Larvatus Prodeo

The Australian carried this story in the opinion section today (hat tip, my buddy JK)

Jyllands Posten, the most liberal (ie. pro-business, anti-socialist) daily broadsheet, ran twelve cartoons of the prophet mohammed.
A few clarifications and translations:
*Cartoon 3:

‘On the blackboard it says in Persian with Arabic letters that ‘Jyllands-Posten’s journalists are a bunch of reactionary provocateurs.’

(from here.) The boy’s soccer shirt reads ‘the future’ and it would read something like ‘Mohammed from year 7 at Bankstown High’, were it drawn in Sydney.
*Cartoon 7: “Easy lads, it’s just a drawing by an infidel Southern Jutlander”
*Cartoon 9: This one rhymes in Danish, but unfortunately translates to something like:
Prophet!
Off his rocker [’kuk’ is the sound of a cuckoo, ‘knald’ is crazy “har du knald?” = “are you insane?”]
Who keeps women subjugated

Naturally, carrying the story in ‘Cut & Paste’ Opinion section of The Australian means that they don’t need to ‘balance’ any commentary on these cartoons. So who gets to speak on behalf, not just of all Danish Muslims, but all Muslims in the world? You guessed it - a Danish version of Sheik Omran with views of Faiz Mohamad on rape - who came out with this:

‘This type of democracy is worthless for Muslims,’ Imam Raed Hlayhel wrote in a statement. ‘Muslims will never accept this kind of humiliation. The article has insulted every Muslim in the world. We demand an apology!’

The post continues:

Flemming Rose, cultural editor at the newspaper, denied that the purpose had been to provoke Muslims. It was simply a reaction to the rising number of situations where artists and writers censured themselves out of fear of radical Islamists, he said.

The Prime Minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, has handled the affair very diplomatically:

‘Freedom of expression has wide boundaries, and the Danish government has no means to influence the press,’ said Rasmussen in his reply. ‘Danish laws do forbid blasphemous statements or discriminating acts, and the offended party can bring such statements or acts before the court.’

In fact, Fogh encouraged such action:

‘We distance ourselves from these statements and publications, and we request that you prosecute those responsible as a way to create religious harmony, better integration, and improve Denmark’s relations with the Muslim world in general.’

A Danish friend of mine sums it up quite nicely: “The whole incident could mean that when you intentionally try to provoke people by doing something that is forbidden by their religion with no other agenda than to provoke people, you might succeed.”

Postscript, Monday 31 Oct: Here’s the relevant law:

He(/she) who mocks or insults any legal religious society’s teachings or methods of worship can be punished by jail for up to 4 months or by fining.

translated from this article from the end of 2004, when the Danish parliament seemed to have majority support to remove the passage. Back then, Fogh expressed some qualified support for such a move, but stated, “I don’t really see any need to remove it … It shows that, in Denmark, you can say pretty much anything you want - also regarding religious subject matter.” Important to keep in mind when Fogh ‘referred people to the courts.’ (nb. Danish National broadcaster DR was threated with legal action after broadcasting sections of Theo van Gogh’s film Submission in the wake of his murder.)

The law was introduced in 1866. Combined with the racism paragraph introduced in 1939 the law is supposed contain anti-semitism, ‘islamophobia’, and anti-catholicism, according to one Constitutional Law expert. It would seem that pogroms and displacements of ethnic and religious communities cast a much longer and darker shadow in that part of the world than Australia. As Jeff Alexander has shown, traumas are sociological phenomena which reflect the history and power structures of elite institutions. They are not a direct reflection of particular events.

Some interesting points from this wikipedia article on the UK blasphemy laws: The last person in Britain to be sent to prison for blasphemy was John William Gott in 1921. The last prosecution took place in 1977 for a reading of The Love That Dares To Speak Its Name. In 2002, a repeat reading of that poem did not result in any prosecutions. Peter Tatchell subsequently declared the law to be dead.