L'isola Amish
For about two hundred thousand Amish in America, the world is divided broadly into two: on the one hand they are here, the Amish, they live on the other "the English ", that is, those three hundred million American citizens - of different origins, colors and religions - who have been taught that the wars of independence had been fought two centuries ago (in fact) against the British . But anyhow: as we see the Amish, those good people English English was and still is - even under the Stars and Stripes. Maybe because the "British " (ie other Americans with whom the Amish, however, maintain cordial relations dispassionately) him every now and then a big combine.
For example: when in March 1979 Three Mile Island nuclear power plant came to a whisker away from producing the Mother of All Disasters (offering an appetizer of what would then happen at Chernobyl), the reactor in agony in hell threatened to drag not only radioactive half-Pennsylvania , energy-thirsty as all America, but also a community che non aveva mai consumato nemmeno un kilowatt di elettricità: gli Amish della contea di Lancaster, che per ironia della sorte vivono a una manciata di chilometri dalla centrale elettronucleare di Three Mile Island ma si rifiutano cocciutamente di agganciarsi alla rete elettrica.
Quegli stessi Amish, pacifici e pacifisti a oltranza, che pochi giorni fa (NdR: era l'autunno 2006) , nella minuscola scuola di Nickel Mines, hanno dovuto raccogliere dieci loro figlie – cinque morte ammazzate, cinque gravemente ferite – imbottite di piombo da un lattaio improvvisamente impazzito: un “inglese” , ovviamente, perché per distribuire il latte bisogna saper guidare il furgone, e gli Amish non guidano mezzi meccanici con motore a scoppio (solo carretti trainati da cavalli, e dalle cui ruote sono banditi i pneumatici perché la gomma è un lusso che renderebbe il viaggio troppo confortevole).
E non imbracciano un fucile, mai. E quando s’infuriano (raro) non chiamano l’avvocato per farti causa (sarebbe un atto di violenza, secondo loro). E se proprio volessero chiamarlo, dovrebbero uscire di casa, montare in calesse (niente auto, l’abbiamo detto) e raggiungere una cabina pubblica, perché hanno messo al bando i telefoni privati.
And converse among themselves in a strange language that "English" (with the superficiality of the powerful) have rashly baptized Pennsylvania Dutch ("Pennsylvania Dutch") , improper translation of the term Deutsch heard him use the Amish - who speak German rather than Dutch, a German Germanic would sound any Arabic, but a Confederate Ostermundigen be able to partly decipher. Yes, the Amish communicate with each other in a sort of Swiss-German-Alsatian other times. Also because of Switzerland (Berne of Simmenthal, to be exact) had their founder Jacob Amman.
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Back then in Switzerland for two bits of history home.
Zurich, Anno Domini 1525: under the guidance of a Felix Manz, a handful of Protestant radicals (today we would call them "fundamentalists", but already it seems that Martin Luther defining them "fanatics") openly opposed Zwingli: dispute the decision to entrust the State Church of the Reformation, however, consider that reform is too bland. It argued that the Church needs of believers aware: then reject infant baptism, and become "rename" from adults.
E 'early Anabaptist movement (from the greek "baptized again"). But to compare Manz and is soon regarded as a heresy, and in agreement with the costumes, the protagonists of the dispute, and their followers are harshly persecuted (by all Catholics, Lutherans and Calvinists). Felix Manz will be drowned in the Limmat, making it the first Anabaptist martyr of the Church, others will eventually burned at the stake, including women, elderly and children.
The Anabaptists - also known as "simple people" because of their lifestyle marked by humility - then scatter for Europe, until one day they find the system to make it big: take control of the city of Munster, and there for more than a year we combine all the colors. While preaching non-violence and moral rigor, they let themselves go to all sorts of atrocities (including rapes), until the army lansquenet unable to regain the city.
The affair ended in a massive bloodbath, seasoned with torture, abjurations denied, and the inevitable fires. The Anabaptist movement is in disarray, his reputation destroyed.
later find himself new life under the guidance of a former priest Dutch - Menno Simons - which will take the name "Mennonite Church". Then, towards the end of 1600, the schism and the birth of the Amish at the hands of the bernese Jakob Amman.
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Jakob Amman on the story says little. He was born in Erlenbach in the Simmental, probably in 1644, Amman was a Mennonite to practice his belief that he had to take refuge in Alsace. It is known however that Amman - in defiance of the declared Mennonite pacifism - was somewhat cantankerous character. And quite uncompromising: it was he who insisted on the need to observe with the utmost rigor the Meidung , the practice of blacklists (and therefore avoid ban) those faithful to the Anabaptist movement, for one reason or another , was excommunicated.
It is precisely this point which was consummated the schism Mennonite Amman, demanding a strict application of the rule against ostracism denied, excommunicated all the Mennonites who did not think like him (and some came to his Once excommunicated), and ended by giving birth to a movement Amish, an offshoot of the ultra-fundamentalist Anabaptist Church.
The European political climate of that time, little inclined to tolerance, and endless horizons that seemed opening of the Atlantic, then did the rest: the Amish decided it was worth groped the fate of the New World.
I first landed in Philadelphia in 1737, attracted by the promise of the Quaker William Penn was to build a tolerant and open to all faiths (Pennsylvania, in fact). The result is that today in Europe of non-Amish There is no trace, they are all in the New World, some (few) in Central America, the vast majority in the U.S., especially in Ohio, Pennsylvania and Indiana. Where are now the object of great curiosity and are - in spite of themselves - an important tourist attraction.
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In Holmes County (Ohio), as well as in Lancaster County (Pennsylvania) - home to the two larger communities of the Amish world - Amish farms to acknowledge them at first sight are those with no cable connected to the mains.
If you are lucky you'll also get the gig, carrying men with long beards and women to head covered at all times (if you just can not give the snapshot-memory, rather taken with discretion and far: the Amish do not like photos, TV, recorders and other gadgets like, and generally not giving interviews).
But do not look for the Amish churches: no. It seems incredible that a community so committed to live by the precepts of the Bible around the clock, has no places of worship, yet it is a choice consistent with the repudiation of any and every object, act or event that may seem "immodest" the Amish celebrate the religious ceremony on Sunday at home of community members in rotation. And only every second week, in return, the function may take up to three hours or more.
clergy there is none, apart from the so-called "Bishop", a sort of "primus inter pares "chosen by chance - by drawing lots - including some names proposed by members of the congregation. Life is made up of prayer and work in the fields if possible, by hand, with the help of the horse and the most rudimentary equipment.
A fianco, sull’asfalto della highway, rombano i possenti fuoristrada dell’americano medio, ma gli Amish non ci fanno caso: tutt’al più vendono agli “inglesi” i loro magnifici quilts , trapunte fatte a mano apprezzatissime dai turisti che invadono le contee Amish nell’illusione di trovarvi un paradiso che non c’è, che non è mai esistito, e che comunque nessuno degli “inglesi” vorrebbe abitare, perché nessun “inglese” ha veramente voglia di tornare a tracciare solchi nei campi con un aratro e due buoi.
Eppure secondo gli Amish l’atteggiamento corretto di fronte alle cose terrene sta tutto racchiuso in una parola (tedesca, ovviamente): Gelassenheit , rozzamente traducibile con “calma, tranquillità”.
E per i piccoli quesiti della vita quotidiana c’è Die Ordnung (“L’Ordine”), un compendio di regole aggiornato e rivisto ogni due anni che stabilisce che cosa è lecito e che cosa è vietato (per esempio: elettricità dalla rete no, batterie sì; telefono privato no, cabina pubblica sì; telefono cellulare forse, dipende the needs, travel by car, yes, but only in the role of passenger).
A small slice of the community falls outside the obligation of strict compliance of 'Ordnung : young people between the age of fourteen (end of school, highest level of training given puzzling because it hurts too much) and eighteen or twenty, when they chose whether to be baptized (and thus officially join the Amish church) or leave the family, the community, the quiet Gelassenheit Amish island and enter the world of "English" .
In questa sorta di interregno prima della grande scelta, i giovani Amish vivono il cosiddetto “Rumspringa” (alla lettera: “correre in giro”, ma col significato implicito di “folleggiare”), gli anni in cui è lecito (anche per loro) bere, ubriacarsi, guidare l’auto, ballare, tirare tardi, fare quelle cose più o meno divertenti e più o meno trasgressive che eccitano tutti gli adolescenti d’Occidente.
Alla fine del Rumspringa si sceglie: o dentro o fuori, o Amish o novello “inglese” . It turns out that - out of conviction, appeal to God, or fear the aggressive world outside of the safe and protective bubble Amish - ninety percent of Amish youth decide to stay in the community.
Maybe What would have chosen, in a few years, the five girls just mowed the milkman "English" ?
But life goes on, say the Amish. With Gelassenheit , with calm and tranquility as soon as possible. "Maybe we will quote the event in the next issue of the newspaper," he told the Los Angeles Times Elam Lapp, direttore del settimanale Amish Die Botschaft .
Si riferiva proprio al massacro nella scuola di Nickel Mines, ora assediata dai reporter di mezzo mondo. Ma è collaudata prassi del suo giornale, ha chiarito Lapp, non pubblicare articoli su omicidi, guerra, sesso o religione.
Tutto un altro mondo.
(© VASCO DONES; pubblicato sul settimanale svizzero AZIONE nell'autunno 2006)
