And the Danish flag keeps burning...

Hello! Kiev, Ukraine, February 3, 2006

The Danish flag is known to be the oldest official flag in the world. It dates back to 1219. So far the flag has been pretty unknown to most of the world, but that's definitely changing these days!

Now the Danish flag seems to be on every news site online. Not because the Danish men's handball team made it to the semifinal in the European Championship and not because the next Crownprince Christian was just baptized, but because of some drawings of Islam's prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. And the flags are not being waved in triumph, no they are burned the same way we've seen so many Stars and Stripes being set on fire in the Middle East.

Wow......people setting the Danish flag on fire....Danish footballers losing out on a new contract because they come from Denmark....boycott of all kinds of Danish products....and lies being told everywhere in the Islamic world about Denmark...

It seems pretty extreme!! I don't think it was the brightest idea in the world to bring 12 caricatures of Muhammad - some of which were pretty sarcastic and disrespectful to say the least. But it was hardly the crime it is being made out to be either.

Let's look at some facts:
- Denmark is a country with a strong tradition for a very free press!
- Most of the drawings that have been published in the Islamic world and which cause the harshest reactions have NEVER been published in Jyllands-Posten!
- Jyllands-Posten is a privately owned, commercial newspaper and it is NOT owned by the Danish state!
- Danes are NOT burning the Quran, falsifying it or any of the things that have been mentioned in Arabic newspapers!

I know that it's a crime for a Muslim to draw pictures of Allah or Muhammad, but Denmark is not a Muslim country. As already mentioned I don't think it was a good idea to publish the drawings.

But what is the reasons behind the massive hatred going towards a tiny country these days? It's about something bigger than just drawings, isn't it? What is the real issue?

There is something bigger going on here. A lot of European newspapers have published the drawings to show their solidarity with Jyllands-Posten, but also to show that they want to fight for the right to make caricatures of whoever they choose to. For secular people this is a fight between religion and freedom of the press. For secular people freedom of the press is one of the highest powers in the post-post-modern secular nation, where religion is rarely mentioned and definitely never defines what the press can and cannot print. Muslims have a different practice where Islam is over everything including the press.

But what about a Christian perspective? What do we have to say. I think this whole case very clearly shows some of the differences between Islam or any other religion and Christianity. How many times have we seen drawings, movies, pieces of art, etc. mocking Jesus in ways that make Jyllands-Posten's caricatures of Mohammad look like nothing?

I'm writing a longer article on this whole subject with differences between Christianity and other religions. Watch out: it might end up on this blog soon!:-)

But for now: please stop burning my flag! I and the other 5,5 million Danes ARE NOT responsible for what one, commercial newspaper decides to print. The pictures today where the Danish embassy in Damascus, Syria was burned to the ground are absolutely horrible, and I can only hope and pray that no blood has to be shed over this issue.

Gud bevare Danmark - God bless Denmark!

http://www.jp.dk/english_news/

Check out the Danish newspaper's website with news in English and make up your own mind!

Torben