Construction of the Elbe Philharmonic is underway, with its opening planned for autumn, 2011. Hamburg?s creative artists are not alone in seeing a new landmark for their city in this spectacular concert hall....
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The Iraq War enjoyed more public support among intellectuals than any other war since 1914. Today it can safely be said to have been a disaster. Gustav Seibt asks why so many thinking people took a such supportive stance and finds the answers in a misplaced attachment to historical analogies.
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In the positions they take on the ongoing multiculturalism debate, Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash are reminicent of those well-meaning Western intellectuals who were willing to criticise Stalinism but not communism. They dream of "change through rapprochement" but they lose their bearings somewhere along the "third way." By Ulrike Ackermann
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It's dogmatism that's the real problem. At base, relativism is calling into question the notion of there being an absolute truth - precisely what all those of a fundamentalist disposition claim there is. Even worse, fundamentalists refuse to acknowledge that other views have any validity at all. You can't debate with them - about multiculturalism or anything else. By Stuart Sim
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The demands of all "cultures" are not compatible. Of course monotheists, atheists and polytheists should be able to live peacefully side by side, but Sharia law and western democracy are incompatible. There is no way to talk away this incompatibility by vague reference to multiculturalism. By Lars Gustafsson
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Granting the 2007 Peace Prize of the German Book Trade to Anna Politkovskaya would not be a gesture of criticism directed at Russia as a whole, but a sign of hopeful expectations for the country, its people and its culture. By Gerd Koenen and Norbert Schreiber
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I admire the achievements of the Enlightenment as much as Professor Cliteur appears to do, but I also believe that one of its greatest achievements is the rejection of dogmatism, of any kind. By Ian Buruma.
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Ian Buruma's "Murder in Amsterdam" is written from a postmodern mindset which puts radical Enlightenment on a par with radical Islamism. But this approach will do nothing to pacify the most radical elements - as the mayor of Amsterdam, Job Cohen, knows only too well. By Paul Cliteur
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Islam is not as diverse as Ian Buruma maintains in his answer to Pascal Bruckner. On the contrary, it is an oppressive social reality, codified in the "Cairo Declaration of Human Rights in Islam." Signed by 45 Muslim countries, this upholds the Sharia as the basis of the Islamic identity. By Necla Kelek
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Neither live-and-let-die separatist multiculturalism nor the secularist republican monoculturalism preached by Bruckner work. Policies of integration cannot be based on the assumption that millions of Muslims will drop their faith when they come to Europe. Timothy Garton Ash responds to Pascal Bruckner.
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Nobody is defending honour killing or female circumcision. Such crimes are matters of law enforcement. Trickier is the question of how to prevent mainstream Muslims from being infected with violent ideologies. Ian Buruma responds to Pascal Bruckner. (Image © Stefan Heijdendael)
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali doesn't only look beautiful, she also invokes Voltaire. This is too much for Ian Buruma and Timothy Garton Ash, who call her an "Enlightenment fundamentalist." But their idea of multiculturalism amounts to legal apartheid. By Pascal Bruckner
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On January 1, Romania became a member of the EU. While the country has managed to comply with most accession criteria, it has not been able to do away with Securitate, the invidious secret service of the former dictatorship. Romanian-German author Herta Müller takes a closer look.
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After weeks of political wrangling, the city of Berlin has finally decided to offer poet, singer and GDR dissident Wolf Biermann honorary citizenship. Until today it looked highly unlikely that the two governing parties, the SPD and the Linkspartei, would endorse the decision. Thomas Steinfeld argues the man deserves every form of patriotic distinction going.
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One fifth of the population of Chechnya has died in the war there. The West has played deaf. Studies Without Borders is the initiative of a few French students to bring Chechen students to Europe to study. A drop of hope in an ocean of indifference. By Andre and Raphael Glucksmann.
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The country is like a prefabricated building on historic land. With Turkey's opening to the West, the question is: What is supplanting the Islamic mysticism which, for centuries, provided the inspiration for that country’s music and literature? By Zafer Senocak
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