Denmark and Jyllands-Posten: The background to a provocation

[oblivious]

...The project was deliberately designed to provoke.

According to the cultural editor of the newspaper, Flemming Rose, it was aimed at “testing the limits of self-censorship in Danish public opinion” when it comes to Islam and Muslims. He added: “In a secular society, Muslims have to live with the fact of being ridiculed, scoffed at and made to look ridiculous.”

When the anticipated reaction by the Muslim community failed to arise, the newspaper continued its campaign, determined to create a full-scale scandal. After a week had gone by without protest, journalists turned on Danish Islamic religious leaders who were well known for their fundamentalist views and demanded: “Why don’t you protest?” Eventually, the latter reacted and alerted their co-thinkers in the Middle East.

...In the 1990s the decidedly conservative paper increasingly developed into a mouthpiece for openly xenophobic, right-wing forces. Nearly a quarter of the editorial board was dismissed, and the quality of the paper sank as its aggressiveness rose.

...Shortly before the publication of the Muhammad cartoons, Jyllands-Posten ran a headline reading, “Islam is the Most Belligerent.” The newspaper ran an exposé about an alleged Muslim death-list of Jewish names—until it emerged that the whole thing was a fabrication.

http://www.wsws.org/articles/2006/feb2006/denm-f10.shtml

http://www.asiantribune.com/show_article.php?id=3004

[Chi-Town Exile]

1. self-delete

[Behind the Aegis]

2. self-delete

[oblivious]

5. What kind of BS is this? Show me anything in the editorial that shows this

[Behind the Aegis]

9. My apologies...

I admit I didn't read the entire article at the link. I thought it was in the same vein of another thread, which basically equates the beginnings of the controversy with close ties to a neo-con Jew in the States. Since these articles do not...I am withdrawing them.

I get onto people about not reading links before commenting, I should have followed my own rule. Apologies.

[Chi-Town Exile]

8. Interesting thing ... there are many on DU that would agree with those

cartoons. Don't worry though ... they will be oh so happy to tell you that they are not "Anti-Semitic."

[Behind the Aegis]

11. Some already have!!!

Although, once I read through the links, it wasn't like the other two odious threads that are floating about here, so my response was uncalled for and I have withdrawn my post. However, I have no doubt I will get to post them again!

[oblivious]

4. Where did that come from. Did you reply to the wrong thread or something?

There is absolutely nothing in the article that says or implies anything is the fault of the Jews.

It's all about xenophobic right-wing bigots provoking a scandal and not resting until they got it.

[Chi-Town Exile]

6. self delete

[oblivious]

10. To show the extent that these nazis will go to provoke. Blatant lies.

Your kneejerk reaction shows you didn't even read the article.

[Chi-Town Exile]

13. I'll admit ... I didn't. Like Aegis, I withdraw my comments as

well.

Problem is ... we have been bombarded with all kinds of tinfoil hat theories about the Danish publication being connected to Jews since this controversy started.

I did have a kneejerk reaction because I thought the article was the same kind of tripe that has been posted all week.

Some guy told me that the Mossad are guilty of EVERYTHING. They post all types of nonsense on DU because there are virulent Anti-Semites all over this message board.

Again, my apologies.

[oblivious]

14. OK, sorry for my comments too then.

It wasn't my intention to provoke by including that last paragraph. I only included it because I thought it would help people understand how truly nasty and dangerous the right-wing xenophobes behind this controversy are. What has happened was not exactly an accident. They'll obviously do anything.

[TaleWgnDg]

3. Uummmm, the sources are World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) . . .

.
Uummmm, the sources are World Socialist Web Site (WSWS) . . . on the OP's 2 source url hyperlinks! Geezuz. Get real!! Since when is the World Socialist Web Site a grand source for credibility, trustworthiness, and reliability? Hhhhhmmmm? I don't think so.

[oblivious]

12. Why don't you support that dismissal of WSWS with some evidence?

[sandnsea]

16. Check out the Wiki

I'm the last person to agree with WSWS, but in this case, it looks to me like they did everything they could to push the Muslim world to riots.

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Timeline_of_the_Jyllands-Posten_Muhammad_cartoons_controversy

[TaleWgnDg]

7. For an objective discussion . . . note the word "objective" try this

.

For an objective discussion . . . note the word "objective," try this . . . particularly the PBS Jim Lehrer's NewsHour url hyperlink on this DU page:

http://www.democraticunderground.com/discuss/duboard.php?az=show_mesg&forum=224&topic_id=1349&mesg_id=1349
.

[oblivious]

15. I'd call that more objective if she asked Fleming Rose to expand on this:

from the WSWS article:

According to the cultural editor of the newspaper, Flemming Rose, it was aimed at “testing the limits of self-censorship in Danish public opinion” when it comes to Islam and Muslims. He added: “In a secular society, Muslims have to live with the fact of being ridiculed, scoffed at and made to look ridiculous.”

Listen to what he says in the News Hour piece:

FLEMMING ROSE, Culture Editor, Jyllands-Posten Newspaper: I think it's a big tragedy. I think it's very unfortunate that now Danish interests, Danish buildings are being attacked in Syria.

But let me also say that Syria is a police state and this could not have happened if not the authorities in some way had allowed it to happen.

Big tragedy!!! From the very mouth of one of the men most involved in provoking that tragedy. Yet no one asks him to explain.

[muriel_volestrangler]

18. What's notable about the sentence you put in bold?

We all have to live with being made to look ridiculous. Religion shouldn't get an exemption.

[oblivious]

19. But he didn't say "We all have to live with it". He only said Muslims did.

[muriel_volestrangler]

22. I'd like to know where WSWS got their quote from

because it doesn't seem to turn up in that form elsewhere. The following, however, is widely quoted as Rose's explanation, back in October, not longer after the cartoons were published:

Flemming Rose, cultural editor at the newspaper, denied that the purpose had been to provoke Muslim. It was simply a reaction to the rising number of situations where artists and writers censured themselves out of fear of radical Islamists, he said.

'Religious feelings cannot demand special treatment in a secular society,' he added. 'In a democracy one must from time to time accept criticism or becoming a laughingstock.'

http://www.cphpost.dk/get/91308.html

Some Muslims have been asking for special treatment for religion, so saying "Muslims have to live with ..." would be reasonable anyway.

I also think WSWS's claims of journalists having to poke Muslims into action needs some evidence. They claim:

When the anticipated reaction by the Muslim community failed to arise, the newspaper continued its campaign, determined to create a full-scale scandal. After a week had gone by without protest, journalists turned on Danish Islamic religious leaders who were well known for their fundamentalist views and demanded: “Why don’t you protest?” Eventually, the latter reacted and alerted their co-thinkers in the Middle East.

yet the Copenhagen Post article was published just six days after the cartoons, and it already has the written quote from Imam Raed Hlayhel.

[esbelt]

17. Aim still confused

As a Danish aim confused about everything. JP reasons to print the cartoons, the reactions in the muslim world, and now this:
http://www.di2.nu/files/Muhammed_Cartoons_Jyllands_Posten.html

It seems that someone is using all of this with an agenda of there own...

[Karenina]

20. It would seem

there are SEVERAL agendas being served, none of which contribute to world peace and prosperity...

[allemand]

21. Salon.com confirms the story:

Rotten Judgment in the State of Denmark
By Jytte Klausen
(...)

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. (...)

The cartoons started out as a gag, the kind you do when the news is slow. Flemming Rose, the paper's culture editor, decided last summer that he was fed up with what he described as the spreading "self-censorship" on matters related to Islam, so he solicited cartoonists for drawings of "how they saw the Prophet." On Sept. 30, 12 cartoons were published under the headline "Muhammad's Face." Rose cited a statement by a Danish stand-up comedian, who had complained that he was afraid to make fun of Muhammad on TV. A children's book author complained that he could not get anyone to illustrate his book about Muhammad. Another example of Islamic pieties' crushing influence on free speech was that three theaters had put on shows deriding George Bush, but none Osama bin Laden. Cartoons are an important anti-totalitarian expression, Rose wrote, and therefore the paper had asked 40 Danish cartoonists to draw their image of Muhammad. Only 12 responded. Rose implied that some of those who did not respond were infected by self-censorship.

This all would have been very well if the paper had a long tradition of standing up for fearless artistic expression. But it so happens that three years ago, Jyllands-Posten refused to publish cartoons portraying Jesus, on the grounds that they would offend readers. According to a report in the Guardian, which was provided with a letter from the cartoonist, Christoffer Zieler, the editor explained back then, "I don't think Jyllands-Posten's readers will enjoy the drawings. As a matter of fact, I think that they will provoke an outcry. Therefore, I will not use them." When confronted with the old rejection letter, the editor, Jens Kaiser, said, "It is ridiculous to bring this forward now. It has nothing to do with the Muhammad cartoons." But why does it not? Can you offend Muslim readers but not Christian readers? "In the Muhammad drawings case, we asked the illustrators to do it. I did not ask for these cartoons," Kaiser said. "That's the difference."

And therein lies the truth. The paper wanted to instigate trouble, just not the kind of trouble it got. And in this mission it acted in concert with the Danish government. "We have gone to war against the multicultural ideology that says that everything is equally valid," boasted the minister of cultural affairs, Brian Mikkelsen, in a speech at his party's annual meeting the week before Rose's cartoon editorial last fall. Mikkelsen is a 39-year-old political science graduate known for his hankering for the "culture war." He continued, "The Culture War has now been raging for some years. And I think we can conclude that the first round has been won." The next front, he said, is the war against the acceptance of Muslims norms and ways of thought. The Danish cultural heritage is a source of strength in an age of globalization and immigration. Cultural restoration, he argued, is the best antidote.

http://www.salon.com/opinion/feature/2006/02/08/denmark/index_np.html

(also available at: )
http://service.spiegel.de/cache/international/0,1518,399653,00.html