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Austrian Writer Peter Handke: Send my award to the Serbs
ERPKIM ^ | June 23, 2006 | By D. Sekulic

Posted on 06/26/2006 11:04:21 AM PDT by Bokababe

Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most extreme do not dare criticize him for it. He has given up the alternative Heinrich Heine award that the actors and intellectuals of Berlin wished to bestow upon him in favor of the Serbs of Kosovo, who live "surrounded by barbed wire and tanks".

www.novosti.co.yu Vecernje Novosti daily, Belgrade

June 24, 2006 By D. Sekulic, June 23, 2006

Peter Handke has once again shocked the German public but this time in such a way that not even the most extreme do not dare criticize him for it. He has given up the alternative Heinrich Heine award that the actors and intellectuals of Berlin wished to bestow upon him in favor of the Serbs of Kosovo, who live "surrounded by barbed wire and tanks".

The Berlin Ensemble, headed by the also frequently controversial Klaus Peymann, the famous former head of the Vienna Burgtheater, recently organized donations with the help of numerous actors to award Handke an alternative Heinrich Heine award in the amount of 50,000 euros. The highly prestigious German language award was awarded to Peter Handke by an expert jury in Dusseldorf but the city council refused to accept its decision, stating quite literally that the award could not go to a writer who is of pro-Serb orientation!

The case provoked spirited discussion and many concluded that it represented an instance of brutal political censure of literature. Local politicians are judging one of the greatest living writers in the German language, warned eminent intellectuals, among them some, like Nobel laureate Gunther Grass who at one time advocated the bombing of Serbia.

At the same time Handke informed Peymann and his friends that he is renouncing the alternative award as well because, as he had previously stated, he did not wish his work to be the subject of meddling by local politicians. The money that they collect should be sent to the Serb enclaves in Kosovo and Metohija to people who are living under impossible conditions thanks to the supporters of "freedom" imposed upon them by NATO bombs.

Grass dismisses jury

In Dusseldorf it has now been openly admitted that the decision really was of a political nature and that the Heinrich Heine award allegedly has a clearly political character. In response to this, Grass, who is highly influential, has sent a request that in the future the city council be stripped of the right to approve or reject the decision of the expert jury.

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Related article:

Disputed Author Handke Awarded German Literary Prize

DEUTSCE WELLE 25.05.2006

Großansict des Bildes mit der Bildunterscrift: Austrian writer Peter Handke is controversial because of his stance on Serbia

Controversial Austrian playwright and novelist Peter Handke was awarded the city of Düseldorf's Heine Prize for literature.

The Heine Prize, endowed for 50,000 euros ($64,000), is one of the three highest-paying literature prizes in Germany. The jury said Handke -- like Heinric Heine, the German poet after whom the prize is named -- obstinately follows the way to an "open truth." He puts forth his own poetic world view, in contrast to broader public opinion, they said. The prize will be awared on Dec. 13.

Handke wrote the groundbreaking experimental play "Offending the Audience" and the novel "The Goalie's Anxiety at the Penalty Kick", but may be best know for writing the novel "Wings of Desire", whic was turned into a film by Wim Wenders.

Pro-Serbian stance

He is controversial because of his pro-Serbian stance during the Balkan wars, and his support for the Serbian regime.

Recently, Frenc national theatre Comédie-Française removed the play "Voyage to the Sonorous Land or the Art of Asking" from its 2007 season lineup, after Handke spoke at the burial of former Serbian dictator Slobodan Milosevic in Marc.

Handke, who lives in France, said in an esay in the Frenc newspaper Libération: "Let's stop laying the masacre . on the backs of the Serbian military and paramilitary. And listen -- at last -- to the survivors of the Muslim masacres in numerous Serbian villages around Srebrenica."

'Glad' aceptance

Last year, Handke's publisher, Suhrkamp Verlag, said the author would categorically refuse any more literature prizes; in Paris, however, Handke said he would "gladly" acept the Heine Prize.

Up to now, winners of the Heine Prize have included Walter Jens, Günter Kunert, Max Frisc, Wolf Biermann, Hans Magnus Enzensberger, Elfriede Jelinek und Robert Gernhardt.


TOPICS: Editorial; Foreign Affairs; Miscellaneous; Philosophy; War on Terror
KEYWORDS: albania; allybetrayed; austria; balkans; christianity; clintonlegacy; darkotheustashi; germany; ihoppy; islamofascists; jihad; kosovo; pancakeboy; serb; sorosfluffers; toothlessdhimmi; wrongplace; wrongside; wrongtime; wrongwar
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To: ValerieUSA
You are a shameless propagandist, devoid of truth.

You are an inexpensive prostitute.

How's that?

121 posted on 06/28/2006 5:34:03 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: F-117A
Perhaps you can give us your assesment of his fellow Communists... Tudjman and Izbegovich.

Tudjman was worse than a Communist - basically he was a neo-Nazi.

Itzbetgovic is an Islamist terrorist, of course, sort of an Osama-lite.

Ceku is not a foreigner - he was born and raised in Ksovo and he is an hardcore Islamist terrorist and a war criminal.

Again, the fact that these are all scum does not make Milosevic, Karadzic and Mladic not scum.

122 posted on 06/28/2006 5:41:21 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: infidel_and_proud
This speaks of a highly organised decision by the 28th division to let Srebrenica fall.

I don't disagree with this conclusion. Oric had personally abandoned the city as early as two months before, according to some accounts.

It's good to see you accept that the 28th division was raiding the Serb villages and killing all they found, largely women, kids and the elderly.

It's an undeniable fact which he will not be able to wiggle out of in his trial.

Well, that 8,000 figure was arrived at by shoddy research by Brunborg.

I never asserted the 8,000 number because I don't think it's correct. That's the Bosnian propaganda number, the Serbian propaganda number is a few hundred and the real number is likely in between.

Let's return to the subject of the thread.

The point that I wished to make from the beginning is not that the Serbs living in Bosnia and Kosov did not have legitimate grievances with their Croat and Muslim neighbors. Nor was it that the Serbs had no right to take up arms in self-defense - the Serbs have a right to go to war like any other people. They and the Croats and the Muslims have no right to commit war crimes, however.

My issue is with people praising the anti-American Communist Peter Handke for his apparent support of Serbia, because his apparent support of Serbia is really predicated on his personal admiration for Milosevic as an unreconstructed Marxist leader.

Peter Handke motives are political and not humanitarian.

123 posted on 06/28/2006 5:55:17 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake; ninenot; sittnick; steve50; Hegemony Cricket; Willie Green; Wolfie; ex-snook; FITZ; ...
Ceku is not a foreigner - he was born and raised in Ksovo and he is an hardcore Islamist terrorist and a war criminal.

And yet Agim Ceku was a general in the NATO/Croatian massacre of Krajina(pron Krayina) Serbs in 1995 (which was the main and greatest crime committed in the breakout of Yugoslavia) .

Among other nasty acts, he led shelling of fleeing columns of refugees.

By all means, if you want really to be WIDE AWAKE (you will not get much sleep anymore) read To Kill A Nation.

"You take the blue pill and the story ends. You wake in your bed and believe whatever you want to believe. You take the red pill and you stay in Wonderland and I show you how deep the rabbit hole goes."

If you allergic to the red color and it bothers that Parenti is a Socialist take the first pill.

124 posted on 06/28/2006 6:42:53 AM PDT by A. Pole (Lord Palmerston: "Nations have no permanent enemies or allies only permanent interests")
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To: A. Pole
I'm fully aware of who Ceku is and why he should be prosecuted for war crimes.

I don't need to read a book by a Marxist lunatic to learn about Ceku or the atrocities he personally committed.

125 posted on 06/28/2006 7:13:01 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake
I'm fully aware of who Ceku is and why he should be prosecuted for war crimes.

So are you aware of the massacre and destruction of Serbian Krajina in 1995 by Croatian/NATO forces? Krajina is the only land which was completely destroyed and where native population is not there anymore. Ceku was a general in the normal chain of command over there.

I don't need to read a book by a Marxist lunatic to learn about Ceku or the atrocities he personally committed.

Sorry, the wake up pill is coated with the red color. Have blue.

126 posted on 06/28/2006 7:25:31 AM PDT by A. Pole (Lord Palmerston: "Nations have no permanent enemies or allies only permanent interests")
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To: A. Pole
So are you aware of the massacre and destruction of Serbian Krajina in 1995 by Croatian/NATO forces?

Everyone who paid attention to what was going on in the Balkans knows what the Croatian army did in Krajina.

Perhaps you believe that Parenti discovered these incidents and that nobody knew about them before. You are mistaken.

Keep your drugs and your Marxists. I don't need them.

127 posted on 06/28/2006 7:38:57 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake
Everyone who paid attention to what was going on in the Balkans knows what the Croatian army did in Krajina.

It was not just Croatian operation, it was NATO and Croatia.

Keep your drugs and your Marxists. I don't need them.

Enjoy your steak.

"You know, I know this steak doesn't exist. I know that when I put it in my mouth, the Matrix is telling my brain that it is juicy and delicious."

128 posted on 06/28/2006 7:51:22 AM PDT by A. Pole (Lord Palmerston: "Nations have no permanent enemies or allies only permanent interests")
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To: A. Pole
It was not just Croatian operation, it was NATO and Croatia.

NATO did not participate on the ground. NATO did eliminate two VSK missile sites that were targeting USAF assets.

But your attempt to fraudulently implicate American servicemen in atrocities that were committed solely by Croatian army regulars and paramilitaries is duly noted.

Enjoy your steak.

Again, we are not discussing movies, or your crush on Keanu Reeves or Michael Parenti's Marxist fantasy world.

We are discussing real historical events in which actual people were killed.

129 posted on 06/28/2006 8:02:55 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake
NATO did not participate on the ground.

No, NATO was boming from the air (killing from the distance does not count), provided training, supplies and satelite information, diplomatic and propaganda support. The dirty work on the ground was done by Croatians and Muslims like Ceku.

The whole land and regional community got extirpated. The next one being finished are Serbs in Kosovo.

We are discussing real historical events in which actual people were killed.

Yes, but we live in two different realities. One of us lives in one created by the mass media.

130 posted on 06/28/2006 8:12:55 AM PDT by A. Pole (Solzhenitsyn:"Live Not By Lies" www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/livenotbylies.html)
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To: A. Pole
No, NATO was boming from the air (killing from the distance does not count

Wrong. NATO didn't bomb any targets other than missile sites which had targeted USAF facilities.

provided training,

NATO did not train the Croat army. Individual Croatian army officers had participated in joint training exercises with NATO personnel well before the Krajina campaign but NATO personnel were not training them with an eye to invading Krajina but to creating ties between Croatia and NATO to encourage Croatia to join NATO. The training exercises these individuals participated in were also attended by individual officers from various nations' armies.

supplies

Croatia purchased their own supplies on the open market.

and satelite information,

That's your claim. Croatia had access to commercial satellite reconnaissance through its membership in EUMETSAT.

diplomatic and propaganda support

Wrong again. Which NATO diplomats represnted Croatia? How many press releases and press events did NATO conduct to support Croatia's claims? The answer would be none and none.

One of us lives in one created by the mass media.

The mass media's take is that the poor Muslims in the Balkans were pure and innocent victims of inexplicable Serbian aggression.

The Milosevic-fellating take is that the poor Serbs were pure and innocent victims of inexplicable Croatian and Muslim and American and British aggression.

Those of us in the real world recognize that both sides had grievances and both sides committed atrocities and that no one in the Balkans' hands are clean.

131 posted on 06/28/2006 8:34:15 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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To: wideawake; wonders
Wrong. NATO didn't bomb any targets other than missile sites which had targeted USAF facilities.

NATO planes were also jamming Serbian radar to enable Croat planes to bomb fleeing civilians. Did you know that German street cleaning equipment was used to clean up the "road pizza" mess of Serbs and their vehicles smashed and slaughtered on the way out? An American UN official who was on the ground (and a freeper too) witnessed that.

NATO did not train the Croat army.

The training was done by the U.S. MPRI which was "retired" U.S. officers - many who "retired" temporarily to train the Croats and then official rejoined after that. It was only a formality.

132 posted on 06/28/2006 9:00:53 AM PDT by joan
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To: wideawake
"Those of us in the real world recognize that both sides had grievances and both sides committed atrocities and that no one in the Balkans' hands are clean."

The U.S. supported the old troublemakers (those with a history of spreading hate who had been jailed during Yugoslavia's existance - long before Milosevic came to power.)

Even though a more moderate Muslim, Fikret Abdic, garnered more votes in Bosnia, he was somehow swept asside and it was maneuvered to have Izetbegovic becoming the leader. And the unquestioned acceptance and praise for him by the west shows that he was who they wanted.

The west chose a recipe for breakup and purposely. The whining about atrocities against specific groups was only to further their agenda.

133 posted on 06/28/2006 9:05:33 AM PDT by joan
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To: wideawake; Kolokotronis; kosta50; TeĆ³filo; x5452; Dionysiusdecordealcis; siunevada; kronos77; ...
The mass media's take is that the poor Muslims in the Balkans were pure and innocent victims of inexplicable Serbian aggression.

The Milosevic-fellating take is that the poor Serbs were pure and innocent victims of inexplicable Croatian and Muslim and American and British aggression.

Milosevic is Red Herring here. Of course it is not possible in a prolonged civil war for any side to remain innocent. The fact is that Western mass media took side of "good" Muslims and Croatians against the "evil" Serbs. This provided propaganda cover for the two main crimes of this civil war - the accomplished extirpation of Krajina and the ongoing extirpation of Serbs in Kosovo.

The absurdity of anti-Serbian propaganda is well illustrated by a movie - The Sum of All Fears where it is Serbs who are the nuclear terrorists.

The vilification of Serbs is uncannily similar to the vilification of Jews by the Nazis. Even the caricatures of Serbs often resembled the pictures from Der Sturmer.

Human nature does not change, it is not PC anymore to hate Jews, so the Serbs satisfy the need to have the demonized group.

I am still hoping that some day you decide to take the red pill and read the book :)

134 posted on 06/28/2006 9:11:38 AM PDT by A. Pole (Solzhenitsyn:"Live Not By Lies" www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/livenotbylies.html)
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To: wideawake
He supported Serbia because he saw Serbia as the last remaining outpost of the Communism he favors, not because of any humanitarian concerns.

*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!

135 posted on 06/28/2006 9:17:37 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
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To: Hoplite
It's the "Milosevic was the good guy" Twilight Zone episode.


136 posted on 06/28/2006 9:21:39 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
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To: wideawake
It's wrong to bomb military targets on Easter!

I note that this argument is advanced by the same people who (correctly) ridicule the notion that we should refrain from fighting an Islamic enemy during Ramadan.

137 posted on 06/28/2006 9:26:49 AM PDT by steve-b (Hoover Dam is every bit as "natural" as a beaver dam.)
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To: wideawake
"He supported Serbia because he saw Serbia as the last remaining outpost of the Communism he favors, not because of any humanitarian concerns."

You are wrong because Milosevic is dead and he is still concerned and compassionate towards the beleaguered Kosovo Serbs.

138 posted on 06/28/2006 9:28:03 AM PDT by joan
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To: steve-b; wideawake
[wideawake:] He supported Serbia because he saw Serbia as the last remaining outpost of the Communism he favors, not because of any humanitarian concerns.

[steve-b:]*** DING DING DING *** No more calls; we have a winner!

Possible. But his personal or ideological motivation does not make what he says less or more true. You might see Serbia "as the last remaining outpost of the Communism" too and it might make you side with Muslims and Croats, still it does not make you right or wrong.

139 posted on 06/28/2006 9:28:21 AM PDT by A. Pole (Solzhenitsyn:"Live Not By Lies" www.columbia.edu/cu/augustine/arch/solzhenitsyn/livenotbylies.html)
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To: steve-b

They bombed civilians and places where there was no military target nearby - and they did the bombing for the Muslim terrorist mafia thieves - the Albanians/KLA.


140 posted on 06/28/2006 9:29:24 AM PDT by joan
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