The SPIEGEL cover story examines the raging current debate on anti-Semitism in Germany.
Klöckner affair: SPIEGEL has been given access to internal documents showing that the British Balli Group fleeced the Duisburg steel trading company Klöckner. The public prosecutor’s office is investigating the matter.
“Worthwhile Goals”
German armed forces: The army intends to give its soldiers better protection and greater combat strength by means of new high-tech equipment. If Walther Stützle, the permanent arms secretary, gives the go-ahead at the end of June, as hoped, the army will fit over 10,000 soldiers with the new combat equipment by 2004. The only question is, where the money is going to come from. At the moment, the army does not even have the money to supply all its soldiers with the new G36 gun instead of their ancient G3s.
“The Hypocrisy of the Rulers”
SPIEGEL interview with Syrian philosopher and commentator on contemporary issues Sadiq al-Azm about the Hamlets of Arabia, the role of Arafat and the Middle East after the second intifada:
“Arafat has to face a serious charge: since the Oslo agreements he has had eight years to build up a state authority that satisfies at least the minimum democratic standards of our age. The opposite has happened. … Israel is the classical “bully”, the brutal little boy who always hits back far too violently and therefore lives in constant fear that one day all the children in the neighbourhood are going to attack him together. … The results achieved by the Arab regime are shameful: for decades they have only been concerned about staying in power and about the future of their dynasties, and they have neglected everything that would have given them democratic authority or the economic power to act independently. … The suicide attacks have divided Arab society, and to some extent this division reaches right down into each individual person. … The personal popularity of Bin Laden is one matter, the concept of political Islam is another one. It reminds me of the end of Nasserism in the 1970s and the end of communism in the 1980s.”
“We Can Win Everything”
Iraq: The Kurds in the north of Iraq view the war against terrorism as their historical chance. They are hoping for an American military strike against Saddam Hussein. However they have to reckon on becoming victims of a final act of revenge by the Baghdad despot. They have long given up hope of obtaining release from Baghdad’s yoke through their own efforts alone. But the prospect of freedom and democracy still brings back memories of treachery and death in Kurdistan. Already once before, after the Gulf War in 1991, when the Americans did not want to use their own soldiers, the Peshmerga were encouraged to overthrow Saddam Hussein. The Kurds launched a popular uprising against Baghdad and were viciously punished. When the Iraqi army descended upon Kurdish villages, killed 50,000 people and put two million to flight, the instigators in Washington looked on without reacting at all.
“I Want to Live to Be 300”
SPIEGEL in-depth interview with British musician David Bowie about his anger at the transitory nature of human beings, his life in New York after the terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center, and the influence of composer Richard Strauss on his latest album “Heathen”:
“Now that I understand myself and others, I’m supposed to die – what a shitty game. Is there nobody with whom one could revise the rules of the game? … To me, particularly Richard Strauss’s “Four Last Songs” are among the most beautiful and gripping I have ever heard: their gravity and melancholy, which are based on Strauss’s realisation that he had to die and let go. … I like living in New York. The tension is like a motor driving me on and on. It’s not a happy kind of energy, more to do with desperation and panic – but I flourish in it. … I hate the mainstream. Its mediocrity and predictability suffocate me.”
“Killing for Animals”
Conservation of species: Environmental activists are sending mercenaries into the battle against African game poachers. Anyone who doesn’t surrender to the ecological Rambos is shot. The Central Africans themselves only hunt what they themselves need. The people who invade from neighbouring Sudan every year at the beginning of the dry season are far more dangerous: men who speak Arabic and who ride to their hunting grounds in the Central African Republic and in the north of Congo (formerly Zaire) on camels. The caravans are made up of some 200 men armed with kalashnikovs, hand grenades, bazookas and machine guns capable of firing 700 rounds a minute. The bands rape women, loot supplies and shoot any villagers who get in their way. Monkeys, leopards, lions, buffalo, hippos and elephants are slain at random.
“The Automatic Horowitz”
Music research: Can a computer play the piano as enchantingly as a great pianist? Viennese musicologists are building automatons capable of learning, which are in pursuit of the richness of expression found in masters of the ivory keys. Their aim is not a Rubinstein robot for use on fairgrounds, capable of imitating dozens of virtuosos at the press of a button. Instead, their goal is a better understanding of little-studied means of expression. If mechanical reproduction leaves listeners cold while a pianist is able to touch their emotions, then there must be some kind of subconscious language involved. And that should be governed by its own rules, and perhaps even a form of grammar.
“Slovakian Sisters”
Automobiles: With its four-wheel-drive colossus Cayenne, Porsche is building its first all-terrain racing car. Its hottest competitor is Volkswagen’s off-road vehicle Touareg which is based on the same body.
Art exhibitions: DER SPIEGEL was among the few visitors who were allowed to take a look around the 11th Documenta before the exhibition of modern art is opened to the public. We will be reporting on what the artistic director of Documenta 11, Okwui Enwezor, has put together. The Documenta has never been so politically correct.
“The Call of the Giant Kingdom”
China: In sporting terms, the newcomer to the World Cup is still something of an underdog. But economically, its participation alone is giving rise to great hopes: the country promises new markets for the Western soccer industry.
© DER SPIEGEL 23/2002
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