COPENHAGEN, 12 February 2006 — This diminutive nation with an offbeat sense of humor and a strong self-image of cultural tolerance is not accustomed to having its flag burned, embassies stormed and coat of arms pelted with eggs.
But Denmark has become a target for the Muslim world’s outrage at cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad.
The scope and intensity of the violence ignited by the caricatures, first printed in September by the right-leaning Jyllands-Posten newspaper, and reprinted more recently in other Western publications, have left this country bewildered.
“A lot of Danes have problems understanding what is going on and why people in those countries reacted this way,’’ said Morton Rixen, a philosophy student, looking out his window at a city awhirl in angst and snow. “We’re used to seeing American flags and pictures of George Bush being burned, but we’ve always seen ourselves as a more tolerant nation. We’re in shock to now be in the center of this.’’
Danes suspect the furor over the cartoons has been coopted by the wider anti-Western agenda of Middle East extremism. Yet they believe the pictures have cracked the veneer of their nation and exacerbated a debate about immigration, freedom of expression, religious tolerance, and a vaunted perception of racial harmony often disputed by immigrants.
Denmark is a small portrait of Europe’s struggle to integrate a Muslim population that has doubled since the late-1980s and dotted the continent with headscarves and back-alley mosques. The cartoons were sketched in an atmosphere of rising Muslim discontent, a surge in strength for the anti-immigration Danish People’s Party, a commitment to keeping Danish troops in Iraq and the arrests here of suspected militants with ties to Al-Qaeda.
Some people worry that anti-immigrant political parties are exploiting the burnings of Danish embassies in Lebanon, Syria and Iran to promote a xenophobic agenda. “Racism is suddenly popping up in this country,’’ said Merete Ronnow, a nurse who worked in Danish relief efforts in Lebanon and Afghanistan. “I’m stunned by this. It’s like now Danes can express exactly what they feel. My colleagues are saying, ‘Look, this is how a Muslim acts. This is what a Muslim does.’’’
Recent polls reflect a country of torn emotions, and doubt. The Danish People’s Party has gained three percentage points, but so has its nemesis, the Radical Left Party. A newspaper headline this week blamed Bush and British Prime Minister Tony Blair for not supporting Denmark through the ordeal. And nearly 80 percent of Danes believe a terrorist attack looms.
“I don’t know what to do. It’s amazing to see the Danish flag being burned,’’ said Michael Hansen, an engineer. “It’s not fear, it’s more anxiety. There have been terror attacks in the US, Spain and in Britain. We are the logical fourth. If they forgot about us, they’ve remembered now.’’
Hansen’s roommate, Martin Yhlen, said: “The whole cartoon thing was a ridiculous provocation. The newspaper knew before they published it that people would be extremely upset. You do have freedom of speech but with that comes a moral obligation. It doesn’t benefit integration in Europe. It widens the divide.’’
Even Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen seems baffled. “We’re seeing ourselves characterized as intolerant people or as enemies of Islam as a religion. That picture is false,’’ he said Tuesday during a news conference. “We’re facing a growing global crisis that has the potential to escalate beyond the control of governments and other authorities,’’ he said. “Extremists and radicals who seek a clash of cultures are spreading it. ... These are trying times for the Danish people.’’
Protests by European Muslims have been more muted than rallies and demonstrations held in the Middle East. For Denmark’s 200,000 Muslims — out of a total population of 5.4 million — democratic values and reverence for the Prophet can conflict. Their struggle with a tricky cultural divide often goes unappreciated by native Danes, according to Muslim leaders.
Rightist politicians and commentators, meanwhile, often blame Muslim immigrants for burdening the welfare state while making only cursory efforts to integrate. These sentiments have grown stronger as the populist Danish People’s Party has become the nation’s third most powerful party.
“Twenty-five percent of all children in Copenhagen and more than 10 percent of all children in Denmark are being born to non-Danish mothers. What is happening is a gradual scooping out of the Danish population,’’ Mogens Camre, a member of the Danish People’s Party and the European Parliament, said in 2004.
“Islam is threatening our future. ‘’
A cultural backlash might may be underway. Martin Yhlen has tried to hide the fact that he is a Dane. Studying international development, Yhlen was working on his thesis in Yemen when the cartoon uproar swept the Middle East. Passions grew and the Danish flag went aflame. The Danish Foreign Ministry told him to leave.
“The first week there was normal,’’ he said. “But then this thing came and we said we were Germans and Swedes so we wouldn’t have to talk about it. It’s strange for us. Danes were always welcome in the Middle East, but now we’re not. We’ve never seen this before. We’ve seen it with the US and Israel, but not quiet little Denmark.’’
