Nation-building. The same as state-building? Not in Austria. We are children and grandchildren of people, who had developed an ethnic concept of "Nation", based on german language and a criminal race-theory.

A concept along the denial of more than 500 years development of a certain kind of culture, which is a strong and inspiring mixture of so many very different cultural inputs. A disturbing practice of right wing politicians:

They relay on "cultural roots" of "the occident", claiming a cultural state, which -- as they demand -- draws a line against the orient, especialy against the Turks. It was the Bosnian writer Dzevad Karahasan, who said with a smile, when we had a debate on that so-called "roots":

"Sorry, my friend, but Plato was a Balkanian. Aristotle, which they relay on, since Thomas of Aquin has explained him to them, was employee at the balkanian court of the Macedonians."

Dzevad told me about the deeper meaning of the work of Joseph Hammer-Purgstall [link], who was born in Graz and lived in that eastern part of Styria, about 40 minutes by car, going south of Gleisdorf. Hammer was diplomat, orientalist, translated a lot of books into German, but most of all he wrote a big "history of the ottoman empire".

Dzevad said:
"If you read this history of the ottoman empire, you find out, that he had to oppone this system in case of ideology, but he loved the culture."

As I noted in the entry before [link], there are a lot of "links" to this culture and to Istanbul in my every day life. Some of them really surprising. There was a special "Hammer- Purgstall-Situation" last year.

From the left: Anton Krasniqi, Naim Spahiu, Ethem Baymak and Shpend Qeriqi

I met four artists from Kosovo, not part of the Serbian community, but from the Albanian. Two of them christians, two of them moslems. One of them, Ethem Baymak, part of the turkish minority in Kosovo.

Preparing an exhibition in Gleisdorf [link], I took them to some interesting places in our region, where we could see contemporary art. One of the places was a manor house, Schloss Hainfeld: [link] It once has been the Home of Hammer, but I did not think on that, when we arrived.

Can you imagine, how very surprised Ethem was, when he found out, that he stood in the private room of Hammer-Purgstall? He told me: "His history of ottoman empire is the most important source to me, if I want to know something about my culture."

So there are moments, where it is all linked up. You remember me, writing about the movie "Yasamin kiyisinda " (2007) by Fatih Akin [link] in the entry before? I found another scene/location, where I had been before.

Actress Hanna Schygulla as the character Susanne Staub in a hotel lobby in Istanbul ... I have been there before with Amirali Ghasemi, an artist from Tehran.

A guy, who is under hard pessure right now ... read the last message, I got from him, in my logbook: [link] (Another Message from abroad at june 27th: "Iran shootiing from helicopters - Government controls cell phone system - Internet down.")

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