Danish Library Wants Cartoons Prophet Muhammad
The Royal Library in Copenhagen has expressed the wish to house controversial cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad which were published in a Danish newspaper in September 2005 and created a wave of global protest in which more than 50 people were killed. “It would be natural for us to have them at the Royal Library,” Jytte Kjaergaard, a spokeswoman for the Copenhagen- based library, said by telephone today to Bloomberg. “We don’t perceive them as works of art. We don’t have any view on their substance or content. Our view is that they hold a place in our cultural heritage. The cartoons have become a part of Danish history.”
Critics state that the library risks opening old wounds, causing an unnecessary provocation towards the Muslim world. “We don’t need to be reminded of the cartoons. We need to forget about them and build bridges between people, rather than dig ditches,” said Kasem Said Ahmad, a spokesman for the Islamic Community in Denmark.
Der Spiegel writes that “according to Danish law, two copies of everything published in Denmark — from bestselling novels to local newspapers — have to be deposited at the Royal Library, making it the country’s most important repository.” The Danish institution is considered to be Scandinavia’s leading library, with rare treasures like Sören Kierkegaard’s manuscripts, one of 48 copies of the Gutenberg Bible known to exist and “Out of Africa” author Karen Blixen’s diaries.
The Danish Media Museum in Odense has also expressed an interest in the cartoons. “If the library acquires them, we would like to show them together with media reports about the publication and the protests against it,” says its director Ervin Nielsen in the Guardian.
The artists are willing to collaborate, writes the Times. “We have generally agreed that we want a museum to have the works, but everyone still has to take a final decision for himself,” Claus Seidel, one of the cartoonists and head of the Danish cartoonists’ association, said. “Nobody wants to make a lot of money, some of us are even willing to donate the works,” he said.”
Read the article in the Times (January 30, 3008)
Read the article in the Guardian (January 30, 2008)
Read the article in Der Spiegel (January 30, 2008)
Read the article at bloomberg.com (Junuary 30, 2008)
Visit the Web site of The Royal Library
See the timeline of the Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy on Wikipedia
Update February 1:
Read the article in the International Herald Tribune (January 30, 2008)
Read the article in the Art Newspaper (January 31, 2008)
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