Carolin Emcke is a German journalist who received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) last year. I have read "Echoes of Violence: Letters from a War Reporter" (Von den Kriegen) by her and was very impressed.
This is another book, not a report about the war zones as in her other books but a thoughtful expression of what we can do in our lives, what needs to be done, to get rid of our hate of the unknown, get rid of racism, fanaticism, sexism, homophobia, anything where anyone thinks he is better or has more right than others for being born into a certain group.
Carolin Emcke is a wonderful writer, you can tell that she knows what she is talking about and that her thoughts come from the heart. I wish everyone could read this book, especially those with hate in their hearts and with an open mind to do something against it.
This world would be such a better place if we all thought like her.
From the back cover:
"A great defence of a humanistic attitude and an open society
Racism, fanaticism, anti-democratic sentiment – our increasingly polarised, fragmented public sphere is dominated by a type of thinking that admits doubt about others’ positions, but never its own. Carolin Emcke’s spirited essay contrasts this dogmatic thinking with praise for a polyphony of voices, and for the “impure”: Only the courage to speak out against hate, and the will to maintain and discuss plurality, will allow democracy to be realised. Only in this way can we successfully combat religious and nationalist fanatics, because differentiation and precision are the things they most reject."
Carolin Emcke received the Peace Prize of the German Book Trade (Friedenspreis) in 2016.
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