How Mohammed Cartoons Taught Us Not To Compromise Freedom, with Anders Fogh Rasmussen

The cartoon crisis in Denmark was really about freedom of expression and free press. It was quite a challenge for the Danish government to strike the right balance, but because obviously we also had to calm the waters.

But I learned from that crisis that you have to be firm on certain basic principles and not compromise. And we didn’t. We were requested to apologize on behalf of a newspaper that had published some cartoons. But I think that would be a slippery slope.

Whether you sympathize or not with those cartoons, it is a basic principle in any free society that you can express your views freely, whether it is in a written form, television and movies, or even drawings and cartoons. And if you start to compromise on that basic principle, then you will gradually undermine your free society and democracy.

Of course, in any democracy, you should also respect freedom of religion, obviously. But it is a basic feature of any democracy that you are allowed to have a free and also critical debate about all issues, including religion.

So that’s the lesson I took from that crisis. I think people broadly accept that we have to stand up for these basic principles. And the Danish government did at that time, though it was a very challenging time.