The policy paper, Preserving Free Society, Promoting Social Cohesion, Fighting Political Islamism, which whole-heartedly commends law-abiding Muslims who respect Germany s democratic order, argues that the debate about Islamism in Germany is often reduced to violence and terror, but that it is necessary to focus more on ideology. The proposals include improving research and analysis of political Islam in Europe and the methods by which it spreads; banning the foreign funding of mosques; and reducing the number of foreign imams active in Germany. Focusing only on the violent part of Islamism, Islamist terrorism, does not do justice to the overall problem.. This political Islamism, which ostensibly acts non-violently, but stirs up hatred, agitation and violence and strives for an Islamic order in which there is no equality, no freedom of opinion and religion and also no separation of religion and state, has spread far and wide in parts of our society. CDU/CSU policy paper.
Shout your names
Among the authors writing in German who are not native speakers of the language, SAID, who was born in 1947, was among the most successful and the most unconventional. Highly politically engaged, he remained true to his position between cultures. He died on 15 May. By Stefan Weidner
SAID was a great poet, who never capitalised anything but his own name. And that was less a sign of hubris than of the will to self-assertion: shout your names / loud and clear – for here, / in the slave market, / they auction off / the silent ones.
SAID was one of the first generation of German authors who were not native speakers of the language, but still managed to make a name for themselves and their work in the German literary scene – a long and arduous path. Born in 1947 in Tehran, he was the son of an officer, and was given the middle-class name Said Mirhadi. He was sent to study in Germany in 1965: then life landed me here, at the age of 17, like a child carried off as
In this edition of Concert Hour, we listen to conductor Kirill Petrenko, who rediscovered Antonin Dvorak in the COVID lockdown, and an interpretation of Alban Berg's concerto written in the memory of someone special.
Musical notes from Berlin
In this edition of Concert Hour, we listen to conductor Vladimir Jurowski who opened the festival in September 2020 with a palette of composers from Anton Webern to Alban Berg and Alfred Schnittke.
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Concert Hour Part One: Musical notes from Berlin
Your ticket to the German classical music festival scene: Concert Hour has the picks of the season two hours of music updated regularly. Along with host Rick Fulker, the musicians themselves are on hand to give their insights into the events and the music.
Part one
Concert Hour : Musical notes from Berlin, part two
German police reported a total of 2,275 anti-Semitic hate crimes an average of six per day in 2020, according to preliminary data provided by the federal government. The tally represents a more than 10% increase over the number of anti-Semitic crimes reported in 2019. Police were able to identify 1,367 suspects but only five individuals were ultimately arrested.
It remains unclear why so few perpetrators have faced legal consequences for their crimes, especially when government officials repeatedly claim that fighting anti-Semitism is a top priority. A reason may be that it is politically incorrect to identify the true suspects.
German police, possibly under orders from political authorities, systematically assign unsolved anti-Semitic hate crimes to the far right.