you may have read about the so-called danish cartoon controversy.
short version: a newspaper in denmark published several cartoons which many muslims found to be offensive. this sparked protests throughout the muslim world and prompted demands from several arab nations that the danish government crack down on the offending newspaper. there have also been large-scale boycotts of danish goods which have apparently hit some danish companies pretty hard.
meanwhile, the controversy has prompted a bit of a backlash among europeans. several newspapers in various other european countries have also published the cartoons as a gesture of free speech. so as protests spread in the middle east and north africa, the cartoons are also spreading across europe.
personally, i think there is an element of misunderstanding on the part of the people protesting the cartoons. the danish government has no power to punish a privately run newspaper for what it publishes. i think part of the problem is that many of the protesters live in countries where the press is either state controlled or subject to sanction if they publish something that the government doesn't like. from their perspective, it seems reasonable to assume that the danish government's refusal to act against the newspaper represents some kind of official sanction of the contents of the cartoon. after all, that's how it would work back in their home countries. but that's not how it works in denmark. that's the misunderstanding that seems to underlie this whole thing.
for similar reasons i think the boycotts are pointless. boycotts hurt the danish economy, so i suppose, they do indirectly hit the handful of individuals who decided to run the cartoons. but the direct targets of the boycotts are danish businesses that have nothing to do with the newspaper. furthermore, the goal of the boycotters, to spur the danish government to take action against the newspaper, is simply unachievable. as i mentioned above, the danish government is required by law to respect freedom of speech and so there really is nothing they could do even if they wanted to.
and all of the above is putting aside the whole question of whether the cartoons justify any sort of reaction at all. everyone can make their own decision on that one. the cartoons themselves are all over the internet. personally, i think the best place to look at them is here, largely because i find the annotation to the cartoons to be helpful (and i happen to agree with what the commentary says). one thing that i find interesting about the cartoons is that three of them (see the 6th, 7th and 12th cartoon in the above link) are really making fun of the controversy itself, rather than mohammed or islam.
it's also interesting how this story has completely dominated the middle eastern and european blogisphere over the past few days. and yet it has barely been mentioned by many u.s. bloggers, at least the ones that i read. it's been a long time since i've seen foreign bloggers obsessing about a story that has made so few waves back here.
for up-to-the-minute updates and an interesting (and polite) discussion about the controversy, i recommend the black iris
and finally, for a different take, see this cartoon. i actually don't agree with what that cartoon is saying. i'm just happy that i understood the whole thing without picking up my dictionary.
