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September 27, 2006
German Interior Minister: 'Opera Company's Decision To Cancel Idomeneo Is Crazy'
... Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned it as "self-censorship out of fear", as Germany opens a major Islam summit to improve the integration of Germany's three million Muslims:
Read all of "Germany opens major Islam summit."[...] The German government has met Muslim community leaders in Berlin amid a row over the cancellation of a Mozart opera deemed offensive to Muslims.
The Islam conference was a landmark initiative to improve the integration of Germany's three million Muslims.
It was overshadowed by the row over the opera Idomeneo. In one scene it was to show the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and Buddha.
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.
She was speaking after the Deutsche Oper in Berlin decided to call off November's production of Idomeneo, citing "incalculable" security risks.
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also attacked the opera company's decision as "crazy".
He hosted the conference on Wednesday - the start of a two-year campaign for improved integration of Muslims in Germany, most of whom are of Turkish origin.
After the meeting, Mr Schaeuble said he and his guests all wanted the opera staged and would go together to see it, to send a signal.
Earlier he told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Muslims in Germany had to accept European norms and values (ed. Hellooooo out there - are you listening Britain?).
Mr Schaeuble wants their imams to be educated in Germany rather than Turkey.
He promised that the Berlin conference would tackle matters of substance, and would not be just an "exchange of pleasantries".
This has the look and feel of a Germany that is waking up and begining to reject dhimmitude. If only the rest of Europe could do the same! Lest we forget - every faith has an equal right to be offended - and is equally subject to being offended. Islam has no special rights or priviliges. That is, for so long as we are still living in a free society.
Posted by Richard at September 27, 2006 11:46 PM
