Unbelievable but true: An American exchange student in Saudi Arabia, explicitly in Riyadh, discovered much to his surprise that “urban life is unexpectedly normal by U.S. standards” over there. In a blog entry that happens to be a namesake of my blogMiddle East Messenger, the American student Cody Knipfer writes about his experience in Saudi Arabia, a desert state widely
What has human trafficking to do with you? You might be thinking “absolutely nothing”. Question: Did you ever buy cheap meat in a supermarket? Did you ever buy cheap clothes at Primark? Did you ever visit a brothel? Did you ever hire a nurse or a cleaning person from East Europe? In case you answer one or more of those
Refugees, flows of refugees and their destinies, all that I knew so far only from TV, i.e. with much distance from real events, admittetly. What it means to be directly faced with the “refugee situation” itself I could experience recently on my way back from South Tyrol to Munich and at last yesterday watching the play “Fliehen & Forschen” on
Allowdley I was a little bit excited last thursday. What would be the outcome of the voting at the UN General Assmbly I wondered. In preparation of that voting I was happy to learn that brave European countries such as Italy, France, Switzerland, Spain, Portugal, Austria, Luxemburg, Norway and Denmark declared to support the Palastinian suit. In my mind those
Travel guides are an important device. They are good for orientation on-site. They deliver important information on budget hotels, on shopping malls and hip restaurants. Sometimes, however, they can do even more: they initiate the encouter with (the own) history and therefore with the past. The changeful German-French history seems to be particular present in the Alsace. Already in 357
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.
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
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.