Book contents
4 - The Danish Cartoon Affair
Published online by Cambridge University Press: 21 November 2020
Summary
We so much value our democracy that we want to export it to Afghanistan. To avoid spilling the lives of the boys we send there we have to defend our democracy here first.
Kurt WestergaardThe Rushdie fatwa certainly announced a new era of a sort, an era in which Western governments were only too happy to play down the value of free expression in favor of realpolitik in the interests of social cohesion at home and international trade and cooperation.
Caspar MelvilleThe most direct attempt to destroy the principle of free speech is to openly announce that you will kill anyone who writes something that offends your own religious sensibilities. An eerie example of this practice is found in what has been identified as an “Al Qaeda glossy”, a magazine entitled Inspire, which popped up on the internet around July 2010. On page 25 under the title “The dust will never settle down” a list of names is presented on what looks like an old film-poster, including Lars Vilks, Flemming Rose, Geert Wilders, Salman Rushdie, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Kurt Westergaard, and Molly Norris. The names are accompanied by a picture of a shotgun. According to the security services of several European countries, Inspire is probably made in Yemen. The makers’ message is spelled out under the list of targets: “If you have the right to slander the Messenger of Allah, we have the right to defend him. It is part of your freedom of speech to defame Muhammad, it is part of our religion to fight you.”
A year later another “hit list” with Geert Wilders's name on it surfaced on the internet. The Dutch National Coordinator for Security and Counterterrorism was to conduct research to assess the severity of the situation, the Dutch newspaper Algemeen Dagblad revealed.
In March 2013 the magazine renewed its threats against Wilders. The March edition of Inspire offered an item entitled “Wanted: Dead or Alive” that gave a list of names including – besides Wilders – Molly Norris, Ayaan Hirsi Ali, Flemming Rose, Salman Rushdie, Lars Vilks, Terry Jones, and Kurt Westergaard. Geert Wilders, misspelled “Girt”, is in fourth place on the pastiche film poster.
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- Theoterrorism v. Freedom of SpeechFrom Incident to Precedent, pp. 97 - 122Publisher: Amsterdam University PressPrint publication year: 2019