Monday 22 May, 2006

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 22.05.2006

The book "Al-Qaida. Texte des Terrors," compiled by a group of researchers around French Islamic scholar Gilles Kepel, presents translations of Internet texts attributed to bin Laden, Ayman al-Zawahiri, Abdullah Azzam and Abu Musab al-Zarqawi. Kepel explains in an interview, "Much of Al Qaida's ideology is occupied with explaining to its followers that nothing is more important than the armed Jihad, and that with its help, Al-Qaida will not only destroy the Western world, but also seize power in Islamic countries and topple governments that 'have drifted away from Islam.' These texts show that Al-Qaida is aiming to push through its own understanding of religion, which is markedly different from other Islamic currents." In this way the Al-Qaida ideologues are attempting, Kepel continues, "to acquire hegemony over other currents in the Islamic world."


Die Welt, 22.05.2006

Tilman Krause draws attention to the international PEN congress which opens today, and expresses one wish. "It's not yet clear whether PEN is going to put Poland on the agenda. But in this country, which is currently living under a nationalistic, fundamentalist, Catholic government, freedom of expression is already being seriously threatened and authors from minority groups are being curtailed. Gay and Jewish authors feel massively pressured and threatened by the aggressive barrages of government supported Radio Maria. One hopes very much that these developments will be duly denounced and not swept under the carpet in order to preserve a false atmosphere of festivity."


Die Tageszeitung, 22.05.2006

The real problem with integration is not between Turks and Germans, writes Zafer Senocak, but between Islamicists and the state. He suggests that more attention be paid to the culture wars in Turkey itself. "The strict division between religion and the state, between public space and the private sphere, the banishment of religion to the latter, has not really enlightened Turkey but rather created a schizophrenic society. There is no effective protection of the state from Islam. Can a Muslim claim that the Koran is not his guide in life? A Turkish politician cannot avow himself publicly to the Koran without being seen to be threatening the secular order of Turkey. But does that make Turkish politicians non-Muslims?" (see two features by Senocak here and here)


Süddeutsche Zeitung, 22.05.2006

The Berlin Theatertreffen, which ended yesterday, is an annual festival of critic's favourites from the German-language theatre season. Peter Laudenbach summarises this year's crop of plays and is glad to report that documentary theatre, once taken for dead, seems to be experiencing a comeback. "Just as documentary film has been the subject of increasing fascination in the last few years, theatre directors are also trying with various techniques to do studies of reality that are something more than empty simulations. Falk Richter builds interviews with financial consultants into his plays on the paranoid worlds of anti-capitalists, Hans-Werner Kroesinger creates clever, dry theatre installations on the Treuhand, Arabic suicide bombers or the South African Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Feridun Zaimoglu collages together interviews with radical young Muslim women."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 22.05.2006

Eleonore Büning came out less than happy from Handel's "Orlando" in Munich, the penultimate premiere under current Bayerische Staatsoper artistic director Sir Peter Jonas. "Baroque opera in Munich has been securely in British hands for years. Under director Ivor Bolton, the Bayerische Staatsoper has developed a very individual style of historical performance practise, with dance-like movements and a thinned-out sound almost free of vibrato or legato. But at the 'Orlando' premiere, the orchestra was flat and colourless. The sound dynamic was inflexible and practically undifferentiated, while the singing was at times shaky in the extreme."


Saturday 20 May, 2006

Neue Zürcher Zeitung, 20.05.2006

"In my imagination, she will go on being an Islamic Don Quixote." Moroccan-born Dutch author Abdelkader Benali regrets the departure of Ayaan Hirsi Ali from the Netherlands (more here), even if he often found her way of seeing things "grotesque". But "it is also liberating for us to be faced in this way with the collapse of the Dutch model. Everyone will have to build up for themselves a new system from the heap of rubble, one that will be critical of political institutions and based rather on individual self-will. The welfare state cannot offer individuals the protection they need. Hirsi Ali's obstinate, outspoken contribution to the multicultural debate has made it clear that people who act on their own steam and going on their own ideas go farthest – even if they sometimes have a bit of help. This talent will serve her well in the United States, even if her critique of religion will not make her a lot of friends."


Die Welt, 20.05.2006

The Iranian author Faraj Sarkohi expresses a general sense of helplessness with respect to his government's atomic program. Neither negotiations nor economic or military sanctions seem to promise success. "A religious government which is committed to values that are thousands of years old and which seeks to Islamicise the world and liberate bayt al-muqqadas (Jerusalem) is, when it is in possession of modern weapons, something like a Sphinx that emerges from the depths of history onto the very busy German autobahn and demands the answer to her riddle. The international community and the Iranians, who are hoping for peace and democracy, have not yet found the answer to this modern Sphinx's riddle."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 20.05.2006

Aids hospitals, clinics for drug addicts, the unemployed, beggars: it's astonishing enough that the 590 documentary photographs in the exhibition "Humanism in China, A contemporary record of photography" are now being shown in Frankfurt's Museum für Moderne Kunst, writes Andreas Platthaus. But "the presentation is doubly noteworthy because there has been no German post-curating. For this reason Museum director Udo Kittelmann speaks of an 'exhibition document': the photos are shown as they were in the three Chinese museums and in the original catalogue. The goal is to simulate a specific exhibition experience for an entirely different audience. This is a bold move, but also an interesting one. The only thing preventing an exact replica of the original arrangement is the layout of the MMK, which is just a fraction smaller than the original locations. Otherwise what we are seeing is exactly what visitors saw in China."