comment by
Detlef Esslinger
On Tuesday evening it was broadcast on ZDF a report from Qatar. In it, a man named Khalid Salman, who is one of his country’s official “World Cup ambassadors,” said homosexuality was “mental harm.” Since then, damnation has descended on him in Germany. The national soccer player Leon Goretzka should speak to many people when he recognizes in the statement a “human image from another millennium”. Of course, Goretzka is right about the content. But with the millennium it is such a thing. Indeed, the phrase suggests that Khalid Salman and his Qatari are hundreds, if not thousands of years socially behind.