RELIGION: Danish MP Sees Conspiracy, And Hope

By Sanjay Suri Reprint | | Print |

Sanjay Suri

COPENHAGEN, May 4 2006 (IPS) - Socialist Danish Member of Parliament Kamal Qureshi says the cartoons controversy was a part of a right-wing conspiracy, but that people are now seeing through it.

”I think it’s important for people to know that the cartoons were not the problem itself,” Qureshi, member of the Socialist People’s Party told IPS in an interview. ”The cartoons were the symbol of a very xenophobic agenda that has been going on which is led by the Danish Peoples Party, which is a radical, racist party in the Danish parliament.”

This party strongly influences the government because it supports the ruling coalition, Qureshi said. ”If the Danish Peoples Party withdraws their support to the government, the government will fall. So therefore it has huge influence on the Danish government’s immigration policies and the way the discussions on immigration are being tackled.”

The cartoons were a symbol of the trend, he said. ”The cartoons were produced by a very right-wing newspaper in Denmark, Jyllands-Posten, and it was a part of the newspaper’s policy to make a confrontation against the culture of immigrations, mostly Muslims, that the newspaper had waged over a long period.”

Qureshi sees no formal link between the newspaper and the government, but he sees them as members of the same club.

”The cartoon that has created the most controversy, the cartoon with the turban with the bomb in, was not produced by a freelance cartoonist, it was produced by the newspaper’s own drawer,” he said. ”So the newspaper intended, intended as it wrote, to tell the Muslim community that you have to stand humiliation, you have to stand being ridiculed in the discussion.”

The same newspaper, he said, had earlier refused to publish cartoons of Jesus Christ, or of the holocaust. ”So this was a political statement, this was not a statement of freedom of speech.”

The right to freedom of speech cannot be questioned, Qureshi said. ”I have never questioned the newspaper’s right to print the cartoons. I think that in a democratic society, I have to as a politician protect the right of people to be stupid. It’s a right that people can misuse to do stupid things. And still you have to protect the right to do that. So I think the cartoons themselves would not have created such a mess if the other things had not followed.”

Those came from the government, he said, such as the refusal by the Prime Minister to meet 11 ambassadors of Muslim countries. The anger of the Muslims was stoked also by Danish policies towards Islam that differ radically from those in other Scandinavian and European countries, he said.

”I think it’s very important to know why this happened in Denmark, and why this didn’t happen in some other country,” said the Pakistan-born Qureshi. At the root of the cartoons, the complaints and the refusal to meet the ambassadors was ”the general xenophobic tendency in Denmark.”

An estimated 150,000 Muslims in Denmark still do not have a mosque to go to.

”The approach in Norway and Sweden towards the ethnic minorities has been completely different,” Qureshi said. ”Sweden created a mosque many, many years ago in one of the biggest cities. In Denmark there is still to be built a mosque where the Muslims can go and have their prayers.”

In Sweden you have an understanding of the benefits of people who speak other languages, he said. ”In Sweden the Social Democrat Party has won the election again and again on this approach whereas in Denmark for the parties to have such influence has only made the Danish People’s Party agenda more strong, and the parties that have an international approach have become weakened by it.”

Democracy is not just about the majority’s right to decide, he said. ”It’s also about the majority’s respect for the minorities.”

In the aftermath of the controversy and the violence, Muslims are apprehensive, he said. ”I think the Muslim community right now in Denmark is very afraid that it may become a scapegoat, and that the xenophobia could increase. That is the worst scenario. And if there should come a terrorist attack in Denmark, things can blow up.”

A lot of people in Denmark are as a result very concerned about building an understanding between Muslims and the rest, Qureshi said. ”So we are seeing two levels. The government level where the government with the Danish People’s Party are keeping up the xenophobic agenda they had before the crisis started – and which was a reason for the crisis to start – and the general population which has started talking for a more human and understanding agenda.”

So alongside a xenophobic agenda ”you’re seeing a movement that is growing in the population, that is growing against that. So I think things can turn out to be in a positive atmosphere.”