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Blasphemy in Denmark: Is "the West" Getting Sucked Back Into a World of Blasphemy Laws?
If you should ever choose to set up a simple Google Alert on the terms "blasphemy" or "religious violence", you may expect to receive an exhausting flood of information on a daily basis. However, you will soon develop a
kind of appreciation of the scale and nature of the problem.
Recently there is an example of the case of a Danish man that is now facing charges of blasphemy. Here are a few story links:
It is essential to note that Denmark is the home to Jyllands-Posten, a fact that has been noted in the smattering of media coverage the situation has received to date. While it isn't necessary to elaborate to CFIC members regarding the place that Jyllands-Posten holds in the recent global history of blasphemy, it may be valuable to remind you of some of the perspective of that history shared by Christopher Hitchens in one of his many recorded debates (and particularly his comments beginning around the nineteen minute mark):
Not one major media outlet, print or broadcast, has yet shown you what the Danish cartoons actually look like. Yale University Press, which commissioned a book on them which was to include the cartoons - as how could it not? - eventually panicked. Yale University Press panicked and published the book without the cartoons over the objections of its author. Everybody knows what I'm talking about. The President of the United States and head of the Joint Chiefs a few days ago were so pulverized with fear that they had to address personally in pleading tones a Christian nut-bag in Florida who might have been or who might not have been about to commit a minor act of blasphemy. Is this the culture that Islam wants us to have in relation to it? One of, if you like, preemptive submission; preemptive cowering backed by the fear of force? Because that is not multiculturalism. That's nothing like the gorgeous mosaic. That's actually the absolute negation of what a multi-cultural system would be like.....
and followed by the observation of the political scenario that took place in Denmark at that time (approximately the 31-and-half minute mark of the video)
In the case of the moral blackmail of Denmark that was backed up by a physical threat to destroy its economy and burn its embassies around the world - a well coordinated attack of sabotage against a small European democracy. The organizing group was a thing called the OIC, the Organization of the Islamic Congress, groups all the Muslim countries in the world; an increasingly powerful lobby at the United Nations; hopes to pass an International resolution forbidding all criticism of religion, all forms of blasphemy and profanity. Every ambassador of those countries in Copenhagen went to Mr. Rasmussen, the Prime Minister of Denmark, and told him under the threat of violence he should change his law so as to allow him to determine what went into the Danish newspapers. And when he said he couldn't do that, things got a lot worse. Now that's the Ambassador of Egypt, the Ambassador of Turkey and the Ambassador of Algeria. Important countries, in the case of Egypt, containing an enormous Christian population coming to you as if they spoke for a religion. Either this claim its true or it is not. I think it is self-evidently not true. But it is certainly made. Don't let's be in any doubt about it and don't let's have any doubt that it means to extend its influence over the people who are sitting in this hall.
While a man is charged with blasphemy in Denmark - the Canadian government is faced with the task to determine whether Criminal Code Section 296, Canada's outdated blasphemous libel law should finally be struck out of the Criminal Code.
There are many people who brush off Canada's blasphemous libel law as "dead". While it is still possible to write letters to elected officials on the matter, we must ask ourselves if this is truly so. Is it true that Canadians are free from the fear of criminal prosecution on the basis of blasphemy? Do we genuinely think that Canadian multiculturalism is strong enough to protect secular human rights and freedoms from the influence of theocratic authorities and forces? Do we think that we are secure, individually and collectively, from threats of violence and silencing by people who find our views disagreeable - or horror of horrors, actually offensive?
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