This is really a tedious job!!

Translation of an original script could never be so easy!!!
Great job buddy!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!!

A last point. When the conquistadors arrived in Mexicao, they saw the natives cutting the hearts out of people and mixing the blood with amaranth, which they then ate. They are saw stacks of skulls over 100 feet tall. The Spanish practiced slavery, which most cultures did at the time, but they did not engage in human sacrifice. They did bad things, but no culture is pure. However, they are not always equal. Not something you hear people say often, but if you really disagree, please let me know.

I hope you had a good night’s sleep :)

I am sorry to disappoint you, I was trying to explain my point of view. Let me know what you are referring to, because maybe it is a misunderstanding from either your side or mine.

I don’t think my view on Muslims has been ‘ruined’ in any way. I see that there are friendly, critical, and hostile Muslims just as there are friendly, critical, and hostile Danes, Christians, Americans…

You ask: “what kind of a culture is it that you insult people, you call that civilization?”. I am a bit sad about your question, because, as I read it, it is based on intolerance of other cultures.

In my view, a foreign culture is a local phenomenon that should not be ‘weighed and measured’ based on ones own culture. A large part of a culture is the customs and beliefs about what is good/bad, right/wrong, acceptable/taboo, etc. If these are taken out of their original settings and are analyzed based on ones own culture, then they are analyzed out of context. One can compare and even point out the differences, but one should not judge or demand a change.

Denmark is a very large bacon exporter and Danes enjoy eating pork so much that most of the food you could call ‘Danish cuisine’ is based on pork. Danes also like eating beef, not as much as pork, but there is a significant consumption of beef as well. In Denmark this is absolutely acceptable.

In your country, pigs are unclean animals, so it is not a big surprise that pork for the Middle East is not a ‘big export hit’. The Hindus revere cows and eating a cow is not seen as something desirable, so it is not a big surprise that beef is not a ‘big export hit’ there.

These are cultural differences and NONE OF THEM ARE WRONG, THEY ARE JUST DIFFERENT. If someone gets insulted over that Danes eat pork then it is their problem, because in the Danish context it is ‘right’. If Danes want to force the Arab world to change their view on eating pork that would be just as intolerant and wrong as if a Muslim would demand that Danes should stop eating pork.

You bring up your mother, well in general. I know that you, based on your culture, would find it insulting if I made fun of your mother, but, based on my culture, I would not find it insulting if you made fun of my mother. This does not mean that I love and respect my mother any less than you do yours, but in Denmark we have a different perspective on abstract issues like insults and honor. Different, but not wrong!

If somebody says something funny about my mother then I would know that he is not really insulting my mother but he is trying to get a reaction from me – on the ‘surface’ he is talking about my mother, but the ‘message’ itself has nothing to do with my mother. Regardless of whether it is a joke or a provocation, it does not reflect the view he holds of my mother. Of course it would be possible to insult me by talking about my mother, but then it would be delivered in the form of a solid statement without any form of ironi, sarcasm, or humor. This probably sounds strange to you, but it is not strange to me. Maybe strange or different, but not wrong.

This does NOT mean that Danes do not respect anybody, but we show respect in a different way than you do and we have very few taboos compared to most other cultures in the world. In Denmark, humor is also a normal way of discussing taboos and issues that are grave, horrible, or uncomfortable, but that has nothing to do with lack of respect for the seriousness of the issue. For example, the Danish comedy about incest that came out a few years ago does not reflect that Danes finds incest hilarious or that it is a matter that should not be taken seriously, but it is a way to lower the discomfort barrier that would otherwise prevent us from discussing this grave issue. Again, it is not wrong, just different.

When the Conquistadores came to Middle/South America they saw the local population running around with almost no clothes, having ‘too many’ Gods, and displaying ‘primitive’ behavior. The indigenous cultures were completely different to Spanish culture, so the Conquistadores (conquerors in Spanish) decided that the native Middle/South Americans were UNCIVILIZED. Whether they called the natives savages or infidels doesn’t really matter, because they still set out to destroy the native cultures they considered ‘wrong’ and started slaughtering away.

The point is that the natives DID have a culture and they WERE a civilization, but based on greed, arrogance, and intolerance the Conquistadores saw it as their divine mission to impose ‘the correct’ culture (based on their own point of view) on the uncivilized population of Middle/South America.

I hope this answers your question, because the culture that makes fun of people and issues as a natural part of communication is the Danish culture, and yes, I do call it a civilization ;)

If Muslim Conquistadores (the rabid Danish Imams and, now, a large part of the Muslim world) see it as their divine mission to impose ‘the correct’ culture on the uncivilized population of Denmark, then it should not come as a surprise that they will not be met with kisses and flowers.

To me, it doesn’t matter whether a group of Conquistadores hold the Bible or the Koran (or their ‘Danish birth certificate’) in their hands because trying to ‘civilize the uncivilized’ is the ultimate form of intolerance and racism. In Denmark, we are proud of that we have won our peaceful battle against the Christian theocrats and we will peacefully battle the Muslim theocrats as well – in our Danish way.

This does not mean that we do not tolerate religious believers, just that we will give them resistance if they stick their heads out too far and start displaying Conquistadores behavior within our cultural borders.

What I am trying to explain is that I have no right to tell you, in the Muslim countries of the world, how you should run your countries within your own borders or that you must adopt Danish culture. That is the reason why I find it offensive when Muslims all over the world are pushing to ‘correct’ my culture.

There really is no difference between whether it is about eating pork or drawing caricatures of Mohammed, because both are ‘right’ in Denmark even though they may be ‘wrong’ in the Middle East. That is why I am defending Danish culture, because I am willing to respect your culture if you are willing to respect mine. All I am asking is that you accept that we are different – because, let’s face it, we are. But neither of our cultures are wrong.

You are absolutely right, it is necessary to discuss whether Danish culture lacks respect for Muslims…in Denmark I may add. But that requires that both Muslim and non-Muslim Danes are given enough breathing room to take the discussion without interference from abroad. Believe it or not, but the caricatures DID start a healthy discussion about this last year when they were first published, but the ‘international crisis’ has damaged the discussion quite a bit. Last year, moderate Muslim and non-Muslim Danes were in charge of the discussion, but today it has been hijacked by the Danish and Muslim extremists in Denmark.

I hope that all the hooligans will come to their senses soon so we can continue the debate in Denmark, because if we have to wait for them to run out of matches or embassies then it can take quite a while.

In Denmark, we need to deal with both the radical Islamist and the radical Danes, but as long as the riots continue the more fuel will be poured on the fire and the more Danes will be drawn towards the intolerance of the Danish People’s Party and the more Muslims will be drawn towards the crazy Imams. The longer this crazy shit draws out the more mess (intolerance and polarization) will have to be cleaned up afterwards.

I admire your Jihad on abusing women in the name of Islam (yes, I do have a Koran and I do know that the original meaning of Jihad is not Holy War) and you have my full moral support from here. I have added ‘from here’ because contrary to a certain President and his Conquistadores I don’t believe that a cultural change should come from the outside, regardless of whether we are talking about cluster bombs, depleted uranium bullets and other weapons of mass destruction or burning down embassies.

I mean personally there are some things about my culture which is unfair, like the preference of boys to girls(vry strange, thu these people say they follow islam). i neither agree to this nor keep silent about it.

The day when everyone keeps silent and accepts that injustice is ok and we have got to get over it is the death of humanity people.

people have to talk make themsleves heard, argue for the truth about things, respect each other without harming or offending each other, and looking down upon each other.

im off to bed…

I never blamed all Danes.

my comment at 1st was not even specically about the cartoons.

it is also sad that we only concentrate on the things in the media.

Im quite disappointed at your interpretaion of my message, though.

ISLAM (not the violent reaction of SOME muslims that has ruined your view of muslims) is merely ‘politely’ saying, what kind of a culture is it that you insult people, you call that civilization? it is really strange that the editor was saying this so proudly, imagine if that was any of our mothers, would we be proud that she was insulted, because it was our ‘culture’. do we then not question our cultures, our practises?

where is this respect for all cultures when such Danes themselves are not respecting anybody. there is soo much inconsistentcy, what does respect mean?

I find it ridiculus that we respect ‘cultures’ but we dont respect people. you can ridicule any danish or world leader or personality but ‘Danish culture is above all’ most sacred!!

does any one agree that this is hypocracy? an interesting paradox.

all though islamically it was wrong for the muslims to behave in the ways they did or to say what they said. I dont understand why the west(generalised) are geting in a fuss about it, after all its just FREEDOM OF SPEACH, right???? or is the wests freedom of speach correct whilst, the muslims must ‘forgive and forget’ right Thomas? Is this your understanding?
OR IS IT, BECAUSE THE MUSLIMS ARE THE IMMAGRANTS AND ONLY THEY MUST FOLLOW THE LAW OF THE LAND. how strange that a people make laws and they dont follow them…
In that case the west should do all muslims a favour and just send them back home.(trust me i really believe they should just be deported back to their countries- these fundamentalists)

“Culture is not an absolute and yellow culture is not inferior to blue culture or the other way around. However, in both yellow and blue countries it must be acceptable that some people wear glasses in shades of green.”

thomas i agree with this.

You mentioned the “Socialist appeasement policy towards integration” in your post to me. I have referred in the past to a socialist website. This may make it seem as though I know what Danish socialists have advocated over the recent past, or that I have agreed with them, particularly on this question of integration. However, I only referred to the website. I think they have good observations and in many cases have advocated a reasonable position. However, I don’t know what their position has been on this question. I don’t know if I would have agreed with it. You have assumed too much about what I would argue for Denmark.

The sun is high in the sky here when it’s dark there and you are fast asleep.

You made out that the socialist’s policy of, “…allocating money (I am not saying whether it is too much or too little) and otherwise hoping that integration will more or less solve itself…” did not work.

I’m not sure this was their policy. I would agree with you that it probably wouldn’t work if that, in fact, was what they did. I know that the Republicans accuse the Democrats, here in the U.S., of doping much the same, and argue that throwing money at problems will never work. The problem is, from my point of view, the Democrat’s programs are never just about throwing money. They have, for example, tried to create government operated programs in support of children and old people. These are education programs or social security. In thois country, when the Republicamns argue against throwing money at problems, they are advocating the elimination of public education or social security as government responsibilities. What they seem to want to do is force people, even those with no job skills, or who are disabled, to rely on private services, for which they would be expected to pay.

So, I would then wonder if your resistance to socialist policy means you would advocate the privatization of social and educational programs. In Latin America the governments have tried to privatize the water supplies. Do you advocate such measures, in order to avoid throwing tax money at problems?

I do not assume that your rejection of socialist policies in Denmark commits you to going to what I take to be the extremes advocated here. But what would you say?

I do agree that the “pickled problems” do come back to haunt. However, were the socialists responsible for the “pickling”? Maybe they were not alone in getting the integration problem to disappear under a rug. My first thought would be that the businesses of Denmark would have tried to help everyone ignore social problems like integration. The more problems that the country would have, the more money might be requested to deal with them. Denmark might not seem the perfect business location if there was the realization that it too contained social unrest.

You said, “I think you are seeing nasty capitalists and scary ghosts that are not there.” I appreciate this warning, and I will try to be specific about who I think is responsible for things. I would appreciate hearing what your object is. Do you think that there aren’t any “nasty capitalists?”

You also said this,

“…I did NOT blame the situation on the Muslims. What I was saying is: Both sides have to accept that shit happens and get over it, because it is not possible to create a solution that will make tomorrow better by only looking at what happened yesterday…”

I’m sorry if I made it sound as though Thomas blamed Muslims for anything. I said this,

“…Thomas should allow that it may not be the fault of Islam or the Muslim community that this violence has occured.”

where what I meant was that if both Ayaan and Thomas wished to resolve conflicts, then both Ayaan should refrain from blaming all Danes, and Thomas should refrain from blaming MuSlims. I do not suppose that either Ayaan or Thomas do, in fact, any such things. The point was just about what should be done to resolve conflicts. It seems both Ayaan and Thomas agree to this.

I don’t agree with Thomas that shit just happens and everyone should learn to get over it. This is so funny, that Thomas who can’t let anything blackfeline says go by the way without coming back at him with some badmouthing. So, walk the walk.

I think neither Ayeen nor Thomas has been able to state a specific enough culprit yet. The perpetrators are not the Danes, or the Muslims, but specific people, with specific agendas in mind.

I’m sorry for sounding confused. I just wanted to try explaining, if just to myself, why I have trouble relying on the idea that if we can only assign blame, all will turn out right. I feel the “eye for an eye” strategy can only be non-productive.

I do agree with you that there is something very important in what you say here,

“…that contentment is in faith rather than the hoarding of wealth or oppressive power. That we are commanded by our Creator to do all that is good and stay away from all that is damaging within the framwork He has sent.”

The question for me has to do with what you mean by “faith.” I think it must be about the recognition that others, even those who disagree with us, have good ideas and deserve respect, as well as recognizing that you want others to understand and respect one’s own positions.

I did not dismiss Burcharth’s message! I said: “.., even though I do not agree with his political color, Mr. Burcharth is absolutely right,..”