Neue Zürcher Zeitung 06.03.2010

Jörg Plath talked to the Romanian writer Mircea Cartarescu who, as a visiting lecturer at the Free University, is living in the area of Berlin with the highest concentration of cakes. He is obviously struggling to come to terms with his transition from poet to a more journalistic-philosophical type of writer. "Is it not just a question of age? 'Of maturity,' Cartarescu corrects me. 'Earlier in life it is normal to be a poet. As you grow older you move on to prose, essays, philosophy, to understanding the world rather that just reacting emotionally to it. This is what happened when I turned fifty. In other words I was hugely lucky as well as having' – a contented smile spreads over his face - 'a monstrous adolescence!"


Süddeutsche Zeitung 06.03.2010

Gottfried Knapp could hardly believe his eyes when he entered the newly opened "Turkish Chamber" in Dresden's Residential Palace. The exhibits are not only magnificent and exquisitely beautiful; only a small percentage of them are spoils of war. "This is not just some conqueror's museum which flaunts the treasures stolen after bloody battles, and this is also not a collection of Islamic art. This is a treasury in which ... the most persistent political enemy of the peoples of Europe, the Turks, against whom endless wars were fought with the utmost fanaticism, are met with unashamed admiration."


Die Tageszeitung 10.03.2010

Beate Seel reports on the renewed reprisals against the Iranian poet and human rights activist Simin Behbahan, who was prevented from travelling to Paris to hold a speech. The 82-year old was interrogated for several hours at the airport and ordered to appear in court. This was the regime's response to Behbahan's engagement for the opposition following the elections in June. "You may wish to burn me or decide to stone me," writes the "lion of Iran" in one of her poems. "But in your hand the match or the stone will lose its power to harm me."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 10.03.2010

The Iranian author Shahriar Mandanipur describes his country as caught in an endless loop of revolt and repression, and he blames censorship: "Each new regime was determined to erase the past from the minds of the people and ordered for history books in schools and universities to be rewritten. Books which were still valid were issued with printing bans and streets and squares that were names after important events were frequently renamed."


Frankfurter Rundschau 11.03.2010

In an interview, the Chinese artist Ai Weiwei explains why he regards himself as a member of the post-eighties generation: "Because in China the post-eighties is the first generation to actively use the internet, and therefore to live 'like humans'. My definition of a human is someone who has free access to information, who can construct his own knowledge structure, and express his opinions. The older generations were prevented from doing so by the worst means possible. I now spend most of my time online, at least eight hours a day, sometimes 24. Because the internet age is changing the entire power structure and this is something I must be aware of an as artist."


Die Welt 11.03.2010

Lucas Wiegelmann writes an instructive report on the early mashup of Jewish and Christian motifs, ancient Arabic poetry and inspired pieces of original writing that is the Koran. In Potsdam outside Berlin, a team of researchers from the Academy of Sciences is working on a project knows as the "Corpus Coranicum" to produce the first-ever critical edition of the holy book. Wiegelmann talked to a number of the scholars involved, including the prominent Arabist Michael Marx. He serves Mocca, while "next door his assistants and helpers sit in front of their computers typing up ancient manuscripts. The walls are lined with photocopies of ancient codices in the Arabic script. The researchers are analysing around 12,000 photos of the most important Koran manuscripts dating from the 7th to the 12th centuries, copying out the different versions of the verses for comparison before putting them online. A Sisyphean but important task; only when this has been completed can phase two of the project begin, in which the authentic version of the Koran is reconstructed."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 12.03.2010

Charlotte Knobloch, the president of the Central Council of Jews, wants to ban Oscar Roehler's film "Jud Süß – A Film Without a Conscience", Michael Althen reports. The film tells the story behind the notorious Nazi propaganda film of the same title which is still kept under lock and key in the German film archives today (more here). Knobloch accuses Roeler's film, which premiered at the Berlinale, of having antisemitic tendencies. Althen, however, argues the case for artistic freedom. "Of course art will always regard the darkest chapter in history as a challenge and there is therefore nothing suspect in an attempt to tackle the subject. There is always the possibility that such an undertaking will fail but this neither makes it frivolous, nor does it mean it has antisemitic tendencies. Of course 'Jud Süß' should be screened."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 12.03.2010

The writer Hans Maarten van den Brink attempts to explain the Geert Wilders phenomenon, the Dutch "demagogue with the bleached and back-combed Mozart hairdo", whose ongoing battle against "Islamisation" has the Netherlands on tenterhooks: "His standpoints do not follow the usual left/right guidelines. A self-proclaimed admirer of Ariel Sharon and Margaret Thatcher, Wilders is also taking on the world banks, the liberalisation of the job market and the rising retirement age. He wants to close borders, he disputes EU jurisdictions, and believes (like the Social Democrats) that the Netherlands has done enough in Afghanistan. At the same time, he tirelessly beats a drum for universal human rights, particularly for women and homosexuals. He thinks Dutch culture should be protected from foreign influences and that cultural and social subsides should be cut, and more state money handed out to pensioners, animals, the disabled and the police."