# Muslim boycott of Danish goods **URL:** \ **Category:** Great Debates\ **Created:** [January 30, 2006, 3:31pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209 "2006-01-30T15:31:18Z")\ **Posts on this page:** 20\ **Page:** 3
**Author:** ![jjimm](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/j/ba8739/32.png) [@jjimm](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/jjimm)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 8:50am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/41 "2006-02-01T08:50:48Z")
> [@Lochdale](#): > > I’m am somewhat perplexed at the tolerance extended towards extreme moslems in Europe by some posters on these boards when these very same posters might be extremely critical of Christian groups. I see this claim a lot. Can you find me examples of where _extreme_ (and by that I presume you mean Islamist or Wahhabist) Muslims are being tolerated on the SDMB? Personally, I condemn them utterly. But I distinguish between them and tolerant Muslims, who make up the vast majority, and I try to add balance to the broad-brushes that are constantly being waved - something I see a lot of people on this board unable or unwilling to do. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 11:15am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/42 "2006-02-01T11:15:18Z")
> [@George Kaplin](#): > > To begin with, let’s establish that the cartoons actually constituted valid criticism rather than gratuitous propaganda. > > The cartoons themselves make few critical points. Mohammed was a terrorist. Islam is oppressive. BlahBlahBlah. All very trite, unoriginal, and specious. However, their very gratuity was designed to make another, very pertinent criticism which, frankly, isn’t made anywhere near enough: The Islamic world is hostile to the concept of freedom of speech. Too right. I’m as liberal (athiest) and tolerant as the next person but I’m sick to death of this shit. Islam offends me by existing and the cultural practices some mistake for Islam offend me even more. But I try and refrain from issuing death threats and boycotting dried figs. I’m sick to death with fanatics imposing limits on free-speech, creating a climate of self-censorship with their ludicrous sensitivities concerning their bullshit religion and bullshit social practices. Roll on the time we can cut ourselves off from the oil teat. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 11:57am UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/43 "2006-02-01T11:57:46Z")
I did not see ‘‘fanatics imposing limits on free-speech,’’ I saw consumers choosing to spend their money elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 12:08pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/44 "2006-02-01T12:08:01Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > I did not see ‘‘fanatics imposing limits on free-speech,’’ I saw consumers choosing to spend their money elsewhere. Nothing wrong with that. You know full well that fear of some nutter stabbing or bombing you is creating a climate of self-censorship. It’s been going on since Rushdie, through the Dutch film-maker and up to the bomb threats against the Danish newspaper. And I include the curent kowtowing to religion that is the UK’s Incitement to Hatred Bill, tond down but no killed by a Parliamentary revolt yesterday. It is disengenuous in the extrme to see this as an isolated incident. Anyone not think that at some point one of these cartoonists will not end up on on the unfunny end of a beating or worse? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 12:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/45 "2006-02-01T12:40:25Z")
So something is wrong with a bunch of people spending their own money the way they want? Why? It seems like this very effective grass-roots protest is very effective and very peaceful. It seems to me to be a mark or real progress over less-effective and less-peaceful means of letting one’s anger be known. ---
**Author:** ![Kimstu](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/k/ecd19e/32.png) [@Kimstu](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Kimstu)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 1:47pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/46 "2006-02-01T13:47:49Z")
> [@Rune](#): > > Here are the images for the children’s book [about Muhammad]. It’s apparently a picture book, hard to make a picture book without pictures. The purpose of the book was to teach Danish children of Islam, so as to build bridges and further integration. This part I simply don’t get. **Why** would anybody think it was a good idea to “build bridges” with Muslims by publishing a **picture** book about a person that many Muslims consider it offensive and even sacrilegious to **represent in pictures**? It sounds kind of like a Dionysian hedonist cult attempting to reach out to Christians by holding one of their ritual drunken orgies in the name of Jesus Christ. :eek: Missing. The. Point, People! No matter how well-intentioned you may be in your interactions with another religion, you can’t expect its followers to appreciate or condone it if your outreach involves something that they consider actually sacrilegious. (And I’ll repeat for those who haven’t been listening: no, I **don’t** approve of the boycott of Danish goods or of threats against Danes. Yes, I **do** support free speech and think that people should tolerate even gratuitously offensive and sacrilegious satire for the sake of freedom of speech. However, I also think that people who disseminate gratuitously offensive and sacrilegious satire are rude tasteless clods, and although I support their right to do so, it’s with one hand firmly clenched over my nose.) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 1:57pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/47 "2006-02-01T13:57:18Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > So something is wrong with a bunch of people spending their own money the way they want? Why? It seems like this very effective grass-roots protest is very effective and very peaceful. It seems to me to be a mark or real progress over less-effective and less-peaceful means of letting one’s anger be known. What is wrong is such bullshit sensitivity and the self-censorship caused by the climate of fear the full spectrum of Islamic intolerance has generated. You can’t just isolate the boycott element of even this single issue from the bomb threats, the call for the cartoonists to be punished and at the extreme end the fatwas, the honor killings, the assassinations and the people in permanent hiding all for saying or doing something that offends Islamic sensibilities somewhere. The default response to all hurt religious sensitivities, whatever the religion, should be ‘tough shit’. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:23pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/48 "2006-02-01T14:23:29Z")
OK, I was misled by the thread title. I thought we were talking about the boycott. Better they are boycotting that being violent. Can we agree on that? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:38pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/49 "2006-02-01T14:38:55Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > OK, I was misled by the thread title. I thought we were talking about the boycott. > > Better they are boycotting that being violent. Can we agree on that? We can agree that some are being non-violent and that everyone backed down damn quickly but not quickly enough to stop it escalating to bomb threats. ---
**Author:** ![BluePitbull](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/b/e9bcb4/32.png) [@BluePitbull](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/BluePitbull)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 2:54pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/50 "2006-02-01T14:54:51Z")
> [@The Scrivener](#): > > I’m interested in buying _more_ Danish products in my own counter-boycott. But aside from the butter cookies in the tins (which I’m not all that fond of), one brand (Foretta) of really awful sausage and pepperoni, and presumably a few gourmet cheeses, I’m drawing a blank. Can anyone recommend me a few good Danish products? > Oops, I should have mentioned that it doesn’t need to be limited to foodstuffs. It’s just that these were the only products that came to mind, sorry. Is Calsberg beer, Danish? ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:12pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/51 "2006-02-01T15:12:09Z")
[Go, surrender monkeys, go.](http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/europe/4669360.stm) > [@](#): > > A French newspaper has reproduced a set of Danish caricatures depicting the Prophet Muhammad that have caused outrage in the Muslim world. > > France Soir said it had published the cartoons to show that “religious dogma” had no place in a secular society. > [@](#): > > Under the headline “Yes, we have the right to caricature God”, France Soir ran a front page cartoon of Buddhist, Jewish, Muslim and Christian gods floating on a cloud. > > It shows the Christian deity saying: “Don’t complain, Muhammad, we’ve all been caricatured here.” > [@](#): > > The global controversy the cartoons have provoked “has done nothing to maintain balance and mutual limits in democracy, respect of religious beliefs and freedom of expression”, it added. Good on them. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:17pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/52 "2006-02-01T15:17:43Z")
Perfectly within their rights to do it. (They do realize Mohammed is a person, God is God, right?) I wonder how that Eurofighter deal is going. Just asking, that’s all. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:20pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/53 "2006-02-01T15:20:05Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > Perfectly within their rights to do it. > > (They do realize Mohammed is a person, God is God, right?) > > I wonder how that Eurofighter deal is going. Just asking, that’s all. I’m sure all the requisite bribes have already been delivered and the cheques cashed. ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 3:42pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/54 "2006-02-01T15:42:44Z")
Originally posted by **Paul in Saudi** > [@](#): > > - > > Better they are boycotting that being violent. Can we agree on that?\* Oh, definitely. It makes them look like the silly buggers they are, but we’re used to that. What they CAN’T however do, is call for violence. Like this: The offices of the newspaper which originally printed the cartoons, Jyllands-Posten, had to be evacuated yesterday after a bomb threat was received. Saudi Arabia has recalled its ambassador from Denmark over the cartoons, and several Muslim countries have begun a boycott of Danish produce. Palestinians in Gaza yesterday burnt Danish flags and chanted “war on Denmark, death to Denmark”… When I hear about a muslim in the UK who wanted to ban piggybanks, the muslims who forbid the play ‘Aisha’, the muslims who forbid a song called ‘The knife of god’, the muslims who vowed to kill Ayaan Hirsi Ali and several of our politicians who critisize Islam - and when a muslim beheads a Dutch filmmaker, then I think: “My, what a lovely, peaceful, religion Islam is” , but I do so with one hand firmly clenched over my nose. Go, France! I really wish Holland had the balls. ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:00pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/55 "2006-02-01T16:00:50Z")
(I thought that was an urban legend about some local council wanting to ban piggy-banks in their offices, not some employee.) ---
**Author:** ![gum](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/g/bbe5ce/32.png) [@gum](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/gum)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:40pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/56 "2006-02-01T16:40:47Z")
Winnie the Pooh, the Piglet and The Three Little Pigs must be among every child’s favourite cartoon and comic characters, but workers at a council office in UK have been asked to remove all traces of pigs from the office, lest it offends Muslim staff. Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even tissue boxes featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.[http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=126213&cat=World](http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=126213&cat=World) It might very well be an urban legend, but is that the best you can do? How about bomb-scares, death threads and murders? ---
**Author:** ![Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/p/ccd318/32.png) [@Paul\_in\_Qatar](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Paul_in_Qatar)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:48pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/57 "2006-02-01T16:48:13Z")
I heard tell that the British Council of Muslims Who Make Press Releases called the action by the government agency silly. Of course I may be mis-remembering.) ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:51pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/58 "2006-02-01T16:51:06Z")
> [@gum](#): > > Winnie the Pooh, the Piglet and The Three Little Pigs must be among every child’s favourite cartoon and comic characters, but workers at a council office in UK have been asked to remove all traces of pigs from the office, lest it offends Muslim staff. > > Workers in the benefits department at Dudley Council, West Midlands, were told to remove or cover up all pig-related items, including toys, porcelain figures, calendars and even tissue boxes featuring Winnie the Pooh and Piglet.[News India, Asia, World, Sports, Business, Science / Tech, Health, Entertainment, Features](http://news.webindia123.com/news/showdetails.asp?id=126213&cat=World) > > It might very well be an urban legend, but is that the best you can do? > How about bomb-scares, death threads and murders? I don’t think Paul is being combative, just a bit pedantic about thread titles and not seeing this incident in the wider context. ---
**Author:** ![tagos](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/t/bbe5ce/32.png) [@tagos](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/tagos)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 4:58pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/59 "2006-02-01T16:58:10Z")
> [@Paul in Saudi](#): > > I heard tell that the British Council of Muslims Who Make Press Releases called the action by the government agency silly. Of course I may be mis-remembering.) And to their credit they oppose the current UK govt attempt to protect religions against (a very nebulously defined) ‘hate-speech’. It’s the ones that will kill you for making a film or writing a book we’re worried about and the dampening effect it has on free speech. It would be a very, very brave comedian who got up on a British stage and told the sort of jokes or performed the kind of sketches routinely done lampooning The Church of England. You won’t ever see anything even as mild as The Vicar of Dibley. That’s what I mean by a climate of self-censorship. I do it myself as a would-be writer. I’m happy lampooning Christianity but I wouldn’t dare submit an equivalent story to a competition and I’d lay odds people would think 4 times about publishing it. ---
**Author:** ![Lochdale](https://avatars.discourse-cdn.com/v4/letter/l/edb3f5/32.png) [@Lochdale](https://boards.straightdope.com/u/Lochdale)\ **Post date:** [February 1, 2006, 5:02pm UTC](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209/60 "2006-02-01T17:02:51Z")
It seems that two of the Danish journalists involved with the pictures have gone into hiding due to death threats and bomb scares (I got that off Wikipedia so I am trying to find a different cite). I wonder, did the artist who created “piss Christ” ever go into hiding? ’ Several Islamic groups are calling on the United Nations to impose sanctions on Denmark. In a vacumn, the boycott is a perfectly reasonable response to something that you find offensive. In context, however, of Islam’s general intolerance of other religions and cultures. [Previous page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209.md?page=2) [Next page](https://boards.straightdope.com/t/muslim-boycott-of-danish-goods/342209.md?page=4)