Subject: Mistakes, Misstatements and Half-truths, Oh My!
Again, your guest from the German newsweekly is playing fast and loose with the truth.
As of 2001, according the U.S. Department of State, there was _no_ Muslim cemetery in Denmark. (State noted this as part of its human rights
assessment.) Whether Danes have allowed one since I do not know.
A number of Christian cemeteries have allowed Muslim sections -- generous, but which failed to meet full Muslim religious requirements.
-HS
Subject: Let him who is without Sin draw the first Cartoon
I have been slightly amused by the surprise of the American press on the outrage expressed by Muslims over the Danish cartoons. No one seems to recall the not so recent vituperative outrage and threats of violence against artists in this country who dared cast a man of African heritage in the role of Jesus in a show.
It strains credulity to listen to our sanctimonious pronouncements, while choosing to ignore the degree of rabid intolerance in this country. I think you owe your audience a reminder that we do not go into this with clean hands.
-BA
Subject: Hate Speech by any other name...
I agree with Mahmoud that the cartoons are most reflective of a latent hostility and racism that underlie the European societies in which Muslim minorities are growing. The cartoons are most reminiscent of caricatures of Jews and anti-semitic drawings in many contexts throughout Europe in the past. I would argue that the cartoons would qualify as hate speech-- and, while hate speech has been a thorny free speech issue in many nations, I believe that hate speech can and should be regulated.
-ML
Subject: What Would Jesus Say?
I just wanted to share a story that may otherwise not have become a big deal had the Danish cartoons not been published. I'm a grad student at Parsons School of design working on an MFA in Design and Technology. On Tuesday Feb 21 at the Fellissimo gallery in NYC I'm showing a censored version of an interactive art piece that i developed this past Fall. The piece is a projection of Da Vinci's Last Supper with speech bubbles above Jesus and four of the disciples, as a viewer of the piece you are able to text message your own content into any of the bubbles. In essence a viewer can make Jesus say 'I love you.'
The piece was accepted into the show, but the gallery came back and asked that the image be changed. The gallery didn't want the kind of attention that the piece might get given the reaction to the danish cartoons. I joked that I'd just use puppy dogs with speech bubbles, but I really didn't want to change the image. The piece was about the enabling power of mobile technology to comment on the world around us. In a way we are all our own embedded reporters and I wanted to give people a subject to report on, come what may. So my solution will be to remove the image, but leave the speech bubbles in place, and if you want the image to participate you can text my cell phone and I will send the image to your phone through MMS.
Anyway, I just thought I'd share since this topic is so hot and I think that my work has become a victim of it. (Click here to view the project)
-PN
From an American in Sweden
1. Muslins integrate and don't integrate based on the education level they had coming in to the country. the ones who do often still complain that their children are still referred to as immigrants meaning the society as a whole has not and will not accept them. Those who do not integrate don't because they marry cousins from their home countries and their children are educated in state sponsored muslim schools that don't teach women past the 8th grade. That infuriates swedes who are staunch believers in equality.
2. european political correctness is far beyond anything we have in america and frankly all europeans are having a adopting it in their culture. people do not want multiculturalism here as much as europeans want immigrants to become european.
3. denmark and sweden are wonderful places to live and immigrants American or muslin should be so lucky. i can' remember the last time i saw a homeless person.
-DR
Subject: Danish Pride, Considered
I have never written to a program before but I just had to put in my five cents for whatever it's worth.
I am Danish. These past months controversy breaks my heart. Just the other day when the snow fell, I was standing in the Amish Marked and one of the cashiers, a young muslim woman, asked me how I felt about the snow, I smiled and said "I love the snow, I am used to it. I am from Denmark" as I walked away, I realized how this controversy has changed how I feel about telling people that I am Danish - I was ashamed and angry. It is odd me, who have always hated flags suddenly feeling anger in my heart at seeing the Danish flag being burned on the streets in the middle east.
It is funny Denmark has always been on the forefront in aiding developing countries, a lot of them muslim and suddenly none of this matters because of twelve cartoonist and one newspaper.
Also, Denmark is not a particularly religious society. I guess most of us are born Lutheran but few practice it or even care about it, so your guest point of making it a Christianity versus muslim issue is bogus.
This is a joke but there is also some truth to it, that most danish people visit the church three times in their lives:
1) when they are baptized
2) When they get married
3) And at their own funeral
I have spoken to family and friends in Denmark and they have been sympathetic to the muslim population, questioning the reasons of Jyllands Posten for printing the cartoons when it would be so hurtful to so many people. In Denmark it is common to talk things out and debates are never shunned away from so a lot of people are finding that they are working things out with the muslim community, trying to understand their grievances.
This controversy represents the friction of different ideologies between the middle east and the western world.
My question is this, how can there be a debate leading towards understanding if people are afraid to voice their opinions in fear of retaliation? Growth and understanding is a process. I have always been very tolerant and now have to come to terms with my newfound intolerance and try to understand what is going on? I keep hearing about Islam being a peaceful religion but the pictures I see are not very peaceful, I see riots and burning building and death threats and an absolute refusal to talk about things and teach the world where this intense reaction is coming from.
Also, I work with a lot of muslims and other religious people and there has never, ever been any friction or misunderstandings between any of us. On various religious holidays, people who are religious are absent and that's the end of that. Come to think of it maybe New York City should be the example to follow as a model of the modern world.
Also, I am mixed race ( half African-American, half white-Danish) born in the late sixties in Copenhagen (so there has been at least one non white in Denmark in the late sixties). I have written a few books on growing up mixed race in Denmark but haven't shopped them yet. When I grew up I was indeed one of the few colored people. I left Denmark almost eighteen years ago and the population has changed dramatically in those years. There are problems but I guess it takes time for a society to settle and understand the changes and also maybe even redefine what it means to be Danish. Maybe the press have a responsibility in not giving the relatively few extremist (on both sides) in this world the only say in this debate, just because it gives great headlines and sells papers. Who knows, when they show the people rioting in the middles east, if - if they turned the cameras to a different location/angle they would show a different picture of for example a group of people looking on shaking their heads in shame. I don't know.
I believe most people in Denmark have shown solidarity towards the muslims living there and have voiced their support through peaceful demonstrations and public debate.
-NK
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