TEXTE SOURCE/SOURCE TEXT:
Raif Badawi n’est pas raisonnable
Par Gérard Biard – 13/08/2018
Le gendre idéal et accessoirement Premier ministre canadien, Justin Trudeau, est un garçon courageux. Il rate rarement une occasion, par exemple, d’affronter la superpuissance française en rappelant combien elle maltraite et discrimine ses citoyens musulmans avec sa laïcité liberticide et ses lois racistes sur les signes religieux. Mais, curieusement, il est beaucoup plus mesuré lorsqu’il s’agit des droits humains en Arabie saoudite. Ainsi, lorsque sa ministre des Affaires étrangères, Chrystia Freeland, déclenche une crise diplomatique avec le royaume en publiant un tweet dans lequel elle se déclare « très alarmée d’apprendre l’emprisonnement de Samar Badawi, la soeur de Raif Badawi » et assure que « le Canada appuie la famille Badawi dans cette difficile épreuve et [continue] fortement à appeler à la libération de Raif et Samar Badawi », le beau Justin a ses vapeurs. « On ne veut pas avoir de mauvaises relations avec l’Arabie saoudite, c’est un pays qui a quand même une certaine importance dans le monde », a-t-il bredouillé après que Riyad eut expulsé l’ambassadeur canadien en guise de réponse au tweet… À sa décharge, reconnaissons que peu de grandes démocraties occidentales se payent le luxe de « mauvaises relations » avec l’Arabie saoudite.
Rappelons tout de même que le blogueur Raif Badawi a été condamné en novembre 2014 à dix ans de prison et à 1 000 coups de fouet pour « insulte envers l’islam ». En réalité, pour avoir créé un site et un blog très suivi, consacré aux droits humains dans le royaume – sujet inépuisable, mais délicat à manier. Depuis janvier 2015, il est fouetté chaque vendredi, puis renvoyé toute la semaine dans son cachot pour cicatriser à l’ombre… Son épouse, Ensaf Haidar, et ses trois enfants se sont réfugiés au Québec et viennent d’obtenir la nationalité canadienne. Il semble qu’ils peuvent compter sur le soutien de la ministre des Affaires étrangères – du moins tant qu’elle est maintenue à son poste -, mais un peu moins sur celui du Premier ministre. Lui, préfère mettre toute son énergie dans la défense des accommodements raisonnables…
https://charliehebdo.fr/direct/raif-badawi-nest-pas-raisonnable/
B: SECOND ST
| 01/08/2018 | Hulot flingue les piafs |
Le billet du jour
Hulot flingue les piafs
Par Antonio Fischetti – 01/08/2018
C’est un petit oiseau qui en dit long. L’alouette, vous connaissez ? Alouette, gentille alouette, je te plumerai, etc. Eh bien, Nicolas Hulot va lui faire un sort, à ce sympathique oiseau. Un projet d’arrêté autorisera le piégeage, dès cet automne, de 370 000 alouettes. Il s’agit de chasses menées au nom de la sacro-sainte tradition (surtout dans le sud-ouest) et particulièrement cruelles (comme le piégeage à la glu). Si l’on ajoute à ce bilan, 180 000 autres alouettes chassées au fusil, elles seront près de 500 000 à se faire massacrer avec la bénédiction de Nicolas Hulot.
Et ceci, alors que le nombre d’oiseaux est en chute libre : 30 % de moins en quelques années, d’après une récente étude du Muséum national d’histoire naturelle. Le 21 mars dernier, Hulot ne lésinait pourtant pas sur les effets de manches et les trémolos devant l’Assemblée nationale, pour dénoncer « des tragédies invisibles et silencieuses », déplorer le fait « tout le monde s’en fiche, à part quelques-uns », et réclamer « un sursaut d’indignation ».
Eh bien l’indignation, là voilà ! C’est facile de jouer les chevaliers blancs en lutte contre les indifférents. Mais cette autorisation de chasse à l’alouette résume, à elle seule, la perfidie du gouvernement. En théorie, de beaux discours, en pratique, le flinguage d’espèces en déclin. Pour encore plus d’indignation, allez sur le site de la Ligue de protection des oiseaux, dont le président, Allain Bougrain Dubourg est l’un des rares à dénoncer le double discours de Nicolas Hulot.
https://charliehebdo.fr/le-direct/?mm=08-2018
- II: your translations
A: First translation.
Raif Badawi is not reasonable
Translation of ‘Raif Badawi n’est pas raisonnable’ by Gérard Biard – 13/08/2018.
The ideal son-in-law and incidentally Canadian Prime minister, Justin Trudeau, is a courageous lad. He seldomly fails to battle the French super power reminding us all how France ill-treats and discriminate against its Muslim citizens through its liberticide laïcité and its racist laws on religious signs. Nevertheless, everything is done with much a different balance when it comes to asses human rights in Saudi Arabia. When his foreign affairs minister, Chrystia Freeland, triggered a diplomatic crisis with the kingdom by tweeting ‘Very alarmed to learn that Samar Badawi, Raif Badawi’s sister, has been imprisoned’ and added that ‘Canada stands together with the Badawi family in this difficult time, and we continue to strongly call for the release of both Raif and Samar Badawi’, the beau Justin had its vapors. We don’t want to have poor relations with Saudi Arabia. It is a country that has great significance in the world’, stumbled he, after Riyad had answered the tweet by expelling Canada’s ambassador. To his credit, it has to be said that few great western democracies indulge in ‘strained relations’ with Saudi Arabia.
And while counting our blessings, let’s not forget that Saudi blogger Raif Badawi was sentenced in November 2014 to 10 years in prison and 1,000 lashes for ‘insulting Islam’. In truth, to be the writer of a popular website and a blog about human rights in the kingdom- an unceasing and very dangerous issue to be faced. Since January 2015, he is flogged every Friday, and then sent back to heal his scars in his cell. His spouse, Ensaf Haidar, and his three children took refuge in Quebec and have just been granted Canadian citizenship. If it appears possible for them to rely on the foreign minister’ support- at least as long as the latter keeps her job; as far as the PM is concerned it is also likely that this kind of backing could grow scarce. As for the PM, he will rather put all his energy into defending reasonable accommodations…
[i]As explained in the commentary I included explanatory notes for the publisher in case they take the decision to add some of them.
B: Second translation.
Hulot, French minister and environmentalist icon, shoots birds
Translation of HULOT FLINGUE LES PIAFS BY Antonio Fischetti – 01/08/2018
This is a little birdie who says it all. L’alouette (lark), do you know it? ‘Lark, nice lark,
Lark, I will pluck you. I will pluck your head. ×2, And your head! ×2’, etc …. Well, in a nutshell, Nicolas Hulot, will just do what the children’s song says it will to this friendly bird. By autumn, a draft decree will authorise the trapping of 370,000 larks. This particular type of hunting is practiced in the name of the sacrosanct tradition (especially in the south-west) and is particularly cruel (like glue trapping). Added to this toll, 180,000 kills this time by shotguns have been allowed, taking to more than half a million the number of larks about to be massacred with Nicolas Hulot’s benediction.
And that when the number of birds is plummeting: 30% down in a few years, according to the ‘Muséum national d’histoire naturelle’ s recent study (National Museum of Natural History). Before the l’Assemblée nationale (French equivalent of the house of commons), on March 21st , Hulot did not economise on theatrics, fine words and melodramatic tremolos to reprimand the ‘invisible and silent tragedies’, to deplore that ‘people couldn’t care less save a few’ and to demand ‘an outcry of indignation’.
Well apropos indignation, there is plenty more to come. It is so dreadfully easy to play the white knight fighting indifference; still, this lark hunting authorisation alone incarnates the level of this government’s treachery. In theory, splendid speeches, in practice, the massacres of threatened species. For more indignation, go to the website of la ‘Ligue de protection des oiseaux’ (the League for the Protection of Birds), whose president, also a well-known former TV anchor, Allain Bougrain Dubourg, is one of the very few who have denounced the duplicity of Nicolas Hulot ‘s double discourse.
[ii] As explained in the commentary I included explanatory notes for the publisher in case they take the decision to add some of them.
[i] In more than a dozen of Islamic countries, apostasy (the abandonment or renunciation of a particular religion), or blasphemy are punishable by death, the reason put forward for the imprisonment and lashing of Raif Radawi (Azan, 2016) (Aljazeera, 2013) (Fondation Raif Badawi, 2019) (Léveillé, 2015).
Canada seems to have been alone on the international scene to protest against the gross human rights abuses and imprisonment of Raif Radawi. Trudeau took also further action against the Saudi Arabia regime. There is in the press evidence of Mr Trudeau addressing the subject of Badawi with Saudi Arabia during an informal meeting two months after CH’ s articles (Radio-Canada, 2018) while it might well be true that Canada ended being the only state posing the dire problem of the freedom of press openly with Ryad at the time of the Badawi scandal (Kassam, 2018).
The incident talked about in the ST is far from being of little significance. In reality, it triggered a very serious crisis to this day unresolved followed by numerous diplomatic negative measures against Canada from Saudi Arabia (Baker, 2018). Justin Trudeau firmly maintained his cabinet’s position and supported his minister (Le figaro, 2018) as well as making significant symbolic gestures such as securing for Badawi’s spouse and children the Canadian citizenship and, after the murder of the Saudi dissident journalist Jamal Khashoggi in particular, putting into question future arms deals (CBC News, 2018). Italians’ unions refused to load Saudi ship transporting arms to Yemen on May, 21 (Barry, 2019). Ottawa from 2015 through to 2019 in several other occasions, in took the defence of imprisoned women activists by attacking the Saudi Arabia regime in showing support for the activists. Tragically, one of them was Saudi activist Samar Badawi, the sister of Raif Badawi (Kestler-D’Amours, 2018) (Baker, 2018).
A notable absence of interventions from France on this matter and more largely, the French leniency towards these international law terrible transgressions is also mentioned in the press (RT, 2015). Moreover, Sweden and Germany had to faced similar diplomatic breakdown (Washington Post, 2018) while France did not appear to have followed these front-runner countries taking diplomatic risks by rising against human rights abuses. There is in fact a widely broadcast Radio France Inter joke explicitly mocking France’s attitude after the condemnation of Raif Badawi (Taraborrelli, 2016), its ‘billions of euros worth of weapons to Riyadh (AFP, 2016) -just like many other countries including Canada and to crown it all its 2016 awarding of the Légion d’honneur to Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Nayef on the same year of 70 executions by death penalty and numerous gross other human rights abuses (RT, 2015) (AFP, 2016) (Withnall, 2016) (Faivre, 2016).
Both texts might be difficult to translate as the general political stances in France are different from those in the United Kingdom. Satires are the fruits of long traditions both in England and France (El Rhazoui, 2015). But if humor has its proper, independent, individual style for each nation (Cabu, 2005, 23 min), cultural and political references are subject to the same rules.
Charlie Hebdo’ s column could seem to be a bit unjustified in 2019, nevertheless, the real argument occasioning resistance could well be the one in the background: that of the French laicity versus multiculturalism in the international arena.
[ii] Nicolas Hulot resigned from being the Minister of the environment less than one month after Charlie Hebdo’ s column. He said he was doing so because he could not do well enough in that role for nature protection. He did so after months of debates and refused proposals and had warned from the moment he took office that he would give himself a year to see if he could be useful (Vinocur, 2017) (McPartland, 2018). By the bye, creating a true sensation, reported by scores of national and international news articles (James, 2018); he announced his resignation live on air on national radio without telling anyone, not even the President of France, about his resignation previous to this radio surprise announcement (Farand, 2018) (James, 2018). Mr Hulot repeatedly said that he blamed the ‘economic model’ as a whole for destroying the environment (Wainwright, 2018).
ENGLISH-FRENCH/FRENCH-ENGLISH HUMAN RIGHTS TRANSLATIONS 