A Hand Full of Stars is again a good example, charting as it does the growing political awareness of the boy as he discovers journalism as a form of civil resistance. The story "Als der Angstmacher Angst bekam" ("When the Fear-maker became Afraid") in Der Fliegenmelker takes a malicious delight in the downfall of a government informer, a stock figure in Schami's Damascene fiction. Other texts speak of the fear of police brutality, skepticism vis à vis government propaganda and disillusionment as a series of coups fail to bring political change.