Watching Danish flags burn in Pakistan and Gaza as a response to the republication of the Mohammed cartoons, it is easy to conclude that nothing has changed since the original publication. But that would be wrong for lessons have been learned.
This time the Danes are more united and more determined to defend their own freedoms.
This time the Danish press acted as one. 23 newspapers reprinted the cartoons on the same day.
The message of defiance was clear and inhibited the ability of politicians to kow tow to Muslim "sensitivities."
Iranian failure to take this into account led to its humiliating rebuff. The Foreign Affairs Committee of the Danish parliament was about to visit their Iranian counterparts. The Iranian Parliamentarians notified their future guests that they will refuse to meet with them unless an apology for the republication of the cartoons precedes the Danish MPs. The Danes responded by canceling the visit.
Cultural understanding, they insisted, is a two way street.
"The Iranian Parliament wanted our delegation to present an official
apology to Iran. We said 'absolutely not'...We cannot do that, it would be a
violation of freedom of expression," the committee's deputy chairman Jeppe Kofod
said.
The nine members of the foreign policy committee were to visit Iran
from Monday to Wednesday to discuss human rights and Iran's nuclear program.
"They told us they would not meet us unless we apologized. And they
knew we would not present any apology, they know our democracy doesn't work that way," Mr Kofod said.
According to my Danish friend, they were even more empathetic:
The committee unanimously refused to deliver an apology for what Danish
free media prints, and has canceled the planed trip to Iran, and has on public
TV said that the Iranians must be nuts (Yes, these were the words), to come up
with such demands, and that there's no way Danish politicians are going to visit
the country under such conditions.
Further more a dictatorship should not impose demands on a free
democracy such as Denmark.
Danes have also began to figure out novel legal ways to deal with young Muslim arsonists who continue to riot for the sixth night.
Some common Danes take out their digital cameras and film the youngsters (mainly
second generation disaffected immigrants 13 to 18 years old). They, then, mail
the pictures to the police, who more and less then can drive home to the
criminals and pick them up.
It is easy to write off free people. The democratic diffusion of power makes it more difficult to organize. Still, given a bit of time they do and when they have always won. The behavior of little Denmark gives us hope that they will continue to do so.
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