Rose is best known for commissioning a group of drawings of Muhammad that were published in
Jyllands-Posten on 30 September 2005. His reasoning was that many European creative artists had engaged in
self-censorship out of fear of Muslim violence. The immediate trigger for the commission was the case of the Danish children's book author
Kåre Bluitgen, who reportedly couldn't find an illustrator for a book about the life of Muhammad.
Jyllands-Posten invited Danish illustrators to depict Muhammad "as you see him." Not all of the cartoons submitted in response to his invitation featured images of Muhammed. Two of them caricatured Bluitgen, one mocked
Jyllands-Posten itself, while others caricatured Danish politicians. The most famous of the cartoons, by
Kurt Westergaard, depicted Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. In February 2006, Rose wrote an essay for the
Washington Post entitled "Why I Published Those Cartoons." He noted that
Kurt Westergaard had previously drawn outrageous cartoons of Jesus and the Star of David, neither of which had led to "embassy burnings or death threats". Rose asked: "Has
Jyllands-Posten insulted and disrespected Islam?...When I visit a mosque, I show my respect by taking off my shoes. I follow the customs, just as I do in a church, synagogue or other holy place. But if a believer demands that I, as a nonbeliever, observe his taboos in the public domain, he is not asking for my respect, but for my submission. And that is incompatible with a secular democracy." As for avoiding offense, Rose stated: "I am offended by things in the paper every day: transcripts of speeches by
Osama bin Laden, photos from
Abu Ghraib, people insisting that
Israel should be erased from the face of the Earth, people saying the Holocaust never happened. But that does not mean that I would refrain from printing them as long as they fell within the limits of the law and of the newspaper's ethical code….As a former correspondent in the
Soviet Union, I am sensitive about calls for censorship on the grounds of insult. This is a popular trick of totalitarian movements: Label any critique or call for debate as an insult and punish the offenders….The lesson from the Cold War is: If you give in to totalitarian impulses once, new demands follow. The West prevailed in the Cold War because we stood by our fundamental values and did not appease totalitarian tyrants."
After the cartoon incident After the cartoon crisis, Rose traveled around the U.S. and interviewed such figures as
Francis Fukuyama,
Bill Kristol,
Richard Perle, and
Bernard Lewis for the
New York Times and
Jyllands-Posten. The interviews later appeared in Rose's book
Amerikanske stemmer (American Voices). Rose has continued to write and be interviewed extensively about the cartoons and the issues raised by the controversy. He said in a 2007 interview that "publication of the cartoons definitely raised the level of consciousness about self-censorship." Although some observers have denied that he achieved his goal with the cartoons because there was supposedly "more self-censorship" than before, Rose maintained that what had increased was not self-censorship but awareness of it: "before the cartoon controversy, there were many instances of self-censorship that went unnoticed." Prior to the publishing of the cartoons, he noted, the Tate gallery in London had removed a torn-up copy of the
Koran from an exhibition in order to avoid offending Muslims. "There was no public reaction to this; there was no talk about self-censorship although it was an obvious case." After the cartoon case, by contrast, the proposed cancellation for similar reasons of a Berlin production of Idomeneo caused "a tremendous public outcry and outrage." Rose argued in the interview that "it is discriminatory toward Muslims to say that we should not make fun of their religion when we are making fun of everybody else's religion….I'd like to think that in some sense, the cartoons were an act of inclusion because we were not asking more or less of Muslims but exactly the same as of everybody else. Danish Muslims should be treated as adults, not as a weak minority needing special treatment like small children." He also expressed surprise "that more European newspapers republished the cartoons than those in the United States." Unlike the major U.S. dailies, several major European papers reprinted them. "There are two narratives here: There are those who say that the controversy was about self-censorship—about denying a religious group special treatment in the public domain. That is my narrative. Then, you have another narrative saying: This was not about free speech or self-censorship; it was about a powerful newspaper insulting a minority. This was a fair argument until the moment when the threats were issued. The twelve cartoonists and I received death threats; newspapers were closed in
Russia and in
Malaysia, and newspaper editors were jailed in
Jordan and
Yemen. At that point, it became an issue exclusively about free speech." In a February 2008 interview with
Der Spiegel, Rose said that "on a global level people who are in favor of free speech have to unite in order to get rid of all kinds of laws around the world that limit the right to free speech – blasphemy laws, laws protecting dictators, laws which are being used to silence people who are critical." He added that Denmark's "debate about integration and about fundamental values in our democracy is far more fact-based than it used to be. The cartoons didn't create a new reality, but they revealed a reality. That reality was already there, but not everybody was willing to see it. Now this reality has become clear and we can discuss the real problems based on facts instead of some abstract thinking."
Plot against Westergaard and afterward In February 2008, in response to a plot to kill Kurt Westergaard, 17 Danish newspapers reprinted his cartoon of Muhammed with the bomb in his turban. "My colleagues at
Jyllands-Posten and I understand that the cartoon may be offensive to some people," wrote Rose in the
Wall Street Journal, "but sometimes the truth can be very offensive." He quoted
George Orwell: "If liberty means anything, it means the right to tell people what they do not want to hear." He also stated that "the plot to kill Mr. Westergaard is…part of a broader trend that risks undermining free speech in Europe and around the world." There is "a global battle for the right to free speech," he maintained, and although legal systems differ, "the justifications for censorship and self-censorship are similar in different parts of the world: Religious feelings and taboos need to be treated with a kind of sensibility and respect that other feelings and ideas cannot command." Rose rejected this special treatment, noting that during the Cold War "people like
Václav Havel,
Lech Wałęsa,
Andrei Sakharov" had insisted that "It is not cultures, religions or political systems that enjoy rights. Human beings enjoy rights, and certain principles like the ones embedded in the U.N. Declaration of Human Rights are universal." Rose also rejected the "misplaced sensitivity" that "is being used by tyrants and fanatics to justify murder and silence criticism," and deplored the West's "lack of clarity on these issues," which led some people to argue "that
Salman Rushdie,
Theo van Gogh,
Ayaan Hirsi Ali,
Taslima Nasreen and Kurt Westergaard bear a certain amount of responsibility for their fate. They don't understand that by doing so they tacitly endorse attacks on dissenting voices in parts of the world where no one can protect them." In March 2009, Rose spoke in
Oslo, and described the Norwegian debate on free speech as "politically correct," less "open, direct, and coarse" than in Denmark. Because many Norwegian commentators cherish the idea of their country as a peacemaker, he argued, they hold back to avoid creating unpleasantness. In April 2009, Rose spoke at the
Hebrew University of Jerusalem. Rose said that Islam expert
Bernard Lewis had told him that the cartoon crisis marked "the first time Muslims [had tried] to impose Islamic law on non-Muslim countries." He also said, "There's a problem with Muslims in Europe and it must be dealt with – but limiting freedom of expression is not the solution." He further commented: "There are those who viewed the cartoons that I published as a form of incitement, but I don't think a statement should be measured by the response it yields, especially if the response is irrational and stupid." He also stated that "There was a time after the crisis that I had to take extra precautions, but that is in the past. I never felt threatened – or that I have to be silent."
Tavshedens Tyranni In 2011, five years to the day after the cartoons were first published in
Jyllands-Posten, they were republished in Denmark in Rose's book
Tavshedens Tyranni (Tyranny of Silence). The Norwegian publisher that bought the rights to the book described it as "a 500-page collection of essays about free speech and its boundaries." A reviewer in the Norwegian magazine
Minerva commented that "one cannot help being extremely impressed by the way he has handled the pressure." His main point, wrote the reviewer, is that "in a liberal democracy no individual or group can demand special treatment in the free exchange of words." For Rose, "freedom of speech is not a Western value, but a global value." When Rose's book was about to come out, Danish Foreign Minister
Lene Espersen met with 17 ambassadors from Muslim countries in an effort to prevent a new cartoon crisis.
Holocaust cartoons On 8 February 2006, Flemming Rose said in interviews with
CNN and
TV 2 that
Jyllands-Posten planned to reprint satirical cartoons depicting the
Holocaust that the Iranian newspaper
Hamshahri planned to publish. He told CNN "My newspaper is trying to establish a contact with that Iranian newspaper
Hamshahri, and we would run the cartoons the same day as they publish them". Later that day the paper's editor-in-chief said that
Jyllands-Posten under no circumstances would publish the Holocaust cartoons and Flemming Rose later said that "he had made a mistake".[http://nyhederne.tv2.dk/article.php?id=3618698&forside The next day
Carsten Juste, the editor-in-chief of
Jyllands-Posten, stated that Flemming Rose was on indefinite leave because he needed time off.[http://politiken.dk/VisArtikel.sasp?PageID=437583 After some months Rose returned to
Jyllands-Posten.
Al-Qaeda hit list In 2013, Flemming Rose was added to a hit list in
Al-Qaeda in the Arabian Peninsula's
Inspire magazine, along with cartoonist
Stéphane "Charb" Charbonnier,
Lars Vilks and three
Jyllands-Posten staff members:
Kurt Westergaard,
Carsten Juste. In 2015, over 12 people were
murdered in attacks on Charlie Hebdo in Paris. After the attack, Al-Qaeda called for more killings.
Invitation to speak withdrawn by the University of Cape Town, South Africa The Academic Freedom Committee of the University of Cape Town in South Africa invited Flemming Rose in March 2015 to speak at its 2016 TB Davie Memorial Lecture on academic freedom, scheduled to be held during August 2016. This invitation was withdrawn by the Vice Chancellor, Max Price, during July 2016 over fears that the lecture may "spark conflict on campus, create security risks and retard rather than advance academic freedom at the university." == Works ==