Süddeutsche Zeitung 16.02.2008

The recent case in Afghanistan of a student who is being threatened with execution for printing and distributing an article about women's rights, shines for Ilija Trojanow and Ranjit Hoskote a revealing light on the country. "The Kambakhsh case shows that behind the over-simplified tale of religious fanaticism is a puppet regime characterised by widespread corruption, massive abuses of power and a contempt for state control. The key actors here are politicians who are in control of substantial western aid for reconstruction, civil servants who see torture, rape and extortion as legitimate instruments of administration, and regional leaders who control both parliament and poppy production and line their pockets with drug profits several times larger than the state budget."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 16.02.2008

Hungarian writer Peter Zilahy remembers the first time it dawned on him that he was an EU citizen, while in the queue for EU passport holders at the airport. "What came over me is hard to put into words. It must be how coal feels when after millions of years of stone-hard waiting deep inside the earth, it suddenly mutates into a diamond. Or liquid gold, when Cellini gave it form. I stood there like a lost sheep which, with the final chord of its prolonged and joyless bleating, to its great surprise finally reaches the right place, a yapping dog at its heels. I handed over my passport which betrayed my provenance, the border control officer inspected it at length, as if it was fake, bent it this way and that, shone a light at it, subjected its holder to thorough staring as well, and then waved his hand. I could go through."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 18.02.2008

Marjane Satrapi's film "Persepolis" has been shown to a selected audience in Tehran - albeit with 20 minutes cut out – and a complete if not subtitled pirate copy has also been circulating the country. Simon Fuchs was at the official screening and talked to students afterwards. "No one would argue that the rejection of the religious state system by the young is greater and more widespread than in Satrapi's generation. But why, Farshad interjects, are people who want change not getting support from abroad. He holds out his mobile phone with photos of a public square full of students demonstrating. That was two months ago. We were shouting 'Death to the dictator! Death to the fascist system!' Why does CNN only show Ahmedinejad saying yet again that he wants Israel wiped off the map. Why doesn't it show us as well?"


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 20.02.2008

Fidel Castro's obituary is written by Norberto Fuentes, a once close associate of Castro's who also published a fictional autobiography (excerpt in English here) of the caudillo. It was during the Cuban Crisis, Fuentes writes, that Castro and his kind understood their mission. "The Russians needed them. These old men were no longer even capable of motivating their own committees. And so Fidel Castro became the last Soviet hero, following his previous incarnation as the Robin Hood of American TV:"


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 21.02.2008

The recent outbreak of youth violence in Denmark has sparked intense national debate about integration and tolerance. For Danish writer Jens Christian Grøndahl the violence is more a reaction to a new wave of drug raids than to the re-publication of the Mohammed cartoons: "When it comes to the uneducated, traditionally oriented ghetto-dwellers of middle-eastern or north-African descent, the charitable Dane is torn between the anxiety he feels at what he suspects is the return of a class society, and his need to show someone his empathy and improve his or her lot with socio-political initiatives. ... The accommodating, flagellating self-criticism of the welfare state has become so entrenched in our minds that even arsonists and killers are seen as victims. In this particular point, integration, which has failed otherwise, is astoundingly successful: there's a very telling correspondence between the social-moral tendency toward empathy, and the over-sensitive rhetoric regarding arsonists or rather fundamentalist Muslims."


Die Zeit 21.02.2008

Following the recent exposure of what is being called the greatest tax evasion scandal in German history, Marc Brost and Uwe Jean Heuser look at the rich German elite which is withdrawing from society to live in a parallel universe. To the rich, high taxes are a "predatory attack by the state. (...) What we have here is more than just a couple of tax criminals who've been flushed out. Something has gone awry in this country. … It's not merely a dozen or so managers who have dropped out of society bit by bit. This tax scandal involves family businesses and entire wage brackets. No matter that their villas are getting larger, and that their children have a greater head-start in the society than ever before. What is evaporating is their desire to integrate. And to finance the state. Germany's class struggle is coming from above."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 22.02.2008

Agron Bajrami, editor-in-chief of the newspaper Koha Ditore, writes about Kosovo's independence. "Like every newborn, Kosovo is a tiny, helpless and weak creature. It is a penniless country with an impoverished and poorly educated population, high levels of unemployment, an underdeveloped economy, unstable political institutions, major ethnic tensions and a bad image. And its neighbours, the Serbs, are furious about its birth. These are all grounds for considerable concern for the stability of this newest of European states."


Frankfurter Rundschau 22.02.2008

Jonathan Littell's novel "Les Bienveillantes" (originally published in French) about an SS officer in WWII, is due out in German translation this Saturday. Inspired by the criticism levelled by Georg Klein (feature to follow next week) that the book lacks the 'style of evil', Ina Hartwig compares Littell with the French poetes maudits. "In the writings of de Sade and Bataille murder itself is linked with lust. And lust - this would be a criteria for 'the style of evil' – becomes the ruling principle. But even in moments when his drives kick in, Littell's hero Max Aue is still himself. In full control and with a morceau of self irony, he concludes: 'And so I decided, my arse full of sperm, to join the secret police.' Morality is not warped into amorality, but the ruling criminal law is deceived, outwitted."