Last September, the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published 12 cartoons featuring the prophet Muhammad. I have a shrewd suspicion that this particular newspaper has a rather limited circulation in the Muslim world, writes Kevin Myers.
No matter. Within weeks, 10 Muslim countries (you notice, of course, that there is no such thing these days as a "Christian" country) protested to Denmark and to its prime minister, Anders Fogh Rasmussen, who declined to stone the newspaper's editor to death (or whatever the colourful fate the Koran dictates for blasphemers).
If the Danes were hoping the issue would go away, they were disappointed by their friends, the Norwegians. For two Norwegian magazines then republished the cartoons, one of them on-line, and by last weekend a huge wave of anger had swept across the Arab world. Libya closed its embassy in Copenhagen. The Egyptian parliament demanded its government do the same. The President of Lebanon condemned Denmark. The Justice Minister for the United Arab Emirates denounced the Scandinavians, declaring their actions were "cultural terrorism".
In the Gaza strip, now luxuriating in the paradise of Palestinian self-government, with all the order and civic respect which that concept implies, masked gunmen occupied the offices of the EU (which gives the Palestinians only €500 million a year) and ordered all Danes and Norwegians to leave and not come back. On the West Bank, Palestinians burnt the Danish flag. (Hmm. Not easy, unless there's a Danish flag-shop in Ramallah, in which case the lucky owner is doing a roaring business for flag-barbecues.) Hamas, Hizbullah and the Islamic Brotherhood have all stepped into the fray, calling for revenge. Supermarkets across the entire Arab world have introduced a boycott on all Danish goods.
In reply, the Danish government has now warned its citizens that they could be in mortal danger if they travel to Algeria, Egypt, Jordan, Lebanon, Pakistan, Saudi Arabia, and Syria, and it has withdrawn all its aid workers from the Gaza Strip.
At which point, as threats of anti-Danish violence spread across the Muslim world, into the crisis steps Bill Clinton, with strong words of condemnation. Condemnation of what? Of worldwide intimidation? Of religious hysteria? Of a grotesque Islamic sense of disproportion? No, of course not. His condemnation was, naturally, reserved for the Danes. For whenever Islamic militants ponder whether or not to kill anyone, it's the classic Western liberal response (a) to contextualise it; (b) to blame the victim, especially if he's a Jew or a Westerner; and (c) in advance if possible. So when "I-did-not-have-sex-with-that-woman" Clinton spoke about the Jyllands-Posten affair in Qatar recently, far from condemning the threats to Danes, he said the cartoons caused him to fear that anti-Semitism was being replaced by anti-Islamic prejudice.
Which is unlikely somehow, especially while the Palestinian Authority, prudently spending our billion a year, continues to pour out anti-Semitic propaganda in its schools and in television programmes, regularly portraying Jews as goats and pigs.
I've got a soft spot for Danes - they're peace-loving and fun-loving, and any people who can be ruled for five centuries by the House of Gorm, and for another four centuries by kings who were called alternately Kristian or Frederik, can't be all that bad. Perhaps that's why we don't have a word for anti-Danishness.
However, there's possibly one in Norwegian. In April 1940, the Germans invaded Denmark at 4.15 in the morning. At 6am the Danes surrendered. Under two hours: the length of a soccer match, plus half time.
The Norwegians, however, fought on for another two months. A bit of a disparity, and one which is still remembered in Norway today - and possibly why the Norwegian newspapers stirred the old Islamic pot by mischievously reprinting the Muhammad cartoons.
The real point, however, is that across the Islamic world anti-Danishness is now the flavour of the day. And being vilified by Muslims is a serious business: witness the fate of poor Theo Van Gogh, the Dutch film maker ritualistically and publicly butchered in the Netherlands. Which really does prompt the question: what planet has the editor of Jyllands-Posten been living on since the West woke up and heard of the Salman Rushdie fatwa 20 years ago? Or has he been skulking in an igloo in Greenland? If it has survived global warming, perhaps it's time to return there.
Across the Islamic world, virulent anti-Semitism and anti-Americanism are cultural norms. But if obscure Westerners in an obscure newspaper in an obscure country (sorry, Denmark) even make an alleged sketch of Muhammad, people's lives are threatened, gunmen storm buildings, foreign travel for Danes is banned over much of the planet, ambassadors withdrawn, oh yes, and Bill Clinton - of course - appeases the mob.
I've seen the cartoons on the internet. They are innocent, even childish figures like those you could find in any comic, and upon which you could place any name. They are no more "Muhammad" than they are Eamon de Valera or Queen Victoria.
In any normal circumstances, I would love to publish one here - if only to show you what idiotic nonsense the current international outcry is. But these are not normal circumstances.