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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: Bokababe

FYI, a recent interview with Peter Handke:

http://www.nytimes.com/2006/07/02/magazine/02wwln_q4.html?ex=1309492800&en=a0b71334b5bf11a5&ei=5088&partner=rssnyt&emc=rss


261 posted on 07/01/2006 9:07:37 PM PDT by Dragonfly
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To: Dragonfly

Thanks, Dragonfly!

Interesting that Handke describes himself as a classical writer and criticizes those who attempt to make political statements with their work.


262 posted on 07/02/2006 10:26:18 AM PDT by Bokababe (www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Bokababe

No city council has the right to deny a private organization the ability to award money to *whomever it pleases* for *whatever reasons.* The council's decision amounted to a restriction of the freedom of association between Handke and the Berlin Ensemble -- a coercive deprivation of economic opportunities and justly-earned rewards from a person solely on the basis of that person's political views. Such blatant censorship would not occur in today's United States -- and this case serves as a clear illustration of how much freer we are here in the U. S. compared to Germany.

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263 posted on 07/02/2006 6:19:50 PM PDT by G. Stolyarov II (http://rationalargumentator.com)
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To: wideawake
Tudjman was worse than a Communist - basically he was a neo-Nazi.

Utterly false. Tudjman was a great man, a great Roman Catholic, and a hero.

264 posted on 07/02/2006 9:52:24 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: montyspython; getoffmylawn; joan; wideawake

Too much crap, too much propaganda, on this thread.


265 posted on 07/02/2006 9:53:39 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: Diocletian
"Utterly false. Tudjman was a great man, a great Roman Catholic, and a hero."

Are you serious?

Do you think that thanking God that your wife is neither Serb nor Jew is what makes a great Roman Catholic and "a hero?

I would think ministering to the poor, the dejected, and being humiliated for it by the world for it would be a much closer model to "a Roman Catholic hero" -- and that far better describes Handke than Tudjman.

But then again, what do I know? I am only the "heretic" that Tudjman thanked God that his wife wasn't!

266 posted on 07/03/2006 10:44:12 AM PDT by Bokababe (www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Diocletian

He was a politician.


267 posted on 07/03/2006 1:43:27 PM PDT by getoffmylawn (Greg Dulli for President)
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To: getoffmylawn

Yes, a shifty one at that.


268 posted on 07/03/2006 1:47:40 PM PDT by montyspython (Love that chicken from Popeye's)
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To: Bokababe
When he said that "Thank God my wife was neither a Serb nor a Jew" he meant that he was neither a communist nor a fascist because Tito had a Serbian wife and Pavelic had a Jewish wife.

And now you know the context of his statement.

269 posted on 07/03/2006 6:01:52 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: getoffmylawn

Yes he was, and a great one at that.


270 posted on 07/03/2006 6:02:17 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: montyspython

I disagree. He managed to pull off what no others could for almost 900 years, and with the odds so stacked against him.


271 posted on 07/03/2006 6:02:50 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: Diocletian; zagor-te-nej; Lion in Winter; Honorary Serb; jb6; Incorrigible; DTA; ma bell; Banat; ...
"He managed to pull off what no others could for almost 900 years, and with the odds so stacked against him."

Yes, he did -- by inviting back all the symbols of genocidal WWII Nazi Croatia... the flag, the money, and the exiled war criminals who were installed into positions of power. And then by restoring the same alliance with Germany that slaughtered hundreds of thousands of Serbs, Jews and Gypsies the last time around. And then adding to that list of victims with Operation Storm, killing and driving out thousands of unarmed, innocent Serb civilian victims from the Krajina.

If you call that being "a good Catholic", then I think God would be more pleased with "a tree worshipper"!

I feel sorry for the Croat Catholic with a soul (my cousin was one), who now has to deal with the fact that "the Father of his Country" was a murderous, goose-stepping, Neo-Nazi war criminal. How can anything ever be right when it was founded on something so wrong and evil?

Germany, with Tudjman's help, resurrected Croatia for its own purposes. You can revel in that only because "the bill for German services" has not yet been presented. Wait until it is. And then will Croatia join Germany against the US as it has two World Wars before? Probably!

272 posted on 07/04/2006 11:22:30 AM PDT by Bokababe (www.savekosovo.org)
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To: Bokababe

You mean there are actually those who admire a pro-Nazi fascist Ustashas like Tudjman still around and post here?

He was responsible for the massacreing of thousands of fellow Christian Serbs...he is a beastly monster and God (or Satan) only knows where his soul lies writhing.


273 posted on 07/04/2006 12:09:05 PM PDT by eleni121 ('Thou hast conquered, O Galilean!' (Julian the Apostate))
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To: eleni121
"You mean there are actually those who admire a pro-Nazi fascist Ustashas like Tudjman still around and post here?"

Apparently so. Took me by surprise. Most Croats I know today want to crawl into a hole at the mere mention of his name.

274 posted on 07/04/2006 12:19:48 PM PDT by Bokababe (www.savekosovo.org)
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To: eleni121
You mean there are actually those who admire a pro-Nazi fascist Ustashas like Tudjman still around and post here?

You can't expect the mods to be able to catch every Stormfront poster.

275 posted on 07/04/2006 12:20:03 PM PDT by FormerLib ("...the past ten years in Kosovo will be replayed here in what some call Aztlan.")
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To: Bokababe
The flag predates NDH and isn't the same one used by NDH. The "kuna" has been used as currency in Croatia since the 15th century, also predating NDH.

Nothing wrong with allying with Germany since it isn't the Nazi state but an American ally and a Western democracy.

As for "Krajina", there is no such place considering that the Vojna Krajina was disbanded in 1881 and that it always had a Croatian majority, and Knin was never part of "Krajina" anyway.

How could Tudjman be a "neo-nazi" when he himself fought the Axis as an antifascist partizan?

Your knowledge of history sucks.

276 posted on 07/04/2006 12:24:54 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: eleni121

Sorry, but he's a hero who saved his nation from communism directed from Belgrade.


277 posted on 07/04/2006 12:25:33 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: Bokababe

The only Croats who don't like Tudjman are communists and Soros employees.


278 posted on 07/04/2006 12:26:01 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: FormerLib; getoffmylawn; montyspython

Speaking about yourself? The FR Serbs can vouch for me. But all you seem to have are ad hominem attacks....


279 posted on 07/04/2006 12:27:14 PM PDT by Diocletian (visit www.speakeasy.invisionzone.com - it's new and it's pretty silly)
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To: Diocletian
How could Tudjman be a "neo-nazi" when he himself fought the Axis as an antifascist partizan?

Tito wanted to win the civil war, so when Nazi Germany started falling apart, Tito offered all the ex-Croat Nazi Ustasha the chance to join him and the Partisans. I have no doubt that Tudjman was one of those who took up that offer.

So you admit that Tudjman fought FOR COMMUNISM during WWII? Even Milosevic didn't do that! LOL!

280 posted on 07/04/2006 12:53:09 PM PDT by Bokababe (www.savekosovo.org)
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