Posted on 02/06/2006 3:35:14 PM PST by FilmCutter
December 22, 2005 Denmark: Art and Religion Collide BY Darren Foster
It was this cartoon, published in Denmark's leading newspaper, Jyllands-Posten, that many found particularly offensive. It depicts the Prophet Mohammed with a bomb for a turban.
A little sacrilege is always a good way for an artist to stir up controversy. Take some elephant dung and throw it on Jesus's mom a la Chris Ofili's "The Holy Virgin Mary" or put a crucifix in a glass of urine as Andres Serrano did for his "Piss Christ" photograph and the battle lines are drawn.
Ofili's piece led to a courtroom showdown between "America's mayor" Rudolph Giuliani (when he was still just the mayor of New York) and big-shot First Amendment lawyer Floyd Abrams, while my hometown's hero, "Pasta and Politics" Senator Alfonse D'Amato, took his outrage over Serrano's work to the Senate floor.
I am no expert on the subject, but where would modern art be if artists did not have religious iconography to kick around? These are just some of the thoughts I was playing with as I waited in the lobby of the largest national newspaper in the oldest monarchy in the world.
Sounds grand, I know, but I'm talking about Denmark and it's daily broadsheet, Jyllands-Posten, which has created a royal row by publishing cartoons depicting Islam's founder and prophet, Mohammed. The cartoons were published September 30, but nearly three months later, the storm is still raging and Jyllands-Posten, which normally reaches about 700,000 Danes a day, has gone global.
It was a provocation, Rose told me, to artists, writers, translators, actors and comedians who, he believes, are intimidated when it comes to addressing issues that some Muslims might find offensive. In case you missed it, here's the headline: Little Country, Big Stink: Danish Cartoons Spark Death Threats, Protests and International Condemnation.
The paper's offices are on a large square-cum-ice skating rink in central Copenhagen. At night -- around 3:45 p.m. this time of year -- the area is bright with Christmas lights and the yuletide spirit. During the day, it's gray and not so jolly. That's when I went to visit Flemming Rose, the offending paper's culture editor who came up with the idea of soliciting illustrators to draw their interpretations of Mohammed.
It was a provocation, Rose told me. A provocation to artists, writers, translators, actors and comedians who, he believes, are intimidated when it comes to addressing issues that some Muslims might find offensive.
"The point was that we have some people who submit themselves to self-censorship," Rose said. "And they are doing so not out of respect, but out of fear."
Rose listed several recent incidents to illustrate his point. After the 7/7 bombings in London, the city's Tate Gallery canceled plans to exhibit John Latham's "God Is Great," which featured a Koran (along with the Bible and Talmud) for fear of offending Muslims. And the translator of a new book by Dutch politician Aayan Hirsi Ali, a vocal critic of radical Islam, requested anonymity fearing the reaction of militants. (This is perhaps understandable. Ali previously collaborated on a film about Islam with Dutch filmmaker Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered on the streets of Amsterdam by a young Muslim man who claimed the film was blasphemous).
But it was the complaint by a Danish children's author who said he couldn't find anyone to illustrate his book about Mohammed that finally led Rose to take action. Free speech, he felt, was being compromised.
Denmark is home to around 200,000 Muslims, the majority of which live in Copenhagen.
"We thought we could dilute this fear by including several artists," Rose said. So he invited members of the Danish association of cartoonists to draw Mohammed the way they see him. Of the 40 members, 12 responded. Their submissions ranged from the predictably offensive, a portrait of the prophet where his turban carries a bomb with a burning fuse to the alternatively prescient, a picture of a young schoolboy named Mohammed standing in front of a blackboard where written in Persian with Arabic letters it says, "Jyllands-Posten's journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs."
There are about 200,000 Muslims in Denmark, accounting for 3 percent of the country's population. Soon after the cartoons ran, a few thousand of them took to the streets of Copenhagen in protest. But from there, the reaction snowballed to proportions that Rose never anticipated.
At least 11 Muslim countries sent letters of protest to Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. The Organization of Islamic Conferences, a body that represents 56 Muslim states, put the cartoons on the agenda at its recent summit in Saudi Arabia. And the United Nations High Commissioner for Human Rights appointed a group of "experts on racism" to investigate the matter.
And that's just the diplomatic blowback.
In Kashmir, thousands of businesses reportedly shut down for a day in early December to protest the cartoons. (A reaction that left most Danes I spoke to perplexed). And according to the Danish Foreign Ministry, the youth group of Pakistan's largest Islamic party, Jamaat-e-Islami, posted an $8,000 bounty on the lives of the cartoonists.
"That's like $600 a head. You're not going to get anyone in Denmark to kill anyone for $600," comedian Omar Marzouk told me at a cafe one afternoon. "That's my Pakistani brothers, though. They're so cheap."
Comedian Omar Marzouk is a first-generation Egyptian-Dane. Marzouk derives a lot of material from his experiences growing up as a Muslim in Denmark.
Marzouk is a first-generation Egyptian-Dane who has made a successful living challenging the political correctness that he believes prevents Danish society from engaging in honest dialogue, especially when it comes to his country's immigrant community.
Marzouk's comedy cuts both ways. He's as likely to offend radical right-wingers as radical Muslims. (He posts death threats he receives from both camps on his Web site).
While he obviously appreciates free speech, Marzouk thinks that Jyllands-Posten's decision to publish the cartoons was irresponsible and poisoned a much-needed debate in Denmark.
"It comes at a time when there is less tolerance and growing prejudice in Danish society," he said. "You're given the impression that if you don't give up your religion you won't fit into this society because your beliefs contradict the core principals of democracy. It's bullshit. It's cultural arrogance."
Marzouk believes that the only thing the paper accomplished was to draw out and highlight the most radical of reactions.
To get a sense of what lies beneath the furor, I went to an Islamic bookstore in Copenhagen to speak with Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen, a Dane who converted to Islam 24 years ago.
"If you ridicule Christianity in some places, the way Christianity is sometimes ridiculed here, you'll be put out. It's a very provincial outlook to say, 'Well, we can do it to our own religion so why can't we do it to yours.'" Pedersen said that for the most part he's avoided talking about the issue because he feels it's "ridiculous."
"If we want to have a serious debate in Denmark, and I think we need to," he said, "the onset should not be by insulting each other."
Pedersen does not question Jyllands-Posten's freedom of expression, but why the paper would use that right to further alienate Denmark's Muslim minority. And he does not think that the outrage is a particularly Islamic reaction.
"If you ridicule Christianity in some places, the way Christianity is sometimes ridiculed here, you'll be put out," he said. "It's a very provincial outlook to say, 'Well, we can do it to our own religion so why can't we do it to yours.'"
Pedersen acknowledged that Islam faces a very big challenge finding its expression in Europe, but those who exploit that struggle, he said, are very shortsighted.
"The Western world has to adapt to the idea that it has to adopt Islam into its own belly because its here to stay," he said. "Fighting it is creating a civil war. Helping it to adapt is helping to bring a better future for all of us."
Cartoonist Lars Refn submitted this cartoon, which features a seventh-grade boy called Mohammed. The blackboard reads, "Jyllands-Posten's journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs."
At Jyllands-Posten, Rose remained unrepentant about the cartoons.
It's just a graphic representation of what we are writing in the newspapers everyday," he said. "We live in an image-flooded culture and I don't think anyone truly believes we were trying to depict 1.2 billion Muslims with just a few pictures."
While the reaction was more than he bargained for, Rose welcomes the debate the cartoons have inspired.
"It's long over due," he said.
At least that's one thing everyone can agree on.
Darren Foster is a freelance journalist. He has contributed work to the CBC and Channel 4 (UK) and is working on a story about diamond mining in the Amazon for FRONTLINE/World.
(Denny Crane: "I Don't Want To Socialize With A Pinko Liberal Democrat Commie. Say What You Like About Republicans. We Stick To Our Convictions. Even When We Know We're Dead Wrong.")
Denmark: Art Freedom of the Press and Religion Collide
The reason there was so much public expression of outrage (D'Amato, et al.) about those two anti-Christian works is that they were either exhibited or created with contributions from public money, something that author neglects to mention. Even so, we didn't threaten to cut off the head of the director of the National Endowment for the Humanities...
Christians do get outraged over sacrilege itself, not just the use of public funds. But not usually violent, no.
Not too long ago Christians would kill for sacrilege, but Western culture has become more secular. Which is a Good Thing, in my opinion.
Some do disagree.
Freedom of Speech and Religion Collide.
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