Mühltal, October 6, 2006
Now I do not know whether President Bush is in state of denial about Iraq, I only know that I am glad Saddam Hussein is in prison now, and thus unable to go on mass-murdering his own people and others.
But anyway, when I hear “state of denial” I am thinking of something completely different and that is German unawareness of the Islamist threat.
When Theo van Gogh was murdered in the Netherlands,
- we did not wake up.
When Danish cartoonists were threatened to be killed and Western embassies were burning,
- we did not wake up.
When two unexploded suitcase bombs on regional trains in Germany were discovered,
- we did not wake up.
When after the Pope`s speech churches were torched and a nun was murdered,
- we did not wake up.
But now all of a sudden, because an opera was cancelled in Berlin we seem to have woken up. Why? Security officials had warned that the production of Mozart`s Idomeneo would create an incalculable security risk because it shows the severed heads of Mohammed, Christ, Buddha and Poseidon. There was no evidence of a concrete or direct Islamist threat, but the Director of Deutsche Oper Kirsten Harms decided to drop the opera. This voluntary self-censorship was unanimously criticised in Germany. Ironically, in this case there had only been a vague threat, no churches or embassies had been burning, no-one was threatened to be killed, nobody was murdered. But all of a sudden Germans seem to be willing to defend freedom of expression, freedom of speech and freedom of art. I would not have expected this to happen, but it is for a change a very pleasant surprise.
I only hope that this awakening will last.