The Media Market

Denmark is under attack from an extremely nast form of extremism. The religious kind. To some extent the attack is being backed up by political correctness from the ones who argue that we should not create blasphemy against a minority religion in Europe (to exploit Christianity for the purpose of ridicule is for some reason another matter altogether).

The background is as follows: The Danish daily Jyllandsposten published a number of cartoons of Mohammed last year. The cartoons were targeting different aspects of the religion that the cartoonist wanted to emphasize and - to a certain extent - scrutinize. After that all hell broke out, the Muslim world is now demonstrating against the Danes (by, among other things) burning the Danish flag "Dannebrogen" on the streets of Gaza, in Yemen and in Irak. Their demands were, that the Danish government should outlaw blasphemous drawings of Mohammed (!!!) There have also been frequent death threats, towards Danish citizens who live and work in the Middle East region as well as some particular bomb threats against Jyllandsposten.
It looks as if more bloggers than myself stopped and wondered the same question - if Muslims in Gaza (in this case the Al Aqsa brigade) feel that the drawings of Mohammed give them the right to kill Danish citizens - then what kind of treatment should the Danes give to demonstraters who burn the Danish flag?

A number of European newspapers have now rallied behind the Danish newspaper in support of freedom of the press and freedom of expression. The German daily Die Welt is one great example. Die Welt and other newspapers like French France Soir are backing Jyllandsposten because this is such an important step to take, something the rather scared and overwhelmingly politically correct Swedish daily Dagens Nyheter did not have the currage to do. DN did defend the freedom of expression but also remarked that the Danes were playing with fire and that this debate has now turned into "petty politics". How convenient it must feel for Dagens Nyheter to be able to refrain oneself from any further statements on the issue.

I publish some of the drawings in this posting because I feel that they are important to spread. Everybody who embrace democracy ought to feel the same way. Not because we have to concur with the drawings themselves. Not because we have to feel that they are good pieces of art. But because the freedom of speech is a paramount objective for any democracy, which is probably why so many people in the Middle east struggle to understand this whole event: In a country in Europe a newspaper is actually free to publish an opinion that might not be well-liked by others.

In case you want to show some solidarity - buy Danish goods!

Oh... and one last thing... the reason Jyllands-posten published the cartoons in the first place, was to start a discussion about whether people in the West are practicing self-censorship when we deal with hot topic issues about culture and ethnicity. I guess they just didn't know exactly how right they were.