Blogs > INTIFADA SPREADING TO ARHUS, DENMARK

Jun 29, 2006

INTIFADA SPREADING TO ARHUS, DENMARK



As those of you who have been reading this blog and my article on the HNN homepage know, the Arhus riots were not caused by accidental deaths but by the publication of cartoons. Nor are they spontaneous.

These are riots focusing on a newspaper and that is perhaps the reason the Danish editors make sure the world does not hear about them . Thanks for the blogsphere we have the Viking Observer to translate the local paper for us.

Rosenhøj Mall has several nights in a row been the scene of the worst riots in Århus for years."This area belongs to us", the youths proclaim. Sunday evening saw a new arson attack.

Well, we moved from the notion that Muslim majority regions like the one in Southrern Thailand and the Phillipines must be controlled by Muslim. Now, urban districts with Muslim majority are to be controlled by Muslims.

As a 1996 Fulbright fellow teaching at Arahus University, I know the place. Muslims were living in a kind of Ghetto even then. The problem of integration is real but violence merely serves to justify prejudice and the excuse is untenable.



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Carsten Agger - 11/2/2005

First of all, a linguistic observation: The "center" (as we call it here) in Rosenhøj is hardly a "mall" by any definition, but a longish, low building containing a small off. license, a pizza bar, a vegetable/fruit shop, a baker and a bingo hall. Nearby is a bar and a gas station.

Secondly, the riots here (I speak as a resident of the very area you mention) are hardly a question of "Muslims wanting to be in charge". The perpetrators were actually a mix of youths from various backgrounds, most from immigrant (mainly Muslim) families, but also many Danes. None would, I guess, be considered "good Muslims" by any standards whatsoever. This is really a story more about exclusion, unemployment and poverty than anything else.

And so, it wasn't motivated by cartoons anyway; even though some of the young ones may have mentioned the infamous cartoons as a lame excuse for arson, violence and wanton desctruction.