With all the sound and fury surrounding this opera, at least in the media, it opened with little problem in Berlin last night. If you had listened to various reports, you’d have heard about an uproar over this opera that featured the severed head of the prophet Mohammad. There were calls to cancel it from some quarters and calls to keep it on free speech grounds from others.
What I didn’t know was that the opera doesn’t just include the severed head of the Prophet. This piece seems to call into question religion in general, noting the absurdity and violence of it at times. It features the disrobing and beheading of Mohammad, Jesus, Buddha and Poseiden. Somehow that never made it into most reports. It was portrayed, via sources like CSPAN radio and NPR, as an anti-Islam opera that was being protested by Moslems and being supported by Christians and secularists.
So, given the disgracing and beheading of Christ, would some change their minds about this? Why was the story spun as it was? In today’s American press, and perhaps in Western Europe, an anti-Islam narrative is the story heard above the din. What’s worse is that the German police and government kept noting how they were preparing for terrorist attacks on opening night, practicing evacuation drills. I really feel that their use of the word “terrorist attacks” was code for “Moslem attacks”, especially since the opera’s take on Christianity, Buddhism and ancient religions was never forefronted in discussions.
See the Washington Post’s story for more details.
