Fury as Berlin Opera Cancels Performance
The German government accused a Berlin opera house of “self-censorship” on Tuesday for cancelling performances of a Mozart opera because it was concerned about attacks by Islamists.The Deutsche Oper, one of Berlin’s three opera houses, was due to show a controversial production of Mozart’s “Idomeneo” by director Hans Neuenfels in which the severed heads of the Prophet Muhammad, Jesus and Buddha are placed on four chairs.
This sort of thing is exactly how the Islamic fanatics are trying to spread their nuttiness.
It is true that it’s difficult to think about how to deal with delusional nutcases, though: the fanatics see a performance like this as an attack on Islam (though anyone sane can see that it’s treating all religions equally), and that confirms what they see is a clash of civilizations. But self-censoring is playing into their hands and validating their notion that any sort of criticism of Islam is an attack.
That said, I think the point is that when you’re dealing with someone who isn’t rational, while you should of course be prepared for their likely responses, you probably don’t want to be making decisions based on their delusions.
[Disclaimer: My title is unfair; all the governmental officials quoted disapproved of the cancellation, which is good. And I don't have a problem with France. I just couldn't resist a surrender-monkey reference.]