Interreligious Incompetence

Celebrated German-Iranian scholar of Islamic Sciences, novelist, essayist and journalist Navid Kermani was denied Hesse’s highest cultural award, the Kulturpreis. As he tells us, he was second choice anyway after Professor Fuad Sezgin, Director of the Institute of Arabic-Islamic Sciences at Frankfurt University, who had been nominated first, had already declined; allegedly because of some statements made by Salomon Korn, Vice President of the Central Council of Jews in Germany and another laureate, on Israel’s war in Gaza.

After Kermani had accepted the award, definitely too quickly but bona fide, the other two awardees, Karl Cardinal Lehmann and the former President of the Protestant Church of Hesse-Nassau Peter Steinacker declined next, owing to Kermani. Allegedly, because he (Kermani) had described his emotions when contemplating a painting of the crucified Christ by Guido Reni (d. 1642) in such a positive way that one indeed may doubt his good Muslim faith. However, of course is the crucifix the main reason for the schism in monotheism. Of course must Muslims consider worshipping the crucified Christ as idolatry. This is THE DIFFERENCE. What one faction considers the holiest expression of piety is for the other pure blasphemy. By definition.

Nothing is wrong with the decisions of these honorable men, except the insistence on fundamentalist religious dogmas and childish bossiness. One might advise these ignoble laureates to scrutinize their own level of tolerance first before frivolously accepting awards which they might not really deserve.

 

See also on this blog

Almost a Revelation. Some thoughts after reading Navid Kermani’s Der Schrecken Gottes.

President Obama’s U-turn

One of the few Jewish survivors of the Warsaw Ghetto is Germany’s main literary critic, or “Pope of German letters”, Marcel Reich-Ranicki. In his remarkable biography “The Author of Himself: The Life of Marcel Reich-Ranicki” (Princeton University Press 2001), he described in his own unpretentious way the incredible situation of the people in the Ghetto and his and his young wife Tosia’s miraculous escape from hell (Umschlagplatz) only minutes before being deported to the gas chambers of Treblinka’s extermination camp. Reading this is both thrilling and mortifying. The industrial perfection of genocide, the Holocaust of Jews and others will forever, at least for the coming generations, be the inhumane stain on Germany and Germans. The crime of the century (the 20^th) is not comparable with anything else although I painfully remember anti-Semitic sentiments of former colleagues in the Middle East that it is; I respect their opinion but do not share: Gaza must not yet be compared with the Warsaw Ghetto, of course [1].

What is more amazing with Marcel Reich-Ranicki’s biography is his deep love for his and all the Jews’ German tormentors’ literature and composed music . Is it a sort of love-and-hate relationship? Does he want to prove that human bestiality and striving for the highest cultural achievements does not exclude each other? Has he forgiven “the” (or some) Germans or is he paying back when publicly delivering his often harsh judgments on hopefuls in the literature business [2]?

What does this have to do with hope and change and yes we can? President Obama has slipped up a second time yesterday, after pardoning CIA agents last month for having applied torture-like, so-called enhanced, interrogation techniques to detainees in the war on terror. In a 180-degree U-turn he now tries to prevent the release of dozens of photographs taken in prison and camps outside Abu Ghuraib which might show the world public the notorious abuse of detainees. His generals in Afghanistan and Iraq may have convinced him that further anti-American sentiments may cost U.S. citizens their lives. 

The last culprits of Nazi Germany, such as notorious John Demjanjuk, will vanish soon. It sometimes takes many decades, but it is hoped that truth will be unearthed sooner or later anyway. Even as regards the crimes or alleged crimes by the former U.S. administration.

 

Notes

[1] The reality of the Warsaw Ghetto, as described by Reich-Ranicki, is not even comparable with the description of a world falling apart in Paul Auster’s “In the Country of Last Things”, an author who had rightfully been praised by Reich-Ranicki.

[2] I have met Professor Reich-Ranicki once, so far. It must have been about at that time when he was correcting the page proofs of his biography. He was a patient in the hospital where I was working at that time, but I had not been his doctor. It was interesting that he mistook me as “his” doctor, and so I had the opportunity to chat a bit with him until he noticed his misconception. He won’t remember the short encounter but for me it was moment I won’t forget easily: his strong and unbroken personality, but a bit different from his sometimes, well, arguable televised appearances.

 

See also on this blog

Schicksalstag. How Germans try to deal with November 9.

Better Off if the Europeans Had Never Got Involved

 

 

In a SPIEGEL ONLINE interview today, Jeremy Shapiro, Director of Research at the Center on the US and Europe at Brookings Institution in Washington, DC, mentions that the Unites States would have been better off if the European had never been involved in Afghanistan. “The European effort, including the German one, has been absolutely appalling in this area,” he sighed.

The Americans are at war in Afghanistan. They don’t need allies who don’t even know about that simple fact. When I recently asked a specific question to a respective officer of the German Armed Forces, he could only confirm that Germany is actually not at war in Afghanistan.

 

It is an embarrassing, in a way humiliating situation, the German Bundestag has sent its soldiers to the region. Some have been killed already in terroristic attacks, but the German Defense Minister is not ready, or doesn’t dare, to call a dead soldier a KIA. So, instead of freezing in fear and waiting for President Barrack Obama calling for new troops, rather admit that the concept of pacification and build-up democracy has fundamentally failed. And send these soldiers home. Let America win its war against terror alone.

 

 

 

Joe Biden in Munich

“The Iranian people are a great people. The Persian civilisation is a great civilisation,” U.S. Vice President Joe Biden conceded at the Security Conference in Munich. “But Iran has acted in ways that are not conducive to peace.” “Our administration is reviewing policy toward Iran, but this much is clear: We will be willing to talk,” he said. “We will be willing to talk to Iran, and to offer a very clear choice: continue down your current course and there will be pressure and isolation; abandon the illicit nuclear programme and your support for terrorism and there will be meaningful incentives.”

Is it illicit? The IAEA has not found evidence so far that Iran is diverting its nuclear program in order to construct a nuclear weapon. Biden might have further information from his intelligence agencies. But if he has not, he is distributing unproven allegations to the public as the Bush administration did before. And the public needs to know.

Yesterday, the Speaker of Iran’s Majlis, Ali Larijai, has made it clear in Munich that the carrot and stick policy of the West must be discarded. We don’t know whether Biden met Larijani in Munich. It is hoped anyway.

Not Embedded

When I recently wrote about the scandal of embedded journalism in war regions, I unintentionally missed to mention a man whose consistently informative reports from Tehran on his blog I read with increasing interest, especially when planning and organizing my next trip to Iran. Martin Ebbing has died two days ago after a massive heart attack and an emergency evacuation to a hospital in Berlin. I can only offer my sincerest condolences to his wife, the photographer Zoreh Soleimani, and his two sons who I have never met.

 

Mr. Ebbing’s appraisal of Iran’s controversial nuclear program, his careful analyses of difficult to perceive day-by-day politics in Iran, his reportages about provincial life in Iran, and his continuous fight for human rights in a country where freedom of expression is not at all safeguarded I always saluted. He really loved the people in this enigmatic country with its millennia-old history and that makes the difference.

 

Thank you, Martin Ebbing, for your commitment, your dedication, and service for us who are interested in the people of Iran and other countries in the Middle East.

 

Schicksalstag

Not 9-11 but rather 11-9 is what Germans still call their Schicksalstag, although few really know the historical events which had happened so often on that particular date. While most people in the world commemorate today the 90^th anniversary of the end of WWI with its 20 million military and civilian deaths, Germans like to recall the November Revolution when their belligerent Emperor Wilhelm II had finally been forced into exile. Five years later, in what is known as the Bierhaus putsch, in their coup d’état Hitler and Ludendorff failed for the time being of seizing power.

 

The most frightening date to commemorate Germany’s Schicksalstag is that in 1938, the infamous Reichskristallnacht. In the respective pogroms more than 1300 Jews were killed and the surviving got a taste of what will happen to them shortly thereafter. Lower Saxonia’s premier Christian Wulff recently complained that there is another pogrom atmosphere, this times towards well-paid business executives in the country. An incredible, in fact, monstrous faux pas.

 

Almost 20 years ago, the Berlin Wall fell, also on a 9^th of November. For a short while, people enjoyed and celebrated what Bush senior and Gorbachev had negotiated. In the meantime, hangover feelings and disillusion have more or less replaced the enthusiasm of the Germans.

 

A ‘Road to Damascus’ Experience of the Special Kind

 

Prof. Dr. rer. pol. phil. habil. Sven Muhammad Kalisch (42) seeks publicity these days. As may be traced in his rapidly inflated German Wikipedia entry, he had been appointed in 2004 chairman of the Islam Department at the Center for Religious Studies at the University Münster and is there responsible for the education of future Islamic religious education teachers in Germany. Interestingly, Kalisch has converted to a rather exotic branch of Islam, the Zaidiyyah, or Fiver Shi’a, at the age of 15. His short scientific career saw him graduating at the University Darmstadt in Political Sciences where he also has got a doctoral degree in 1997. Afterwards, he worked as a self-employed lawyer in Hamburg and wrote in 2002 his dissertation on Islamic law at the University Hamburg which quickly led to the call from Münster University. After having gained this influential post, he recently questioned whether the Prophet of Islam had ever existed. In September, the Coordination Council of Muslims in Germany stopped cooperating with Kalisch. Consequently, the Northrhine-Westphalian Ministry of Science and Education suspended him from educating teachers at his Institute.

 

In interviews with German magazine Focus, weekly Die Zeit and many other local newspapers, Kalisch had promised to explain his standpoint soon, in an article which will be accessible on the web page of his institute, and later in a book which will appear next year.

 

The undated treatise can be read now here. It summarizes the state of knowledge and speculation of the German group led by Karl-Heinz Ohlig and (hobby numismatic) Volker Popp who, for a couple of years, go round in circles with the publication of proceedings of their conferences. The group itself represent extreme, albeit partly interesting standpoints on the first two centuries of Islam with its sparse archaeological evidence and sort of Christological coinage. An interesting review of one of these books can be read here. Ohlig is a heretic opponent of Christological Trinity, merely searching for evidence of non-trinitarian Christendom in the Near East. Amazingly, Kalisch points to Ohlig’s listing of evidence for a new Arab religion in the 7^th and 8^th centuries in the Near East (in: Der fruehe Islam, Schiler 2007), which has more or less been copied from Nevo and Koren’s Crossroads to Islam, published by Prometheus in 2003 after the first author had deceased in 1992, a highly speculative study. He also refers to Patricia Crone’s work, who had already questioned the historicity of the Prophet Muhammad in her early works, for example in Hagarism of 1977. So, there is nothing new right now. His lengthy pleas with regard to fundamental concepts common to all three main monotheisms are not convincing. I suppose he wants to explain why he actually lost his faith and should not be regarded a Muslim any more.

 

Apart from my deep respect for personal decisions in life such as conversion to another faith or apostasy from it (in other words, having a Road to Damascus experience in Saarbrücken rather than Makkah), what interests me here most is the sudden and public turn of Professor Kalisch after having been appointed to this influential and most sensitive academic post. All what he his describing in length in his treatise he must have been aware of before. Despite his quick academic career, Kalisch is not a prodigy. His main thesis of 2002 has still not been published and his publication list is meager. As an Islamologist, he can definitely not be put in line with German orientalists S. Wild, A. Neuwirth, or T. Nagel, who has recently published his monumental biography of the Prophet Muhammad (Nagel T. Mohammed – Leben und Legende, Oldenbourg-Verlag 2008). These scientists approach Islam not as believers or in any way adhering to the faith, a clear advantage when applying the scientific method in their studies.

 

So, has Kalisch got his delicate job (in fact, full professorship at a German University) due to the fact that he was, or pretended to be, a German Muslim convert? Who, if any, were his competitors in the announcement and why didn’t they prevail? What is somehow disturbing is that this scenario of getting the position for starting the cooperation with the Muslim Coordination Council and then annunciating a sort of apostasy might have been arranged way beforehand. Kalisch is not credible when suddenly explaining what enlightened scientists know for decades. Publicity is granted, of course, joining the Inarah group which consists, among others, of notorious revisionists, extreme right-wing islamophobic agitators, and hobby scientists.

 

Falsafa

The work of Greek philosophers, mainly Aristotle but also few of Plato, had been translated into Arabic very early after the Abbasid revolution in the 8^th century and continued down to the 10^th century. In fact, these great works of humanity were preserved by Muslims. Baghdad was the center of Science and Arts in the medieval world. Great Muslim philosophers of that time include al-Farabi (d. 950) in Baghdad, Ibn Sina (d. 1037) in Persia, Ibn Rushd (d. 1198) in Andalus.

 

Patricia Crone [1] writes in her fabulous “God’s Rule” that “[a] historian of mainstream Islam is apt to dismiss all philosophers as marginal (except in so far as they had other strings to their bows), for mainstream Islam was shaped by religious scholars, who were prone to rejecting philosophers and Ismailis alike as heretical.” On the other hand, the great theologian al-Ghazali (d. 1111) was also a philosopher. He rejected metaphysics as incompatible with Islam but insisted that nothing was wrong with the natural sciences, mathematics, logic, politics. Especially in Persia, Greek philosophical ideas were continuously absorbed into general Muslim culture. Nevertheless, in medieval times philosophers were often condemned as heretics or infidels. One famous example might be Omar Khayyam (d. 1122).

 

Wahhabism, which started in the 18^th century on the Arabian Peninsula, has effectively stopped that development and is now regarded the main reason for the present day stagnation and even retardation of Islam. The highly conservative movement has its main proponents in Saudi Arabia, Kuwait and the United Arab Emirates. There is not really a culture of philosophy in these countries any more. It was with some amazement, thus, when reading in the latest issue of Forschung und Lehre the report of a German female philosopher [2] who has been appointed the first full Professor in Philosophy at UAEU. Reading the article, I remembered my own enthusiasm in 2001 when having been called to help build up a new Faculty at Kuwait University. However, that was not in the Humanities but rather in Medicine. The new Philosophy Professor describes the procedures when having been appointed from a German point of view which sounds somewhat weird. In fact, it doesn’t fit my own experiences. I do not think that, for example, short-listing is actually done. Once you are invited for an interview, you will get the job offer. On the other hand, negotiations should take place, of course. I couldn’t find anything on intercultural competence in her article, which is by far the most important prerequisite when working and living in the Middle East. It is not only respect for the local culture but a kind of fond curiosity what is most helpful.

 

It will be interesting to follow-up Dr. Nicole’s, as she is called already by students and colleagues, further experiences and adventures in such an exotic place. And I am also more than curious to see whether the Arab culture will eventually listen to philosophers again.

 

 

Notes

[1] Crone P. God’s Rule. Government and Islam. Six Centuries of Medieval Islamic Political Rule. Columbia University Press, New York 2004.

[2] Karafyllis NC. Zwischen Wüste und Hightech. Forschung und Lehre 2008; 10(08): 692-694.

 

 

 

 

Embedded

Embedded journalism is anti-democratic. News reporters and hand-picked journalists have been attached to military units before the third war in the Gulf region (2003-) but the term ‘embedded’ has been used then for the first time and ever since. Embedded journalism is daily practice also in Afghanistan. But information warfare should be labeled as such when pictures of the battles are published which are mere propaganda.

Having lived many years in the Middle East, even during the initial phases of that war in nearby Iraq, my colleagues and I desperately depended on a number of brave reporters in Baghdad, Kabul, and Tehran, who were credibly not embedded, who authentically reported about the people and what was going on. One of them is BBC’s Jon Leyne in Tehran. His sympathy for the common Iranian is beyond any doubt. He obviously likes his job, and his intercultural competence opens doors for getting the information he inquires. His always interesting reportages are critical but he explores his subjects from different angles. He does not fuel preconceptions but explains and enlightens.

 

Another correspondent I want to name in this regard is Ulrich Tilgner. I had admired his sober and emphatic reports from Baghdad during the first US bombardments and afterwards. In the meantime he had moved, after the initial phases of the war, to Tehran. But now he had quitted his contract with Germany’s ZDF TV channel. Too much consideration of allies’ interests were the reason for that, one can read. It is a shame that this rather low quality German channel, in fact governed by public law, wants to focus more on ‘embedded journalism’ at a time when failure of the military adventures in the Middle East and Afghanistan is becoming obvious. When the German Bundestag has to renew the ISAF/OEF mandates for the German Armed Forces, the public needs to be fully informed about all the consequences, worst case scenarios, and how to get out of this war finally. Embedded journalism does not help in that situation very much.   

 

 

The World is Flat and Almost Unexplored

 

 

The dissatisfying situation at German Universities for already established professors as well as academic hopefuls is well-known for years. However, the common overload of teaching, lack of resources and time for research, an inflexible administration, lack of transparency in appeals procedures, even nepotism, has hardly been discussed openly by the persons concerned.

 

In a recent article in the (no longer so glossy) monthly magazine, Forschung und Lehre 2008;15(7):464, of Deutscher Hochschulverband (a kind of union of German professors) a young German physicist and astronomer describes his experiences in Germany’s Academia where he had been employed in limited-term appointments with by and large insufficient social security for almost 20 years. It seems to be a typical University career with a high risk of getting unemployed in midlife when Germany won’t offer appropriate positions any more. One has to realize that in the Federal Republic of Germany responsibilities for governmental Universities belong to the ministries for Science and Culture. They are sovereign tasks of the Länder (counties), and professors are generally appointed by the federal state government. Thus, the Land has also to pay the pensions. Most of the Länder have therefore an age ceiling of, say, 52 years for new appointees since they simply don’t want to pay for the retirement. So, even in case of excellent qualification and the University’s preference the middle-aged scientist would not get the position he or she deserves.

 

Looking for positions abroad is always feasible. I have actually decided about ten years ago to leave Academics in Germany and have found it very easy to get a proper position in an international and even exotic ambiance. It has dramatically broadened my horizon and provided completely new opportunities. My good advice for young colleagues without any chance of getting an appropriate position (which can only be the full professor) is browsing international advertisements, not only the national ones.

 

I have met colleagues from, for instance, Scandinavia who are extremely flexible in taking positions abroad. For a couple of years or forever. Some of them may even fan out an aura of ingeniousness but that is not really a prerequisite for functioning and participating in academic environments abroad. In my experience, especially Scandinavians have never a problem to get the right and proper position.

 

Why are Germans generally less flexible? German academic titles are usually difficult to comprehend by Scandinavians or Americans. The nonexistence of a PhD but rather strange denominations such as Privatdozent or Habilitation which are not automatically assigned to academic positions (a major reason for the here described calamity) cannot easily been elucidated. As an example, my Dr. med. dent. degree had been considered equivalent rather to a Master degree, while Privatdozent (no title) was regarded a PhD. The lack of intermediate positions in the German system, such as Assistant and Associate Professor, may further lead to an undesired downgrading of the applicant.

 

It is in a way remarkable that complaints about this weird situation at German Universities, which is hardly understood in other European countries or in the United States, are reported by the concerned persons only very recently. Similarly, the massive strikes of physicists and nurses at University hospitals which have, in the meantime, frequently been passed into private hands, may come too late. Decades of a misrouted policy for Science and Education, the shameless exploitation of work force and intellectual property, when, at the same time, future prospects are withheld and risks of unemployment become unbearably high will finally lead to a further brain drain which a country with an aging population cannot afford.

 

On the other hand, the one who decides to leave should be strongly encouraged. In contrast to popular beliefs is the world flat and almost unexplored.

 

Note:  While the limited knowledge about the World in Antiquity is represented on the above map, the curiousness and willingness to travel and learn during his whole life of the ‘Father of History’, Herodotus, again inspired me recently when reading Ryszard Kapuscinski’s wonderful book about his unequaled antetype.