English

Since I inadvertently pimp this blog to a lot of English-speaking users, who happens to be my Facebook-friends, tweet-followers etc., I figured I’d take a time-out and explain what this blog is all about. And to be quite frank; this blog needs to be explained lest any myths about it’s contents should arise. So in a way this posting is a pre-emptive strike against any misconceptions about what I am doing and why I am doing it.

What my blog is all about?

Like a lot of blogs, this blog is all about whatever I at any given moment want it to be about. There are some general tendencies though. I spend a lot of time on this blog mocking Islam’s holy book The Quran. Yup, that’s right. I am mocking The Quran.

The dominant project on this blog is the Quran Blog, where I read The Quran one Sura at a time and then proceed to blog about it with humor, indignation, curiosity and whatever else pops into my head as the reading progresses. Due to the components within my skull and the contents of The Quran, the meeting of the two quite often ends up in… Well, as I’ve said I mock The Quran.

Why William, Why?

That ‘mocking The Quran’-bit could sound really, really bad, if you grew up in a country, where the portrayal of religion on the harmless, little South Park-show is deemed controversial (which by the way completely dumb-founds me, but that’s another discussion). It might even sound bad enough to warrant calling me a bigot. Here is a few things you need to understand:

In Denmark humor and satire have been corner-stones of the political and religious debate for centuries. Whereas American politicians might score a point by raising indignation in his audience through an exceptionally poignant remark about his opponents integrity, a Danish politician will score a point if he can blend a few subtle jokes into his argument.

We also have a long legacy of satirizing religion. It is generally accepted, that if it is you do not consider something to be your sacrament, then you should feel free to be as sacrilegious as you want to be in your treatment of it. Not to mock or insult the believers, but because ‘hey! It’s out in the public square, you might as well have fun with it…’. I do not know a single Christian, who has serious beef with the tons of cartoons mocking their faith or even the porno-film about Jesus (the second coming of Christ, the manuscript must have practically written itself).

This cartoon is from todays newspaper.

Darwin goes to Heaven, realizes we do all come from apes, but not quite in the way he thunk it. (YES, the cartoon does actually say that God is a big ol’ monkey, and NO, the cartoon doesn’t mean anything).

This is not an extraordinary cartoon. This is just one ordinary, everyday example from Copenhagens largest broadsheet-newspaper.

HERE COMES THE MUSLIMS…

In the past 30-40 years a lot of Muslims have been immigrating to Denmark. A LOT OF MUSLIMS… And wherever you have a lot of Muslims, Islam will have some visibility in the public square. Well, if you’re Danish your natural reaction would be to say; ‘hey, them new guys got themselves a religion and any religion is a barrel of laughs, let the good times roll…’ After all, we do want to be welcoming friends and neighbors and treat our Muslim citizens like we treat everybody else. But Danes seem to have lost a little bit of their… well, it seems somehow the arrival of a lot of Muslims came at the price of our soul.

Danes pretty much stray away from mocking Islam.

Partially it can be explained with a reference to imams who are effectively advocating for special standards for the medias treatment of Islam. And partially it can be explained by the fact that a lot of Muslims just aren’t into the underlying ‘if it is not your sacrament, then you can be as sacrilegious as you want to be’-principle. The few sparse attempts at a humorous approach to Islam has let to crime-waves, assassination-plots, riots and general tension.

But the vast majority of Danes do wish, that there were a lot more jokes about Islam. The vast majority of Danes would probably love to have a laugh at ‘that latest new religion-thingy‘ that arrived on the scene.

I have no fondness for crime-waves, assassinations, riots or tension. I do no wish to hurt people, who genuinely don’t understand what is going on and why people are mocking their cherished faith, BUT…

Gentlemen, we have traditions to preserve

I do not wish to flush centuries of cultural traditions down the drain because of a wave of immigrants. I do wish to pass our society’s great legacies on to future generations. I am not asking anybody to adopt these traditions, but I am willing to force-feed people with the idea that they live in a country, where anything that is displayed in the public square might be mocked in the public square.

I hope eventually that Muslims will take it as sign of respect. When you are joking around with everybody, you are mocking nobody. But when you are joking around with everyone, but the Muslims… Who are you mocking then?

Islam frightens the hell out of me

I also think mocking Islam is important, because Islam frightens the hell out of me. I don’t like religion. I prefer a secularized society, thank you very much… The way Denmark ended up being a secularized society is through the determination of our forefathers to (metaphorically speaking) beat the living hell out of Christianity, whenever and wherever it showed up without a mandate. Enlightenment-values drove Christianity out of science, politics, public discourse etc., and left it in it’s rightful domain; the spiritual life of the individual. You can have your spirituality in Denmark, and you can have it all to yourself.

A lot of Muslims do not share the view, that Islams sphere of activity should be strictly limited to the homes and skulls of Muslims. I consider that to be a problem.

Cue the fancy Hollywood-music, it is time for the big ‘values-speech’ that concludes the movie

If we want to hand over a secularized society with the courage to take any debate, then we need to mock any aspect of Islam that graces the public square. We need to mock Islam, if we are to maintain our long and proud tradition of not giving two craps about how you feel about how I feel about your religion. Our debate-culture is not just an inheritance, that we should feel free to soil away. It is a legacy, that we owe it to posterity to preserve.

And that is why I mock The Quran.

You do not have to think, that I am doing something right and beautiful by doing this. I am just asking you to consider the matter from the perspective of a citizen of secularized society. Don’t judge me untill you walked a mile in my terrain.