La mémoire longue de Tom Engelhardt

La mémoire longue de Tom Engelhardt

Le 24 février 2011, sur son site TomDispatch.com, une excellente chronique de Tom Engelhardt. Il s’agit d’une description du moment historique que nous vivons, – «a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history»…, – marqué a contrario et sans surprise par la plus complète (globale ?) incompréhension de la part des autorités qui prétendent inspirer et diriger le monde. (Engelhardt cite Washington et s’étend sur le cas, mais il pourrait également nommer quelques capitales européennes ; Paris occuperait une place de choix.)

Dans sa description de ce “moment global”, Engelhardt ne manque évidemment pas de lier les événements du Moyen-Orient proprement dits, et ceux qui les accompagnent hors de cette région, notamment Madison dans le Wisconsin. (A noter, sa référence à un échange Twitter à partir d’une photo prise en Egypte et montrant une pancarte portée par un manifestant, avec l’inscription «Egypt Supports Wisconsin Workers». La qualité de l’appréciation historique des événements par Engelhardt est très grande, notamment ses références à de grands événements historiques significatifs. (Référence à 1776 et à 1789, ce qui nous va parfaitement, et encore mieux si l’on y ajoute la forme économique dite du “choix de feu” que représente le Moyen-Orient en cours de destruction, c’est-à-dire un immense champ pétrolifère exploité d’une manière inique par les américanistes-occidentalistes.)

«This is a global moment unlike any in memory, perhaps in history. Yes, comparisons can be made to the wave of people power that swept Eastern Europe as the Soviet Union collapsed in 1989-91. For those with longer memories, perhaps 1968 might come to mind, that abortive moment when, in the United States, France, Germany, Japan, Mexico, Brazil, and elsewhere, including Eastern Europe, masses of people mysteriously inspired by each other took to the streets of global cities to proclaim that change was on the way.

»For those searching the history books, perhaps you’ve focused on the year 1848 when, in a time that also mixed economic gloom with novel means of disseminating the news, the winds of freedom seemed briefly to sweep across Europe. And, of course, if enough regimes fall and the turmoil goes deep enough, there’s always 1776, the American Revolution, or 1789, the French one, to consider. Both shook up the world for decades after.

»But here’s the truth of it: you have to strain to fit this Middle Eastern moment into any previous paradigm, even as – from Wisconsin to China – it already threatens to break out of the Arab world and spread like a fever across the planet. Never in memory have so many unjust or simply despicable rulers felt quite so nervous – or possibly quite so helpless (despite being armed to the teeth) – in the presence of unarmed humanity. And there has to be joy and hope in that alone.

»Even now, without understanding what it is we face, watching staggering numbers of people, many young and dissatisfied, take to the streets in Morocco, Mauritania, Djibouti, Oman, Algeria, Jordan, Iraq, Iran, Sudan, Yemen, and Libya, not to mention Bahrain, Tunisia, and Egypt, would be inspirational. Watching them face security forces using batons, tear gas, rubber bullets, and in all too many cases, real bullets (in Libya, even helicopters and planes) and somehow grow stronger is little short of unbelievable. Seeing Arabs demanding something we were convinced was the birthright and property of the West, of the United States in particular, has to send a shiver down anyone’s spine.

»The nature of this potentially world-shaking phenomenon remains unknown and probably, at this point, unknowable. Are freedom and democracy about to break out all over? And if so, what will that turn out to mean? If not, what exactly are we seeing? What light bulb was it that so unexpectedly turned on in millions of Twittered and Facebooked brains – and why now? I doubt those who are protesting, and in some cases dying, know themselves. And that’s good news. That the future remains – always – the land of the unknown should offer us hope, not least because that's the bane of ruling elites who want to, but never can, take possession of it.»

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