Dans une certaine mesure, et assez adroitement d’ailleurs, l’un des derniers articles du très renommé International Herald Tribune (IHT) lève le coin du voile sur l’une des nouvelles réalités des sociétés occidentales contemporaines : celle des conséquences de l’intégration de communautés allogènes au sein de certains pays européens.
Dans le cas précis de l’article de IHT (Letter From Europe : European leaders face knife’s edge in Mideast), l’Allemagne et la France sont à plusieurs reprises citées en raison de la communauté musulmane qu’elles accueillent et, actualité oblige, en raison des tensions croissantes au Proche et au Moyen Orient (Liban, Irak, Iran). A lire Judy Dempsey, l’auteur de l’article, le poids de la population allemande et française de confession musulmane influencerait la capacité de Berlin et de Paris à agir librement au Proche Orient et à y projeter des forces armées, notamment en raison de sa grande sensibilité à l’actualité du dossier israélo-palestinien.
Que cet argument soit fondé ou non (sur les raisons éventuelles d’une non-intervention de l’Allemagne ou de la France au Liban, en raison de la présence d’un nombre important de musulmans sur leur sol), J. Dempsey ne fait qu’effleurer un problème bien plus important pour plusieurs pays européens.
En effet, au regard des événements qui embrasent actuellement une partie du monde, des effets directs qu’ils ont sur nos sociétés occidentales et du caractère exponentiel des phénomènes migratoires, il est urgent de s’interroger, avant toute chose, sur la capacité réelle qu’ont les dirigeants européens (supposés agir au nom de l’intérêt général) à pouvoir décider en toute indépendance, sans souffrir de l’influence de telle ou telle communauté (privilégiant la promotion d’un intérêt exclusif et particulier).
Une réflexion sur « l’autonomie de décision en politique » dans les pays européens est d’autant plus pressante qu’à l’horizon se profilent déjà des scénarios de crises nouvelles dont les conséquences sur la pérennité des sociétés occidentales ne peuvent être ignorés.
En témoigne ces quelques interrogations : Qu’adviendra t-il en cas de tensions avec la Chine ? Les communautés chinoises établies en Europe soutiendront-elles le pays qui les accueille ? De quelles garanties les pays de l’Union Européenne disposent-ils de la part des communautés musulmanes en cas d’une action contre l’Iran ou encore, d’un déploiement de forces européennes à la frontière israélo-libanaise ?
Par extension, il convient également de s’arrêter sur la définition précise de ce que sont la loyauté et l’identité.
Le bon sens voudrait que les ressortissants d’un pays donné (qu’importe leur appartenance religieuse ou ethnique) placent l’intérêt de leur pays avant des considérations d’ordre personnel.
Une fois encore, le bon sens laisse supposer que l’accession à la nationalité (qui permet d’hériter d’une identité, composée d’un sol et d’une histoire) conditionne l’adhésion de son bénéficiaire (la loyauté) à son pays d’appartenance.
En France, espérons que les débats à venir, en raison de l’échéance électorale de 2007, puissent permettre de répondre (de manière objective et sans sombrer dans la stigmatisation simpliste) à ces quelques interrogations majeures n’ayant qu’un objectif : empêcher la balkanisation et la libanisation que certains analystes annoncent déjà pour notre pays.
CT
Letter From Europe: European leaders face knife's edge in Mideast
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune - MONDAY, JULY 31, 2006
BERLIN Before the German cabinet met last Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel took a hard look at the Middle East. Literally. In her methodical way, she looked at maps that showed the border between Israel and Lebanon and the flash points between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Merkel then recommended to the cabinet that Germany not support the idea of a NATO peacekeeping mission in that war-weary corner of the Middle East.
Her view is shared by other European governments. Most agree that some kind of peacekeeping force will be required to help the weak Lebanese government and army to disarm Hezbollah, but not under the flag of NATO, because it is too strongly identified with the United States.
Berlin is skeptical, too, about calls by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, for an EU force. Last week, Solana, one of the few diplomats who knows all the leaders in the Middle East, kept repeating that he could put together an EU force. The reality is different. Europe has no stomach for such a force despite its strong economic and political ties to the region.
"This should be Europe's hour," said Jean-Yves Haine, security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Unfortunately, it will not be so."
Haine was making a bitter reference to the beginning of the Yugoslav civil war in 1991. Believing then that Europe could stop the fighting on its own, Luxembourg's foreign minister at the time, Jacques Poos, said, "This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans." It turned out to be a very rash boast. U.S. and NATO intervention finally stopped the fighting.
Europe is again going to need the United States to stop the fighting in the Middle East. And as in the 1990s, most EU countries will be unwilling militarily and politically to enter the fray.
"Britain is completely overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, an independent research organization in London.
Germany, too, is reluctant to send troops. Merkel told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the German Army was "overstretched." Another reason is Germany's Nazi past. "As Germans we should proceed in this region with utmost caution," Merkel said.
Spain and Italy, whose governments that supported President George W. Bush's war against Iraq were voted out, are hesitating, too, because of the big risks. France wants countries from the Middle East involved, including Egypt and Turkey, which said Sunday that they would do so under the right mandate. Russia, pushing its way back into influence in the region, is considering signing up as well.
Europe's qualms about sending troops go beyond being overstretched, beyond the past and beyond the fact that the United States has ruled out sending any. A NATO military officer said there was the deadly fear of dealing with the military wing of Hezbollah and its invisible state within a state. There are also fears of repercussions in Europe's capitals by disaffected young Muslims to the rising casualties. Above all, there is the yawning gap between the United States and Europe over which causes are at the root of this latest Middle East war.
Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, said any mission taking on Hezbollah faced huge risks. "The troops you send could become part of the war," he said in an interview. "The Lebanese government needs help. But if Israel wants the Lebanese Army to go down south, why does it bomb the bridges and infrastructure needed by the troops?"
Europe's governments are acutely sensitive to how their Muslim communities would react if European troops killed members of Hezbollah, leaving aside how Israel would react if its soldiers were killed by European peacekeeping soldiers.
"I am really afraid of the radicalization of the Muslim communities in Germany," said Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of Parliament and interior affairs expert in Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union. "There are at least 900 supporters of Hezbollah and 300 of Hamas in our country. We are being very careful."
France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, was more blunt. In an interview with Le Parisien, he warned that the conflict could ignite France's poor suburbs, populated largely by Muslims of immigrant background, which only last November exploded into widespread violence.
"It is a risk if it transforms into a conflict between a Muslim world that has the feeling of being humiliated by a dominant West," Douste-Blazy said.
But at the core of Europe's reluctance to send troops is the belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be settled before the fighting can be stopped. "The Europeans and Americans approach the issue from entirely different perspectives," said Perthes, the analyst in Berlin.
While both sides agree that Hezbollah was responsible for starting the latest fighting, the United States sees it as a war on terrorism while the Europeans think of it as an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The question is whether any European leader is influential enough to shift the U.S. position. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, claims to have a special bond with Bush, but it has yielded few results. Merkel, who has forged a relationship with Bush, has had some success - she convinced Bush during her visit to Washington in May that the United States had to start face-to-face talks with Iran to try to persuade it to give up uranium enrichment.
So far, however, neither Merkel nor other European leaders have publicly stated what most of them believe privately: If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be tackled, Arab countries in the Middle East would lose their main reason for loathing Israel.
"If the U.S. does not want a cease- fire that just means a return to the status quo ante, then the countries in the region have to have a perspective," Perthes said.
He said Germany and the EU should be pushing for an international Middle East peace conference to include all the forces and to deal with all the territorial issues. When EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday, it will be their chance to speak out and explain their analysis of the crisis. In comparison with the United States, Europeans may be short on military might and sometimes short on political will. But with the Middle East as part of their neighborhood, they will have no excuses this time.
E-mail: [email protected]
John Vinocur returns from vacation on Sept. 5.
Tomorrow: Raymond Bonner on Australia's plans for its vast uranium deposits.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/31/news/letter.php
Dans le cas précis de l’article de IHT (Letter From Europe : European leaders face knife’s edge in Mideast), l’Allemagne et la France sont à plusieurs reprises citées en raison de la communauté musulmane qu’elles accueillent et, actualité oblige, en raison des tensions croissantes au Proche et au Moyen Orient (Liban, Irak, Iran). A lire Judy Dempsey, l’auteur de l’article, le poids de la population allemande et française de confession musulmane influencerait la capacité de Berlin et de Paris à agir librement au Proche Orient et à y projeter des forces armées, notamment en raison de sa grande sensibilité à l’actualité du dossier israélo-palestinien.
Que cet argument soit fondé ou non (sur les raisons éventuelles d’une non-intervention de l’Allemagne ou de la France au Liban, en raison de la présence d’un nombre important de musulmans sur leur sol), J. Dempsey ne fait qu’effleurer un problème bien plus important pour plusieurs pays européens.
En effet, au regard des événements qui embrasent actuellement une partie du monde, des effets directs qu’ils ont sur nos sociétés occidentales et du caractère exponentiel des phénomènes migratoires, il est urgent de s’interroger, avant toute chose, sur la capacité réelle qu’ont les dirigeants européens (supposés agir au nom de l’intérêt général) à pouvoir décider en toute indépendance, sans souffrir de l’influence de telle ou telle communauté (privilégiant la promotion d’un intérêt exclusif et particulier).
Une réflexion sur « l’autonomie de décision en politique » dans les pays européens est d’autant plus pressante qu’à l’horizon se profilent déjà des scénarios de crises nouvelles dont les conséquences sur la pérennité des sociétés occidentales ne peuvent être ignorés.
En témoigne ces quelques interrogations : Qu’adviendra t-il en cas de tensions avec la Chine ? Les communautés chinoises établies en Europe soutiendront-elles le pays qui les accueille ? De quelles garanties les pays de l’Union Européenne disposent-ils de la part des communautés musulmanes en cas d’une action contre l’Iran ou encore, d’un déploiement de forces européennes à la frontière israélo-libanaise ?
Par extension, il convient également de s’arrêter sur la définition précise de ce que sont la loyauté et l’identité.
Le bon sens voudrait que les ressortissants d’un pays donné (qu’importe leur appartenance religieuse ou ethnique) placent l’intérêt de leur pays avant des considérations d’ordre personnel.
Une fois encore, le bon sens laisse supposer que l’accession à la nationalité (qui permet d’hériter d’une identité, composée d’un sol et d’une histoire) conditionne l’adhésion de son bénéficiaire (la loyauté) à son pays d’appartenance.
En France, espérons que les débats à venir, en raison de l’échéance électorale de 2007, puissent permettre de répondre (de manière objective et sans sombrer dans la stigmatisation simpliste) à ces quelques interrogations majeures n’ayant qu’un objectif : empêcher la balkanisation et la libanisation que certains analystes annoncent déjà pour notre pays.
CT
Letter From Europe: European leaders face knife's edge in Mideast
By Judy Dempsey International Herald Tribune - MONDAY, JULY 31, 2006
BERLIN Before the German cabinet met last Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel took a hard look at the Middle East. Literally. In her methodical way, she looked at maps that showed the border between Israel and Lebanon and the flash points between Israeli troops and Hezbollah fighters. Merkel then recommended to the cabinet that Germany not support the idea of a NATO peacekeeping mission in that war-weary corner of the Middle East.
Her view is shared by other European governments. Most agree that some kind of peacekeeping force will be required to help the weak Lebanese government and army to disarm Hezbollah, but not under the flag of NATO, because it is too strongly identified with the United States.
Berlin is skeptical, too, about calls by Javier Solana, the European Union's foreign policy chief, for an EU force. Last week, Solana, one of the few diplomats who knows all the leaders in the Middle East, kept repeating that he could put together an EU force. The reality is different. Europe has no stomach for such a force despite its strong economic and political ties to the region.
"This should be Europe's hour," said Jean-Yves Haine, security expert at the International Institute for Strategic Studies in London. "Unfortunately, it will not be so."
Haine was making a bitter reference to the beginning of the Yugoslav civil war in 1991. Believing then that Europe could stop the fighting on its own, Luxembourg's foreign minister at the time, Jacques Poos, said, "This is the hour of Europe, not the hour of the Americans." It turned out to be a very rash boast. U.S. and NATO intervention finally stopped the fighting.
Europe is again going to need the United States to stop the fighting in the Middle East. And as in the 1990s, most EU countries will be unwilling militarily and politically to enter the fray.
"Britain is completely overstretched in Iraq and Afghanistan," said Charles Grant, director of the Center for European Reform, an independent research organization in London.
Germany, too, is reluctant to send troops. Merkel told the newspaper Bild am Sonntag that the German Army was "overstretched." Another reason is Germany's Nazi past. "As Germans we should proceed in this region with utmost caution," Merkel said.
Spain and Italy, whose governments that supported President George W. Bush's war against Iraq were voted out, are hesitating, too, because of the big risks. France wants countries from the Middle East involved, including Egypt and Turkey, which said Sunday that they would do so under the right mandate. Russia, pushing its way back into influence in the region, is considering signing up as well.
Europe's qualms about sending troops go beyond being overstretched, beyond the past and beyond the fact that the United States has ruled out sending any. A NATO military officer said there was the deadly fear of dealing with the military wing of Hezbollah and its invisible state within a state. There are also fears of repercussions in Europe's capitals by disaffected young Muslims to the rising casualties. Above all, there is the yawning gap between the United States and Europe over which causes are at the root of this latest Middle East war.
Volker Perthes, director of the German Institute for International and Security Affairs in Berlin, said any mission taking on Hezbollah faced huge risks. "The troops you send could become part of the war," he said in an interview. "The Lebanese government needs help. But if Israel wants the Lebanese Army to go down south, why does it bomb the bridges and infrastructure needed by the troops?"
Europe's governments are acutely sensitive to how their Muslim communities would react if European troops killed members of Hezbollah, leaving aside how Israel would react if its soldiers were killed by European peacekeeping soldiers.
"I am really afraid of the radicalization of the Muslim communities in Germany," said Wolfgang Bosbach, deputy leader of Parliament and interior affairs expert in Merkel's conservative Christian Democratic Union. "There are at least 900 supporters of Hezbollah and 300 of Hamas in our country. We are being very careful."
France's foreign minister, Philippe Douste-Blazy, was more blunt. In an interview with Le Parisien, he warned that the conflict could ignite France's poor suburbs, populated largely by Muslims of immigrant background, which only last November exploded into widespread violence.
"It is a risk if it transforms into a conflict between a Muslim world that has the feeling of being humiliated by a dominant West," Douste-Blazy said.
But at the core of Europe's reluctance to send troops is the belief that the Israeli-Palestinian conflict must be settled before the fighting can be stopped. "The Europeans and Americans approach the issue from entirely different perspectives," said Perthes, the analyst in Berlin.
While both sides agree that Hezbollah was responsible for starting the latest fighting, the United States sees it as a war on terrorism while the Europeans think of it as an extension of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
The question is whether any European leader is influential enough to shift the U.S. position. Tony Blair, the British prime minister, claims to have a special bond with Bush, but it has yielded few results. Merkel, who has forged a relationship with Bush, has had some success - she convinced Bush during her visit to Washington in May that the United States had to start face-to-face talks with Iran to try to persuade it to give up uranium enrichment.
So far, however, neither Merkel nor other European leaders have publicly stated what most of them believe privately: If the Israeli-Palestinian conflict could be tackled, Arab countries in the Middle East would lose their main reason for loathing Israel.
"If the U.S. does not want a cease- fire that just means a return to the status quo ante, then the countries in the region have to have a perspective," Perthes said.
He said Germany and the EU should be pushing for an international Middle East peace conference to include all the forces and to deal with all the territorial issues. When EU foreign ministers meet in Brussels on Tuesday, it will be their chance to speak out and explain their analysis of the crisis. In comparison with the United States, Europeans may be short on military might and sometimes short on political will. But with the Middle East as part of their neighborhood, they will have no excuses this time.
E-mail: [email protected]
John Vinocur returns from vacation on Sept. 5.
Tomorrow: Raymond Bonner on Australia's plans for its vast uranium deposits.
http://www.iht.com/articles/2006/07/31/news/letter.php