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.
Clinton-Approved Iranian Arms Transfers Help Turn Bosnia into Militant Islamic Base
Please, give me a break.
So you don't know about the UN arranged bus rides to Tuzla?
I thought it was US Military Intelligence that was smuggling arms into Bosnia. Now you tell me that it was Iranian agents.
You realize that the Pentagon is not located in Iran, right?
I have/read his book (To Kill a Nation) and I do not recall such statement. Can you give me some reference/page number?
He is one customer review from the Amazon link:
21 of 22 people found the following review helpful:
Dynamic, muckraking at its finest, February 18, 2005 Reviewer: Thomas Willard "il_duce" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews
I found this book to be one of the most honest attempts to discern the dynamic forces acting upon and precipitating the spate of late 20th Cent Balkan Wars. This book is certainly written from a left wing perspective. If you think that the IMF and World Bank are great institutions, then you are going to disagree with Parenti. Parenti unearths many important details that alter some of the predjudices that the press constructs in an almost a priori way. The Serbs must always be bad. I visited Serbia in 2001; while they were bitter at America, most were very polite and accomodating. After all, how would you feel about Serbia if they bombed your city for 79 straight days.
Some of the details that Parenti shares:
1. Toward the end of the war, the Croats bombed, with German artillery, in the Krajinia/Knin fleeing Serbian civilians as they were ethnically cleansed. In 2001, while taking the bus through Knin, I sat near a cute Croat girl, maybe 25. "We got rid of the Serbs in this area" she stated with a grin. "They just ran away." Perspective?
2. The marketplace bombing that really brought the conflict to the nightly news, was a bit of a hoax. Forensic experts examined the corpses and found that they had died earlier than the date of the bombing. The press just does not follow up their claims when they are wrong.
3. The role of the IMF and World Bank were huge. The central federal bank in Belgrade was frozen after Milosevich refused to accomodate some of the SAP's that the IMF were insisting upon. Without the transfer of money to the provinces, the people grew angry.
There are many other points he makes, I found these interesting. I think an accurate analysis is needed to create foreign policy on, rather than preconceived notions.
Are you actually arguing that no crimes were committed by the Serbian army at Potocari? Really?
So you don't know about the UN arranged bus rides to Tuzla?
They sure did, and some of those buses actually made it to Tuzla. Not all did.
Basically you're arguing that the Serbian Army would have killed all the women and children along with the men, but that they were frustrated in this purpose by the UN's decision to try to evacuate all the women and children first.
An Amazon review by someone who calls himself "Il Duce" (that's interesting) is supposed to prove what, exactly?
Haha. Made ya jump... and probably crap down your leg :-)
The U.S. flew Iranian arms to Croatia.
Really? American planes flew weapons from Iranian territory to Croatia? None of your sources even hint at such a preposterous tale.
Were you in Srebrenica too? Fill me in with details of what you found or saw? I'm waiting....
Why would they be?
The UN started evacuating people from the town before the Serb army gained control of it.
Pathetic bait-and-switch tactic.
I'm still waiting for your first, Scaredy Cat. You are obviously of the one track mind.
It was not intended as a proof. BTW, the real "Il Duce" was on the side of Croats and Albanians, not on the side of Serbs.
Were you in Srebrenica too? Fill me in with details of what you found or saw? I'm waiting....
You know, I've never been to Auschwitz - so I guess I'm really just guessing when I say that myriads of Jews were murdered there.
Interesting rule: unless one is physically present to witness an historical event, it didn't happen. Brilliant argument.
Thanks again for the substantive discussion, even though you are definitely of the poor grammar.
Anything for you, pal. I'm just enjoying watching you get spanked on this thread :-)
Haha. Made ya jump... and probably crap down your leg :-)
68 posted on 06/27/2006 10:06:08 AM PDT by getoffmylawn (Greg Dulli for President)
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To: getoffmylawn
Thanks for your well thought out contribution to the thread.
69 posted on 06/27/2006 10:07:36 AM PDT by wideawake ("The nation which forgets its defenders will itself be forgotten." - Calvin Coolidge)
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It made me laugh.
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