Features » March 28, 2008

Caricaturing Danish Muslims

By Jacob Wheeler

Asmaa Abdol-Hamid lost her bid for parliament last year after the right-wing Danish People's Party targeted her for refusing to remove her hijab or shake hands with men.

In early 2006, violence across the Islamic world rocked the quaint Scandinavian country of Denmark after one of its major newspapers, Jyllands-Posten, published inflammatory cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad months earlier. The images enraged many Muslims, some of whom burned Danish flags and embassies to protest the caricatures of their prophet, which Islam forbids from being depicted at all.

One of the 12 caricatures of Muhammad depicted a man with a bomb under his turban—a move presumably designed to provoke debate about Islam’s relationship with the West.

Few understand this clash of cultures as well as Asmaa Abdol-Hamid, a Danish immigrant born in the United Arab Emirates to Palestinian parents. The 26-year-old social worker from Odense (the city where writer Hans Christian Anderson was born) ran for parliament last year with the leftist Red-Green Alliance party, but came up short after the right-wing Danish People’s Party launched a smear campaign against her. The reason? Abdol-Hamid wears a hijab and she chooses not to shake hands with men—even in parliament.

Denmark is home to 5.4 million people, nearly 200,000 of whom are first- or second-generation Muslim immigrants. Though Denmark prides itself as a tolerant and open nation—with a welfare state, socialized medicine and once welcoming immigration policies—many of the country’s religious minorities see things differently.

In These Times spoke with Asmaa Abdol-Hamid just days after the infamous caricatures were reprinted in more than a dozen Danish newspapers, following reports of renewed death threats against the illustrator of the bomb-in-the-turban cartoon, Kurt Vestergaard.

What are the biggest challenges that minorities face in Denmark today?

The biggest challenge for Danish Muslims is to be viewed as equal citizens. What I experienced following the cartoon crisis and the worldwide reactions to them is that young Muslims in Denmark are afraid something awful will happen to them. They are just waiting for their turn, and that’s truly scary.

But Muslims in Denmark are Danish citizens. They will live here for the rest of their lives and raise their children here. We have to teach people that they are equal.

Too many people believe that you can’t be a Dane and a Muslim at the same time, especially the Danish People’s Party. But today, many Danes are connected to Islam. Their religion isn’t a barrier to them being good citizens in the Danish community. So we have to view Denmark today in a different light.

The policies promoted by the People’s Party clearly perpetuate a genuine ignorance about Muslims in Denmark. It’s a dangerous development.

How about your own religious faith as a Danish Muslim woman?

My mother brought my five sisters and brother and me to Denmark from the United Arab Emirates. My father came later. We lived in a town called Genner, on the rural Danish mainland, where we were the only Muslims in town.

I am religious. The more I learn about Islam, the easier I find it to be a citizen of Denmark, because many of the values are shared. Danish values stem from, or are inspired by, Christian values. Many of those values are universal. Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are representative of democratic societies but are also representative of Islam. They merge. I think it’s actually easier to be a Muslim in Denmark than it is to be a Muslim in other places, such as the Middle East.

Many think of you as the politician who won’t take off her hijab or shake hands with men in parliament. What’s your response to that?

I do greet men, but I do it with my hand on my heart. I do it in a manner that shows them honesty and respect.

When I met Morten Messerschmidt, an incumbent member of the Danish People’s Party, for a televised debate, he waited until we were on the air before he extended his hand toward me, saying he wanted to shake my hand, even though he knew I wouldn’t do it. I told him that I would greet him with my hand on my heart to show him honesty and respect. You do the same to me, I told him. But he just walked out the door.

What’s important is not how we greet each other, but the values we emphasize when we meet.

As to whether I’d take off my hijab, it’s my personal choice not to. It’s my freedom as a woman to wear it, and I won’t let myself be intimidated by the right-wing politicians in Denmark—or by primitive men from my own background.

I am a free woman who has the right to decide over my own body and my own clothing. I have decided to wear a hijab, and in a free democratic society, that choice ought to be respected.

Why didn’t you win enough votes to gain a seat in parliament last fall?

When I was asked to run for a parliamentary seat by the Red-Green Alliance party, I accepted because I have many social and political ambitions for Denmark. When I campaign politically, I forget that I’m wearing a hijab. That doesn’t define who I am; it’s just a part of my clothing.

But the way I dress was met with resistance, and I was asked if I would continue to wear the hijab if I entered parliament. My answer was, “Of course I will.”

On the campaign trail I was asked about my religion and about Muslims in general. Those questions showed me what kind of situation we have in Denmark. When we question those campaigning for parliament on their religion, that reflects a dangerous polarity in a democracy. Democracy is for all people.

Suddenly, there were parliamentary officials in Denmark who wanted me to withdraw from the democratic process because I wear a hijab. That only convinced me to insist on my rights as a citizen and to continue my bid for parliament.

What about the diversity of voters who supported you: radicals, gays, minorities?

The broad group that has supported me has been interesting: citizens from different classes that support my politics, citizens that care about Denmark, citizens that want to resist [Danish People’s Party leader] Pia Kjaersgaard and her party.

They included the Red-Green Alliance party class in Copenhagen, as well as many first-time voters—people who have lived in Denmark for many years but never voted in a parliamentary election. I am really happy about that and grateful for their support.

Those who favored my candidacy didn’t focus on my religion but on my politics.

You allied yourself with the gay rights movement and enjoyed their support. That would be unthinkable for many devout Christian politicians in the United States.

People’s sexual orientation is not important to me. I don’t want to enter people’s bedrooms and see whom they’re sleeping with. It’s not my right as a politician or as a Muslim. I can’t judge people. As far as I’m concerned, the only one who can judge people is God.

The Danish left has traditionally focused on class politics and international solidarity, but minority rights have taken a back seat. Is the Danish left now ready for you?

Actually, liberal parties in Denmark have strayed from class wars, and that’s what I want us to focus on again. Denmark is one of the richest countries in the world, with an established wealthy class, and yet we’re talking about poverty here … in 2008! That’s deeply worrisome.

The ethnic minorities in Denmark now belong to the lower class. They are the new working class for the liberal parties—immigrants who we need to integrate into liberal politics. It’s our responsibility to fight for them.

Before the Muhammad cartoons were recently re-published, another Danish politician of Middle Eastern descent, Naser Khader, said that the reaction would be different this time around. What do you think?

I’m getting pretty tired of the cartoon case, to be honest. It’s all so unnecessary. If there were threats against Kurt Vestergaard, the primary cartoonist, then those people should see their day in court. But one shouldn’t react by punishing all Muslims.

We need to draw the line between freedom of the press and persecution. There’s no journalistic rationale for reprinting the cartoons other than a show of solidarity for Vestergaard. It’s fine to sympathize with him, but there are other ways to do it.

It’s the job of newspapers to print stories, not to teach a lesson to certain groups of people. If my little sister came home from school and said she had picked on the fat girl in class, I wouldn’t commend her for using “freedom of expression.”

I don’t think it was a good idea to republish the cartoons. It’s harmful to the Muslim community that we are acting like children in school who resort to a playground mentality.

And it’s just not smart for Denmark, given our participation in the war in Iraq and the earlier cartoon crisis.

Now we’re doing it again, and casting Denmark in a questionable light, internationally, in the process.

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• Reader Comments

  “Muhammad depicted a man with a bomb under his turban”

  Given the events of the day, this seems to be a pretty appropriate cartoon. Furthermore, one has to question the morality of a group of people who would *kill* others for such an “insult”. Perhaps some of you remember PissChrist )(a Maplethrope work of “art”). If conservative Christians had gone on a rampage killing over it, i doubt there would be any sympathy here or elsewhere for their response (and there should be none).

  “The biggest challenge for Danish Muslims” - ought to be to reign in their crazy segments! Such as the crazy who killed Van Gogh (a distant relative of the famous painter). The fearful are the cartoonists who had to hide for fear of being killed (as did Rushie for *years*).

  “Freedom of expression and freedom of religion are representative of democratic societies but are also representative of Islam.”

  Say it louder sister! Perhaps you can convince the many many crazies who utterly disagree and are more than willing to kill for “insults’.

  The lady in the article may be a moderate, but she is far from a *typical* Muslim. While we have plenty of crazy Christians (Falwell, Wright, etc) they are a distinct, almost completely non-violent minority. Sadly the reverse is true for the Muslim crowd.

  Posted by wolf on Mar 28, 2008 at 2:09 PM

  Wolf:

  How many Muslims do you actually know in order to claim that Asmaa is not a “typical” Muslim.  Or is your claim based on the sum total of watching news clips, which tend to favor the bomb-throwing fanatic, as opposed to the ordinary lives, hopes and dreams of over a BILLION people? 

  There are certainly religious people (of all faiths) that use religion to justify their actions.  When Christians were massacring Muslim civilians in Bosnia, or when the Catholic IRA was bombing Protestant Belfast, most people understood that it was inaccurate and inappropriate to blame Christianity or Christians for such beastiality.

  Your statement tells me more about you, and those like you that make sweeping statements about Islam and Muslims, without actually knowing a thing about them or their faith, than of your “typical” Muslim, or of your “Muslim crowd.”

  Imran

  Posted by Imran on Mar 28, 2008 at 5:35 PM

  Wow what an incredibly brave and outspoken woman. I think she has the potential to be a big activist and a true gem of an intellectual, even if she was first time unlucky when it came to her attempt to get the seat in parliament. I think it is certainly possible for a woman to be influential and successful even if she does not have a seat in parliament.

  BTW, wolf did it ever occur to you that the cartoons may have been inappropriate if only because bombs as we know them did not even exist in 7’th century Arabia ?

  Posted by SASboy on Mar 28, 2008 at 7:40 PM

  Imran - I know some about the middle east. Saudi Arabia for instance. Total pit, due to the intolerance of Muslims. The Taliban, Iran, etc. The religion is stuck solidly in the middle ages. But it is no worse than Christianity was back then, perhaps it will evolve? I hope so.  (BTW, i am pretty sure that the IRA or Christianity had/has nothing to do with beastiality! :)

  SASboy - No. *Any* images of the Prophet is forbidden, even ones that are not funny. And many many crazies of Islam believe it is a *death* offense. Sadly.

  Posted by wolf on Mar 28, 2008 at 8:34 PM

  Wolf:

  Beastiality: The quality or condition of being an animal or like an animal.
  Conduct or an action marked by depravity or brutality.

  Looking at the most extreme interpretation of Islam (Saudi Wahhabism, which is universally accepted as a minority view) as somehow representative of all or most of Islam, is either bad logic or an intentional attempt to deceive (your Taliban example being another entity following such minority view).  The sum total of all these persons (even assuming every individual in the countries above follows such view) is still a tiny fraction of all Muslims.

  And while Iran is certainly no paradise of civil liberties, it is at least, if not more politically enlightened and advanced as Christian Orthodox Serbia and Russia, or Catholic Latin America and subsaharan Africa.  It’s NOT the religion.  It’s local politics, both cultural and economic.

  The vast majority of Muslims are not extremists nor intolerant.  Certainly no more so than Christians, Hindus or Jews.  Like the rest of us, they lead normal lives, too uneventful to make the evening news. 

  While I would not have commented on your post had it been posted on Fox News or Rush Limbaugh’s website, it was unbecoming for such a progressive website as In These Times, and it demanded a response. 

  With the neo-cons advocating “civilizational confrontation” against Islam,  which is nothing more than the latest incarnation of “Orientalism” justifying colonialism, we as progressives should be cautious about carelessly buying into such hate-mongering.

  Imran

  Posted by Imran on Mar 28, 2008 at 9:29 PM

• extended discussion >>>Continued...

  Discussions with more than 5 comments are continued on our special discussion page to encourage continuity and ease of use. There are currently 25 posts.

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