Ce froissement que vous entendez est le retournement de Lenine dans sa tombe
Je suis dans un cafe Internet dans un centre d'achats souterrain de luxe de Moscou, a deux pas de la place Rouge. Avoir un tel temple-bunker commercial jouxtant l'incarnation meme du communisme doit faire mal au myocarde proletaire de Vlad Illitch, dont le cadavre repose justement tout pres.
Ma premiere balade sur les rails slaves s'est deroulee adequatement, mais dans un sommeil trouble. Je suis bien sur tombe sur une des couchettes que le livre de culte Lonely Planet recommande d'eviter, de sorte que mes 53 compagnons de wagon qui allaient a la toilette pendant la nuit m'accrochaient un coude en passant. Je suis arrive un peu deboussole a Moscou a 5h45 du matin, le temps de tournoyer et de reprendre mes esprits, j'arrivais a 8 heures dans une auberge ultra-sympathique (ce qui permet de pardonner son prix prohibitif).
Etre sur la place Rouge est un sentiment envahissant. Ca fait toujours drole de voir pour vrai un batiment legendaire pour la premiere fois. Et ainsi je tombai hier sur la cathedrale St-Basile qui, incidemment, est reconnue tant pour ses tours d'inspiration orientale que pour son entreposage de BPC (c'est une blague). Elle etait tout ce que je me representais de la Russie, le reste ne sera que surprise.
J'ai pris contact hier avec a peu pres toute la communaute lavallo-universitaire en echange a Moscou, soit environ 25 personnes (!). Ils semblent etre de bonnes gens, vivent en residences dans la deuxieme universite de Moscou.
And so today, me voila qui visite le musee d'histoire national de la Russie, qui couvre en 38 glorieux halls l'historique entier de la presence humaine a Moscou. On y trouve reliques religieuses, peintures de Cath the Great, des uniformes militaires des vainqueurs de Napoleon, sans compter un video cool d'un australopitheque qui se fait manger la tete par un tigre a dents de sabre. C'etait un bel apres-midi, couronne par une visite a ladite St-Basile, et une petite sieste sous un chaud soleil de derniere journee d'ete aux jardins Alexandrovski, sous le Kremlin. Bon temps pour lire du Soljenitsyne tranquille.
Maintenant j'ai la peche, et je sais que je ne voudrai pas partir d'ici. Je suis un mauvais voyageur, je m'attache trop aux nouveaux endroits...
Et pendant que le compteur de Norvegiens qui sont surs que je suis juif commence a s'elever, en meme temps monte le compteur de pays que je comptais visiter victimes de coup d'Etat.
Comment on peut se sentir quand on est dans une reunion de chefs d'Etats de l'ONU et que, soudainement, l'armee prend le pouvoir dans ton pays ? Tu dois te sentir un peu loser en face de tous les autres presidents et premiers ministres. Je suis sur que le pauvre Thai se promene dans les corridors en pensant que tout le monde se dit dans son dos : "Aha, MOI mes generaux ont pas pris possession de ma tele nationale !".
Ma premiere balade sur les rails slaves s'est deroulee adequatement, mais dans un sommeil trouble. Je suis bien sur tombe sur une des couchettes que le livre de culte Lonely Planet recommande d'eviter, de sorte que mes 53 compagnons de wagon qui allaient a la toilette pendant la nuit m'accrochaient un coude en passant. Je suis arrive un peu deboussole a Moscou a 5h45 du matin, le temps de tournoyer et de reprendre mes esprits, j'arrivais a 8 heures dans une auberge ultra-sympathique (ce qui permet de pardonner son prix prohibitif).
Etre sur la place Rouge est un sentiment envahissant. Ca fait toujours drole de voir pour vrai un batiment legendaire pour la premiere fois. Et ainsi je tombai hier sur la cathedrale St-Basile qui, incidemment, est reconnue tant pour ses tours d'inspiration orientale que pour son entreposage de BPC (c'est une blague). Elle etait tout ce que je me representais de la Russie, le reste ne sera que surprise.
J'ai pris contact hier avec a peu pres toute la communaute lavallo-universitaire en echange a Moscou, soit environ 25 personnes (!). Ils semblent etre de bonnes gens, vivent en residences dans la deuxieme universite de Moscou.
And so today, me voila qui visite le musee d'histoire national de la Russie, qui couvre en 38 glorieux halls l'historique entier de la presence humaine a Moscou. On y trouve reliques religieuses, peintures de Cath the Great, des uniformes militaires des vainqueurs de Napoleon, sans compter un video cool d'un australopitheque qui se fait manger la tete par un tigre a dents de sabre. C'etait un bel apres-midi, couronne par une visite a ladite St-Basile, et une petite sieste sous un chaud soleil de derniere journee d'ete aux jardins Alexandrovski, sous le Kremlin. Bon temps pour lire du Soljenitsyne tranquille.
Maintenant j'ai la peche, et je sais que je ne voudrai pas partir d'ici. Je suis un mauvais voyageur, je m'attache trop aux nouveaux endroits...
Et pendant que le compteur de Norvegiens qui sont surs que je suis juif commence a s'elever, en meme temps monte le compteur de pays que je comptais visiter victimes de coup d'Etat.
Comment on peut se sentir quand on est dans une reunion de chefs d'Etats de l'ONU et que, soudainement, l'armee prend le pouvoir dans ton pays ? Tu dois te sentir un peu loser en face de tous les autres presidents et premiers ministres. Je suis sur que le pauvre Thai se promene dans les corridors en pensant que tout le monde se dit dans son dos : "Aha, MOI mes generaux ont pas pris possession de ma tele nationale !".
publié par Simon à
9:37 p.m.
5 commentaires:
Bon, bon, bon, je n’ai pas envoyé de commentaires depuis ton séjour à Riga. C’est qu’entre polémiques lancées et de partie expulsée, mine de rien, le cosmos coulant (cosMOSCOUlant) de la capitale lettone m’apparaissait plus fertile en jeu de mots que le rock de la ville de Pierre. Mais ne t’inquiète, je vais bien. L’étanchéité de mon âme-thermos couperait (therMOSCOUperait) jusqu’aux vaines idées, la plus suicidaire des démoralisation. (Comme tu peux le constater, c’est la forme ; quatre en quatre).
Je suis content que tu existes toujours. Non, mais c’est bien de se le rappeler, un accident est si vite arrivé. Je ne sais pas moi, tu pars en voyage, disons à NY, et puis, oups, coup d’État (comme nous le rappelait si bien Associated Press, « …le premier depuis 1992 »… euh, une quinzaine d’années de « démocratie », est-ce sensé être extraordinaire ?) ; ou encore, tu fais des élections et, je ne sais pas moi, tu te retrouves deux mois plus tard avec deux présidents ; ou encore tiens, tu organises une petite tuerie entre amis, et là, c’est le Québec en entier qui est tenu pour responsable… Bref, je suis content que tu existes toujours.
Pendant que tu te trouves à Moscou, j’espère que tu n’oublieras pas le CSKA et son trio de monstres brésiliens (entre autre Vagner Love, comment ne pas en pincer pour lui avec un nom si incitatif), de même que la Lokomotiv et son jeune gardien prodige de 19 ans Igor Akinfeev. Sérieusement, je crois que je t’en voudrais un peu si tu passais à côté d’une telle occasion. Parlant de sport, E. Malkin, est supposé, si n’est déjà fait, de faire ses débuts contre les feuillets publicitaires de Philadelphie ce soir. Ce qui me fait penser que EM arrive directement (bon via la Finlande) de Magnitogorsk, ou (désolé, ma touche u accent grave marche pas) il jouait pour le Mettalurg. Or, savais-tu que Magnitogorsk était une ville construite sur mesure pour l’extraction de son sous-sol, et que les plans de cette ville furent inspirés de ceux de la capitale américaine de l’acier… (suspense) PITTSBURGH. Et avec qui Evgeni M. débute-t-il sa carrière LNHienne, eh ?? Comment ne pas croire au destin après de tels constats ? Je sais que je me répète, mais tout est vraiment dans tout.
Petite question pour finir, lis-tu vraiment Soljenitsyne ou est-ce seulement pour me faire plaisir que tu as écris cela ?
C’est vraiment plaisant de te lire et d’avoir de tes nouvelles. Porte-toi bien.
Guillaume
Content de te savoir en aussi bonne forme, decidement ! Je me doutais que Moscou t'inspirerait. Je savais que Magnitogorsk etait un hellhole de l'Oural, mais le fait qu'il soit inspire des plans de Pittsburgh me sidere(urgie).
Pour le foot, je verifie les matchs du week-end, je te promets d'au moins essayer. Je suis plus un homme de Spartak, ne serait-ce que pour le romantisme du nom. Je crois qu'ils jouent tous dans le meme stade anyway. Les deux se sont livre un verdict nul de 0-0 dimanche dernier, je pense.
Peux-tu (ou qqn d'autre) trouver ladite chronique du Globe & Mail ou le Qc est accuse de former des tueurs immigrants et la coller ici stp ? Je voudrais vraiment lire ca et je suis paresseux...
Je me suis rendu compte que je possedais "Un jour dans la vie d'Ivan Dienissevitch" dont le titre russe, si tu te souviens bien, comporte un bon exemple de genitif. J'aime bien; je lis tranquillement ses 180 pages. J'ai vraiment un deficit d'attention.
Allez, c'est toujours un plaisir de te lire. A bientot !
Tel que demandé (les gens trouvent que tu as l'air juif ? VOyons donc !)
'Get under the desk'
JAN WONG
From Saturday's Globe and Mail
E-mail Jan Wong | Read Bio | Latest Columns
Montreal — At 12:35 p.m. on Wednesday, Pina Salvaggio got herself a cup of coffee, took out her bag lunch and sat down in her Dawson College office to correct some homework. “All of a sudden, I heard: bang, bang, bang. I immediately thought gunshots.”
Ms. Salvaggio looked out her office, and saw students milling around. “It's a joke,” one of them told her. She returned to her office and this time closed her door. Then she heard more shots, many this time, and she knew. She opened her door, saw two students standing in the hall, and yanked them into her office.
“Get under the desk,” she ordered. Ms. Salvaggio phoned Dawson security. No answer. And then she lost it. Like an extraordinary number of faculty at this university-preparatory college in Montreal, she had a child studying there, too.
“My son is out there,” she wailed, as tears streamed down her face. At 12:45 p.m., Ms. Salvaggio's son, Alexander Matthew, was just getting out of class. He took the stairs down to ground level. He had his head phones on and was listening to Sound Garden, a rock band. That's why he was quite startled when four or five girls burst into the stairwell screaming and crying. One of them screamed, “I've been shot.”
Related to this article
Two women pay their respects at a memorial 15 September 2006 at Dawson College in Montreal, Canada two days after a shooting rampage at the school. The shooter who killed a woman and wounded 19 left behind a web log saying he hated humanity and wanted to die young in a hail of bullets (AFP/Getty Images)
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“I thought they were joking,” said Alex, 19. “Then I noticed she was bleeding around the waist.”
The girls ran back into the hallway. Still not comprehending, Alex followed them. A staff member, whose office was across from the stairwell, heard the commotion and came out to scold them. “What the hell are you guys doing?”
“I've been shot,” the girl screamed. “Call an ambulance.”
Stunned, Alex began walking toward the atrium, inside the ground-floor cafeteria. Students were running from there as fast as they could. He inched closer.
“I saw two policemen,” he said. “They must have just arrived. They had their guns drawn.”
Cara Genest, 17, didn't hear anything either. She was standing near the atrium when other students stampeded past, shouting to get out. She ran outside, and saw someone lying in a pool of blood.
Upstairs, in another cafeteria, her friend, Erin Neilson, 18, heard the gunshots. “Somebody shouted, ‘Get out! Get out!' Everyone just got up and bolted for the door.”
This week, Montrealers were asking: Why us? Youths elsewhere in Canada are addicted to violent video games. Youths elsewhere in Canada live in soul-less suburbs. Youths elsewhere are alienated and into Goth culture. Yet while there have been similar high-school tragedies, all three rampages at Canadian postsecondary institutions occurred here, not in Toronto, or Vancouver or Halifax or Calgary.
“A lot of people are saying: Why does this always happen in Quebec?” says Jay Bryan, a business columnist for the Montreal Gazette, the city's only English-language daily. “Three doesn't mean anything. But three out of three in Quebec means something.”
What many outsiders don't realize is how alienating the decades-long linguistic struggle has been in the once-cosmopolitan city. It hasn't just taken a toll on long-time anglophones, it's affected immigrants, too. To be sure, the shootings in all three cases were carried out by mentally disturbed individuals. But what is also true is that in all three cases, the perpetrator was not pure laine, the argot for a “pure” francophone. Elsewhere, to talk of racial “purity” is repugnant. Not in Quebec.
In 1989, Marc Lepine shot and killed 14 women and wounded 13 others at the University of Montreal's École Polytechnique. He was a francophone, but in the eyes of pure laine Quebeckers, he was not one of them, and would never be. He was only half French-Canadian. He was also half Algerian, a Muslim, and his name was Gamil Gharbi. Seven years earlier, after the Canadian Armed Forces rejected his application under that name, he legally changed his name to Marc Lepine.
Valery Fabrikant, an engineering professor, was an immigrant from Russia. In 1992, he shot four colleagues and wounded one other at Concordia University's faculty of engineering after learning he would not be granted tenure.
This week's killer, Kimveer Gill, was, like Marc Lepine, Canadian-born and 25. On his blog, he described himself as of “Indian” origin. (In their press conference, however, the police repeatedly referred to Mr. Gill as of “Canadian” origin.)
It isn't known when Mr. Gill's family arrived in Canada. But he attended English elementary and high schools in Montreal. That means he wasn't a first-generation Canadian. Under the restrictions of Bill 101, the province's infamous language law, that means at least one of his parents must have been educated in English elementary or high schools in Canada.To be sure, Mr. Lepine hated women, Mr. Fabrikant hated his engineering colleagues and Mr. Gill hated everyone. But all of them had been marginalized, in a society that valued pure laine.
Mr. Gill, by all accounts a loner, was a high-school dropout who lived in his parent's basement in suburban Laval. He was 6 foot 1 with light skin, dark hair shaved at the sides and a penchant for all-black outfits. He had no job, but he owned a car, and he bought three expensive guns, including the Beretta, which retails for about $800 (U.S.).
In an on-line journal nine months earlier, he wrote that the day he planned to seek revenge would be grey. “A light drizzle will be starting up,” he wrote.
On Wednesday, it rained in Montreal. Mr. Gill donned black combat boots and a black Matrix-style trench coat, and drove his black Pontiac Sunfire downtown. He parked it on Wood Avenue, and pulled three guns from the trunk. He looked through the scope of one, and aimed it at a group of boys. They didn't run, and he didn't fire. Later, one of the teens said he didn't think the gun was real.
He walked past the Dawson daycare centre, which has 48 toddlers, and along de Maisonneuve. Students were smoking outside the main entrance. Mr. Gill, who did not smoke, shot two of them. Then he went inside, through a double set of glass doors, and straight ahead to the atrium. It was lunch time. He began shooting.
Richmond Lam, a photography student at Dawson, was eating a falafel sandwich at the Alexis-Nihon shopping plaza across from the college when students began running in. He went to the window, and saw people ducking for cover. He spotted someone bleeding on the ground.
Mr. Lam, who is 31, grabbed his cameras and ran to the street. He arrived just as the two police officers were running in. He took a few photographs before a Dawson staff member pushed him back. “Go back in the building!” the staffer ordered.
Maro Barcarolo and Denis Côté, the police officers, were at Dawson on a routine call, possibly drug-related. They followed Mr. Gill inside the cafeteria. He had been shooting a Beretta CX4 Storm 9 mm semi-automatic. In minutes, he had shot 18 people. One was a 48-year-old Dawson plant-facilities worker, who hasn't been identified, who was trying to shelter a student. Another was a student named Anastasia De Sousa.
Mr. Gill shot her. Stacy, as her friends call her, collapsed. James Santos, a fellow student and friend, tried to drag her behind a serving area. Stacy moaned. “Is she alive?” the killer asked James, who is 17.
“He said, ‘Today is the day she's going to die,” James told the French-language daily, Le Journal de Montreal. Then the killer pumped more bullets into her. Upstairs, Ms. Salvaggio heard the shots. Because the atrium allows noise to float to the top floors, she thought the killer was right outside her office. The female student had taken refuge under one desk. She was silent. The boy student sat, on the ground, his back against the door. He was apparently trying to protect the two females. If the killer tried to get in, he would hold the door shut.
Weeping, and sitting under her desk, Ms. Salvaggio feared she might not get through to 911. But she had faith in her office mate, a calm, efficient teacher whose son is now at the University of Ottawa. Ms. Salvaggio called her colleague at home. “They're shooting here!” she screamed. “Call the police! My son is in the building.”
Tears streaming down her face, she told the students they should call their parents. Then she opened her laptop and tried to figure out her son's Wednesday schedule. At 1:49 p.m., an e-mail popped up from one of her students. “Miss,” it read. “They're shooting. Do we still have the 2 p.m. class?”
Meanwhile, Ms. Salvaggio's colleague, who asked not to be named, dialled 911. At 12:51 p.m., 911 was jammed. She was put on hold for two minutes — she knows because she watched the timer on her phone — and then the operator transferred her — and disconnected her. She redialled and screamed, “There's a gunman at Dawson College!” Then she called Ms. Salvaggio back and said, “Turn off the lights and close the blinds.”
Two floors below, Alex was craning his neck, trying to figure out why everyone was tearing out of the cafeteria. He saw officers Barcarolo and Côté train their guns on something. “That's when I decided it was a smart idea to move back from there.”
Someone slapped him on the back. “Hey,” said a classmate he knows only as Shane. He had just come out of the washroom, and was heading for the cafeteria. Teens have always tuned out the rest of the world, but now they have electronic help. The Dawson College shootings may be the first one in which many students remained clueless a painfully long time because they were listening to iPods.
Alex realized Shane was wearing his iPod, and hadn't heard a thing. He caught up with his classmate, and pulled him back. When other students stampeded past them, they ran, too. Everyone ended up in a computer lab where a class was in disarray.
It wasn't the wisest refuge. For security reasons — security of the equipment — that is, the computer lab had three vast windows that looked onto the hall. All 50 or so students hit the floor, everyone that is, except for a couple of students who continued working at their computers. Were they Asian?
“Everyone asks me that,” says Alex laughing, much later, from the safety of his home. “One was a white guy who was writing an essay. The other was a black guy who was searching the Internet.”
His friend Shane had left several friends in the cafeteria. Still prone on the floor, he called his friend, Vince. “Dude, are you still there?” Shane asked. Alex didn't know what Vince said, but Shane replied, “Shit! Good luck!” And then, inexplicably, Shane left the relative safety of the computer room and went back to the atrium.
The two police officers had radioed for back-up before they went in. Now, with Mr. Gill trying to use Stacy's friend, James, as a human shield, Officer Barcarolo fired shots high, trying to draw the killer's attention. Mr. Gill hid behind some vending machines on the south side of the cafeteria. Then he pointed at two students, possibly planning to take them as hostages.
“He cried, ‘Come here, come here,'” said one unnamed witness, quoted in Le Journal. “The police officer screamed, “No, no, don't go there.” Officer Côté, who was crouching on the ground, took advantage of the momentary distraction and fired several shots. One of them hit the killer in the right arm. Mr. Gill then pointed his own gun under his chin, and shot himself.
At 1:15 p.m., someone opened the door of the computer lab. A hand poked through, pointing a gun. Everyone screamed. Then they saw the blue uniform. “Go outside and down the hall,” the police officer ordered. “Don't run.”
Alex and the students, meek and obedient, walked as fast as they could without actually breaking into a run. Outside, the SWAT team was just arriving. “Go, go, go! Get out of here!” the police ordered. The students broke into the run of their lives. Once 15 blocks from Dawson, Alex tried to remember his mother's Wednesday schedule. He thought she was home. He called and left a message: “I'm fine. Don't go to school.”
Upstairs, Ms. Salvaggio called her colleague again. “Call the police!” she screamed. “They're on their way,” her colleague said. “Don't move.”
The young woman under the desk finally opened her mouth. “Miss, I think we should all be quiet. And I think he should move away from the door,” she said quietly, pointing at the boy student who was sitting with his back to the door.
The shooting continued. Suddenly there was silence. Ms. Salvaggio peeked out her door. She saw a policeman in the hall and stepped out.
“Get back in, ma'am,” he told her. The police were going from room to room, evacuating each, one at a time. They weren't sure if Mr. Gill had any accomplices. When Ms. Salvaggio finally got the all-clear, she told the students, whose names she never got, to leave. Normally a chic woman, Ms. Salvaggio looked a wreck. She realized she should have been helping the students. Instead, they were helping her.
“Miss, do you want me to carry your purse?” the boy inquired as they were leaving her office.
“No, just run,” she said, wiping her tears. If Montrealers are asking, why Montreal, then Dawson students and teachers are asking, why Dawson? The college offers the equivalent of what, in the rest of Canada, would be Grade 12 and 13. It is a CEGEP, which stands for Collège d'Enseignement Général et Professionel. Unique to Quebec, it prepares those in their late teens and above for university and technical schools.
Mr. Gill had no known connection to Dawson. But it was one of only five English CEGEPs in the Montreal area. And Dawson was the biggest and most famous, with 10,000 full- and part-time students and 1,500 faculty and other staff. Also, it was downtown, which was cool, physically straddling Montreal and that bastion of English Quebec, Westmount. Mr. Gill, who said he had been bullied at school, despised his peers. But a high school was no longer the right demographic for him.
Dawson probably looked tempting. Unlike McGill University or Concordia or the University of Montreal, it is housed in one massive, interconnected building, one million square feet in area. At noon, the students congregate in only two places, an upstairs cafeteria and the ground-floor one, conveniently located just off the main entrance.
Mr. Gill's rampage has resonated through the anglophone community. Although Montreal is a big city, English-speaking Montreal is not. It is more like a small town, where everyone knows everyone else. And because English-speaking high-school graduates must go through the CEGEP system before university, Dawson funnels anglophone kids from across the city into one institution.
“I went to Dawson,” said Nancy Essebag, a waitress at Mesquite, a restaurant in the largely anglophone district of N.D.G. She was serving lunch to Ms. Salvaggio and her office mate yesterday before they headed to the college for their first post-rampage meeting.
“I go to Dawson now,” said Jeremy Cantor, 19, who overheard Ms. Essebag. He was lunching at another table. He hadn't been at school that day, but his dining companion, Joel Suss, had. Mr. Suss, 19, attends another CEGEP, but had gone to Dawson to hang out with friends. Like Erin Neilson, he had been in the upstairs cafeteria when the shootings happened.
At the Montreal Gazette newspaper, the news didn't break the traditional way, through a tip. Reporters found out after the daughter of an employee in reader sales called in hysterics. A Gazette reporter, Susan Semenak, wrote a first-person story about how she panicked when her 17-year-old daughter phoned to say she was barricaded behind tables.
At Lower Canada College, an English private school in N.D.G., the headmaster announced the news and told the students that anyone with a connection to Dawson could make calls. The majority of the students did. “We talked about it in class. One of my Grade 5 students has a friend at Dawson who had a gun pointed at his head,” said Laura Mesthene, a teacher at Roslin Elementary School in Westmount.
All Dawson kids interviewed on French media seemed able to speak passable French.
Still, some people felt hurt when the director general of Dawson held a press conference the day after the shootings, and answered questions only in French. “It's an English-language CEGEP, and some of the parents don't understand French,” one Dawson teacher said crossly.
After he committed suicide, Mr. Gill's lifeless, bloodied body was dragged onto the street. Mr. Lam, the photography student, shot pictures through the glass window of the shopping plaza's food court. Stacy's body remained inside the cafeteria for hours. Other students were variously shot in the chest, leg, arm, abdomen and the head. Two remain in critical condition, including one who is in a coma.
Alex's friend, Shane, and his buddies in the atrium cafeteria, all got out safely. Ms. Salvaggio was allowed to return to her office yesterday. In the classroom opposite her office, the desks were piled against the door. Ms. Salvaggio dumped out her coffee and retrieved her laptop. When the phone rang, she couldn't find it at first. It was still under her desk.
Mr. Lam's photographs were published in the Ottawa Citizen, the National Post and the Gazette this week.
The day after the shootings, he was taking pictures of tearful students dropping off flowers and cards. Erin and Cara came with their friends, Rebecca Watkins, 19, and Carleigh Moore, 18, carrying bouquets of red carnations.
“One of the girls shot, Lisa Mezzacappa, was in a few of my classes. She was shot in the leg. She's fine. I saw her on the news.”
Rebecca wasn't fine, though. “We go here every day, and yesterday we weren't safe.” She began to cry. Erin cried, too. The girls hugged each other. Mr. Lam took their pictures.
Later, he said his parents were proud that he had gotten his photos published. But they had also been extremely worried. “They said, ‘Next time, don't worry about taking photos.'”
Mr. Lam isn't sure how he feels about going back. “As a photography student interested in photojournalism, I couldn't have been in a better place. But this is my school. I'm still trying to make sense of everything.”
L'article m'a secoué (dit vite et en avalant l'e). Pour ton bénéfice, et en constatant que "pure laine" ne s'emploie plus dans la preses francophone québécoise que pour citer la presse anglophone canadienne et en digressant en masse pour avouer publiquement ma volonté de voir Latendresse jouer à Montréal du moins pour le début de la saison (eh oui, je suis Québécois, faut ben que mon messianisme ressorte de temps en temps), je colle ici cet éditorial de Djay-Are Sansfaçon. Je le trouve excellent : un argumentaire juste sur l'inconstance de la presse anglophone avec juste ce qu'il faut d'émotion pour faire vibrer la petite corde sensible qu'on oublie parfois, mais qui subsiste et qui nous fait nous rappeler, de temps en temps, qu'Amos coule au milieu du Lac Léman.
Descendons au fond des choses :
Si on en croit un éditorial du quotidien torontois The Globe and Mail publié hier, l'affaire Wong, du nom de sa journaliste-vedette, serait «a small uproar over a provocative question». Traduction libre: une petite commotion suscitée par une question provocante. Commotion, certes, mais petite, certainement pas!
Il est rare que deux premiers ministres prennent la peine de réagir par écrit aux propos d'un journaliste. C'est pourtant ce qui vient de se produire à la suite de la publication de cet article du Globe and Mail associant les tueries de Polytechnique, de Concordia et de Dawson à une supposée marginalisation des non-francophones «dans une société qui valorise les "pure-laine"».
Évidemment, du côté tant de M. Charest que de M. Harper, on a voulu profiter de l'occasion pour prouver aux francophones du Québec qu'il n'est pas nécessaire d'être souverainiste pour se porter à la défense de leurs intérêts. Il s'en trouvera d'ailleurs pour n'y voir que pure récupération électoraliste aux dépens d'une pauvre journaliste, et ces gens n'auront pas tout à fait tort.
Cela étant, les deux premiers ministres ont raison sur le fond puisque, sous le couvert de multiculturalisme bon ton à la mode chez nos élites fédéralistes, les propos de Mme Wong sombrent dans le délire. Affirmer comme elle le fait que «n'importe où, parler de pureté raciale est répugnant, [mais] pas au Québec», cela tient non seulement de la généralisation à outrance mais du préjugé racial primaire. Ceux qui en doutent n'ont qu'à faire le bon vieux test: «N'importe où, parler de pureté raciale est répugnant, [mais] pas à Toronto», ou «pas chez les musulmans», ou «pas chez les Chinois du Canada».
En refusant de reconnaître que les propos de sa journaliste n'étaient pas des questions mais des réponses toutes faites construites sur des préjugés antifrancophones, le Globe contribue à la guerre larvée menée par la presse torontoise contre les revendications du Québec depuis l'échec du dernier référendum. Une majorité de Québécois se dit en désaccord avec le port du kirpan à l'école? Voilà une preuve d'intolérance à l'endroit des minorités religieuses. L'Assemblée nationale adopte à l'unanimité une motion rejetant la création de tribunaux islamiques? Le Globe crie à «l'inimitié à l'endroit des musulmans», au «manque de respect pour la foi et le pluralisme», avant de conclure ex-cathedra: «It is un-Canadian.»
Pourtant, lorsque l'Ontario décide d'emprunter le même chemin quelques mois plus tard, c'est avec compréhension cette fois-ci que le Globe accorde son appui au gouvernement McGuinty en expliquant que «les Canadiens croient dans l'importance des valeurs communes, des droits des femmes et de l'égalité devant la loi». En somme, si les Québécois disent non, c'est qu'ils sont intolérants, alors que si l'Ontario suit la même ligne, c'est qu'il respecte les valeurs canadiennes d'égalité...
En se portant à la défense de sa journaliste dans son édition d'hier, le Globe affirmait trouver normal qu'on «pose des questions difficiles et explore des avenues inconfortables». Qu'est-ce à dire? Qu'on peut affirmer sans preuve que le Québec est une société qui tolère le racisme puisque cela constitue tout au plus une avenue d'explication «inconfortable»?
Samedi dernier, le jour même où paraissaient les propos de Mme Wong, l'éditorial du Globe blâmait le premier ministre Jean Charest de réclamer le maintien du registre des armes à feu. Il n'y a aucun lien entre le registre et le crime, écrivait-on. La loi 101 et le crime, oui, mais l'enregistrement des armes, non? «Inconfortables», dites-vous?
Nos collègues du Globe ne s'excuseront pas, c'est leur choix. Mais ils devraient avoir la décence de reconnaître que leur maladresse intellectuelle cache un brin de cette condescendance paternaliste que cultivent malgré eux toutes les sociétés majoritaires à l'endroit des minorités, ce que sont toujours les Québécois au sein du Canada. Cela ne fera pas oublier leur mépris, mais ce sera toujours ça de pris.
Répéter la dernière phrase plusieurs fois à voix haute permet d'entrer dans une trance nationaliste, même dans une place rouge comme Westmount.
Merci a vous deux. C'est vraiment terrible. Belle facon de commencer une argumentation avec une conclusion toute faite, et surtout d'apporter absolument AUCUN argument soutenant la these.
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