Why do teenagers find SchülerVZ, flickr or YouTube so fantastic? What are they finding in the communities on the internet that doesn't exist in real life, and what exactly are they doing with it? The JFF- Institut für Medienpädagogik (Institute for Media Education) looks into these questions and learns from a 15 year-old "I think the future will just be one big Second Life."...
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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. (Photo: Wolfram Huke)
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No-one knows what the anti-Koran film 'Fitna' by the Dutch right-wing politician Geert Wilders contains exactly. But fearing Muslim anger many are ready to make concessions regarding the fundamental freedom of expression. Gelijn Molier looks to nineteenth century philosopher John Stuart Mill for advice.
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The deportation of Romanians from Italy in the wake of a murder committed by an ethnic Roma has caused a stir in Romania. Yet whereas Romanians object to this discrimination abroad, they fail to see that at home the Roma are treated with nothing but hatred and disdain, and neither the Church nor the state is doing anything about it. By Mircea Cartarescu
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Italy has been slow to address the danger of radical Islam. For too long it was the domain of right-wing rabble-rousers while the left slumbered away in "Islam correctness". At last the left-wing liberal Reset magazine has launched a proper debate. By Franz Haas
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The Amsterdam district of Slotervaart, where Theo van Gogh's murderer lived, continues to be plagued by outbreaks of violence from youths in the immigrant communities. Many of their parents have withdrawn from what they perceive as the hostile outside world, which they invariably blame when their children go astray. By Margalith Kleijwegt
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Anyone who counts Danube Swabians, Slovenians and Italians among his forefathers and lives as a Bosnian Croat first in Sarajevo and then in Zagreb, is entitled to call his birth a political project. Miljenko Jergovic tells the story of his family, of people whose identities have more to do with what they are not, than what they are.
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How sex-obsessed is a culture that teaches a woman that she is basically a walking, sitting or reclining set of genitals? How over-aroused is a society in which men are expected to have no qualms about pouncing on any woman who happens to walk by, unless a divinely ordained dress code forbids them to do so? Dutch writer Margriet de Moor looks at Islam in the light of Europe and Europe in the light of Islam. (Photo © Maria Neefjes)
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This need not be a case of either Hirsi Ali or Tariq Ramadan. Timothy Garton Ash and Ian Buruma set Pascal Bruckner straight on a few last points.
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It's not enough to condemn terrorism. The religion that engenders it and on which it is based, right or wrong, must also be reformed. Some final remarks on the multiculturalism debate by Pascal Bruckner.
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The debate on Europe and Islam should stop profiling people like Ayaan Hirsi Ali or Tariq Ramadan, and focus on Euro-Islam as a bridge between civilisations. Europe has a civilising identity and the right to preserve it. This is not anti-Muslim, because the idea of Europe is inclusive. Europe respects the identity of immigrants yet expects them to adapt without surrendering their sense of self. By Bassam Tibi
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Ayaan Hirsi Ali's ideas on the incompatibility of Islamic faith and the emancipation of women are reductionist and dogmatic. Only openness to migrants' decisions can help Western society steer clear of cultural fundamentalism. By Halleh Ghorashi
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Comparisons of Islam and communism like those drawn by Ayaan Hirsi Ali and Ulrike Ackermann are gross oversimplifications. But just as many factors played into the fall of communism, the Gordian knot of Islam and Europe needs "fundamentalist" as well as "culturalist" solutions. By Adam Krzeminski
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Jesco Delorme defends Ian Buruma, Timothy Garton Ash and Stuart Sim against charges of cultural relativisim. Looking for criteria on which to base the legitimate demands of minorities, he sketches the physiognomy of liberalism and accuses Buruma's critics of constrictive political thinking.
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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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