tapmag

When was the last time a hoard of crying Muslims set your flag on fire? If you are from Denmark, like I am, it couldn’t have been more than 20 months ago.

It is a funny thing symbols, really. One day, they’re decorating your birthday cake, the next, they’re burning on the West Bank. One day, they’re in your daily Qur’an, the next, they’re in a Danish, a French or a German newspaper with a bomb in their turban. One day, some Americans think your country is the capital of Stockholm (not kidding!), the next, they’re “supporting the Danes’ rights to freedom of speech” by drinking Carlsberg and eating Danish hot-dogs during football games. Seems ridiculous? It is. And it is not.

We all know the pictures – if not of the Muhammad Cartoons (because your local newspaper/tv-station refused to show them), then of the scenes of angry Muslims across the world. We don’t have to get into the violence – that debate is dead and buried. There can and should be no acceptance for the scenes of violence, or the jeopardizing of innocent people’s lives.

Aside from the fact that a hot-dog is never going to get Denmark out of a diplomatic hurricane the size of Katrina, it is ridiculous, because it should have never gone so far. To stay with Katrina for a second, the levees were obviously breaking, and people should have been evacuated a long time ago. From a Western standpoint, defending the right to freedom of press and freedom of speech is more than just rhetoric; it is our vision, and it is the price we have won from centuries of hard struggle. That is not to say we cannot teach others how to play, but, to my recollection, no one even asked us if we could come out. Jyllands Posten did not necessarily fail when it decided to publish the cartoons, but the world press failed fatally when it neglected to show both sides of the story.

The cartoons and the chaos were the result of almost a decade of radicalization in Danish immigration politics, a conservative coalition government containing Dansk Folkeparti (“Danish People’s Party”, a right-wing party accused of racism on several counts), and an increasingly harsh tone in the public immigration debate. Was it wrong then to want and to have a debate? Absolutely not! It was an acute necessity. But as Theo van Gogh’s tragic murder, and the burning banlieues of Paris illustrated, the wheels of globalization are racing, and it’s a bumpy road – Europe is not, and never was, a one-way street. The fortress that was once national borders is now wide open. What we do and say in the West will be felt and heard in the East.

It is not ridiculous that we stand our ground, but when we know it’s contaminated, we had better get off! We should be able to comment on anything from cars to religion, without having to fear either Opel or the orthodox. But insolence is for kids. It’s a big world, and though the children are our future, a big world calls for grown-ups to lead the way.

That the cartoons would make the blood boil in Denmark, the Gaza Stripe, in Pakistan, in Lybia, and Syria was no surprise. Not if you knew the full story. Unfortunately, not many did. If we fight to maintain the right to practice free speech and free press, the least we can do is to tell the story, the whole story – no omissions, no holds barred.

By Peter A. Dahl
This article was written as part of the M100 Youth Media Workshop 2007 on Sept. 2, 2007