enmark has
at last managed to catch the world’s eye, after so many years of failing
to get credit for being at the cutting edge of liberalism. But the
inelegant handling of the controversy over the cartoons of Prophet
Muhammad is the result of a country that has been moving in the direction
of xenophobia and racism – especially towards its Muslim inhabitants.
The world needs to realise that the Denmark that helped
Jews flee from Nazi deportation is long gone. A new Denmark has appeared,
a Denmark of intolerance and a deep-seated belief in its cultural
superiority.
We were a liberal and tolerant people until the 1990s,
when we suddenly awoke to find that for the first time in our history we
had a significant minority group living among us. Confronted with the
terrifying novelty of being a multicultural country, Denmark took a step
not merely to the right but to the far right. Now politicians of most
stripes have embraced ignorance.
The Social Democrats, formerly Denmark’s largest party and
the force behind its post-war social reforms, were forced to realise that
the rhetoric of solidarity and social reforms no longer impressed voters
in an increasingly prosperous economy. To win support, mainstream
politicians felt they needed to bully the same scapegoat blamed by the far
right for the social problems arising in modern Danish society, in the
form of the Muslim minority. The rhetoric of politicians and media
hardened and became offensive. Where else could liberal politicians get
away with saying that one of their party’s main aims is to stop Turkey
joining the EU?
The discussion has focused on freedom of expression but
that is not what Jyllands-Posten had in mind when it published the
caricatures, nor is it the prime mission of the right wing Danish
government. Denmark has embarked on a self-declared crusade to tell others
how to live. The prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen is quoted as
saying: "Freedom of speech should be used to provoke and criticise
political or religious authoritarians."
The Danish establishment weighed in on its leader’s side.
The right wing newspaper Weekendavisen – at one time Denmark’s
foremost intellectual journal – justified Rasmussen’s initial reaction of
indifference to complaints about the cartoons and his refusal to meet with
10 concerned ambassadors from Muslim countries as "a desire for an
activist foreign policy which has clashed with the traditional diplomatic
wish to smooth things over". An MEP, Mogens Camre, declared: "It is 2005
and there is no reason whatsoever to respect foolish superstition in any
form."
Following the lead of the moderates, the founder of the
ultra-right wing Danish People’s party, Pia Kjærsgaard felt emboldened to
say that in order to qualify for citizenship immigrants must not only
master the Danish language but be examined on their respect for Danish
society and its values. The words "Danish values" are repeated
reverentially, as if all Danes possess a single mindset opposed to that
held by Muslims. Kjærsgaard tells her countrymen the issue is not one of
cartoons but concerns rather a titanic struggle of values between
totalitarian dogmatic Islamic regimes and the freedom and liberty beloved
of western democracies. Meanwhile the 200,000 Muslims living in Denmark
have been denied a permit to build a mosque in Copenhagen. There is not a
single Muslim cemetery in the country.
It is now obvious that Flemming Rose, the culture editor
at Jyllands-Posten who commissioned the cartoonists to satirise the
prophet, exhibited a striking lack of judgement. His subsequent decision
to salvage things by planning to publish anti-Semitic and anti-Christian
caricatures went beyond the bounds of the permissible in
Jyllands-Posten’s and Denmark’s crusade for free speech. Chief editor
Carsten Juste finally intervened and sent Rose on indefinite leave.
An indefinite holiday is not enough. As the former foreign
minister and Venstre party leader Uffe Elleman-Jensen has suggested, we
need editors who realise that just bad judgement can have important
consequences. Both Juste and Rose need to step down.
And how have ordinary Danes reacted? The People’s party
reported that last week it had received almost 17 times as many
applications for membership as normal. Is this the future for Denmark?
These are the new "Danish values" and the world needs to be aware of the
dangers of a country that went off on the wrong track while nobody
noticed.
(Kiku Day is a Danish musician living in London; [email protected])
(Courtesy: The Guardian; February 15, 2006.)
http://www.guardian.co.uk