I Feel Your Dane - Bolshy Scandinavians "Looking for It"

A couple of days after the shock of the 9/11 bombings had died down, it was not uncommon, while discussing this event that has so changed all over lives, to meet people who would mutter "the yanks were looking for it" when the subject was raised. They would go on to vent to their heart's delight about US imperialism, and then walk home in their Nike sneakers and watch MTV.

Same crack after the London bombings last summer. "The Brits were looking for it, by participating in the military occupation by a foreign power of Iraq," they would snarl, looking angry and hurt in their Liverpool FC and Manchester United tops.

Some years ago, when the bombs in Bali went off, when An Spailpín Fánach was attending the International Rules match between Australia and Ireland, a minute's silence was held for all the people that had been blown up. "You know," said a friend of An Spailpín's after the minute's silence was over, "I wish there was a website or something where I could find the definitive list of 'who's looking for it,' so I can plan my foreign trips accordingly."

I wasn't able to answer the Big Man then, but I'm happy to say that I've now found out who's currently looking for it.

Denmark.

You didn't think there had been any gyp out of the Danes since Brian Boru softened their cough in 1014, did you? Thought the Danes were just up there among the cold waters of the North Atlantic, reading their Hans Christian Andersen fairytales to each other, maybe slugging a little Carlsberg at the weekends, and supporting a cultured but ultimately losing soccer team? Well, more the fool you.

The Danes are actually the jackboot heel of further White Christian Western Cola-cola colonisation of the Great Satan Oppressors of the world, and not harmless oul divils that make tasty rashers at all. How could you have been so naïve? Don't you know all they do is help crush liberty and further George Bush's empire? God, you make me sick! Open your eyes! See what you're supporting, before it's too late!

It all started when a Danish newspaper called Jyllands-Posten published a series of cartoons about the prophet Muhammad. Under Islamic law, all drawings, renderings and pictures of the Prophet or the Saints are deemed blasphemous, and as such the Danish writer Kåre Bluitgen was having trouble to get someone to illustrate her children's book about the Prophet Muhammad.

Where Aughrim was lost - or where Denmark rolled in behind the war-monger Bush, depending on your politics - was where the newspaper illustrated its story about the problem with cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad, satirising Ms. Bluitgen's dilemma.

Then the balloon went up. The newspapers' cartoonists are now in hiding because of death threats. The foreign ministries of eleven Islamic countries have protested, Libya has closed its Danish embassy and Danish goods have been successfully boycotted Saudi Arabia and Kuwait.

Yesterday, the Danish Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen said that he couldn't apologise for a newspaper, but on behalf of Danes everywhere he grovelled that everybody should be friends again. Whether or not that cuts any ice with the countries that have protested remains to be seen.

You can read all about it here, here and here. In the meantime, watch this space next week, where the dastardly Norwegians declare nuclear and biological war on Iceland. The people of Iceland have been looking for it this long while, those Icy bastards. God, how I hate them and their damned Icelandic Imperialism choking the life from this green Earth where we all live in brotherhood and mutual understanding. Grr!

Politics, Denmark, free speech