet, grand lecteur de l’Ecclésiaste lui aussi, dans son Panégyrique de saint Bernard de Clairvaux: ” Cette verte jeunesse ne durera pas toujours: cette ehrue fatale viendra, qui tranchera toutes les espérances trompeuses par une irrévocable sentence; la vie nous manquera, comme un faux ami, au mileiu de nos entreprises…”. La rhétorique est belle, mais il y a dans cette phrase scintillante quelque chose de trop baroque pour un protestant engagé (…). Pour Jacques Ellul, l’espérance n’est jamais trompeuse. Et la vie ne peut jamais nous manque. C’est l’espoir, c’est-à-dire “le faux prophétisme des politiques” et “l’hybruis des techniciens” qui est la malédiction de l’homme. A ce propos, La raison d’être reproduit une citation de Georges Bernanos extraite de La Liberté, pour quoi faire ?: “Pour être prêt à espérer en ce qui ne trompe pas, il faut d’abord désespérer de tout ce qui trompe. “Tout Qôhelet est là” conclut Ellul.
Extrait, cf.Ellul, Jacques. 1987. La Raison d’être. Méditation sur l’Ecclésiaste (Seuil: Paris).

Lapierre, J.W. 1988. Le Pouvoir Politique et les Langues: Babel Et Leviathan. Paris: PUF.

Laurens, Henry (2012), ‘La Genèse du conflit Israelo-Palestinien’, paper given at Cercle Martin Buber, Uni Bastions, Genève, 17 janvier

Harcelé par printemps arabe et ravi de parler d’autre chose!
Modicité des enjeux (22’000 km2). Economie d’objets pieux. Ressources naturelles de la mer morte. Conflit dit “de basse intensité” 24’000 juifs et 200 voir 400’000 arabes tués en un siècle. Grands conflits contemporains beaucoup plus porteurs de mortalité….pourtant c’est celui là qui est le premier dans l’actualité. Nombreux entretiens, signatures de traités, passions sans aucune mesure avec les passions sur d’autres sujets contemporains pourtant plus violents.
1ere raison: ce territoire est une “terre sainte”, poursuite de la question de terre sainte, triplement sainte (promesse biblique, chrétiens et la problématique de la Jérusalem céleste…ou terrestre depuis la mère de Constantin (Hélène), plus complexe, la terre sainte des Musulmans dont nous n’avons qu’une connaissance très lacunaire de sa constitution mais composé des Israéliates, texte juifs repris par les Musulmans). Ce judeo-islam va conduire les musulmans à reidenfier les lieux bibliques et non chrétiens. La topographie biblique de la terre sainte provient des Israeliates telle que le tombeau de Moise à Jericho. Leurs prophètes sont des juifs…La Terre sainte n’est enjeu que si elle est à portée de conquête. Croisades. Mythologie chrétienne historique sur cette région du monde et ressuscité la terre sainte de musulmans (Saladin, contre-Croisade, voire Mamelouks au XIIIème siècle). Fêtes musulmanes selon calendrier solaire pour coïncider avec pelerinages chrétiens. Nouvel ennemi: mouvement sioniste à la fin du XIXème siècle. Famille Husseini! Complication au XIXème siècle. Cette terre sainte va être enjeu du controle des lieux saints chrétiens de Palestine. Origine de la guerre de Crimée (1854-56). Ottomans séparent cette région en isolant le Sanjac de Jerusalem mais cela commence une centralisation régionale autour de Jérusalem. 1920 critère de définition géographique est celui de la terre sainte fondé sur l’Atlas de Terre Sainte d’Adam Smith entre Dan et Beer-Sheva. Discussion avec frontière avec Mandat francais(Syrie-Liban). Historicisation de la terre sainte. Histoire science humaine dominante. Terre sainte preuve de l’existence de Dieu. Palestinian Exploration Funds, Ecole Biblique de Jérusalem. Prouver par l’histoire véracité du message religieux. Changement du sens de la notion du Peuple juive: de religieux, il devient un acteur historique, un peuple parmi les autres peuple, ayant son histoire (Cf. Histoire du Peuple Juif, Renan). Genèse du sionisme comme idéologie politique: peuple dans l’histoire en non peuple dans la religion. Nationalismes dans lesquelles sacralisations nationale et religieuse se confondent dans une relation indissoluble.
Le mouvement sioniste n’existe que lorsque la Palestine est à portée. 1880. Accès rapide par transport bateau vapeur et trains. A portée également car les puissances européennes apporteront leur protection aux immigrants juifs en Terre Sainte. Histoire agraire et démographique complexe en Palestine. Ecologie et question climatique. Fin du petit age glaciaire en Méditerranée (1550 à 1850), littoraux étaient alors hostiles. Inondations répétées, marais vecteurs de malaria. Populations Méditerranéennes se réfugient sur les hauteurs. Dès la fin du petit age glaciaire, espace devient un espace de reconquête qui coincide avec l’arrivée des juifs en 1870-80 alors que la population arabe quite les villages souches pour se diriger vers les mêmes zones. Palestine était sous-peuplée. 350’000 hab en 1860. Après: croissance démographique extrêmement rapide. Arrivée des juifs d’Europe centrale et orientale et démographie arabe. 1930: situation de surpeuplement par rapport aux conditions socio-éco de l’époque. Jusqu’en 1920, illusion qu’il y avait “de la place libre” en Palestine. Cartographie de la colonisation juive renvoie à la géographie du petit age glaciaire. Cis-jordanie est le réseau serré uniquement arabe. Britanniques ont eu l’illusion récurrente jusqu’à nos jours qu’à un problème politique il peut y avoir une solution économique. Jeu à sommes nulles: le progrès d’une partie se fait forcément au détriment de l’autre. Double dimension de la notion de terre: réelle qu’on se dispute et sacrée sur laquelle aucun compromis n’est possible. Ce conflit ne prend pas seulement en compte acteurs locaux mais également internationaux qui préexistent au conflit.
XVIIIème siècle, expédition d’Egypte: Méditerranée-Hindus question d’orient jusqu’au XIXème siècle. Objet de presque tous les grands congrès européens. Locaux et extérieurs jouent sur les rivalités mutuelles. cf. archives qui relatent les “bagarres de paysans” traitées par les plus hauts acteurs des puissances coloniales anglaises ou françaises…
Protection consulaire pour l’immigration juive. Juifs ne prenaient pas la nationalité Ottomane mais plutôt la protection française ou allemande (marché: ashkenazes aux allemands et sépharades aux français).
Le religieux impulse les conduites politiques: sionisme chrétien qui apparaît dans une théologie protestante(Millénarisme) de l’accomplissement des prophéties (apocalipse de St-Jean). Cromwell, Puritanisme exporté en Amérique). Cambon-Balfour: début de la fin des temps…oui mais quel spectacle! Lloyd George connaissait mieux la géographie de la terre sainte que de l’Angleterre. Equation juif-terre sainte est totale pour les anglos-protestants. Dès lors, cette doctrine dont les catholiques se revendiquaient devient obsolète pour eux. Equivalent pour les juifs: Messianisme. Pour les Musulmans, la fin des temps est annoncée par Bahalistes et Sunnites.
Britanniques réalisent le piège dans lequel ils se renfermaient: intérêts locaux-régionaux en contradiction avec les intérêts de la puissance impériale. C’est également le cas aujourd’hui pour les USA. Pétrole vs. Israel…
Grands puissances se trouvent piégées dans un conflit dans lequelles elles ne peuvent pas ne pas entrer. Impossibilité de se tenir à l’extérieur car région eurasie-afrique. Proximité du Canal de Suez. La guerre froide va ressusciter rivalités des puissances du XIXème siècle “Zone chaude de la Guerre Froide”…qui a survécu à la fin du rideau de fer!
Victimes: 1880 Question Juive enjeu des relations internationales. Antijudaisme(religieux) qui devient un antisémitisme (racial). Explosion de l’antijudaisme dans l’Empire Russe et de l’antisémitisme dans l’Europe de l’Ouest (nouvelle idéologie à l’ère des Mars, idéologie anti-moderne de gauche et droite). Idéologie identitaire permettant de rejeter les juifs comme non-authentiques, ennemis. Idéologies islamistes en sont issues directement.
Abandon des juifs d’Europe par puissances démocratiques durant la WWII. Jusqu’en 1930. Peur panique de la guerre. Montée du pacifisme qui a facilité la montée du nazisme. Victimes du nazisme considérées comme fauteurs de guerre. Juif=bellicisme. Conférence de Munich conduit à la guerre au nazisme. Munich (1938) a pour enjeu de faire la guerre au nazisme non pas pour défendre les juifs mais pour défendre les grandes puissances. Pour avoir le soutien des populations, il ne faut surtout pas apparaitre soutenir les juifs. On les abandonne donc à la destruction pour mieux combattre le nazisme. Paradoxe de l’Appeasement. Mémoire qui en découle: responsabilité dans la destruction des juifs d’Europe. Equation permanente depuis 1948 entre Israel et Shoah et surtout après le Procès Eichmann. Shoah-Naqbah veulent tous les deux dire catastrophe. (????). Naqbah antérieur à Shoah du point de vue linguistique.
Musulmane-Chrétienne, la population locale doit se redéfinir avec l’éveil des nationalités puisqu’elle cesse d’être ottomane. Recherche d’alliés pour résister à la pression du mouvement sioniste.
Appellent à leur secours le Monde Musulman…contre le Monde Juif (émeutes du mur des lamentations de 1929). Appel aux musulmans indiens notamment. Opposition Islam-Judaisme se fait jour. Palestine devient le seul territoire du Tiers-Monde encore détenu par une puissance coloniale.
Sacralité monothéiste+poids de l’histoire européenne.
Implication des Etats arabes par solidarité musulmane mais aussi par jeu normal des puissances cherchant à se débarrasser du corps étranger qu’est Israel.
1948 on ne parle plus de Palestine mais de conflit israelo-arabe. Conflit entre état: frontières, gestions de ressources…plus facile à régler que la question des lieux saints!
1967 lors de la récupération des territoires, Israel récupère les “palestiniens” et les remet au coeur du conflit. idem 73: il s’agit de guerre israelo-arabes.
1982: première guerre israelo-palestinienne.
Toute cette région est en totale anomalie. Alors que l’Europe a basculé dans la culture de paix, nous ne sommes plus dans une culture de la violence : on ne meurt plus pour la patrie mais à cause de la patrie.
Combattant devient Victime. Pour les palestiniens: lutte armée permet de restorer leur dignité. Désormais atteinte par victimisation et concurrence victimaire, mais il reste un espoir que cela constitue un point de sortie: non plus paix des braves mais paix des victimes.
Deux états sont-ils possibles? donnerait une satisfaction identitaire: passeport pour des anciens apatrides. Impossibilité d’avoir un état unique binational. C’est un échec partout dans le monde à l’exception de la Suisse!
Deux états sont une fiction juridique indispensable: deux états qui ne peuvent pas être séparés. Co-gestionnaires de l’espace. Impossibilité de gérer les ressources séparément. Partenariat de gestion de l’espace.
Je crois en l’accord de Genève. Pessimisme sur le sujet…optimisme pour mon avenir professionnel !

Question du Yishouv. Croisés ont massacré des juifs…donc il y en avait. Juifs d’Espagne après expulsion de 1492, immigration hassidique Ukraine. Motivation essentiellement religieuse aux crochets des juifs occidentaux. Samaritains: seuls juifs autochtones (150 en 1800, 350 aujourd’hui). Israeliates: masse de tradition juive passée à l’Islam par le biais de la conversion. Pas cité les juifs car pas un acteur!

Sionisme: mouvement de libération ET mouvement colonial.

Impérialisme: bien au-delà du marxisme attardé.

Le christianisme se dépolitise alors que le judaisme et l’islam se politisent.

Lave, J. 1988. Cognition in Practive. Boston Massachusetts: Cambridge University Press.

Lazare, Daniel. 2000. UNE DÉMOCRATIE EN VOIE DE FOSSILISATION : Cette pesante Constitution américaine. Le Monde Diplomatique (Février 2000):3.

EN quelques semaines, les élections primaires américaines auront éliminé la plupart des concurrents à
la présidence. Mais c’est plus l’argent et la notoriété des candidats que leurs prises de position qui
feront la différence. Alors que l’économie entre dans la plus longue période de croissance de son
histoire &endash; au prix d’un déficit commercial tout aussi historique &endash;, les problèmes de fond
(corruption politique, nombre record d’incarcérations et d’éxécutions, creusement des inégalités)
semblent interdits de débat. Immuable et sacralisée, la Constitution contribue à cette apathie.
Par DANIEL LAZARE *

Au cours de la campagne présidentielle américaine, les candidats vont aborder les sujets les plus divers, d’une
éventuelle baisse des impôts à la nécessité d’abolir la discrimination frappant les homosexuels membres des forces
armées. Il y a un sujet dont ils ne débattront pas : la Constitution américaine.

C’est à la fois étrange et compréhensible. Etrange : ce document qui a deux cent douze ans est la plus vieille loi
fondamentale écrite de la planète et la plus résistante au changement. Il semblerait donc urgent de remédier aux
nombreux anachronismes qui l’encombrent. Et à quoi sert donc une élection si elle s’interdit de discuter les
questions clés relatives à la modernisation politique ?

L’étrangeté s’estompe un peu quand on comprend que l’ancienneté de la Constitution, son aversion pour le
changement, et la domination qu’elle exerce sur la société américaine la rendent presque invisible dans le débat
politique. Elle est simultanément le cadre légal à l’intérieur duquel la citoyenneté s’inscrit et un cadre en place
depuis tellement longtemps que les Américains ont cessé de remarquer son existence. Si, dans les autres pays, une
Constitution est le produit d’un combat accouchant d’un nouveau rapport à la vie politique, aux Etats-Unis le
peuple est une entité que la Constitution a créée et façonnée à son image pour mieux perpétuer une République
jeffersonnienne héritée du XVIIIe siècle. Il serait donc à peine plus naturel pour un Américain de mettre en cause
la Constitution qu’il l’était pour un vassal du Moyen Age de réprimander son suzerain.

Et c’est d’abord cela qu’on appelle l’exceptionnalisme américain. A l’origine, ce concept, qui date des années 20,
cherchait à expliquer la puissance insolite du capitalisme américain, qui le prémunissait contre le cycle des
expansions et des récessions frappant les autres nations. L’idée, reprise par les thuriféraires de la « nouvelle
économie », fut brutalement contredite par le crash de 1929. Depuis, les universitaires modérés et conservateurs
se sont réapproprié le concept pour décrire une vie politique et une société fondamentalement différentes (en
particulier à cause de la faiblesse aux Etats-Unis d’une tradition contestataire et socialiste) de celles des autres
nations démocratiques (1). De fait, si la politique américaine est « exceptionnelle », elle le doit beaucoup à la
Constitution qui lui sert de socle.

L’étude de ce socle s’impose d’autant plus que la démocratie américaine semble en voie de décomposition. A
l’exception peut-être du Japon, aucun pays industriel ne connaît un tel niveau de corruption politique
institutionnalisée (2). Au point que l’un des principaux candidats républicains, M. John McCain, a récemment
estimé que la politique américaine n’était plus rien d’autre qu’« un système élaboré de trafic d’influence dans
lequel les deux partis s’accordent pour rester au pouvoir en vendant le pays à l’enchérisseur le plus
généreux (3) ». Résultat : l’électeur américain est sans doute l’un des plus apathiques de la terre. En 1996, pour la
première fois lors d’une élection présidentielle, une majorité de la population en âge de voter est restée chez elle ;
deux ans plus tard, 64 % se sont abstenus d’arbitrer les élections législatives, ce qui n’allait pas empêcher des
milliers de commentateurs de gloser sur la signification prodigieuse dudit scrutin.

Or si, comme on l’affirme aux Etats- Unis, la Constitution est responsable de tout ce que le pays a de merveilleux
&endash; « Nous faisons envie au monde entier », estimait l’ancien vice-président républicain Dan Quayle ;
nous sommes « la nation indispensable du monde », confirma le président démocrate William Clinton &endash;
ne doit-on pas aussi lui imputer ce qui va mal : la corruption politique, le poids écrasant de la religion, la fragilité
des libertés publiques et des protections sociales ?

Dans un pays qui croit que sa Constitution est presque d’inspiration divine, une telle question est quasi hérétique.
La poser permettrait pourtant de comprendre que ce vieux texte, loin d’être l’instrument d’un gouvernement
représentatif et souverain, représente un mélange inextricable de croyances démocratiques et prédémocratiques,
de compromis boiteux et de contradictions aveuglantes.

Le préambule du texte, c’est-à-dire le fameux paragraphe d’introduction qui commence par « Nous, le peuple des
Etats-Unis », laisse d’emblée apparaître une ambiguïté significative. Les trois premiers mots semblent en effet
placer la nouvelle charte à l’avant-garde du nouvel âge de souveraineté qui a surgi à partir des années 1770 et
1780. Mais le pouvoir du peuple suscitait l’ambivalence des pères fondateurs. D’une part, ils admettaient que
celui-ci serait bien la source d’autorité légitime dans la nouvelle République (d’où la généralisation de l’élection à la
plupart des offices publics). Mais, d’autre part, la nouvelle force qu’ils laissaient maîtresse de la décision publique
leur inspirait tant d’effroi qu’ils veillèrent à la contrôler de très près en généralisant un système de restrictions et de
limitations. Face à une Chambre des représentants, plus plébéienne, ils créèrent un Sénat quasi aristocratique
destiné à l’équilibrer (« Le Sénat tue les mauvaises lois, la Chambre des représentants, les bonnes »). Puis les
pères fondateurs conçurent une présidence bonapartiste qui contrebalancerait le Congrès et un corps de magistrats
nommés à vie pour équilibrer à la fois la Maison Blanche et le Capitole. Enfin, comme si tout cela ne suffisait pas,
ils déléguèrent aux Etats nombre de pouvoirs essentiels (dont l’éducation et la justice), ce qui leur permettrait
d’amoindrir un peu plus le pouvoir fédéral.

Car, pour les pères fondateurs, face à la dangerosité inhérente à tout pouvoir politique, la préservation de la liberté
imposait que l’autorité soit fragmentée, qu’elle se dévore elle-même. Dans les années 1720, deux des précurseurs
de la Constitution, John Trenchard et Thomas Gordon, auteurs des Lettres de Caton, expliquaient : « Le pouvoir
et la souveraineté doivent être précisément délimités, divisés entre divers organes et confiés à un nombre
important d’hommes différents de manière à ce que leurs rivalités, jalousies, craintes ou intérêts
transforment chacun d’eux en espion des autres (4). » Et, dans une lettre de 1787 à Thomas Jefferson, James
Madison, le « père de la Constitution », ne dit pas autre chose : « Diviser pour régner, cette règle corrompue
propre à la tyrannie est, sous certaines conditions, la seule politique qui permettra à une République d’être
administrée par de justes principes (5). »

C’est là le postulat central de la Constitution des Etats-Unis et donc de la politique américaine. En voulant
empêcher la souveraineté de s’exprimer, James Madison ne pouvait que tourner le peuple contre lui-même avec
l’espoir qu’il ne cesserait de se contredire. Au lieu de la République du juste milieu escomptée pour décourager
l’extrémisme et promouvoir la modération, cette architecture a édifié une forme de politique profondément
névrosée, oscillant en permanence de la stagnation à l’hystérie.

Ainsi, parce qu’elle avait enveloppé l’esclavage de garanties légales presque impossibles à défaire, la Constitution
favorisa la guerre de Sécession de 1861-1865. Les Américains se flattent d’avoir évité une période de terreur
jacobine au XVIIIe siècle. Ils oublient qu’ils n’ont fait que la décaler d’un siècle quand 600 000 d’entre eux sont
morts au combat et que les armées de l’Union ont envahi le territoire du Sud, c’est-à-dire de la Vendée
américaine.

Sitôt la guerre conclue, l’Etat central retrouva cependant sa fonction de gouvernement croupion, les « barons
voleurs » (les grands groupes capitalistes de l’époque) s’empressant d’occuper le vide. Les grèves furent écrasées
sans pitié et les Noirs retrouvèrent un régime de servitude presque aussi terrible que l’esclavage auquel ils venaient
d’échapper. Confronté à un état d’urgence dans les années 30 et 40, Franklin Roosevelt parvint bien à renforcer
pour un temps l’autorité du pouvoir fédéral, mais il ne la rendit pas plus cohérente pour autant.

Depuis, la politique nationale est marquée par la confusion et par la récurrence des paralysies. La désintégration du
système des partis interdit à une formation politique d’espérer contrôler tous les leviers de commande du pouvoir
fédéral. Avec un président démocrate (M. William Clinton) affrontant pendant l’essentiel de son mandat un
Congrès à majorité républicaine alors que ses prédécesseurs républicains (Richard Nixon, MM. Gerald Ford,
Ronald Reagan, George Bush) avaient eux-mêmes fait face à des Congrès à majorité démocrate, une forme de
guerre de tranchées s’est institutionnalisée, dans laquelle deux pouvoirs rivaux se disputent le contrôle d’un
troisième, la Cour suprême.

Dans les années 80, cela a conduit au scandale de l’Irangate, qui vit l’administration Reagan chercher à
court-circuiter le Congrès (à majorité démocrate) en finançant, illégalement, grâce au produit de la vente de
missiles à l’Iran, la fourniture, tout aussi illégale, d’armes aux miliciens anticommunistes du Nicaragua (6). Et, en
1995-1996, le gouvernement fédéral dut fermer &endash; ses fonctions non essentielles ne furent plus assurées et
la paie des fonctionnaires gelée &endash; quand les deux partis ne parvinrent pas à s’accorder sur un budget.
Enfin, au moment de l’affaire Lewinsky, la révélation par le procureur Starr du parjure du président Clinton allait
procurer aux républicains, défaits à l’issue de la « bataille du budget », une sorte de revanche.

Cette obstruction permanente a mis en cause l’idée même d’un gouvernement représentatif. A mesure que les
réalisations législatives sont devenues plus rares, les échanges et marchandages ont cessé en effet d’opérer à la
lumière du débat public et se sont déroulés dans le cadre des centaines de commissions et de sous-commissions,
souvent arbitrées par des lobbyistes et par de gros contributeurs de fonds électoraux. La généralisation de la
corruption s’est accompagnée d’une opacification du processus politique, laquelle a découragé un peu plus des
millions d’Américains d’y prendre part. Pourtant, au nom de la liberté d’expression (premier amendement de la
Constitution), la Cour suprême s’est opposée à toute réglementation contraignante des financements électoraux.

La situation n’est guère meilleure dans le domaine des libertés publiques. Les constituants, qui redoutaient la
prédisposition tyrannique du pouvoir politique, ont voulu préserver les droits de la personne en les protégeant des
contingences parlementaires et présidentielles. Ainsi, la déclaration des droits (Bill of Rights), c’est-à-dire les dix
premiers amendements de la Constitution adoptés en 1791, est jugée plus sacrée encore que le reste du document
dans lequel ils se trouvent (7). Mais, avec le déclin démocratique, les libertés civiques ont elles aussi été mises en
cause. L’offensive conservatrice, quasi ininterrompue depuis les années 70, a en effet facilité l’interprétation de plus
en plus restrictive de la déclaration des droits par la Cour suprême. Et l’on ne compte plus les politiciens qui ont
construit leur carrière politique en persuadant les classes moyennes que la lutte contre le crime imposait la mise en
cause de certaines libertés civiques (8).

A New York, une ville qui était fière de son côté irrespectueux et tapageur, le résultat en est une atmosphère de
plus en plus répressive où la moindre des manifestations affronte des cordons de policiers en tenue antiémeute.
Quand, en octobre 1999, « Sensation », une exposition d’œuvres d’art provocantes a ouvert dans un musée de la
ville, le maire, M. Rudolph Giuliani, l’a aussitôt dénoncée comme anticatholique et a annoncé qu’il supprimerait les
crédits municipaux versés au musée. Résultat : la cote de popularité du maire a grimpé un peu plus.

« Je suis disposé à sacrifier 10 % de mes libertés civiques en échange d’une baisse de la criminalité de
5 % », expliquait un jour un habitant de Greenwich Village, le quartier autrefois bohème de New York que des
caméras de surveillance observent désormais vingt-quatre heures sur vingt-quatre afin d’y traquer les revendeurs
de drogue et les ivrognes (9). Mais pourquoi s’arrêter à 10 % ? Pourquoi ne pas renoncer à la totalité de ses
libertés en échange de la paix totale des cimetières ?

Un autre signe du recul démocratique ne trompe pas : l’histoire d’amour entre les Etats-Unis, l’incarcération et la
peine de mort s’approfondit. L’essentiel de l’inflation carcérale (qui se traduit par un taux extravagant de 668
détenus pour 100 000 habitants) est imputable aux arrestations et emprisonnements pour fait de drogue. Or 80 %
des personnes appréhendées le sont pour simple possession ; plus de la moitié d’entre elles (44 %) pour
possession de marijuana. En d’autres termes, les prisons américaines débordent de détenus dont le seul crime est
l’ingestion d’une substance moins nocive que le tabac.

En 1999, les autorités pénales ont procédé à l’exécution de 98 condamnés à mort, un chiffre sans précédent
depuis 1976 et le rétablissement de cette procédure par la Cour suprême (qui jugea qu’il ne s’agissait pas
&endash; ou plus &endash; d’une « peine cruelle et inhabituelle » proscrite par le huitième amendement de la
Constitution). Le précédent « record » datait de… 1998 (68 exécutions) ; celui de 1999 sera vraisemblablement
battu dès cette année. Comme gouverneur du Texas depuis 1995, M. George W. Bush, l’un des favoris dans la
course à la Maison Blanche, a entériné 112 exécutions. Et son frère, M. John Ellis (« Jeb »), se dépense sans
compter pour accélérer le rythme des supplices en Floride, Etat dont il est le gouverneur. Trois mineurs (au
moment du crime) vont être exécutés au Texas et en Virginie.

Loin d’être la substance permettant de souder la démocratie, la Constitution des Etats-Unis s’apparente à une foi
qui la menace. Plus elle est suspendue au-dessus de la politique et des choix démocratiques, plus elle abaisse la
portée de ces derniers. Plus elle vieillit, plus elle pèse sur la société. Or la procédure de révision est tellement
complexe (vote de chacune des deux Chambres à la majorité des deux tiers, puis ratification par les trois quarts
des Etats) qu’il suffit de treize Etats ne représentant que 5 % de la population pour bloquer toute modification
susceptible d’être désirée par 95 % des Américains.

Tant que les valeurs d’Internet s’envolent et que des cyber-entrepreneurs de trente ans se réveillent milliardaires,
les Américains continueront sans doute de croire qu’ils ont découvert le saint Graal, qu’ils font envie au reste du
monde, qu’ils éclairent la planète de leur culture. Si demain la bulle boursière se dégonfle, ils découvriront peut-être
qu’ils ne vivent pas dans la société la plus moderne de la terre. Mais, constitutionnellement au moins, dans l’une des
plus retardataires.

* Journaliste, auteur de The Frozen Republic : How the Constitution Is Paralyzing Democracy (New York, Harcourt Brace,
1996).

(1) Lire Seymour Martin Lipset, American Exceptionalism : A Double-Edged Sword, Norton, New York, 1966.

(2) Lire Serge Halimi, « Quand ceux qui signent les chèques font les lois » et Thomas Ferguson, « Le trésor de guerre du
président Clinton », Le Monde diplomatique, respectivement mars 1997 et août 1996.

(3) Cité par The New York Times, 1er juillet 1999.

(4) In Richard Beeman, Stephan Botein et Edward Carter, Beyond Confederation : Origins of the Constitution and American
National Identity, University of North Carolina Press, Chapel Hill, 1987, p. 76.

(5) Isaac Kramnick, Republicanism and Bourgeois Radicalism, Cornell University Press, Ithaca, 1990, p. 263.

(6) La double illégalité, qui faillit provoquer la destitution du président Reagan, tenait à ce que, d’une part, le Congrès avait
explicitement refusé de continuer à financer les miliciens anticommunistes nicaragayens et que, d’autre part, l’Iran était frappé d’un
embargo sur les ventes d’armes.

(7) La Constitution américaine compte sept articles et vingt-six amendements, dont le dernier (droit de vote à dix-huit ans) a été
adopté en 1971.

(8) Lire Roselyne Pirson, « Surenchère répressive et surveillance des pauvres », et Loïc Wacquant, « Traque des ex-délinquants
sexuels aux Etats-Unis », Le Monde diplomatique, octobre 1994 et décembre 1999, respectivement.

(9) Cf. Felicia Lee, « Keeping Watch in Washington Square », The New York Times, 3 janvier 1998.

LE MONDE DIPLOMATIQUE – FEVRIER 2000 –

TOUS DROITS RÉSERVÉS © 2000 Le Monde diplomatique.

Leacock, Eleanor. 1986. The Montagnais-Naskapi of the Labrador Peninsula. In Native Peoples: the Canadian Experience, edited by B. Morrison and W. R. Toronto: McClelland & Stewart.

Le Bras, Hervé. 1998. Démon des Origines (Editions de l’Aube: La Tour-d’Aigues).

cité par Journet, Nicolas. 1998. “Le Démon des origines. Démographie et extrême droite
Hervé Le Bras, éditions de l’Aube, 1998, 260 p., 130 ” In Sciences Humaines.
Cité par Joignot, Frédéric. 2014. ‘Les Mensonges de la haine: les théoriciens du “grand remplacement” se posent en défenseurs de la “pureté du peuple français. A ces phobies, historiens, démographes et sociologues opposent les faits. ‘, Le Monde, 25 janvier 2014, section Culture et Idées, pp. 1 and 7.
Sur le sites Sciences Humaines: “Décidément, la démographie n’est pas un long fleuve tranquille. Certains se souviennent peut-être des vives discussions que la mesure de la fécondité des françaises avait soulevées, il y a quelques années, entre l’Insee et l’Ined. Cette fois, Hervé Le Bras, transfuge de l’Ined, se fâche contre un vent mauvais, venu de l’extrême droite politique, qui soufflerait sur les secteurs autorisés de la recherche démographique française. Sous le couvert de courbes et d’indices savants montrant la dénatalité française et l’inflation future de l’«apport étranger», ces chercheurs hauts placés instilleraient dans l’opinion une conception foncièrement raciste de la nation française. Ainsi, l’appel «SOS jeunesse» lancé en 1996 par des chercheurs de l’Ined, qui annonce le suicide démographique de «la France», ou encore les projections du Figaro Magazine de 1986, annonçant jusqu’à sept millions d’étrangers en l’an 2000. Beaucoup de ces données continuent d’être prises pour argent comptant. Tout cela, selon H. Le Bras, relève de la manipulation idéologique et il entreprend de le démontrer sur deux plans : celui de la cuisine des chiffres et celui des relations qui existent entre les auteurs de ces études et les milieux intellectuels d’extrême droite. Le plus frappant, sans doute, est de toucher du doigt les fondements cachés de certaines évaluations devenues monnaies courantes dans nos journaux : déduire l’avenir populationnel d’une nation de sa natalité, c’est la traiter comme une espèce animale ; déduire le niveau de présence allogène future en France de la fécondité actuelle (estimée) des étrangers, c’est transformer l’étrangeté en facteur héréditaire et instaurer la notion de «français de souche». On a déjà entendu cela ailleurs. Faut-il considérer qu’il y a là un complot ? Le «natalisme» est-il propre à un camp politique ? Cette polémique est à suivre, et aura sûrement des prolongements. Quelle qu’en soit l’issue, on est redevable à H. Le Bras de se «mouiller» ainsi, car l’autorité des données est telle que seul un démographe de profession peut s’y attaquer.”

Le Guin, Ursula K ‘Femmes, Rêves, Dragons’. (I never found the reference, year or editor….)

cité en exergue par Shafak, E. (2002). Bonbon Palace (Bit Palas). Paris, Editions Phébus.
Le Ghetto peut lui aussi être un endroit tranquille et sécurisant, mais ce qui fait de ce lieu un ghetto est l’obligation que nous avons d’y vivre. Maintenant que les murs ont commencé à s’effondrer, je pense que nous avons intérêt à franchir les décombres et nous confronter la ville qui est à l’extérieur.

Leap, William L. 1987. American Indian languages. In Language in the USA, edited by C. A. Ferguson and S. Brice Heath. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press.

v. The United States is a more interesting country than it sometimes lets itelf admit. One does not have to go to India or New Guinea for diversity of language. To be sure, it may sometimes seem that there are only two kinds of language in the United States, good English and bad.

Lee, Spike. 1987. Spike Lee’s Gotta Have It: Inside Guerrilla Filmmaking. New York: Fireside Press.

Leibner, Isi (2012), ‘Olmert Honors J Street’, [Blog], < http:///wordfromjerusalem.com>, accessed march 18th, 2012 :32 a.m. .

« (…)Let me state at the outset that I am acquainted with Olmert and once admired him, (…)Something snapped with Olmert when he effectively spurned his longstanding political roots and developed an penchant for crass political opportunism. His climaxed when he joined the Kadima bandwagon, and became one of the most enthusiastic promoters of Ariel Sharon’s devastating unilateral disengagement, paving the way for his appointement as deputy prime minister and succeeding Sharon.
It was eveident that he had lost the plot when on June 9, 2009, in the course of the disengagement debate, he gave the keynote address to the feft-leaning US-Based Israel Policy Forum and (…) proclaimed : « we are tired of fighting, we are tired of being courageous, we are tired of winning, we are tired of defeating our enemies ».

Lema, Luis. 2003. Petites histoires sans importance: Israël. Le Temps, 4 octobre, 46.

A propos de:
Kenaz, Y. (2003). Infiltration: Stock.
Kenaz, Y. (2003). Paysage aux trois arbres: Actes Sud.
Un immeuble dans la banlieue chic de Tel-Aviv. Un immeuble et ses habitants, qui se croisent sans se connaître, se saluent sans se voir, partagent leur quotidien mais bien peu d’autres choses. La guerre du Golfe retentit au loin, mais c’est un autre événement qui préoccupe les résidents de cet espace clos: un incendie a falli ravager toute la maison. Acte criminel ou simple accident? Les soupçons se portent sur un Palestinien employé depuis des années par le gérant pour nettoyer l’immeuble. L’arabe est énigmatique, et à bien des égards incompréhensible. C’était pourtant un brave type qui faisait son travail sans qu’on ait trouvé matière à redire. mais les nerfs sont à fleur de peau, d’autant que la mort d’une voisine agée vient encore aggraver la portée de cet épisode qu’on aura rapidement étiqueté “attentat terroriste”. Le Palestinien est-il coupable? Yehoshua Kenaz s’attarde sur les détails, brouille les pistes, suggère plus qu’il ne décrit des comportements empreints tour à tour de mesquineries et de petites rébellions sans importance. Comme le souffle encore plus clairement le deuxième récit du recueil qui lui donne son titre, Paysages aux trois arbres (titre original: Nof-im-shloshaetsim), l’essentiel est pourtant dans l’énigme elle-même, bien davantage que dans le dénouement d’une enquête qui n’aboutira pas. Place idi à la période du mandat britannique et à la cohabitation difficile entre une famille de sabras (nés en Israël), une autre de Juifs provenant d’Egypte et u n bataillon de soldats britanniques. Les premiers pestent contre les poux dans les cheveux, les seconds fument le narguilé sur des peaux de mouton à même le sol, les derniers boivent de la bière pour lutter contre la certitude d’être mal-aimés. Mais tous sont décrits avec tendresse et empathie. Une énigme, là aussi: cette gravure de Rembrandt, Paysage aux trois arbres, dont un soldat britannique vient montrer à intervalles réguliers la copie qu’il est en train de réaliser. Entre ces deux histoires, si différentes, résonnent pourtant des échos lointains, se tiessent des liens invisibles qui ont pour noms désirs inassouvis, blessures personnelles, sentiments de culpabilité. Bien qu’il ait été écrit beaucoup plus tôt, Infiltration (Hitganvout Yehidim) peut être vu comme la tentative par le jeune Etat israélien de broyer dans l’oeuf ces sentiments si peu héroïques. Alors que l’infaillibilité du soldat est érigée en dogme, ressurgissent pourtant les mêmes blessures au sein d’une compagnie qu’il s’agira de faire entrer dans un moule unique, à force de vexations et d’injustices, si nécessaire. Infiltration a connu un énomre succès lors de sa publication en Israël en 1986. Ni pamphlet pacifiste ni roman de guerre, il montre à lui seul la force de suggestion de cet écrivain tout en demi-teintes.

___ 2003. Vivre à Tel-Aviv: Yehoshua Kenaz: les reflets intimes d’un pays en guerre. Le Temps, 4 octobre, 46.

nterview.
Je dirais que, dans mes livres, on ne voit pas les grands événements, mais plutôt leur ombre, les traces qu’ils laissent sur les gens. Après tout, c’est bien à l’importance de leurs effets qu’on peut mesurer ces grands événements.
QUESTION: Vos personnages semblent touts très seuls. Ils vivent certes côte à côte, mais il règne entre eux un climat de grande méfiance…
Oui, en cela ils sont semblables à ceux qu’on pourrait trouver dans la plupart des grandes villes. A Tel-Aviv, on rencontre aussi beaucoup de joie et de gaieté.(…)
QUESTION: Vous avez traduit en hébreu bon nombre d’auteurs français: Flaubert, Stendhal, Montherland, mais aussi une intégrale de Simenon. Vous dites que vous vous êtes découvert écrivain en apprenant le français?
J’espère en effet avoir appris quelque chose des grands écricvain français. J’essaie d’écrire de manière très claire. L’histoire peut être opaque, mais, à mes yeux, elle doit être écrite dans une langue limpide.
(…)
Il faut bien sûr reconstruire la mémoire pour faire oeuvre littéraire. Mais ce sont toujours les éléments les plus extraordinaires qui sont les plus proches de la réalité. Ce que je dois faire, c’est simplement les entourer de faits plus simples et moins incroyables pour rendre cette réalité plus crédible!

QUESTION: Des grands écrivains de votre génération (Amos Oz, Avraham Yehoshua…), vous êtes sans doute le plus discret. Est-il possible de ne pas s’engager politiquement dans un pays comme Israël, à ce point tourné vers la politique?
Les collègues dont vous parlez sont effectivement très politisés, même si leurs écrits sont souvent intimistes, comme les miens. Pour ma part, j’évite de donner des inteviews dans mon pays ou de devenir un personnage public. Je ne suis pas homme à me lever au milieu d’une salle pour soulever la foule. En cela, je ne suis peut-être pas un Israélien très représentatif. Cela dit, je signe les pétitions qui demande le retrait (ndlr: des territoires palestiniens) et j’applaudis des deux mains, par exemple, à l’initiative de certains pilotes de refuser de lancer leurs bombes sur les villes palestiniennes. Je suis en faveur de l’évacuation complète des colonies israéliennes. Il faut que nos deux Etats, israélien et palestinien, se replient sur eux-mêmes avant de pouvoir se demander comment ils trouveront le moyen de cohabiter. Actuellement, nous sommes dirigés par un gouvernement stupide, comme le sont aussi les Palestiniens. Les uns et les autres ne pensent qu’à rendre coup pour coup.
QUESTION: Dans Infiltration qui vient aussi d’être publié en français, vous nêtes pas tendre avec l’armée israélienne. On y sent comme une prémonition de la situation actuelle…
A l’époque de ce roman, c’est-à-dire au milieu des années cinquante, l’armée avait un rôle très important. On a voulu en faire un melting-pot pour des gens qui venaient de tous les horizons. Mais cela n’a jamais fonctionné. A ce moment, l’armée était placée juste au-dessous de Dieu pour les Israéliens. Il a fallu la guerre du Kippour, en 1973, pour se rendre compte que rien n’était en place, que rien ne marchait comme on le disait. J’ai le sentiment qu’il nous faut un autre 1973 pour nous enseigner l’histoire.
QUESTION: A un moment, le petit garçon des Trois Arbres refuse d’embrasser le Mur des Lamentations parce qu’il le trouve “dégoûtant”. Aux yeux de beaucoup d’Israéliens, cela est encore bien plus grave que de critiquer l’armée…
Et pourtant, cela a été imprimé en Israël…Les Israéliens ont vécu jusqu’en 1967 sans le mont du Temple de Jérusalem. On pourrait très bien continuer de vivre en le rendant aux Palestiniens. Vous savez,même les peuples les plus civilisés ont vécu des périodes proches de la guerre Civile. Ce n’est pas cette menace qui doit nous empêcher de trancher.

Lemco, Jonathan. 1992. Quebec’s “Distinctive Character” and the Question of Minority Rights. In Language Loyalties: A source-book on the Official English Controversy, edited by J. Crawford. Chicago: The University of Chicago Press.

One of the most fascinating political developments in North America, and one of the least understood by the vast majority of North Americans, concerns the evolution of Quebec -a thoroughly modern, Westernized society whose majority population remains defiantly proud of its French language and culture. The roughly six millions French-speaking Québécois have thus far been able to maintain their distinctive character notwithstanding the political, cultural, and economic dominance of the continent by non-francophones. This minority group situation, however, has prompted Quebec’s leaders to pursue strategies to protect their language and culture that have proven controversial and frequently injurious to the interests of the more than one million Quebecers whose native language is other than French.
424:The story of modern Quebec is the story of a people who regard themselves as having emerged from a relatively backward, agrarian, or urban working-class background to a modern, industrial, entrepreneurial society that can prosper economically and thrive culturally.
Quebec francophones are a national minority language group that represents a majority in a particular province, a situation similar to that of Hispanic groups that constitute a majority in parts of the southern and southwestern United States. One should not push this comparison too far, however, for the French language has been entrenched in Canada since the preconfederation period. Furthermore, Canadian and American political culture are very different. To understand the plight of Quebec’s francophones, a bit of background is needed.

In 1759, in the midst of the Severn Years’ War, the British defeated the French on the Plains of Abraham in Quebec City. This was a momentous event in the history of Quebec, for it transferred the small French-language settlement situated along the St Lawrence River to the British control. Shrewd colonizers, the British allowed these French speaking “habitants” to retain their language, culture, and Catholic religion so long as they swore allegiance to the British Crown
After the 1759 “Conquest”, habitant society, which had always been church-dominated and culturally insular, became even more so. Relations with English-speaking Upper Canada (now called Ontario) were limited.
The French Revolution of 1789 forced another rift with the outside world. To Quebec’s Catholic Church, the revolution was work of the devil(…).Relations between France and its former North American colony would not return to normal until Charles de Gaulle’s visit in the mid 1960s.
At the time of the Confederation in 1867, Quebec remained an economically underdeveloped, rather closed society by North American standards.Nevertheless, it chose to join a sovereign Canada for two reasons. First, Great Britain was in the process of dissolving its empire for predominantly economic reasons.(…). Second, despite Quebec’s relative isolation, its political leaders shared with Ontario’s elites a concern that they not be forced to become American (note: poll data in the 1980s reveal that this is one of the few things that Canadians from coast to coast can still agree upon).
After the creation of a Canadian nation-state, however, dialogue between English and French Canada remained restricted largely to consultation among elites. Even within Quebec, francophones and anglophones had little to do with each other.
The relative isolation of Quebec permitted a strong sense of Québécois identity to evolve. Most became convinced then, as they remain today, that only in Québec could a North American francophone be assured that his language and culture would be protected.
426: By contrast to almost all other nationalist movements, however, Quebec’s situation has been characterized by a remarkable degree of nonviolence.(…)one glaring modern exception of October Crisis of 1970.
By the early 1960s, French-speaking Québecois began to assert their political intersts to an unprecedented degree. Jean Lesage was elected premier of Quebec and, along with his young natural resource minister, René Lévesque, nationalized the province’s vast and profitable hydroelectric power resource and named it Hydro-Quebec. Lesage declared that henceforth francophones would be maîtres chez nous.
This was the beginning of the Quiet Revolution, in which Quebec francophones began to alter the economic, political, and social structure of the province.
The francophones’ plight inspired some to join fledgling nationalist and separatist organizations, which maintained that only a politically sovereign Quebec could ensure that the French language and culture would be protected and promoted.
427: the founding of the Parti Québecois under René Levesque enhanced the legitimacy of an independence movement but few P.Q. candidates were elected to the National Assembly until the early 1970s.
October crisis: the British trade commissioner in Montreal, James Cross, and Quebec’s justice minister, Pierre Laporte, were kidnapped. Their abductors, who called themselves Le Front de Liberation du Québec, broadcast a message in which they pledged to use violent tactics if necessary to promote a free and sovereign Quebec.
By 1976 Bourassa’s Liberal government had become enmeshed in scandals associated with the construction of the Montreal Olympics, and there was also a widespread perception that his administration had failed to manage the economy effectively. In something of an upst, the separatist P.Q. was elected to office. Its leader, Lévesque, pledged that he would take no steps to promote an independent Quebec until his government’s second term. in 1980 a referendum asked Quebecers whether they would authorize provincial officials to begin negotiations with Canada’s federal government toward Quebec’s eventual “sovereignty-association”- The wording of the question was left purposefully vague so as to maximize support for the separatist position.Sovereignty-association referred to political sovereignty combined with continued economic association with the rest of Canada. After a hard-fought campaign, the opponents of negotiations were victorious 60% to 40%. The vast majority of anglophone Quebecers opposed the plebiscite, of course, as did the allophones and even a slight majority of francophones, thus depriving the nationalists of the opportunity to blame the English for their defeat. René Lévesque later said that the referendum result was the biggest disappointment of his political life.
In 1987 Prime Minister Brian Mulroney and the ten provincial premiers met at Meech Lake, Quebec, and tentatively agree d to an accord, subject to ratification by all the provincial legislature, In return for endorsing the Canadian Constitution which it had refused to sign in 1982, Quebec would be recognized as a “distinct society”, and official statement with great symbolic meaning for francophone Quebecers. But the Meech Lake Accord collapsed with the failure of Newfoundland and Manitoba to ratify it before the deadline of June 23, 1990.
One of the most divisive conditions associated with the stability of any nation-state is linguistic cleavage. Canadian policymakers, in attempting to strengthen national unity, have been faced with the dilemma of how to appease francophones while not alienating anglophones. the federal government’s solution has been to recognize both English and French as official languages across Canada, while also guaranteeing certain minority linguistic rights. This policy is directed at ensuring equal footing for the two official languages in the courts, the legislatures, educational institutions, provision of services, the civil service, and the private sector. Emphasis is placed on creating bilingual institutions that will in turn lead to the creation of a bilingual society, an ideal expressed by the 1969 Royal Commission on Bilingualism and Biculturalism (the Laurendeau-Dunton Commission) which laid the blueprints for much of the federal government’s language legislation.
Today, the ideal of national bilingualism is far from being a reality. indeed, the Ottawa-Hull national capital area is the only truly bilingual part of Canada. The large majority of Canadians remain monolingual, although francophones are far more likely to speak the other language than are anglophones. The absence of bilingualism, and the perceived threat to French Canadian culture and language, prompted the Parti Québécois in 1977 to enact Bill 101, a law that defied the national bilingualism policy and made French the sole official language of Quebec.While provincial governements in the 1960s and 1970s had enacted language legislation, never before had it been so pervasive and restrictive of other languages.
Camille Laurin, the architect of Bill 101 and the P.Q. education minister, espoused a variety of goals for the legislation: to end the economic inferiority of francophone Quebecers, to redistribute economic opportunities, to promote the assimilation of immigrants into the francophone community, and to make it clear to all concerned that Quebec was French speaking.
429: Outnumbered by anglophones in North America, 260 millions to 6.5 million, the francophones also have the lowest birthrate on the Continent and virtually no population grown, as it has been difficult to attract French-speaking immigrants to Quebec. French Canadian children are exposed to English-language media, culture and business, and they find it very attractive
Bill 101 affected almost every aspect of Quebec society, including the courts, the legislature, the civil service, education, health and social serves, and private business.Government services were curtailed in the language of the anglophone minority, which numbers more than one million in the province (although English-language materials would be provided on request). The instruction of English-speaking students was to be increasingly in the French language, with anglophone public schools available only to those whose parents had been educated in English in Quebec. Street and commercial signs were required to be posted in French only, and reported violations would be investigated by government, bureaucrats, commonly referred to as “language-police”. Most professionals would now have to pass a French language proficiency test.Clearly there was a complete inconsistency between the bilingual policies of Ottawa and the unilingual policies emanating from Quebec City.
Nevertheless, Bill 101 was enormously popular in the province. Many francophones began to feel that their distinctive language and culture was secure.Although Canada is a country where the protection of individual rights is considered mandatory, collective rights are regarded as almost as important in both English Canadian and French-Canadian political culture. By world standards, the francophone minority is remarkably homogeneous, and their history in Canada dates back as far as the anglophones’. Both factors contribute to their sense of cohesion and legitimacy.
Furthermore, the Canadian federal system grants so many discretionary powers to the provinces that Quebec can legally declare French its official language, play a determining role in immigration policy, and maintain separate public school systems based on religion and language. The Canadian Supreme Court and the Quebec Superior Court have ruled that much of the language legislation is unconstitutional, but the Bourassa provincial government has been able to disregard those rulings by using the notwithstanding clause of Canada’s constitution (the Charter of Rights and Freedoms allows provincial legislatures to override certain section of the Charter) arguing that Bill 101 was in the best interests of Quebec’s distinctive character.
The Protestant School Board of Greater Montreal had lost 60% of its anglophone students by 1984.
A major rationale for the educational provisions of Bill 101 was the fear that most immigrants to Quebec would choose English Protestant schools for their children.This was perceived as a threat to the French-language dominance in the Province, and for good reason.
A variety of factors have been cited to explain this preference among immigrants: the relatively poor quality of French-language education, including the teaching of English as a second language; perceived prejudice against allophone children in French-Schools, the ethnic and religious heterogeneity of English schools )(cf. Daniel J. Elazar and Harold M. Waller, Maintaining Consensus: the Canadian Jewish Polity in the Postwar World, University Press of America: Jews were defined as Protestants by Quebec law), the importance of English in North America and the economic supremacy of English in Quebec.
431: Section 20 of the bill created obstacles to the hiring, promotion, and transfer of English-speaking Quebecers in the public sector.
Most important, businesses were required to undertake “francisation” programs aimed at making French the predominant language of industry and commerce. Every firm with over fifty employees had to prepare a francisation plan covering such concerns as French communications with employees and the French language proficiency at managerial levels.
Quebec was the only province in Canada to restrict the legal rights of a minority to work, study, and function freely in its won language. The resulting climate of fear and mistrust between the English and the French, especially in Montreal, gave rise to a worsening environment for economic investment.
432: On the other hand, most observers would agree that Bill 101 has served to reduce, if not totally eliminate, the economic disparity between French-speaking and English speaking Quebecers. The francization of private enterprise has also contributed to the emergence of a French-speaking entrepreneurial class.
The Montreal Gazette, the leading English language newspaper in the province, has systematically listed episodes of discrimination against Quebecers of English heritage. Alliance Quebec was organized to protect minority rights in the province. In 1989, for the first time, an anti-Bill 101, anti-Meech Lake, English rights party, and Equality Party, won four seats in the provincial legislature.
Since 1976, 170’000 Quebecers have emigrated, principally anglophones and often the best educated, most skilled members of Quebec society.
Given the failure of Meech Lake Accord, it is hard to be optimistic about the future of the Canadian polity. By 1990 Quebec nationalism was at a fever pitch, manipulated effectively by its provincial politicians.
there is no sign that most Canadians are interested in keeping Quebec in the federation

Lequeret, Elisabeth. 1998. Un monde de combats, de rêves et de désirs : L’Afrique filmée par des femmes. Le Monde Diplomatique ( Août 1998): Page 11.

« Des femmes derrière la caméra dans les années 70 ? A l’époque, nous étions peu nombreuses. Il y
avait quelques Antillaises, la Sénégalaise Safi Faye et moi. Mais vous savez, le cinéma n’est pas une
affaire de femmes. » Aujourd’hui, la phrase de Thérèse Sita Bella pourrait s’apparenter à une provocation
discrète, un aimable paradoxe. Il y a vingt ans, c’était une réalité. Pendant des années, le cinéma africain a
conjugué le verbe « filmer » au masculin.

Un paysage d’hommes parsemé de quelques rares figures féminines : la Camerounaise Thérèse Sita Bella,
qui, en 1963, tourne Tam Tam à Paris – un court métrage de 30 minutes sur les danses traditionnelles au
Cameroun. Et, surtout, Sarah Maldoror. Cette Guadeloupéenne qui reconnaît avoir fait « beaucoup plus
de films pour l’Afrique que pour la Guadeloupe » réalise son premier court métrage, Monangambee, en
1970 en Algérie, puis s’attaque en Guinée-Bissau à un long métrage, Des fusils pour Banta, qui restera
inachevé. Autre pionnière, la Sénégalaise Safi Faye, qui réalise, en 1972, La Passante, puis, trois ans plus
tard, un long métrage, le premier réalisé par une Africaine, Lettre paysanne. « Comme j’étais la première
négresse à faire des films, j’ai été connue », dit-elle aujourd’hui avec une ironie qui n’est pas dépourvue
d’amertume (1).

Si, dans les années 70, Thérèse, Sarah et Safi faisaient figure d’exceptions, les années 80 ont vu l’éclosion,
sur le continent africain, de toute une couvée de jeunes réalisatrices. Ainsi, lors du dernier Festival
panafricain du cinéma de Ouagadougou (Fespaco), en février 1997 (2), sur les dix-neuf longs métrages de
fiction en compétition, quatre étaient réalisés par des femmes. « Une proportion qu’on ne retrouve pas à
Cannes », souligne Dominique Wallon, ancien directeur du Centre national de la cinématographie (CNC) et
auteur en 1995 d’une étude sur le cinéma africain pour le compte de l’Union européenne. En avril 1998, le
Festival du film de femmes de Créteil (Val-de-Marne), qui consacrait une rétrospective aux réalisatrices
africaines, l’a confirmé : désormais, les femmes africaines tournent. Autant que les hommes, mais,
contrairement à eux, avec une nette prédilection pour le documentaire.

Au travers de leurs films se dessine l’Afrique contemporaine, celle des villes et des campagnes, des
bicyclettes branlantes et des Mercedes, des beaux quartiers et des bidonvilles. L’Afrique des femmes,
surtout. Car leurs sujets tournent souvent, de façon directe ou non, autour des femmes, de leur condition, de
leurs combats, de leurs rêves et de leurs désirs. Pour traiter de l’éternel débat tradition contre modernité, les
réalisatrices se montrent beaucoup moins complexées que les hommes. Plus subtiles aussi, attentives à la
recherche d’un moyen terme. « Ces films sont passionnants par la réponse qu’ils apportent à
l’opposition tradition-modernité, explique Olivier Barlet, spécialiste du cinéma africain (3). Une femme
qui refuse un mariage forcé refuse la tradition, mais pas au nom de la modernité. Elles sont infidèles
à la tradition tout en restant fidèles à elles-mêmes. » Ainsi, dans Rêves de femmes, de la Malienne
Kadiatou Konaté, une sociologue explique : « Nous courons à la catastrophe si nous continuons à
regarder les femmes des pays développés et que nous tentons de plaquer cela sur nos propres
sociétés. »

Des moments de répit ou de grâce

LA tradition, le poids du social sont souvent dénoncés au travers du mariage, catalyseur de drames
innombrables. Soit directement (comme dans Mossane, de Safi Faye, où une jeune fille, amoureuse d’un
étudiant mais forcée par ses parents d’épouser un barbon, finira par se suicider), soit via la recherche de la
dot qui conduit l’héroïne de Kado, de l’Ivoirienne Valérie Kaboré, à quitter son village natal pour « se
louer » à la ville et gagner ainsi l’argent nécessaire à son mariage.

Le divorce, la séparation, sont aussi des manières de pointer la difficulté d’être une femme indépendante en
Afrique. Ainsi l’héroïne de La bataille de l’arbre sacré, contrainte de fuir un mari particulièrement brutal,
ne trouvera guère de réconfort auprès des habitants de son village natal. Cette comédie de la Kényane
Wanjiru Kinyanjui dénonce les difficultés de la femme seule, prise en étau entre le désir des hommes et les
insultes des femmes.

Le social conduisant immanquablement à la politique, cette dernière est au coeur de la plupart de ces
documentaires. Occasion de vérifier que c’est beaucoup moins par le fond (les thématiques abordées) que
par la forme que se construit la spécificité du cinéma africain féminin. Car, même lorsqu’elles traitent des
sujets aussi graves que la guerre, l’apartheid, les ratés de la démocratie « à l’Africaine », les réalisatrices
s’attachent toujours à montrer ces moments de répit ou de grâce qui surgissent parfois des situations les plus
difficiles, à traiter de la réalité avec une liberté de ton, un sens du concret et parfois un humour que bien des
réalisateurs pourraient leur envier.

C’est le cas d’Anne-Laure Folly, qui, dans Les Oubliées, s’attache aux ravages de la guerre civile angolaise.
Si douloureuse que soit la réalité qu’elle nous donne à voir, la réalisatrice sait aussi ménager des instants de
pause, montrant comment des solidarités se tissent pour pallier la pénurie d’eau, d’électricité, comment les
femmes s’organisent pour se brancher sur la parabole d’un voisin. « On sent chez Anne-Laure Folly un
respect des gens qu’elle interviewe, respect qui fait parfois défaut à ses confrères masculins.
L’Afrique, nous la montrons sans héros, dans son quotidien, avec ses espoirs et ses défaites »,
commente Sarah Maldoror.

Ce respect, cette honnêteté intellectuelle, cette volonté de montrer plus que de démontrer, on les sent dans
Femmes du Niger, autre documentaire d’Anne-Laure Folly tourné lors des élections de 1993, où la
réalisatrice laisse entendre des voix de tous bords. Femmes engagées politiquement, qui se plaignent de ce
que « les femmes n’ont rien compris à la démocratie » ou déplorent qu’elles « ne pensent pas à
constituer des partis politiques ». Tandis qu’une troisième protagoniste explique qu’elle milite dans un parti
parce que son frère en est membre : « Il m’a dit que ça ne devait pas sortir de la famille. »

Même démarche dans My vote is my secret, où la Sud-Africaine Julie Henderson interroge des femmes en
avril 1994, pendant les premières élections libres d’Afrique du Sud. Comme en réponse à la liberté de la
caméra de la réalisatrice, qui s’attache plus à interroger qu’à suivre le fil d’une thèse, les femmes livrent leurs
doutes. Si toutes ne sont pas politiquement d’accord, elles se retrouvent sur le même point : chercher un
consensus. « On ne peut pas vivre avec quelqu’un sans lui pardonner », dit l’une, parlant du pouvoir
blanc. Une autre confirme : « Même si on gagne les élections, on devra encore vivre avec ceux qui
nous ont opprimées. »

Dans Last Supper in Hortsley Street (1978), sa compatriote Lindy Wilson raconte le drame de centaines
de familles noires obligées de quitter leur foyer, près du Cap. Elle aussi se met au service des gens qu’elle
filme, les laisse parler : « J’avais la nausée d’entendre les officiels, ces gens qui s’expriment »au nom
de«, des hommes qui parlent au nom des femmes, des Blancs qui parlent au nom des Noirs. Je
voulais permettre à ces gens qui subissaient l’histoire de parler, leur rendre la parole. »

Témoigner, donner la parole aux sans-voix. Au-delà des discours officiels. C’est sans doute là que se
rejoignent tous ces documentaires par ailleurs si dissemblables. « En Afrique du Sud, la réalité est
tellement plus forte que tout ce qu’on peut inventer, souligne Lindy Wilson. Je ne voulais pas devenir
réalisatrice. Juste enregistrer des témoignages, avant que ces familles ne soient déportées. Je ne
voulais pas que les gens puissent dire après »Nous ne savions pas«. » Des propos que Sarah Maldoror
pourrait presque reprendre à son propre compte. Après un stage de cinéma à Moscou, elle est partie en
Angola, où l’envie de saisir la caméra lui est venue « pour témoigner, parce qu’on parlait toujours du
Vietnam et jamais des guerres africaines ». De ce désir est né, en 1972, Sambizanga, un film sur la
torture dans les prisons angolaises.

Volonté de faire connaître au monde une guerre, un conflit oublié, mais aussi de mettre en avant une culture
mal connue ou sur le point de disparaître (4). Ainsi Anne-Laure Follya a réalisé son premier film, Le
Gardien des femmes (1990), sur la culture vaudoue : « Je me suis aperçue du déficit d’images sur
l’Afrique. Au départ, je ne l’ai pas fait pour qu’il soit diffusé. Je voulais laisser une trace d’une
culture qui disparaissait. Je ne connaissais rien au cinéma. Le cameraman m’a dit : »C’est un
52.« J’ai répondu : »C’est quoi, un 52 ?« [Rires.] Pareil pour Femmes du Niger (1993), qui s’est fait
un peu par hasard. J’étais dans le pays pendant les élections, et je voyais que les femmes ne votaient
pas. Alors, avec mes propres fonds, j’ai appelé partout pour avoir une équipe, en fait deux
personnes, un preneur de son et un cameraman. »

Parfois aussi, le désir de filmer se nourrit de la volonté de corriger une image, de se réapproprier sa propre
culture, trop souvent caricaturée, que ce soit par le cinéma ou les médias du Nord (5). Tous les films de Safi
Faye, documentaires ou fictions, témoignent, avec leur esthétique soignée, de cette ambition : rendre une
image positive de l’Afrique. « Mon continent est catalogué continent de misère, de famine, de remous.
J’essaie d’imposer d’autres images de l’Afrique. Je fais parler ceux qu’on n’a jamais écoutés, ceux qui
sont concernés, les paysans, par exemple », explique la réalisatrice. Toujours la même volonté de
témoigner, de parler de sa communauté : « Je ne vois pas la frontière entre le documentaire et la
fiction : je ne suis capable de parler que de la société dont je suis issue. »

Preuve que l’éternel dilemme entre documentaire et fiction est ici largement dépassé, tant l’essentiel, pour la
plupart des réalisatrices, est moins de « faire du cinéma » que de capturer des images de l’Afrique
contemporaine. Et, le cas échéant, de faire oeuvre pédagogique. « J’ai fait du cinéma pour que ma mère,
qui n’est pas allée à l’école, puisse lire mes images », commente sobrement Safi Faye. Identique sont les
ambitions de la Malienne Kadiatou Konaté (« le cinéma est la meilleure façon d’éduquer. Dans un pays
à 80 % analphabète, c’est important pour moi de m’adresser aux gens dans leur langage quotidien»)
ou de la Zaïroise Monique Phoba, qui vient de terminer un documentaire sur ces infirmiers congolais
auxquels, avant les indépendances, les colons refusaient le diplôme de médecin, réservé aux seuls Blancs :
« Notre histoire ne nous est pas suffisamment enseignée. Filmer, c’est aussi une manière de rétablir
le lien entre générations, parce qu’il ne faut pas compter sur l’Europe pour rendre compte de notre
passé. »

Sans doute cette volonté de témoigner, et donc d’agir sur le social, explique-t-elle en grande partie
pourquoi, à la différence de leurs collègues masculins, la plupart de ces femmes sont entrées dans le cinéma
par la petite porte. Un stage de scripte pour Regina Fanta Nacro, un poste de déléguée de production sur
Yeelen, du Malien Souleymane Cissé, pour Kadiatou Konaté. Le milieu associatif pour les Sud-Africaines
Julie Henderson et Lindy Wilson. Une formation sur le tas pour Anne-Laure Folly, juriste de métier, ainsi
que pour Monique Phoba, qui était journaliste quand elle a décidé de se lancer dans le cinéma, en voyant à
Bruxelles une rétrospective du cinéma africain. « Avant, les femmes s’autocensuraient. Dans les écoles
de cinéma, on nous faisait comprendre que la meilleure place, pour une femme, c’était d’être scripte
ou monteuse. Comme si nous avions des capacités insoupçonnées de mémoire ! », ironise Regina
Fanta Nacro, première femme cinéaste du Burkina.

Pourtant, passées les dernières barrières culturelles, ces réalisatrices sont unanimes à clamer haut et fort que
leur vision, leur sensibilité, ne diffère en rien de celle des hommes. « Dans mon film Le Truc de Konaté,
j’aurais pu traiter du sida sous l’angle des orphelins, de la lutte des ONG. Mais ce qui m’a intéressée,
c’est la capote », explique Regina Fanta Nacro. Pareil pour Un certain matin, où je montre une scène
d’accouchement. Il y a deux, trois ans, je me serais intéressée à la douleur de la femme, j’aurais
montré son visage. Aujourd’hui, ce qui me passionne, c’est la délivrance, la façon dont le bébé sort.
Or on pourrait penser a priori que c’est une vision d’homme. ”

Anne-Laure Folly : « Evidemment, c’est plus facile de filmer une femme quand on est une femme.
Mais si chacun se cantonnait à son genre, cela voudrait dire que la moitié de l’humanité nous
échapperait. D’ailleurs, il n’y a pas un regard sur le monde, il y en a six milliards ! » Une manière,
pour ces réalisatrices, de revendiquer un langage cinématographique individuel bien plus qu’un langage
féminin. Bref, de s’affirmer en tant que cinéastes tout court, et non pas en tant que « cinéastes africaines »,
ou pis, « femmes cinéastes africaines ».

ELISABETH LEQUERET.
[Afrique] [Femmes] [Cinéma]

(1) Propos recueillis par Michel Amarger, in le catalogue du Festival des films de femmes de Créteil, 1998.
(2) Au sujet du Fespaco, lire Carlos Pardo, « Au cinéma, le temps de la reconquête », Le Monde diplomatique, mai 1995.
(3) Auteur du livre Les Cinémas d’Afrique francophone, éditions L’Harmattan, Paris, 1996.
(4) Lire Thérèse-Maris Deffontaines, « Des films pour croire en l’avenir de l’Afrique », Le Monde diplomatique, mai 1991.
(5) Lire Denise Brahimi, Cinéma d’Afrique francophone et du Maghreb, éditions Nathan, Paris, 1997.

http://www.monde-diplomatique.fr/1998/08/LEQUERET/10795.html

TOUS DROITS RÉSERVÉS © 1999 Le Monde diplomatique.

Leslie, Peter M. 1994. Asymmetry: Rejected, Conceded, Imposed. In A la Recherche d’un nouveau Contrat politique pour le Canada: Options asymétriques et options confédérales, edited by F. L. Seidle. Québec: Institute for Research on Public Policy.

Levasseur, Catherine (2012), ‘Moi j’suis pas francophone.’ paper given at Languages in the City, Berlin, 21-24 August, 2012.

research on Vancouver francophones: 70000 in BC, half of them in Vancouver. modest community compared to others in Canada. Statistics coming from self reports on Statistics Canada.
Kids arriving at these francophone schools actually don’t speak french. After the first year of schooling in Kindergarden, they pass a test either to integrate mainstream program or if they fail, they are going to have some support classes along with the mainstream for 5 years. These are called “francisation” classes. After 5 failure
research questions:
identity as discursively constructed
talks as discourses and social practices.
activities with her own school kids. They are asked to speak french only all the time.
the more structured the class, the more french. When it gets chaotic, it’s the “parler bilingue” mostly.
self description focus on: sex, age and community (‘I’m Canadian, I’m a human, Je suis une personne, je suis francophone so they relate to things than just they close surrending)
What’s strange? someone that doesn’t speak english
strong attachement to their hometown
TO BE A criteria to be francophone: born in France and unilingual french speaker, also when they have relatives in Quebec.They think that a real francophone has to have learned french before 3.
They are very proud to be multilingual although for them to be francophone means to be monolingual….New speakers: they don’t have the same francophonie as their parents.

Levine, Marc (1991), The Reconquest of Montreal: Language Policy and Social Change in a Bilingual City (Temple University Press) 320.

recommandé par Paul O’Donnell
: ” fascinating account of the
>”francisation” of that city.
> Bon courage,
>
> Paul O’Donnell “

Levin, Michael (ed.), (1993), Ethnicity and aboriginality: case studies in ethno-nationalism (Toronto: University of Toronto Press).

Levy, Jacob. 1997. Classifying Cultural Rights. In Ethnicity and Group Rights, edited by I. Shapiro and W. Kymlicka. New York: New York University Press.

Li, P.S. 1988. Ethnic Inequality in a Class Society (Thompson Educational Publishing, Inc: Toronto).

Liddicoat, Anthony J. . 2008 “Models of national government language-in-education policy for indigenous minority language groups.” In 2007 Conference of the Australian Linguistic Society, edited by Timothy J. Curnow. Adelaide.

quoted by Zuckermann, Ghil’ad , and Michael Walsh. 2011. ‘Stop, Revive, Survive: Lessons from the Hebrew Revival Applicable to the Reclamation, Maintenance and Empowerment of Aboriginal Languages and Culture. ‘, Australian Journal of Linguistics: 111-27

Lijphard, Arendt (1977), Democracy in plural societies (New Haven:: Yale University Press).

Livneh, Neri (2012), ‘Oy Gevalt: The German origins of Hebrew words’, Haaretz, Sep.14.

From the responses to last week’s column, I sense that, without intending to, I overlaid it with an exaggerated tragic tone. Readers somehow came away with the impression that my children have left me and the country for good. Not so. Two of my children are in Berlin for a few months but will be back, and the third made do with a lightning visit and returned to Tel Aviv.

What’s important for me to make clear here is that I absolutely do not perceive the kids’ trip as something they are “doing to me.” They are mature young people who are responsible for their lives, and I am happy that they are able to realize their plans. I am even happier when I hear that things are going well for them and they are content.

What grieves me most is the thought that they are not fulfilling their desires because they want to please their mother, or because they pity her. It’s true that I miss them, but I will probably see them soon. In another two weeks, actually.
In the meantime, I am trying to acquire basic concepts in the German language and culture. So I was delighted to receive a copy of “The Ben Yehuda Strasse Dictionary: A Lexicon of Spoken Yekkish in the Land of Israel.” Its German subtitle is “Sabre Deutsch” − German as spoken by native-born Israelis. ‏(Yekkes are Jews of German origin.‏)

Aiding in the publication of this likable book were the Association of Israelis of Central European Origin and the German-Speaking Jewry Heritage Museum at Tefen Industrial Park in the Western Galilee. I myself have a bit of a history with the Central European group. It runs a few excellent old-age homes, and at one time my father wanted to move into one of them. “Where is your father from?” I was asked by the director of the Jerusalem home. “Czechoslovakia,” I replied. “Ah, Czechoslovakia, that’s fine,” the director said. Until then she had been apprehensive that my father might be from Eastern Europe, heaven forbid, and not its center. Regrettably, to this day, more than 14 years after his death, my father is still on the waiting list of that heimisch institution.

My father was thus considered to be of Central European origin and also spoke fluent German. However, not a word of German was ever uttered at home − not only because it was the language of the “may their names be blotted out,” but mainly because my mother was clueless in both that language and its stepsister, Yiddish. The result was that despite the good education I received in the spirit of my parents’ values, I was 20-something when I learned from a person whom I dubbed Hansel − because his wife’s name was Gretel − that I did not have a kinderstube. “But I had a children’s room and they even had little armchairs and a table made for me in the kibbutz carpentry workshop,” I said in my defense. But it was explained to me that this was a borrowed term, a metonymic ‏(or synecdochic‏) usage to describe the good education received by those who, in contrast to me, had a kinderstube.

As I had not been privileged to be acquainted with a kinderstube, my early acquaintance with the customs of the tribe derived from the jokes my mother told about the “yekke-potzes.” From her descriptions, I pictured the community as a collection of humorless types with rigid manners ‏(a description that fit Hansel to a T; he specialized in alliterative jokes about famous composers‏); odd types who went around in suits even in the summer and wore socks with sandals; who spoke broken Hebrew but owned splendid pastry shops in Haifa and Nahariya.
As my trip approaches and my plans to learn German assume concrete form, my friend Margalit has been sending me text messages in German, written in Hebrew characters. She never learned German but speaks Yiddish from home and acquired a passable command of Deutsch during her many visits to Germany. Until we began this correspondence, I had been completely unaware that over the years I had acquired a lexicon of many hundreds of words in German, though of course I am unable to cobble together a grammatically correct sentence.

Like most of my generation, part of that lexicon consists of words that make me shudder even to contemplate: words like “Transport,” “Aktion” and “Juden,” which I learned from watching films about the Holocaust. Other words, related to musical instruments and works, were acquired in the course of studying music. A larger proportion of the words comes from my acquaintance with members of the community through family relations.

For example, I picked up basic German-language cooking terms from my former mother-in-law. From her I also learned about the daily schedule, which includes a schlafstunde followed by a kaffeestunde and sometimes also shpatziren. I also picked up some terms of endearment and words of insult. But most of my German lexicon comes from the simple fact that I grew up here, in the land of the sabres.

A perusal of the dictionary shows how many words we use in daily Hebrew without being aware of their German origin. Because many of the yekke immigrants acquired a profession they would be able to practice in Palestine, many of the Hebrew terms related to carpentry, mechanics and electricity are originally from German. A very long list of words that have entered Hebrew and appear in the new dictionary − kompot, schnitzel, kaput, strudel, konsert, delikatess, tort, prinzip, shvitzer ‏(show-off‏), tapet ‏(wallpaper‏) and many others − show that even as the first generation of yekkes had a hard time adjusting to Israel, the Hebrew language adjusted to many of the words they brought with them. So it’s possible, after all, that without our being aware of it, in the end we all had a kinderstube.

Livneh, Neri 2010. ‘Perhaps Arabs can save Hebrew from demise’, Haaretz, 7 janvier

Thus spoke the prime minister a few days ago: “My father was born 100 years ago and was raised in a Hebrew-speaking home. He did not learn Yiddish, Polish or Lithuanian. He learned Hebrew. The Hebrew of Eliezer Ben Yehuda and Haim Nahman Bialik.”

The apparent conclusion from that statement is that good Hebrew is what has brought Benjamin Netanyahu thus far in his career.

I don’t know how many years ago MK Ahmed Tibi’s father was born. The spoken language in his and his father’s home was Arabic. Tibi did not inherit his excellent Hebrew from a lonesome poet who bemoaned his fate in the nooks and crannies of his father’s house. Miraculously, Tibi’s Hebrew is even more eloquent than Netanyahu’s. Some say it is the best in the Knesset, and yet he has no chance of becoming prime minister.

I will never forget that awful moment when my eldest son, then two years old, asked me for a “bafla” (a common mispronunciation of a wafer cookie, pronounced “vaffel” in Hebrew).

“It’s called vaffel,” I scolded him, as I considered sending him off to boarding school at the Hebrew Language Academy. But his father (age 56, Israeli-born, from a Hebrew-German speaking home) drew my attention to the fact that “vaffel” (originating from “waffle”) was also a foreign word.

It is incorrect to say, as the prime minister did at that recent meeting, “On this piece of furniture [Ben Yehuda’s desk] the Hebrew language was renewed.” Ben Yehuda’s achievement, in fact, was taking Hebrew off the desk and turning it into spoken language. He brought Hebrew into the street, where foreign and slang expressions became part of the language.

The core of the Hebrew language, on every level, is dwindling; this is what concerns the government. Education Minister Gideon Sa’ar decided to do something about it, declaring Hebrew as the central subject on next year’s curriculum. Great plan, but it raises two questions. Who will carry it out? The teacher who herself made a grammatical mistake in Hebrew while we were discussing my son’s progress?

And in what way? Will they enact it through that program “A Word a Minute,” concocted in the Education Ministry’s laboratories, by which every school day is started with a five-minute lesson on new words, expressions or idioms? Even the most inarticulate stammerer already uses too many lofty words. Hebrew’s main problem stems from a need to uproot prevalent linguistic distortions and enrich the tongue by reading – a skill which about a third of the Jewish school students fail to master.

It would be helpful to hold concentrated Hebrew courses for the main “spoken-language agents” – radio and television people, MKs, teachers and ministers. Foreign Minister Avigdor Lieberman can thank his lucky stars that nobody has yet submitted the proposal “No Definite Article – No Citizenship” to a vote. Such a bill would deny not only his citizenship but that of most of his party’s MKs and voters – while granting it in abundance to the Palestinians, who tend to excel in their Hebrew studies.

According to the forecasts, future Israeli generations will consist mostly of ultra-Orthodox Jews and Arabs, i.e. people for whom Hebrew is a foreign tongue. If we leave the preservation of Hebrew – “a fundamental, essential component of Israel’s national and cultural identity” – to the future generations of teachers and students, it may yet transpire that this, too, is “Arab work” (a derogatory Hebrew expression used to describe inferior work).

Lo Bianco, Joseph. 1987. National Policy on Languages. Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service.

07; The secure place of English has been a central explanatory factor in the evolution of multilingual policies in Australia. Although English has no de jure status as national or official language it does occupy all major domains of pubic life.
The desired outcome, whether through deliberate intervention or tolerant neglect has, until recent decades, been a simple and unambiguous goal: universal English monolingualism…
108: The primary means for attaining this goal have been the following:
. outright hostility shown to the speakers of Australia’s more than 270 indigenous languages. The dramatic cultural and personal dislocation, including forcible family break-up, whilst not directly aimed at language genocide, had this effect for a large number of the languages that can be termed Australian languages;
. stigmatization and deprecation of Australian varieties of English
. Neglect and denigration of immigrant languages other than English
. General neglect of second language teaching and of Australian Sign Language
…Tolerant attitudes toward languages other than English had been common in all the British colonies that in 1901 federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia. With the exception of Aboriginal alnguages, public authorities did not actively, and often not even implicitly, discourage the use and promotion of languages other than English. It was only with the commencement of institutionalised formal education in the 1870s that English came to be allocated a competitive and key role, Chinese, French, German, Irish and Scot Gaelic, and Italian had been widely spoken and taught in many areas. Even with the federation of the colonies in 1901, generally accepting policies prevailed.
108-109: Anti-Asian immigration laws and vicarious hostility to the Kaiser’s Germany were the keys that opened the door of explicit and negative language policy. Legislation forcibly converting German-medium schools to English-only schools, or closing such schools altogether, was passed in several states.
109: Significant organised oppression of Aboriginal languages was also a characteristic of this period.
The period from the end of the First World War to the end of the Second World War saw generally monolingualist policies prevail.
In recent decades progressively more politive orientations towards multilingualism have been a feature of public policy.
During the late 1970s explicit or deliberate attempts to highlight language issues as such emerged.

____1997. English and Pluralistic Policies: The Case of Australia. In Language Policy: Dominant English, pluralist challenges, edited by W. Eggington and H. Wren. Amsterdam/Philadelphia: John Benjamins Publishing Company.

107; The secure place of English has been a central explanatory factor in the evolution of multilingual policies in Australia. Although English has no de jure status as national or official language it does occupy all major domains of pubic life.
The desired outcome, whether through deliberate intervention or tolerant neglect has, until recent decades, been a simple and unambiguous goal: universal English monolingualism…
108: The primary means for attaining this goal have been the following:
. outright hostility shown to the speakers of Australia’s more than 270 indigenous languages. The dramatic cultural and personal dislocation, including forcible family break-up, whilst not directly aimed at language genocide, had this effect for a large number of the languages that can be termed Australian languages;
. stigmatization and deprecation of Australian varieties of English
. Neglect and denigration of immigrant languages other than English
. General neglect of second language teaching and of Australian Sign Language
…Tolerant attitudes toward languages other than English had been common in all the British colonies that in 1901 federated to form the Commonwealth of Australia. With the exception of Aboriginal alnguages, public authorities did not actively, and often not even implicitly, discourage the use and promotion of languages other than English. It was only with the commencement of institutionalised formal education in the 1870s that English came to be allocated a competitive and key role, Chinese, French, German, Irish and Socts Gaelic, and Italian had been widely spoken and taught in many areas. Even with the federation of the colonies in 1901, generally accepting policies prevailed.
108-109: Anti-Asian immigration laws and vicarious hostily to the Kaiser’s Germany were the keys that opened the door of explicit and negative language policy. Legislation forcibly converting German-medium schools to English-only schools, or closing such schools altogether, was passed in several states.
109: Significant organised oppression of Aboriginal languages was also a characteristic of this period.
The period from the end of the First World War to the end of the Second World War saw generally monolingualist policies prevail.
In recent decades progressively more politive orientations towards multilingualism have been a feature of public policy.
During the late 1970s explicit or deliberate attempts to highlight language issues as such emerged.
110-111: The following have been key stps in laying the foundations of overall policies today:
1. The success of the 1967 referendum transferring responsibility for Aboriginal affairs from the state and territory goverments to the Commonwealth, or federal government.
2. The passing of the 1971 Immigration (Education) Act, in which the Commonwealth explicitly recognised its primary responsibility for the settlement and language ducation of newly arrived immigrants.
3. The concessions granted in two states (Victoria and South Australia) in the mid-1970s for bilingual, community language maintenace and multicultural programs.
4. The initiation by the federal authorities of Aboriginal bilingual rpograms in the early 1970s in areas of Commonwealth jurisdiction.
5. The accession by Britain to the European Community, which forced Australian exporting industries to reassess their traditional markets and to conclude that the future lay in the potential (now booming) markets of Asia, this economic stimulus leading to a wider self-definition for Australia.
6. The neglect and decline of second language teaching, which mobilised language professionals to give legitimacy to the demands by ethnic and Aboriginal groups for a national language policy.
7. The coalition of interests between ethnic, Aboriginal, and other groups creating a coherent and unified constituency for languages which was able to generate a sophisitcated set of demands on governmetn « when the time was right »
These seven developments have led to more open multilingual policies of today.
111: The culination of these developments was the adoption of, and in 1987 the full funding of, Australia’s first National Polica on Languages (Lo Bianco, Joseph. “National Policy on Languages.” . Canberra: Australian Government Publishing Service, 1987.) and its use as a model by most states for complementary policies.
Despite its revision (DEET. “Australia’s Language: The Australian Language and Literacy Policy, vols 1 et 2.” . Canberra: Department of Employment, Education and Training, 1991.) de-emphasizing its pluralistic character and despite the present stress on English literacy, there is substantial funding and borad public acceptance of pluralism in language policy in Australia today.
The most recent policy statement was the adoption by the Council of Australian Governments of the report Asian Languages and Australia’s Economic Future in February 1994. This policy sets out an ambitious aim of having a majority of all students studying one of four languages (Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Korean) by the year 2006.
One set of arguments derives from the multicultural ethos and argues for schooling to develop children’s potential bilingualism into an intellectual and cultural resource (…)Essentially, the multicultural argument is for status planning on behalf of minority languages.
The other derives from the imperatives of economy and the perceived need for Australia to drastically, and quickly, increase its Asian language skills.
Pluralism and regionalism, however, are reconciled with the general projections of our population if present immigration trends from Asian are sustained.
112: The demands for Australia’s full integratin into theAsian region are not contested politically. Both major ideological groupings in the political spectrum in Australia advocate the full integration into the exonomically dynamic region of Southeast and North Asia. The world in general appears to be galvanising into gigantic trading blocks: Europe, the North American free-trade zone, and the Asian-Pacific area.
Language choices governed by geography and economics follow on inexorably.
For some years, for example, Japanese has been the most widely studied and taught language in our higher education system and more Indonesian is taught in Australia than anywhere else except Indonesia.
Australia’s diversity is distributed throughout its territory and is not dominated by any single language group.
113: From Census results (Clyne, Michael, G. Community Languages in Australia. Oxford: Oxford University Press, 1992.), it was clear that in macro terms, Australia’s bilingual competence was by and large an immigrant and an Aboriginal phenomenon. Amon the English speakers who claimed to be bilinguals were the enthusiasts, the language teachers, the privileged, and the well travelled.
Enrolments in LOTE (Languages other than English) are on the increase and the newly found instrumental motivations could well bring about more politive language outcomes in future studies.
The report of the Council of Australian Governments, the annual meeting of state Premiers with the fedral governemnt, adopted its 1994 resolution declring the natioanl urgency of drastically upgrading language teaching, especially of Chinese, Japanese, Indonesian or Korean (i.e. justifying language study on economic grounds). It has become a commonplace to cajole and exhort Australians to pursue relations with Asia. These sentiments are represented in the 1988 Australia Day statement by the then federal Minister for Education that “our future is in Asia. We will either succeed in Asia or perish in it. We canot change the reality of our geographical position and therefore must face up to that reality and develop a positive strategy to ensure our survival and our future prosperity” (Dawkins, J.S. “Challenges and Opportunities: our future in Asia.” In Challenges and Opportunities: our future in Asia, edited by E.M. McKay, Asian Studies Association of Australia, 13-21. Melbourne: Morphett Press, 1988.).
Multiculturalism, largely built on European origins, will need to find a reconciliation or an intersection of interest with such economically driven regionalism.
114: The discursive emblem of the link between domestic multiculturalism and globalisation-regionalism is a new term: productive diversity. This rhetorical device has emerged from the Prime Minister’s Office of Multicultural Affairs.
Recent years have also witnessed a tardy and still incomplete but strong consciousness about the natioanl character of English in Australia.
A significant breakthrough in acknowledging Australian English has been the publication of the Macquarie Dictionary.
It is a dictionary of English from an Australian standpoint, giving Australian pronunciation, and listing Australian definitions ahead of English or American definitions where meanings differ.
Standard Australian English has also been expressly declared by the National Policy on Languages (as accepted in the Commonwealth Parliament in 1987) as the “shared, convenient and national language of Australia”.
In his highly critical piece on the elevation of Australian English to an official status in Australian language policy, Doeke (Doecke, B. Kookaburras, blue gums, and ideological state apparatuses: English in Australia, 1993.) argues that we should be sceptical of contriving nationalism via language.
116: The propagated norms of English in broadcasting and in education now derive almost exclusively from Australian sources, though North American influences are also evident.
The findings of the Enquiry into Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages Maintenance by the House of Representatives in 1992 concluded:
“there are a range of dialects of English known collectively as Aboriginal English. Abo English is regarded by linguistics as a valid, rule-governed language capable of expressing the wide range of human experience. The failure to recognise it as a separate dialect leads to several problems. Many teachers still treat Aboriginal English as an uneducated or corrupted form of standard Australian Englsih. Children learn best when the school makes use of their language development prior to school.
While Aboriginal English and standard Australian English are mutually intelligible there are major differences in vocabulary, grammar, meaning, sounding system, gesturing and sociocultural context.The committee believes that the failure by schools and teachers to identify, accept and take into account the separate features of Aboriginal English is a major factor in Aboriginal children’s poor performance in school, In courts and hospitals, the failure to identify and comprehend Aboriginal English significantly limits the effectiveness of those institutions” (Australia. “A Matter of Survival: Language and Culture.” . Canberra: House of Representatives Enquiry into the Maintenance of Aboriginal and Torres Strait Islander Languages, 1992:2.)
117: Romaine (Romaine, Suzanne. Language in Australia. Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1991.) comments that Australia is the first of the major Anglophone countries to formulate an explicit language policy.
In Australia, language planning and language-in-education planning have become remarkably well accepted. “English-speaking” countries have been reluctant converts to national language planning. In the past in Australia, language planning had been regarded in one or other of several, usually negative ways:
First as an activity of nation-building in post-colonial situations in which the imperatives of nationalism impelled certain countries to cultivate and carve out a role for an indigenous language to supplant the coloniser’s tongue;
Second, as a response from Australian public authorities who regarded language policies as an activity of no-English-speaking countries wishing to gain access to technical literature and specialized knowledge, usually in English; and
Third, as the continental European nationalist predilection for cultivating (and quarantining from borrowing) a language seen as culturally prestigious.
118: Children and adults who learn English as a second language do not have a mental tabula rasa on which English is inscribed. Their inevitable bilingualism can either be transition l and problematic or it can be assisted to become a stable, intellectually enriching, and socially esteemed accomplishment.

___ 1999. Discussion. Tokyo.

two types of language policy operate: the ideological one, as in the case of Israel and Sri Lanka, with a sense of belonging, of territorial rights, and the case of Englilsh as being imposed, a recurring specter in lots of places.
There is also the question of the capital represented by the second official language (in Sri Lanka, the Tamil and the Arabic in Israel), also involved in both countries are issues regarding secularity.
In Australia, unthreatened status of English which has allowed Australi to develop a language policy. English is “naturalised” in Australia.
This is far from being the case in the US, Also a struggle to become a citizen.
1956 in Sri Lanka: Sinkala only policy.
Problem of status for English in US where it was felt in need of being defended.

___ (2008), ‘Educational Linguistics and Education Systems’, in Spolsky Bernard and Hult F (eds.), Blackwell Handbook of Education Linguistics (Maldon and Oxford: Blackwell), 113-27.

Loban, Walter. 1966. Language ability, grades seven, eight and nine. Washington, D.C.: US Governement Printing Office.

quoted by Labov in Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press. As having made the mistake of taking black english vernacular as a disability of black children

Loban, Walter. 1966. The languages of elementary school children. Champaign, Illinois: National Council of Teachers of English.

quoted by Labov in Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press. As having made the mistake of taking black english vernacular as a disability of black children.

Lochak, Danièle. 1989. Les minorités et le droit public français: du refus des différences à la gestion des différences. In Les minorités et leurs droits depuis 1789, edited by A. Fenet and G. Soulier. Paris: L’Harmattan.

cité par Koubi, G. 1993. ‘Droit, Droit à la Différence, Droit à l’Indifférence en France’. Revue Trimestrielle des Droits de l’Homme.

Lockwood, D. (1996), ‘Civic Integration and Class Formation’, British Journal of Sociology, (47), 531-50.

quoted by Morris, Lydia (2012 ), ‘Citizenship and Human Rights’, The British Journal of Sociology 2, 63 (1).

Loewen, J.W. 1995. Lies My Teachers Told Me. New York: Routledge.

cité par Casey, J.W. 1998. ‘The Ebonics Controversy: Critical Perspectives on African-American Vernacular English’. The Keiai Journal of International Studies 1: 179-214.

Loman, Bengt. 1967. Conversations in a Negro American dialect. Washington, D.C.: Center for Applied Linguistics.

quoted by Labov in Labov, W. (1972). Language in the Inner City: Studies in the Black English Vernacular. Philadelphia, PA, University of Pennsylvania Press. As having made the mistake of taking black english vernacular as a disability of black children.

Louisiana, Association of Scholars. 1995. student services and the culture wars. 1 (Spring 1995).

LAS NEWSLETTER

Volume 1, Number 1, Spring 1995
by Paul Lewis

In the campus culture wars, many of the efforts of “diversity” activists to impose political correctness take place out of sight of
most faculty members. While anti PC faculty may be girding their loins to defend academic freedom or professional standards
in hiring, large and expanding areas of the administration are shifting the battleground to aim at influencing student thinking.
Almost every university’s budget nowadays provides for hiring more staff specialists in “student services,” a broad category that
ranges from supervising student activities to running dormitories and from freshman orientation to health clinics. Most of their
tasks are traditional and routine, but many offer opportunities for making students submit to PC brainwashing .

Tulane University has many such activities, though they get little attention from the faculty except for the multicultural militants,
who are eager to serve as faculty advisors. Sometimes an unusually outrageous effort by the PC bureaucrats gets reported in
the Tulane Hullabaloo. For example, the 5 March 1993 issue described how the Student Health Center’s “health education
counselor was going about the campus teaching students how to roll on a condom.

Being a female, the counselor could hardly demonstrate on herself, so she brought along “Fred,” a model penis, to show the
kids how it’s done. The program, called Eroticizing Safer Sex,” is usually presented in the dorms and lasts about 45 minutes.
“Fred,” you might say, is the “climax” of the presentation. To break the ice, students are asked to say the first thing they think
when they are told a word like “orgasm” or “masturbation “We try to make it as fun as possible, n said one Peer Health
Advocate involved in the program.

“Eroticizing Safer Sex” seems to be voluntary, but not all such PC advocacy sessions are. The 20 November 1992 Hullabaloo
reported that girls were required to attend a “Gay and Lesbian Awareness” program at Zemurray Hall the previous month. It
was arranged by a dorm counselor and conducted by a Tulane professor who is a prominent lesbian advocate. At the latter’s
request, attendance was mandatory. Many students complained afterwards about being forced to go, and also about constant
doses of lesbian propaganda in the dorm, sponsored by the Office of Residence Life. “I’m sure I’m one of the people they call
homophobic, just because I don’t attend Gay and Lesbian Alliance meetings,” one of the students complained, while another
said simply that “it’s being rammed down my throat since the day I moved in.”

My own involvement in this part of the campus world grew out of another Hullabaloo article, dated 5 November 1993, in
which a white freshman male complained of being required to go to something called “Awareness 101” during the fall
orientation. This program consisted of skits and monologues by blacks, feminists, and homosexuals who portrayed white males
“as sexist, racist bullies who spend their time sitting by the sidewalk waiting to insult female and minority passersby.” I decided
to look into freshman orientation and, through a couple of telephone calls, got myself appointed to the committee. Soon
thereafter I received a packet of materials to read before the first meeting, and so began my education in the slippery world of
Student Services.

The first thing I learned from my reading is that Tulane’s student programs run according to guidelines laid down by the Council
for the Advancement of Standards (CAS), which operates out of the University of Maryland (but funded by whom? the Ford
Foundation?) The CAS’s “Self Assessment guide pushes the diversity” agenda. Orientation programs must promote “the
capacity to appreciate cultural and ethnic differences” as well as the “clarification of values.” This latter does not mean reading
up on Plato and Aquinas but is really a “buzz phrase” for pushing promiscuity and perversity as acceptable “alliterative
lifestyles.” CAS also says programs “must provide to members of its majority and minority cultures educational efforts that
focus on awareness of cultural differences, self assessment of possible prejudices, and desirable behavior changes.” (My
emphasis) Not only must the university engineer desirable changes in students’ opinions and behavior but it “must provide
educational programs that help minority students identify their unique needs…and promote and deepen their understanding of
their own culture and heritage.” CAS points out that such programs require affirmative action hiring .

A perusal of last year’s freshman orientation program revealed how far Tulane already has clone to meet CAS guidelines. There
was a separate reception for “multiethnic” students and their families, separate “multiethnic” orientations and a separate
“multiethnic” pool party sponsored by the Office of Multicultural Affairs. “multiethnic,” I should explain, means “no whites.”
Feminists also sponsored several featured programs: one called “He Said, She Said,” another ingenuously entitled “Get
Acquainted Party for Newcomb Students Interested in Public Policy,” and, of course, the dreadful aforementioned “Awareness
101.” The Gay and Lesbian Alliance” showed the pink flag with an open house and another session called “In Queery: Films
and Discussion on Gay, Lesbian, and Bisexual Identities,” held at (where else?) the Women’s Center. And our ever busy
Madame Health Educator did her act at a presentation called “Sex in the 90’s: Making Choices. ” (No prizes for guessing the
politically correct choices.) “Fred” wasn’t listed on the program but. . . w ho knows?

The first meeting of the Freshman Orientation Committee was contentious, to say the least. shocked, angry faces stared at me
around the table as I launched an attack at the “multiethnic” activities, “Awareness 101,” and the absence of representation for
conservative student groups to balance off the feminists, gays, and lesbians. One woman defended “Awareness I01” by saying
that “only a few students complained,” forgetting completely her customary sensitivity to minority feelings. The Associate Dean
for Multicultural Affairs withdrew in disgust after a heated exchange and never attended another of our meetings. As for myself,
I left two hours later, emotionally drained, and would not have gone back either except that one of the students on the
committee urged me to keep attending.

At our second meeting we tacitly agreed to keep the controversial issues off the agenda and work on fitting routine items into
the orientation schedule. The third, and last, meeting would be the showdown; but, to my surprise, when we met the Committee
acceded to almost all my objections. “Awareness 101” was still in the program but would be described as to its content and
sponsorship (the multicultural Affairs Office) and made voluntary. The “multiethnic” pool party was turned into an event for ,11
students (although a segregated picnic was scheduled for Labor Day weekend), and conservative student clubs would have a
booth on orientation day, along with the multiculturalists. The special gay, lesbian, and feminist programs were dropped from
the official schedule of events, but it seems that this was due more to time constraints than to my protests.

It wasn’t a complete victory, but it was a partial one. We ended on a friendly note, and I was even thanked for my
participation, both as we parted and, later, in a note from the chairwoman. I learned later that the student services staff
members had actually met separately, previous to our last meeting, and had agreed to the compromises they offered.

Were these even real compromises? When I came back to campus in the fall, I learned that there had been some “adjustments”
to the orientation program. The “multiethnic” (no whites) pool party was held after all. On the other hand, “Awareness 101” had
been downgraded to the status of a voluntary event, with the result that attendance was way off. Most important of all, the
conservative students were fitted into the program although they were assigned a classroom in the basement of one of the
buildings to hold their recruiting. Fortunately we have an energetic, dynamic young woman as the head of the club, and she got
lots of posters out. She also lined up several faculty to speak briefly to the newcomers. As it turned out, over twenty eager
freshman showed up and volunteered to take part in various activities. The conservative students have already lined up a visiting
lecture series, were involved in the November election campaign, and have plenty of volunteers to write guest editorials for the
Hullabaloo’s op-ed pages.

On balance, we advanced a little on the PC trenches. Without a conservative faculty member on the Orientation committee, the
job of building a conservative student’s club would have been much harder. Now, at least, there’s an activist core ready to
expand into campus activities where student intervention may prove most effective. This fills a gap at Tulane, because
previously there was no organized student opinion. It has always been my opinion the Culture Wars on campus will be won,
not primarily by the faculty, but by the students and alumni weighing in more heavily on the side of common sense–sort of the
60’s in reverse.

In conclusion, I would urge anti-PC faculty on all our Louisiana campuses to look more closely into student life and to build-up
networks there. Next to brainwashed students, administrators prefer an atomotized and compliant student body. Let’s make it
hard for them.

Paul Lewis, Professor of Political Science at Tulane University, is President of the Louisiana Association
of Scholars and a member of the Board of the National Association of Scholars.

“Princeton is a wonderful little spot, a quaint and ceremonious village of puny demigods on stilts.”
Albert Einstein

HALFWAY UP THE TOWER REFLECTIONS FROM LAS VICE PRESIDENT

by Kevin L. Cope

Proponents of “political correctness” have long loved posterity. An upscale adjective, “post,” modifies their every word; hardly
a sentence escapes their lips without the mention of poststructuralism, postmodernism, postcolonialism, or conference banquet
postprandialism. Times, however, are changing post haste. Pressures from groups like the NAS, pressures from the starboard
drift in American politics, pressures from media exposes, and even pressures from Clintonian “change” are pushing us into a
post PC, “post postism” period. As we learn how to confront “PC” after the fact rather than as it comes along, NAS members
will want to adopt new, post cold war strategies for dealing with the academy and its errors .

In the fog of the post Reagan culture wars, combatants often lost sight of their goals. A posteriori, they sound more like
metonymical expressions of a desire for a fair treatment of our cultural legacy. The anti PC battle was always over truthfulness
and fairness rather than over particularities of course content. Very few “conservative” scholars would object to college courses
in third world literature if they could be assured that such courses would cover the full spectrum of interpretation and ideology;
almost all NAS members would scuttle courses in “classic” authors that were taught from an exclusively poststructuralist
viewpoint. As we enter the new post PC period, NAS members should work on insuring that courses treating the icons of
political correctness–the Toni Morrisons, the Phyllis Wheatleys–are taught from a variety of perspectives.

During the PC crisis, the need to maintain regimental discipline led to self stereotyping among anti PC scholars. True, the NAS
resisted partisan labels, but it was easy enough for outside observers to declare our organization “conservative, ” if only
because of its stiff self presentation. Few of our members sank into the pocket protector crowd, but many equated anti PC or
“conservative” convictions with a personal mien mixing exasperation with disciplinarianism–call it the “Bill Bennett style.” As a
result, some of our most potent if unusual allies were left without a commission. There was little chance that a lively libertarian
like Camille Paglia could fight too hard for a movement that prized growling moroseness. Today’s NAS members should
therefore commit themselves to championing eccentricity. In the long run, temperamental oddity is a far more effective weapon
against totalizing ideologies than is the promulgation of tedious treatises.

A commitment to eccentricity includes a commitment to the decentralization of anti PC initiatives. PC damaged different
disciplines in different ways. Its effects on political science diverged from its symptoms in philosophy; its influence over a field
like my own specialty, eighteenth-century studies, was less pronounced than its grip on such neighbor specialties as Romantic
or Renaissance literature. We now need less emphasis on PC in general, but more emphasis on PC in the sundry bailiwicks of
academic life. Diversifying our efforts will help us to deal with the difficult fact that departments, not institutions, control the
hiring of faculty, faculty who, in turn, set academic and curricular policy.

Perhaps the biggest problem of our post PC period is that of entrenchment. In most institutions, very few opponents of PC
have been hired in the last ten years. There is little chance that even a concerted campaign of anti PC hiring could produce
anything resembling ideological balance any time soon. New assistant professors who depend on middle age mentors for tenure
votes and other goodies may grumble about ideological oppression, but they lack the means to resist it. We could begin
working toward a solution to the entrenchment problem by creating decentralized institutes within universities (for example,
programs in the history of science or field groups in Micronesian studies). In special institutes, non conforming colleagues could
earn promotion points in exchange for work that breaks the boundaries of academic ideologies or that draws the attention of a
broader panel of judges than any one department can provide. Such a system would also encourage diversity) in hiring. An
institute on world religions, for example, could not function without hiring someone who was willing to talk about
Fundamentalism or Buddhism or Greek Orthodoxy or Islam in at least a minimally respectful way.

The fact that the PC issue has crepusculated out of the media spotlight may be a sign that a new day is breaking, that all is not
darkness. The PC clique in our profession is nothing if it is not faddish. The recent actions of its superstars tell a tale of things to
come. Celebrity ideologues like Stanley Fish, Frederic Jameson, and Henry Louis Gates are beginning to present themselves
not as the “cutting edge” of scholarship, but as monuments of a movement–as, as Richard Nixon said of Pearl Bailey, “national
cultural treasures.” Uncomfortably aware that their time is passing–that Demagogue Fish is giving way to Demagogue Newt as
academe slithers out of the PC bog–these trendsetters are choosing the museum plinth over the MLA podium. Perhaps the
millennium will unveil an amusing scene in which once mighty ideologues ask an organization like the NAS to guarantee them a
place in a fair curriculum, if only as canonical examples of tomfoolery.

Kevin L. Cope Professor of English and Associate Member of the LSU Faculty of Comparative Literature
at LSU Baton Rouge is Vice President of the Louisiana Association of Scholars.

“Every dogma has its day.”
Israel Zangwill

MADNESS A LA MODE

by Megan Conway

Once again, I am reminded that I am truly marginalized, that I am the Other. I must deal with the fact that I belong to a
despised minority: I wear high heels.

Not spike heels (no sense of balance and weak ankles, although I confess I give them a shot once in a while just to see if a
miracle has occurred). Just heels of a couple of inches, sometimes a bit more or a bit less. Actually, I like wearing heels I feel
they finish off an outfit and, frankly, the added inches give me a better perspective on the world. I nearly always wear them to
teach and don’t find them painful or uncomfortable. If I did, I would wear flats, and I wouldn’t be writing this column .

Don’t get me wrong: I’m not advocating regulations on footwear, but I do get fed up overhearing snide comments about how I
am shod. The one that set me off this time was volunteered by a self righteous fellow scholar approximately my own age. We
were in an elevator going from one conference session to another, and in the space of six by six, there was no possibility that I
was not intended to hear her critique. (Although how she could have seen my feet through the ten bodies that inhabited this
minute area still puzzles me.)

Over her hunched shoulder, I heard ” . . pitiful . . . some women . . . ruled by dogmatic fashion decrees . . . unhealthy . . . bad
for your feet. You get the general idea, as did I.

Although such insinuations as to my lack of independent thought act like a red (orange?) flag to my inherited Irish temper, I
graciously bit back a choice rejoinder about aficionados of drop dead ugly earth shoes, birkenstocks, and army boots. I, at
least, read Miss Manners.

Besides, have you ever looked around to notice just how many women choose to wear high heels? We really are in a minority.
But, then, I’ve always been Irish, too. And polite. (I’ve had practice at minorities . )

Perhaps it’s a matter of vanity. I can accept that, maybe even admit it. More likely, it’s a matter of quirky pride. But, though in
the minority, I am not alone. I’ll never forget that passage in Proust where the Duc de Guermantes expresses dismay at his
wife’s choice of formal footwear for that evening’s ball: to complement her red gown, she had chosen black heels. Of course,
he points out, as they return home so that she may change, she should have worn red.

Megan Conway is Associate Professor of Foreign Languages at LSU in Shreveport.

Evil does not prevail until it is given power.
Rabbi El’Azar

In Chachi Kamoye: In the Pride of Life

In Memoriam,
Arthur H. Scouten
1910-1995
by Laurie Morrow

Four men in pale shirts and trousers stare out from the sepia toned photograph. They stand in bright sunlight, outside a
rough-hewn building. It is 1938, in Hammond, Louisiana. Three of these men will end up in prison. The fourth, who has a
derringer hidden in his right pants pocket, became an English professor. His name was Arthur Scouten.

In April, 1987, Arthur wrote me to verify a minor detail in an essay of mine. In closing that first letter, he warned that I should
expect retribution from the powerful, politically correct scholar whose arguments my essay criticized. I thanked Arthur for his
concern, then asked his advice. Thus began a correspondence of almost a decade.

Arthur’s life reads like an adventure novel. Born in 1910 to missionaries in Kenya, he recalled with fondness “playing on the
long verandah on the Mission house in Kapropita with my little dog Kublackwait.” Though the Scoutens were people of
modest means, their work in Africa brought them in contact with interesting people. One evening, for example, Theodore
Roosevelt came to dinner. Mr. Roosevelt praised the unique flavor of the soup until the cook, flattered by Mr. Roosevelt’s
compliments, proudly explained that he achieved the special piquance by reusing the water in which he had boiled his socks.

When Arthur was eight, his father died. Arthur’s mother, then six months pregnant, traveled with him to Friends Hospital on
Lake Victoria Nyanza. Arthur remembers gazing up at the roof of a tent, around whose lodge pole coiled an anaconda:
“Mother picked me up & carried me to the doctor’s tent, while 100 natives killed the snake & spent the rest of the night beating
the bush, hunting for the snake’s mate.”

Suddenly impoverished, Mrs. Scouten returned to America with Arthur and his infant sister. Later, Arthur would attend LSU,
paying for his education by working as a laborer. Watching Arthur work, Huey Long nicknamed him “Joe,” an appellation Long
intended as a racist insult.

It was while working at one of his “real world” jobs that Arthur’s photograph was taken with his three ill fated companions.
When I came across the picture almost half a century later, I commented that they all looked like hard working young men.
There was more to that picture than was apparent, Arthur responded. All but he had ended up in prison for their involvement in
Long era corruption .

To illustrate, Arthur described how Huey Long directed George Caldwell to build a 40,000 seat football stadium in Hammond
as a device for distributing patronage for the Long faction; Arthur was made paymaster for the project’s laborers. Arthur also
recounted how then Governor Richard W. Leche (who ended up in the Federal Penitentiary in Atlanta) ordered Caldwell to
build him an imitation English summer house on Lake Ponchartrain, “using WPA workers for the labor, and having the lumber
and parts for the house charged to the Hammond stadium job. Though many involved in such corruption escaped punishment,
some, like Arthur’s companions, ended up in prison. Refusing to go along with this corruption, but conscious of the danger
posed by his knowledge of it, Arthur carried the concealed derringer.

After a distinguished academic career, Arthur retired from his post at the University of Pennsylvania to the outskirts of Pans
with his wife, Annick, and his youngest daughter, Cleménce. He was immensely proud of their talents and achievements,
especially in the world of academe.

One of Arthur’s few professional regrets was that he helped launch the career of one of the foremost proponents of political
correctness. Arthur was infuriated by what he considered the unprincipled careerism of his former student. He blamed himself
for having aided a man who seemed to desire wealth and fame above all other things, and who, to Arthur’s horror, had
advanced his career by publicly disdaining the very concept of truth and the principle of free speech. Arthur had never based
his generosity on any litmus test of political belief or social agenda, and he was horrified to think that he might have helped
someone opposed to free and reasoned inquiry.

Determined to help combat that which he feared he had fostered, the seventy and eighty-something Arthur opposed a new
form of corruption, the corruption of political correctness. Though elderly and ailing, he did all he could to oppose it, exposing
the specious reasoning of this former student and his ilk at every opportunity. Although bronchitis, emphysema, a troublesome
pacemaker, a broken hip, three broken ribs, complete blindness in one eye and blurred vision in the other progressively
rendered scholarship near impossible for him, he nevertheless remained vigilant, sending friends examples of political
correctness to expose and suggestions of worthwhile reading matter on the subject. When D’Souza’s Illiberal Education was
published, Arthur urged me to “Put it a rush order . . . and read it on arrival and made the book the focus of discussion in the
book club he had organized.

Whenever he mentioned a former student whose dissertation he had supervised, Arthur always indicated the numerical position
of the student in question: “Harry Pedicord, my second Ph.D.”; “William Ingram, my 32nd Ph.D.” “My students are all
numbered,” he once joked, “so that I can give the number to St. Peter at the Pearly Gates.” Arthur’s legacy as a man of
principle and courage extends far beyond his modest enumeration, to the many students and friends who share his belief in truth
and free discourse .

The photo of Arthur was taken in 1938–“when I was in my prime,” he had commented, adding, with typical ironic self
distancing, “In Swahili it is ‘In chachi kamoye’ ‘the pride of life.'” This was, indeed, a life of which one could justly be proud.

Laura Morrow: Distinguished Professor of English and Head of the Department of English at Nicholls
State University, is Secretary/Treasurer of the Louisiana Association of Scholars.
Seventh National Conference Set for New Orleans in December

Thomas Sowell and Shelby Steele Featured Speakers

The Seventh National Conference of the National Association of Scholars will be held December 12–14, 1997, at Le Méridien Hotel in New
Orleans. Some of us think that the opportunity to experience le charme traditionnel du Sud is reason enough to plan on being there. Then there’s the
attraction of Le Méridien, “Air France’s marble palace,” facing the fabled French Quarter, scouted and endorsed by NAS member Paul Lewis of
Tulane, and, according to our guidebook, patronized by Oprah Winfrey. As if that weren’t enough, we are fashioning a program worthy of the 10th
anniversary of the NAS.

This year’s conference theme will be Multiculturalism and the Future of Higher Education. While the ideas, attitudes, and politics associated with
multiculturalism have been marching through the groves of academe for some time, their step has quickened in the last decade as they
encountered little or no resistance in their path. We thought we’d embark on our next decade’s work of championing reasoned scholarship and
academic excellence by taking a good, hard look at the new multiculturalist dispensation and what it means for the fate of higher learning.

We are pleased to be able to announce our Keynote Speaker and the distinguished recipients of our National Awards. The remarkable Thomas
Sowell, Senior Fellow at the Hoover Institution at Stanford University, has agreed to join us in New Orleans to accept the Sidney Hook Memorial
Award, given at each conference to an individual who has made “especially distinguished contributions to the freedom and integrity of academic
life.” The Conference’s Keynote Speaker will be the esteemed advisor to the NAS and celebrated author, Shelby Steele, Research Fellow at the
Hoover Institution. The Peter Shaw Memorial Award, given to recognize “exemplary writing on issues pertaining to higher education and
American intellectual culture,” will be bestowed upon Mary Lefkowitz, Andrew W. Mellon Professor in the Humanities at Wellesley College, for
her book Not Out of Africa: How Afrocentrism Became an Excuse to Teach Myth as History. And we shall honor NAS members Thomas Wood and Glynn
Custred, co-authors of California’s Proposition 209, with the Barry R. Gross Memorial Award for their “outstanding service—through the medium
of the organization or responsible citizenship—to the cause of academic reform.”

In our next newsletter, we will present a full preview of the national conference. In addition to several plenary panels, we expect, as usual, to host
disciplinary subsections as determined by members’ interests. For now, we hope you agree that the distinction of our already announced guests
and the importance of the conference’s theme bode well for an exciting meeting of fundamental significance to the great work ahead of us.

Please look for registration information with the summer issue of NAS Update. And take a moment now to mark Friday, Saturday, and Sunday,
December 12 to 14, on your calendar.

past issues of newsletters
The March 13 Federal Register contains the long-anticipated final guidelines of OCR concerning sexual harassment. OCR is charged with
enforcing Title IX of the 1972 Education Amendments, which prohibits sex discrimination in federally funded education programs. The final
guidelines are a slightly revised version of two sets of draft guidelines issued by the agency last year. Ostensibly, they are intended to help
schools comply with Title IX and to prevent instances of harassment from arising.

What will the guidelines actually accomplish? Terry Pell, a former OCR official now with the Center for Individual Rights, said that the
guidelines could “energize” the existing efforts of heavy-handed harassment monitors.

Embedded within the guidelines are imprecise legal concepts that allow for open-ended interpretations of what constitutes harassment. A
“hostile environment” criterion espies harassment in a classroom environment that in some way limits (due to his or her sex) a student’s ability
to benefit from an educational activity. Also, institutions are alerted that they must investigate instances of harassment not only when they are
notified directly of such occurrence, but also if they receive “constructive notice.” Constructive notice is considered to have been given when
the school should have known about the harassment occurring in its midst—even if no one actually came forward. Thus, if a school fails to
detect an unreported instance of hostile environment harassment occurring on campus—or fails to investigate properly the situation or to levy
a proper punishment—the federal government may discipline the institution. The chief effect of these new principles, it seems reasonable to
say, is that institutions will feel pressure to step-up their own self-policing mechanisms, if only to prevent federal investigation.

NAS members took steps to convince OCR that the new guidelines could have unintended consequences. When the proposed guidelines were
released last year—and in response to urging from the NAS headquarters—dozens of members wrote letters to Congress and to OCR
explaining the weaknesses and abuses of campus harassment codes and describing how the proposed guidelines could make things worse.

OCR head Norma Cantu wrote a three-page letter to the NAS giving her assurance that the guidelines were based on “sound legal precedent.”
This is not reassuring, however, as it was Cantu who recently displayed a supreme indifference to legal precedent when she informed Texas
state officials that they could ignore the substance of the recent Hopwood decision, which outlawed the use of racial and ethnic preferences by
colleges and universities within the Fifth Circuit.

The new sexual harassment guidelines are available from OCR’s Customer Service Team at 202-205-5413 or 1-800-421-3481, which is also issuing
a pamphlet that conveys basic information regarding parties’ rights and responsibilities under Title IX—Sexual Harassment of Students by
School Employees, Other Students or Third Parties. These documents are also available from the OCR’s website at
http://www.ed.gov/offices/OCR/ocrpubs.html.

Lyons, Charles. 1997. The New Censors: Movies and the Culture Wars. Philadelphia: Temple University Press.

Lyons, Noel. (1984), Aboriginal self-government: rights of citizenship and access to government services (Kingston: Institute of Intergovernmental Relations).

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