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personal statement by Mrs. Henriette Sadler

WHY THE STORY ABOUT FARROKH BULSARA CAME INTO EXISTENCE

“Whoever is silent, is unimpeachable. But difficulties are not surmounted through being concealed. Very often, one stays silent because of fear and with fear, unfreedom starts”, I wrote these words more than ten years ago in my book “In Folge von Unzucht”. It is a story about child abuse and nobody was really interested in it. The book was released in 2001 and as time passed, the topic about child abuse began to break down and people started to listen attentively

I am not presumptuous to think that the breaking of the taboo topic has something to do with my book. However, I am audacious enough to claim that I only write about topics which matter to me.

Back then in 2001, I did not care about Farrokh Bulsara. I did not know him and had not heard his name. I was neither a fan of Queen nor a fan of Freddie Mercury. Not until November 2006 – a TV program screened on the occasion of the 15^th anniversary of Mercury’s death the DORO-TV-documentary “The Untold Story” – I took notice of him. The life which this person had lived touched me immensely. Also the extracts of his interviews, various statements of people who knew him and those who pretended to know him. I took every single word I had heard in this interview on trust. I started collecting stuff about him, I even wrote a musical about Freddie Mercury. The realization of this project failed because of not receiving the licences of his music. I continued writing, this time a play about Mercury. A prestigious theatre-publishing house rejected it with the explanation that the text was written “very lively and well, but [we] know the problems when staging such plays even though they center about such a magical personality.” Moreover, they explained that “one of [their] well-known authors had wanted to write a play about Mercury through commissional work, but unfortunately, no theatre had been interested.” I was puzzled. Why were plays about Wittgenstein, Peter Pan and Carusa staged but not a single one about Freddie Mercury? And not even then when there is an offer from authors?

Intensively, I focused my intention on research. Bit by bit, I began to realize the vital problem. Disgraceful untruths about Freddie Mercury have been spreat, lies, aspersions, rumours, desinformation. On the other hand, facts are hidden which could present him in a proper light and which might establish clarity about this man. Also my project to write a book about Freddie Mercury failed after I had been told to send some sample chapters to a well-known publishing house. They should have been a part of a biography, but a different one than those of some storytellers. Nevertheless, I have to thank Rick Sky, Peter Freestone, Jim Hutton & Co; they helped me reach a certainty. Pieces of work which are to be published about Freddie Mercury are strictly controlled by a couple of people. At the same time, there is a perfectly regulated market which offers the brand “Freddie Mercury” as junk for sale while attentively watching out for people who are interested in Freddie Mercury as a human being to shut up. Thereby, business is not blown. Thereby, horrendous profit can be made through this brand.

The following poem by the former East German author and government critics Reiner Kunze crosses my mind. In 1976, he published the poem in his prose volume “Die wunderbaren Jahre” which was released in the Federal Republic of Germany.

Das ende der kunst

Du darfst nicht, sagte die eule zum auerhahn,

du darfst nicht die sonne besingen

Die sonne ist nicht wichtig

Der auerhahn nahm

die sonne aus seinem gedicht

Du bist ein künstler,

sagte die eule zum auerhahn

Und es war schön finster

Pretty dark, this is how those who are in power of control and market regulations regarding Freddie Mercury want to have it. Their goal is to put controllable, self-commissioned and safe material about and to keep it alive in order to smother facts and to keep business profitable.

As dangerously classified information is this which has already come into existence through a different and disharmonious way of thinking. Especially the material which is conveyed via language is in the focus of attention. After I had reached this certainty, The Story about Farrokh Bulsara alias Freddie Mercury came into existence.

It is about time to give this great human being and artist great credits which was refused to him. It is about time to give him dignity which has been denied by the self-appointed controlling institution of power.

Henriette Sadler, author

October 2011