Idomeneo: The Phony Controversy

For weeks I have been reading about how the decision to cancel the production of Mozart’s Idomeneo in Berlin represents a dire threat to Western civilization. Supposedly the scene of decapitation of Mohammed would lead to rioting in the Islamic world and terrorism at home. The outrage and hysteria was not limited to the German press, but was taken up by the right-wing US media as well.

Thus, cult leader Sun-Myung Moon’s Washington Times – which is the mouthpiece of Washington’s neoconservative establishment – sees the controversy as proof of the danger of Isalmic fascism, which must be wiped out in the "War on Terror":

The cancellation of Mozart’s opera is another illustration of the importance of Pope Benedict’s call for a debate on faith and reason, to see how violence in God’s name is a threat to us all. Thoughtful people, whether Christian, Jewish, Islamic or even atheist, can disagree on where they locate truth, but irrational violence on behalf of any religion or ideology must be condemned. This is the violence that the world confronts among the Islamic fascists today. The modern fascist threat is so real in the popular mind that jihadists didn’t even have to make "official" threats; the Germans were more than ready to cancel Mozart’s opera.

The right-wing hate site Front Page heaps scorn on Germany and Europeans in general for their "pre-emptive obediance" (appeasement) to Islamic intolerance. And conservative radio talk-show hosts such as Rush Limbaugh and Bill O’Reilly spoke solemnly and sanctimoniously about how the "assault on Mozart" only underscored the need of America to stand fast in the global war on "Islamofascism" while the weak and cowardly Europeans collapse in fear.

But how real was the threat? Was the controversy "manufactured" by conservative German politicians and their enablers in the media for political gain?  Omar in TooMuchCookies Network looks at the actual facts and concludes there was not much there to begin with.  The "anonymous caller" that set off the panic did not mention anything about defiling Islam and may have been a well-intentioned opera fan. There was no outrage concerning the opera expressed by any members of the Muslim community in Germany. The media reported about "threatening fliers", but not one of these has ever been found or substantiated – they never existed.

Furthermore, Omar cites two other cases of self-censorship – these were based on real real threats – that led to the cancellation of perfomances in Germany: one was because of threats coming from a Jewish group; the other was cancelled after protests by conservative politicians, followed by bomb threats.  Neither of these incidents caused much commotion in the press, or led to warnings about the collapse of Western civilization.  The Ideomeneo controversy is thus pure hypocrisy, fueled by Islamophobia.

As Omar summarizes in his excellent blog post: "Muslims are blamed even when they don’t say or do anything."