Rotten Judgement in the State of Denmark

Salon.Com

February 8, 2006

The Danish paper that printed the cartoons wanted to stir up trouble -- and the government wanted a culture war. They got more than they bargained for.

By Jytte Klausen

Feb. 08, 2006 Kashmir this week declared a nationwide protest against 12 cartoon caricatures of the Prophet Muhammed published four months ago in a provincial Danish paper. Iran officially launched a cartoon war against the West, calling for competitive lampooning of the Holocaust. I can't wait to see what comes next. Will we reach a state of de facto deterrence based upon the stockpiling of sketches? Are roundtable negotiations of mutual editorial disarmament to follow?

I would much prefer cartoon wars to fatwas calling for beheadings. But in the process of this big cartoon upheaval that has spread across Europe and beyond, my country of birth, Denmark, has fallen from grace. The modern myth of "the little tolerant people," rooted in a group of Danes who risked their lives to save Jews from Nazi deportation in 1943, has died.

In the past five years, I have interviewed 300 Muslim leaders in Western Europe about their views and solutions for the integration of Islam. It has long been evident to me that religious toleration and reverence for human rights have been sorely lacking in Denmark. The debate now raging over the caricatures has tilted on the defense of free speech -- but a deep and unflinching commitment to free speech is not really the mission of the paper at the center of the maelstrom, nor of the present Danish government.

More:http://salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/02/08/denmark/