Cold Atmosphere

Sunday is a day for solving cross-word-puzzles. A good breakfast in good company and the Sunday paper. The rest of the day I have worked hard at doing nothing and succeeded rather well, except for a couple of hours in the kitchen doing some cleaning.

The whole world seems to be celebrating Mozart's birthday. Good concerts on both radio and TV all over, Swedish radio has even had an extra radio channel going with Mozart and nothing else.

The more serious part of life is the problems that have risen since a Danish newspaper asked several Danish artists make pictures of the prophet and published them. It is not customary, in fact not allowed, to publish pictures of Mohammed. This happened some time ago and there have been heated discussions here since. Several foreign ambassadors here asked to meet with the Prime Minister, but he refused. Several Danish ambassadors sent a letter to the PM, he reacted in a rather unfriendly way. The Danish government does not want to treat other people's religion respectfully, at least not if it is a non-Christian religion. Freedom of speech is more important than respect for other people's believes.

Starting in Saudi Arabia, people have been boycotting Danish products and it is spreading fast in the region. The government here has criticized the Saudi Government, and they have answered that this is not their initiative. And Saudi citizens say: You have freedom of speech, we have the freedom to chose what we want to purchase and what we would rather leave on the shelves or even not have on the shelves at all. It turns out that shopowners have removed Danish goods from their shops.

The Danish government wont budge, the newspaper will not apologize, says they are sorry if they hurt someone's feelings. And now the EU is getting involved.

I find it truly amazing, when the situation in the world is so volatile, that a Danish newspaper would chose to act in such a way. And even more so that the government acts the way it does. It is in a way, not surprising. Since the Conservatives and Liberals got elected in November 2001, the climate here has gone from bad to worse. They are supported by a far right party that has said that they would prefer a Denmark free from foreigners. Maybe that includes me?!