“A time to cooperate and a time to resist” is the title of the article by Fiorella Sultana de Maria, in the British Catholic weekly “The Catholic Herald” ( 18/7), dedicated to the “systematic destruction of the British Christian heritage”: “a process begun several decades ago she explains and conducted gradually and with apparent good intentions”. It has involved not only “horrible episodes like the rapid approval of the law on abortion” but also “little changes such as the Sunday opening of shops or the decision of some local councils to exclude the word ‘Christmas’ from the festivities” of 25/26 December so as not to “ offend Moslems or Hindus”. According to Sultana de Maria “the slide towards total secularisations often appears unavoidable”; despite that, “for Catholics this is the time to resist” bearing in mind that “the most devastating changes have been caused by parliamentary acts and apparently ‘reasonable’ campaigns of persuasion”. The episode of the death of the English microbiologist David Kelly and his revelations about Iraq to the BBC which have caused a political earthquake in Great Britain are commented on by the Spanish daily El Paìs of 21/7, according to which “the only thing that is clear is that a series of blunders led to the death of a civil servant who had acted according to conscience”. “The manipulation by Blair and Bush of false information on Saddam Hussein’s weapons has unleashed political crises with unpredictable consequences in Washington and London”, while in Spain “the government is barricading itself behind an absurd silence, which will not serve to reduce the pressure to know what was really known about the weapons, the war and the reasons for it”: “With Kelly an honourable expert has died” concludes El Paìs but his death has not put an end to “the search for the truth about a war based on lies. The disappearance of the oppressive regime of Saddam Hussein does not justify Blair, Bush and Aznar in their attempts to deceive their own citizens”. The USA, the UNO and Iraq are the subject of a reflection by Dominique Gerbaud, editorialist of La Croix, in its number of 22/7: “For the Americans the Iraqi situation is becoming unsustainable. After the declaration of an end to hostilities, 34 soldiers have been killed in the course of ambushes and shoot-outs”. According to Gerbaud “we have reached a point in the post-war period in which the American forces risk spending as much time protecting themselves from Iraqi attacks as in working for the country’s reconstruction”. In spite of France’s opposition to the armed intervention, says the editorialist, “one cannot take any satisfaction in what is happening, and the international community must help the Americans to overcome their difficulties”. In her view there are only “two solutions”: “One: the UN must be involved in the postwar process. Two: the conditions and characteristics of the resumption of political and economic control of Iraq by the Iraqis themselves must be established”. Another French daily, Le Monde of 22/7 also dedicates a brief front-page analysis to “Iraq and the ‘zero dead’ war of the USA”, signed by Jacques Isnard. “In spite of the sixty intervening years that have changed circumstances, there are those who have even compared this military campaign with the routing of the German armies at Sedan, in May 1940, or the lightning advance of the second armoured brigade under General Leclerc on Paris in August 1944”. Regarding the hopes of the Assyro-Chaldaen community (Christian minority) in the process of the reconstruction of Iraq, La Croix of 23/7 publishes an interview with Younadem Kanna, the only Christian minister on the provisional Iraqi ruling Council, who hopes in “the equality of rights of all citizens, whatever be their ethnic, religious, political or social origins”. “Under Saddam’s regime he declares we Christians were second-class citizens. The time of discrimination is over… Arabs, Kurds and Asyro-Chaldaeans shall finally enjoy the same rights. As soon as the future Constitution guarantees equality we will press for the denationalisation of confessional schools so that our children may rediscover their own roots and their own mother tongue”. “The destiny of the new Iraq is now in our hands”, he concludes, but “this phase of transition must be accompanied by a security force sent by the UN”. With enlargement to 25 “we shall be hundred percent European citizens for the first time in modern history”: so claims Fulvio Scaglione in an editorial in the Italian Catholic daily Avvenire ( 24/07). He points out that “what awaits us ‘old’ Europeans in the months ahead is a burst of new energies that derive from old cultures, indestructible faith and unrelenting battles. We ought to be happy about that” and “understand that the little additional prosperity we enjoy” also gives us ” some additional duties”. ———————————————————————————————————– Sir Europa (English) N.ro assoluto : 1225 N.ro relativo : 55 Data pubblicazione : 26/07/2003
