German opera cancelled due to fear of Muslim backlash; and the beat goes on

Germany’s interior minister has condemned a leading opera house’s decision to cancel a production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” out of concern that a scene featuring the severed head of the Prophet Muhammad could spark yet another violent Muslim frenzy.

“This is crazy,” said Interior Minister Wolfgang Schaeuble, the country’s top security official.  ”This is unacceptable.”

You can’t blame him for being frustrated over his fellow Germans restricting their own artistic freedom out of fear of radical Islam.  That’s no way to run the fatherland.  Schaeuble must be lamenting that it’s not his father’s, nor even his grandfather’s, fatherland anymore.

On the other hand, if the show goes on, and given what’s happened recently because of cartoons and a speech by the pope, it’s a near certainty that people will die sometime shortly after the fat lady sings.

Coincidentally, German government officials and Muslim leaders were about to begin a summit to launch a dialogue on how to better integrate the country’s 3 million Muslims.  Right, good luck with that one.  Maybe they need to flip-flop the concept of that dialogue and find a way to integrate Germans into the Islamic way of doing things.  Putting the kibosh on an opera that would have featured the severed head of Muhammad is a great way to start such an endeavor.

It might be worth noting that the opera was to feature severed heads not only of Muhammad, but of Jesus and Buddha as well.  And why all the severed heads?  Artistic license, one supposes, but it’s not the way Mozart originally wrote it because all the severed heads are part of an addition by the current director, Hans Neuenfels, who must be an equal opportunity offender.

But the funny thing is, nobody was remotely worried about a Christian or Buddhist backlash.  As usual, it’s all about the hypersensitivity, and the tendencies toward mad dog violence, of Muslims.

Oh well.  Why fight it?  Given that Western Europe shows little or no interest in preserving its civilization, and given simple demographic trends — which have native Europeans dying off and Muslims multiplying like rabbits — Europe will be Islamic by, if not before, the end of the century.  Might as well try and make the transition as smooth as possible.

Greg Strange provides conservative commentary with plenty of acerbic wit on the people, politics, events and absurdities of our time. See more at his website: http://www.greg-strange.com/

This entry was posted on Wednesday, September 27th, 2006 at 9:26 am and is filed under Vox Populi. You can follow any responses to this entry through the RSS 2.0 feed. | 1 views | Trackback | Print this page |

| More from Greg Strange