Monday 24 September, 2007

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 24.09.2007

Andreas Rossmann has met Letizia Battaglia in Palermo, the photographer who became famous for her pictures documenting Mafia crimes (images here and here). In Battaglia's view, the Mafia has changed so much it's hardly recognisable: "What's true is that the Mafia is not as brutal as it was before. But that's only because there's been a silent pact: 'We won't kill any more judges, journalists or politicians, and in return the state will let us go about our business in peace.' Today the Mafia is everywhere. It has infiltrated the administrations, the media and political parties, the right-wing, and also part of the left. It sits in the heads of the little people and in the corridors of power. Of course there are still courageous public officials, politicians, journalists and businesspeople, but the borders are blurred. The Mafia has become invisible." On September 29, Battaglia will receive the Salomon-Preis of the German Photographic Society.


Die Welt 24.09.2007

Under the title "Endstation Stammheim," the Theater Stuttgart is showing a collection of plays dealing with the "Deutscher Herbst" or German Autumn of thirty years ago, the highpoint of RAF terrorism. Eckhard Fuhr explains the context of one production, "Peymannbeschimpfung" (Peymann-bashing). Connections were established in the late 1970s between the RAF and the theatre when one of its prop pistols was found at the site of an RAF robbery. Tension heightened when director Claus Peymann pinned a note on an internal signboard calling for donations for a tooth operation for imprisoned terrorist Gudrun Ensslin: "At the height of the Deutscher Herbst, Peymann received around 600 abusive and threatening letters, which form the archival starting point for 'Peymannbeschimpfung' by the theatre collective Rimini Protokoll... Claus Peymann is shown reading the letters on a huge screen, at times amused, at times disgusted by the uninhibited verbal aggressions which sometimes rise to grotesque linguistic heights: 'You deserve a whack on the head with a shitfork so hard your socks bust.'"


Hannah Schygulla talks to Peter Beddies among other things about working with Rainer Maria Fassbinder and Fatih Akin (who's new film "The Edge of Heaven" has comes out in Germany on Thursday) and the shift among filmmakers from despair to courage: "It's no longer possible to do what Fassbinder tried to do. He wanted to do everything in his power to unhinge the world. In a way this was a loosing battle. He burnt out inside too fast. The fight cost too much energy. The enemies, including the ones inside him, were too powerful. No one today would even dream of wanting to relive this madness. Fatih is fighting too. He is very engaged. But he also knows that he can't change everything at once. He fights in small doses. Nothing else is possible today. (...) Today the focus is on changing things in one's immediate surroundings. It's about not being a victim of circumstance. It's about the importance of protecting our souls. So they can stretch their wings. This is important and doable."


Die Tageszeitung 24.09.2007

Gabriele Goettle meets Mona Schmidt, who runs an old-fashioned magic shop in Berlin Neukölln. "The 'Magic King' is barely a metre higher than the ivy-grown graveyard wall. The two shop windows are decorated with everything that will bring joy to a child's black soul and there's plenty for grown-ups to wallow in as well. The worm pills for example, stink bombs, ice-cubes with flies, cigarettes that explode or seem to glow; a wall clock which turns backwards; a salt shaker that makes noises; soap that dyes your hands; whoopee cushions; magic water; black snakes; bird whistles; magic masks; erotic joke articles; a wet handshake; beautifully cut glasses which can't hold liquid; a wooden guillotine; magic ink; eight piles of poo in various forms, colours and sizes; and wonderful little magnetic dancers that turn forever on a mirror."


Saturday 22 September, 2007

Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 22.09.2007

In an interview, Katharina Wagner and Christian Thielemann officially declare their canditature as heads of the Wagner Festival in Bayreuth. Wagner, great granddaughter of composer Richard Wagner and daughter of the current festival director Wolfgang Wagner, cites the festival's current contracts as one reason why she is the only serious contender: "This means that for the first eight years we will be contractually bound to continue the era of Wolfgang Wagner as administrators of sorts. I don't mean to be uncharming, but for age reasons alone, my cousin Nike and my half-sister Eva would simply not have the possibility to develop their own profile. Before they had a free hand to do their own planning, they'd be well over retirement age."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 22.09.2007

Pakistani journalist Shehar Bano Khan takes stock of the situation of women in Pakistani politics. Although there are more women than ever in political office, millions of women have disappeared from the electoral register. "One hears from the tribal areas in the North-East that almost 59 percent of the women there have been struck off the electoral register; in Punjab the figure is 48 percent, in other provinces, the numbers are also over 50 percent, and even in the rebellious Baluchistan province, a quarter of the women have been prevented from going to the polls. The reason for this is not an intentional exclusion of women by the Election Commission of Pakistan, but either the fact that those affected possess no identification cards or that the fundamentalist religious powers are forbidding women from participating in public and political life."