At the same time, cartoons published in any (non-Anglophone or non-Francophone) national newspaper would not likely have garnered much attention in the Muslim world on their own, were the country in question not also home to a disaffected, discriminated-against and disempowered Muslim minority that could draw attention to them. If the various parties in Denmark (and I do mean all of them) had been willing and able to work this out themselves, Saudi Arabia and Egypt would likely never have thought twice about it. But Denmark's divisions are clearly quite pernicious.
Thus I think (for both reasons stated above) that Chile's embassy in Damascus would not have been burned if a Chilean newspaper had been the one to initially print the cartoons. (I'm sure the Chileans never imagined that sharing a building with Denmark would cause them such a grave security problem....)
I haven't read any Bernard Lewis, but his earlier works come very highly recommended. (The same people, though, say he's gone a bit off his rocker lately, although I'm not sure what the evidence is... and the book you recommend appears to be quite recent. I will have a look, though; I believe in making up my own mind about these things, I just haven't gotten around to Lewis yet :-)
But please don't exaggerate the marginalization of muslim immigrants in Denmark. From my knowledge of the country, it's nowhere near as bad as it's now made out to be in the anglophone press and blogosphere.
I wish I had the time and energy to correct all the misleading impressions, but I don't. I don't even know where to start. Noone mentions the radical imams with but tenuous connections to the country, often unwilling to even learn the language, who routinely preach in the mosques about the "depravity" of Danish society. We have them in Norway as well; they sometimes say quite different things to the media than to their congregations. It was some of those that toured the Middle East to "internationalize" the issue, bringing along the false cartoons. These people are as much part of the problem as anyone.
But yes, the Danish immigration debate during the last decade has been more polarized along a nationalism/non-nationalism spectrum than in many other countries. They still haven't gotten up a proper mosque in Copenhagen for a variety of practical reasons, and not many years ago there was debate on whether to allow this.
BobFunk and other Danes will know a lot more about all this, though. The world's northernmost desert wind.
That is a very reasonable request, and since I've never been to Denmark, I must admit that I could well be overstating it.
But I also have known people from many different countries who are not members of a minority or disadvantaged group and who wrongly believe there is not serious discrimination in their society. (I'm not sure I stated that clearly, let's try again: Many people who are in the majority are unaware of how discriminatory their own societies are.)
I'd put my own country near the top of that list, but the list is long, and we have lots of company. The total failure of dialogue in Denmark these past months indicates that Denmark probably belongs somewhere on the list too. Where on the list, I cannot say.
I would also agree that alot of the discrimination of minority groups is usually not seen by the majority. I live in Norway too, and I know some Muslims. From what they have told me, it isnt so much pure racism that is the problem. Things like trying to get a good job with their University degrees is.
