Die Welt 10.05.2007

Islam critic Ayaan Hirsi Ali writes about the crisis in Turkey. In her opinion, the liberal democrats in Turkey and in the West have been blind to the possibility that the country could become Islamic though democratic means. "The fact that Turkish secular liberals have erred does not mean they cannot try again to preserve Ataturk's legacy and create the opportunity for progress of the Turkish democracy based on Western values. Turkish secular liberals must devise a plan to start their own grassroots movement, one with the message of individual freedom. They must restore the confidence of the electorate in trusting Turkey's economy to them, and they must re-conquer the institutions of education and information, police and justice. They must also make EU leaders understand and respect the fact that the army and the court in Turkey — besides defending the country and the constitution - are also, and maybe even more importantly, designed to protect Turkish democracy from Islam. (Full article in English at NPQ here)

Star chef Ferra Adria of elBulli fame talks in an interview with Lothar Schmidt about his plans for the Documenta where he will be the first culinary artist ever to participate. But he's not about to spill the beans: "The only thing I can say is that we are cooks. We will treat the world of art with respect. It will be something consistent in terms of our principles and something, I believe, which will shatter a few rules."


Die Zeit 10.05.2007

"Is it a curse or a blessing to live in interesting times?" Turkish writer Elif Shafak has an eye on the current situation in her country, where Islamic democrats and undemocratic secularists are facing off. "In Turkey, modernisation has always been initiated and carried out by a political and cultural elite. Who represents the nation? The elite? The army? The conservatives? Each group sees itself as the sole representative of the state, without considering that the nation belongs to us all. Interestingly, the anti-Western hard-liners in Turkey and the anti-Turkish hard-liners in Europe have a lot in common. Both think Islam and Western democracy are incompatible. And both are against EU membership for Turkey."

Peter Kümmel attended this year's Theatertreffen in Berlin, which continues until May 20, and paints an enigmatic portrait of the German theatre scene with an anecdote from philosopher Ernst Bloch: "Three men of letters prepare an olive. First they sew it into a thrush, which is then sewn into a quail, then into a duck, then into a goose, then into a turkey, then into a piglet, then into a mutton, then into a calf, then into an ox. The whole dripping package is then roast on a spit. Then they toss away the ox, the calf, the mutton, the piglet, the turkey, goose, duck, quail, and the thrush, and sit down to taste the olive. After chewing at length, one says, 'that turkey wasn't exactly young.' And that's what we're like too. The image of the olive wrapped in a coat of meat well suits many German productions, also here at the Theatertreffen. They give the impression as if just before the curtain went up they'd tossed away the ox, the pig and the quail to show the higher, the ingenious olive of pure art on stage. They are so solemnly sparse, as if they had tossed aside their thick coat of realism, naturalism, psychologism and historicism leaving nothing but their juices. With time, the olive cooks of the theatre have also renounced other things, for example props, extras, costumes, colour and clearly defined roles. This all is compensated, spookily enhanced by its absence, in the olive: the actors moving about on the empty stage."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 10.05.2007

Kerstin Holm visits the last independent journalists in Moscow – a city in which this profession is notoriously life-threatening. And yet "necessity still strengthens the immune system. In nineteen-year-old Jelena Kostyuchenko, for example, who has been writing for the Novaya Gazeta for a year now, a small critical investigative paper which has had to mourn many a violent death of its editorial members, Anna Politkovskaya being the lastest one. The diminutive Jelena comes from the provincial town of Jaroslawl. There as a fourteen year old schoolgirl who wanted to become a teacher like her mother, she happened on an article by Politkovskaya and this really shook her awake, she remembers."


Süddeutsche Zeitung 10.05.2007

In the count-down to the European Song Contest this weekend in Helsinki, Thomas Steinfeld voices melancholy concerns. For him, almost all of the songs in the competition are constructed along the same lines. "And in this way a pattern becomes clear that no politician would touch with a ten-foot pole: namely that the national, even the popular element can't be made out at all in these songs. Certainly, the competition brings together representatives from many different states. And when they cast their ballots by phone, people may well be moved by national sentiment. But most songs have at best ... a faded hue, a slight reminiscence of national colour."

Jörg Häntzschel meets American artist Roni Horn who has just opened a water library in Iceland, a country she has visited every year since 1975. "Horn unlocks the wooden door and leads the way into a sun-filled room, which is empty – except for 24 glass cylinders standing in the room like trees reaching from floor to ceiling. In 24 shades, here light brown, here soapy white, here slightly greenish. ... They are aquaria showing water instead of fish. The water comes from 24 Icelandic glaciers cut out of the ice and brought here by two mountain rescue experts. The blue plastic bags with the names of the glaciers are in the cellar: Hofsjökull, Langökull, Snúfellsjökull. (...) 'A library of water,' says Horn, 'of course it's absurd. But unfortunately there is something very obvious about this project today. You take this water and remove it from every context, you stop it dead. It's a highly aggressive act – an endgame gesture."