Die Tageszeitung, 18.11.2005

Peter Böhm interviews Bruce Lawrence, professor of religious studies at Duke University, on his recently published book containing statements by Osama bin Laden. "For someone who's not familiar with it, bin Laden's language comes as a complete surprise. If you just hear isolated quotes you'd take him for a sharp-tongued ideologist of terrorism and extremism. That's not wrong, but in his statements he presents his views as if they were just an answer to the terror of the Americans and Europeans. They're the ones who attacked the Muslim world, he says. He calls them the Zionist Crusader Alliance. That's a very peculiar term, which has only existed in Arabic for a very short time." Part of bin Laden's appeal comes from his elegant use of language, Lawrence says. "People who read or hear his words for the first time are astonished at how well he formulates his ideas. He uses no colloquial language, and no neologisms. He speaks like someone who lives in the 7th century and venerates the prophet Mohammed."


Die Welt, 18.11.2005

Annabel Dillig looks at the newest trends in burial culture: "To show your individuality you don't necessarily have to have your ashes shot up into space. But Friedwälder, forests set aside to allow headstone-free burials in nature, are becoming increasingly popular. A lot of people in Germany, mostly agnostics from the north and the east, are led by their love of nature and desire for anonymity to have their ashes placed in an urn under a tree. Friedwald GmbH's Internet presence has attracted people from all over Germany. In just four years, ten such forests have sprung up. A green burial costs in the neighbourhood of 800 euros, and includes a guarantee against lightning."


Der Tagesspiegel, 18.11.2005

Violence broke out at Fenerbahce's Sukru Saracoglu stadium in Istanbul on Wednesday, after Switzerland was declared winner over Turkey in a contested qualifying game for the FIFA World Cup (news story). As the father of 2 young soccer players, the writer Georg Klein insists that soccer, when played by the rules, should and can contribute to civilisation and not its demise. "As the father of 14 and 11 year old soccer club members, I've seen quite a bit on the fields of German soccer: cleverly hidden elbow jabs, spit aimed at the middle of faces, even kicks targeted at the abdomen of a prostrate opponent. Ears are likewise subject to regular evil: sexual insults of the basest kind, threats of beating and racist vocabulary with which the inhabitants of the neighbouring village are described as an inferior ethnic group. (...) But if the raw and the evil are eliminated, if the demon obeys the ritual of the game, soccer can prove how much eternally combative man is able to contribute to civilisation."
See our feature "We're coming to bring you on home", a story by Georg Klein.


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 18.11.2005

Detlef Esslinger describes the locations that the Bollywood producers of "Humrah" (the Traitor) sought out in a Hessian town for their shoot. "It's grey and cold as the 27 year old Indian actor Kushesh Kuresh Rusto dances by the Tchibo store (a coffee chain), wearing nothing more than a white shirt and a light beige jacket. 'Action!' calls the director, while his assistant turns on a portable CD player so that a Hindi hit is to be heard on the street. An old lady wipes her nose with a Kleenex, right in the middle of the shot. Which is why Director Vinod Kumar Singh has chosen the pedestrian zone. Unlike further up the street, on the historic market place, Germans are constantly walking through the shot here. The more Germans, the more exotic the scene. And November provides the perfect weather." In this scene, the hero is ruminating over whether indeed he loves the woman who his family has arranged for him to marry: Germany in fall provides the perfect setting. Director Singh explains that the happier scenes will be shot in India.