Saturday 26 February, 2005

Die Welt, 26.02.2005

Necla Kelek, whose book "Die Fremde Braut" (The Foreign Bride) on forced marriages and Turkish "imported brides" in Germany will be published next year, criticises Germany's ideology of multiculturalism, calling for new integration policies. "I am in favour of the recent immigration law obliging all new immigrants to learn German, and teaching them what rights they have in our democracy. A civil society does not live from prohibitions, but from norms and values that make social consensus possible. Forced and arranged marriages cannot be banned. They will stop when everyone understands that our society does not accept them. And this political will must be expressed in clear terms. We must protect the weakest in this society, the imported wives and women who are trying to find a way out of such a family structure. But we must also discuss our society. I would prefer Germans and people of Turkish origin to defend the achievements of our republic more energetically."


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 26.02.2005

Ijoma Mangold reports on the astonishment in America at the keen interest in foreign literature in Germany. "The Americans can hardly believe their eyes when they see how much foreign literature is translated into German," says Mangold. "Germany is a translator's paradise. The German Booksellers and Publishers Association calculates that roughly one in every eight books published in Germany is translated from another language. That means 7,574 titles, or 12.3 percent of the entire book production. And the figure for literature is even higher: 31 percent. That means almost one in every three novels published in Germany was translated from another language. By comparison, translations account for only one or two percent of novels published in the USA."

Julia Jentsch, who recently won the Silver Bear for best actress in "Sophie Scholl" at the Berlin International Film Festival, comments in an interview on her recent media success. "You have your own notion of yourself, and then you read how other people see you. Sometimes I can't find any common ground between the two - it's enough to make your head spin. Then I wonder if that's really what I want. Do I want photos of me printed up all over the place, with everyone looking at them? Actually not."


Monday 28 February, 2005

Die Tageszeitung, 28.02.2005

In the paper's "Agronauts" series about immigrant culture, Russian-born Vladimir Kaminer reports on the colourful Russian south, which has a long tradition of immigration. "Of course the locals checked out the newcomers; the people of the Caucasus will always be tempted by easy prey. Things went quickly with the Cossacks from Chechnya. The locals came over one night to show them their hunting rifles. Then the Cossacks proudly demonstrated what they had brought back from Grosny: fully automatic AK 74s that shoot 600 rounds per minute. Then they all talked a bit about the weather and the chances for a good harvest, wished each other a nice life and said goodbye."
Vladimir Kaminer is author of "Russian Disco" (2002) and "Militär Musik" (Military Music, 2001), both published by Manhattan-Goldmann. His book "Die Reise nach Trulala" (Journey to Trulala, 2002), describes a place in the south Russian steppe where KGB agents go on holidays.

Gabriele Goettle interviews Marina Schubarth, an erstwhile ballerina now helping former forced labourers to make compensation claims in Germany. Their claims require evidence that can sometimes only be obtained with detective-like tenacity. Schubarth gives one example from the Bavarian town of Weißenburg. "I went to the city archives and asked for old post cards and pictures from the 1940s. At the same time I inquired if they had any documents on forced labourers. 'No, unfortunately not,' said the young archivist. But then as I was going through the big file of old pictures, another folder fell out. I got such a shock when I opened it! It was a list of names of forced labourers. I went down the list with my finger and at number one thousand five hundred and something I saw the name I was looking for. The young archivist was astonished too. 'Maybe they tried to prevent people seeing it after the war,' he said."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 28.02.2005

After visiting the exhibition "Architecture of the Wonder Children - Departures and Repression in Bavaria 1945-1960" in Munich, Niklas Maak notes some strange continuities between the sinister, heavy-handed architecture of the Nazis and the light, swinging style that followed. For example Wilhlem Kreis: "Those familiar with the architecture of former German Building Director Wilhelm Kreis couldn't believe their eyes when they saw the new Beethoven Hall in Bonn. Kreis designed a light, glass building nestled between the trees; the roof prances on high-heeled steel and concrete stilettos, everything in the plans was vitreous and floating. Such buildings were not so unusual in Europe in the era of the kidney-shaped table; what was unusual was that the design came from the office of Wilhelm Kreis, a man who a few years before had designed bleak bunkers for Hitler, a war museum and a gigantic, a windowless memorial for fallen German soldiers."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 28.02.2005

Jürgen Ritte complains that immigration policy in France exists mainly in republican rhetoric; when there are problems, police and not pedagogues are sent into the schools. "After hundreds of years of state secularism, after half a century of massive immigration from north Africa, the Islamic population is still not really integrated. As comedians (playing the dumb little suburban) or as soccer stars, French Muslims have a slight chance of social advance. But unlike in England or the USA, there are no black or brown faces on the television news. Young Muslims don't feel at home in France, they're not taken seriously - unless it's as a 'problem case' for the few and miserably paid social workers."