Among contemporary German authors, one stands out who for years has been able to operate in various forms of expression and does not fit into any category: Thomas Kapielski....
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Die Weltwoche | The New York Review of Books | The New Yorker | Der Spiegel | The New York Times | The Economist | Nepszabadsag | Edge.org | Asharq al-Awsat | Magyar Hirlap | Figyelö | Gazeta Wyborcza
Die Weltwoche 19.07.2007 (Switzerland)
With a certain resignation to God's will, Eugen Sorg observes religion's return to Europe. "The Pope is enjoying audiences of an unprecedented scale. The grave of his Polish predecessor and miracle sites such as Lourdes are being visited by record numbers, the budget of the Holy Seat is enjoying unprecedented profits, the church collection income has doubled... Maybe postmodern Europe will go down in history as a brief, unique moment of free-spiritedness and frivolous godlessness. In part for demographic reasons: religious milieus generate children, while rich, agnostic societies such as Europe's tend to gentrify. And in part because skepticism and irony, the instruments of dissection preferred by intellectuals, don't warm most people's hearts. Just as little as the theory of the big bang or the discovery of protein molecules, which don't satisfy the need for meaning or provide a sense of collective identity or assuage our fear of death."
The New York Review of Books 16.08.2007 (USA)
Timothy Garton Ash has many good things to say about Günter Grass' "Peeling the Onion," but he can't leave out the affair of Grass' SS membership. He gives Grass a "half point" for his criticism of the FAZ but only half because Grass fails to meet his own moral standards in his silence on certain biographical details. Garton Ash concludes: "And time will pardon Günter Grass. For the German language lives through him, as it does, in different ways, through Christa Wolf, and through the poet he befriended in Paris while he was writing 'The Tin Drum,' Paul Celan. His staunchest defenders claim that his standing as a political and moral authority is also unaffected. That seems to me implausible, to put it mildly; but not all his activism is equally affected. Probably his most distinctive political contribution has been to German–Polish reconciliation." (see more on the Grass controversy here)
The New Yorker 30.07.2007 (USA)
David Remnick offers a portrait of the former Knesset president and director of the Jewish Agency Avraham Burg, who has created quite a stir with his more recent book "Defeating Hitler" and an interview he gave to Haaretz. Remnick quotes extensively from Burg in his explanation for the end of Zionism. "The Israeli reality is not exciting. People aren't willing to admit it, but Israel has reached the wall. Ask your friends if they are certain their children will live here. How many will say yes? At most fifty per cent. In other words, the Israeli elite has already parted with this place. And without an elite there is no nation."
Der Spiegel 23.07.2007 (Germany)
In an epic interview that is partly online, Alexander Solzhenitsyn speaks about the laborious working through of the Soviet past, his rejection of parties (inspired by Trotsky) and the "irresponsible" reformers Gorbachev and Yeltsin. And he explains why he has no problem with KGB man Vladimir Putin's
receiving of the Russian prize of the state. "Putin took over a country
that had been fully plundered and thrown completely off balance, with a
discouraged and poverty-stricken population. He set out to do what was
possible – and what was possible was a slow, step by step
reconstruction. These efforts were not noticed or honoured right away.
Can you think of one example from history, when an attempt to
reconstitute strong state leadership was received well by the outside
world."
The New York Times 22.07.2007 (USA)
Bernhard-Henri Levy admits that Nicolas Sarkozy is doing much right, including the recent American publication of his private-professional confessions, titled "Testimony". And yet, he could never have voted for Sarkozy – due to his pragmatic, almost cynical relationship to the past (Vichy, Algeria, 68). "Men usually have a memory. It can be complex, contradictory, paradoxical, confused. But it is their own. It has a great deal to do with the basis of who they are and the identities they choose for themselves. Sarkozy is an identity pirate, a mercenary of others' memories. He claims all memories, meaning that in the end he just might not have any. He is our first president without a memory. He is the first of our presidents willing to listen to all ideas, because for him they are literally indistinguishable. If there is a man in France today who embodies (or claims to embody) the famous end of all ideologies, which I cannot quite bring myself to believe in, it is indeed Mr Sarkozy, the sixth president of the Fifth Republic."
The Economist 20.07.2007 (UK)
This is how Berlin looks through the eyes of the Economist. "Selling Berlin as a world city is hard. It has lots of renovated museums, theatres and clubs, plus 400 contemporary-art galleries. Artists, filmmakers and some politicians have revived its big-city feel. But whereas London and Paris boast plenty of rich people, Berlin does not. One in two live on a pension or unemployment benefit; even those with jobs earn an average of only 32,600 euros a year. Well-heeled Germans pay the odd visit, but prefer to live in more opulent places like Munich or Hamburg. Berlin is also saddled with 61 billion euros of debt."
Nepszabadsag 20.07.2007 (Hungary)
With a series of referenda, the conservative right opposition party Fidesz wants to reverse government reforms, bring down the government and turn parliamentary into direct democracy. Come spring at the latest, the electorate should vote on the government's savings package. "Wanting to know the population's opinion is, in principal, a noble democratic idea but the practical details aren't exactly impressive," writes Eszter Babarczy. "The cases that the referenda will put to question – hidden premises, conclusions that weren't anticipated, silenced consequences squeezed into one sentence, double claims – are easy to cast doubt on by those who think analytically. The problem with the referenda is not that the populace can decide directly but rather that they can have the wool pulled over their eyes more than once."
Edge.org 18.07.2007 (USA)
Kevin Kelly, one of the heralds of the "third culture" explains the term that he coined: "technium" (more on Kelly's homepage). He understands it as all the converging and networked technological and scientific revolutions, particularly in genetics and the natural sciences, which could have frightening consequences and must be controlled. "I tend to think of the technium like a child of humanity. Our job will be to train the technium, to imbue it with certain principles because, at a certain level and at a certain age, it will basically become much more autonomous than it is now. It will leave us like a teenager who goes on to live alone: although he or she will continue to interact with us and will always be part of us, we have to let it go."
Asharq al-Awsat 18.07.2007 (Saudi Arabia / UK)
The magazine dedicates a long article to a new trend among Lebanese women singers. Increasingly their video clips show them beside dark-skinned children. This comes as something of a surprise in view of the widespread discrimination against black people in many Arab countries: "Black minorities have been living in Arab societies for centuries, yet with few exceptions they never appear in our media. Does this portend a sudden Arab awakening regarding their rights? Or is it simply a blind emulation of Western - or more precisely, American - fashion. In the US, black people have a high media presence, and often ever have the roles of stars." Although failing to provide an answer, the article does say that should black adults follow black children in finding a place in Arab media, "it would be one clear benefit of Western satellite TV and globalisation."
Magyar Hirlap (Hungary), 17.07.2007
Western Europeans don't understand the Kaczynski brothers' anger at Europe because they don't know Polish history, writes historian Miklos Kun. "All the world knows is that the Nazis unleashed a bloodbath in Poland during World War II. Less well-known is that the the Soviet secret service butchers murdered several thousand Polish officers and civilians in the Katyn massacre. Similarly, relatively few Westerners are aware of how the Soviet Union basely betrayed the Warsaw Uprising. Recent publications estimate that almost 1,5 million Polish citizens were deported to Soviet death camps, prisons or labour camps between 1939 and 1945.... Can you simply delete the past? Can you expect the conservative government in Poland just to look on as Poland gradually loses its status of mid-sized European power and the accompanying the feeling of security? Are the daily anti-Polish attacks on the part of Moscow driven by a feeling of guilt or of vengeance?"
Figyelö 19.07.2007 (Hungary)
In May of this year, a young woman was raped by policemen in Budapest. In June, the investigative journalist Iren Karman was brutally beaten. Last year the student Hedvig Malina was beaten up in Slovakia for telephoning in Hungarian on the street. In all three cases, the newspapers and other media were quick to report that the women staged the attacks themselves to make the headlines. Hajnalka Cseke asked several media specialists what they thought: "In the opinion of media researcher Peter Szolt, the press ignore their own ethical principles - the protection of victims and the innocent - when they publicly expose unmask the victims, although this evil can hardly be redressed in retrospect. The press declares a verdict without having the necessary information. And in so doing it compromises its own reputation... Control of the press is particularly desirable in cases where the police themselves are being investigated. This is because it is to be feared that they do not lead investigations against themselves in an objective way, says sociologist Zoltan Fleck. Several victims of such attacks have stated that the investigators themselves attempted to hush up the case, to save the honour of their colleagues."
Gazeta Wyborcza 23.07.2007 (Poland)
After taking the Palme d'Or at Cannes, Christian Mungiu's "4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days" has now been shown to Polish audiences at the "Era New Horizons" festival in Wroclaw. The director talks with Pawel T. Felis about why as opposed to in Poland, so many films are being made about the recent past in today's Romania: "These aren't historical films. They're the very personal tales of the directors. All between 30 and 40, the young Romanian filmmakers don't scour books or newspapers for their stories - they tell what they've experienced themselves. We're at a time when people want to settle scores with the past - above all with the private past. I didn't shoot this film five or ten years ago, and I'm not planning to shoot another one like it."
RSS
The Hungarian magazines are thrilled to be able to read Herta Müller's "Everything I Own I Carry With Me". In the Blätter, Jürgen Habermas calls for an extension of human rights into the social sphere. In La regle du jeu, big name European intellectuals defend their Croatian colleague Predrag Matvejevitch, who faces imprisonment for describing an ultra-nationalist Croatian poet as the "Catholic Taliban". Slate wants to know whether Nabokov's poem "Pale Fire" was meant seriously or not. The TLS meets radical feminists with fabulous names - like the anarchist Voltairine de Cleyre. Przekroj looks at the two types of Turkish cinema. And in the NYT, Jay Rosen explains why the Internet is eroding America's most beautiful ideal.
Mediapart decries the connivances of French politics and media. In the Nation, Colin Robinson picks a fight with Amazon. Osteuropa rolls out the red carpet for the composer Mieczyslaw Weinberg. The London Review remembers the media feeding frenzy around Tolstoy's deathbed. In Opendemocracy, the poet Tatiana Shcherbina feels the evil creeping back into Russia.
The Swiss Magazin looks at the lawyers and doctors who are producing stewardesses and farmers. Caffe Europa shares Ulrich Beck's optimism about the religious mix of the future. The Boston Globe looks at the powerlessness of facts in the face of false convictions. In Le Monde, Michel Onfray trembles before the language of empire. The New Statesmen evaluates the new young supertaskers. The TLS reads a book about 19th anarchists. Outlook India and the NYT tackle terror in India, Pakistan and Yemen.
The New Yorker wonders which is better equipped to determine the authenticity of a Leonardo da Vinci: the connoisseur or the forensic scientist. Polityka picks through the remains of the Fourth Republic. In The Observer, Claire Denis talks about shame and humiliation. In La regle du jeu, Roberto Saviano does not like what he sees in the eyes of his admirers. MicroMega has witnessed the birth of a political monster: illiberal democracy. The London Review of Books is looking for aliens to take care of our nuclear waste.
The New Yorker profiles Saad Mohseni, Afghanistan's first media mogul. La vie des idees and the Guardian recommend Gilbert Achcar's book "The Arabs and the Holocaust". The children in Hungary are eating their revolution, fears Elet es Irodalom. Magyar Narancs and Rue89 fear for independence of the press. In Open Democracy, Lisbet Rausing worries about the future of the library. In the NYRB, Tim Parks warns non-English writing authors against liberal international readers.
The Walrus strolls through Johannesburg with the flaneurs. In Telerama, Olivier Bomsel defines the digital as script.The London Review is peeved that Christopher Hitchens is having so much fun. In Osteuropa, Hungarian writers and nihilists weave away at the deadly void. The New Statesman reads Vasili Grossman's "Everything Flows" and meets the great man's daughter. Al Ahram warns European Muslims about the perils of Salafism. Salon asks why Adrian Lamo turned in the alleged whistle-blower Bradley Manning and what Wired's Kevin Poulsen had to do with it.
The big stories of our time are being told in reportage rather than fiction, says novelist Geoff Dyer in the Guardian. Lettre International meets the marginalised in Rome and Rotterdam. In Espresso, Umberto Eco fantasises about 6 billion encyclopaedias. The Nation finds many ways to erase Israel from the map without being anti-Semitic. The Spectator speculates about the counter-cultural concentration camp that Glastonbury has become. The Atlantic waves farewell to men.
Prospect chucks contemporary art into the dustbin of history. Where it will join Polish book culture, if Res Publica Nowa is to be believed. And iTunes to boot, according to the New Yorker. In El Pais Semanal, the physicist Michio Kaku sees the internet everywhere. Young people however, claims the LRB, are proving remarkably resilient to its influences. In the NYRB, Timothy Snyder reviews Christopher R. Browning's new book "Remembering Survival" about the ghetto in Wierzbnik. Le Monde puts three Chinese dissidents on a pedestal.
The New Yorker escorts us into the extraordinary paranoid world of Wikileak founder Julian Assange. In Merkur, Udo di Fabio praises the egalitarian properties of money. The Economist discusses the latest mass import in Africa: homophobia. In Micromega, Paolo Flores d'Arcais cannot understand why Saviano needs defrocking. Paris is partying in celebration of the collapse of the Anglo-American system, das Magazin reports. n+1 delves into the Berlin Roman. The New York Times charts the success of Dutch politician Job Cohen.
The NYRB takes on the privatisation of the net by Steven P. Jobs. The NYT is already bored of life in the suburban Applecrest Estates. In Eurozine, Sven Egil Omdal delivers a comprehensive report on the crisis in the Norwegian newspaper industry. The Walrus learns how to become an expert from the unrepentant whore Jamie Lee Hamilton. In Elet and Irodalom, we learn how Hungarian nationalism foments Slovak nationalism, And Umberto Eco explains in Espresso, why he would never boycott Gianni Vattimo.
The Nation reads Jonathan Israel's history of radical Enlightenment. In Elet es Irodalom, György Konrad tells the Hungarians to stand up for freedom or kiss it goodbye. English is a Dalit goddess, standing on a computer, Tehelka says, and there's nothing you can do about it. In the Atlantic, Google's Eric Schmidt loses himself in his creepily colourful vision of the future. In Newsweek, Jacob Weisberg gives publishers the answer one would have expected from Google. Slate asks why Paul Berman is not being discussed by Arab intellectuals. Tygodnik Powszechny thinks about Polish-Russian reconcilation. Prospect explains why, in the future, you will be arrested for over-frequent visits to the toilet when flying.
The NYRB solves the Cuba dilemma. In Eurozine, Martina Simecka and Laszlo Rajk talk about their fathers, prominent communists who were persecuted by communists. Julian Barnes reads Eugene Delacroix's diary for the TLS. Odra asks why Bogdan Wojdowski has been forgotten. In Le point, BHL explains why he supports JCall's "Call for Reason". The New Yorker portrays Andrei Ternowski, the 17-year-old Chatroulette inventor. Wired calls on programmers to create a new Facebook, where privacy is respected.
The New York Times dives into the data streams of the self-trackers. N+1 assesses "The Intellectual Situation". In the Onfray vs. Freud debate, BHL defends the psychoanalyst against fatuous platitudes. Peter Nadas tells Magyar Narancs that capitalism will be to blame if Hungary goes to the dogs. For Tony Judt, re-education is the only way to combat authoritarianism. And in Salon, Miroslav Kusy explains that, in Slovakia, "the people" have been replaced by "human beings", but "citizens" have yet to be invited into the political arena.
In Eurozine, Kenan Malik asks what makes a real Muslim. For Osteuropa, Serhij Zadan travels though Ukraine's death valley. Wired visits old hackers. The most pig-headed of them, Richard Stallman, explains in the Boston Review, why cloud computing means thinking like a sucker. Frontline crosses the digital divide to where linux has transformed the lives of children in rural Bengal. The NYRB looks at why, after receiving 26 billion dollars in aid, Ethiopians are still hungry. In Magazin, the psychoanalyst Jürg Atlin warns about over-enthusiasm for cleansing in the wake of the paedophile scandals. Magyar Naracs observes a sacralisation of the state in Poland.