The trompe l’oeil on the house wall in Rue de la Martinière displays famous citizens of Lyon. It shows amongst others the Roman Emperor Claudius, the inventor of the weaving loom Joseph-Marie Jacquard, Laurent Mourguet, the inventor of buffoon “Guignol”, André-Marie Ampère, the inventors of the cinema Auguste and Louis Lumière, the architect Tony Garnier, Antoine de Saint-Exupéry (“the little
Oh all that I know There’s nothing here to run from Cause here Everybody here’s got somebody to lean on Coldplay sing about a ‘beautiful world’ in their song “Don’t panic”. Germany experiences its first spring weekend. Yesterday temperatures almost 20 degrees Celsius for the first time this year and also today a gentle breeze dominated through the day. A
Minister of the Interior Friedrich seems to have a mission for his tenure: the crusade against Muslim none-integrable citizens of Germany. Already upon his taking over of the ministery almost exactly one year ago he chanted that “Islam does not belong to Germany – historically seen”. At that time he replied to a comment by former Federal President Christian Wulff.
[nggallery id=52] The announcement of a „panel discussion with the human rights commissioner of the federal government Markus Löning“ intrigued me. I noticed positively that representatives of Syria and Tunisia would be part of the discussion. Next to Markus Löning, Matthias Katzer (Amnesty International), Dr. Sadiqu Al-Mousllie (member of the Syrian National Council) and Chaouki Ben Attia (Head of the
Is freedom a question of money or decency? After the failure of the UN-Resolution last friday and the reasons given for the decision that China and Russia consider the economic ties towards the Syrian Regime as more important than the daily victims of the struggle for freedom against Assad’s dictatorship, lack of understanding might be the nicest feeling one can
The final plea of Ulrich Kienzles closing an interesting, entertaining evening resonates: “It is for the first time that an Arabian idea “Kefaya – enough” finds its way into the world. From Tunisia, via Egypt and Lybia to Israel, Spain and Greece, where young people likewise protested against their governments. And if one wants to you can file the “Occupy
In preparation of my doctoral thesis on discourse and intercultural education I came across the methodology of ethnographic content analysis on the one hand and a research document titled “Peering Beneath the Veil: An Ethnographic Content Analysis of Islam as Portrayed on The 700 Club Following the September 11th Attacks” by Eric Gormly on the other hand. Discourse analysis is
You might have noticed that the Middle East Messenger kept quiet somehow during the recent weeks. No new posts. The last one was dated November 4th, 2011 – on my birthday. One day before my birthday my father was taken to the hospital. Once again. But this time it was different. Unfortunately, he did not survive this stay in hospital.
Under the name Azulejo one understands a mosaic made of quadratic, colourful painted and ceramic tile, that has its origin in Spain and Portugal and it thus made there. These weather-proof tiles are an integral part in the cityscape of those countries and are applied to public buildings, monuments, facades and churches, but also as decoration for walls. Often old
Upon a visit to the Botanical Garden of Madrid I came across a very interesting exhibition resp. prize by chance: the Swiss made Prix Pictet. According to the foundation’s website, the prize “has a unique mandate – to use the power of photography to communicate vital messages to a global audience. The goal is to uncover art of the highest