I can see now where your earlier comment about "No offend Chinese women" came from. A critically important observation you make, about politics being organizing, not quite so much about ideals/goals/etc. Too many people give too much weight to ideals, especially when they aren't directly involved.

Excellent contribution. Thanks Mathew. Going to do an editorial touch up, but in re your point re European illiberalism with respect to laws, I believe that is a strong point that should have been explored earlier.

Indeed, I should have been more carefull in distinguishing between merely boycotting over the issue (however defined) and the violence (as is occuring in Pakistan - rather clearly the religious parties flexing muscles against Moucharraf).

This is fantastic, I love the bit about Boycott.

I am already warm to your "process-driven" change theories, have touched on them in the post I just made.

And even the idea of boycotting all things Danish isn’t as mad as it sounds. The defense of a free press and that therefore the Danes as a nation are off the hook is not valid. The proverbial elephant in the room, noxiously pointed out by the Iranian verbal savagery of Holocaust cartoons, is that Europe is laden with anti-hate-speech illiberal idiocy, which include laws prohibiting Holocaust “revisionists” from spewing their diseased bile. It is indeed hypocritical and offensive to scream “free press” and then deny racist speech to others, but not to Muslim-insulters.

"Europe" has no such laws. Some European countries have. Denmark is not among them. So, the fact that France, Germany and Austria has laws criminalizing Holocaust denial makes a boycott of Denmark less mad? The only thing crazier than the boycott is defending it with this argument.

"Europe" may not have such laws. Denmark may not have such laws. Yet, the perception often is that they do, with some good reasons that you point to. One might liken it, in fact, to the way either "Arabs" or "Muslims" are generalized by the same broad sweep by North Americans or Europeans.

No doubt being subject to such generalization is offensive to the Danes, not unlike the way Africans were offended by "No offend Chinese women" protests in China, circa 1989. Once the process starts, however, the issue goes beyond whether it began over Chinese racism or slandering Denmark.

I should point out that getting the process going is hardly a guide to its final destination: all revolutions--at least the successful ones, at any rate--have widespread support at the beginning, since they almost invariably seek to topple an unpopular regime by enlisting the "pious middle," so to speak, of the society. Yet, they often wind up with the extremists in charge--as witness the revolutions in France (1787), Russia (1917), and Iran (1979).

"Throughout Europe, there is legislation specifically limiting speech, including speech denying the Holocaust. For example, Germany, France, and Austria, all have such legislation.

Denmark, too, has related anti-hate legislation: Its law penalizes expressions that threaten, deride or degrade on the grounds of race, color, national or ethnic origin, belief or sexual orientation. Indeed, in the Jersild case, the Danish government attempted to enforce these laws against a television journalist. "

SOunds to me like Gunnar above is gunning for the wrong argument, if the above is true. From Find law.

And in the Jersild case the EU -- which includes France Germany and AUstria countermanded its applications, which means that EU member Denmark is in an association with countries that have such laws.

"So, the fact that France, Germany and Austria has laws criminalizing Holocaust denial makes a boycott of Denmark less mad?"

YES!, but even more so fellow EU-member Denmark's own apparent laws on hate speech. If you outlaw nasty speech, expect pressure by groups to get their own illiberal pet peeves in.

And if this is accurate, from Der Spiegel --

"Denmark is no paragon of free speech. Article 140 of the Criminal Code allows for a fine and up to four months of imprisonment for demeaning a "recognized religious community."

Ya makes da dumb laws, you pays da price.

In practice, the racism paragraph only seem to work when you actually threaten people, which the cartoons don't. Most recently it has been used against Kaj Wilhelmsen ("kill all muslims") and Hizb-ut-Tahrir ("kill all jews").

The Jersild case was idiotic, yes. It was not overturned by the EU, but the European Court of Human Rights, which is a completely different organization. The Danish courts took notice and became very careful about using the racism paragraph.

The blasphemy law has only been applied successfully once, in 1938, on some nazis. Danish Peoples Party (the Islam-fearing rightwingers) tried to remove it last summer, but the other parties did not like their argument, that it was wrong having such a law in a Christian country. They said that was basing laws on religious reasoning.

Also, it is argued that the blasphemy law symbolizes that there is a lower limit, somewhere. Two weeks ago, Danish Front (neo-nazis) were told by PET, the Police Intelligence Service, that the blasphemy law would apply if they burnt the Quran (the burning embassies in Damascus and Beirut was "revenge" based on rumors about this non-burning of the Quran).

Sure, these laws may be dumb. Even dumber is that calling someone a "racist" in Denmark is considered libel unless you can hit them with the racism paragraph (you can't).

Keeping track of European institutions and what they do and don't is complicated, and I don't blame anyone for mixing things up. But it does not make your argument right. There are no European laws on hate speech, and the Holocaust example, which is being repeated over and over, simply does not apply to Denmark. You can deny that Holocaust, the crusades, the moon landings, or Napoleon's invasion of England ever happened, and it is exactly the same from a legal point of view.

Of course, none of this changes anything about your main argument about the potential empowering effects in the Middle East of the ability to organize an effective boycott (effective in the sense that it stops the sale of Danish products in the affected countries, not that it does any real harm to the Danish economy).

I was just annoyed to see this bogus logic repeated on this fine blog, and the consequences of having a lot of people believing it are potentially much worse than a boycott.

I am afraid Gunnar's argument is escaping me.

There are in fact quite a slew of illiberal European laws re hate speech and the like.

European, however, is not a synonym for EU. Reading the original post I did not get a claim of EU laws, but rather the vague generalisation with respect to Europe (reasonable in the context of the commentary's focus elsewhere).

It seems to me there is some confusion here on the usage. Or maybe not.

By the way, mate, a fine arty from The FT, Chris Caldwell, on European laws (note for Gunnar et al, not EU laws.

I am afraid Gunnar's argument is escaping me.

My argument is simply that a German law can't be used to justify a boycott of Denmark (making the boycott less mad).

There are in fact quite a slew of illiberal European laws re hate speech and the like.

Agreed, but Denmark has fewer of those, and their interpretation is less illiberal than their wording.

European, however, is not a synonym for EU. Reading the original post I did not get a claim of EU laws, but rather the vague generalisation with respect to Europe (reasonable in the context of the commentary's focus elsewhere).

The Europe/EU/ECHR thing refers to Martin's response to my first comment, and is really hair-splitting. Sorry about that. And sorry for making a fuzz about a minor point in the original post.

It seems to me there is some confusion here on the usage. Or maybe not.

Yes, I'd just like to distinguish between European laws (laws that apply to Europe/EU) and laws in some European countries that apply to those countries. An American law limits the freedom not to listen, but only Ohioans suffer under it.

The original post said the argument about a free press does not get Denmark as a nation off the hook, and then mentions Holocaust laws as an example of illiberal speech laws. Denmark has no such law, so it is not relevant to a discussion about a boycott of Denmark.

I'll never play croquet in Ohio again. The fact that it is on stupidlaws.com reinforces my point.

Yes, I muddied the anti-Holocaust denial and anti-group-defamation laws in a hurried context but it appears that Denmark DOES HAVE anti-religious defamation laws on the books and illiberal laws or their enforcement prevent burning (preumably one's own) Koran for example, if I have that incident down right, not that I endorse such behavior.

Note also my point is less defensive -- I said "not as mad" -- not necessairly virtuous or sensible. Another issue is that of secondary boycotts which, while perfectly defensible behavior, leaves a distaste in classical liberal mouths. If hte goal had been more sensible -- to get the newspaper to retract -- boycotting all things Danish in MENA still would have a rational secondary purpose as a Moroccan not buying the newspaper would have no effect, but a Morroccan not buying from a Danish food export company that may advertise or even socialize with the newspaper is a valid strategic tactic.

The idiocy is in trying to get the Danish government to apologize, the counter-idiocy that mitigates that idiocy is the existence -- in Denmark and the European environment -- of free speech laws against religious defamation, not to mention France's obscenely illiberal banning of headscarves on girls. And French newspapers have trumpeted the cartoon republishing under the banner of liberty.

Also there is the issue of some common European jurisdiction. If foreigners were to boycott all USA in past for segregation laws applicable in the south only or for Ohio's local tyrannical denial of the fundamental human right to play croquet on Decoration day it would have a measure of sense.

dear et al,

i agree with gunnar that one really needs to be careful with wording. as already mentioned somewhere else on aqoul (i think), denmark really is on the extreme end of free speech, the existence of some limits notwithstanding.

re: france's (& to an extend germany's) prohibition on the headscarf -- with maybe the possible exception of denmark and other scandinavian countries, most european countries' societies are based on some sense of "social engineering", i.e. that the state has the responsibility to "promote the good and prohibit the vice", as my islamist friends are so fond of saying. france, as a politi, views religion as a private quirk, if not a pre-modern abberation of human thought that will - soon enough - die out. it also views religion in itself as fundamentally hindering the process of creating and maintaining a truly modern society.

in germany (and many other countries in europe), the point of view is similar, but the historical development of this society did not lead to a true laicist state like france. but here, again, the politi holds that the main purpose of the muslim headscarf is to symbolize the female's lesser status in society and the female's inherent sinfulness. the german politi is of the opinion that outright prohibition of the headscarf would be an infringement on basic civic liberties - i.e. you can't prohibit a woman from following an anti-female custom - but it feels that it has the right to decide just which ways of life are allowed for schoolchildren to see as examples of "correct behavior" -- and a muslim teacher who is scarf-less in class but puts it on the moment a male (teacher or janitor) enters the room - after having announced this loudly beforehand & given her enough time to cover up ... just isn't what the german politi wants.

few european societies see themselves primarily as "liberal". and, indeed, there will be lawsuits against a number of papers who re-printed the danish cartoons, as some of them most likely violate laws in countries where they had been reprinted.

but there is no "european" law yet. there are no press laws, no laws on free speech or defamation. all of this is supposed to be covered in the e.u. constitution. whenever it gets passed ...

as for the boycott - of course that's perfectly fine as political instrument. but here, too, there's the question of "what do you want to achieve & is this a smart move?". just with the danish cartoons themselves, it looks more like winning a battle but losing the war.

--raf*

I think the most convincing part of your argument is that the grass roots action will make previously uninvolved people feel they can have a say in changing their situation. I don't think that the upper levels of political organization experienced much maturation, that was already in place (Danish imams bringing their case to the Middle East, local groups organizing protests). But the previously univinvolved masses getting in on a wide boycott, that might increase political awareness, which can hopefully be directed at producted ends. Of course, that newfound political awareness may just as easily be manipulated by the existing organized groups into something unproductive. That political awareness specifically has to diverge from the interests of those already guiding opinions.

This seems as useful a thread to dump this obs on as anywhere (and it doesn't seem worth an Aqoul thread in itself):

My little local grocery in Beirut suddenly has a large amount of danish dairy goods on its shelves. I wonder just how much of a discount they got from their distributor.