Germany just says no to dhimmitude… for now, anyway. We’ll see how well they stick to it. An opera with cameo appearances by the severed heads of Mohammed, Jesus and Buddha was pre-emptively cancelled for fear of offending Muslims.
Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned “self-censorship out of fear”.
“We must take care that we do not retreat out of a fear of potentially violent radicals,” she said.
As far as the cancellation goes, I’m interested in knowing what would move someone to include those severed heads in this opera in the first place. Probably the same thing that moves someone to spray a crucifix with urine and take a picture of it. They’re morons. However, there’s no law against being stupid in any country I ever heard of, and if they want to showcase the fact that they’re morons and collect a small fee from people even more stupid than themselves who want to watch it, more power to them.
Earlier [Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble] told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Muslims in Germany had to accept European norms and values.
So Germany is working to integrate their Islamic immigrant community. Maybe France can take a page from their book. You would think the 30,000 people who had their cars burned last year would demand it. The vastly under-reported Ramadan celebrations in Brussels have provoked the fear, not of civil unrest, looting hospitals being set on fire, but of the dreaded backlash.
The authorities are especially nervous since the Belgian municipal elections are being held on Sunday October 8th. It is likely that the elections will be won by anti-immigrant, “islamophobic” parties.
So the Germans are – for now – taking a stand against dhimmitude, France has predictably surrendered, Belgium is TBD, and the BBC is, along with the AP, working for the other side:
Was the German opera company right to cancel the production? Are the followers of some religions more sensitive than others? Is there a genuine threat to artistic freedom, or was the controversial scene just designed to provoke Muslims and gain publicity?
“what would move someone to include those severed heads in this opera in the first place.”
People who lack good ideas and creativity, chose provocations to get an audience.
It seems that the cancellation will be revoked and this opera will be shown after all. What a great and shrewd publicity stunt the opera house made by first announcing the cancellation. Usually hardly anybody would be interested in that opera, but now it is the talk of the town.
I think I am in a very small minority in Germany who approved of the cancellation. That opera is an insult to other religions (since it shows the severed heads of Jesus and Buddha as well) and to Mozart, the composer, himself.
What benefit would we get if we had this opera? It seems the only reason to defend this stupid opera is to avoid giving the impression of appeasement to the Islamofascists. That’s not enough for me. I think this opera would only strengthen Islamofasicsm since it would help their propaganda. To win the war on terrorism, we need to have moderate Muslims on our side, so that they don’t support the terrorists, but give us information about them. And we want the moderate Muslims to win over their autocratic governments and fundamentalist groups in the Arab world. This opera, however, alienates the moderate Muslims and helps the fundamentalists.
Let’s not forget that theater plays critical of Christians and Israel also get canceled. Earlier this year:
“A New York theatre company has put off plans to stage a play about an American activist killed by an Israeli bulldozer in Gaza because of the current “political climate” – a decision the play’s British director, Alan Rickman, denounced as “censorship”.”
http://www.smh.com.au/news/world/theatre-gets-stagefright-over-play-on-israeli-death-of-activist/2006/02/28/1141095740986.html
I am not a fan of Rachel Corrie. Not at all. However, if one criticizes the canellation of the Mozart opera for fear of offending Muslimes, then one should also criticize the canceling of that play for fear of offending supporters of Israel..
Besides:
“On May 23, 1998, the New York Times announced that the Manhattan Theatre Club would be canceling its scheduled production of playwright Terrence McNally’s newest play, Corpus Christi, due to bomb and death threats made against the theatre, its personnel, and the playwright. The Catholic League for Religious and Civil Rights disavowed responsibility for the threats but did publicly applaud the decision, calling the play “blasphemous.”"
http://muse.jhu.edu/cgi-bin/access.cgi?uri=/journals/theatre_journal/v051/51.2pr_mcnally.html
When Corpus Christi was shown in Germany in 2000, there have been death threats and bomb threats as well:
http://www.cityinfonetz.de/tagblatt/thema/thema39/
Thus it could very well be that the threats against the “Idomeneo” opera are not only coming from Muslims, but from Christians, who don’t like to see the severed head of Jesus… Having said that: The concern about attacks from Muslims is bigger.
Greetings from Berlin,
My blog: The Atlantic Review, A press digest on transatlantic affairs edited by three German Fulbright Alumni
Thank you for your thoughtful comment.
There is ample reason for them to be on our side right now, yet they won’t declare for us or forcefully reject terrorism. If they need, at this point, to be persuaded of the evil, totalitarian nature of terrorism, then they are already philosophically on the other side – they just haven’t taken any action yet.
That’s not the impression of appeasement – it’s actual appeasement.
I think Rachel Corrie was a misguided fool and the people who now worship her are idiots. That said, I think the play should have been shown, if there was enough of a market for it. I rather suspect it was cancelled, not because of the political climate but because they caught onto the fact that it was going to be a terrible flop. There was no real market for it. It’s more face-saving to cry “censorship” than admit you had a bad idea.