Letter from Denmark

From a friend I met at Tavistock:

Thank you so much for your email!

The hype here is unbelievable, because of the cartoons!

I think the Danes are really surprised and maybe a little confused about how a couple of stupid drawings can start such a conflict.   Personally I am sickened by the hypocrisy here in Denmark - on the one hand we cannot believe why the Muslims are so offended by the drawings and why
they burn our flag, when we are just a little democratic country with nice and decent citizens who always help other countries in need - while on the other hand the ultra right wing (some would say borderline racist) party would win many more seats in parliament if there was an election tomorrow. And the general fear of muslim people is increasing.

I don't now - but I do now that I think the newspaper knew excatly what they were doing, when they did it - and they didn't care!

Comments

[nathan]

"I think the Danes are really surprised and maybe a little confused about how a couple of stupid drawings can start such a conflict."

I sometimes wonder if the long-term secularisation of Europe has resulted in a very naive generation, with no idea about how passionately people can see their religion and its relationship to politics.

[your aspirant]

there seems to be a general lack of respect for the things that are "holy" or meaningful to others - crosses in urine, excrement on pictures of Mother Mary, and now this, as yet unseen by Americans, cartoon of Mohammed. There are things that cross the line of good taste and politeness.

[J. C. Fisher]

... and there seems to be a lack of respect, that people may understand "respect" very differently.

Take the infamous case of "excrement on pictures of Mother Mary": how offensive. How vulgar.

Or was it??? The artist, first of all, was a practicing Roman Catholic. Secondly, he was a native African, and the "excrement"---dried elephant dung---must be understood in that context. As something highly valuable: life-saving fuel, on a cold night, or to cook your food.

While I've (sadly) forgotten the artist's name, I haven't forgotten the word that he used to describe the role of the dung in his picture of "The Mother of God" (his title). The dung wasn't "smeared" or "splatted" on the picture. He said that the picture was festooned w/ it.

Context: it's a beautiful thing.

[Now, can everyone, of every faith and ideology, just increase the peace already? ;-/]