Süddeutsche Zeitung, 03.05.2006

For French philosopher Jean Baudrillard, the conflict surrounding French prime minister Dominique de Villepin's failed labour reform is "revolution as a fake and a farce". "What we have here is a purely farcical event, with one party playing the melodrama of power and the other the melodrama of revolt, while neither attain the format of historical actors. It's a 'schizophrenic farce' of the kind described by Guido Ceronetti, a sort of trompe l'oeil destined to mask the end of power and the end of all forms of countervailing power. Both those who believe they still exercise power and those who believe they are subject to this power fail to see they are deluded. This theatrical duo is entirely unpersuasive, perhaps because there once was a subject of history, but today there is no subject of the end of history."


Die Tageszeitung, 03.05.2006

Zafer Senocak calls for "zero tolerance" with respect to the "demands of honour" that are being evoked in the discussion of the recent attack of a Ethopian-German in Potsdam (news) and the so-called "honour killing" of the Turkish-German Hatun Sürücü (news). This is "not only a concern of the justice system and the police"; the situation calls for "social and cultural engagement.... The culture wars do not take place between neatly defined ethnic identities or cultures, but rather within cultures that are divided by different perceptions, that are split within themselves. Those who are fighting for a democratic and free society must develop a notion of patriotism based on freedom. Ethnic groups should not be excluded but totalitarian ways of thinking should." See features by Zafer Senocak here and here.


Frankfurter Rundschau, 03.05.2006

Christian Thomas stands in awe before Christoph Mäckler's new Portikus building in Frankfurt. "The new exhibition hall for contemporary art looks like an outdated townhouse. That Frankfurt's Portikus should choose not a factory, a cathedral or a machine, but a downright civilian location can be interpreted as a provocation – irrespective of the fact that one of the building's secrets is its anti-modern modernism. It is not chic, it is not hip. It is simply uncompromisingly elegant."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 03.05.2006

"Here we are, honouring him with some green-space and the hope that people come to enjoy it," writes Paul Jandl about Vienna, where Sigmund Freud's 150th birthday is being celebrated these days with notable reserve. And he quotes Karl Kraus who said of Freud: "He is to be thanked for bringing a constitution to the anarchy of dreams, but alas it's not unlike that of Austria."


Berliner Zeitung, 03.05.2006

Arno Widmann has been touring the Vorarlberg of Austria. "In the museum of the town Dornbirn in Voralberg there hangs a poster that one is likely to miss. It's an ad for laundry soap from 1954. At the time, the poster had to be confiscated for violating decency standards. It shows a woman in a nightie – prude by today's standards. A local newspaper reported: 'It's not everyone's taste to see on the street corner scenes which may take place in the privacy of the family bathroom but which do not belong in the public eye.' It's an interesting argument. Today we consider it absolutely normal to be confronted with scenes that most of us – I presume – do not witness at home. Public space has become significantly more sexual than private space. What we see at the kiosk is not to be experienced in the average family."