mardi 22 janvier 2013

Le discours d'investiture

We, the people, declare today that the most evident of truths—that all of us are created equal—is the star that guides us still, just as it guided our forebears through Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall, just as it guided all those men and women, sung and unsung, who left footprints along this great Mall, to hear a preacher say that we cannot walk alone, to hear a King proclaim that our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth.
Barack Obama, discours d'investiture, le 21 janvier 2013.
Ce passage, très beau, est rempli d'allusions à l'histoire des États-Unis d'Amérique.

Dès la première phrase, allusion à la Déclaration d'Indépendance :
"We hold these truths to be self-evident, that all men are created equal, that they are endowed by their Creator with certain unalienable Rights, that among these are Life, Liberty and the pursuit of Happiness." 
Et au début du préambule de la Constitution :
"We the People of the United States, in Order to form a more perfect Union, establish Justice, insure domestic Tranquility, provide for the common defence, promote the general Welfare, and secure the Blessings of Liberty to ourselves and our Posterity, do ordain and establish this Constitution for the United States of America."
La Convention de Seneca Falls, tenue les 19 et 20 juillet 1848 à Seneca Falls (New York), fut la première convention pour les droits des femmes à se dérouler sur le sol des États-Unis. (Wikipedia)

Les Marches de Selma à Montgomery furent trois marches de protestation qui ont marqué la lutte des droits civiques aux États-Unis. Elles furent le point culminant du mouvement pour le droit de vote, lancé par Amelia Boynton Robinson et son mari, à Selma dans l'Alabama. (Wikipedia)

Les émeutes de Stonewall sont une série de manifestations spontanées et violentes contre un raid de la police qui a eu lieu dans la nuit du 28 juin 1969 à New York, au Stonewall Inn (dans le quartier de Greenwich Village). Ces événements sont souvent considérés comme le premier exemple de lutte des gays et lesbiennes contre un système soutenu par les autorités et persécutant les homosexuels. Ces émeutes représentent le moment symbolique marquant le début du mouvement des droits civiques pour les homosexuels, aux États-Unis et partout dans le monde. (Wikipedia)

L'allusion suivante concerne la grande manifestation des droits civiques  culminant dans la Marche sur Washington de août 1963, où Martin Luther King délivre son discours célèbre : "I Have a Dream".

"We cannot walk alone", "to hear a King"  et "our individual freedom is inextricably bound to the freedom of every soul on Earth" : c'est bien sûr de Martin Luther King qu'il s'agit et de son discours prononcé le 28 août 1963 sur le Mall de Washington D.C. :
"The marvelous new militancy which has engulfed the Negro community must not lead us to a distrust of all white people, for many of our white brothers, as evidenced by their presence here today, have come to realize that their destiny is tied up with our destiny. And they have come to realize that their freedom is inextricably bound to our freedom. We cannot walk alone."
On notera au passage la superbe allitération :  "Seneca Falls, and Selma, and Stonewall".

Quelle rhétorique ! Et tout le reste est à l'avenant. Magnifique discours de Barack Obama, hier, sur les marches du Capitol à Washington D.C.

Deux autres passages qui m'ont beaucoup plu :
America's possibilities are limitless, for we possess all the qualities that this world without boundaries demands:  youth and drive, diversity and openness, of endless capacity for risk and a gift for reinvention. My fellow Americans, we are made for this moment and we will seize it, so long as we seize it together.
Our journey is not complete until our gay brothers and sisters are treated like anyone else under the law, for if we are truly created equal, then surely the love we commit to one another must be equal, as well.
Our journey is not complete until no citizen is forced to wait for hours to exercise the right to vote.
Our journey is not complete until we find a better way to welcome the striving, hopeful immigrants who still see America as a land of opportunity, until bright young students and engineers are enlisted in our workforce rather than expelled from our country.
Our journey is not complete until all our children, from the streets of Detroit to the hills of Appalachia to the quiet lanes of Newtown, know that they are cared for and cherished and always safe from harm.That is our generation's task, to make these works, these rights, these values of life and liberty and the pursuit of happiness real for every American. Being true to our founding documents does not require us to agree on every contour of life.  It does not mean we all define liberty in exactly the same way or follow the same precise path to happiness Progress does not compel us to settle century's long debates about the role of government for all time, but it does require us to act in our time.