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Abstract: This article offers a situational analysis of the printing of cartoons about the Islamic Prophet in a Danish newspaper in 2005 and the ensuing demonstration by Danish Muslims. It suggests that rather than simply sparking protests, the 'cartoon controversy' created a space for possible actions and a political platform for Muslims all over the world. Based on a review of the historical development of the national Danish discourse on immigrants, the article conveys how the cartoon controversy became instrumental in transforming this discourse. As a major creative event, it not only ridiculed a dominant religious symbol but simultaneously created a space for the becoming of Muslims in Denmark and beyond.
Keywords: Denmark, discourse, demonstration, immigrants, Muslims, situational analysis
"Islam is peace! Islam is peace!" The slogan is being shouted tentatively in Danish and lingers above our heads before it disappears into the cold air of the main square of Copenhagen. I am in the midst of the biggest Muslim demonstration in the history of Denmark (Hansen and Hundevadt 2006: 40). Three thousand Muslims have gathered to protest against the cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad that appeared in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. However, rather than simply protesting, the demonstration is striving to create an alternative representation of Islam. Islam does not equal terrorism, as one of the cartoons suggested. Rather, Islam is peace.
Based on fieldwork among Palestinians living in Denmark,1 this article presents a situational analysis of the above demonstration (cf. Gluckman [1940] 1958). I argue that the event of the cartoons, coupled with the demonstration, was a major creative situation. Not only was it instrumental in transforming the discourse on immigrants in Denmark,2 it also created a political platform from which Muslims could unite and form a strong opposition. In this sense, the cartoon controversy mirrors 9/11. Whereas the attack on the Twin Towers, a symbol of capitalism and the Western world, created a political platform on which Western nations could unite and initiate the 'global war on terror', the insulting of the Prophet, the main symbol of Islam, created a platform that Muslim communities could use to counter Western hegemonies.
Following Max Gluckman's ([1940] 1958) Analysis of a Social Situation in Modern Zululand, the present article is organized in three parts....