Die Tageszeitung 04.07.2009

Christoph Haas portrays French comic artist Guy Delisle, who has made a name for himself with his graphic reportage from Shenzen, Pyongyang and Burma. One of the things that impressed Haas was Delisle's eye for detail: "In North Korea for example, he noticed that in the ubiquitous portraits of Kim Il Sung and Kim Jong Il that hang on the walls, the upper part of the frames are wider and more protrusive that the lower part: "On the one hand this prevents light reflections which might disturb the view of the 21st century son and his honourable offspring. On the other hand the effect combines with the forwards tilt of the picture to lend the eyes a more imposing stare.' Using details to represent the whole is a sign of a master. Delisle deploys the pars pro toto principle in place of systematic analysis."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 06.07.2009

In an comprehensive background article Zurich-based translator Wei Zhang explains how Chinese censorship functions. "The system of control is lent legitimation because both censors and the censored believe that all damns of self-control would burst if the control were suddenly to stop. The Cultural Revolution refined the system of mutual control, leaving the majority of the population preferring to avoid 'problems' rather than risk burning its fingers. The censorship system can therefore rely on its basis in society and the readiness of a huge voluntary police force from all walks of life."


Frankfurter Rundschau 07.07.2009

Hans-Jürgen Linke sticks his neck out for Richard Jones' "Lohengrin" (trailer) in the Munich Staatsoper, although the audience and most of the press reacted with loud booing. Why? Because Jones' Lohengrin is a petit bourgeois building a terraced house for his family, which he eventually razes to the ground. It is interesting to note that Linke describes the cooperation between Richard Jones and conductor Kent Nagano as harmonious (Joachim Kaiser, in the Süddeutsche Zeitung, for example, only hears dissonance): "Everything that's needed in terms of musical tools and material is introduced summarily and unceremoniously in the overture, as would please any craftsman. The courtly trumpet ceremonies are delivered from the side boxes by four curiously (and very Britishly) uniformed soldiers. Nagano's Lowengrin interpretation is perfectly tuned to the directorial stamp on the subject matter. It is immediate and free of devotional tonal gesturing, it neither savours nor prolongs, but moves along promptly even briskly, without even a hint of haste or superficiality. And when choir and soloists fill the stage in a construction-site tumult, the music surrenders to this tumult wholeheartedly."


Die Tageszeitung 07.07.2009

Jörg Sundermeier remembers the media's brutal treatment of Michael Jackson compared, for example with its handling of Phil Spector. "No one branded Spector a pervert whereas this was a truth universally known as far as Michael Jackson was concerned, no matter what he did, what the witnesses said, how porous the evidence was. I am not trying to absolve Michael Jackson, but it is interesting to compare the treatment of this black entertainer prior to his death with that of the heterosexual white man. Phil Spector, a junkie and a gun freak, shot an actress in the mouth, but virtually no one in the media thought of linking this with any sort of sexual perversion. To kill a woman, as long as it happens in a villa and not a far-off country, is considered a minor offence."


Die Tageszeitung 09.07.2009

Film production in Iran has basically ground to a halt, reports Anke Leweke. "It is not unsual for Iranian filmmaking to stagnate before and after the elections. After all it takes time to adjust to each new cultural minister, film and censorship commissioner. The state closely follows every film project from expose to final cut. Filmmaking in Iran also requires a talent for shrewd handling of the censors and an ability to respond to their arbitrary decisions and unpredictability. Many a director has grown accustomed to taking a shoulder-shrugging Inshallah approach to the authorities, or processing his experiences with stubborn civil servants and moral-revolutionary specifications as anecdotes."


From the blogs 09.07.2009

Two Chinese authors rushed off a Michael Jackson biography within 48 hours of his death, writes Peter Glaser. It goes without saying that neither of them had ever met or interviewed Jackson. There was simply no time for proper research: "'The fans couldn't be kept waiting for months on end,' said co-author Jiang Xiaoyu."


Die Zeit 09.07.2009

The writer Navid Kermani, who was in Iran during the demonstrations, now calls upon Western governments not to recognise the Iranian elections and to isolate Ahmedinejad's regime. "We need an ice age," he writes. "The Iranian Republic is not what it was prior to the elections; it is no longer a system of rival centres of power which, within the parameters of its own, narrow understanding of statehood, allows a process of public opinion formation which justifies the hope of change. Today it is a military dictatorship, which has positioned itself against the majority of its people, but also against a large part of its political and religious elite. The prisons are not only filled with women's rights activists, ordinary citizens and students, but also former ministers, members of parliament, intellectuals, even a leader of the US embassy occupation of 1979. This means two things for Iran: the leadership will not stop at anything; and it has more opposition than ever.

"I maintain that there has never been a politician who, over the course of an entire hour, has managed to be as clever, as good, as prudent and as gracious as you." After watching the German Chancellor on a TV political talk show, writer Martin Walser outs himself in an open letter as an Angie fan, before appealing to her to withdraw German troops from Afghanistan. "It might be a private matter that I believe that there is no such thing as a just war. But I can still point out that the Soviet Union spilled blood in Afghanistan for 12 long years. Their own and Afghan blood too. And for what? Nothing."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 10.07.2009

On July 1, an Egyptian woman was stabbed to death in a court in Dresden by the Russian-German defendant. Marwa el-Sherbini was killed while giving evidence about how the man had insulted her for wearing the hijab. The Egyptian writer Alaa Al-Aswani is angered by the double standards of the Western media which clamours in outrage when a woman is killed during the demonstrations in Iran but ignores the death of an Arab woman at the hands of a white man. "The reason being that the murder of Neda was the fault of the Iranian regime, whereas the murder of Marwa shows that terrorism is not solely an Arab and Muslim domain. A white German terrorist kills an innocent woman, a stranger, and makes an attempt on her husband's life – and for the simple reason that she is Muslim and wears the hijab. The Western media couldn't give a damn. The West, its politicians and its media, always take a standpoint which is hostile to the Arabs and Muslims. This is an undeniable fact."