Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 12.07.2005

Tahir Abbas, sociology professor and head of the Centre for the Study of Ethnicity and Culture at the University of Birmingham, discusses the radicalisation of Islam in Britain, seeing a considerable need for reform among British Muslims, even moderates: "After New York, Washington, Bali and Madrid, the tragic events of July 7 mark a further milestone in the march of radicals influenced by Osama bin Laden and Abu Mussab al-Zarkawi, who are ready to murder or maim (and possibly to implicate British Muslims in such acts). This is a sign that Islam today is in poor shape, and that real reform or development of this once great religion is still a long way off. It is clear that Islam in the West, as elsewhere, is in need of clear-cut changes. And with the anti-discrimination laws currently in effect in England, and the openness of English society, it can at least be hoped that there is still a place where this can be brought about."

Andreas Breitenstein reports on a conference at the Literaturhaus in Munich on the occasion of the ten year anniversary of the massacre of Srebrenica. The Hungarian-Serbian writer Laszlo Vegel saw Srebrenica in the tradition of the 20th century: "The murder in Srebrenica can not be comprehended without this 'culture of mass graves'. The silence and the hubris of the victors would have allowed the glow of history to smoulder, according to Vegel. It didn't take much, after the fall of communism, to reignite the old hatred and with it, the idea that things can be solved with violence. Today, after the war of the 1990s, we cannot once more fall into the same patterns of silence and allow fate to continue unchecked. In Munich, everyone agreed that the Tribune in the Hague offers the only chance for catharsis, by dragging the 'victors' out of their blindness and the 'losers' out of their obduracy."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 12.07.2005

The SZ also covers the conference on Srebrenica, printing the speech by Serbian author Vladimir Arsenijevic, who confesses the shame he feels about the recently discovered video tapes of the execution of young men in Srebrenica: "Knowing that the murderers and henchmen are still among us, free and easy, is nothing new. We've gotten used to that, but that we're dealing with a particular species of criminal exhibitionists who wanted to commemorate their deeds on video tapes and who have now brought their souvenir into circulation, is an unusual detail which sheds a particular light on the whole matter. By copying their video tape and putting it in the public domain, they have made themselves actors in their own snuff film."

Jens Bisky has read the electoral programme of the conservative Christian Democratic Union (here as PDF file), who are set to win the federal elections that expected for September, and is aghast. "This is a catastrophe for every self-respecting conservative. The paper has nothing to say about implementing a reasonable cultural policy. On the question of education, it is opinionated and chock full of phraseology. The questions that need to be debated and hammered out are not even asked. And there is no trace at all of the conservative virtues most sweepingly embraced by Golo Mann. You can search in vain for a 'settling of accounts with man's true, truly stinted nature', and 'the sympathy for good old, established tradition'. In its place is reactionary small-mindedness and gibberish about personal responsibility. It's a classic example of programmatic void."


Die Welt, 12.07.2005

Dutch filmmaker and provocateur Theo van Gogh was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam in November 2004. The trial of his alleged murderer has now begun. Dutch journalist Jaffe Vink writes about the shock the event caused in the seemingly idyllic Netherlands: "We thought we were living in peace. But the terrorists are among us. And suddenly we see we can't deal with violence, whether it's criminal or terrorist. We can't deal with knives or bombs. It seems we had lost the feeling for impending danger that's necessary to avert disaster. We're not at all ready for violence because we're too filled with our goody-goody notions and humanitarian mawkishness, because we're fixed on the idea that the world will develop along our concepts of tolerance and freedom."


Die Tageszeitung, 12.07.2005

Natalie Tenberg compares British and Dutch societies, and the latter pales. "While Great Britain is a country of explicit prohibitions and implicit restrictions on these prohibitions (thus creating a construction of norms that is easy to see through), the Netherlands is a place of explicit liberalism and implicit prohibitions – difficult for newcomers or immigrants, who come from cultures that don't make such differentiations. The differences between British and Dutch societies show as well that a society entrenched in tradition, which exhibits its rules, is easier for its citizens to manage than a liberal society which hides its restrictions behind succinct and ironic statements."


Berliner Zeitung, 12.07.2005

Sebastian Preuss talks with Manuela Mena Marques, curator of a large Goya retrospective, "Goya - Prophet der Moderne" that opens tonight in the Alte Nationalgalerie in Berlin. Mena, Goya expert in Madrid's Prado Museum, has brought 12 of the Prado's 150 Goyas, and has convinced many Spanish and international private collectors to lend their prized works to the show, assembling the biggest retrospective of Goya's works ever held in the German-speaking world. "For the selection, which she carried out with her Berlin colleague Moritz Wullen, Mena paid great attention to representing as many aspects of Goya's work as possible from the 1770s until his death in 1828. In particular, she was keen to show the religious works. For Mena, Goya is not at all as secular, as agnostic as Werner Hofmann (author of a major monograph on Goya) makes him out to be, for example."