Log-book: April 2001

  Families invade a lodging  Communicating is living! 
  Kurds are eager to get dignity and freedom 
  Gypsies received at the Parliament   
  French Bibliography  Archives of Partenia 
  History of Partenia, Biography of Bishop Jacques Gaillot 
 


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Families invade a lodging 

à la Ville de Paris 

Fifty families, that is more than two hundred people, settled in a building belonging to the City of Paris that has been empty for four years.
They were living in precarious lodgings in down town Paris. A right time to be remembered by the candidates for the coming Council of Paris elections..

"vivre dans des logements d'extréme précarité"  Police came quickly and blocked the traffic. The Police cars were all around. 

A Syrian came to me and said" I am living near by. When I go to work, I pass by this building it's always empty. Then one day I phoned to your association to inform them about it."
Suddenly without knowing why, Police raise the siege. The Police cars drove away under the enthusiastic applaud of the demonstrators. "We will meet again…."
Omar, a single man from Morocco, is disappointed: all day he was waiting in the cold to find a lodging from the association, but he was one of those who could not get one that day.
To satisfy all the demands, one building in Paris should be occupied each day!

     

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Communicating is living!  sans frontières 

An Annual Congress of the professors of religion in technical schools was being held in Bad-Boll near Stuttgart in Germany. The theme was:"Communication at the informatics age." 140 professors were there, all Protestants. A beautiful experience to be among them. All appreciate working with young ones, often young ones who have a hard life. Difficult work but very exciting.
 
vivre au milieu d'eux  Quickly we speak about the Internet that is not a media like the others. 

One of its originality is to have no center, the center is every where and the circumference no where.
Internet ignores usual boundaries. Every thing is not coming anymore from above, the background is first and we speak together on the same level. One has the right to disagree. The knowledge is not hidden anymore; it is becoming more and more accessible. It is a kind of revolution that will allow every body to express oneself freely. But it is only the beginning.
 
A virtual diocese like Partenia has no institutional and material constraints. It exists in another way. It is why it should not reproduce the model of a Church that we have. On the net we innovate, we do not copy.  exister autrement 


Christians are people making links, they learn to built the Church as a network. They have right of access. The net is really an original device!
   

 

     
   

Kurds are eager to get dignity and freedom.  faim de dignité et de liberté 

Eighteen Kurds started a hunger strike in Montpellier like in some other cities in France. They wear a white band around the forehead and one of them asked me to put my signature on his band. In the evening I will have diner with his family and stay for the night at his home. His father is a bricklayer and has built his own house. His mother who comes every day to see him worries very much: "He has already lost 8 kilos, what is going to happen now?"
These Kurds tried all they can to obtain a regular permit from the French Administration. It was in vain" We have no choice. We cannot come back to our country where we will be persecuted. If Turkey was becoming a democratic country where our right were respected we would go back immediately because we love our land".
Beyond their hunger strike they express their need for dignity and freedom.
On the famous Comedie Square, just when I was leaving, a woman came to me and said:"I cannot understand the Kurd problem. I have nothing against them. I am a Christian, have been teaching catechism for twenty years but anyway we cannot accept all the people (every body)!"

   

 

     
   

Gypsies received at the Parliament  "C'est un événement d'importance" 

Twelve Gypsy families, altogether fifty two persons from Zamoly, a small village in Hungary found a place of refuge in Strasbourg last July. They flew the persecutions they were suffering for many years in Hungary. Their complaints to the Police or to different Administrations in Hungary had no effect. The Hungarian State never protected their rights.
Once in Strasbourg they lodged a complaint against their government with the European Court of Human rights and with the European Council.
The Press conference at the Parliament was quite a new thing. There were so many people attending that they had to find a larger room. This conference was making the Gypsy problem a public affair! Since the Hungarian government cannot protect them, France has to give them asylum, because to send them back to Hungary will mean to put their life at stake.
A few days after, France gave asylum to two families. It is hoped that other ones will get the same. It is a victory; it is an important event, not only for the gypsies from Zamoly but for the eight million Gypsies living in the different countries of Europe. The Hungarian government was not pleased but it is a warning for them and also for Poland and Rumania who want to join Europe.