MIDDLE EAST: Danish cartoon controversy continues to ripple

The anger unleashed in the Muslim world by the Danish cartoons of the prophet Muhammad more than two years ago is apparently far from simmering down.

In the latest of the drawings' consequences, the Danish government decided to close its embassies in Algeria and Afghanistan after threats of terrorist attacks against their premises in these two countries. According to a report in a Danish newspaper, the Danes have evacuated their staff from embassies in Kabul and Algiers to an unidentified "safe location," where they continue to work.

The newspaper said that the Danish intelligence linked the threats to the reprinting of the cartoons in February by international newspapers.

It added that the government will wait to see how "the situation unfolds in the upcoming period" before deciding when to reopen the embassies.

Back in early 2006, deadly riots broke out in many Muslim countries as a reaction to what was regarded as "blasphemous" representation of Islam's prophet in a cartoon contest sponsored by a right-wing Danish newspaper.

—Raed Rafei in Beirut

Photo: Angry demonstrators set ablaze the Danish embassy in Damascus on Feb. 4, 2006, over cartoons of the prophet Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper. Credit: LOUAI BESHARA/AFP/Getty Images

Comments

[Z-Lo]

It seems strange to argue that people should not be killed for speaking their minds. It is strange because this is an established point that does not need to be argued. But some are making this argument in response to terrorist threats.

The argument is not with terrorists themselves, though, because terrorists are presumably beyond the reach of ideological debate. So what is its purpose? And, perhaps more importantly, what are its consequences?

These are questions that a critically thinking public should have asked when European newspapers rallied around 'free speech' and began republishing caricatures of the prophet Muhammad in 2006, incensing the Muslim world. But instead, a misguided debate about 'free speech' and 'religious sensitivity' emerged and continues today.

A key element of this argument is presenting 'freedom' or 'free speech' as in danger. These values, being perhaps the most central to Western society and even the individual's identity, elicit strong emotions in Westerners. They may be similar to the emotions that Muslims experience when Muhammad, a central symbol of Islamic society and identity, was attacked by Western media and society at large. This comparison may help Westerners to consider the reactions of Muslims more calmly.

In both cases, it became difficult to think things through rationally. A threat to such basic elements of identity elicit fear. This should be recognized as dangerous. In the volatile circumstances that breed terrorism, war and social tension, it is precisely at junctures such as those faced in 2006 as well as today that we must be most careful.

Recently, Flemming Rose, the Danish editor who is behind the publications of caricatures of Muhammad that caused an uproar in 2006, responded in an article to a tape recording of Osama Bin Laden, the man who is supposedly behind the 9/11 attacks and whose name is synonymous with "terrorism." They are voices engaging one another on fiercely antagonistic ideological grounds in a time when their words have real consequence.

There is one point that they appear to agree on. Each seems convinced that the best way to address the tension between Islam and the West is through head-on confrontation.

Mr. Rose presents himself as if he is speaking for the West and challenging the ideology of "terrorism" or "radical Islam" or something. But I wish he would stop.