“Refuting myths and dispelling misconceptions”…But NOT this way

This is the slogan of one of the weeklies that have been the driving force behind the boycott campaign. Unfortunately they do not match their slogan.

By coincidence I came across their main story of today – and I couldn’t believe my eyes when I read their headline:

“Danish government prevents Jesus’ insult, defends offenders of Islam”.

This was intriguing to me first of all because I had difficulties in seeing how the government would be able to do that and second because I had not heard anything about anything related to such an issue.

The story goes as follows:

COPENHAGEN- The Danish government recently withdrew products from the market bearing images depicting Jesus and Mary.

A number of industrialists, who defended the Danish cartoons demeaning the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), sought to prove that freedom in the west can also be applied to Christian symbols by producing sandals and shoes on which images defaming Jesus and Mary appear.

After protests from the Danish people the authorities pushed the producers to withdraw the products from the market. All the shoes and sandals disappeared from the market in only one day. 

As a result the Muslim community in Denmark accused the government of having double standards and igniting racism and hatred in the country.

Muslim bodies decided to use this issue in filing a new lawsuit against the offenders of Islam.

The President of the Muslim Council in Denmark, Abelwahed Bederson, said the government has used the freedom of speech as a pretext to justify the publishing of the cartoons insulting the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH).

Resources : FI 17.7.2008

Bearing in mind His Majesty’s words about Journalism in Jordan “It seems that some of our journalists forgot what journalism is all about. It is about reading, researching and investing in pursuit of the truth; not sitting behind a desk, making up silly stories” I decided to do a bit of research myself.

There was nothing in today’s papers or in the papers from this week. Mysterious! The article says that this happened “recently” and in the Arabic version of the article it says “a few days ago”. Maybe I had missed out on something during the last months? Nope. Last year? Nope…2006 then?  Eventually I found something. May 2003 – a little bit more than five years ago! I guess we all have our own personal definition of time and space – but please – give me a break…

What happened – according to my desk and paper research of Danish news within the last 30 minutes – was that a supermarket chain in May 2003 imported a batch of sandals with the picture of Jesus Christ printed on them. They made the sandals the offer of the week.  In my country a particular type of sandals are called Jesus sandals – maybe these sandals was an allusion to that – I don’t know – but these were cheap plastic ones.

Printing the picture of Jesus Christ on a pair of sandals was considered offensive by some Christians and there was for three days debate in the press about this issue. The criticism was led by a catholic priest and other Christians and among them a number of evangelic priests and bishops supported that point of view. A small Christian association decided to take the supermarket to court for Blasphemy. After three days the supermarket withdrew what was left of the stock from its outlets.

Since 2003 nothing really new on this issue in the papers nor on the internet when googled…So – the Jordanian weekly certainly had a story – It was a matter of fact that these sandals had been sold in 2003 and that they were withdrawn from the market in 2003! But there was a number of other issues from the Jordanian article that I could not find trace of.

First of all – nobody in 2003 made any allusion whatsoever as to the government being involved in this matter. And I think for good reason. Why and on what basis should the government act in a case like this? In the end it was a question of commercial calculation, pressure from some of the customers and – for the court case – legal procedures and not of politics or any other area of government responsibility. In my country the government is NOT omnipresent or omnipotent. I think somebody have to come to grips with that because that is the way it is. We as Danish citizens do not expect the government to come and solve all problems – and we don’t expect – tough luck conspiracy theorists! – the Government to be behind all good or evil that takes place in our society. So not only is the headline dead wrong in my opinion but also the allusion that the Authorities should have pushed the producers to retract the sandals is way out of bounds.

Second – since this event took place in 2003 – long before anyone had thought about printing any cartoons which happened in September 2005 – it can hardly be seen as “a number of industrialists, who defended the Danish cartoons demeaning the Prophet Mohammed (PBUH), sought to prove that freedom in the west can also be applied to Christian symbols by producing sandals and shoes on which images defaming Jesus and Mary appear”. Did you notice the word “Sandals” – I guess we are talking about the same event – but probably some of us are seeing it through a time warp. What came first? Sandals or cartoons?

Third – I found no trace of this event being put in a Muslim – Christian context or of Muslims accusing the government of double standards and igniting racism and hatred in the country. None what so ever. These accusations arose from a part of the Danish Muslim community after the cartoons was printed in 2005 – but not in a way as this story wants us to believe. Nor could I find any trace of “Muslim bodies decided to use this issue in filing a new lawsuit”. If the weekly only had stated its sources – then we could check up on it – but no – no sources. I think I know why.

Fourth – A prominent Danish Imam Abdul Wahid Pedersen is quoted for a statement as mentioned above. I am not able to verify whether this quote is correct or not but I tend to believe it is. But I also tend to believe to almost certainty that this quote must be a quote on the Cartoon issue and not on the Sandals – but the editor does not tell us. I doubt that the Editor has checked with Imam Pedersen whether this is the case or not. But if you read the Arabic version of the article it seems that Imam Pedersen is quoted much more extensively and within quotation signs – so I hope that the editor has checked with him and I hope Imam Pedersen knows in what context he is being quoted.

Fifth – You have to ask yourself why such a breaking news story is being manipulated and published at this point in time? One might suspect that someone has a not so hidden agenda about harming relations between Danes and other people? Or maybe to stir up emotions between people of different faith? Unprofessional journalism? Sensationalism? Advancing a local agenda without relation to Denmark? It could of course also be that the journalist has been misled by some evil persons conspiring against his profession or paper. Who knows – I don’t. I am seeking answers and they don’t seem so obvious. Please enlighten me.

I beg that someone will prove my research wrong – I am no journalist – but if my reading of this is correct then I have to echo a very important Jordanian voice in saying that the difference between a lie and the truth is very simple – proof. Or at least credible sources when it comes to journalism.

I had intended to write a little “see you later” blog entry since I am preparing for vacation. This will reduce my blogging capabilities – no network – for some time. But on the other hand – how will I be able to survive without my daily doses of myths and misconceptions and not least conspiracy theories? So I guess I will check in from time to time. As I have stated on previous occasions – a select group of you bloggers are providing Jordan with some of the most accurate information and best analysis there is.

Oohhh - I forgot to tell you – It turned out that the picture on the sandals was not Jesus Christ but Judas Thaddaeus the Apostle. That fact made one of the most outspoken critical Bishops say that the issue had become rather ludicrous. I don’t think the issue ever went to court for the same reason.

P.s. A note on sources. There is no links to the Danish papers because not much is stored electronically from 2003. I will see if I can provide you with some links later. But for those interested the daily newspaper Berlingske Tidende published a summery of the debate on page 7 the 15th of May 2003 .

P.p.s. I managed to find a link on BBC here and another one in English here.

HM King Abdullah II blogs about Freedom of Expression

As a follow up to his important interview about Jordanian media and politics His Majesty King Abdullah II left an interesting comment on the Black Iris blog (Naseem) regarding freedom of expression/press and its limits. I encourage you to read both the comments and the interview. King Abdullah advocates for blogging and commenting in a spirit of freedom. Among other things the King says “…..People must not be afraid to express their opinions without using aliases…..”, which can be perceived as an answer also to “whatever’s” dilemma about being anonymous. HM posted a similar but not identical statement on Ad-Dustours webpage and he drew a lot of positive reactions as a response.

Apart from the content of HM’s comment I think this also marks an important day for the Jordanian blogosphere – more and more people are paying attention to what is going on in this media including at the highest level. And it is definitely a thumbs up to The Black Iris  recognizing it as one of the most important and most read blogs in Jordan.

One click – and the World suddenly got small

One of the most annoying barriers between people is the language barrier. I have for the last 20 years been struggling with learning a number of new languages for study or professional reasons. The most recent – and by far the most difficult – was to try to learn Arabic. In spite of a serious effort I failed miserably.

I don’t like that – and I don’t like to have to bother other people by asking them to help me translating. But then a couple of months ago I made the discovery of the year – at least for me. I have never experienced such an increase in productivity and understanding as when I stumbled upon the Google Language Tools. Basically, it is a very versatile machine translator to and from many, many different languages.

My previous experience with machine translation has not been good. They are generally cumbersome and inflexible. But this machine is something else. It is like a new world that suddenly opens up from being encrypted and hidden from your sight. Of course it is far from perfect depending on the language – I wouldn’t sign a business contract based on its translation – but it gives you a good feeling of the main points in a story. And then it works directly on complete homepages and it is intelligent as well. If you’re not satisfied with the quality of the output you can suggest better translations which the machine uses to improve itself.

I have tried the machine on a number of different languages. My main use is for translating Arabic texts and web pages into English. It is ok at that – but at times it leaves you a bit confused because of the very different grammatical structures in the two languages. And it is too efficient. Arabic names often have a specific meaning – so when talking about people you have to figure out by yourself who they are – as in “Captain Golden” (Prime Minister Dahabi…). But the main point is, that what was used to be hidden is now visible to all. By the way – try to translate the Ammon news version of His Majesty’s interview into english and see what you get…

A hint: When translating between European languages it is a good idea to translate into a language in the same family like Italian to French or Dutch to German if you read those languages. On average the translation into English is good and from Danish to English on individual text pieces it is very good. So no more excuses for not knowing what is written in Denmark…

On this blog I have made a new link category with my favourite Jordanian sites in Arabic. If you pick one of those links you should get the English translation. Not all websites are programmed to do that – but these should work (I hope). Please post a comment if you feel that there are important Jordanian (political issues) sites in Arabic that needs to be checked out.

High Scores

Something is not always rotten in Denmark. I hope that as an ambassador I am excused for bragging about my country. This is among the things I get paid for doing – well actually maybe I should just say for promoting my country…

But here is something that Danes can be proud of.

First of all, Denmark is the least corrupt country in the World according to Transparency International’s latest survey focusing on water.

Secondly, Denmark is the most peaceful country in the World – right after Iceland - according to The Economist

And finally, Denmark is where you find the happiest people in the World. 

I’ll quote CNN: “I strongly suspect there is a strong correlation between peace and happiness,” said Ronald Inglehart, a political scientist at the University of Michigan’s Institute for Social Research. “There is also a correlation between democracy and peace. Democracies are less likely to fight each other than non-democracies.” The other good part is that the happiness index is rising all over the World.

I tend to think that the happiness index must be somewhat subjective in its measurement (check this article by Osama Al-Sharif), but I am really proud of the top position in the anti-corruption index. That is extremely important for business and our sense of justice. We must be doing something right…

UPDATE: I am not even good at bragging. Peter posted a comment, that Denmark also is the best country in the World for Business according to a recent Forbes survey. Thank you Peter

UPDATE September 08. Denmark took pole position as the least corrupt country again in 2008. Read also my article on the Danish experience on 7iber.com or on worldfocus.org.