Freedom of Speech

Hi everyone!

Hvordan har I det? (How is it going with all of you?)

Did you start to learn danish already? I need to read 3 books and then describe one of them on the exam, but trust me - the ones for the third module are really strange!

Now, really busy times for me - Internship and writing my internship report, then bachelor project. Therefore, you need to excuse me for my absence in here.

But I am actually always trying to post something on my facebook page, to keep you kind of updated. Look for Me you UCN Blog!

Now, returning to the subject. Last time when I was in Aalborg Library to borrow some books connected to the matter of my project, I came across a book called 'The worktrotter's guide to Denmark', written by Dagmar Fink. Mentioning that, I am a member of http://blogs.denmark.dk/ group, suddenely I recalled that I know this name already. Turned out, I have read some of her posts on this site and she is the author of a book I borrowed. What a coinsidence.

In her book she writes about values of  a Danish society. One of them is Freedom of Speech.

Well, personally I had many experiences with that in Denmark already. As I was writing earlier, I come from Poland.. well, a country where it is better to keep your mouth closed, writing nicely. That's just our cultural backround, our grandparents went through and we've got raised like that. So, My Danish friends : Do not be surprised when I am sad or mad at your open style of communicating and your sarcastic humor :)

I guess I am still not used to it (after living here 3 years) and I am taking everything personally, but we can not expect that the danish culture will adapt to us, right? It is just their nature and we should totally respect that and get used to it.

Even though we should adapt to the Danes' sarcasm, a huge conflict appeared between Danes and Muslims in 2005/2008 when Danes published in Jyllands Posten newspaper, cartoons, drawn by 12 proffessional cartoonists representing e.g. a Muhammed with a picture of a bomb in his turban.

http://hecklers.wordpress.com/2009/05/page/2/

Looking at the fact that here is many, trust me, MANY Muslims living here, I totally understand their indignation towards Danes. They pressed for apologies, but they haven't heared any. The conflict became big and they started to print out the cartoons both in Denmark and Muslim countries. The results of a war of nations,you can see here http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=xrq76I1M3CM

As a curiousity, Muslims boycotted the danish goods, This was attributed to a decline in exports to the Middle East by approximately 50%,the cost to Danish businesses was around 134 million euros. (I showed a picture ona facebook page with  protesting muslims)

But looking at this in a closer, down to earth perspective - It is really rare to notice any venskab (friendships) between the danes and muslims in Aalborg streests. I also remember  that there were some cases where danes got killed after this situations.

What do you all think about it? Did you experience when a Dane was rude to you or a bit too honest?

Did you hear earlier about this situation from 2005-2008? If yes, I would love to know what you all think about it.

Let me know in the comments below!

Aleksandra