Resistance Is Our Responsibility and Only Option, Says Iran's Parliament Speaker

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Resistance Is Our Responsibility and Only Option, Says Iran's Parliament Speaker

Denmark, Where Are You?

Denmark Has Lost its Innocence

Gholam Ali Haddad Adel, speaker of the Iranian Parliament, addressed students and teachers at the main auditorium of the University of Havana on February 16 where he described resistance as "our responsibility and only option".

Fielding questions from students, the parliamentary leader asserted that "although there is no logical reason for the United States to attack Iran, or even to take the issue to the UN Security Council, our people are on alert and ready to respond to any attack". "We just hope that the US government is not so foolish as to launch such an action," he warned.

Haddad Adel briefed the audience on the progress made in science and education in Iran during the 27 years of its Islamic Revolution. "Iranian scientists have the knowledge for the peaceful use of nuclear energy," he said.

He assured that justice is the main pillar of the Islamic religion and criticized the double standard used by the United States and other Western countries, who he said distort concepts such as human rights and democracy.

He noted that while Cuba and Iran are accused by the US as human rights violators, the world is witnessing events such as the tortures and humiliations against prisoners held at the Guantanamo Naval Base, Abu Ghraib and other US detention facilities.

"They want to punish Iran because it is working on the development of nuclear energy with peaceful purposes while at the same time they support Israel, currently holding some 200 nuclear warheads, and which is neither a member of the International Atomic Energy Agency (IAEA) nor has signed the Nuclear Non-Proliferation Treaty," he noted.

Haddad Adel told reporters at a press conference in Havana that "the desire to be able to use nuclear energy is not only the desire of the government or the political parties in Iran but is a popular and unanimous decision of the Iranian people". He added that US criticism of Iran's nuclear programme is only a "pretext to demonstrate its dislike against the Iranian revolution".

Haddad Adel received a warm reception in Cuba, where he arrived after visiting Venezuela. Cuban National Assembly President Ricardo Alarcon vowed to continue backing Iran's effort to resist pressure from the UN Security Council. Cuba is one of three nations, along with Venezuela and Syria, to vote against referring Iran to the UN Security Council over its nuclear programme.

Following that vote, the IAEA reported Iran to the Security Council on February 4 and urged it to suspend all uranium-enrichment activities. Iran responded by partly halting its cooperation with the IAEA and ending a more than two-year suspension of uranium enrichment.

Commentators say that Haddad Adel's trip to Cuba and Venezuela is designed to shore up support for Iran's nuclear position before a possible UN showdown, but that it is also part of a broader plan by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad to develop an alliance of like-minded countries to oppose the United States.

A Story Of Longing

by Thomas Koppel of Savage Rose, February 8, 2006


HERE'S THE FIRST PART (PART 2 To follow)
As we're working very hard please bear with spelling errors and questionable grammar
...... your corrections will be welcomed......

We could have saved ourselves all those many millions for the H C Andersen year, because here the real "culture canon" has arrived.

[The Danish government just launched its "Culture Cannon" to "canonise" the finest of all times in Danish culture. Savage Rose's first album was selected as no 3 for popular music, but Savage Rose declined because of the involvement of the Danish government in the Iraq war.]

The Danish neocon movement from Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen to the so-called Dansk Folkeparti and Jyllandsposten (major Danish right-wing newspaper), have all over the planet turned us into a nation without any kind of culture.

The fierce global, popular protests are not only against a couple of drawings and not at all against our freedom of speech. They originate  in anger and despair accumulated over decades over the growing persecution of Muslims in many countries, with Denmark unfortunately notorious as a front runner; and over a genocide on Arab peoples killing close to two million men, women and especially children since 1991; and an "Ausradierung" of several sovereign nations. The Danish government and a considerable section of the parliament are actively responsible.

Jyllandsposten, Dansk Folkeparti and Anders Fogh Rasmussen have directed this huge anger towards Denmark.

Some Arab regimes and groups closely linked to the US government (e.g. Lebanon, Saudi Arabia), have out of their own reasons put gasoline on the fire – and thereby distracted the protest from the more dangerous USA and Israel.

Art, Lies and Reality

Why does a children's book really have to be blasphemic, kicking the holiest in a religion?

A drawing is smear campaigning, when it is ascribing to a whole people negative features, that aren't true or typical. The "Muslim" with the scimitar definitely does not look like the one, who in our South Harbour neighbourhood of Copenhagen is selling milk and toilet tissue to tired people with bags under their eyes at 1 am.

Behind the man with the scimitar, two covered women in the despised Burkas have eyes filled with fear. But many of the Arab nations actually didn't have neither Burkas or stonings, but progressive, democratic governments – until the intelligence services of the US, UK and Israel had them brought down and killed. Prime Minister Fogh's Allies in London and Washington instead organised and trained regimes like the Taliban, Saddam Hussein, and Osama Bin Laden.

Even in Saddam Hussein’s Iraq, with his persecution of communists and other opposition, women had no need to cover themselves up, and 50% of the students in Iraqi universities, that did not stand back for the western world, were women.

The Frankenstein Iraq, Anders Fogh and his friends can't make stick, is now threatening to bring back oppression of women and stonings.

Not the Arab peoples but the Western superpowers are working to keep the Arabic world stuck in medieval leftovers.

Who are the aggressors?

It is our government that has heavily armed troops in Iraq – not the other way around.

It is our government that authors inhumane immigrant laws, that already before Jyllandsposten's caricatures have made Denmark despised all around the world.

It is our government that has cooperated with the CIA about torture flights through Denmark.

It is our allies who build concentration camps where people of Arab nationality are being tortured and are rotting without a trial.

It is our allies that have turned Iraq, our culture's cradle, into a gigantic nuclear waste junkyard, where more than 50% of the new cancer cases are children under 5 years old.

These incredibly ignorant people of power simply don't understand, that what they do to other people at the end of the day they're doing to themselves. Holocaust

We might not think anyone is noticing this little nation, Denmark, out there in the world. But people around us are following what is happening in Denmark more closely than many Danes themselves. They've heard about Dansk Folkeparti's Louise Frevert's remark that "Muslims are a cancer on the Danish society...." They also know very well that "Reverend" Jesper Langballe in the Danish parliament called Islam a "plague over Europe"..... excactly what Hitler's Der Sturmer called the Jews before the Crystal Night and its murderous raids on Jews November 9th 1938.

People of Islamic faith are no more dumb than everyone else. They know that all signs of a coming Holocaust against Muslims are present. In Denmark, around Europe, in Washington and London. In the Middle East it started a long time ago.

Mr Cartoonist, can you imagine the pain? To stand on top of  the ruins of your home, in the ruins of your town? A dirty teddy bear, that reminds you of your little girl, your whole family, that’s no longer there? No water, no sewer, no work, and only a couple of hours of electricity every day? A "rebuilding of Iraq", that now has ended up in Mr Bush saying that " the Iraqis will have to take care of this themselves..." – after Dick Cheney's Halliburton and others took care of the budgets........

There you are standing, and all of a sudden you see a drawing, done by someone in a distant country. It is obviously supposed to look like you, but with a crooked nose, scimitar, and a couple of oppressed women that fear you. That is, amidst your sorrow and misery, the picture of you some distant artist far away is giving the world...

Of all these reasons, Mr Cartoonist, your drawing is not revealing, but obscuring.

Actually, it's a lie. It is our government, that comes to them with swords, not the other way around.

Is the victim supposed to honour to the executioner's "free speech"? Should my father's beautiful aunt Anna and the 28 other persons from my father's family, who died in Nazi concentration camps, politely have said "To Hitler's right to lie..." when they stepped into the chamber of death?

Reconciliation, Fundamentalists and Reality Show

Now the Prime Minister is advocating reconciliation. But only because our export companies are angry; and there's even talk about boycott of the ship owners. Even Danish Mærsk, with their bloody war profits, are worried.....

But – with the other side of his tongue – Fogh speaks of "violent fundamentalists who are taking advantage of the situation". He's actually got some in his own little neocon chicken farm. "Dansk Folkeparti"'s Søren Krarup has explained to the parliament, that the war in Iraq "is the ultimate Christian war on Islam". And Ayatollah Krarup is strutting like a rooster, and his crusaders keep ravaging around Basra, armed to their teeth.

The Prime Minister had no objections to Krarup's "militant fundamentalism" and also hasn't had much luck with his double-tongued "reconciliation".

It is interesting to think about, that Osama (in harmony with Bush’s conspiracy theory regarding 9/11) in a few minutes was "judged" as the main enemy in the so-called "War on Terror". Nevertheless, both Bush, Blair and Fogh have for some peculiar reason been completely uninterested in catching him or anything else ever since. Osama only pops up as a little signal bell on the TV screen each time Bush is up for "election" or making a speech to the nation and needs us to be a little scared.

Hundred thousands of innocent have become "collateral damage" in this "War on Terror" but in almost five years this "War" hasn't produced one single indicted and convicted terrorist. Not one.

The "War on Terror" is unmistakably one big theatrical show, written and directed by the biggest author of fiction since World War 2: the CIA.

Fogh was being had

Fogh was obviously bewildered left alone in front of the wolves by the same CIA, when the storm broke loose last week. He and "Dansk Folkeparti"'s Pia Kjærsgård were so certain Bush was going to come save them; but besides a little pocket change for the Danish export companies there was no solidarity from Big Brother. No, that is not how the piano plays in the professional mafia.

Bush took without blinking all his trump cards home. He criticised Jyllandsposten‚ (but has since then put in some counterweight), took the role as Islam's rescuer, and left Fogh with his shoulders down and cold sweat in front of the wild crowds.

Bush, on the other hand, could relax while following the anti-Muslim witch-hunt spread like bird flu across Europe – a perfect, destructive preparation for the next suicidal neocon war adventure: the Israeli-American attack on Iran and Syria.

As Iraq became a little more complicated than expected, and Iran a little stronger than expected, they're actually now years behind their plan, but are believed to be aiming at the end of March as the right time for the attack on Iran and the beginning of World War 3.

The Real Intentions

And then here we are at the root of the matter.

As Jyllandspostens‚ chief cultural editor, the PR man of the US neocons in Denmark, Flemming Rose, tells the New herald Tribune, this caricature issue is about far more than a couple of drawings. Rose says – just like  Donald Rumsfeld and the neocon kingpin Daniel Pipes this is the "Clash of Civilisations". That's neocon code for the annexation of the Middle East. A vast US nuclear waste junkyard with oilpipes and military bases with ten layers of barbed wire around it. The "Endlösung" for the Palestinian people. An endless West Bank.

And it doesn't even stop there. All nations including Denmark are going to get a sweep with the tar brush, and this isn't "in a few years". The Bush globalisation's black future has already begun. In the last couple of weeks

Denmark had a little taste of how it feels to be a manipulated colony.

Hundreds of millions of other people know all about that already.

The Arabic peoples, which Fogh is struggling to "calm down", already knows the ideas of "Project For A New American Century", as the US guys  behind Flemming Rose are calling it. They know the paranoid

"Empire" won't even feel safe when it has its iron hand on each and every person on the planet.

Colossus with feet of clay

The Iraqis have showed us something really important: the Empire is a colossus on feet of clay. While many Danes were busy with low-interest loans, the Iraqi's dented rifles halted the US Project World Supremacy – at least for a couple of years.

Include them in your prayers. They are protecting us too. They are all your daily gift.

But the Monster, The Empire, can only destroy. Fear has become the only thing, this ailing, late capitalism has to offer. There's nothing left to believe in. A growing number of US troops no longer believe in what they are doing. No wonder: More than 500,000 US soldiers are deadly ill from the nuclear radiation of Bush Sr's Gulf war 1991 – and Clinton's Kosovo war. The same has already started repeating with the troops of the present Iraq war. Depleted uranium is not quite that depleted anyway. It has a half-life of 4.5 billion years.

The Empire is corrupt, insane, indebted, hated. Fear has become its trademark. And we around the world we have seen, how most Danish media without any questions passed on the CIA – psychologist's synthetic psychoses on to the (partly) unsuspecting Danish population.

The American population are overwhelmingly against their own government, and there's now a majority for impeachment of Bush and other government officials. "The Alternative", the Democratic Party, has – with its conspicuous nightmarish slackness eventually become the only barrier against Bush's sudden departure, but might certainly get pushed aside by the popular demand.

Another superpower is about to implode, and is acting like a cornered beast.

Fogh and Co, as it has been felt for a couple of weeks now, make it a sure thing that Denmark effectively will be pulled down with them.

More about freedom of speech

Let me add a few words on Jyllandsposten's holy cause – freedom of speech.

Neither the newspaper nor Anders Fogh have ever worried about freedom of speech before, and have done all they could to take it away. We don't have freedom of speech in Denmark anymore, unless we're prepared to take the risk to get treated like a "terrorist". The Danish "terror Law" is a constitution-breaking hoax, that hasn't brought any terrorists out into the light, but has instead been used against freedom of speech (remember Greenpeace and "Foreningen oprør").

Freedom of speech, oh noble Jyllandposten..... Jyllandsposten has a great history of humanism, like e.g.  the editorial after Hitler’s excesses against the German Jews in the Crystal Night 1938:

"You have to admit Germany its clear right to rid itself of its Jews. But one must insist that it happens in a decent manner."

Laissez-Faire

If we don't do anything, there will be new persecutions in Denmark and throughout Europe. It won't be pretty. And as in Hitler's Germany, it's not going to be just the Muslims. The European Union January 27th passed a resolution equalling communism and Nazism. An attempt to obligate the member countries to act against socialists and other progressives didn't pass, but the intentions are not to be mistaken and it is now up to each member country if and how they will go after socialists and others.

First they came for the communists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a communist;
Then they came for the socialists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a socialist;
Then they came for the trade unionists,
and I did not speak out
--because I was not a trade unionist;
Then they came for the Jews,
and I did not speak out--
because I was not a Jew;
Then they came for me --
but there was no one left to speak out for me.

(Pastor Martin Niemöller, active in the German resistance against Nazism, prisoner in the concentration camp Sachenhausen 1945)

What has to be done

Dear friends, we can no longer pretend nothing is happening. We must show the world and ourselves respect. Life is too beautiful to mess up because of a little bunch of gangsters that don't know how to appreciate it.

We can't wait for the Social Democratic Party to do it for us. Like most Democrats in the US, most of the Social Democratic caucus voted for the war and its crimes, including for the latest expansions and extensions.

We can't shape our demands, wishes and dreams around the practical political possibilities in the parliament without censoring ourselves, because the parliament doesn't represent the people: The majority of the Danish people are against the war, but not the parliament. We must raise our demands and wishes as they are – and create the organism that can turn them into reality. A strong new grassroots movement, not only about the war but including all the horrible problems plaguing the population regardless of colour of the skin, religion, or gender. This might open up to a whole new popular inspiration, joy and creativity – break the evil circle of fear and turn Denmark into an alive, active, independent organism which could inspire other peoples, awaken new ideas and optimism and not like now: disgust.

I suggest, that we immediately, raise these demands:

1. The Fogh government must step down.

It has done enough harm. We and the world outside can't wait for the next ordinary election. It is a question of rebuilding our identity and be true to our democratic, open, friendly and wise tradition.

2. The Danish troops in Iraq and Afghanistan must be brought home now.

The war is a crime in defiance of UN's decisions and thereby in defiance of the Danish constitution. This comprehensive war crime is the framework around innumerable other war crimes – meaningless murders, torture, destruction and assaults on the population and its necessary installations and institutions. They are also in defiance of the Nuremberg treaty and all international human rights and war crime tribunals. After our experiences under the German occupation, this is beneath our dignity.

3. There has to be initiated a thorough independent investigation of the Fogh government's premises to pull Denmark into the war, and another investigation of the government's relationship with Bush's secret concentration camps and torture flights through Denmark.

4.The xenophobic laws have to be cancelled and replaced by others  in tune with Danish democratic and humanist tradition. Racism, xenophobia and persecution do not belong anywhere.

These laws are more unknown to many Danes than they are to many in other countries. Well before Jyllandsposten's suicide bomb Hans Christian Andersen's mother country had already become an object for despise as a racist and xenophobic country. Besides, racism and hate destroy also any nation or group practicing them – and make the soul decompose.

5. The terror laws (Danish "Patriot Act") must be cancelled including the attacks on freedom of speech.

These laws are unconstitutional; they are totally against Danish democratic tradition and culture – they destroy fundamental human rights and civil rights without contributing the least to reducing terrorism – on the contrary.

6. Budgets for illegal wars and illegal weapons must be moved to education and creating workplaces . After the wars comes exploitation of underpaid work and slavery. This kind of abuse must be stopped wherever it is.

A man from the Danish government party, Venstre, told me that we could close down all of Denmark's farming, because a single big farm in Ukraine could handle it all for a fraction of the price. But a Denmark without production is a sick, weak, dependant nation. No low-interest loans can replace production more than just a couple of years at the most, then the bill has to be paid. With what?

7.  There has to be a thorough, informative, popular debate regarding Denmark’s membership of EU.

It is crucial that this debate comes up as a real, lively, popular debate. We are becoming an incapable pawn in a big game of military, superpower illusions, oil wars, fascisation of the community and working conditions, and poisoning of our food and destruction of our climate and our environment.

How should it be done?

All these  are questions we can discuss by organising meetings at work, in the unions, with your neighbours, the village, school – in media and everywhere (Jyllandsposten‚ e. g., has freedom of speech... )

What about a new independent popular movement, who can represent the popular demands without tactical parliamentary restrictions – thereby bringing  the true, popular demands into the Danish reality in a strong and organised way, including in the parliament?

This is a suggestion from a regular composer of Danish popular tradition – from beautiful medieval folk songs to Buxtehude, from Blicher and H.C. Andersen to Jeppe Aakjær, Martin Andersen Nexø and Carl Nielsen; from Tove Ditlevsen to Erik Stinus. And at the same time – of global tradition, from Sappho to Neruda, Mikis Theodorakis, Nazim Hikmet, Mahmoud Darwish, Marvin Gaye, Harry Belafonte, Miriam Makeba..... Life is full of beauty. The horrifying and ugly doesn't have to be there. Now is the best time ever to wake up and take the initiative for the sake of our children's future.

Think how things could actually be....

This great change is not something we fight for for years – to see nothing will come out of it anyway. The change begins, in the same instance we make our decision. Freedom is in the process itself – when we realise we can do things on our own. Forget about watching TV tonight and talk to someone about what you can do.

What we need from ourselves is: that we preserve our respect for ourselves, respect for others – regardless of skin colour and beliefs; that we hold on to love,  solidarity, the dream, the poetry, the humour, the beauty, the big heart, the open mind, the common sense. It is all old virtues – becoming new and fine when used. All of it uniting real popular Danish culture with all other peoples' cultures on this earth. When we dig deep down underneath greed and lies, the dreams, the tears and laughter the same all over the world. All the thousands of wonderful flowers, that make the culture of this planet, come out of one single root that all people understand.

That's the longing for freedom.

Sven Tarp, International Secretary, Communist Party of Denmark ML

"Something is rotten in the kingdom of Denmark", Shakespeare wrote in his famous Hamlet some four centuries ago. The events that have taken place during the last weeks and months show that Shakespeare’s words have gained new actuality. We who live in Denmark can confirm that everything is not as it ought to be.

According to the modern myth already created, it all started in my home town, the city of Aarhus, on September 30 last year when the national newspaper with a regional name, Jyllands Posten (The Jutland Post), published twelve cartoons that presented an offensive and unilateral image of Mohamed.

The official reason for printing the cartoons was, according to the editor-in-chief, to challenge the way freedom of speech is practised in Denmark as it is allegedly being restricted due to a growing Moslem influence. Before publishing the cartoons, they were shown to a series of experts who explained that they most certainly would provoke anger among the Moslems who would feel offended by the way their prophet was portrayed. So, the printing of the cartoons was from the very beginning planned as a malicious provocation.

Official and real motives

It is always difficult to guess the personal motives of those who take unhappy decisions. And these motives are, indeed, of little interest. What is important is the historical context in which the decisions are taken and the role generally played by the decision-makers. From that point of view it is easy to conclude that the publication of the cartoons is part of a national agenda promoted by the Danish ruling circles with a double purpose:

• to divide the Danish working class into nationals and foreigners, Christians and Moslems, in order to weaken its resistance to the brutal imposition of neoliberal policies at a very specific moment where the Danish economy is momentarily one of the most thriving within the general framework of a crisis-hidden capitalist world economy;
• to weaken, by creating an artificial enemy image of the Moslem world, the growing demand among the Danish people that the Danish troops should be withdrawn from Iraq where they are taking part in the illegal occupation headed by US imperialism.

From the very beginning, the whole issue has been treated with a mixture of arrogance and stupidity, both by the editors of Jyllands Posten and by the Danish government. It soon became clear that the Moslem people did feel offended. The Moslem society in Denmark, as soon as early October, organised demonstrations and called upon the newspaper to apologise for the publication. This was refused with the false pretext of defending freedom of speech.

On October 19, the ambassadors from eleven Moslem countries requested a meeting with the Danish government in order to discuss the cartoons. In a very arrogant way, the rightist government of Anders Fogh Rasmussen refused to meet the ambassadors for a discussion that might have prevented subsequent events.

In an action unheard of in the history of Danish diplomacy, 22 former Danish ambassadors publicly criticised the Prime Minister’s refusal to meet with the representatives of the Moslem countries. They were backed up by the former Danish Foreign Minister, Uffe Ellemann-Jensen, a cold warrior and rightist politician who, however, is sensible to this kind of cultural problems. But the government stuck to its own decision. It was apparently not unhappy with the fact that the cartoons caused disunity and distracted the popular attention from the social consequences of its planned »welfare reforms« that were announced last autumn.

It was only when the national agenda turned into an international crisis of unprecedented dimensions that the government and the newspaper decided to take action. But even then, their arrogance prevented them from saving what could be saved. The editor of Jyllands Posten, for example, apologised to the Moslems because they felt offended, but he did not apologise for publishing the offensive cartoons, because such an apology, according to him, would be a violation of his freedom of speech! In this way, the apology was not enough to end the protests and neither was the appearance of the Danish Prime Minister on Arab and Moslem television channels where he didn’t deliver the message expected from him.

A reactionary newspaper

Jyllands Posten is one of Denmark’s largest newspapers with a long tradition of rightist policy. In the 1930’s, it was ill-famous for defending pro-Nazi positions. After the Second World War, it turned completely pro-NATO. During the war in Vietnam, it was a loyal ally of US imperialism. Today, its is an arduous defender of the Zionist state of Israel and the imperialist occupation of Iraq and Afghanistan as well as the growing pressure on Iran, Syria and other independent countries.

Jyllands Posten is considered the unofficial organ of expression of the Liberal Party of Prime Minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen. As such, it is not an innocent player in the present crisis. Its defence of freedom of speech is nothing but hypocritical.

During the last years, Jyllands Posten has transformed itself into a national platform of the most rabid attacks against communists and other progressive people. Even the most stupid anti-communist professor has free access to its columns. The freedom of speech practised by the newspaper is used to distort, silence and criminalise communist and progressive ideas. The way the former socialist countries in Europe and the Danish communists that were active during the Cold War are portrayed is just as insulting as the twelve cartoons.

According to the legend, the Danish national flag, Dannebrog, fell ready-made down from the sky in the year of 1219 during the battle of Lyndanisse where the Danish crusaders fought to Christianise the pagan Estonians. Eight hundred years later, Jyllands Posten and the ruling Danish bourgeoisie is presenting freedom of speech as a sacred, absolutist principle that, in a similar way, fell ready-made down from the sky in its present narrow-minded and intolerant Danish version.

For the Danish communists, freedom of speech is a beautiful principle that takes its concrete form according to the concrete historical context and the social class that practises it. It is a necessity for the free development of the individual human beings and their participation in the democratic processes of modern society. But it cannot be accepted as an unlimited right of the ruling class to insult other people and cause tension, violence, war and destruction. Freedom of speech should always be subordinated to ethics and the rules of civilised behaviour among peoples and nations.

A reactionary government

The extent of the anti-Danish protests that have swept all over the Moslem world during the last weeks has taken the Danish public by surprise. Very few expected that something like this could ever happen. For years the Danish people have been indoctrinated with the belief that they lived in the best of all worlds; that they themselves were so very tolerant and everybody else, especially the Moslem peoples, intolerant; that their country was well-respected and their government well-intentioned and generous; that the Danish troops in Afghanistan and Iraq did a fine and humanitarian job and were well-received by the local people, etc.

This lie has survived and taken roots because the Danish press, in spite of its own claim to be liberal and broad-minded, has turned into one of the most controlled and regimented in Europe. This control also explains why the Danish people haven’t seen what has been in the pipeline for several years.

Denmark, that twenty years ago was known for its Social Democratic welfare system, its humanitarian assistance to the third world and its footnote policy that offered certain resistance to the most aggressive plans of NATO and US imperialism, has little by little been transformed into a very reactionary country. At an international level this has expressed itself in Denmark’s subordination to US imperialism and its participation in the aggressive wars against Yugoslavia, Afghanistan and Iraq. At the same time, Danish foreign «aid« is being still more conditioned by the acceptance of neo-liberal and pro-imperialist positions.

And at a national level, the so-called «anti-terror» legislation, the attempts to criminalise the communists and the still more intolerant tone in the debate on immigration are just some of the expressions of a reactionary state that several times has been censured by the UN, the Council of Europe and Amnesty International for its violation of human rights.

Now the Danish people are paying the price for the stupid actions of its arrogant and reactionary ruling class. Even the journalists who have being telling lies for years have, like Hitler in 1941, been caught in their own lies. They apparently believed what they wrote and said and are now just as surprised as the majority of the people. But instead of being self-critical of themselves and their role, they are now looking for scapegoats. And they have found these among some local Moslem imams who, admittedly, have engaged in contradictions and manipulations in order to promote their own agenda.

In this situation, the arrogant answer of the government is to make a distinction between «good» and «bad» Moslems and to promote a national organisation of the «good ones» while at the same ignoring or slandering the «bad ones». This may solve a concrete problem in the concrete situation where the government is desperately trying to get some allies among Moslems, but in the long run it most certainly will add fuel to the fire.

It started more than hundred years ago

The present crisis cannot be explained only with the cartoons and the arrogance of the Danish ruling circles, although they certainly contributed a lot. The really explication should be found in the repeated humiliations that the Moslem people have suffered for more that hundred years, first under the rule European colonialism and now in the form of joint US and European imperialist domination with constant aggressions, occupations and impositions of Western imperialist interests in their countries. The Moslem reaction has been on its way for a long time. In this light, it is completely fortuitous that it was exactly Denmark and the cartoons that started the present revolt among the Moslem peoples. It would have come sooner or later.

On the surface, the present revolt is taking the form of a clash between civilisations, a kind of religious war, with all the irrational fanaticism, different agendas, dangers and unclear dividing lines this brings about. But in its essence, it is an important anti-imperialist movement directed against world imperialism headed by the United States of America and with Denmark as an active and arrogant little brother. As Danish communists we greet this movement and hope that it will find still clearer and more consequent expressions.

However, the fact that it has taken a religious form mixed with fanaticism and different local and regional agendas also creates confusion and secondary contradictions and makes it more complex to forge an international anti-imperialist front. The burning of Danish flags and national symbols, for example, however justified it may be, insults the national feelings of a considerable part of the Danish population and contribute in this way to the strengthening of the rightist and extremist parties. According to the latest opinion polls, the support for the extremist Danish Peoples Party has grown considerably during the last weeks and it is now almost catching up with the Social Democratic Party and thus becoming the second biggest Party in Denmark.

However, the national situation is very contradictory. Opinion polls also show that while almost 80 per cent of the population supports Jyllands Posten when it refuses to make a real apology, there is, at the same time, a growing number of people, who now constitute a little more that half the population, that understand why the Moslems feel insulted by the cartoons. Spontaneous manifestations and demonstrations for tolerance and solidarity are emerging everywhere. Another positive result of the revolt in the Moslem countries is that a third of the Danish soldiers who were expected to be send to Iraq in the near future now refuse to go. Hence, an important battle of ideas is taking place within the Danish society.

The position of the Danish communists

The Communist Party of Denmark ML, which together with other communist forces are preparing the founding of a New Communist Party at a Unification Congress in November, is taking active part in the present class struggle and battle of ideas. Our main line of activity is the struggle for the unity of the working class and the mobilisation of the local and national trade union movement against the dividing policy of the ruling bourgeoisie. At the same time, we demand that the editors of Jyllands Posten should make a clear-cut apology for printing the cartoons and that the government should follow up in such a way that it becomes absolutely clear that it repudiates the provocation.

Our Party is also active in the preparation for the big anti-war demonstrations on March 18, which will take place under the broad banner of withdrawing the troops from Iraq. At the same time, we are stepping up our solidarity with the Iraqi resistance movement and the Palestinian people while we are condemning the imperialist pressure and threats against Iran, Syria and other independent countries. We believe that the present crisis should be used to strengthen the anti-imperialist movement of solidarity with the oppressed peoples all over the world.

Finally, we wish to say to our Moslem brothers that in the end of day we have the same enemies, world imperialism headed by the actual Bush administration, and that we should unite in a broad international front in order to fight this enemy number one of humanity.