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‘It is not what I want to happen’
COPENHAGEN – In late December, Ahmed Akkari] flew to Beirut [with]a package of spiral-bound booklets in green covers, . Their contents consisted mainly of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed….
Ahmed Akkari, a young Islamic scholar and Danish activist, was on a mission. Having failed to get the Prime Minister to take action over the cartoons’ perceived slight to Islam, he had sought help from esteemed figures in the Muslim world, he says.
Over the next few weeks, he would hand copies of his green booklet to the grand mufti of Egypt, the chief cleric of the Sunni faith, leaders of the Arab League, the top official of the Lebanese Christian church and others…
“They said to me, ‘Do they really say this is the Prophet Mohammed? They must really have no respect for religion up there in Denmark.’ And they said they would make it known.”
Mr. Akkari now finds himself regretting the results of his brief journey, the somewhat distorted message of which flashed around the Muslim world by Internet, newspaper and text message…
Violent protests continued yesterday in cities around the world. As many as four protesters were shot dead in Afghanistan, raising the death toll to at least nine as the United Nations, the European Union and major governments struggled to contain the escalating unrest. …
The riots, he acknowledged, have placed his fellow European Muslims in a far worse position than they had previously known.
“Yeah, it has been more violent than I expected,” he said. “I had no interest in any violence. . . . It is bad for our case because it’s turning the picture completely from what this should be about, to something else – and this is a dangerous change now.”
This has led to a dramatic switch in his tone: While he still expresses anger at the media for glibly printing images considered offensive to his faith, Mr. Akkari yesterday was eager to find a way to quickly resolve the crisis – and to send a message to the violent Muslim protesters that might cause them to cease and desist. He suggested a joint news conference with the Danish Prime Minister or with the editor of the newspaper that first printed the images in which both sides would demand that their communities cease their most offensive activities.
Such a détente now seems unlikely.
For his booklet contained not only the 12 depictions of the Prophet Mohammed that had appeared in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September. He also filled it with hideous, amateur images of the Prophet as a pig, a dog, a woman and a child-sodomizing madman.
Flipping through the book yesterday, he explained that these images had been items of hate mail sent to his colleagues by right-wing extremists who disapproved of their activism. These images, he insistently demonstrated, were separated from the newspaper cartoons by several pages of letters. “How could anyone mistake these for the newspaper images?” he asked. “It cannot be that anyone would make this mistake.”
But protesters in Lebanon and elsewhere have cited these images in their actions. So have the organizers of a worldwide boycott campaign against Danish products, which is costing the country’s economy.
“You should understand,” he said, “that the boycott was more widespread than we thought it could ever be. In fact, we didn’t ask for it.”
He even seemed embroiled in the same fear that has gripped most Danes this week. “This could get a lot worse, and it could make life worse for Muslims here. If we can sort it out, if we can do something to help, make people take responsibility – all the people involved – then we have a chance of this violence not happening any more.”
He had never meant this to be more than an internal Danish conflict, he says. It was meant to be a technical matter: How to get the government to acknowledge that something had gone wrong in this close-knit society, something that had caused its largest newspaper to ignore the feelings of a minority whose members number 180,000 in a country of 5.4 million.
His circle of Muslim leaders planned the overseas trip only after the domestic campaign had run aground. The newspaper had apologized for any offence the cartoons caused…
The leaders wanted a response from the Danish state. Mr. Akkari took part in efforts to bring legal action against the newspaper under hate-crimes laws, and to arrange a meeting between ambassadors from Muslim countries and the Danish Prime Minister. When these efforts were rebuffed, help was sought abroad.
But he had not intended his protest to go global. And he is horrified to find that the Danish people – and he proudly considers himself a Dane – have been demonized…
Having provoked a deadly global confrontation between these poles, he said that he wasn’t quite sure where to place himself.
‘It is not what I want to happen’
COPENHAGEN – In late December, Ahmed Akkari] flew to Beirut [with]a package of spiral-bound booklets in green covers, . Their contents consisted mainly of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed….
Ahmed Akkari, a young Islamic scholar and Danish activist, was on a mission. Having failed to get the Prime Minister to take action over the cartoons’ perceived slight to Islam, he had sought help from esteemed figures in the Muslim world, he says.
Over the next few weeks, he would hand copies of his green booklet to the grand mufti of Egypt, the chief cleric of the Sunni faith, leaders of the Arab League, the top official of the Lebanese Christian church and others…
“They said to me, ‘Do they really say this is the Prophet Mohammed? They must really have no respect for religion up there in Denmark.’ And they said they would make it known.”
Mr. Akkari now finds himself regretting the results of his brief journey, the somewhat distorted message of which flashed around the Muslim world by Internet, newspaper and text message…
Violent protests continued yesterday in cities around the world. As many as four protesters were shot dead in Afghanistan, raising the death toll to at least nine as the United Nations, the European Union and major governments struggled to contain the escalating unrest. …
The riots, he acknowledged, have placed his fellow European Muslims in a far worse position than they had previously known.
“Yeah, it has been more violent than I expected,” he said. “I had no interest in any violence. . . . It is bad for our case because it’s turning the picture completely from what this should be about, to something else – and this is a dangerous change now.”
This has led to a dramatic switch in his tone: While he still expresses anger at the media for glibly printing images considered offensive to his faith, Mr. Akkari yesterday was eager to find a way to quickly resolve the crisis – and to send a message to the violent Muslim protesters that might cause them to cease and desist. He suggested a joint news conference with the Danish Prime Minister or with the editor of the newspaper that first printed the images in which both sides would demand that their communities cease their most offensive activities.
Such a détente now seems unlikely.
For his booklet contained not only the 12 depictions of the Prophet Mohammed that had appeared in the newspaper Jyllands-Posten in September. He also filled it with hideous, amateur images of the Prophet as a pig, a dog, a woman and a child-sodomizing madman.
Flipping through the book yesterday, he explained that these images had been items of hate mail sent to his colleagues by right-wing extremists who disapproved of their activism. These images, he insistently demonstrated, were separated from the newspaper cartoons by several pages of letters. “How could anyone mistake these for the newspaper images?” he asked. “It cannot be that anyone would make this mistake.”
But protesters in Lebanon and elsewhere have cited these images in their actions. So have the organizers of a worldwide boycott campaign against Danish products, which is costing the country’s economy.
“You should understand,” he said, “that the boycott was more widespread than we thought it could ever be. In fact, we didn’t ask for it.”
He even seemed embroiled in the same fear that has gripped most Danes this week. “This could get a lot worse, and it could make life worse for Muslims here. If we can sort it out, if we can do something to help, make people take responsibility – all the people involved – then we have a chance of this violence not happening any more.”
He had never meant this to be more than an internal Danish conflict, he says. It was meant to be a technical matter: How to get the government to acknowledge that something had gone wrong in this close-knit society, something that had caused its largest newspaper to ignore the feelings of a minority whose members number 180,000 in a country of 5.4 million.
His circle of Muslim leaders planned the overseas trip only after the domestic campaign had run aground. The newspaper had apologized for any offence the cartoons caused…
The leaders wanted a response from the Danish state. Mr. Akkari took part in efforts to bring legal action against the newspaper under hate-crimes laws, and to arrange a meeting between ambassadors from Muslim countries and the Danish Prime Minister. When these efforts were rebuffed, help was sought abroad.
But he had not intended his protest to go global. And he is horrified to find that the Danish people – and he proudly considers himself a Dane – have been demonized…
Having provoked a deadly global confrontation between these poles, he said that he wasn’t quite sure where to place himself.
