The Mohammed cartoons

Being a Dane and not particularly religious, I'm quite surprised by all the anger those cartoons have caused. There is no doubt in my mind that this crisis has escalated far beyond the cartoons. The only ways this can have spread this far is because someone is using it to further their own agenda.

A group of Danish imams are most likely at least partly to blame for this. They visited various muslim countries and their religious leaders to get them to protest against the drawings. What really bothers me is that they spread a lot of misinformation. Apparently the original cartoons wasn't controversial enough, therefore the imams also showed 3 other pictures the newspaper didn't publish, pictures that are completely unrelated to this controversy. One of the pictures is a picture of a man from a pig festival (yes that apparently exists) that was wearing a pig mask. [Note: I don't know for how long that picture will be available there]

A Danish imam has also been caught saying one thing to arab television and something completely different to danish television right after. You have to wonder why such persons live here? If they really hate the freedom and democrasy that much, what are they doing here?

I hope that doesn't make me sound like a racist - I personally believe that our current imigration laws are way too strict and unfair, but I'm sad to say that certain political parties with such agendas have way to big influence in Danish politics today.

It is also nice to see that there's been peaceful demonstrations here in Denmark against the radical Danish imams to show that those imams don't have the support for all muslims living in Denmark. I honestly believe it is a small minority that is causing all the riots and trouble.

If you want to read a thorough and accurate article about this controversy, you should read Something Is Rotten Outside the State of Denmark. It is a nice overview of what has happened until now.