The Deutsche Oper opera house in Berlin has canceled a Mozart performance in response to — what else? — threats of violence from Islamists who consider Idomeneo offensive to Muslims.
Muslims find it offensive because of one scene, which shows the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus Christ and Buddha.
Here’s a tip to Muslims who might find images of their prophet beheaded (irony anyone?): Don’t go see it. Same advice goes to Christians and Buddhists who might take offense to seeing images of their gods desecrated.
If I don’t want to see Madonna mocking Christianity, I won’t go to her show (actually, I won’t go to her show becuase I hate her music and find her to be a no-talent, snaggled-tooth fug hound).
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Luckily for Germany, their leaders are beginning to reject dhimmitude. Chancellor Angela Merkel condemned “self-censorship out of fear”, and has implored the Deutsche Oper to proceed with their production of Idomeneo:
“We must take care that we do not retreat out of a fear of potentially violent radicals,” she said.
Good for her. And it appears that she’s not the only German leader with a big set of balls:
Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble also attacked the opera company’s decision as “crazy”. [Schaeuble] told the German newspaper Sueddeutsche Zeitung that Muslims in Germany had to accept European norms and values.
Indeed, it seems that the cancellation will be revoked and this opera will be shown after all. What a clever 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.
Greetings from Berlin,
My blog: The Atlantic Review, A press digest on transatlantic affairs edited by three German Fulbright Alumni
Left by Josh in Berlin on September 28th, 2006 at 12:17 pm