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Ethnicities, Vol 9(3): 334–360; 337428; DOI:10.1177/1468796809337428
http://etn.sagepub.com
Political cultures compared
The Muhammad cartoons in the Danish and British Press1
NASAR MEER
University of Southampton, UK
PER MOURITSEN
Aarhus University, Denmark
ABSTRACT One outcome of the Muhammad cartoons controversy has been an
opportunity for comparative critical examination of public discourse on conceptions
of citizenship and belonging vis-à-vis Muslim minorities in different national
contexts. In this article, we focus upon the press reaction in two north-western
European countries that on first appearance offer radically different cases. While
Britain is a formerly imperial power where ‘legitimate’ public articulations of the
collective ‘we’ must take stock of the sensibilities in this diverse inheritance,
Denmark’s emergence as a modern constitutional state is premised on a cultural,
linguistic and ethnic homogeneity. It would only be fair to anticipate, therefore, that
any comparison of press discourse on matters of religious minority toleration and
respect for difference would herald very different outcomes to these traditions.
Yet this article shows that, on closer inspection, Jyllands-Posten’s more ‘radical’
approach marked a departure from other Danish newspapers in a manner that left
it relatively isolated, and that the self-restraint shown by the British press in not
reprinting the cartoons was far from universally supported, and subject to significant internal criticism. Indeed, the press discourse in both countries cast the
reaction to the cartoons controversy by Muslims themselves as a sign of failed
integration, and each moreover stressed a need for civility and respect – even
where there was disagreement over the kinds of ‘dialogue’ that should take place.
Nevertheless, significant divergences and cleavages remained, and the explanation
for these differences rests not only on Britain’s more ‘multicultural’ traditions, but
also the experiences of the Rushdie affair and the subsequent debate that had
already taken place in Britain. What is striking is the ways in which the Danish
discourse appears to be plotting a course that is not that radically different from
one taken in the British case, specifically the extent to which a recognition of
religious minority sensibilities needs to be offset with a civic incorporation that is
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cast in interdependent terms in a way that is inclusive of – and not alienating to –
Muslims.
KEY WORDS cartoons controversy
● citizenship ● civic status
speech ● Muslims ● news editorials ● public discourse
●
freedom of
INTRODUCTION
It might easily be anticipated that a comparison between Denmark and
Britain, the purpose of this article, would highlight relatively obvious differences between legitimization structures arising from the policies of race
equality associated with Commonwealth migration in Britain as compared
to an assimilationist regime for descendants of work migrants and Middle
Eastern refugees in Denmark.
Britain is, after all, a formerly imperial power hosting at least four
‘nations’ in which ‘legitimate’ public articulations of the collective ‘we’ must
take stock of the sensibilities in this diverse inheritance. As Tony Blair once
asked: ‘How can we separate out the Celtic, the Roman, the Saxon, the
Norman, the Huguenot, the Jewish, the Asian and the Caribbean and all the
other nations [sic] that have come and settled here? It is precisely this rich
mix that has made all of us what we are today’ (Blair, 2000). By contrast,
Denmark’s emergence as a modern constitutional state in the 19th century
coincided with the loss of colonial territory and a national movement
combining egalitarian peasant values, Lutheranism and a brand of
Völkishness. As such, the later success of the welfare state and social democracy became culturally linked to linguistic and ethnic homogeneity (Østergaard, 2004; Mouritsen, 2006). The two countries are therefore at different
ends, in a western European context, of multicultural difference-friendliness, in terms of policies and discourse.
On the other hand, both countries boast a long tradition of press
freedom, with Danish newspapers consciously invoking ideals of British
(and American) origin, drawing from similar sources of Enlightenment
rationalism and Mill’ean liberalism. Indeed, both countries share more
recent traditions of independent, adversarial news media within political
and cultural life more generally – at least up until the Rushdie affair in
Britain – characterized by an irreverent satire of all manner of authorities,
from politicians and royalty to religious figures. Thus, while it has often been
said that Monty Python’s film The Life of Brian could not have easily been
made anywhere other than Britain (Ross, 1999), Denmark could certainly
have been one contender.
Moreover, both countries are party to post-9/11 European wide anxieties
over Islamic radicalization which – at the level of Adrian Favell’s (1998)
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‘philosophies of integration’ – are influencing civic integrationist movements characterized by an emphasis on common values, heralding criticism
of ‘multiculturalism’, and a promotion of ‘civicness’ (Mouritsen, 2008).
While this is leading to a re-balancing of multiculturalism rather than its
erasure in Britain (Meer and Modood, 2008), in Denmark it involves a
‘culturalized’ civic nationalist discourse of labour market flexibility and
conformity to strong egalitarian and liberal values (promoted as particularly Danish) (see Mouritsen, 2006).
Indeed, our comparison illustrates meaningful similarities between
British and Danish editorial commentary on the Muhammad cartoons, in
part because the Danish debate was so extensive, and because JyllandsPosten’s more ‘radical’ view was – in contrast to other serious newspapers –
atypical. Even so, some striking differences remain between the two ‘cartoon
debates’. In what follows, we propose some modifications to conventional
readings associated with ‘national models’, which highlight two different
dominant conceptions of civic identity for Muslim minorities, each of which
encapsulates distinct public ‘ideals’ of citizenship and proper integration
into public life in the two countries. But we also demonstrate that these
ideals are contested in ways that have to do with both politicization of the
issue and the reflection in each national public of perceived opinions elsewhere. In Britain, this vacillated between consensus on the value of public
moderation and multicultural sensitivity to religious minority sensibilities,
and on the other hand the need to ‘face up’ to European anxieties over radicalism that Britain was ignoring. In Denmark, the tension lay between an
equally complacent celebration of ‘Danish’ informality and irony and
gradual recognition that these virtues might be more hurtful, and thus less
sustainable or even reasonable under the conditions of religious pluralism;
debates from which Denmark has previously been sheltered.
THE CONTESTED CIVIC STATUS OF MUSLIM MINORITIES
Citizenship entails a reciprocal balance of rights and responsibilities,
assumptions of virtue and conceptions of membership or civic status. These
in turn convey equal opportunity, dignity and confidence, even while
different views exist about the proper ways, in culturally pluralist societies,
to confer this civic status. Those who engage in the ‘multicultural turn’
maintain that conceptions of citizenship frequently ignore the sensibilities
of minorities marked by social, cultural and political differences (May et al.,
2004). Hence the ‘political multiculturalism’ of Modood, for example, insists
that ‘when new groups enter a society, there has to be some education and
refinement of . . . sensitivities in the light of changing circumstances and the
specific vulnerabilities of new entrants’ (2006: 61).
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In terms of the public philosophy in Britain, to which Modood’s theory
is very much addressed, some have argued that multicultural inclusion
would, perhaps uniquely, prove problematic for Muslims. According to
Favell (1998: 38) ever since the Satanic Verses affair ‘one of the hottest issues
thrown up by multiculturalism in Britain has been the growing significance
of political and social issues involving Muslims’. To be sure, Rushdie’s book
caused anger among British Muslims who felt that ‘as citizens they [were
no less] entitled to equality of treatment and respect for their customs and
religion’ (Anwar, 1992: 9) than either the Christian majority denominations
or other religious minorities. As an early Modood asked: ‘Is not the reaction
to The Satanic Verses an indication that the honour of the Prophet or the
imani ghairat [attachment to and love of the faith] is as central to the
Muslim psyche as the Holocaust and racial slavery to others?’ (2005[1993]:
121).
This experience has helped establish Muslim sensibilities as legitimate
and worthy of consideration in mainstream media accounts in Britain.
Allied to this recognition has been a cumulative, though not uncontested,
acceptance of the empirical reality of Islamophobia (Meer and Modood,
forthcoming), characterized as an ‘anti-Muslim prejudice [that] has grown
so considerably and so rapidly in recent years that a new item in the
vocabulary is needed’ (Commission on British Muslims and Islamophobia
(CBMI), 1997: 4; see also CBMI, 2004).
In Denmark, even though on other measures of minority tolerance the
country performs rather well among European countries, there has never
been much support for any notion of ‘multiculturalism’ (Nielsen, 2002;
Togeby, 1998). Rather, opinion is divided between a national or communitarian liberalism, which either seeks to privilege a majority culture, insisting for instance that Danish ‘freedom of religion’ by no means entails
‘equality of religion’; or on the other hand a universalistic or colour blind
liberalism, sceptical of any kind of special treatment of groups, which
concurs with Barry’s insistence that ‘a framework of egalitarian liberal laws
leaves them [minorities] free to pursue their ends either individually or in
association with one another’ (Barry, 2001: 317). The latter position, also
prevalent on the left, conceives any public accommodation of culture, or
acknowledgement of ‘difference’ as detrimental to the integration of
minorities as equal citizens.
As regards religious sensitivities, Favell’s (1998) apprehension is doubly
relevant in a country where Islam is seen to clash with Lutheran individualism, or conflate religion and politics, and – according to the average
godless Dane – resist the natural, secular transformation of a doctrinaire
belief into religiosity as a spiritual and cultural tradition. Islam here simply
entails a lack of modernity and of liberalism. No wonder that a 30-country
survey finds Danes the most likely to associate religion with conflict, and
strong faith as such with intolerance (Goul Andersen, 2002: 7, 21). So while
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some criticize public discourse on foreigners and Islam as hostile and generalizing, there is little impulse to ‘show respect’ for Islamic religious feelings
as such.
The experience of the Satanic Verses in Denmark is instructive. With the
support of all political parties, the government invited Rushdie to Denmark
in 1996 – the first to do so. The ensuing debates focused on artistic freedom
and freedom of speech, the book was unanimously praised, no critical
Muslim voices heard, and the author remains an icon of freedom of speech
(symbolized by his recent inclusion in a 2008 officially commissioned
‘democracy canon’).
Since Rushdie, other ‘flashpoints’ pitting Muslim minority sensibilities
against dominant discourses have escalated across Europe. To Parekh
(2006: 180–1) these have helped establish a ‘Muslim question’ tied to the
assumption that ‘integration involves accepting and adjusting to the
basically secular culture of European society’. Others cast it as ‘the nut
that Europe has to crack’ (Joppke, 1998: 37), and in this regard the two
countries have assumed different trajectories.
For example, in Britain, the Muhammad cartoons controversy followed
enormous controversy over a proposed criminal offence of ‘incitement
to religious hatred’ (Meer, 2008). Its eventual introduction, significantly
modified to apply only to ‘threatening’ and no longer also ‘abusive or insulting’ words, and requiring evidence of premeditation, belied the sociological
facts of ‘racialized’ involuntary attribution of negative group membership
to Muslims. There is, nevertheless, a notable contrast with Denmark. Here,
eight years after the Rushdie visit, the freedom of speech issue resurfaced
when the Liberal Party awarded its ‘freedom prize’ to Ayaan Hirsi Ali, and
the murdered director van Gogh, for the film Submission. With poor timing
some Danish Muslims called for stricter legislation against blasphemy and
argued that freedom of speech was used to denigrate the prophet, provoking Prime Minister Fogh Rasmussen to wonder how:
giving a freedom prize to a person who fights the subjection of women is
regarded as a provocation. Those who call it provocative have not understood
the core of Danish freedom of speech. Freedom of speech in our country means
that you can openly and freely criticize anything and anybody (quoted in
Mortensen, 2004).
THE CARTOONS IN THE NEWS
The choice of news editorials to analyse news media self-understandings is
almost self-explanatory. But editorials reveal something meaningful about
the boundaries invoked during the cultivation of particular social identities
within national value systems (McQuail, 1994; Meer and Noorani, 2008). As
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recognizable representatives of distinct ideological forces within national
publics (political parties, segments of the electorate, and so forth) they selfconsciously offer competing perspectives on, and ideals about, citizenship
and belonging, including conceptions of proper conduct in the public
sphere. This was particularly obvious, in both Denmark and Britain, during
the Muhammad cartoons crisis and contrasts our approach with, for
example, a discourse theoretical focus on the un-reflective ‘banal nationalism’ of news discourse more broadly (Billig, 1995).
Editorial coverage of the cartoon issue in Danish and British media is
inevitably asymmetrical. What was a major issue in most places during and
immediately after the February days in 2006 when the issue exploded
constituted the single most serious foreign policy crisis in Denmark since
the Second World War, received massive news coverage, produced a stream
of commentary long after the crisis was subsiding, pitted sections of the
press sharply against each other and was intensely politicized as the liberalconservative government by and large sided with Jyllands-Posten. In
Britain, meanwhile, coverage was concentrated in February 2006; there was
less polarization in the media difference, and no national policy issue. This
asymmetry also guides the proceeding analysis.
In both countries, public making sense of the cartoons touched many
related concerns surrounding the role of various Muslim actors, the
handling of the affair by the Danish government and violence against
embassies. We concentrate on the cartoons as a media event, i.e. on interpretations of their significance, why they were published and republished or
not, and more generally the responsibility of news media itself in relation
to minorities, broader social values and public life.
While Jyllands-Posten and Politiken were by far the most important
protagonists in the Danish context, other relevant national dailies included
the broadsheets – conservative Berlingske Tidende, liberal-Christian
Kristeligt Daglad and left-wing Information (the latter two ‘intellectual’
papers with small circulations). Each of the latter was quite critical of the
publication of the cartoons while, on the other hand, the two tabloid papers
Ekstra Bladet and BT supported Jyllands-Posten. In Britain, there was a
greater consistency between the different publications, broadsheet and
tabloid, in their criticisms of Jyllands-Posten and the reproduction of the
cartoons elsewhere in Europe. Nevertheless, noticeable cleavages too were
apparent between the centre-right Daily Telegraph, which emphasized the
‘unreasonable’ reaction of Muslims, and liberal-left Guardian, which problematized the ‘provocative’ nature of the cartoons. The centrist Independent
and liberal-conservative Times too deviated, particularly on issues of toleration and pragmatism in their decisions not to reprint. Variations of these
tendencies were repeated in the main tabloids, the Sun and Mirror.
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Freedom of speech in a secular society – and its limits
From the beginning, Jyllands-Posten insisted that the cartoons controversy
concerned freedom of speech. This freedom was jeopardized by growing
self-censorship, it was the value in whose name the cartoons were published
in the first place, and it was now threatened by reactions to them. Freedom
of speech was a precondition for an open, democratic society:
It is all about freedom of speech. About the freedom to speak and about the
freedom to express one’s opinions. About the most important of all the liberty
rights, we have in Western democracies. If some Americans, English, French or
others, might be critical of the cartoons themselves, this is only one more way to
signify the capaciousness of freedom of speech. (Jyllands-Posten, 2006i)
Although recognizing responsibilities towards a paper’s own ethical
principles as well as press regulations and laws protecting ‘honour, privacy
and state security’ (Jyllands-Posten, 2006f),2 it emphasized that interpretation of these remained with individual papers. Also, freedom of speech was
absolute. There should be no ‘buts’, no slippery slope of legal or selfimposed restraints either out of fear or misguided politeness (let alone
accommodation of Arab consumers) for religions that are themselves
intolerant:
We should show concern for religious feelings, say the ‘firm’ defenders of
freedom of speech. No, we should only show concern for freedom of speech. It
stands above religion. If we say ‘freedom of speech, but’, we have denounced
the most basic foundation of democracy. (Jyllands-Posten, 2006b)
Jyllands-Posten’s main opponent, the Copenhagen based Politiken with
Editor-in-chief Thøger Seidenfaden, had little patience with the freedom of
speech argument, insisting that ‘not a single significant voice in Danish
society has questioned the right of Jyllands-Posten to do as it did’, but
‘[m]any, however, including Politiken, have thought Jyllands-Posten’s initiative constitutes a problem and should be criticized’ (Politiken, 2006d) The
idea that this freedom was at risk was misleading, though Jyllands-Posten
had escalated the situation to the extent that the cartoonists required police
protection. Indeed, the cartoons came as the culmination of a period in
Danish press and public debate where almost anything could be and was
stated against the Muslim minority (Larsen and Seidenfaden, 2006: 260–1,
306–7). Had the cartoons been mere depictions of Muhammad or even the
odd caricature in context, there would have been no uproar, and no feelings
hurt, as a Politiken editorial elaborated:
It was the symbolic nature of the publication – a pronounced and one-sided
claim of the right to scorn in a free society – which gave it a long-lasting effect
. . . The provocation, however, was not directed towards the dominant religion –
for this to be the case it would have had to be carried out in a Muslim country –
but towards a small minority. This brought it closer to one-sided propaganda
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than those free-standing provocateurs – from Voltaire to Jens-Jørgen Thorsen3 –
to whose examples the paper appealed. (Politiken, 2006f)
Ekstra Bladet and BT, Denmark’s two most popular tabloids, were the
only papers to accept Jyllands-Posten’s framing of a struggle for freedom
of speech against self-censorship; they too criticized the adding of any
‘but’ to what in Ekstra Bladet was cast as a national value, enjoyed ‘since
the 1849-constitution’, which ‘is not for sale for either feta exports or
threats’ (Ekstra Bladet, 2006a, 2006b). This line was unsurprising in view
of both papers’ general sensationalism and in particular Ekstra Bladet’s
tradition of testing legal boundaries. In contrast, all the serious newspapers dismissed Jyllands-Posten’s main argument (but not its right to
publish), viewing the cartoons as a deliberate provocation that demeaned
Muslims, refusing to treat freedom of speech as an entirely absolute and
abstract value, and insisting that there were indeed several ‘buts’, both in
terms of important legal exceptions and self-restraint of media in the
interests of civilty. For example, Politiken’s foreign editor Per Knudsen
noted the double standards involved in not recognizing the limits to
freedom of speech. Commenting on plans by right-wing groups to burn
copies of the Koran in central Copenhagen, he noted that everybody
recognized ‘limits’:
Jyllands-Posten’s editor-in-chief Carsten Juste carefully considered which
Muhammad cartoons to print. ‘Had there been rude ones in between, they
would have been taken out. For instance, we would never print a picture of
Muhammad peeing on the Koran’, the editor-in-chief said. Why then bring a
drawing, which depicts the prophet as a terrorist, one might ask, but this is not
my point here. My point is that even Jyllands-Posten will occasionally limit
freedom of speech. Even so, many seek to present the unhappy affair of the
Muhammad cartoons as a simplified contest for or against an absolute and
extensive freedom of speech although the case is about the limits of freedom of
speech in a democratic and tolerant society. (Politiken, 2006a)
A similar emphasis on striking a ‘balance’ was evident in the British press
reaction. Virtually all British papers adopted a line of, on the one hand,
accepting a legal right to print and, on the other, applying the freedom of
speech argument to a real world setting. In refusing to reprint the cartoons,
newspaper editorials and columnists invoked rationales of journalistic
responsibility, restraint and toleration. For example, the main liberalconservative newspaper the Times, detailed its ‘anguish’ in deciding not to
reprint the images. It instead made the cartoons available via a web link and
argued that its decision balanced the right to reprint against not wanting to
cause gratuitous offence; not least to those it characterized as ‘moderate
Muslims’. Perhaps most significantly, however, it endorsed the ‘right’ of
Muslims to protest against the cartoons and drew parallels to recent historical experiences of religious minorities:
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To duplicate these cartoons . . . has an element of exhibitionism to it. To present
them in front of the public for debate is not a value-neutral exercise. The
offence destined to be caused to moderate Muslims should not be
discounted. . . . The crucial theme here is choice. The truth is that drawing the
line in instances such as these is not a black-and-white question. It cannot be
valid for followers of a religion to state that because they consider images of the
Prophet idolatry, the same applies to anyone else in all circumstances. Then
again, linking the Prophet to suicide bombings supposedly undertaken in his
honour was incendiary. The Times would, for example, have reservations about
printing a cartoon of Christ in a Nazi uniform sketched because sympathisers of
Hitler had conducted awful crimes in the name of Christianity. Muslims thus
have a right to protest about the cartoons and, if they want, to boycott the
publications concerned. (Times, 2006)
Britain’s leading tabloid, the Sun, shared much with the Times but was
in fact more robust in its refusal to republish the images on the grounds that
they were (1) offensive to Muslims and (2) irrelevant to Britain. Indeed, it
described the dispute as ‘manufactured’:
The cartoons are intended to insult Muslims, and the Sun can see no
justification for causing deliberate offence to our much-valued Muslim readers.
Second, the row over the cartoons is largely a manufactured one. They were
printed first in a Danish dispute over free speech. The Sun believes passionately
in free speech, but that does not mean we need to jump on someone else’s
bandwagon to prove we will not be intimidated. (Sun, 2006)
At one level, this is unprecedented as the Sun is renowned for its sensationalism and is rarely sympathetic to minority sensitivities. One might
speculate that its decision may be explained by the proprietors’ desire for
editorial consistency because both papers, and many others, are owned by
Rupert Murdoch’s News International organization. Yet these sentiments
were also evidenced by independent and competing broadsheets and
tabloids. For example, the liberal broadsheet the Independent made its case
for not publishing on the grounds of its right to exercise restraint by
contrasting itself positively with European counterparts in general, and
France Soir in particular:
It is facile, in so complex a situation, to seek refuge in simple statements about
the rights of a free press. Most difficult decisions are not between right and
wrong. They are between competing rights. There is a right to exercise an
uncensored pen. But there is also a right for people to exist in a secular pluralist
society without feeling as alienated, threatened and routinely derided as many
Muslims now do. (Independent, 2006b)
The view that newspapers should not print material their readers find
offensive unless they have sound journalistic reasons is both implicitly and
explicitly set out in these editorials, and this sentiment was shared by the
right-wing middle-class tabloid, the Daily Mail, when it stressed virtues of
responsibility:
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[G]reat freedoms involve great responsibilities. And an obligation of free
speech is that you do not gratuitously insult those with whom you disagree.
While the Mail would fight to the death to defend those papers that printed the
offending cartoons, it disagrees with the fact that they have done so. Rights are
one thing. Responsibilities are another. . . . Wasn’t it incumbent on them to
think long and hard before indulging in what seems a grandstanding attempt to
display their brave liberal credentials? (Daily Mail, 2006)
Indeed, the Society of Editors hailed its members’ ‘restrained’ wisdom
in not showing the cartoons, and the National Union of Journalists (NUJ)
praised the BBC’s ‘impartial and sensible’ stance in broadcasting them on
television. As Andreas Whittam Smith, co-founder and former editor of the
Independent, told BBC News: ‘this is an issue not of press freedom but of
taste and responsibility’ (BBC, 2006).
The West versus Islam: A struggle of ideas and values –
or a necessary dialogue
By framing the publication of the cartoons and subsequent events as a
struggle of ideas or a battle against Islamism, between the West and radical
Muslims, between secular democracy and totalitarian theocracy, liberalism
and relativism, and open and closed societies, Jyllands-Posten was able to
infer that ‘Islamism is the totalitarian threat of our time’:
It is a form of ideology which wishes to tie our hands and silence us, which aims
to destroy freedom and equality, thereby challenging the very foundation of
secular democracies, the separation of politics and religion, and the idea that
individual rights always have priority over group rights and collective rights. . . .
The struggle against Islamism and its ideology . . . first and foremost is a battle
of ideas, over values. . . . Karl Popper, in his major work from 1945, The Open
Society and Its Enemies, warned against what can happen when, in
misunderstood tolerance, intolerance is given free reign. This is precisely what
the naives and cultural relativists have done by proclaiming this newspaper as
intolerant. (Jyllands-Posten, 2006e)
In this struggle there was room for neither compromise nor neutrality,
let alone surrender. That other nations defended Denmark and JyllandsPosten when the violence started was ‘evidence that the Western world’s
democratic values are not up for discussion and will not be jeopardized by
violence, fear or fanaticism’ (Jyllands-Posten, 2006e). This idea of a struggle,
supported again by the tabloids, had some resonance with Berlingske
Tidende, which connected it to the government’s uncompromising stance.
But the paper emphasized that Danish Muslims had come out on the right
side and significantly downplayed the sense of menace found in JyllandsPosten’s coverage:
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We think that democracy is so strong, freedom such a basic value, that we can
easily cope with the challenge, which Islamism represents . . . This does not
mean that we should not take the threat from fundamentalism seriously . . . But
it means that we think that what is evil can be conquered by the forces of good;
that we believe freedom of speech will be intact also after this struggle. The
Western values are so strong that they will survive this challenge. (Berlingske
Tidende, 2006c)
The other papers were less friendly. Politiken noted that solidarity from
the Western world had been scarce before the embassies were torched. If a
war of ideals was being staked, other countries hesitated to ‘side with
Denmark’, lest they were seen to condone the hostile climate of debate in
the country, let alone the cartoons themselves (Politiken, 2006c). Rather
than ‘standing firm’ Politiken stressed the need to accommodate religious
feelings, that politicians and the public were too ignorant about the Muslim
world and that these failures were earning the country a poor reputation
abroad (Politiken, 2006e). In refusing the clash of civilizations thesis, leftwing Information insisted:
It is a conflict between different interpretations of what it means to be modern
and democratic; and different reactions to these. Here, we should not define
democracy as scorn of religion or off-hand violation of taboos. Democracies
legitimize themselves by convincing critics that secularism means freedom of
religion, whereas fundamentalism corrupts religion. Democracies should
endeavour to be able to contain its opposite; in a way that neither politicized
religions, nor sacralized politics can. (Information, 2006b)
In a not dissimilar fashion, British papers by and large circumvented the
clash of values reading by insisting that it was hard to discern what values
were being advanced. British commentators were generally harsher than
their Danish counterparts in condemning the publication as not merely
tasteless and provocative, but bordering on racism. Simon Jenkins of the
Times provides a good illustration of this:
To imply that some great issue of censorship is raised by the Danish cartoons is
nonsense. They were offensive and inflammatory. The best policy would have
been to apologise and shut up. For Danish journalists to demand ‘Europe-wide
solidarity’ in the cause of free speech and to deride those who are offended as
‘fundamentalists . . . who have a problem with the entire western world’ comes
close to racial provocation. We do not go about punching people in the face to
test their commitment to non-violence. To be a European should not involve
initiation by religious insult (Jenkins, 2006).
To Jenkins, insisting on solidarity was a misplaced ‘European’ notion
which illustrated regressive Continental tendencies. Of course, the very idea
of a western or European front breaks down when someone, as indeed did
most of the British papers in this case, refuses to be enlisted into the cause.
This point was also expressed in the Observer editorial, which recounted
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that ‘one German paper published the cartoons on the grounds of “Europewide solidarity”, yet it is hard to see how the Continent benefits from
Europeans insulting each other. German Muslims are Europeans, too’
(Observer, 2006). It was perhaps most lucidly drawn out by Jonathan Steele
of the Guardian, who asked: ‘why should a progressive paper in Britain feel
“solidarity” with anti-immigrant Danish editors who made a major error of
judgment rather than with British Muslims who universally deplored the
cartoons?’ (Steele, 2006).
The cartoons as a sign of failure of integration
Throughout the affair, Politiken insisted that the cartoons were but one
element in the increasingly hostile discourse on Muslims in Denmark. While
Jyllands-Posten had played an important role in this discourse, the explanation of its salience lay elsewhere in an alliance between the liberalconservative government and the Danish People’s Party. Where
Jyllands-Posten insisted that the cartoons were part of a debate and could
eventually help modernize Islam, Politiken saw a one-sided campaign of
Muslim-mockery or attempted ‘integration through scorn’ (Politiken,
2006d), which was bound to be counter-productive:
We should not believe that the, after all few extremists, will be automatically
appeased by a less hateful public debate, where Muslims less often and less
violently are being collectively vilified and identified with terrorism . . . Yet, the
way in which we handle integration and discuss how a democratic society of
increasing diversity could function could nevertheless impact on extremism.
(Politiken, 2006h)
So Politiken saw integration as a two-way process. As such, it was unreasonable to imply that Danish Muslims’ ‘religiosity is close to being
incompatible with successful integration in Danish society’ because:
Integration would be easy if no differences existed between people, religions
and cultures. What is difficult is to accept real differences and yet have support
for a common democratic framework from [these] groups, values and traditions.
(Politiken, 2006h).
Unsurprisingly, Jyllands-Posten took a different view, arguing that
integration was best served by confidence in own values and refusal to give
in to calls for ‘special treatment’:
We should be strong enough to say that we find our culture and civilization right
for us around here, with our tradition; and that those who want part of it have to
adjust themselves to it. The continuously growing number of demands for
special treatment of Muslims must be rejected. (Jyllands-Posten, 2006d)
In Britain, many editorials linked the affair to a failure of integration,
again, contrasting Europe generally and Denmark in particular to the more
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advanced state of affairs in Britain, where important lessons had been
learned of the damaging effects of negative representation of minorities.
Hence the pro-European Independent insisted: ‘British institutions, for all
their faults, have a greater cultural sensitivity than their continental
counterparts . . . This is due, in no small part, to our tradition of multiculturalism . . . on the whole, we are in a better position than many of our
continental neighbours’ (Independent, 2006a). This explicit reference to the
ameliorative capacity of British multiculturalism to ingrain cultural sensitivity was repeated by the Sun’s only Muslim columnist, Anila Baig who
concluded ‘[w]e’re much luckier here in Britain that there is tolerance and
acceptance of other cultures, but it seems clear that the intention in
Denmark was to deliberately provoke Muslims’ (Baig, 2006). To Guardian
columnist Jonathan Steele (2006), ‘Denmark is still at the prejudiced end, a
traditionally mono-ethnic country that has not yet accepted the new
cultures in its midst. Public discourse is stuck where it was in Britain a
generation ago, with angry talk about “guests” who ought to conform to the
“host country” or go home’. Ziauddin Sardar, another prominent Muslim
writer and broadcaster, echoed many of these points when he distinguished
British from European fields of media discourse:
This is not an issue of freedom of expression; it is very much an issue of power.
In Britain, Muslims are in a good position and are capable of representing
themselves, but in Europe they are marginalised and do not have the means to
reply. If you use your freedom of expression to denigrate and abuse, knowing
they have no way of responding, then it is an act of oppression. (quoted in
Sunday Times, 2006)
Almost responding to Sardar’s complaint, an Independent editorial
stated that the ‘Muslim community here feels less excluded than do
Muslim communities on the continent. We should take heart from that.
These are violent and disorientating times. But provided we recognize that
British Muslims are friends – rather than our enemies – our society will
ultimately emerge into brighter days’ (Independent, 2006c). Indeed, Mark
Steel of the Independent compared the cartoons with the limits of acceptability generally applied to previous British satire on racial minorities, and
argued that:
the reason we no longer accept golliwogs and black and white minstrels and the
joke of throwing bananas at black footballers is because their existence affects
the status of black people in society. If it’s legitimate to portray an entire race as
sub-human idiots, they’re more likely to be attacked, abused and made to feel
utterly dreadful. (Steel, 2006)
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A need for civility and respect – but what kind of ‘dialogue’ should
there be in a democracy?
A recurrent theme in the critical reception of the cartoons in Denmark
concerned the proper manner of public communication in a democracy. At
one level this was a question of not mistaking the right to speak for an obligation to insult. As Berlingske Tidende put it (2006a) ‘of course one can have
freedom of speech and yet show respect for what is considered holy by
others’, particularly – pace Ziauddin Sardar’s argument above – in a situation of fundamental asymmetry where ‘Jyllands-Posten’s heroic “defence of
freedom of speech” would have been more heroic, had it not been characterized by scorn and hostility toward the Muslim minority, which, these
years, has become much too widespread and common in Denmark’ (Politiken, 2006g). Politiken, particularly, insisted that the Danish media could
indeed do with some ‘self-censorship’ – implying a more mature consideration of the point (or pointlessness) of specific utterances, and more
willingness to look at oneself as a nation from the outside.
Jyllands-Posten made an important counter-argument about resisting
‘moderation’. Satire and provocation was part and parcel of an open and
plural debate or dialogue (providing the Islamic world refrained from
threats and abuses), and such dialogue was furthered by not pulling one’s
punches. Every religious faith should ‘accept the need to be open towards
a broad range of opinions and discussions, in the final instance towards such
satire, which for better or worse simplifies complex issues’. While this might
lead to ‘unintended offence to those who believe differently’, it could also
cause self-reflection among the religious themselves’ (Jyllands-Posten,
2006i). Radical Islam endeavoured to suppress dialogue, ‘lest it lead to a
general enlightenment, which might jeopardize their monopoly of interpreting the Koran’ (Jyllands-Posten, 2006a). In contrast, Jyllands-Posten
would be happy to participate in one ‘where the premise is equality and
where the clash between Muslim fundamentalism and democratic values
can be unprejudiced and open-heartedly discussed’ (Jyllands-Posten, 2005).
It was defeatist and insulting, as some politically correct multiculturalists
had done, to assume that Islam and Muslim countries could never become
democratically educated and modernized: ‘Why do we accept the notion
that Muslims completely lack a democratic gene, which could make them
strive for peace and liberty, democracy and human rights?’ (Jyllands-Posten,
2006g).
Here, the paper made much of the undeniable fact that a debate had
indeed commenced in Denmark, that it had mobilized many new voices,
including many different Muslim groups and individuals, and that JyllandsPosten opened its pages to all of them. To have such debate meant that
freedom of speech involved ‘not only the right, but also the duty to secure
the freely blowing breeze of information, evaluations and free debate’
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(Jyllands-Posten, 2006f). Jyllands-Posten continually emphasized that the
cartoons represented a type of disrespect for authority – religious or other
– that was an essentially Danish and European practice, and a great value
to be cherished. This struck a resonating chord. In a paradigm statement
equating freedom of speech with irreverent offence with Danish upright
informality, Ekstra Bladet held that:
If we give up freedom of speech out of politeness . . . in the name of a wellbehaved tone of speech and of good taste in a globalized world . . . then we have
sacrificed our form of society . . . It sounds so pretty that we should speak nicely
to strangers and not provoke. But freedom of speech is not polite. It is raw and
honest. (Ekstra Bladet, 2006c)
Even left-wing Information maintained the value of the particular
Danish tradition (as opposed to neighbouring Sweden!) of ‘rough’ debate,
irony and satire (Information, 2006b). Berlingske Tidende also did not see
any general deterioration of public civility or vilification of Muslims. While
criticizing the cartoons as unnecessary and insulting, it repeatedly emphasized the value of an open-hearted debate with sarcasm, humour and
provocation – also about Muslims (Berlingske Tidende, 2006b).
Self-censorship out of social responsibility – or fear
British newspapers’ rather different view of dialogue in a culturally plural
society was mirrored, as noted, in more severe condemnation of the
cartoons as not merely tasteless or insulting, but potentially inciting to racial
hatred. And where Danish commentary blamed Jyllands-Posten less for the
escalation of the crisis than they did the government, the imams, or the
Muslim ambassadors, British debates centred on the responsibilities of
the press itself. The issue of republication, even for documentary purposes,
was discussed in terms, initially, not only of sensibility to religious feelings,
but also of behaving responsibly and with restraint for the sake of public
peace, rather than ‘throwing petrol on the flames of a fire’ (Independent,
2006b).
This sense of real danger was less pronounced in Denmark. JyllandsPosten, of course, claimed the cartoons were a reaction to self-censorship in
Danish cultural life, citing the difficulty of finding artists to illustrate a
children’s book on the prophet Muhammad and fear among stand-up comedians of making fun of Islam. Looking back a year later, the paper claimed
with some pathos to see the same picture everywhere, ‘Art and culture bows
its head to totalitarianism; to threats of violence, those expressed as well as
those tacitly understood. A climate has been created of submission and fear
– also where it may be groundless’ (Jyllands-Posten, 2006h). Yet unlike in
Britain, most Danish papers in fact did reprint single cartoons as documentation, with the significant exception of Berlingske Tidende.4 Politiken
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argued, along a line taken by French and other continental media, that the
threats from Arab countries had rendered Jyllands-Posten the weaker party,
changing the significance of the affair into a ‘choice between civilized
dialogue and violent confrontation’ (Politiken, 2006b). And while Politiken
and other serious papers eventually conceded ‘self-censorship’ to be
increasing – with the Berlin Opera’s cancelling of Idomeneo and other incidents – this was regarded as a result of a polarization, where radicals now
reacted to all sorts of provocative Muhammad stunts. There was no real
need for fear, in Denmark at least, where the large majority of Muslims
behaved with much restraint, using established modes of protest.
The situation was remarkably different in Britain where a backlash eventually occurred against the self-restraint of mainstream media, which, critics
maintained, were acting out of fear as much as principle. Moreover, even if
principles were at stake, the real challenge to be confronted was the unrest
or violence, which could be expected from certain Muslim groups within
Britain. The centre-right Daily Telegraph did not re-publish the cartoons on
the grounds of restraint but insisted that:
We are equally in no doubt that a small minority of Muslims would be offended
by such a publication to an extent where they would threaten, and perhaps even
use, violence. This is a problem that the whole of the Western world needs to
confront frankly, and not sidestep. (Daily Telegraph, 2006)
There was then a tension between showing restraint, and ‘confronting’
rather than ‘side-stepping’ the offended parties, and one recurring theme
that emerged in reader’s letters was that this decision was not, in fact,
because of tolerance and restraint, but an outcome of intimidation and the
threat of violence. The following letter published in the Independent is
characteristic of this view:
The British press has shown that it is too frightened to publish those cartoons. It
is a most stunning act of calculated omission that they have all found excuses to
seek to distance themselves from what has hitherto been hallowed in this
country, namely, the freedom of speech as reflected in our daily newspapers.
(Independent, 2006d)
Indeed, when the centre-left broadsheet, the Guardian, decided not to
print the images but instead to provide links to Wikipedia, and asked its
readers to blog comments, over 700 opinions were posted in a matter of
hours, with the clear majority favouring the ‘publish and be damned’
approach. This was characterized by a negative comparison with other
European newspapers that is exemplified by the following post: ‘It is as
simple as being a free speech issue – as previous posters have pointed out,
you have not fought shy of offending many other groupings in the past.
Compare yourselves to your newspaper colleagues in Denmark, France and
all over Europe and hang your heads in shame’ (quoted in Bell, 2006). As
one of the editors conceded, however, ‘this was an exercise in finding out
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what readers thought, not a democratic process’ (Bell, 2006) and the
newspaper itself stated:
To directly associate the founder of one of the world’s three great monotheistic
religions with terrorist violence – the unmistakable meaning of the most explicit
of these cartoons – is wrong, even if the intention was satirical rather than
blasphemous . . . The extraordinary unanimity of the British press in refraining
from publishing the drawings – in contrast to the Nordic countries, Germany,
Spain and France – speaks volumes. John Stuart Mill is a better guide to this
issue than Voltaire. (Guardian, 2006)
Yet the Guardian’s media editor suspected ‘the truth is that many British
journalists feel uncomfortable with the accommodations we are already
making . . . Freedom of the press is all very well, but newspapers are
commercial operations’ (Fletcher, 2006). Indeed, writing in the Independent, the former Daily Telegraph editor dismissed much of the ‘respect’
rationale as a half-truth:
Let me tell you what in fact each and every one of those editors would actually
have been thinking about before ‘choosing not to publish’. They would, first of
all, have had a phone call from the newspaper’s distributors, or their own
circulation department, pointing out that a large number of ‘our’ newsagents up
and down the country are run by families originally from Pakistan and
Bangladesh, both Muslim countries. You don’t bite the hand that sells you.
(Lawson, 2006)
In a similar vein, the Sunday Times columnist Andrew Sullivan (2006)
protested:
[t]he one argument you haven’t heard is the one you hear off-camera. Many
editors simply don’t want to put their staffs at risk of physical danger. They have
‘offended’ Muslims in the past and learnt to regret it. . . . In this new war of
freedom versus fundamentalism I always anticipated appeasement. I just didn’t
expect the press to be among the first to wave the white flag.
Indeed, the self-restraint showed by the British press was not universally
viewed positively, and some commentators chose to cast it as ‘appeasement’
to be contrasted with the more ‘advanced’ state of negative relations with
Muslims on the Continent. Holland, for example, was often referred to as a
case in point, described by one commentator in the Sunday Times as ‘the
canary in the mine’:
Where Holland has gone, Britain and the rest of Europe are following . . . It looks,
from Holland, like the twilight of liberalism . . . not least freedom of expression.
All across Europe, debate on Islam is being stopped . . . and in Britain the
government seems intent on pushing through laws that would make truths about
Islam and the conduct of its followers impossible to voice. (Murray, 2006)
These characterizations, while more prevalent in centre-right publications, were also found in other media, e.g. with Bruce Anderson (2006) of
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the Independent arguing that the cartoons had ‘forced Europe to face a
problem which most political elites would rather ignore . . . How are we to
achieve peaceful coexistence with Islam?’ These considerations, arguably,
were more advanced on the continent because ‘in Holland and Belgium,
liberals have woken up to the fact that Islam is not their ally. What will it
take before their equivalents do the same here?’ (Hitchens, 2006). In some
agreement, and once again demonstrating the tensions in adopting its
positions not to reprint the images, the Sunday Telegraph contrasted British
politicians’ responses unfavourably with those of their European
counterparts:
Mr Straw has been put to shame by the German home minister, Wolfgang
Schäuble, who robustly defended the freedom of newspapers to make their own
decisions. ‘Why should the German government apologise?’ he said. ‘This is an
expression of press freedom.’ In contrast, the British Government’s craven
response has sent a terrible signal: those who wish to see free expression
curtailed need only light a flame, issue a threat and wave an angry fist. (Sunday
Telegraph, 2006)
In Denmark, by contrast, a large editorial in the leftist daily Information,
which looked at Denmark from the outside, asked:
How damaging would it really be if we could not go on calling Muslims
medieval fanatics who are a thousand years behind us? Or that we could not go
on defining a world religion as a terror organization? Would self-censorship
here constitute a disaster? Not only fundamentalists and ambassadors have
called for moderation of the political rhetoric and in the media. Several
representatives of what we speak of as the ‘world community’ have
recommended caution: The UN High Commissioner for Refugees, the head of
the Council of Europe, and politicians in our Western neighbouring countries.
(Information, 2006b)5
Some of this sense of moderation, expressed in a left-leaning intellectual
newspaper, also eventually reached government offices. Danish Prime
Minister Fogh Rasmussen, who had gone as far as condemning politicians
and industrialists who were ‘on the wrong side’ (Berlingske Tidende, 2006d)
later adopted a more conciliatory tone in response to a deteriorating
foreign policy situation. His 2006 New Year’s speech expressed his wish not
to ‘demonize groups of people on the basis of their religion or ethnic background’ and noted the need to use one’s freedom of speech ‘in mutual
respect and understanding, and in a civilized tone of voice’, so that ‘we do
not incite to hatred and do not cause fragmentation of the community’
(Rasmussen, 2006).6
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CONVERGENCES AND CONTRASTS
Although Britain stood out in Europe for its relatively unanimous
condemnation of the cartoons, the isolation of Jyllands-Posten among
serious Danish newspapers is equally noteworthy, and differences between
these other papers and their British counterparts are – in some important
respects at least – matters of degree more than substance. A first point of
note in comparing the two debates is the degree of similarity between the
two national cases, which might be expected to be more diverse. In both
we find the distinction between freedom of speech as a fundamental right
and prudence in its exercise, the emphasis on press restraint and responsibility to avoid unnecessary hurt, and the view of the cartoons as a facile
and groundless stunt. While Danish papers were more susceptible to solidarity with Jyllands-Posten and certainly with the cartoonists in the critical
days of bomb threats and massive media exposure of angry Muslims, the
notion that this called for shoulder-to-shoulder republication of the
cartoons was not supported, at least until very late, when news of an assassination plans on one of the cartoonists was made public. Thus in both
countries there was broad scepticism toward reading the crisis as a clash
of values, and the British assessment that the affair signalled a lack of twoway integration was shared by Politiken – Jyllands-Posten’s Danish
opponent.
That cultural differences might easily be exaggerated is further underscored when contrasting the political contestation of the affair. In Denmark,
where the government’s reliance on the Danish People’s Party has further
polarized matters of immigration (Hedetoft, 2006), the cartoons were part
of the ongoing kulturkamp over Islam, national values and integration that
has shaped electoral politics for half a decade. To Politiken ‘the alliance with
the Danish People’s Party is the reason why the Muhammad affair developed into a foreign policy disaster. It is the reason why the caricatures were
conceived of and printed. It is the reason why a Muslim minority is being
mocked constantly and indiscriminately in public debate’ (Politiken, 2006i).
The Prime Minister, at least initially, played a domestic policy game in
refusing to meet the Muslim ambassadors, or criticize Jyllands-Posten, or
minimally state his dislike of the cartoons. As the upper echelons of the
government sided with Jyllands-Posten, while the Social Democratic party
was divided and anxious not to lose voters, the serious news media, particularly Politiken and its Editor-in-chief Thøger Seidenfaden, became the real
opposition in the country.
In Britain, by contrast, the affair barely resonated with parliamentary
politics at all, as senior ministers supported mainstream media’s selfrestraint. Although the then Prime Minister, Tony Blair, saw it as ‘entirely
a matter for the media organisations to decide what they ought to do
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within the law’ (quoted in McGrory and Sabbagh, 2006), Peter Mandelson, then British EU Trade Commissioner, urged newspapers not to
reprint the cartoons, whilst Jack Straw, then Foreign Secretary, argued that
press freedom carried an obligation not ‘to be gratuitously inflammatory’
(quoted in McGrory and Sabbagh, 2006). Straw stated that while he was
committed to press freedom, ‘the republication of these cartoons has been
insulting, it has been insensitive, it has been disrespectful and it has been
wrong’. British press had shown ‘considerable responsibility and sensitivity’ (quoted in MacAskill et al., 2006). The possibility of representing the
affair as a sign of continental European immaturity, in light of which
Britain compared favourably, probably goes a long way in explaining
British elite consensus. However, in view of the heated struggle over the
incitement to religious hatred act, one may speculate that British politicians and media, unlike in Denmark, sought to and succeeded in putting
a lid on a controversy with almost as much popular (or populist) resonance
in Britain as elsewhere – pace the reactions amongst progressive Guardian
readers.
However, the present analysis also highlighted significant differences,
which, together, indicate different conceptualizations – more or less
bounded, and clearly contested – of the civic status of Muslims in public life.
We noted a difference in the degree of condemnation of the cartoons, where
what Danish media saw as stupidity and poor judgment – sensibly ignored
by most Danish Muslims – British commentators regarded as tantamount
to incitement to religious hatred. This emphasis on restraint and danger,
also prominent in the ministerial statements above, indicated a relatively
strong consensus in the view that religious feelings – particularly those of
Muslims as a minority group – should be treated with sensitivity and
respect. While some of the quotes stress its continuity with British traditions, including press traditions, of tolerance and respect for the feelings of
others, they also clearly indicate a ‘multicultural‘ moderation – whether
legitimized ideally as recognition of the sensibilities and needs of this group
(corresponding to other constitutive sensibilities of Christians or Jews) or
pragmatically as responsible concern for public order – which was much less
strongly articulated in Denmark.
Here instead we saw an emphasis, also by media who believed JyllandsPosten went too far, on the value, not only of maintaining a tradition of
rough and hearty informality, disrespect and satire, but on impressing this
(Danish) tradition on newcomers. In a key dispute between Politiken and
Jylland-Posten about the rationale for the cartoons, where Politiken had
dismissed ‘self-censorship’ as a red herring, it characterized the cartoons as
a deliberate and pointless piece of bullying – or maybe only with the point
of teaching Muslims their place – sarcastically adding its doubts as to the
feasibility of ‘integration by scorn’ (2006d). The original editorial text by
cultural editor Rose, accompanying the cartoons, had read:
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The modern secular society is dismissed by some Muslims. They demand special
treatment when they insist on special consideration of their religious feelings.
This is incompatible with secular democracy and freedom of speech, where one
should be ready to stand scorn, mockery and ridicule. This is certainly not
always very sympathetic or nice to look at, but this is irrelevant in the context.
(Rose, 2005)
In this, it is difficult to accept Jyllands-Posten’s vehement insistence that
it was an ‘infamous lie’ (by Politiken) to see the cartoons as a deliberate
provocation, or that its point was to scorn and ridicule Muslims (2006d).
Jyllands-Posten insisted that what the text said was that everybody in a
secular society must be able to stand this, as indeed the third sentence can
reasonably be interpreted. Now, although of course Muslims were being
addressed rather than, say Christians,7 a way to make sense of JyllandsPosten’s stance is that (some) Muslims had not yet learned to stand mockery
and offence, as (most) Danish (Christians) have. In this way, the paper was
not ‘one-sidedly’ bashing Muslims by demanding something from them that
others did not have to learn to endure. Moreover, publication, while obviously provocative in the usual sense, was not pointless. The ‘scorn, mockery
and ridicule’ served a purpose beyond mere insult: to educate Muslims to
learn to ‘stand’ this, and appreciate the necessity of doing so as part and
parcel of a cherished Danish debating culture, or at least to make the point
that Muslims had to be so educated.
CONCLUSIONS
One may question whether it is reasonable to insist, as Flemming Rose and
Jyllands-Posten did, on a form of militant liberalism (Lægaard, this issue)
whereby being an autonomous citizen in a democratic society requires not
only the occasional willingness to question and reflect upon one’s deepest
beliefs (Kymlicka, 2002: 235–44), but also the willingness to have these
beliefs periodically ridiculed or even associated with terrorism. Or, even to
ask, given that a case could be made for assimilating newcomers into a
national political culture that contains such a civic ideal, if the methods
chosen are likely to succeed or backfire. It is undeniable that the cartoons
controversy provoked a great deal more than an opportunity for critical
self-reflection in Denmark and Britain. The ensuing print discourse nevertheless served as an important window into conceptions of citizenship and
belonging and the boundaries of public discourse vis-à-vis respective
Muslim minorities. While in Britain’s case, the press reaction consciously
contrasted British traditions of restraint with their European counterparts,
which in general displayed less awareness and sensitivity perhaps compared
with Britain’s post-Rushdie multiculturalism, there was much more variety
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in the Danish context than is usually acknowledged. This includes a number
of substantive overlaps between the two cases as elaborated above. One
path plotted in the British discourse is certainly more favourable to Danish
perspectives, i.e. the new awareness in Britain that the very degree of
Muslim anger (however justified it might be seen to be), and its possible
consequences for a liberal society, constitutes as much of a problem as the
will to offend and hurt by a Danish news paper. As the Danish Conservative Minister for the Environment, Connie Hedegaard, is reported to have
stated: ‘the lesson that is useful to learn is that other people exist who have
different boundaries from us’ (cited in Steensbeck, 2006). The rather more
cautious diplomatic actions of the Danish government since 2006 certainly
suggest that part of this lesson has been learnt. The question currently facing
both British and Danish public discourse is the extent to which a recognition of diversity and an awareness of appropriate religious minority sensibilities needs to be offset with a civic incorporation that is cast as mutually
constitutive, and defined in interdependent terms in a way that is inclusive
of – and not alienating to – Muslims.
Notes
1 The British data in this article are drawn from a report co-authored by Nasar
Meer and Tariq Modood. The authors are grateful to Modood for this contribution, as also for assistance from Martin Carstensen for collection and preliminary
analysis of Danish editorial material, and for valuable comments from members
of the political theory section at the Department of Political Science, Aarhus
University, Denmark. This research emerged from a European Commission
funded project entitled, ‘A European approach to multicultural citizenship: legal,
political and educational challenges’ (CIT5-CT-2005-028205)
2 Interestingly the paper did not mention other Danish legislation, such as the
rarely used blasphemy law or the law against religious and other types of
defamation.
3 A Danish artist who had painted Jesus with an erection and made a movie about
his sexual life.
4 Symbolically, Politiken, like other Danish papers, including Berlingske Tidende,
eventually printed the cartoons in full as a reaction to the revelation of plans to
assassinate Westergaard – author of the bomb-in-turban cartoon, as it had anticipated it would do (Politiken, 2006d) in case of direct violence in Denmark.
5 The quote refers to the event on 20 December 2005 when a group of 22 retired
Danish ambassadors criticized the government’s decision not to meet the Arab
ambassadors and generally to seek to accommodate Muslim hurt feelings (Information, 2006a).
6 Even so, Prime Minister Rasmussen immediately went on to restate the ideal: ‘In
Denmark, we have a healthy tradition of putting critical questions to all authorities, be they of a political or religious nature. We use humour. We use satire. Our
approach to authorities is actually rather relaxed. And to put it bluntly: it is this
unorthodox approach to authorities, it is this urge to question the established
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order, it is this inclination to subject everything to critical debate that has led to
progress in our society. For it is in this process that new horizons open, new
discoveries are made, new ideas see the light of day. While old systems and
outdated ideas and views fade and disappear. That is why freedom of speech is
so vital. And freedom of speech is absolute. It is not negotiable’ (Rasmussen,
2006).
7 A point, mainly made by some, mostly foreign, commentators, that JyllandsPosten did not deliberately mock Christians in this way, is not terribly strong if
taken to mean that they or other Danish papers would never do so. There are
several examples of extremely ‘blasphemous’ drawings of God or Jesus Christ
before and after the Muhammad cartoons. A recent distasteful one in Politiken
depicted God being examined for a sexual disease (an oversized penis coming
down from a cloud, etc.).
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DR NASAR MEER is a Lecturer in the School of Social and Political
Sciences, University of Southampton, UK. His forthcoming monograph is
titled Identity, Consciousness, and the Politics of Citizenship (PalgraveMacmillan). Address: School of Social Sciences, University of Southampton, SO17 1BJ, UK. [email: [email protected]]
PER MOURITSEN is professor of political theory and citizenship
studies in the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University,
Denmark. He holds a PhD in Social and Political Sciences from the
European University Institute (EUI) in Florence, Italy. He previously taught
at the University of Copenhagen and was a visiting scholar at the EUI, the
University of Sydney, Australia and University of California, Berkeley, USA.
He is author of many articles and book chapters on political theory and
citizenship and recently co-edited Constituting Communities: Political
Solutions to Cultural Conflict (Palgrave-Macmillan, 2008). Address: Department of Political Science, University of Aarhus, Bartholins Alle, 8000
Aarhus C, Denmark. [email: [email protected]]
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