Die Welt, 22.12.2006

As the EU accession of Bulgaria and Romania approaches, Berthold Seewald casts his eye on the rich history of both countries. He sees neither the ominous "outskirts of the Muslim orient" nor of "creepy Transylvania," but rather he sees the roots of Europe: "No other European region has managed to rescue its Roman origins over the ages... In the Balkans, society is organized from the bottom up, not from the center outward. And this inheritance, too, supposedly came via Rome, Byzantium, through Turkey into the modern day. Perhaps Europe should see in the Balkans something like a rich treasure trove of its oldest roots, and not merely what happens to be the outer edge of its expanding present."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22.12.2006

Barbara Spengler-Axiopoulos notes the precarious situation of Turkish Muslims in Thrace, who first were recognized as citizens with the accession of Greece to the EU. "It has only been a few years since Greek Muslims have been allowed to borrow money, buy land, get permission to build, and get a license to drive. Perhaps it was the most notable symbol of the backward situation in Thracian villages. The 50 percent of villages inhabited by Christians had paved roads and were well-kept, and the other half, where Muslims lived, were accessible only by dirt roads."



Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.12.2006

In his critique of the Hans Haacke retrospective in Berlin, Niklas Maak zooms in on a critical work that had preoccupied the banker Hermann Josef Abs, once so closely linked to this newspaper. In 1968, Abs had donated a Manet to the Wallraf-Richartz Museum in Cologne: "When six years later the artist Hans Haacke - invited by the same museum to an exhibition about 'Art of the early 1970s' – suggested investigating the history of this painting and its owners, and presenting this research as a work of art in the museum, the museum director rejected the idea of showing this work: 'A grateful museum,' went the argument, has to 'protect such unsual initiatives from later, easily overshadowing interpretations.' The shadow that Haacke did not wish to hide in his work was the role that Abs had played in the Third Reich in the 'Aryanization' of Jewish property, and why until his death in 1994 he was not allowed to enter the United States."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22.12.2006

In a very interesting, page-long interview about copyright law in the digital age, American attorney Lawrence Lessig explains that "promoters of strict copyrights" remind him of the "old Soviets of 1988," who tried with all their might to destroy creative potential. "I would like my child to grow up in a world in which there is a radical difference between what he does with culture, from what I have done with culture. The most creative thing I did as a child was to make a dance-mix cassette tape for a girlfriend. Unbelievable ingenuity! But just look at what kids are doing today: They take a song, break it down into various tracks, mix it together with other sounds. They take material from advertising, remove it from its context and make something new out of it. They are just as creative as a teacher of creative writing would hope, in dealing with texts. That is a good comparison: We should have the same freedom with all media as we have with texts. If I write a book, I cite others – and it never occurrs to me to call and ask their permission."


Die Tageszeitung, 22.12.2006

Just in time for Christmas, Matthias Bröckers repeats his call for the deregulation of marijuana and refers to the potential tax revenues in the USA alone. "The marijuana harvest in 2005 represented about 10,000 cubic tons, or 10 million kilos; with production costs of about $3,500, each kilo would cost about $6,000 to $8,000 wholesale. Out of a total harvest worth more than $35 billion – the annual corn harvest, by comparison, is worth $23.3 billion, while the soy bean harvest is $17.7 billion – more than a third comes from California, followed by the US states of Tennessee, Kentucky, Hawaii and Washington. About a fifth of annual production is indoors under artificial light; the rest grows out in the open; not even ten percent of the estimated annual production is discovered and confiscated by police.” Read for yourself about the connection between prohibition and the boom in private jails.


Der Tagesspiegel, 22.12.2006

Diedrich Diederichsen racks his brains over how pop music can grow old with dignity. "Most importantly, the pop musician in question must present a connection between his work as director of his appearances, his persona, his music and the performances themselves, the representation of all these ideas. Because that is what people want from him. The question is, how he deals with this over time. According to the classical model, not only should a song be plausible, but there should also be a certain biographical content. This relationship can lie in happily fetishized authenticity or in a well-rehearsed incongruity, which itself becomes an authentic brand as in the cases of David Bowie and Frank Zappa. Anyhow, working on one's biography is not unimportant. But it is even more important to find a mode of presentation that neither stumbles into the trap of weak linkage with one's official biography, as so many stars of today do, nor sets itself up, a la Madonna these days, as a 'playing with identities' – a tactic whose outlook is just as bleak in the long run."