Feb. 19, 2006
(CBS) You would have to look hard for a country with a better brand-name than Denmark. It’s not only the home of Hans Christian Andersen, the country seems to live in one of his fairy tales. The people are pretty and prosperous, the land is green and fertile, and the towns are colorful and squeaky clean. Denmark’s queen is much beloved by her people and hails from the oldest monarchy in Europe.
Who could ever imagine that this lovely little land would spark riots sweeping the Islamic world? Is it a quirk, a coincidence? Correspondent Bob Simon traveled to Copenhagen to find out and discovered that there is something really strange in the state of Denmark and that it’s no accident the firestorm started here.
The riots, reaching from Jerusalem to Jakarta, can all be traced back to the most unlikely of places: a cluttered work space in the apartment of Kare Buitgen, a writer of children’s books.
"Well, it’s sad to see what happens now," Buitgen says. "I wrote a book about the Prophet Muhammad to promote better understanding between cultures and religions here in Denmark."
Buitgen had trouble finding someone to illustrate his book. Muslims don’t permit representations of their prophet, and illustrators were afraid of offending the Muslim community in Denmark.
Buitgen’s problem became known to the editors of Denmark’s largest newspaper. Its cultural editor, Flemming Rose, said he was offended by what he called this self-censorship. He explained himself in an interview that aired on the BBC.
"It’s problematic if some Muslims require of me that I in the public space, in the public domain, have to submit myselves to their taboos. In that case I don’t think they are asking for my respect. I think they are asking for my submission," Rose said.
But Rose has said he wasn’t about to submit. Instead, as a challenge, he invited Danish cartoonists to submit cartoons about the Prophet and he printed twelve of them. One showed Muhammad wearing a turban that was really a bomb.
"Because in Denmark we do have a tradition of satire and humor, some of the cartoonists made satirical cartoons. But that’s what we do with Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, that’s what we do with other religions," Rose said.
Well, not exactly. The editors of the paper, the Jyllands-Posten, recently rejected a satirical depiction of the resurrection, saying it would cause a public outcry. But the paper did print the Muhammad cartoons: all 12 of them. And until last week, Rose defended his decision on just about every broadcast that would have him.
The newspaper insisted from the start that its purpose was to show that there are no higher values in a democratic society than free speech and free expression. And if Muslims want to live in Denmark, the paper insists, they’d better buy that. But as soon as events started careening out of control last week, the editors of this bastion of free speech responded by refusing to speak to anyone at all.
Not only that, Flemming Rose, that cultural editor, has been put on indefinite paid vacation and encouraged to leave Denmark. He’s currently resting at a five-star hotel in Washington, DC. But Rose and the newspaper have their defenders, including the editor of a rival paper, Toger Seidenfaden.
"The way I've put it, and we've been saying in our editorials for some time, is we are defending their right to be stupid. We think that being stupid is part of freedom of speech," says Seidenfaden.
Asked if he thinks Jyllands-Posten realized the fallout the publication of these cartoons might cause, Seidenfaden says, "No, I don't think they had any idea that there would be an international crisis. Certainly not one of this size. But, of course, they were doing it to get a reaction from the local Muslim religious minority. And they said so very explicitly. They explained on their front page that they were doing this, and I quote, 'To teach religious Muslims in Denmark that in our society, they must accept to be scorned, mocked and ridiculed.'"
"They were stirring it up?" Simon asked.
"It was very much stirring it up," Seidenfaden replied.
If the paper was trying to stir it up, it succeeded.
"Muhammad is our leader. Muhammad is our prophet. Muhammad is the perfect man," Imam Ahmed Abu-Laban preached in a recent sermon.
"That’s why we believe in him, we love him, and we keep on defending him," the imam intoned.
"What do you think was on the minds of the editors of the newspaper when they published the cartoons? What were they trying to accomplish?" Simon asked the imam.
"They were trying to be teachers, to teach us democracy, the values of democracy, and most important, how to abide to those values. Love it or leave it, this is the way it goes. My dear student pupil, listen carefully. I try to help you," Abu-Laban replied.
The imam says he found the cartoon of the turban and the bomb most objectionable.
Abu-Laban and his followers asked the newspaper for an apology, which they didn’t get. A group of ambassadors from eleven Muslim countries asked Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for a meeting, which they didn’t get.
Asked why he refused to meet with the ambassadors, Prime Minister Rasmussen says, "Well, we have not refused dialogue. On the contrary."
"But you didn't meet with the Arab ambassadors," Simon said.
"No. But I have to stress that the foreign minister has had meetings with ambassadors and foreign ministers and others," Rasmussen replied.
But newspaper editor Toger Seidenfaden has his own view as to why the prime minister didn’t meet the ambassadors.
"Because sadly enough, in the domestic political situation in Denmark, the logic was simple. As conflict between the biggest newspaper in the land and religious Muslims. On whose side am I on? It's very simple for a prime minister to answer: ‘I'm with the big newspaper,’" Seidenfaden says.
And that’s exactly how the Muslim leaders understood it.
"You are on record as defending the paper, defending its right to publish. And your critics have said that defending them so strongly has served to further inflame the Muslim world. What’s your view on that, sir?" Simon asked Rasmussen.
"Well what I’ve done is to insist on the principle of free speech, the principle of free press. And I have made it clear that the government has no means whatsoever to interfere with a free and independent newspaper," the prime minister replied.
The Muslims felt totally rebuffed at home in Denmark. So the imam sent a delegation to the Middle East with a dossier of pictures, not only of the published cartoons, but of others that were even more offensive. One showed the prophet with the head of a pig.
Abu-Laban told 60 Minutes he had received these in anonymous threatening letters. But the dossier left the impression that those pictures had been printed in the newspaper.
"I guess what I'm getting at, imam, didn't you include these obscene cartoons as a way of really stirring up the pot?" Simon asked.
"We didn't give it to media. Don't forget this point," the imam said.
"I'm the media. And I have it," Simon replied.
It was the dissemination of that dossier which ignited the flames that are still burning today.
"You weren't getting any attention here before you spread the word. Now, you're getting attention and engagement. Do you think your mission was a success?" Simon asked.
"Yes. The whole world is engaged. I'm so positive," Abu-Laban replied.
Asked if he thought the casualties are worthwhile, the imam said: "I feel sorry. But we make cars and they make accidents. We build skyscrapers, but they collapse in an earthquake. This is life. We have maybe unexpected tragedies. And we have to live with them."
Meanwhile, Denmark was plunging into its deepest crisis, its only crisis, in more than half a century. Ever since the second World War, the Danes have been pleased with their country, pleased with their generous welfare system and, above all, pleased with themselves.
The lines between fantasy and reality aren’t sharply defined around Denmark. The elite troops guarding the royal palace look like toy soldiers, the national symbol is a bare-breasted mermaid luxuriating in Copenhagen’s harbor and the capital’s streets are lined with homes that could be gingerbread houses.
It’s the coziest of kingdoms, where even the runway models of Fashion Week, which was happening in Denmark while Danish embassies were burning, are all unmistakably Danish.
The Muslim quarter of Copenhagen is ten minutes away from all this and on a different planet. Many Muslims say they’ve been made to feel like aliens. They may benefit from Denmark’s welfare system, but there isn’t a real mosque in the entire country; they have to make do with converted factories. There may be a shwarma joint downtown, but there’s no Muslim cemetery anywhere.
These things deeply trouble Dr. Kamal Qureshi, the first Muslim immigrant to be elected to Denmark’s parliament. He’s troubled, but he’s not going anywhere.
"This is my country. I love my country. I hate when people burn the flag. It hurts in my stomach and guts to see my kids get scared when they see the Danish flag burn. For God's sake, this is a flag we have on the table when my children have their birthdays," Dr. Qureshi says.
Muslims make up only two percent of the population. Not much, perhaps, but enough to have spawned a backlash. Denmark now has the toughest immigration laws in Europe. And in the last five years, Danes have voted the ultra-rightwing People’s Party into the ruling majority. Since the cartoon controversy, support for this anti-Muslim party has grown to almost 20 percent.
Dr. Qureshi acknowledges there has been a crisis in recent weeks involving Danes and Muslims.
Asked if he thinks the crisis is going to make things better or worse, Dr. Qureshi says, "Being where I am, I have to be optimistic."
"You have to be. But what are you?" Simon asked.
"I'm scared," Qureshi replied. "I think there are a lot of Muslims that are afraid that they could be turned into scapegoats, and people would say that the reason that the world hates us is because you people are telling bad stories of Denmark. We have to take the ball away from the extreme groups in Denmark and put it in the middle where the rest of us are."
But that middle is fast disappearing into fantasies of fear. Many Muslims are afraid of being victimized. Many Danes are afraid their culture is under siege. Already, people with foreign values are converging on Denmark’s national symbols.
So what to do? If you ask those Danes responsible for the country’s traditional image of civility and manners, a Dane like former foreign minister and newspaper editor Uffe Elleman, he’ll tell you that a little self-censorship is not always a bad thing.
"When you use the freedom of speech to make jokes of other people's religions and you do it with the single purpose of demonstrating that you have the right to do so, then you are undermining the freedom of speech as I see it," Elleman says.
"Is that what you think the newspaper was doing? Do you think they were deliberately provoking just to show that they had a right to do it?" Simon asked.
"Yes. And I reacted very strongly because Muslims in Denmark -- well, that's a minority, and you don't treat a minority that way. You don’t stamp on other people’s religious feelings. That’s bad taste," Elleman said.
Freedom of speech versus religious sensitivities. Conflicting forces which are doing battle everywhere. The Danes, in their picture perfect world, may have thought they were immune. Now they know better.
---
source: CBS News
(CBS) You would have to look hard for a country with a better brand-name than Denmark. It’s not only the home of Hans Christian Andersen, the country seems to live in one of his fairy tales. The people are pretty and prosperous, the land is green and fertile, and the towns are colorful and squeaky clean. Denmark’s queen is much beloved by her people and hails from the oldest monarchy in Europe.
Who could ever imagine that this lovely little land would spark riots sweeping the Islamic world? Is it a quirk, a coincidence? Correspondent Bob Simon traveled to Copenhagen to find out and discovered that there is something really strange in the state of Denmark and that it’s no accident the firestorm started here.
The riots, reaching from Jerusalem to Jakarta, can all be traced back to the most unlikely of places: a cluttered work space in the apartment of Kare Buitgen, a writer of children’s books.
"Well, it’s sad to see what happens now," Buitgen says. "I wrote a book about the Prophet Muhammad to promote better understanding between cultures and religions here in Denmark."
Buitgen had trouble finding someone to illustrate his book. Muslims don’t permit representations of their prophet, and illustrators were afraid of offending the Muslim community in Denmark.
Buitgen’s problem became known to the editors of Denmark’s largest newspaper. Its cultural editor, Flemming Rose, said he was offended by what he called this self-censorship. He explained himself in an interview that aired on the BBC.
"It’s problematic if some Muslims require of me that I in the public space, in the public domain, have to submit myselves to their taboos. In that case I don’t think they are asking for my respect. I think they are asking for my submission," Rose said.
But Rose has said he wasn’t about to submit. Instead, as a challenge, he invited Danish cartoonists to submit cartoons about the Prophet and he printed twelve of them. One showed Muhammad wearing a turban that was really a bomb.
"Because in Denmark we do have a tradition of satire and humor, some of the cartoonists made satirical cartoons. But that’s what we do with Jesus Christ, Jesus Christ, that’s what we do with other religions," Rose said.
Well, not exactly. The editors of the paper, the Jyllands-Posten, recently rejected a satirical depiction of the resurrection, saying it would cause a public outcry. But the paper did print the Muhammad cartoons: all 12 of them. And until last week, Rose defended his decision on just about every broadcast that would have him.
The newspaper insisted from the start that its purpose was to show that there are no higher values in a democratic society than free speech and free expression. And if Muslims want to live in Denmark, the paper insists, they’d better buy that. But as soon as events started careening out of control last week, the editors of this bastion of free speech responded by refusing to speak to anyone at all.
Not only that, Flemming Rose, that cultural editor, has been put on indefinite paid vacation and encouraged to leave Denmark. He’s currently resting at a five-star hotel in Washington, DC. But Rose and the newspaper have their defenders, including the editor of a rival paper, Toger Seidenfaden.
"The way I've put it, and we've been saying in our editorials for some time, is we are defending their right to be stupid. We think that being stupid is part of freedom of speech," says Seidenfaden.
Asked if he thinks Jyllands-Posten realized the fallout the publication of these cartoons might cause, Seidenfaden says, "No, I don't think they had any idea that there would be an international crisis. Certainly not one of this size. But, of course, they were doing it to get a reaction from the local Muslim religious minority. And they said so very explicitly. They explained on their front page that they were doing this, and I quote, 'To teach religious Muslims in Denmark that in our society, they must accept to be scorned, mocked and ridiculed.'"
"They were stirring it up?" Simon asked.
"It was very much stirring it up," Seidenfaden replied.
If the paper was trying to stir it up, it succeeded.
"Muhammad is our leader. Muhammad is our prophet. Muhammad is the perfect man," Imam Ahmed Abu-Laban preached in a recent sermon.
"That’s why we believe in him, we love him, and we keep on defending him," the imam intoned.
"What do you think was on the minds of the editors of the newspaper when they published the cartoons? What were they trying to accomplish?" Simon asked the imam.
"They were trying to be teachers, to teach us democracy, the values of democracy, and most important, how to abide to those values. Love it or leave it, this is the way it goes. My dear student pupil, listen carefully. I try to help you," Abu-Laban replied.
The imam says he found the cartoon of the turban and the bomb most objectionable.
Abu-Laban and his followers asked the newspaper for an apology, which they didn’t get. A group of ambassadors from eleven Muslim countries asked Denmark’s Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen for a meeting, which they didn’t get.
Asked why he refused to meet with the ambassadors, Prime Minister Rasmussen says, "Well, we have not refused dialogue. On the contrary."
"But you didn't meet with the Arab ambassadors," Simon said.
"No. But I have to stress that the foreign minister has had meetings with ambassadors and foreign ministers and others," Rasmussen replied.
But newspaper editor Toger Seidenfaden has his own view as to why the prime minister didn’t meet the ambassadors.
"Because sadly enough, in the domestic political situation in Denmark, the logic was simple. As conflict between the biggest newspaper in the land and religious Muslims. On whose side am I on? It's very simple for a prime minister to answer: ‘I'm with the big newspaper,’" Seidenfaden says.
And that’s exactly how the Muslim leaders understood it.
"You are on record as defending the paper, defending its right to publish. And your critics have said that defending them so strongly has served to further inflame the Muslim world. What’s your view on that, sir?" Simon asked Rasmussen.
"Well what I’ve done is to insist on the principle of free speech, the principle of free press. And I have made it clear that the government has no means whatsoever to interfere with a free and independent newspaper," the prime minister replied.
The Muslims felt totally rebuffed at home in Denmark. So the imam sent a delegation to the Middle East with a dossier of pictures, not only of the published cartoons, but of others that were even more offensive. One showed the prophet with the head of a pig.
Abu-Laban told 60 Minutes he had received these in anonymous threatening letters. But the dossier left the impression that those pictures had been printed in the newspaper.
"I guess what I'm getting at, imam, didn't you include these obscene cartoons as a way of really stirring up the pot?" Simon asked.
"We didn't give it to media. Don't forget this point," the imam said.
"I'm the media. And I have it," Simon replied.
It was the dissemination of that dossier which ignited the flames that are still burning today.
"You weren't getting any attention here before you spread the word. Now, you're getting attention and engagement. Do you think your mission was a success?" Simon asked.
"Yes. The whole world is engaged. I'm so positive," Abu-Laban replied.
Asked if he thought the casualties are worthwhile, the imam said: "I feel sorry. But we make cars and they make accidents. We build skyscrapers, but they collapse in an earthquake. This is life. We have maybe unexpected tragedies. And we have to live with them."
Meanwhile, Denmark was plunging into its deepest crisis, its only crisis, in more than half a century. Ever since the second World War, the Danes have been pleased with their country, pleased with their generous welfare system and, above all, pleased with themselves.
The lines between fantasy and reality aren’t sharply defined around Denmark. The elite troops guarding the royal palace look like toy soldiers, the national symbol is a bare-breasted mermaid luxuriating in Copenhagen’s harbor and the capital’s streets are lined with homes that could be gingerbread houses.
It’s the coziest of kingdoms, where even the runway models of Fashion Week, which was happening in Denmark while Danish embassies were burning, are all unmistakably Danish.
The Muslim quarter of Copenhagen is ten minutes away from all this and on a different planet. Many Muslims say they’ve been made to feel like aliens. They may benefit from Denmark’s welfare system, but there isn’t a real mosque in the entire country; they have to make do with converted factories. There may be a shwarma joint downtown, but there’s no Muslim cemetery anywhere.
These things deeply trouble Dr. Kamal Qureshi, the first Muslim immigrant to be elected to Denmark’s parliament. He’s troubled, but he’s not going anywhere.
"This is my country. I love my country. I hate when people burn the flag. It hurts in my stomach and guts to see my kids get scared when they see the Danish flag burn. For God's sake, this is a flag we have on the table when my children have their birthdays," Dr. Qureshi says.
Muslims make up only two percent of the population. Not much, perhaps, but enough to have spawned a backlash. Denmark now has the toughest immigration laws in Europe. And in the last five years, Danes have voted the ultra-rightwing People’s Party into the ruling majority. Since the cartoon controversy, support for this anti-Muslim party has grown to almost 20 percent.
Dr. Qureshi acknowledges there has been a crisis in recent weeks involving Danes and Muslims.
Asked if he thinks the crisis is going to make things better or worse, Dr. Qureshi says, "Being where I am, I have to be optimistic."
"You have to be. But what are you?" Simon asked.
"I'm scared," Qureshi replied. "I think there are a lot of Muslims that are afraid that they could be turned into scapegoats, and people would say that the reason that the world hates us is because you people are telling bad stories of Denmark. We have to take the ball away from the extreme groups in Denmark and put it in the middle where the rest of us are."
But that middle is fast disappearing into fantasies of fear. Many Muslims are afraid of being victimized. Many Danes are afraid their culture is under siege. Already, people with foreign values are converging on Denmark’s national symbols.
So what to do? If you ask those Danes responsible for the country’s traditional image of civility and manners, a Dane like former foreign minister and newspaper editor Uffe Elleman, he’ll tell you that a little self-censorship is not always a bad thing.
"When you use the freedom of speech to make jokes of other people's religions and you do it with the single purpose of demonstrating that you have the right to do so, then you are undermining the freedom of speech as I see it," Elleman says.
"Is that what you think the newspaper was doing? Do you think they were deliberately provoking just to show that they had a right to do it?" Simon asked.
"Yes. And I reacted very strongly because Muslims in Denmark -- well, that's a minority, and you don't treat a minority that way. You don’t stamp on other people’s religious feelings. That’s bad taste," Elleman said.
Freedom of speech versus religious sensitivities. Conflicting forces which are doing battle everywhere. The Danes, in their picture perfect world, may have thought they were immune. Now they know better.
---
source: CBS News
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