Should the Danish government act to protect its principles or the export?

And are the Middle Eastern boycotts merely a reaction from countries that have no understanding of what a free press means, or is it a well deserved reaction to the harsh and undriendly tone against immigrants in Danish media and politics?

Biilmann Blog

I was going to diary this tonight but you beat me to it. :)

Egypt today apparently joined the boycott; not the government officially of course, but one of my colleagues told me that the boycott has been endorsed what I believe to be the Chamber of Commerce (she said Chamber of Trade).

I've had a couple of conversations with people in the office about this, and I have to tell you that support for the boycott is more widespread than I would have expected.  My most Westernized colleague nearly started to cry when we were talking (er, arguing) about it.

I have a lot more to say about this but am still trying to organize my thoughts.

I will just say this:  Because I am not religious myself, I had trouble really understanding the deep offense that people have taken at this until I stopped thinking about it in terms of religion and compared it to a cartoon that is deeply racially offensive.

As a secular person, it's hard for me to imagine why someone would get so bent out of shape over this.  But what I realized was that if my local paper, for example, ran a cartoon using ugly stereotyps to mock black people, yes, I would expect the paper to know better than to run such a cartoon.  And yes, I might call on the paper to apologize if it did run such a cartoon.  And if the cartoon was very offensive, yes, I might consider a boycott.

A boycott of the paper.

And possibly of its advertisers.

What I would not do is expect the government to sanction the paper.

I am a firm believer in freedom of speech and freedom of expression, so it's also entirely possible, maybe even probable, that such a cartoon, even if it was very offensive, might not actually trigger in me the desire to boycott anything.  I'm just saying that I found it easier to understand when I removed it from the religous context and put the same debate into a different context, in which it is possible to offend me.

But I don't actually know how I'd react to a really deeply offensive racist cartoon, because pretty much all of the newspapers in the countries I've lived in would refuse to run such a cartoon.

So.  Anyway, I do have a bunch of other thoughts floating around in my head, I just have't figured out how to nail them down in words yet.

Well, five ruppens worth...I think they should have had the meeting way back when, and let the Muslem ministers talk...and listen to what they had to say. How could that have hurt? There's some pride going on, and to what end? I dunno, I tend to believe in talking and diplomacy, is all...

"Once in awhile we get shown the light, in the strangest of places, if we look at it right" - Hunter/Garcia

These are muddled waters.  It is not easy to no the motivations for publishing these drawings, but in general it is not for governments to draw the line between freedom of speech and slander and abuse, that is up to the courts to decide. That is why I think that the actions of the Norwegian government were unnecessary since the government had nothing, what so ever, with the publishing of these drawings.  It seems to be a general misunderstanding amongst a lot of people in the Muslim world that governments can somehow intervene and censor undesired information.  That is not the case, at least not in countries that take pride in upholding democratic principals.  

That said I have to say that it seems as if the two situations in Denmark and Norway are a bit different. First of all, the magazine that published these drawings in Norway is a rather small magazine with few readers.  The publishers behind this magazine are known to be Christian fundamentalist with a rather dubious relation to Muslims in general, but with a left-centre government known to be more immigrant friendly.  The case in Denmark seems to be of greater importance since the publisher behind the drawings is a respected newspaper with a broad national impact. This newspaper is, to my knowledge, not known to have had an anti-immigrant or anti-Muslim agenda in the past, in contrast to the Danish government, and that is why I believe the chief-editor when he states in an open letter published on January 28th that their motivation behind publishing these drawings was to test the limits for freedom of speech in Denmark.          

(Bear in mind that these drawings were originally intended to be published in a book for children and are as such not intended for an adult audience).  


Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.

OK, I really have to go make dinner, but I wanted to throw some more things out there.

First, this long article, which I linked to in a comment upthread, is a couple of weeks old but still has some interesting stuff in it:

Imam Ahmed Abu-Laban, a leader of Denmark's Muslim community, bristles at what he calls the "Islam-phobia" gripping the country.

Abu-Laban asserted that the cartoons had been calculated to incite Muslims since it was well-known that in Islam, depictions of the prophet are considered blasphemy.

"We are being mentally tortured," he said from his mosque, in an anonymous building that looks more like an apartment complex than a house of worship. "The cartoons are an insult against Islam, an attempt by right-wing forces in this country to get a rise out of the Muslim community and so portray us as against Danish values."

Soren Krarup, a retired priest and leading voice in the [far-right Danish People's Party], said the Muslim reaction to the cartoons showed that Islam was not compatible with Danish customs. He said that Christ had been satirized in Danish literature and popular culture for centuries - including a recent much-publicized Danish painting of Jesus with an erection - so why not Muhammad? He also argued that Danish Muslims must integrate.

"Muslims who come here reject our culture," Krarup said. "Muslim immigration is a way for Muslims to conquer us, just as they have done for the past 1,400 years."

Muslim leaders warn that such rhetoric is alienating the people the Danish People's Party says it wants to assimilate.

"Are young Muslims growing up here going to assimilate better when they hear themselves described in this way?" Abu-Laban said.
 

and then...

Fadi Abdul Latif, the spokesman of Hizb ut-Tahrir in Denmark, said in an interview that... He added that the anti-Muslim rhetoric of the Danish People's Party had contributed to a swelling of Hizb ut-Tahrir's ranks in recent months.

"When Muslims see the discrimination here, they begin to listen," Abdul Latif said. that

Oh, well, that's helpful.  And undoubtedly true.

Lest anyone think that opinion on this subject is anything like united in the Middle East, have a look at recent postings by two weirdly neocon Egyptian bloggers, with whom I unfailingly get annoyed when they talk about US politics or Iraq, but with whom (in spite of myself) I often find myself agreeing when it comes to Egypt.  Big Pharaoh deals with it here and here, while the Egyptian Sandmonkey (no, really, he calls himself that) writes some very snarky stuff here and here.  All worth reading.

Ah, but I saved the best for last.  I have to recommend this excellent column by Egyptian writer Mona Eltahawey, who nails it as usual:

Can we finally admit that Muslims have blown out of all proportion their outrage over 12 cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammad published in a Danish newspaper last September?...

The initial printing of the cartoons in Denmark led to death threats being issued against the artists, demonstrations in Kashmir, and condemnation from 11 countries. What did any of this achieve but prove the original point of the newspaper's culture editor, that artists in Europe were censoring themselves because they feared Muslim reaction?...

While one cartoon was particularly offensive because it showed the prophet as wearing a turban with a bomb attached to it, a great deal of the anger had to do with the mere depiction of the prophet. Muslims seem to forget that just because they are prohibited from representing the prophet in any way, this does not apply to everybody else. Even with regards to the egregious cartoon showing the prophet with a bomb, Muslim reaction was exaggerated. This should have remained an internal Danish issue.

What should have remained a local issue turned into a diplomatic uproar that Muslims otherwise rarely provoke when fighting for their rights around the world. Perhaps the Muslim governments who spearheaded the campaign - led by Egypt - felt this was an easy way to burnish their Islamic credentials at a time when domestic Islamists are stronger than they have been in many years.

Must we really boycott Danish products, as one e-mail I received exhorted?... Of all the issues that plague the Muslim world today, are our priorities cartoons published in a newspaper in a country inhabited by less than 6 million people? If we really want to pick a fight with the West, have we forgotten that 500 Muslim men continue to be detained without charge at the makeshift prison run by the United States at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, which last week marked its fourth anniversary?

Here are a few facts we should remember. However offensive any of the 12 cartoons were, they did not incite violence against Muslims. For an example of incitement, though, one must go back a few weeks before the cartoons were published. In August, the Danish authorities withdrew for three months the broadcasting license of a Copenhagen radio station after it called for the extermination of Muslims. Those were real threats and the government protected Muslims - the same government later condemned for not punishing the newspaper that published the cartoons.

Second, the cartoon incident belongs at the very center of the kind of debate that Muslims must have in the European countries where they live - particularly after the Madrid train bombings of 2003 and the London subway bombings of 2005. While right-wing anti-immigration groups whip up Islamophobia in Denmark, Muslim communities wallow in denial over the increasing role of their own extremists.

Go Mona!  I really like her.  The whole column is certainly worth a read.

Today, an EU office in Gaza has been stormed by armed and angry Palestinians, who closed down the office to protest the Danish drawings. In Saudi Arabia two Arla employees was attacked. Al-Aqsa has claimed responsibility for the action in Gaza, and demands that all Danish and Norwegian citizens must leave Gaza within 72 hours.

This show how different people of different cultures think, and especially in the Middle East.  The publishing of these drawings are perceived by many Muslims as a collective thing and that is why all people of the "Christian faith" or culture have to be punished add to this the general level of tension in the area and you have got an uproar. Simply stated you can say that people from the Middle East think in collective terms while people from Western countries in general tend to think in individualist terms.

Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.

Norway's Aftenposten:

Norway's Foreign Ministry was heeding a warning Monday from Islamic groups that want all Scandinavians out of Gaza. The groups claim the Scandinavians have offended them by printing controversial caricatures of their prophet Mohammed.

One Islamic group burned a Danish flag over the weekend.
PHOTO: REUTERS/Abed Omar Qusini
Related stories:
Security tight during visit by Pakistan's president - 23.01.2006
USA threats after boycott support - 12.01.2006
SV's boycott call embarrasses government - 06.01.2006

The first drawing, which showed the prophet wearing a turban shaped as a bomb, appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten in September and was re-printed in a Norwegian Christian publication called Magazinet earlier this month. Islamic law forbids any illustrations of the prophet Mohammed, so the caricatures have spurred protests from Islamic countries and from Muslims living in Denmark.

One Islamic group demanded on Sunday that all Scandinavians leave the Gaza Strip within 48 hours. Armed members of another group, the al-Aqsa Martyrs' Brigade, handed out pamphlets in Gaza encouraging Danes and Swedes to leave within three days.

Members of the al-Aqsa Brigade burned a Danish flag, and a Norwegian Foreign Ministry official said the ministry has alerted Norwegians to the groups' threats.
(snip)
Many Muslim countries have started boycotting Danish products, while there have been several demonstrations against Danish embassies.

Norwegian Foreign Minister Jonas Gahr Støre last week urged Norway's embassies to apologize for the publication of the caricature, but that has spurred counter-criticism that Muslim countries should respect freedom of expression.

My impression is that Jyllandsposten was trying to make a point, and I am afraid the point may well have been that Muslims are stupid for having a religious rule forbidding representations of Mohammed, as well as that Bluitgen was a wimp. Please correct me if I'm wrong -- I want to be wrong on JP's intentions. What was the accompanying text to the drawings like? Was it inflammatory? Did it make any attempt to put Bluitgen's decision in the context that, to Muslims, representating Mohammed (and people generally) is considered to be idolatry?

Then, what point did Anders Fogh Rasmussen think he was making by refusing to meet with 11 ambassadors?

Now the very pious people of the middle east are making a point back.

A society committed to the notion that government is always bad will have bad government. And it doesn't have to be that way. — Paul Krugman

It seems to me that those Muslims that reacted are keen to confirm all the worst stereotypes about themselves, the absolute danger from taking religion too seriously - and from taking it into the public space.

They should consider how Christians are mocked mercilessly all the time, and have somehow managed to survive this. A joke that was played on TV with regularity on "Les Guignols de l'Info" not long ago. The (puppet) TV presenter starts "A new gruesome rape..." A puppet cardinal pops up and starts saying "we have no information linking us to ..." but the TV presenter continues "... of a young woman..." and is interrupted again. "Oh, it's not a boy? I retract what I just said"

Organised religion is a danger to everybody, and I must say that I am not inclined to have too much sympathy for them. Yes, you can laugh about anything (but not with everybody, as a sadly departed French humorist, Pierre Desproges, said)

In the long run, we're all dead. John Maynard Keynes

After seeing the pictures, what strikes me is not so much the pictures, although some of them could clearly be categorized as bad taste, as some of the texts accompanying the pictures. They transcended concepts of what could be justifiably be used in a serious debate about freedom of speech. Still, violence and death threats can never be justified no matter how repulsive a picture or a text is and never be allowed to stifle freedom of speech.  If a controversy about legality appear, then it should be resolved in court.  

Bitsofnews.com Giving you the latest bits.

So far, Islam has gotten off rather easy in the face of democracy.  A few simple cartoons.  Maybe also "Satanic Verses" by Rushdie, which got a mafia contract on the author's life and didn't even portray Mr. M. in a bad light.

Those are a far cry from Piss Christ -- an art exhibit actually funded by US taxpayers to make the point of free speech and free expression.

Wait until Muhammad's image is submerged in a bottle of piss.  These cartoons will seem like the good old days.  

-----

-----

The best argument against democracy is a five minute conversation with the average voter.
W. Churchill