Die Zeit 26.10.2006

Wolf Biermann sings a typically Biermannesque song of protest about the growing animosity towards Israel in Germany, where for a change the "average German" and the "Elite Pack" are agreed. "There is much under-the-breath muttering, growling and whining of that old chorus: The Jews are to blame for everything! And when faced with reflex accusations of anti-Semitism, today's Jew-haters reply coolly: 'Surely one can criticise one's friends!" The Germans have a steely eye on the Jews in Israel, and a moist eye on the Arabs in Palestine. But the German romantic sympathy for the Islamists in the Middle East conflict has its reasons. To the German mind, the Arabs are maniacs, immature third-class citizens, quite beyond the reaches of humane Enlightenment. This German sympathy is a sort of patronising contempt. The gushing respect for foreigners is nothing but self-satisfied arrogance. I see the multi-cultural rhapsodising of my peers as the flip-side of the sinister racism of yesteryear."
See our feature "The ghosts are leaving the shadows," a review by Wolf Biermann of the film "The Life of Others."

Wolfgang Rihm, one of Germany's leading contemporary composers, talks to Claus Spahn and Thomas Assheuer about how lived experience corresponds to musical expression. "The two don't correlate on a one-to-one basis. But for example I always have a notebook with me where I can jot things down. Here for example (Rihm shows a page of his notebook with a list in point form), that was a talk with one of the best cooks in Strasbourg, Monsieur Emile Jung from Au Crocodile. He explained to me the principle behind spicing. One strong element is complemented by three medium-strength and six weak ones. That's a fantastic doctrine for composition, because it avoids a bland mishmash and gives you a dominant theme orchestrated from different sides. If you arrange the dynamics similarly in music - with one powerful, three intermediate and six weak elements - you get a balanced result, even if the form is asymmetrical. But don't worry, that's not how I cook up my compositions."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 26.10.2006

In an interview marking the publication of his novel "Partir" into German, the Moroccan author Tahar Ben Jelloun talks about migration from North Africa and Europe's closing door: "The message that's meant to come out of my novel 'Partir' is that emigration is no longer the solution. In countries like Morocco, enough work should be created so that young people no longer risk their lives to get somewhere where the people weren't expecting them in the first place. The authorities in the countries of emigration have to do something against this hopelessness, which so often results in tragedy." A further article reviews the German translation "Verlassen".


Süddeutsche Zeitung 26.10.2006

A year ago the French suburbs went up in flames, but still no official narrative of the events has emerged among the youth, French sociologist Michel Wieviorka explains in an interview with Alex Rühle: "And that's because they simply didn't experience the events together. They communicated over mobile phones, came together for brief moments and then split up again. Added to that, these youths have no culture of remembrance. Their lives are not shaped by discourse, they zap from event to event. In the meantime there's been the Star-Academy and the Football World Cup on TV. They haven't had the time to develop a romantic narrative."

The Moscow gallerist Marat Guelman tells Sonja Zekri how he was beaten up by ten men who stormed his gallery. "My co-workers were orderd to stand against the wall, while the intruders tore the pictures from where they were hanging. Then they launched themselves at me." Guelman thinks they were skinheads. "They hate modern art, they hate everything that doesn't fit into their world. This is not necessarily the ideology of the ruling power, but the government has created an atmosphere conducive to this sort of behaviour."


Die Tageszeitung 26.10.2006

At 35, Charlotte Gainsbourg has released her first album "5:55" and Reinhard Krause looks at why she didn't launch her singing career earlier. "It can't be due to lack of interest from the music world. The problem probably goes back a lot further, to 20 years ago when she recorded an album under the auspices of Big Papa. 'Charlotte Forever' was his hymn to his daughter which followed up on the scandalously-titled 'Lemon Incest' from 1984, where the old provacateur at least hinted at the only sexual variation missing from his oeuvre. ... Father Gainsbourg, Charlotte says in retrospect, lovingly committed to vinyl all the little 'mistakes' she made during the recordings, with the consequence that Charlotte will forever be associated with a squeaky voice that keeps slipping out of key."