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January 15, 2006

Denmark: Publishing Those Muslim Cartoons Reflects The Political Climate

The issue of the infamous cartoons of prophet Mohammed, published by the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten, was briefly discussed on the BBC World Service yesterday evening. I snipped off the introduction while I set up to record the program, Reporting Religion which was broadcast yesterday, presented by Rita LaShah. This is my transcript:

Interviewer: "Michael Brodstein is Professor of the History of Religions at the University of Copenhagen."

MB: "I think this is a kind of consequence of the political situation in this country. We have the right-wing government, & the conservative government which is entirely depending on an extremist nationalist party, known as the Danish People's Party, and they are very hostile towards immigration, and are especially hostile towards Moslems."

"So, we have quite a fierce polarisation, where people either dislike or try to accommodate Islam. So, we have this case of the Mohammed drawings in one of the major newspapers - by the way, a right-wing newspaper - and they claim all the time that what they did was in defence of the freedom of speech. But, in context, in political context, there is no doubt in my mind whatsoever, that this was a deliberate provocation, in order to sort of show that "We really don't care about Moslems, and we really don't like them."

Interviewer: "So, on the one hand you've got liberalism and the freedom of speech, on the other hand you've got intolerance, arguably. Why in Denmark are the two clashing?"

MB: "Denmark is a very small country, and right now, it is sort of closing in on itself, sticking to everything Danish and 'everything foreign is bad'. A nationalist tendency is creeping and crawling everywhere."

"We have the strictest immigration laws, we have the reinforcement of everything that is Protestant...Christian, and we have implicit, or even explicit, discrimination of Moslems in this country."

Interviewer: "If there is this intolerance towards minorities and religious minorities in particular, isn't there a role for the main Protestant church in Denmark to play?"

MB: "Oh yes, definitely, and it is playing a very distinctive role , but it's pointing in every possible direction. The Protestant church in this country is the state's church, it's a national church - it's in the constitution. But it has no single voice, and we have priests that are fiercely going against the government and the right-wing political strategy. And we have other priests within the church, that are not only supporting it but creating it - in the sense that members of the church, priests employed by the church, are also members of parliament, elected by the extremist right-wing party, the Danish People's Party."

"So we have priests of so (many) different persuasions, and along with that goes different groups within the church. Some are supportive of the immigrants' rights, some are helping, some are defending them, and some are doing the exact opposite."

Interviewer: "So, from the picture you paint, it seems that this one episode is symptomatic of a much wider problem, but it doesn't bode terribly well for religious minorities in Denmark, in the future."

MB: "Well the thing is that our formal legislation and the way religious minorities are treated in the general legal system is actually quite good. And most people probably don't feel any kind of discrimination in their everyday lives."

"Now this is all about Muslims, not about Jews, or Hindus, or Scientology or Moonies or what have you - this is about Moslems. They are the target right now, for one reason or another."

"And then of course, it's not exactly a religion, but the immigration laws will always select in a way that makes Muslims those who are 'at the back of the line'."

Interviewer: "Professor Michael Brodstein".

Posted by Giraldus Cambrensis at January 15, 2006 6:30 PM

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