There is hardly a theatrical profession that has recently been so fostered, celebrated, loaded with prizes and grants as young dramatists....
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Islamic radicalism is on the rise, especially in the second generation of young Muslims living in Europe. A Europe that has traditionally defined itself as Christian is being forced to address uncomortable questions. How do we want to live together? What are the limits of our tolerance? And on the other hand, how does it feel to be a Muslim growing up in Europe? To what extent is compromise possible?
We have put together a series of articles that try to answer these questions.
Notes on a post-secular society
Last year secularists and multiculturalists converged at signandsight.com to debate Islam in Europe. Both parties want a liberal society where autonomous citizens live peacefully side by side, but the slightest political provocation is enough to unleash an intellectual Kulturkampf. Jürgen Habermas considers both positions and points beyond them to a post-secular society, where religious and secular mentalities are open to a complementary learning process.
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The "Islam in Europe" debate
Who should the West support: moderate Islamists like Tariq Ramadan, or Islamic dissidents like Ayaan Hirsi Ali? Are the rights of the group higher than those of the individual? With a fiery polemic against Ian Buruma's "Murder in Amsterdam" and Timothy Garton Ash's review of this book in the New York Review of Books, Pascal Bruckner has kindled an international debate. By now Ian Buruma, Timothy Garton Ash, Necla Kelek, Paul Cliteur, Lars Gustafsson, Stuart Sim, Ulrike Ackermann, Adam Krzeminski, Halleh Ghorashi, Bassam Tibi and Margriet de Moor have all stepped into the ring.
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Tolerance for the tolerant
A combative response to Jutta Limbach's article on "Making multiculturalism work" by the Turkish-German lawyer and activist Seyran Ates.
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Making multiculturalism work
Should
Islamic schoolgirls be excused from gym class in German schools? Should
the Muezzin's call to prayer ring as loudly as the church bells in
German towns? Jutta Limbach, former President of Germany's
Federal Constitutional Court, sees multiculturalism on the wane in
Germany. In view of the growing terr orist threat, she makes a plea for
the protection of the rights of the minority, not the majority.
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Born again to kill
Islamic terrorism has nothing to do with tradition. It's a brand new direction in the faith. And it's rooted in Europe. By Olivier Roy
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Neither whores nor submissive
In
the fractured suburbs of France, young Muslim men are increasingly
acting as the guardians of public morals. Girls who don't conform to
Islamic behavioural codes are threatened with rape or death. Fadela
Amara's organisation "Ni putes ni soumises" ("neither whores nor
submissive") is fighting back. By Rebecca Hillauer
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Between the Sex Pistols and the Koran
In
the wake of terrorist attacks, people who plead for a dialogue between
religions are avoiding the key question: why do Muslims become
terrorists? By Zafer Senocak
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Islam in its new Habitus
The public face of Islam is changing. A new collection of essays tries to understand how and why. By Moritz Behrendt
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RSS
Thirty years of superficial reporting by the Western press neglected the build up to the current turmoil in Tehran. Iranians are not risking their lives because of an alleged election fraud last June, but because they have endured thirty years of brutality, humiliation and frustration. By Haideh Daragahi
To advocate the Swiss minaret ban with the arguments of Anne Applebaum, Henryk Broder and Ayaan Hirsi Ali, is to apply to the sort of fundamentalist logic which the west left behind - historically speaking - an amazingly short time ago. If we don't want to return to a pre-1648 world, Gustav Seibt argues, what we need now is two-way tolerance.
Claus Leggewie and Harald Welzer have written a book about the end of the world as we knew it. Jan Feddersen grills them on climate change and the role of democracy in a political system that has had no new ideas since the fall of the Wall.
UPDATE: Herta Müller wins the Nobel Prize for Literature 2009. Twenty years after Ceausescu's execution, his secret service is still active - only its name has changed. Secret files are being manipulated; shadowing and smear campaigns continue. For the first time, Romanian-born German writer Herta Müller describes her long history of Securitate persecution, uncertain of how much she has yet to endure.
In local elections at the beginning of the month, the Austrian state of Carinthia effectively granted a governing majority to a dead man. Eva Menasse looks at an idyllically beautiful corner of the world that has been dumbed-down to death. Photo by 
The fatwa against British Indian author Salman Rushdie was issued 20 years ago. Today, says Thierry Chervel, Islamism has the West more firmly in its grip than ever before – thanks to our left-wing intellectuals.
Tunisian-born writer Abdelwahab Meddeb depicts the pain and sadness afflicting Gaza, where the horror of the human race appears in all its nakedness.
The age of privatisation is over. Politics not the market is responsible for promoting the common good. Philosopher Jürgen Habermas talks to Thomas Assheuer about the necessity of an international world order. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)