Features

A Foreign Affair: David Bowie in Berlin

December 2008

Haunted by Isherwood's shade, the British musician flirted with fascism, then became a hero to the youth of the communist East

Crises are good for art - political as well as private. Those who balance on the edge of the abyss need to keep their wits about them, looking not only down but ahead.

In the late summer of 1976, the mentally and physically exhausted David Bowie moves to West Berlin. For three years, he lives at 155 Hauptstrasse in Schöneberg, an unobtrusive district in the American Sector. Apartments are in short supply, but Bowie finds a loft with seven large rooms on the first floor of an art nouveau building near Tempelhof Airport. Next door is a gay bar; Marlene Dietrich was born around the corner.

Translated from the German by Daniel Johnson
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The Man Who Flew Too High

December 2008

Demagogue and darling of Austria's far-Right, Jörg Haider had power within his grasp. Why couldn't he seal the deal?

Hearing the story, you are tempted to believe it had something to do with his car: a Volkswagen Phaeton. Classicists will recall that Phaeton was the son of Helios who asked his father if he might drive the sun's chariot across the heavens. Phaeton lost control of the horses and came so close to setting the world on fire that Zeus struck him down with a thunderbolt.

Within days of his death, the secret life of the high-flying Austrian politician Jörg Haider began to unravel. For Haider, who was married with two daughters, it had been a day of parties. His last official engagement was at the Cabaret nightclub in Velden on Lake Wörthersee. He was in a bad mood and later it emerged that he had had a fight with his lover and right-hand man in the BZÖ (Alliance for the Future of Austria), Stefan Petzner.

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A Norwegian Thatcher?

December 2008

The leader of Norway's Progress Party, Siv Jensen, has a good chance of winning next year's election. In an interview with Standpoint editor Daniel Johnson, she explains her views; Bruce Bawer explains the background to her meteoric career

Daniel Johnson: Your party, the Progress Party, has sometimes been accused, on the left and in parts of the media, of being far-right, comparable to Le Pen - what is your answer to that?

Bruce Bawer is an American writer based in Oslo and the author of While Europe Slept

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Africa Has a Dream: Obama

December 2008

The new president will be welcomed by most ordinary Africans, if not by their rulers

Not long ago, Western journalists tracked down Barack Obama's youngest half-brother, George, aged 26, who lives on less than a dollar a month in a Nairobi slum. "If anyone says something about my surname, I say we are not related," he said. "I am ashamed." Kenyans as a whole are divided. Obama is an easily recognisable Luo name, which means that Prime Minister Raila Odinga's supporters love Obama, but the dominant Kikuyu, for the same reason, supported Hillary Clinton.

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They Just Don't Get It

December 2008

Many Britons - and even some Americans - have a false idea of what the US is really like. Are Hollywood and TV to blame?

There has been such enthusiasm for Barack Obama in Britain that it is strange no one seems to have looked into his feelings about Britain. It is perhaps natural for his foreign supporters to assume that their adoration of the president-elect will be returned, but there is no indication that Obama is at all Anglophile or interested in the "special relationship" in any profound way. All indications seem to be that he will be much more interested in winning the affection of what used to be called the Third World than in paying attention to the adoring electorates of Western Europe. Moreover, it's possible that he might look past all the British talk about how wonderful it is to have a black man in the White House and notice with distaste how little minority representation there is in British public life.

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Their's is to Reason Why

December 2008

A new generation of soldiers is as questioning of its role in Afghanistan as the society from which it is recruited

"Has anyone here ever been shot at?" God, is it already 21 years since that thawing Cold War afternoon of drizzle and cloud on Salisbury Plain? Standing around with a few dozen fellow platoon commanders on a training course, I was waiting to be reminded just how to identify an enemy firing position when the instructor sparked a moment of sudden interest with his question. Yet despite many of us there having already served for two years or more, only one man raised his hand in response. His experience had involved a few bullets, a few seconds of shock and an unseen gunman in South Armagh.

That short event, though, had him marked out as remarkable among us. The army that I had joined was still training for a conventional conflict in Europe. Northern Ireland, by then a theatre where the prospect of getting shot at was anyway fading by the month, was very much a secondary priority.

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Previous columns

Out of the Twilight Zone

RICK JONES
November 2008

An exhibition of WG Sebald's archives offers an intriguing view of the late UK-based emigré German writer's life and loves

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The Future of Unholy War

SHIRAZ MAHER
November 2008

The story of al-Qaeda's lost leader, Abdullah Azzam, illuminates the murderous nature of global jihad

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Grey Power Time Bomb

PHILIP BOOTH
November 2008

Political parties are being held to ransom by older voters. And it's the young who are paying the price

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All at Sea Over Pirates

MICHAEL BURLEIGH
November 2008

Piracy on the high seas, especially near failed and unstable Muslim states, is becoming an international security headache

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Beware the Obama Machine

AMIR TAHERI
November 2008

When I drew attention to the two-faced tactics of the Democratic candidate over Iraq, his ‘militants’ turned nasty

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Hell Hath No Fury Like a Feminist Scorned

MIDGE DECTER
November 2008

Sarah Palin's selection as John McCain's running mate aroused unprecedented rage and delight, especially among women - but why?

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What Should We Do About Russia?

EDWARD LUCAS
November 2008

The West must start to show the Kremlin it means business

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We Can't All Make the Grade

CHARLES MURRAY
October 2008

The romantic belief, common to Left and Right, that every child is capable of academic success has been proved wrong

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A Tory Vision for Europe

RODNEY LEACH
October 2008

Suddenly, the Conservatives are in tune with voters across the continent - and can lead the way to a more democratic EU

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South Ossetia is Not Kosovo

NOEL MALCOLM
October 2008

Moscow has accused the West of double standards, but the former Yugoslav province has a cast-iron case for independence - unlike the secessionists in Georgia

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Is David Cameron a Thatcherite?

BRUCE ANDERSON AND ROBIN HARRIS
October 2008

Bruce Anderson debates Robin Harris on David Cameron's Thatcherite credentials

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Through a Glass Darkly

MARK FALCOFF
October 2008

Black and white supporters of Barack Obama are voting for very different presidents

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The New Anti-Semitism

ROBERT SOLOMON WISTRICH
October 2008

The West has adopted a disturbingly complacent attitude towards those who consistently advocate a "world without Israel".

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Pope on a Mission to Surprise

GEORGE WEIGEL
October 2008

Benedict XVI has confounded the critics who expected him to be a 'caretaker' pontiff

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France Finally Forgets Vichy

ALLAN MASSIE
September 2008

The humiliation of 1940 has cast a baleful shadow over France's postwar history. Can Nicolas Sarkozy, the first president too young to be tainted by it, usher in a new era?

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Would You Mind Turning It Down?

PETER WHITTLE
September 2008

When I tried to confront anti-social behaviour, nobody dared to back me up. So what's wrong with us?

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The End of 'Chimerica'

NIALL FERGUSON
September 2008

The delicate balance of power between China and American is unstable and the geopolitical consequences will affect us all

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What Do We Mean by 'Art'?

RICHARD EYRE
September 2008

Art is not culture or entertainment, it is complexity, the 'I' in life, ambition, the ambiguity of humanity, serious about itself

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Patriot, Poet and Prophet

ROBERT CONQUEST
September 2008

The leading Western historian of Stalinism's horrors first met Alexander Solzhenitsyn when the novelist was expelled from the USSR in 1974. Here he recalls his genius and his courage

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The Truth About the Historical Jesus

GEZA VERMES
September 2008

The leading authority on the Dead Sea Scrolls draws a portrait of Jesus the Jew

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Out of This World

JERALD BLOCK
August 2008

Pathological Computer Use is being recognised as a real disorder, but little is known about how to treat compulsive gamers who spend much of their lives in virtual worlds

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Betraying the State of Israel

SIDNEY BRICHTO
August 2008

Jews fail to understand anti-Semitism disguised as anti-Zionism

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Getting to Know the Dalai Lama

PICO IYER
August 2008

The monk who has lead Tibetans for 68 years sees the Beijing Olympics as a chance to convert the Chinese to his cause

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A New Mutiny?

JONATHAN FOREMAN
August 2008

Away from the tourist trail, India is threatened by the Maoism that toppled Nepal's monarchy

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ITV's Last Gasp

ALASDAIR PALMER
August 2008

Savaged by a regime that sacrificed quality for cash, the network needs to return to striking and original programmes. Can Michael Grade pull it off, or is ITV’s decline terminal?

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American Revolution

GERARD BAKER
July 2008

Barack Obama has the mood, the momentum and the money in his favour - but John McCain's character and record could yet swing November's presidential election for the Republicans

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China, Red in Tooth and Claw

GEORGE WALDEN
July 2008

Wolf Totem is a disconcerting mixture of nationalism, lupine metaphors and nostalgia for the age of nomads. But what does the novel’s runaway success tell us of the aspirations of the new China?

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Faking a Killing

MELANIE PHILLIPS
July 2008

The world reacted with horror when it saw a 12-year-old boy shot dead by Israeli soldiers. But the footage, it transpires, told a lie

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Christianity, Secularisation and Islam

AIDAN NICHOLS OP
July 2008

In the second in our series on religion and public life, a leading Dominican theologian argues that only a recovery of the Judeo-Christian tradition can enable Islam to find its place in Britain

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The Ministers of Sound

TIM BLANNING
July 2008

From the Beatles and Wilson to Bono and Blair, the rise of rock stars to power and influence has tempted leaders all over the world to cultivate them - even at the risk of ridicule

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Science Is Golden

MICHAEL HANLON
June 2008

We must pay for cathedrals of knowledge if scientists are to solve the great mysteries of the universe

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Breaking Faith With Britain

MICHAEL NAZIR-ALI
June 2008

Christianity is central to British identity, but its marginalisation has created a moral vacuum which radical Islam threatens to fill

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Putin's New Evil Empire

EDWARD LUCAS
June 2008

The West is a gift to Kremlin propagandists; we should express more pride in our system that has given genuine freedom to millions

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How To Defeat The Global Jihadists

MICHAEL BURLEIGH
June 2008

While America prepares for the next wave of terrorist attacks, Britain is sleepwalking. Yet it is not too late to avert disaster

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Secret Justice, Private Hell

ALASDAIR PALMER
June 2008

Family courts are putting parents on trial for their children. Instead of helping to keep families together, these secretive tribunals are breaking them apart — often for trivial reasons

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