Within hours of appearing on television to announce the end of conscription, President Jacques Chirac moved quickly to prevent any dissent from within the military establishment. Addressing more than 500 military staff officers at the military academy in Paris yesterday, Mr. Chirac said clearly that he "expected" their loyalty in the work of rebuilding France’s national defense.He understood their "legitimate concerns, questions and emotions" at the reforms, but added. "You must understand that there is not and never has been any rigid model for French defense. Military service has been compulsory for less than a century. Realism required that our armed forces should now be professional."The president’s decision to abolish conscription over a period of six years removes a rite of passage for young Frenchmen that has existed since the Revolution, even though obligatory national service only became law in 1905. As recently as 1993, an opinion poll showed that more than 60% of French people said they feared the abolition of conscription could endanger national security. A poll conducted this month, however, showed that 70% of those asked favored ending of practice, and on the streets and in offices yesterday, the response to Mr. Chirac’s announcement was generally positive.Among people who completed their 10-month period of national service in the last few years or were contemplating the prospect, there was almost universal approval, tempered by a sense that something hard to define--mixing with people from other backgrounds, a formative experience, a process that encouraged national or social cohesion--might be lost.Patrick, who spent his year in the French city of Valance assigning and collecting uniforms, and is now a computer manager, said he was in tears for his first week, and hated most of his time. He thought it was "useless" as a form of military training-- "I only fired a rifle twice"--but, in retrospect, useful for learning how to get on with people and instilling patriotism.As many as 25% of those liable for military service in France somehow avoid it--the percentage is probably much greater in the more educated and higher social classes.According to Geoffroy, a 26-year-old reporter, who spent his time in the navy with the information office in central Paris, the injustice is a good reason for abolishing it. People with money or connections, he said, can get well-paid assignments abroad. "It’s not fair: some do it, some don’t."Several expressed support for the idea of a new socially-oriented voluntary service that would be open to both men and women. But the idea seemed less popular among women. At present, women have the option of voluntary service and a small number choose to take it. Conscription in France has existed ()
A. since 1993
B. since the French Revolution
C. nearly fifty years
D. almost a century
"Before, we were too black to be white. Now, we’re too white to be black." Hadija, one of South Africa’s 3.5m Coloured (mixed race) people, sells lace curtains at a street market in a bleak township outside Cape Town. In 1966 she and her family were driven out of District Six, in central Cape Town, by an apartheid government that wanted the area for whites. Most of the old houses and shops were bulldozed but a Methodist church, escaping demolition, has been turned into a little museum, with and old street plan stretched across the floor. On it, families have identified their old houses, writing names and memories in bright felt-tip pen. "We can forgive, but not forget," says one.Up to a point. In the old days, trampled on by whites, they were made to accept a second-class life of scant privileges as a grim reward for being lighter-skinned than the third-class blacks. Today, they feel trampled on by the black majority. The white-led National Party; which still governs the Western Cape, the province where some 80% of Coloureds live, plays on this fear to good electoral effect. With no apparent irony, the party also appeals to the Coloured sense of common culture with fellow Afrikaans-speaking whites, a link the Nats have spent decades denying.This curious courtship is again in full swing. A municipal election is to be held in the province on May 29th and the Nats need the Coloured vote if they are to win many local councils.By most measures, Coloureds are still better-off than blacks. Their jobless rate is high, 21% according to the most recent figures available. But the black rate is 38%. Their average yearly income is still more than twice that of blacks. But politics turns on fears and aspirations. Most Coloureds fret that affirmative action, the promotion of non-whites into government-related jobs, is leaving them behind. Affirmative action is supposed to help Coloureds (and Indians) too. It often does not. They may get left off a shortlist because, for instance, a job requires the applicant to speak a black African language, such as Xhosa.Some Coloureds think that the only way they will improve their lot is to launch their own, ethnically based, political parties, last year a group formed the Kleurling Weerstandsbeweging, or Coloured Resistance Movement. But in-fighting caused this to crumble: some members wanted it to promote Goloured interests and culture; others to press for an exclusive "homeland".In fact, the coloureds’ sense of collective identity is undefined, largely imposed by apartheid’s twisted logic. They are descended from a mix of races, including the Khoi and San (two indigenous African peoples), Malay slaves imported by the Dutch, and white European settlers. And though they do indeed share much with Afrikaners-many belong to the Dutch Reformed Church and many speak Afrikaans-others speak English or are Muslim or worship spirits.Under apartheid, being Coloured became something to try to escape from. Many tried to pass as white; some succeeded in getting "reclassified". Aspiring to whiteness and fearful of blackness, their identity is hesitant, even defensive. Many Coloureds feel most sure about what they are not: they vigorously resist any attempt to use the term "black" to embrace all nonwhite people. "My people are terrible racists, but not by choice," says Joe Marks, a Coloured member of the Western Cape parliament. "The blacks today have the political power, the whites have economic power. We just have anger. The National Party()
A. has started to try to win over the coloured
B. consists of 80% of Coloured members living in the Western Cape
C. holds the principles that all races are equal
D. is an organization which controlled Cape Town
He signed a new contract with the Dublin firm, Maunsel & Company, on more favorable ()than those Grant Richards had given him.
A. items
B. terms
C. articles
D. specifications