Cartoonist gets unfairly targeted

Posted on March 4, 2010 by Matt Moran, Staff columnist

Kurt Westergaard, a 74-year-old Dane, lives in Arhus, Denmark, a city of about 230,000 on the eastern coast of the country. His house is outfitted with reinforced bullet-proof glass on all the windows, steel doors and a panic room, which he has had to use once.
Police follow him to and from work and his protection is performed by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.
Two attempts have been made on his life, one was foiled by the Danish security organization and the other required Kurt to flee to his panic room to avoid being butchered by a Somali immigrant to Denmark wielding an axe and a knife.
What is this man’s profession? Clearly he lives under constant danger and therefore it would be reasonable to assume he is a controversial government employee or perhaps he rubbed an organized crime group the wrong way.
Reasonable as these assumptions might be, his actual profession is far simpler.
He is a cartoonist, employed by the Danish newspaper The Jutland Post.
Kurt has been an active cartoonist for since the mid-1980’s, but is well known for a single cartoon which appeared, along with 11 others, in The Jutland Post on September 30, 2005. The cartoon in question depicted a Muslim man, presumably Muhammad, looking quite deranged and wearing a bomb for a turban.
Offensive and in poor taste, no doubt, but the madness which ensued forces one to side with the artist.
The Danish embassies in Iran, Lebanon and Syria were burned, constituting a direct attack on diplomatic immunity, one of the most sacred principles in international relations.
Roughly 100 people were killed in riots which included burning of Danish and other flags and featured signs such as “be prepared for the real Holocaust” and “behead those who insult Islam.” It should go without saying that these sentiments don’t represent the views of all or even most Muslims, but the flagrant disregard for freedom of speech, a freedom which fully exists in no Muslim country, is chilling.
Further, for an artist in a tiny secular democracy in northern Europe to face death by an axe for a cartoon, regardless of the content, is absurd and barbaric.
Where are the riots when cartoons of Former Israeil Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a man I dislike intensely, appear in the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper showing him chopping up Palestinian children with a swatika-shapped axe?
Or when a cartoon appears in a supposedly moderate Saudi newspaper, called Arab News, which shows rats with Stars of David on their heads infesting a Palestinian home?
The people who burned the Danish embassy in Damascus want for themselves a right they will extend to no other; imagine the reaction if the Israelis burned the Jordanian or Egyptian (the only Arab countries which recognize Israel) embassy any time an anti-Semitic image appears in their press.
Fanatical Muslims attacking artists is not new. Salman Rushdie, an Indian author who writes in English, lived in hiding for nine years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against him.
Theo van Gogh, a descendant of Vincent van Gogh, was shot in the streets of Amsterdam and butchered with a knife, which was then plunged in to his chest, pinning a death threat to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.
Ali and van Gogh made a short film condemning the rampant physical abuse of women among Muslim immigrant populations in the Netherlands; drawing attention to this, evidently, warrants a death sentence.
Recently, and sadly, The Jutland Post has apologized for the publishing of the cartoons.
No apologies were made to the Danish government for the destruction of their embassies, nor has a single Arab newspaper apologized for the intense anti-Semitism which is published daily.
Perhaps if the reaction had been different, we could have a serious discussion about how disrespectful the Muhammad cartoons were, but given the enormity of the hypocrisy by the Arab press, as well as the governments of Iran, Syria and Lebanon, such a discussion is impossible.
That violence should be used against an artist is an absurdity and that the newspaper which published his work should have to apologize is a travesty to freedom of speech.
If all sides in a dispute can’t simply say that it is wrong for a man to be killed because of what he says or draws, there is no point in even having a discussion. Oh well, that’s why there are panic rooms.
Matt Moran is a sophomore history major from Pittsburgh, Penn.

Kurt Westergaard, a 74-year-old Dane, lives in Arhus, Denmark, a city of about 230,000 on the eastern coast of the country. His house is outfitted with reinforced bullet-proof glass on all the windows, steel doors and a panic room, which he has had to use once.

Police follow him to and from work and his protection is performed by the Danish Security and Intelligence Service.

Two attempts have been made on his life, one was foiled by the Danish security organization and the other required Kurt to flee to his panic room to avoid being butchered by a Somali immigrant to Denmark wielding an axe and a knife.

What is this man’s profession? Clearly he lives under constant danger and therefore it would be reasonable to assume he is a controversial government employee or perhaps he rubbed an organized crime group the wrong way.

Reasonable as these assumptions might be, his actual profession is far simpler.

He is a cartoonist, employed by the Danish newspaper The Jutland Post.

Kurt has been an active cartoonist for since the mid-1980’s, but is well known for a single cartoon which appeared, along with 11 others, in The Jutland Post on September 30, 2005. The cartoon in question depicted a Muslim man, presumably Muhammad, looking quite deranged and wearing a bomb for a turban.

Offensive and in poor taste, no doubt, but the madness which ensued forces one to side with the artist.

The Danish embassies in Iran, Lebanon and Syria were burned, constituting a direct attack on diplomatic immunity, one of the most sacred principles in international relations.

Roughly 100 people were killed in riots which included burning of Danish and other flags and featured signs such as “be prepared for the real Holocaust” and “behead those who insult Islam.” It should go without saying that these sentiments don’t represent the views of all or even most Muslims, but the flagrant disregard for freedom of speech, a freedom which fully exists in no Muslim country, is chilling.

Further, for an artist in a tiny secular democracy in northern Europe to face death by an axe for a cartoon, regardless of the content, is absurd and barbaric.

Where are the riots when cartoons of Former Israeil Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, a man I dislike intensely, appear in the Palestinian Authority’s official newspaper showing him chopping up Palestinian children with a swatika-shapped axe?

Or when a cartoon appears in a supposedly moderate Saudi newspaper, called Arab News, which shows rats with Stars of David on their heads infesting a Palestinian home?

The people who burned the Danish embassy in Damascus want for themselves a right they will extend to no other; imagine the reaction if the Israelis burned the Jordanian or Egyptian (the only Arab countries which recognize Israel) embassy any time an anti-Semitic image appears in their press.

Fanatical Muslims attacking artists is not new. Salman Rushdie, an Indian author who writes in English, lived in hiding for nine years after the Ayatollah Khomeini issued a death sentence against him.

Theo van Gogh, a descendant of Vincent van Gogh, was shot in the streets of Amsterdam and butchered with a knife, which was then plunged in to his chest, pinning a death threat to Ayaan Hirsi Ali.

Ali and van Gogh made a short film condemning the rampant physical abuse of women among Muslim immigrant populations in the Netherlands; drawing attention to this, evidently, warrants a death sentence.

Recently, and sadly, The Jutland Post has apologized for the publishing of the cartoons.

No apologies were made to the Danish government for the destruction of their embassies, nor has a single Arab newspaper apologized for the intense anti-Semitism which is published daily.

Perhaps if the reaction had been different, we could have a serious discussion about how disrespectful the Muhammad cartoons were, but given the enormity of the hypocrisy by the Arab press, as well as the governments of Iran, Syria and Lebanon, such a discussion is impossible.

That violence should be used against an artist is an absurdity and that the newspaper which published his work should have to apologize is a travesty to freedom of speech.

If all sides in a dispute can’t simply say that it is wrong for a man to be killed because of what he says or draws, there is no point in even having a discussion. Oh well, that’s why there are panic rooms.

Matt Moran is a sophomore history major from Pittsburgh, Penn.