MANIFESTATIONS ANTI-DAVOS EN SUISSE

"Des centaines de personnes ont manifesté samedi à Genève et Davos contre le Forum économique mondial, affirmant que les dirigeants participant à la réunion annuelle de Davos n'étaient pas qualifiés pour régler les problèmes du monde.

Des manifestants, brandissant des banderoles sur lesquelles on pouvait lire "Vous êtes la crise", se sont rendus en cortège jusqu'aux barrières interdisant l'accès à l'hôtel Seehof de Davos, où résident de nombreux dirigeants et chefs d'entreprise pendant le forum.

"Ce sont les mêmes qui sont venus l'an dernier et ont dit que la situation économique mondiale était bonne, et maintenant nous sommes en pleine crise financière. Maintenant c'est le contribuable qui doit régler le problème", fulmine Alex Heideger, membre du Parti Vert de Davos.

À Genève, où le Forum économique mondial a son siège, des policiers anti-émeutes ont eu recours à des gaz lacrymogènes et à des canons à eau pour disperser une foule qui s'était rassemblée sur une place proche de la gare.

Des témoins ont rapporté que les manifestants ne s'étaient apparemment livrés à aucune violence.

Le rassemblement à Genève n'avait pas été officiellement autorisé par les autorités locales.

Dénonçant elle aussi la responsabilité des personnalités réunies à Davos, Florence Proton, d'ATTAC Suisse, a souligné l'importance pour des voix extérieures de se faire entendre sur la manière de régler la crise."

Laura MacInnis avec Tessa Unsworth, Reuters Television, version française Nicole Dupont

Davos: enquête sur le retrait d'un drapeau tibétain d'une vitrine

Il y a 7 heures

"DAVOS, Suisse (AFP) -- Une enquête va être ouverte sur le retrait par la police d'un drapeau tibétain de la vitrine d'un magasin de Davos pour ne pas froisser le Premier ministre chinois Wen Jiabao, de passage dans la station alpine pour le Forum économique mondial.

Une enquête sera ouverte sur l'incident suite aux protestations de deux associations pro-tibétaines, a indiqué vendredi Walter Schlegel, porte-parole du gouvernement du canton des Grisons.

La Société de l'amitié Suisse-Tibet et l'Association des jeunes Tibétains en Europe ont dénoncé dans un communiqué ce qu'elles ont qualifié de "scandale".

La population tibétaine vivant en Suisse est profondément blessée puisqu'au Tibet, le simple fait de montrer un drapeau conduit à se faire arrêter, ont relevé les associations.

La tradition d'Etat de droit de la Suisse est bafouée si désormais il est interdit d'exposer un drapeau dans un espace privé, ont-elles encore fait valoir.

La police s'était présentée mercredi avant l'ouverture d'un magasin de souvenirs de Davos en exigeant que tous les livres du dalaï Lama, les ouvrages tibétains et le drapeau du Tibet soient retirés de la vitrine, a indiqué à la presse la commerçante Margrit Merz.

La police a menacé la commerçante de saisir les objets litigieux. Après discussion, elle a obtenu de pouvoir laisser les livres en vitrine, mais le drapeau a dû être retiré.

Pourtant, une centaine de militants pro-Tibet avaient été autorisés à manifester mercredi à Davos pour protester contre la venue du Premier ministre chinois.

Mardi soir, alors que M. Wen rencontrait le président suisse Hans-Rudolf Merz, la police de Berne, la capitale fédérale, avait interpellé des manifestants brandissant des drapeaux tibétains.

En 1999, la visite du président chinois de l'époque Jiang Zeming avait été troublée par des manifestants pro-tibétains, ce qui avait provoqué un incident diplomatique."

C'est vraiment lamentable!!! Tiens prends ça Wen Jiabao:

Noémie.

Leaving Fear Behind...

un documentaire très émouvant, a regarder absolument:

http://freetibet2008.tv

Noemie.

The View from the Stage

Judy Bond Interviews Radiohead's Thom Yorke
Source: Shambhala Sun

In the next world war/in a jackknifed juggernaut/I am born again/in the neon sign scrolling up and down/i am born again/in an interstella burst/I am back to save the universe.
--"Airbag" by Radiohead

Earlier this year my son Arthur introduced me to the British rock group Radiohead by playing their song "Karma Police." My curiosity about the Buddhist reference overcame my parental apprehension about his interest in alternative rock and what my husband and I perceive to be its associated vices. It's easy to forget that I survived a similar passion starting with the likes of Screaming Jay Hawkins and Clarence "Frogman" Henry on black radio in Norfolk, Virginia. This was in the days before Buddy Holly, Elvis and the Beatles.

Listening to Radiohead's CDs, I was intrigued by the band's ability to combine desolate lyrics with uplifting melodies. Any irony was overridden by the beauty of lead singer Thom Yorke's voice, especially when soaring in falsetto range. However bleak and cold the modern landscape sketched by the lyrics, a transcendent optimism, perennial as grass, emerged through the cracks in the cement.

I wanted to interview this thoughtful young man Thom Yorke and find out why he was drawn to the cause of Tibet. This summer's Tibetan Freedom Concert was the second he and his band had played, and on the second day of the concert, we were ushered into Radiohead's dressing room tent next to the stadium and introduced to Thom. I sat down beside him on the couch and my son Arthur took a chair. I took out my long list of questions; Thom said, "Blimey!"

--Judy Bond

Judy Bond: First of all, let me thank you as a parent.

Thom Yorke: Why?

Judy Bond: My generation has screwed things up.

Thom Yorke: (laughs) Yeah. I know.

Judy Bond: And Rome is burning.

Thom Yorke: Yeah. It is, isn't it.

Judy Bond: And so for us parents, I'm very grateful that you've become a light in the darkness. I worry about him (I motion toward Arthur).

Thom Yorke: (to Arthur) There you go.

Judy Bond: So let me thank you for maintaining your optimism.

Thom Yorke: Well, I've been reading a lot about the fifty years since the Second World War, about Western foreign policy and all that. I try not to let it get to me, but sometimes I just think that there's no hope. Then I realize, "Well, hang on, that's what they'd love us to believe." It's a fight, a mental fight. I grew up under Thatcher. I grew up believing that I was fundamentally powerless. Then gradually over the years it occurred to me that this was actually a very convenient myth for the state.

Judy Bond: So you've chosen to exert your power by helping the Tibetan cause. I understand you were very moved by the first Tibetan Freedom Concert you did.

Thom Yorke: I was very moved indeed. It came at a crucial point for us; it was the beginning of promoting our album "OK Computer." We were very nervous and didn't know what to expect, but when we came backstage, there was a little note saying, "Please leave your egos behind." That was a big thing for me. Coming from Britain, I was terrified of meeting all these other artists, because artists over there tend to fight with each other a lot, the premise being that there's not enough room for everybody. But we got over here and all the other artists were incredibly friendly.

Judy Bond: You spoke eloquently at the press conference about the plight of the Tibetan people. How did you get interested in the Tibetan cause?

Thom Yorke: Well, I really got interested in it when I bought a copy of The Tibetan Book of the Dead, translated by Robert Thurman. There's a great introduction to Buddhism in that, a good twenty pages. Then I read Sogyal Rinpoche's The Tibetan Book of Living and Dying, which didn't feel like a religious book in the normal sense. It felt like common sense from start to finish. I guess that's what wisdom is, really. It's the most extraordinary thing I've ever read.

The problem is, I cannot meditate. That's the one thing I can't do. That's the thing that's driving me nuts. I have a house by the sea, and I can sit and listen to the sound of the sea and eventually . . . but I can't really do it. I think there are lots of reasons for it. My excuse has always been that music does it for me. I think it does, but not often enough to justify saying that. It's the same kind of thing because you are not wrapped up in your thoughts anymore. So when it works it's really good.

Judy Bond: It was very good of you to break your holiday after the world tour and come back from England to donate your performance this weekend and appear tomorrow at the rally.

Thom Yorke: I couldn't have lived with myself if we hadn't done it. It's like trying to give something back after a year of taking and taking. For me and I think for most of the artists here, Tibet is the final test. If they let Tibet be wiped out then...

Judy Bond: This is not the first cause that you've promoted. There was something called Warchild.

Thom Yorke: Yeah, it's about the Bosnian crisis principally. Generally speaking I think that sometimes charity is cosmetic. I mean, the only reason the Bosnian situation got out of control was that the U.N. and Western Europe turned a blind eye. Leading up to the war, they kept having these talks: everyone turns up in suits with briefcases, including the Serbs, and just because they sat down at what the Western Europeans deemed their level, they were fooled blind. The Serbs committed mass murder, genocide, the most revolting crimes, but if they send someone off in a suit with a briefcase, then everything is fine. It's completely cosmetic. I think sometimes all the charities are doing is mopping up the blood. It's a shame. This is the black hole I always get lost in, so I'll pull myself out now.

The thing about the Tibetan cause is that it's a bit more positive--because of the nonviolence element and because there is no China-hating involved. Then it makes a bit more sense.

Judy Bond: There's a moral stance you take with your audience.

Thom Yorke: Yeah, which is dangerous. But there you go.

Judy Bond: Well, you're up there in a position where people listen to what you say. I appreciate that you do that for them.

Thom Yorke: That comes from my dad, actually. My dad spent his whole life getting into fights for telling what he believed to be the truth. Basically it comes from my dad--and he's screaming right-wing, so there you are.

Judy Bond: Going back to the nonviolence that's being promoted here, I've read that because of other children teasing you about your damaged eye, you had to defend yourself with your fists.

Thom Yorke: Yeah, again that's from my father.

Judy Bond: Looking back on those years now, how do you feel about the fighting?

Thom Yorke: (long pause) Well, it only dawned on me about six months ago that not everybody's against me all the time. It was something of a revelation (laughing) . . . that's all I can say really.

Judy Bond: How many of your fans do you think are interested in the Tibetan cause?

Thom Yorke: I don't know. There's something in the music about trying to validate yourself, and I hope through that they'll see why we're so interested in the Tibetan movement. I haven't really gotten any feedback from them, but that's why we've kept going on about it. Maybe it does some good or maybe it washes over people, but if it was me and I was getting newsletters talking about it, then I would probably try to find out more. That's what U2 did for Amnesty International during the eighties, and it really worked.

Our generation for so long has genuinely believed it has no power at all. Have you seen that Pepsi advert where they are all going "aaaahhhhh youth!!"(thrusts his hand out as if holding soda can) and they get their kicks jumping off mountains or something? That's the conclusion of something. I think we should move on from there. I don't think young people are as demoralized as the media and government would like us to think. The obvious sign of that is how strong and how close personal connections are and how much people are able to build a life for themselves, despite all this stuff that's been thrown at them.

Noam Chomsky has said that any member of society can change things simply by their consumer power. If nothing else at all, if you don't write letters or anything else, if you don't buy any of this stuff, the companies will freak out. It's that easy.

The next day at the National Day for Tibet rally on the Capitol lawn, Thom Yorke closes out the speeches by singing "Street Spirit." He shouts "Power for the people" and departs the stage. Sogyal Rinpoche takes the mike and leads the gathering in a few closing prayers, among them four lines from The Guide to the Bodhisattva's Way of Life:

"For as long as space endures/ And for as long as living beings remain/ Until then may I abide/To dispel the misery of the world";

and from the Four Immeasurables:

"May all beings enjoy happiness and the root of happiness/ May they be free of suffering and the root of suffering/ May they not be separated from the great happiness devoid of suffering/ May they dwell in equanimity free from passion, aggression, and ignorance."

Judy Bond is a writer based in Baltimore.

The View from the Stage, Judy Bond, Shambhala Sun, November 1998.

One Rainy Wish...

... J'aimais beaucoup cette chanson d'Hendrix a une époque, ça me fait très plaisir de la ré écouter et de la voir aussi brillamment illustrée :)

Gute Nacht comme ils disent en Allemagne,

Noémie.

Internet et la Chine

Haro sur Internet à Pékin
Mercredi 07 janvier 2009 / source France 24

Les autorités chinoises renforcent encore leur contrôle du réseau Internet. La politique, Taïwan, le Tibet et... le porno sont dans la ligne de mire de Pékin qui a une lancé une campagne pour "moraliser" le Web.

"Page indisponible", "connexion interrompue"... Depuis quelques jours, beaucoup de sites Internet ne sont plus accessibles en Chine. Résultat d'une nouvelle campagne menée en ce début d'année par les autorités chinoises et qui vise une nouvelle fois le réseau Internet.

Officiellement, il s'agit de "moraliser" l'Internet, mais sur les forums déjà on se défoule : "On nous empêche de nous exprimer", "Il ne faut pas confondre morale et censure", peut-on lire dans plusieurs messages publiés sur les forums de Sohu ou Sina.

Les autorités chinoises ont annoncé qu'elles renforçaient encore leur contrôle du réseau Internet. La politique, Taïwan, le Tibet et... le porno sont dans la ligne de mire des autorités.

Ce sont les deux moteurs de recherche les plus populaires de Chine, Google et Baidu, qui sont explicitement visés par la circulaire gouvernementale.

L'année de tous les dangers pour la Chine

Pourquoi ce nouveau raidissement des autorités ? Parce que l'année 2009 est une année de tous les dangers pour la Chine. On commémore les 20 ans du massacre de Tiananmen, les 30 ans de la naissance d'un mouvement pro-démocratique dans le pays et les 50 ans de la fuite du dalaï-lama du Tibet... Bref, autant d'occasion de manifester, ou plus simplement encore de s'exprimer. Sans compter la crise économique qui fournit un terreau favorable à la contestation.

Les forums internet sont l'un des rares lieux d'expression pour la jeunesse chinoise. Internet et ses 250 millions d'utilisateurs qui font de la Chine le premier pays au monde en termes de personnes connectées.

Malgré un semblant de relâche à la veille des Jeux Olympiques, beaucoup de sites sont redevenus infréquentables aujourd'hui. Et, le mois dernier encore, le porte-parole du ministère chinois des Affaires étrangères a réaffirmé que le gouvernement avait "le droit de bloquer les sites contrevenant au droit chinois". En clair Taïwan, le Tibet et les attaques visant le Parti communiste n'auront plus droit de citer sur Internet.

Utiliser Internet pour diffuser la bonne parole du Parti

La Grande Muraille de Chine existe également sur Internet. Essayez de taper "Tibet" ou "dalaï-lama" sur un moteur de recherche et vous serez automatiquement dirigés vers les sources officielles.

Mais Pékin sait également utiliser quand il le faut ce formidable terrain d'expression que constitue le Web. Le 23 janvier 2007, le président Hu Jintao avait annoncé la couleur : appelant les responsables du Parti communiste chinois à "étudier l'art et élever le niveau de la gouvernance en ligne et à utiliser activement les nouvelles technologies pour accroître la force de la propagande positive". En clair, utiliser Internet pour diffuser plus largement la bonne parole du Parti. Ainsi à chaque tension politique, comme récemment encore entre Paris et Pékin, les forums Internet deviennent un défouloir anti-français.

C'est un réseau Internet à deux vitesses qui est en train de naître en Chine : un réseau encadré, censuré et brouillé d'un côté. Et un policé et officiel de l'autre.

La propagande chinoise a encore de beaux jours devant elle.

Permaculture explained

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The Global Vision

There is an old saying: 'Civilised man has marched across the face of the earth and left a desert in his footprints.' (Carter and Dale, Topsoil and Civilization, p.6) Today, worldwide, on land once rich with natural vegetation, we see deserts denuded of their topsoil, deserts of salt-encrusted soil from years of irrigation, deserts due to widespread deforestation having altered the regional climate.

The problem from a permaculture perspective has been a lack of design. Agriculture, from its invention and reinvention from some 10,000 years ago onwards, has generally involved a crude process of clearing the wilderness and establishing a cycle of digging or ploughing, then seeding with a few useful species, primarily grasses,then harvesting the crop to feed humans and livestock - and the cycle begins again year on year until the land is exhausted - after which a new area of wilderness is cleared. Perhaps humans devised this system after surviving for a million years or so by hunting and gathering, and learning that regular firing of the undergrowth encouraged fresh sprouting pioneer species which were more nutritious for people and the grazing herds we hunted than did the stable, mature forest.

The solution from a permaculture perspective is to introduce design into agriculture in order to create permanent high-yielding agricultural ecosystems, so that humans can thrive on as little land as possible, thus leaving as much land as possible as wilderness, if necessary helping the wilderness re-establish itself. This visionary global mission is encapsulated in the word 'permaculture', a shortened form of 'permanent agriculture'.

In order to implement this global vision, we need local solutions, because every place on earth is different in local climate, land form, soils, and the combinations of species which will thrive. Not only does the land and its potential vary from place to place, but so do the people vary in their needs and preferences and their capacities. Every place and community requires its own particular design. Hence at the local level, permaculture designers often refer to permaculture as being about designing for 'permanent culture'.

The global vision can be lost sight of in the nitty-gritty of 'permanent culture' designing for local sustainability. But the vision is vital and can inspire us to keep going in the face of obstruction and apathy.

Bill Mollison explains
Bill Mollison explains why freeing land for wilderness matters even for those who think only people matter:

'Even anthropocentric people would be well-advised to pay close attention to, and to assist in, the conservation of existing forests and the rehabilitation of degraded lands. Our own survival demands that we preserve all existing species, and allow them a place to live.

We have abused the land and laid waste to systems we need never have disturbed had we attended to our home gardens and settlements. If we need to state a set of ethics on natural systems, then let it be thus:

1. Implacable and uncompromising opposition to further disturbance of any remaining natural forests, where most species are still in balance;
2. Vigorous rehabilitation of degraded and damaged natural systems to stable states;
3. Establishment of plant systems for our own use on the least amount of land we can use for our existence; and
4. Establishment of plant and animal refuges for rare or threatened species.

Permaculture as a design system deals primarily with the third statement above, but all people who act responsibly in fact subscribe to the first and second statements. That said, I believe we should use all the species we need or can find to use in our own settlement designs, providing they are not locally rampant and invasive.

Whether we approve of it or not, the world about us continually changes. Some would want to keep everything the same, but history, palaeontology, and common sense tells us that all has changed, is changing, will change. In a world where we are losing forests, species, and whole ecosystems, there are three concurrent and parallel responses to the environment:

1. CARE FOR SURVIVING NATURAL ASSEMBLIES, to leave the wilderness to heal itself;
2. REHABILITATE DEGRADED OR ERODED LAND using complex pioneer species and long-term plant assemblies (trees, shrubs, ground covers);
3. CREATE OUR OWN COMPLEX LIVING ENVIRONMENT with as many species as we can save, or have need for, from wherever on earth they come.

We are fast approaching the point where we need refuges for all global life forms, as well as regional, national, or state parks for indigenous forms of plants and animals. While we see our local flora and fauna as "native", we may also logically see all life as "native to earth". While we try to preserve systems that are still local and diverse, we should also build new or recombinant ecologies from global resources, especially in order to stabilise degraded lands.'

Bill Mollision, Permaculture: A Practical Guide for a Sustainable Future, p.6

Permaculture in Practice
Permaculture is about creating sustainable human habitats by following nature's patterns." It uses the diversity, stability and resilience of natural ecosystems to provide a framework and guidance for people to develop their own sustainable solutions to the problems facing their world, on a local, national or global scale. It is based on the philosophy of co-operation with nature and caring for the earth and its people.

A system of design
"Maximum contemplation; minimum action"

Permaculture is about thinking before you act.

Permaculture is not a set of rules; it is a process of design based around principles found in the natural world, of co-operation and mutually beneficial relationships, and translating these principles into actions.

This action can range from choosing what you eat, how you travel, the type of work you do, and where you live, to working with others to create a community food-growing project. It's about making decisions that relate to all your other decisions; so one area of your life is not working against another. For example, if you are planning a journey, consider other tasks that can be completed on the way to your destination (combining a trip to the leisure centre with buying food on the way home, for example).

It means thinking about your life or project as a whole system - working out the most effective way to do things that involves the least effort and the least damage to others, and looking for ways to make relationships more beneficial.

It is essential to observe your surroundings before making choices. Taking stock at the beginning of a project (whether it be building a house or planting a window box) of the available resources in terms of time, materials, skills, money, opportunities, land etc, and thinking about how these resources can relate to each other is a useful basis for designing a sustainable and effective system. To take the example of a garden - careful observation over the course of a few months can give information about the sunniest spots, the path of a neighbourhood fox, which areas are sheltered from the wind. Such information is not always immediately available, but can ultimately be very important.

A key feature of the design process in permaculture is "zoning". This is about placing things appropriately in relation to each other, and works on the principle that those things which require frequent attention are placed closest to the home. It is about using time, energy and resources wisely, which can be as simple as planting your most used herbs nearest to your kitchen, or as complex as planning a community.

Ethics and Principles
"If we want to move on and create sustainability and a more fulfilling quality of life, the best way to do this is to understand the nature of the world and to live harmoniously and creatively with it - to understand that we are a part of the web of life, not separate from it."

Permaculture embodies a system of ethics and principles that we aim to put into practice. These focus around sustainability and fairness, and are generally divided into three main categories:

Earth Care
Permaculture as a design system is based on natural systems. It is about working with nature, not against it - not using natural resources unnecessarily or at a rate at which they cannot be replaced. It also means using outputs from one system as inputs for another (vegetable peelings as compost, for example), and so minimising wastage.

People Care
People care is about looking after us as people, not just the world we live in. It works on both an individual and a community level. Self-reliance, co-operation and support of each other should be encouraged. It is, however, important to look after ourselves on an individual level too. Our skills are of no use to anyone if we are too tired to do anything useful! People care is also about our legacy to future generations.

Fair Shares
The fair shares part of the permaculture ethic brings earth care and people care together. We only have one earth, and we have to share it - with each other, with other living things, and with future generations. This means limiting our consumption, especially of natural resources, and working for everyone to have access to the fundamental needs of life - clean water, clean air, food, shelter, meaningful employment, and social contact.

Permaculture does not provide prescriptive solutions to the problems facing the world - nobody is going to demand that you put an herb spiral in the bottom left corner of your garden, or wear only hand knitted recycled non-bleached organic fair trade clothes. It is about allowing you the freedom to observe your surroundings, and make decisions that will work for you, in your situation, using the resources you have.

Self-Reliance and Community Sufficiency
"We try to empower people to take control of their own lives. If you can see something needs doing, then give yourself permission to do it"

Permaculture seeks to foster the skills, confidence and imagination to enable people to become self-reliant, and to seek creative solutions to problems on a global or local scale. While the individual has a part to play, in most places it is not realistic for an individual household to provide for all of their own needs in terms of food, clothing, work etc, and the emphasis is more on self-reliance and increased sufficiency within the community, rather than individual self-sufficiency.

In practice, this does not mean each person growing enough food to feed themselves in their back garden; it means that as many as possible of the inputs for a community (food, skills etc) come from within that community - perhaps in the form of community food growing schemes, Local Exchange and Trading Systems to exchange skills and produce etc.

Permaculture means different things to different people. One person may interpret it in a practical sense in terms of growing food, perhaps, while another will focus on a more spiritual side. This diversity is important; it helps to keep a sense of balance, and encourages people to share their resources and knowledge with others.

Working together is the key - it takes a lot of strain off the individual. It also is important to be well informed and if you can help others, spread your knowledge in return.

Source: Permaculture.org.uk