Cartoon Controversy

I’ve been following all the hoo-haw over the caricatures published last October in a Danish newspaper . I’ve been having a hard time finding any non-biased discussions of the whole mess in the blogsphere. I’ve found tons of right-wing Danish sites . I’ve found various other sites which are generically anti-islamic but only one site that seems to be more or less neutral on the whole religiosity debate. It’s a cartoonists’s blog, though, so it’s not without its own special bias. This page has it’s own take on things which I found interesting as well.

So all questions about freedom of expression aside – since I believe that the paper had every right to publish those caricatures and their government has no right to punish them for it as long as they have broken no laws – my question would be: What was the real reason for publishing those cartoons? Was it indeed a test of freedom of expression? Or was it a deliberate attempt to slam Muslims? It depends on who you ask, it seems.

According to Euro-islam.info , Denmark has a fairly shady record with regard to its treatment of Muslims. That site claims that discrimination is common. Women in head scarves are denied access to public transportation. People with Arab-sounding names are not asked to job interviews, etc.

Some of the right-wing Danish sites claim that rape is on the uprise and that it’s all because of the Muslims. They also claim that the Muslims sit around on welfare and don’t want to work. Heck, who does? But, I digress. . . One hesitates to point out that it may be difficult to find a job if having an arab-sounding name prevents you from being invited to job interviews.

One of the good and bad things about blogging is that you can pretty much say whatever you want. You don’t have to cite references or say where your information is coming from. You don’t even have to have references! You can just make stuff up! As much fun as that is, it does make finding out the real truth a bit difficult sometimes. I have found many references to the problem of rape in Sweden (not Denmark), but they can almost all be attributed back to the same post .

So, for now, I will close by saying that death threats are bad. Rape is bad. Religious intolerance is … well, let’s face it, intolerance is inevitable in any situation where belief is expected to trump reality, but it’s still bad, mkay?