Die Zeit 25.01.2007

"Almanya Türkleri, entegrasyonunuz icin kendiniz mücadele verin!", declares television journalist Birand Bingül in an article printed in two languages: "Fight, German Turks, fight for better integration. Not to please the Germans, but for your own good.... Germany isn't perfect. But we German Turks wouldn't be here if everything was fine and dandy in Turkey, or even better than here. What gets my bile up even more than all the injustices is the reaction to them by far too many German Turks: large segments of the first generation just withdraw and resign themselves to things as they are."

2007 has been named "Year of the Social Sciences" by the German Haus der Wissenschaft (German site). Sociologist Harald Welzer demands a reconsideration of the image of the social scientist as living in an ivory tower. "The argument 'What we do is important in and for itself' is always applied in defence of the existence of the social and cultural sciences, and it's never true. But you can also quantify what social and cultural scientists do. For example, the cultural economy in Germany - galleries, agencies, publishers, theatre etc – generates something in the order of 35 billion euros, placing it in economic terms slightly in front of software industries and behind the energy sector."


Frankfurter Rundschau 25.01.2007

"I think an early release would help people examine the events on their own, and face up to their personal repsonsibility," says the documentary filmmaker Andres Veiel, speaking out in favour of an amnesty for the former RAF terrorists Brigitte Mohnhaupt and Christian Klar (news story). "My experience when making 'Black Box BRD' is that the younger generation have questions and they are justified. They have the same right that we did in asking our parents and grandfathers about World War Two. We came up against collective defensive structures like: 'You couldn't understand that, you weren't there.' Strangely, these collective defensive structures were copied by the RAF. With other formulations, but then there was a we and a you. I think that premature release as a symbol would change that and give the younger generation the opportunity to ask their questions directly."


Neue Zürcher Zeitung 25.01.2007

In a tribute to Polish journalist and writer Ryszard Kapuscinski, who died on Tuesday, Ulrich M. Schmid recalls the 1979 book "The Emperor," with which the reporter became famous. It depicts the end of Haile Selassie. "'The Emperor' was interesting in another respect as well. The self-adulation of the Ethiopian leader was very similar to the arrogance of the communist government of Poland in the 1970s – for many readers it was easy to recognise that Kapuscinksi was not only writing about an exotic African country but also his own home. The administration of a regime whose highest goal was the maintenance of power had absurd results in both Ethiopia and Poland. The loyalty of the subordinates was more important than competence, crises were silenced or sat out, important social reforms became victim to financing of expensive prestige projects."


Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung 25.01.2007

The most interesting text today is a short announcement. After her first film "Submission", Ayaan Hirsi Ali has finished her second work, dealing with Islam and homosexuality. dsch. informs us that "legal preparations and police protection for the presentation of the work, in which Hirsi Ali deliberately singles out passages from the Koran on homosexuality, are in high gear." (News story here)


Süddeutsche Zeitung 25.01.2007

"In general, I believe in the wisdom of the collective," says the influential Internet columnist Arianna Huffington (The Huffington Post) in an interview with Claudia Tieschky. "And I don't know what could be more dangerous than the mainstream media, who were unable to stop the Bush administration from peddling their lies about weapons of mass destruction in Iraq. It wasn't the bloggers that showed their incapacity, it was the New York Times and reporters like Bob Woodward – the premier league of journalism."