mardi 18 octobre 2011

Amish: des rebelles au sein du groupe?


Le NY Times se penche sur cette étrangère histoire au sein d'une communauté généralement non-violente...

"The assaults — four are known to the authorities — have stirred fear among the Amish and resulted in the arrests, so far, of five men, including three of Mr. Mullet’s sons, on kidnapping and other charges. Officials say that more arrests are possible.

In the first incident, on Sept. 6 in the town of Mesopotamia, a married couple who had left the Bergholz community four years ago, Martin and Barbara Miller, were attacked at night by five of their own sons and a son-in law, along with their wives, all of whom had elected to remain with Mr. Mullet, according to the victims. The gang left the father with a “ragged beard,” as a sheriff’s report described it, then turned on their mother — who is Mr. Mullet’s sister — and chopped off large patches of her hair.

“The beard is a key symbol of masculine Amish identity,” said Donald B. Kraybill, a sociologist and expert on the Amish at Elizabethtown College in Pennsylvania. The women view their long hair, kept in a bun, as their “glory,” Dr. Kraybill said, and shearing it was “an attack on her personal identity and religious teaching.”

The men accused in the attack were released on bail. The elder Mr. Mullet has not been charged, although he remains under investigation. “I know that nothing moves out there unless he says it moves,” said Fred J. Abdalla, the sheriff of Jefferson County.

Federal prosecutors are considering whether to pursue federal hate-crime charges, according to the Cleveland office of the F.B.I.

The prosecutions are unusual because the Amish do not believe in revenge and prefer to settle disputes internally. The couple in Mesopotamia, Barbara and Martin Miller, have refused to testify, telling officers that they will “turn the other cheek.”

But others are cooperating with law enforcement.

“We want to see these people behind bars so this cult can be torn apart before it ends up like most of them do,” said Myron Miller, who lives in Mechanicstown. Many Amish regard Mr. Mullet as a danger to the wider community and above all to the 120 people in the settlement, including dozens of children growing up under his sway.

Mr. Miller now has a trimmed two-inch beard. He and his wife believe that the attack was retribution because, years ago, they helped one of Mr. Mullet’s sons leave Bergholz."

http://www.nytimes.com/2011/10/18/us/hair-cutting-attacks-stir-fear-in-amish-ohio.html?_r=1&nl=todaysheadlines&emc=tha23

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