MAT IN ADAM

by Matthias Nachbaur

In 1941 the Ukraine is occupied by the Soviet Union. Two very talented children are being celebrated as child prodigies originated by the social system of the Soviet Union. As the young Hanna attends a concert of the talented violinist Abrascha and his friend Larissa, who plays the piano, she wants to get violin lessons with them.

The three of them are become good friends, despite initial difficulties their common interests in the music connects them. The fact that Hanna is originally from Nazi-Germany and her new friends Abrascha and Larissa are Jews is not of importance for them until the big turn.
In spite of the non-aggression pact between Nazi-Germany and the Soviet Union Germany attacks the Soviet Union in Ukraine. This means big danger for Hanna and her family as all Germans are arrested by the Soviet Union. The two new friends of Hanna are helping Hanna’s family to hide in the woods, but as Nazi-Germany moves forward and occupies the land, the whole situation turns 180 degrees. Suddenly Abrascha and Larissa and their families are the ones to hide. But the German soldiers catch them and make their life depending on their musical talent, as they should play a perfect concert to save their life.

Wunderkinder is a German production, which is dedicated to the 1.5 million Jewish children who are killed during the Second World War. It is not just a movie about the friendship of three children of different families connected by the music, but also about a certain period of the Second World War, and the crimes of Nazi-Germany against Jewish families.

Movies about the events the Second World War can definitely be made more interesting, when history is passed to the viewer through the fates of individuals, as it is the case with this movie. A very fitting classical soundtrack accentuates the moving picture.

Unfortunately, this movie loses credibility due to its stereotyped characters and some really questionable behavior. An other pity is, that the historical context shines through very rarely. The story is told in the perspective of three young friends who don’t understand that they suddenly should be enemies. This movie focuses on the fate of the children and it seems that it is mainly written for young viewers. It is easy to understand, and the violence of the war has been reduced so the age limit is 12 years. Wunderkinder is a not too dramatic WW2 drama for children.

Info-Box:

Wunderkinder (Child Prodigies) was awarded at the Jerusalem Film-festival, and most successful movie at Giffoni Film-festival. The basis for the script was a story written by Art Bernd.

Director: Marcus O. Rosenmüller
Actors: Kai Wiesinger, Catherine Flemming, Konstantin Wecker, Gudrun Landgrebe, Elin Kolev …
Script: Stephen Glantz, Rolf Schübel, Markus O. Rosenmüller, Kris Karathomas
Production: Alice Brauner, Artur Brauner
Camera: Roman Nowocien
Music: Marin Stock
Copyright: Kinowelt
Duration: 100 min.
Year: 2011

by Matthias Nachbaur

New drug laws are forcing nearly half of the cannabis cafés in Amsterdam to close. The law designates the close-down of every cannabis café within 250m around a school building. A lot of locals and of course many of the drug tourists do not want to agree with this tremendous reduction of soft drug business in Amsterdam and the owners of the well known coffee shops unite to fight the ruin of their shops.

The new Drug laws which the Dutch government already introduced in 2011 apparently caused some confusion within community of drug tourists all around europe. Many people came to celebrate the New Year’s Eve in Amsterdam as they thought it would be the last time the coffee shops would welcome them as drug tourists. Now it is clear: They where wrong. Nevertheless, these new drug laws forced coffeeshops in some areas of the Netherlands, especially in cities near the border, to be closed for non Dutch people. To the great pleasure of the coffee-shop owners and the drug tourists, this did not took action in Amsterdam. Anyways some coffee shops within the city still have to struggle for their existence, as the new drug law says that all coffee shops in the 250m surroundings of school buildings will have to close with the first of January 2013.

Alex, an employee in one of the “Abraxas” coffee shops right in the center of Amsterdam, thinks that this new laws are really not reasonable: “There are no hash or marihuana related crimes! Everyone is against this new regulation.” His job would be affected if this law would take action, because right around the corner of the coffee shop there is a school. According to him until now it still is unsure If they will close their shop with the first of January 2012.

There are organizations consisting of employees and shopkeepers which are fighting against the execution of this law, but its uncertain if they will succeed. Some shopkeepers are already takeing action in a different direction. The owner of the Abraxas coffeeshop Alex is working with other shopkeepers in the surrounding of the mentioned school building to buy a new place for the school and by that avoid the closure of their shops, as this would cause a financial problem for many of the shopkeepers.

by Matthias Nachbaur

These days Europe, and especially the European economy has to face huge competition within the world market. The US and China are powerful competitors with whom it is necessary to struggle for a future where wealth and prosperity still can be provided for all people in Europe. The European Union takes care of this competition, but nowadays people are losing trust in the EU for some good reasons.

The debt crisis Europe has been coping during the last few years is not very popular within the European countries. Magdalena Urban (20), an Austrian citizen, is skeptical about the future of Austria within the EU: “Being a member state of the EU should bring benefits, but with the debt crisis we have to pay the bill for the failure of other heads of states. This is not how it is supposed to work.“ It is questionable if the EU and therefore every single country in Europe will learn and grow from this problem or if it will break down, as countries tend to focus on their own problems rather than the global ones.

So if the European Union is not capable of preventing economical breakdowns as we had and still have it due to the debt crisis, we should question the future the EU is leading us to. We have to think about if it is desirabl to have just one big government and a united Europe, rather than many small countries with their own economical and social responsability.

The bigger a country is, and the more varied the people and cultures within that country are, the more difficult it becomes to keep a safe place for every single personality, or group of interest. Democracy works if people have two or three different opinions about a topic. But if there are dozens of different cultures with different opinions and goals, there are too many minorities for a proper democracy.

The European Union is taking actions and making decisions on which I have very little influence, but still I am affected by them. Even if we are voting for the members of the European Parliament every five years, this is not feeling like democracy.

Although the European countries have a lot in common on what a united Europe could be built on, there still are too many differences in cultural, economical and social interests which make this European Dream very unlikely.

Leading the peace process into a dead end.
By Matthias Nachbaur

Israel; Palestine; The State of Israel and some occupied Palestinian Territories; However we may want to call this beautiful piece of land at the eastern edge of the Mediterranean Sea. The fact that it is surrounded by Arab nations is not something to wonder about. For it all was the Othman Empire for over 300 years from the 16th century until the 19th century when the British took over the administration. For this particular piece of land things happening in Europe during that time were of even more significance. It was the time when an Idea was born which was of that big influence on the history that some may would say that it led to the State of Israel as we know it nowadays. The Idea of Zionism. To briefly describe it: Zionism is a political jewish movement with the goal of a sovereign Jewish Nation.(1) Thanks to Theodor Herzl an Austro-Hungarian Journalist who wrote “Der Judensaat” (The Jewish State) this Idea spread all over and prosper. The zionists movement grew very fast because many jewish communities in europe not always feared the antisemitism, which was growing all over europe, but got united due to it.(2) In account of this movement a new ideology arose. The State of Israel was founded in 1948 and since then had to face seven wars, two intifadas and several riots and terroristic acts. The history of this young land is full of violence and still a very big part of the Palestinian Territories is under constant occupation. Without question is that most of the people of this “State of the Jews” always wanted peace for themselves and their neighbors, but they hardly succeeded owing to many different aspects of the conflict, but likewise crucial decision on their side which often seemed to be caused by ideological reasons rather than righteous ones. Many of this decisions made a succeeding peace process with the Palestinian Authorities very difficult if not impossible.

When it comes to war and the peace process between Israel and the Palestinian Authority, Israel got off the right way with not any doubt. Originally the “State of Jews” was thought as a neutral one,(3) but that is, and it seems like it never was the case with the State of Israel. Already in the year 1947 with the end of the British mandatory period in Palestine, and the day of the proclamation of the UN Partition Plan, a civil war came up within Palestine.(4) One year later the State of Israel declared independence and what started as a civil war turned into Israel’s war of independence against Egypt, Iraq, Lebanon, Jordan and Syria. The Nations followed their interest of preventing a State of Israel. They were strictly against the UN Partition Plan. Every single Nation around and even Palestine itself was arabic until then. Their fear of a different culture such as the Jewish one, gaining power in a way that they would displace the arabic one, lead to a united disagreement of the Jewish immigrants.(5) The arabic culture in Palestine needed to stay. But the war took an unexpected end for the enemies of Israel, as they were certain about their victory.(6) Israel won their independence, but not their neutrality. A war of independence may was necessary for the foundation of the State of Israel but that was not the end but rather the beginning of a long time full of war and struggle.
What may should be considered when looking at this history of wars Israel has, is that nearly every single one was either a defense war or a preventive strike to ensure the security of the people of Israel. As there was the Six-Day War where it was Egypt, Jordan, Syria and Saudi Arabia who attacked Israel in 1967.(7)The same with the Yom Kippur War where it was Egypt and Syria attacking Israel.(8) The Lebanon Wars in 1982 and 2006 were also just reactions on terror acts from the PLO, the Palestinian Liberty Organization (9) like the Gaza War in 2008 was as well but from the Hamas. It seems like Israel had no choice about doing peace or war as they wanted to survive as a sovereign state. Even if the original idea of Israel was the one of a neutral one, the main interest of Israeli people fighting these wars, was to ensure a save place to live for every Jew as this was a important part of Herzl theory of Israel.
Still, the way in which Israel fights its wars was probably also providing the breeding ground for even more conflicts between them and the arab nations around Israel. With their Independence War for example they occupied much more land than it was defined by the UN Partition Plan, so this plan was never really established.(10) Nevertheless there was a new plan made to define the borders of Israel. Within negotiations between Israel and the surrounding Nations the “Green Line” was established. This green line should define the new border between Israel and the neighbor States. Caused be the Six-Day War there were about 726,000 Palestinian Arabs forced to flee from Israel and become refugees.(11) Now what is interesting on this is where the refugees were going to. 26% of them fled into the Gaza Strip. 38.5% into the area which was left of Palestine and now is called the West Bank. And 13.5% of these 726 thousand refugees fled into Lebanon. The other 18.5% fled to Syria, Iraq, Transjordan and Egypt.(12) As we look at this spreading it is notably, that the upcoming wars Israel had to face, were exactly from these areas with the most Palestinian refugees from the Six-Day War. This refugees were living in crowded refugee camps where they had to fight for their basic needs every day to simply survive. Such bad situations are always a basis where conflicts are easily able to rise. Israel was through the years always struggling with terror attacks from two arab Organizations. The Hamas within the Gaza Strip and the Hisbollah in South Lebanon. Both organizations were strongly characterized and gaining power due to the influence of these refugees. Considering these point, a more long-sighted way of fighting wars or a better refugee policy maybe would have prevented a lot of the conflicts between Arab nations and Israel.

Israel started with the Six-Day War something that caused a lot of International criticism for many of the following years. Even if all these wars were not something which were part of the plan for a proper State of the Jews, and the people of Israel were just fighting for defense reasons, the consequences of these war was leading to a very bad basis for any peace process. One point of the problem was, that these wars were leading to the boarder of Israel as they are today, but they were never planed like this. The UN Partition Plan was aiming to something very different. Another point is that Israel started a long-time occupation of the area we now know as the Palestinian Territories, the Gaza Strip and the West Bank, and Sinai which today is part of Egypt again.(13) In the Resolution 242 provided by the UN during the time after the Six-Day War, Israel was forced to return at least Sinai to Egypt due to the massive pressure. The resolution of the UN Security Council says: “(i) Withdrawal of Israeli armed forces from territories occupied in the recent conflict;”(14) This moment in time, when Israel was giving back Sinai to Egypt, would have been the perfect date for Israel to establish a two state solution. A separation of the land in two parts, one Israel and one Palestine, both with their own administration and government. But unfortunately people were not able to do so. Israel continued the occupation in the West Bank and in order of that caused a lot of future problems regarding a proper peace process and human rights issues.

Not that the continuing occupation would have been the only problem. A big issue of the whole conflict was and still is the continuing methodology of Israel. They build a big separation barrier which is through the whole land. 182 km of barriers are separating the occupied West Bank from the rest of the land, and it is estimated to extend to 630 km in the future.(15) This wall represents a violation of the international law and the human rights: “The international court believed that de facto annexation of parts of the West Bank by Israel would violate the right to Palestinian self-determination.”(16) There are a couple of problems with this separation barrier. First of all the construction violates the Armistice Agreements of 1949 where the “Green Line”, which was mentioned earlier, was established. In fact 12% of the land belonging to the West Bank is now on the Israeli side of the separation barrier.(17) This has many reasons. such as better security for the Settlements of Israel within the West Bank. Remarkably is also that the Barrier keeps a lot of the potential places for water lifting on the Israeli side. Furthermore the construction of the wall is forcing many People on the palestinian side of the border to the West Bank to leave their homes and shops as they get demolished. “In preparation of the new route of the Barrier in Nazlat Isa, the IDF demolished more than 120 shops during August 2003. Storeowners were given as little as 30 minutes to evacuate their premises before the demolitions started.”(18) This barrier is with some good reason one of the most criticized establishments of Israel in this conflict. The restrictions caused by this separation barrier are affecting many parts of the daily life of people on the palestinian side. It is affecting access to education and health facilities, clean water, work and social relations.(19) These restrictions caused by the barrier are including basic needs of every human. Even the Israeli government should know that this cant be part of a solution of this conflict, as it rather causes even more problems.

When we follow this growing conflict between Israel and the Occupied Territories it sometimes seems that Israel does not even want to find a solution for it. The same it is as we focus on the well known policy of settlement. There now are over 121 official settlements within the West Bank which all are violating the international law and the human rights.(20) This settlements are not just illegal, but they are making a peace process and a proper two state solution impossible as well. They are of the biggest problems when searching for a solution of this conflict. Now there are over 300.000 people living within thees settlements.(21) Some for ideological reasons, and some simply because its a lot cheaper to live in a settlement owing to the promotion coming from Israel. If there should once be a two state solutions this unbelievable and still increasing number of 121 israeli settlements within the West Bank has to be reduced to 0. Nobody still really thinks that something like this is possible to happen. It would cost loads of money on one hand, and on the other the government of Israel would have to face big critics from the Zionists movement as well as they would have to fight the remaining illegal settlements as well. This is something very improbable to happen.

As we now know Israel got way off their path as a neutral state as it was supposed by Herzl. Beginning with their War of independence the international opinion already has been ignored as they didn’t stick to the UN Partition Plan. In the future this did not change. After the six day War Israel started the long term occupation of the Palestinian Territories which started a big conflict between Israel and the Palestinian Authorities. This conflict just grew over the years. Regardless of the international critics, Israel continued with building a separation barrier through the whole land. This is not just a step which make a peace process very difficult, but also it is against international law and the human rights. The restrictions due to the barrier and the illegal settlements built by the government of Israel is preventing many arab people withing the west bank of satisfying their basic needs such as water and health facilities. Therefore this conflict just got worse. A prospect of improvement and as well the hope and believe in real peace within the middle east is getting less and less. The dire situation we have now is mainly caused by decisions made by the government of Israel due to ideological rather that righteous motivation.

1. Herzl, Theodor (1896): Der Judenstaat. Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage. Leipzig und Wien: M.Breitenstein’s Verlagsbuchhandlung, S.27;
2. Herzl, Theodor (1896): Der Judenstaat. Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage. Leipzig und Wien: M.Breitenstein’s Verlagsbuchhandlung, S.11;
3. Herzl, Theodor (1896): Der Judenstaat. Versuch einer modernen Lösung der Judenfrage. Leipzig und Wien: M.Breitenstein’s Verlagsbuchhandlung, S.76;
4. Morris, Benny (1948): A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. New Haven 2008, S. 396;
5. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 4;
6. Morris, Benny (1948): A History of the First Arab-Israeli War. New Haven 2008, S. 395;
7. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 8;
8. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 28;
9. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 32;
10. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 9;
11. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 10;
12. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 11;
13. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 19;
14. Woolf, Alex (1996): The Arab-Israel conflict. London: The Watts Publishing Group, S. 20;
15. HPEG – The Impact of Israel’s Separation Barrier on Affected West Bank Communities, online: http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/Barrierupdate7mar04.pdf (March 2012), S.2;
16. B’TSELEM – Separation Barrier. Opinion of the International Court of Justice, online: http://www.btselem.org/separation_barrier/international_court_decision (March 2012);
17. B’TSELEM – Separation Barrier. The Separation Barrier – Statistics, online: http://www.btselem.org/separation_barrier/statistics (March 2012);
18. HPEG – The Impact of Israel’s Separation Barrier on Affected West Bank Communities, online: http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/Barrierupdate7mar04.pdf (March 2012), S.4;
19. HPEG – The Impact of Israel’s Separation Barrier on Affected West Bank Communities, online: http://www.humanitarianinfo.org/opt/docs/UN/OCHA/Barrierupdate7mar04.pdf (March 2012), S.5;
20. BBC – Palestinians shun Israeli settlement restriction plan, online: http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/8379868.stm (March 2012);
21. Haaretz – IDF: More than 300,000 settlers live in West Bank, online: http://www.haaretz.com/print-edition/news/idf-more-than-300-000-settlers-live-in-west-bank-1.280778 (March 2012);

By Matthias Nachbaur

Lia van Bekhoven is a Dutch correspondent living and working in the UK for 30 years now. Thanks to her experience she is able to give a brief insight in the changes of a journalists world during the last decades.

“I studied Journalism in the Netherlands – I wanted to be a correspondent. I thought: ‘A couple of years London, a couple of years New York, a couple of years everywhere.’ But it was hard to get a job here. Because I did Television Journalism, and especially in those days, not having any connections at the BBC, it was very hard.

At that time the BBC did not have any formalized way of having student journalists around for placements, as they do now. They do have all that now. You just have to apply. That possibility was not there. But up to a point, you can make your own luck. Yes you can! And networking is a good thing.

What also has changed I think, is of course the media. They way one works. You were more inclined to work with other people. If you do Television, you do it with a group. Also the news desks, in my case in the Netherlands, had more time for you, because things were much slower. So you were spending much more time on the phone and discussing items. Now you are expected to just deliver a fully made package. So you mail about the subject and get a reply saying: ‘Fine two minutes and 35 seconds, no more.’ – And that’s it!

So because everything is speedier and because there are far less people involved in the media outlets, you are doing more, and you are doing more by yourself.

I do think what has changed as well is that it became more shallow, more superficial, more the emphasis of the celeb culture. Popular Journalism is far bigger now than it was when I started 30 years ago.

A great part of my work is to read and to talk about what is happening in Britain, to get all that information from the newspaper and from radio and television, and then translate it. There are small stories in the British press, which are big for the Netherlands, so you emphasize these. The story of Prince Friso was one of them. What you do is: You find out which hospital he is in. Then you ring them, and then they say: ‘We will not give you any more information.’ Lucky for me, I had been in that hospital before, so I could describe what it looked like. And that’s it! Five minutes later you have a story. Sad, isn’t it?”

By Ferdinand Ferolli, Matthias Nachbaur

Even the well known Red Light District of Amsterdam was not spared by the economical cuts within the last few years. As if the pleasure industry wouldn’t have to struggle enough to pay their bills the dutch government is making their business even harder.

“Many prostitutes had to lower their prices these days.” says Jenny, 32 year-old sex worker. She is offering her services for ten years now and is answering the questions hasty because now more than ever time means money. Even if she goes down with the price on bad days, she generally still insists on the common prize of 50 euros and additional money for additional service. In the wake of the economical crisis a lot of prostitutes went out of business. The prices for the cabins located in the Wallen (Dutch name for the Red Light District) went up.

Jenny’s cabin is located in a narrow street at the outskirts of the Red Light District. Right now she is not afraid of going out of business, but she recognized a change in the behavior of the clientage: “A lot of customers try to get lower prices, but I cant afford taking much less than 50 euros. I have to pay the rent for my cabin!”

Another picture of the situation draws Sarah, prostitute in one of the most crowded spots in the Red Light District. For her it stayed the same during the last years: “No, I never had to lower my prices, I still charge 50 euros or more for suck and fuck.” That is mainly because of her prestigious spot located near the Red Light District’s main street, the Oude Zijds Achterburgwal. Reality is that the City of Amsterdam is enforcing stricter rules, and is trying to improve the dirty image of the area within the center of Amsterdam. They do that by buying former brothels and turning them into art galleries or restaurants. With this strategy the government raises the pressure of competition more and more.

This measures wont make the oldest business in the world disappear from the streets of Amsterdam but the authorities made clear that they want to get rid of the bad image of Amsterdam as the “Sin City”.