It wasn’t idyllic enough for the Danes to have a fairy tale existence – Hans Christian Andersen, peace, prosperity, milk, butter, cheese and Lego. They had to get into the middle of this !
"From the burning of its flag to a boycott of its brands of butter and cookies, Denmark is feeling Islamic outrage over newspaper cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad.
The anger is reminiscent of the 1989 wrath that followed publication of The Satanic Verses, the Salman Rushdie novel that radicals said insulted Islam. Iran’s Ayatollah Ruhollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against the British writer.
"This will be used by regimes who resent Western pressures to reform to say that the West is waging a war against Muslims and doesn’t have their best interests at heart," Sulaiman al-Hattlan, a Dubai-based Saudi writer, said.
The Danish paper Jyllands-Posten first published the 12 cartoons Sept. 30. The drawings included one showing Muhammad wearing a turban shaped as a bomb with a lit fuse. Another portrayed him with a bushy gray beard and holding a sword, his eyes covered by a black rectangle. A third pictured a middle-aged prophet standing in the desert with a walking stick, in front of a donkey and a sunset.
Islamic tradition bars any depiction of the prophet.
Saudi Arabia recalled its ambassador to Denmark and initiated a boycott of Danish goods. It was warned Monday by Trade Commissioner Peter Mandelson that the European Union would take action if the boycott persisted.
Jyllands-Posten editor-in-chief Carsten Juste said in a statement posted on the newspaper’s Web site.
Few were swayed. "In (the West) it is considered freedom of speech if they insult Islam and Muslims," Mohammed al-Shaibani, a columnist, wrote in Kuwait’s Al-Qabas daily Monday. "But such freedom becomes racism and a breach of human rights and anti-Semitism if Arabs and Muslims criticize their religion and religious laws."
Accidental Blogger 