The Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung (1/2) comments as follows on the recent unmasking of a plot in the UK to kidnap, torture and decapitate a British soldier: “ If the information… is correct, it is a new proof of how precarious the security situation in the country continues to be, and how far a radical and criminal Islamism has destroyed British multiculturalism: it will soon be no more than an ideal of the past. Islamic youth, like those who live in Birmingham and whose parents come from Pakistan, take as their example the televised executions of Baghdad; their political and religious loyalty is not to Great Britain but to the Jihad; the Holy War against the West, against Israel, to seek revenge for the presumed injustices perpetrated against Muslims”. To this situation “ no single remedy exists”, but “it’s clear that those circles that propagate the ‘clash of civilization’ do not deserve any social indulgence“. In the weekly Der Spiegel (29/1), the cover story is dedicated to the proposals to grant a pardon to former terrorists of the RAF. “ German Federal President Köhler is pondering whether it is possible to pardon the former terrorist Christian Klar. If he were to do so, a bloody chapter in German history would be closed. But still today, thirty years after the ‘German Autumn’, attitudes to the RAF continue to divide politics and society“. The British daily THE GUARDIAN (30/01) comments on the advantages that Iranian President Ahmadinejad, whose popularity is declining in the country, derives from the ever greater tension with US President Bush. Ali Ansari , an expert on Iranian questions, observes that, “ironically, it is this very international crisis that may serve to save Ahmadinejad’s presidency… As domestic difficulties mount, the emerging international crisis could at best serve as a rallying point, or at worst persuade Iran’s elite that a change of guard would convey weakness to the outside world”. So, paradoxically, according to Ansari, “while Ahmadinejad has been his own worst enemy, the US hawks are his best friends”. In its situation of “total insecurity”, even “if the Sudanese government opposes it”, “Darfur has a need for a well-trained UN protection force” because “the 7,000 troops of the African Union are neither trained nor equipped for this mission” observes Dominique Gerbaud in an editorial in the French Catholic paper LA CROIX (31/01). “The UNO needs to remain true to its pledges, but the African Union must obtain from the government of Khartoum the authorization to allow peace-keeping forces to enter the country. If that does not happen, the world will wake up to the realization – too late – that the inhabitants of Darfur have been wiped off the face of the earth”. The new Iraqi strategy of Bush is the focus of attention of a forum hosted by the Italian Catholic daily AVVENIRE (01/02). According to the Islamist Massimo Campanili “the government of Iraqi premier Maliki is dominated by Shiites and a creation of the USA, with the result that the Sunnis won’t accept it. At this point we need to understand how far Maliki and the Americans are willing to go to promote a return of the Sunnis to the political scene”. “I think that, in the end, the Americans will stage a peaceful coup d’état – suggests Younis Tawfik , Professor of Arabic at the University of Genoa – . They will engineer the fall of the Maliki government in order to create a new regime led by a strongman utterly loyal to them… who, without calling elections, would be able to combat terrorism and reconstruct basic infrastructures”. “The fundamental error of the post-war settlement in Iraq – he concludes – was to immediately call general elections though the country was far from ready for them”. The Polish daily ZYCIE WARSZAWY (31/1) reports on the open letter sent by various politicians to the Polish President and Premier to ask for the introduction of a law that would protect the clergy as a group of persons who play a public role that should be on a par with civil servants. “Such a law is necessary to defend our Church from the attacks of those circles that consider her an obstacle to the creation of a democracy without values”, says Urszula Krupa , Polish MEP and one of the signatories of the letter. The paper cites the opinion of the group of signatories after the case of the forced resignation of Archbishop Wielgus: “The media empires, enemies of the Church, have shown a particular zeal and malignancy in trying to unjustly discredit Msgr. Wielgus.” But “other clerics have previously been subjected to similar harassment” and they too “ had no possibility of defending themselves from the attacks of the media” . The signatories maintain that “just for this reason it is essential to introduce a law that would ensure that journalists would not be able to say just what they like with impunity” . The paper adds that the representatives of the left now in opposition are of the view that “any parity of the clergy with civil servants in terms of their legal rights would be tantamount to the introduction of a confessional State in Poland“.
