tag:theconversation.com,2011:/global/topics/copenhagen-shootings-14930/articlesCopenhagen Shootings – The Conversation2015-10-01T08:23:40Ztag:theconversation.com,2011:article/474722015-10-01T08:23:40Z2015-10-01T08:23:40ZFree speech is no excuse for Muslim-baiting<p>Over the last decade, the world has witnessed a number of significant clashes between the rights of free of speech and respect for religion. </p>
<p>On a Sunday evening in May this year, two men in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/05/04/us/gunmen-killed-after-firing-on-anti-islam-groups-event.html">Garland, Texas</a> shot an unarmed security guard at a Muhammad-focused art exhibit and cartoon contest sponsored by an <a href="http://freedomdefense.typepad.com/">anti-Islamic organization</a>. The gunmen were killed by a police officer hired to provide security at the event. </p>
<p>This incident marked the most recent in a string of violent acts highlighting an uneasy imbalance between freedom of speech and respect for religious beliefs. It followed the <a href="http://www.bbc.com/news/world-europe-30708237">attack</a> earlier this year on the satirical French newspaper, Charlie Hebdo, and subsequent <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/15/copenhagen-shootings-how-the-attacks-unfolded">shootings in Copenhagen</a>. It also evoked memories of the <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/4677976.stm">Danish cartoon controversy</a> 10 years ago, which resulted in violent protests around the world. </p>
<p>In 2005, Flemming Rose, the cultural editor of a Danish newspaper, invited cartoonists to draw the face of Muhammad as they saw him. Concerned that Danish artists were self-censoring their criticism of Islam due to fear of reprisals, Rose wanted the cartoons “<a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2006/02/17/AR2006021702499.html">to push back self-imposed limits on expression that seemed to be closing in tighter</a>.” </p>
<p>The resulting 12 cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad included one by Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard of Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. Other images were less provocative, but they were offensive to many Muslims. Some cited <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/middle_east/4674864.stm">general Islamic restrictions</a> on drawing images of the prophet. Others felt the representation of Muhammad reflected <a href="http://www.slate.com/articles/life/faithbased/2006/02/depicting_mohammed.html">negative stereotypes</a> of Muslims and Islam. </p>
<h2>Diversity and values</h2>
<p>Each of these episodes took place in communities struggling to make sense of increasing religious and cultural diversity. This is perhaps more clearly the case in <a href="http://www.pewresearch.org/fact-tank/2015/01/15/5-facts-about-the-muslim-population-in-europe/">France and Denmark</a>, where the number of Muslims has grown rapidly in recent years due to immigration. Muslims have been in the US for <a href="http://www.pbs.org/opb/historydetectives/feature/islam-in-america/">much longer</a>, but particularly since 9/11, Americans have grappled with an undercurrent of conflict between so-called “Western” and “Islamic” values. </p>
<p>While there are historical and cultural differences between Denmark, the US and France, all three countries have seen a rise of <a href="http://www.huffingtonpost.co.uk/steve-rose/911-racism-islamophobia_b_3908411.html">Islamophobia</a> from some segments of their populations over the past three decades. This is often accompanied by a desire to defend the nation against a perceived threat to free speech. </p>
<p>In all three instances, these sentiments led to the creation of images of the Prophet Muhammad, which in turn provoked violent extremism. </p>
<p>During the coverage of these violent incidents by the media, more often than not, commentators focused on a single issue, arguing that <a href="http://www.economist.com/node/5494602">free speech</a> and respect for religious and cultural differences are mutually exclusive. We must, they argued, support not simply freedom of speech but also the <a href="http://www.usnews.com/opinion/blogs/nicole-hemmer/2015/05/05/muhammad-cartoon-contest-charlie-hebdo-right-to-offend-must-be-defended">right to offend</a>. This right, sometimes articulated as a duty, was discussed as a necessary aspect of democracy.</p>
<p>But as I have maintained in my <a href="http://www.bloomsbury.com/us/secularism-theology-and-islam-9781474257619/">book</a> on the Danish cartoon crisis, this is a dangerously dualistic interpretation of free speech and religious respect. While I believe that free speech is a crucial part of democracy, as a theologian and scholar of religion, I argue that this freedom necessitates respect and responsibility. Simply because we can say something doesn’t necessarily mean that we should. </p>
<p>In the article that accompanied the cartoons in 2005, editor Flemming Rose argued that in a democracy with freedom of expression, one must tolerate scorn, mockery and ridicule. In my work, I maintain that religious and cultural pluralism are core values that democracies should aspire toward. Pluralism, according to scholars like Harvard University’s <a href="http://www.pluralism.org/pluralism/what_is_pluralism">Diana Eck</a>, goes beyond tolerating diversity to actively seeking to engage difference through mutual dialogue. This kind of pluralism is impossible if we deliberately use free speech to provoke, demean or injure others. </p>
<p>We should consider more carefully what “freedom of speech” actually means in context. Despite popular belief, free speech is not absolute, even in the United States. The Supreme Court has made this clear through a <a href="https://www.fas.org/sgp/crs/misc/95-815.pdf">number of cases</a>. The government can regulate speech in certain instances, with exceptions for circumstances like “fighting words,” or incitement to imminent violent action. The media and individuals self-censor in multiple ways in accord with a sense of shared taste or a tacit agreement of certain boundaries. </p>
<h2>Violence not legitimate</h2>
<p>Condemning the inexcusable violence committed by the shooters in Garland, France and Denmark doesn’t stop us from questioning the justification for the cartoon contest and subsequent exhibit. Are they not simply provocations of a minority by the majority? </p>
<p>Violence isn’t a legitimate response to a religious offense, but the intentional disrespect of a neighbor’s religious sensibilities is also inexcusable in a pluralistic society. There are, of course, legitimate reasons for fearing the beliefs and threats of extremist groups like IS and al-Qaeda. But portraying all Muslims as violent and sponsoring events like the “contest” in Garland will not help prevent religious extremism. These actions encourage violence by extremists, and alienate American Muslims, the vast majority of whom simply want to live their lives peacefully.</p>
<p>In a world that continues to become more diverse, engaging in civil dialogue in an effort to better understand our differences is paramount. We can condemn violent extremism and simultaneously reject the idea that freedom of speech and respect are mutually exclusive.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/47472/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Jennifer Elisa Veninga does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organization that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Ten years after the Danish cartoon crisis, it’s time to discuss how freedom of religion and freedom of speech can coexist.Jennifer Elisa Veninga, Assistant Professor of Religious and Theological Studies , St. Edward's UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/385452015-03-09T15:23:23Z2015-03-09T15:23:23ZTalk by Swedish artist cancelled as Copenhagen attacks leave mark on free speech<p>The first appearance by the controversial Swedish artist Lars Vilks since the <a href="https://theconversation.com/copenhagen-shootings-target-democracy-and-pluralism-37622">Copenhagen terrorist attacks</a> was always going to be a tense affair. But just as I was preparing to leave for his talk in Gothenburg this weekend, I got a text message from another attendee telling me it was <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20150304/lars-vilks-first-talk-since-copenhagen-in-doubt">all off</a>.</p>
<p>Vilks was to appear alongside other figures from the Swedish media at a talk on March 6. The panellists were to discuss the implications of the attacks in Copenhagen for freedom of expression in parallel with the Gothenburg media fair. It ended up being the latest in a long line of cancelled events.</p>
<p>Vilks has lived under tight security since depicting the prophet Mohammed as a dog in a 2007 cartoon but since the February attacks he has had to be even more cautious. The artist believes he was the target of Omar Abdelhe went on to kill a security guard at a synagogue. Vilks survived unhurt but it now seems as though his freedoms have been even further curtailed.</p>
<p>Every event he attends has tight security and a recent interview he gave to the Associated Press was <a href="http://abcnews.go.com/International/wireStory/ap-interview-artist-vilks-denmark-attack-changed-29389357">conducted in an abandoned barn in the Swedish countryside</a>.</p>
<h2>A new climate of fear</h2>
<p>This latest talk was supposed to be an open public event on the limits of free speech, and no threats had been made. <a href="http://www.expressen.se/gt/lars-vilks-motet-i-goteborg-blir-av/">The Gothenburg police had given it the</a> green light and hundreds had signed up to attend. Goethenburg is not a political hotspot, but a city in which such debates are a regular occurrence and an important part of the political and cultural scene. It has a counter-cultural reputation but that generally flies below the international radar.</p>
<p>The event had already been rescheduled once after an association of teachers meeting in another part of the venue had objected, before being removed entirely from the bill, ostensibly for the same reasons. Vilks had already been subject to cancellation at the universities in Karlstad and Örebro amid security concerns.</p>
<p>He has <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/14/copenhagen-attack-cartoonist-lars-vilks">achieved notoriety</a> and a certain amount of support from the Scandinavian right for his drawings but he claims his agenda is liberal rather than anti-Islamic.</p>
<p>But even those not planning to attend Vilks’s talk can’t have failed to notice that life in Sweden has changed. The debate about the position of minorities in Scandinavia has reignited in the wake of the Copenhagen attacks. Across Sweden, synagogues and Jewish nursery schools have police guards while mosques and Islamic centres are <a href="http://www.thelocal.se/20150216/swedish-police-beef-up-security-after-shootings">also subject to a greater police presence in since the Copenhagen shootings</a> </p>
<p>A climate of mistrust is emerging between Sweden’s religious and cultural groups in which the state has become a heavy handed guarantor and mediator. In such a climate, the staging of democratic, religious or cultural events is becoming increasingly difficult.</p>
<h2>Self-censorship</h2>
<p>The Gothenburg debate had been organised by the youth wing of the Swedish Pirate Party, an organisation with roots in web activism and with a strong commitment to both individual rights and a transparent public sphere.</p>
<p>Gustav Nipe, the chairman of the Young Pirates, <a href="http://www.gp.se/gptv#Osdrn87Q8opkekgYao6CzQ">told the press</a>:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>This isn’t about the police. The police said they can provide security, but people are scared. They have given up in the face of extremists who through violence and the threat of violence have silenced Swedish debate. They’re winning, because this is what they don’t want: debate.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Although Vilks was a major draw, he was just one of the well-known figures from the Swedish media booked to speak as part of the Gothenburg media week, a trade fair for journalists and media workers. Whatever people’s views on Vilks himself, it would appear that the terrorism carried out in Denmark and previously in Paris has won a small victory in this cancellation.</p>
<p>The venue of the cancelled events, <em>Folkets Hus</em> in Gothenburg, is a regular venue for public and cultural events with deep roots in the Social Democratic movement. Replicated all over Sweden, such venues were built to house cultural and educational events for the general public. The Danish <em>kulturhus</em>, where the first Copenhagen attack took place, had a similar purpose. The venue’s website boasts that “here your ideas can develop, be refined and flourish”, but this is demonstrably not the case.</p>
<p>Physical attacks and threats to democratic participation are obvious signs of a disdain for pluralism, but as Gothenburg’s non-event proves, the biggest threat comes in the form of the conversations that never take place at all.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/38545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Hinde conducted his doctoral research with support from the AHRC</span></em></p>Lars Vilks was supposed to talk about free speech in Sweden but has been silenced by terror concerns.Dominic Hinde, PhD Candidate in Scandinavian Studies, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/377512015-02-24T11:07:44Z2015-02-24T11:07:44ZThe new terrorists and the roots they share with gangs and drug lords<p>The recent attacks in <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/01/10/world/europe/charlie-hebdo-paris-shooting.html">Paris</a> and <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/16/world/europe/copenhagen-attacks-suspect-is-killed-police-say.html">Copenhagen</a> are the latest incarnations of a new type of terrorism. Decentralized and homegrown, it is hard to understand. </p>
<p>Last week, the Obama Administration convened a <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2015/02/19/us/obama-to-outline-nonmilitary-plans-to-counter-groups-like-isis.html">three-day summit</a> to focus on the reasons young people become involved in this kind of violence. In many cases, these young perpetrators have been drawn to extremist ideologies without personal histories of religious commitment, militancy, or even social activism. </p>
<p>How do they – in a relatively short period of time – get to the point where they are willing to commit such violent acts?</p>
<p>Our research and program experience at the <a href="http://publichealth.gwu.edu/about/milken-institute-sph">George Washington University’s</a> <a href="http://www.cswd-gw.org/">Center for Social Well-Being and Development</a>, and the <a href="http://avancegw.org/">Avance Center for the Advancement of Immigrant/Refugee Health</a> may offer some guidance.</p>
<h2>Not isolated actions</h2>
<p>It is useful to think about such acts as taking place within a broader context. </p>
<p>The Kouachi brothers, for instance, reportedly felt excluded and ultimately just “wanted to be French.” They lived in the 19th arrondissement in Paris, a neighborhood long disconnected from the French mainstream, with high levels of unemployment, particularly for young adults.</p>
<p>In Copenhagen, 22-year old Omar Abdel Hamid el-Hussein was said to be seething with anger about exclusion from Danish society. He was radicalized in prison and swore allegiance to ISIS only moments before his shooting rampage.</p>
<p>How does this kind of context contribute to these outsized acts of violence? Our work suggests that it does so in at least two significant ways.</p>
<h2>The nature of exclusion</h2>
<p>The first has to do with the nature of excluded communities. Cut off by many boundaries, they become like islands disconnected from the society around them. These boundaries are socio-economic and cultural and are often made deeper by racism and discrimination. </p>
<p>But within these islands, people still strive to make a living, to belong, and to attain status. Because the possibilities are limited, the ways of achieving these basic goals may divert from conventional paths. The difference between legal and illegal becomes blurred and the definition of risk less clear. </p>
<p>Social structures like gangs and family-like crime networks often develop to provide opportunities for income, protection and social bonds. Even so, competition for the finite number of opportunities is tough. The script for success may well include violence – and that is before we even consider religious or ideological motives.</p>
<p>Add to this general context a second, powerful factor. The people we are talking about are largely young, not far from adolescence.</p>
<h2>The significance of adolescence</h2>
<p>As the psychologist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Identity-Youth-Crisis-Austen-Monograph/dp/0393311449">Erik Erikson</a> and others have noted, an important part of being an adolescent involves assembling a personal identity. </p>
<p>The material for putting that identity together comes from what one sees and experiences in one’s immediate community and cultural environment, as well as from the media and Internet. Attaching to an identity at this stage can be a deeply emotional process; it is all about getting social acceptance and recognition. The stakes are high.</p>
<p>In excluded communities, there are a limited number of valued identities to choose from that can also offer a viable future. Add one more level of difficulty if the community in question is an immigrant one. </p>
<h2>Exclusion and the search for identity – a toxic mix</h2>
<p>A young person searching for identity and status in an excluded community is vulnerable to the influence of people who use violence to demonstrate their importance. If that violence is connected with a sense of payback and revenge against those forces that exclude, then the situation is even more volatile. </p>
<p>This appears to be what happened in the cases of the prison-based jihadi networks in Denmark, and in Paris for the Buttes-Chaumont network that included the Kouachi brothers as well as Amedy Coulibaly. </p>
<p>It also holds true in different ways for the <a href="http://gangs.umd.edu/gangs/MS13.aspx">Mara Salvatrucha (MS-13)</a> and <a href="http://gangs.umd.edu/Gangs/18thStreet.aspx">18th Street</a> gangs in the US and Central America, for the <a href="https://web.stanford.edu/class/e297c/poverty_prejudice/gangcolor/lacrips.htm">Crips and Bloods</a> and quite possibly for more than a few drug trafficking organizations. </p>
<p><a href="http://utpress.utexas.edu/index.php/books/edbeln">In one study</a>, young men interviewed from poverty-ridden colonias on the Mexican border recounted that they were willing to traffic in drugs and die or kill violently in order to be remembered as heroic in popular songs known as “narcocorridos.” </p>
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</figure>
<p>While not exact parallels, there is a common thread to these examples. </p>
<p>Though we do not equate gang or drug violence with terrorism, each of these is at least partially rooted in exclusion, where legends are made, songs written and YouTube videos are posted about people who become notorious through acts of violence. It is either that or having to eke out a living with little chance to get ahead.</p>
<p>Social exclusion and poverty, said anthropologist <a href="http://www.amazon.com/Tell-Them-Who-Am-Homeless/dp/014024137X">Elliott Liebow</a>, is facelessness. There is a common human desire to be someone, to matter. For people who feel exclusion every day, the desire to be someone wells up and is ready to be channeled. Enter an ethos of heroic violence or heroic martyrdom, and you will see many takers.</p>
<h2>What can be done?</h2>
<p>Token jobs programs are not the answer, nor are token programs of any kind. We have to compete with the benefits offered by gangs, traffickers and potentially extremist groups.</p>
<p>This process takes time, local collaboration and resources. It is not easy or a quick fix. Young people must come of age seeing that there are multiple opportunities for them that include access to social capital, resources and decent work where they can retain a sense of identity and acceptance. </p>
<p>The <a href="http://www.layc-dc.org/index.php/md-programs/adelante.html">Adelante</a> program, currently being implemented in the Washington, DC, metro area community by George Washington University’s <a href="http://avancegw.org/">Avance Center</a> is one such attempt. </p>
<p>Adelante is a program designed to prevent substance abuse, sexual risk behavior and violence among immigrant Latino youth. To achieve this goal, the program works at three levels:</p>
<ol>
<li>It helps building skills and capabilities that participants can use to strengthen the community, stay healthy and increase their likelihood of finding decent employment or further education. </li>
<li>It brings together a range of organizations including non-profit groups, the faith community and businesses to connect with participants. </li>
<li>It helps create a positive identity for the process and its participants.</li>
</ol>
<p>To illustrate how it works, take the example of a high-school age young man who is on the verge of dropping out. </p>
<p>At Adelante, he learns advocacy skills and how to talk about problems in his community. He makes a presentation to a local community group together with several other youth. People listen. Encouraged by Adelante program staff, the community group then asks these young people if they want to be peer educators, maybe even with a stipend attached. Now school looks a little different, more meaningful. The prospect of getting involved in destructive activities loses a little of its pull. </p>
<h2>Going global</h2>
<p>At the <a href="http://www.cswd-gw.org/">Center for Social Well-Being and Development</a>, we are applying the same systematic approach in global settings. </p>
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<p>Key to this is our focus on “social well-being,” which is derived from the <a href="http://www.who.int/en/">World Health Organization’s</a> definition of health as “not merely the absence of disease or infirmity.” We look at each community and its environment as a system that can promote good outcomes or bad ones. By identifying the factors that make families and young people vulnerable, we can help decide how to change that balance.</p>
<p>With partners at UNICEF, our staff developed the <a href="http://www.unicef.org/lac/core_INDICATORS_Part_3_MICS.pdf">Adolescent Well-Being Framework</a>. </p>
<p>This tool serves as a guide for identifying whether or not adolescents have the supports they need to do well. These supports relate to, among other things, safety, education, and having future possibilities for employment. The more such supports are in place, the less likely adolescents will be involved in violence and other situations that place them at risk. </p>
<p>This framework is now at the early stages of implementation and testing. For example, in one Central American country where we work, adolescent girls from a particular ethnic minority group are frequently trafficked. HIV rates are high. If we use the Framework as a guide, we might find that the problem is that there is little help to keep them in school; that there are few sources of income other than at local tourist sites; that their ethnic identity does not get any recognition and that there are limited funds allocated to HIV prevention for adolescents.</p>
<p>The conclusion, therefore, is that to give these girls and their families better options, some effort needs to be made to fill these gaps. The goal of this process is to move away from “band-aid” solutions. The Framework is able to highlight where comprehensive and sustainable changes must be made in the community.</p>
<p>It is from this perspective that we look at violence – and extremism – among youth. Our argument is that it is no accident that the use of violence is much higher in some communities than in others. There is something going on that increases vulnerability. The task is to find out what that is, and then make the effort to change that context. </p>
<p>Will these kinds of efforts eliminate homegrown terrorism or violence? </p>
<p>Not entirely. Not all terrorists are driven by the motivations described above. But such actions will at least help drain the fuel that feeds the fire.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37751/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Mark Edberg is director of the Avance Center and of CSWD. The Avance Center is funded through a grant from the National Institutes of Health; CSWD currently receives funding from UNICEF for specific projects. These funds do not go directly to Mark Edberg, but to the George Washington University, where the centers are located. .</span></em></p><p class="fine-print"><em><span>The Center for Social Well-Being and Development (CSWD) currently receives funding from UNICEF for specific projects. These funds do not go directly to Hina Shaikh, but to the George Washington University, where the center is located. </span></em></p>What makes some communities more vulnerable to the use of violence than others?Mark Edberg, Associate Professor in the Milken Institute School of Public Health, Department of Anthropology, and Elliott School of International Affairs at the George Washington University, and Director of both the Avance Center for the Advancement of Immigrant/Refug, George Washington UniversityHina Shaikh, Director, Program Management and Research Operations of the Center for Social Well-Being and Development, Milken Institute School of Public Health, George Washington UniversityLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/364412015-02-18T06:20:27Z2015-02-18T06:20:27ZUK still values Jewish communities, study shows<figure><img src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72257/original/image-20150217-19502-jmie1d.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=496&fit=clip" /><figcaption><span class="caption">Jewish communities are warmly received in the UK.</span> <span class="attribution"><a class="source" href="http://www.flickr.com/photos/dcasey/107392282/">dcaseyphoto</a>, <a class="license" href="http://creativecommons.org/licenses/by/4.0/">CC BY</a></span></figcaption></figure><p>The cowardly murder of Jews in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/charlie-hebdo-attack">France</a> and <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/copenhagen-shootings">Denmark</a>, in conjunction with terrorist attacks designed to shut down discussion, is justifiably a cause for more than a passing concern. Europe may be witnessing the dawn of a period where extra steps must be taken to defend citizens against those who will resort to physical force to silence those who offer biting, challenging or difficult critiques of their own points of view or religious beliefs.</p>
<p>In this moment of soul searching, Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has inserted himself into the debate, all but declaring Europe as a lost cause and hopelessly anti-Semitic. In a speech following the Copenhagen attacks, he went as far as to call for a <a href="https://theconversation.com/netanyahus-blatant-campaigning-abroad-will-win-him-votes-but-its-hurting-israel-37545">mass exodus</a>, urging European Jews to emigrate to Israel.</p>
<p><a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/antisemitic-attacks-uk-community-security-trust-britain-jewish-population">Studies</a> have shown that anti-Semitic attacks did increase between 2013 and 2014 but an inspection of British attitudes towards Jews, whose number in the UK is just over a quarter of a million, belies Netanyahu’s doom-mongering. </p>
<p>As part of a yet to be published study of 2,774 British people in the summer of 2013, we asked respondents what they thought of a variety of groups, institutions, and countries on what is known as a “thermometer scale” that ranges from a freezing rating of 0, a moderate score of 50, and a warm rating of 100. </p>
<p>The mean scores offer no evidence that Jews are viewed any more negatively than other groups. Respondents give them an average ranking of 62, just below the average evaluation of 63 given to Christians and gay people, and above the score of 55 given to Asians. The biggest concern though was the response to questions about Muslims. An average score of only 42 raises suggests the integration of Muslims continues to be challenging.</p>
<p>Although all this may be bad for news for the political narrative Netanyahu wishes to create, Britons are able to differentiate between attitudes towards the state of Israel, whose foreign policy is hotly debated, and Jews. Even before the recent Israeli incursions into Gaza, Britons gave Israel an average rating of only 40. </p>
<p>As we find with other contentious foreign policy matters, the British public is not stupid. States and entities that pursue controversial policies are almost always rated lower than their people. For example, the British rate Germans, Italians and the French more warmly than coldly, but give the European Union a score of just 38, one point less than Israel.</p>
<p>Perhaps the most surprising finding of this survey though is that the correlations between attitudes towards Muslims, Jews, and Israel are all positive. So, feeling warmly towards one group is associated with feeling warmly towards another (and vice versa), even though Muslims and Jews and Muslims and Israel are too often depicted as sworn enemies. </p>
<p>The volatile situation in the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/middle-east">Middle East</a>, along with American and British incursions into the affairs of nations in the region, make for tense times. Retaliatory attacks by terror groups that strike at the heart of the ideals held dear by liberal Western societies don’t appear to make matters any easier. But our findings suggest that scaremongering about widespread antisemitism may be rather wide of the mark – at least in the UK. </p>
<p>Although there is a segment of the British population that might harbour animosity towards religious minorities, data suggest that a considerable segment of the population is more than open to peaceful co-existence with religious minorities. </p>
<p>What’s more, the significant and positive correlations reported for feeling thermometers measuring affect toward Muslims and Jews suggests that there will be a core group of citizens who will support minorities regardless of differences of opinion they may have with specific religious beliefs. In challenging times, this gives reason to believe the European glass is more half full than half empty, at least in Britain.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/36441/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Thomas Scotto receives funding from the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) that enabled the data used in this piece to be collected.</span></em></p>The cowardly murder of Jews in France and Denmark, in conjunction with terrorist attacks designed to shut down discussion, is justifiably a cause for more than a passing concern. Europe may be witnessing…Thomas Scotto, Professor of Government, University of EssexLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/376702015-02-17T17:44:08Z2015-02-17T17:44:08ZMemorial in Copenhagen draws 40,000 for show of unity<p>A <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11416754/Copenhagen-shooting-Denmark-holds-mass-memorial-and-rally-to-honour-victims.html">memorial service</a> has been held in Copenhagen for the victims of the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/copenhagen-shootings">shootings</a> that killed two and injured five in the city on February 14. A crowd of up to 40,000 people gathered just around the corner from the scene of the first shootings, at which documentary film director <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/15/copenhagen-shooting-the-victims-finn-norgaard-dan-uzan-denmark">Finn Nørgaard</a> was killed. He had been attending a debate meeting on art, blasphemy and freedom of speech featuring the controversial Swedish cartoonist Lars Vilks, who had once depicted the Prophet Muhammad as a dog. </p>
<p>Copenhageners paid a unforgettable tribute to the two victims at the memorial service. The programme included a number of guest speakers, including prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt, and the French ambassador, François Zimeray, who survived the first attack at the debate meeting.</p>
<p>The memorial was being organised on behalf of all the political parties represented at Copenhagen Municipality, who announced they are standing together across political boundaries to protect freedom of expression, democracy and free speech in the wake of the attacks.</p>
<p>There has been concern that the suspected perpetrator, Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein, a 22-year-old man born and raised in Denmark, may have been inspired by the <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/charlie-hebdo-attack">Islamist attacks in Paris</a> a month ago, and decided to carry out similar murders at the debate and at a synagogue. He was known to the police and national intelligence agencies. He has been involved in weapons violations and violence and had ties to gangs in Copenhagen. He was released from prison just a few weeks ago.</p>
<p>When young Muslim men, born and raised in Western cultures, turn to radical interpretations of Islam and lash out at the society in which they live, talk quickly turns to the spectre of the “home-grown terrorist”. Questions are asked about what part that society, their community or their parents played in their being drawn to extremism.</p>
<p>Prime minister Helle Thorning-Schmidt has described the shootings in Copenhagen as a “cynical act of terror” but added: “We are not in a fight between Islam and the West. This is not a conflict between Muslims and non-Muslims. This is a conflict between the core values of our society and violent extremists.”</p>
<p>And in fact, surprisingly few politicians have used the attack as an opportunity to articulate resentment toward Islam and the Muslim population in Denmark. The prime minister’s interpretation of the event as a “politically motivated attack” has been widely accepted with only a few exceptions. </p>
<p>Denmark is considered an open, free and peaceful democracy. According to political leaders from the government and the opposition, this will not change as a result of these incidents. Debate about freedom of speech is inevitable – especially when it comes to Islam and blasphemy – and there will now probably be more debate about the freedom of assembly too after the attack on a open and free debate meeting. But these debates are not new and were heated long before this attack. </p>
<p>But there is another issue that will need to be addressed after this tragedy. El-Hussein grew up in the social housing complex of Mjølnerparken in Copenhagen. His social background is comparable to the three men who carried out the attacks in Paris in January. Following the horrors of Paris, many asked if the <a href="https://theconversation.com/why-jihadism-appeals-to-religiously-illiterate-loners-36106">homegrown amateur terrorist</a> is the new face of extremism and the events in Copenhagen over the weekend would appear to confirm that development.</p>
<p>However, given that it is extremely difficult to predict who will carry out a lone-wolf attack or track everyone who has been in contact with the security agencies, a broader approach is needed. We need better anti-radicalisation programmes in public institutions, including prisons, and more focused integration projects in the social housing complexes in which radicalisation can breed. We also, of course, need better gun control laws.</p>
<p>The ability of home-grown terrorists to attain meaningful goals through individual attacks is limited, but as an agent for division, the significance of such events should not be underestimated. They have the potential to destabilise social unity and compound radicalisation.</p>
<p>The former does not appear to have happened in Denmark as a result of this attack. The memorial service showed a city resisting division. The question for the Danish authorities now though, is how to integrate disaffected young people like El-Hussein so that radicalisation no longer appeals.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37670/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Brian Arly Jacobsen does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>A memorial service has been held in Copenhagen for the victims of the shootings that killed two and injured five in the city on February 14. A crowd of up to 40,000 people gathered just around the corner…Brian Arly Jacobsen, Assistant professor, Department of Cross-Cultural and Regional Studies, University of CopenhagenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/375452015-02-17T06:15:13Z2015-02-17T06:15:13ZNetanyahu’s blatant campaigning abroad will win him votes – but it’s hurting Israel<p>Israel will hold an <a href="https://theconversation.com/netanyahus-gamble-sets-up-israel-for-messy-election-campaign-35008">early general election</a> on March 17. The campaign is already in full swing – and it is not confined to Israel’s borders.</p>
<p>In the wake of anti-Semitic attacks <a href="https://theconversation.com/denmark-must-not-succumb-to-polarisation-in-the-wake-of-copenhagen-attacks-37083%20and%20%5Bin%20Paris%5D(https://theconversation.com/us/topics/charlie-hebdo-attack),%20Israeli%20prime%20minister%20Benjamin%20Netanyahu%20%5Burged%20Europe's%20Jews%20to%20return%20%22home%22%5D(http://news.yahoo.com/netanyahu-urges-jews-move-israel-copenhagen-attacks-111012753.html">in Copenhagen</a>. This has <a href="http://www.thelocal.fr/20150216/french-pm-angry-over-israels">infuriated</a> some of Israel’s key European allies, and critics <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/16/leaders-criticise-netanyahu-calls-jewish-mass-migration-israel">include Denmark’s chief rabbi</a>, Jair Melchior, who said: </p>
<blockquote>
<p>Terror is not a reason to move to Israel … People from Denmark move to Israel because they love Israel, because of Zionism, but not because of terrorism. If the way we deal with terror is to run somewhere else, we should all run to a deserted island.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>Netanyahu’s remarks may seem like a piece of miscalculated rhetoric, but they actually fit into a very marked trend in the 2015 election campaign. </p>
<h2>From domestic to diplomacy</h2>
<p>In Israel, the phrase “<a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4601381,00.html">election economy</a>” is used to refer to populist policy decisions that create a positive buzz, aimed at pleasing the voting public before elections. The 2015 campaign takes this further with what might be called “election diplomacy” – to appeal to voters, Israel’s leaders are mounting ostentatious diplomatic spectacles all over the world.</p>
<p>In particular, Netanyahu’s gauche way of taking the election campaign abroad – like his comments on returning Jews – is also starting to alienate some of Israel’s closest allies.</p>
<p>His first stunt of the campaign came in late December 2014, when Jordan <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/middleeast/palestinianauthority/11317925/What-failed-Palestinian-UN-statehood-bid-means.html">issued a bid</a> to the UN Security Council demanding Palestinian statehood within a year. Around 135 countries already <a href="http://www.i24news.tv/en/news/international/europe/60625-150210-abbas-visits-sweden-after-country-recognizes-palestinian-state">recognised</a> Palestinian statehood, and Palestinians were optimistic about their bid – until Rwanda and Nigeria abstained in the vote. It led to the failure of the the bid, but also meant the US <a href="http://www.usnews.com/news/articles/2014/12/18/us-will-veto-palestinian-un-bid">did not have to resort to using its veto</a>.</p>
<p>Netanyahu <a href="http://www.jpost.com/Arab-Israeli-Conflict/Netanyahu-lauds-US-Australia-for-efforts-to-reject-Palestinian-bid-in-UN-386233">promptly took credit</a> for the abstentions: “I spoke with both of them, they promised me personally that they would not support this decision, and they stood by their words. That is what tipped the scales,” he said. </p>
<p>But Israel’s largest news website, YNET – which Netanyahu recently <a href="http://www.jewishpress.com/news/breaking-news/netanyahu-blasts-ynet-yediot-acharanot-owner-charges-smear-campaign/2015/02/09/">accused</a> of targeting him – <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4609884,00.html">reported</a> instead that the positive result also “demonstrated the importance of the visits made by foreign minister Avigdor Lieberman to the African continent.”</p>
<p>However, it was not only the Israeli right that was practicing election diplomacy. John Kerry, the American secretary of state, told a group of European ambassadors that the UN Security Council resolution would <a href="http://foreignpolicy.com/2014/12/19/exclusive-kerry-tells-european-envoys-u-n-action-on-palestine-can-wait-till-israeli-election/">strengthen</a> Israeli hardliners. He attributed this analysis to Tzipi Livni, Netanyahu’s fired justice minister who had <a href="http://www.nytimes.com/2014/12/11/world/middleeast/alliance-adds-twist-to-israeli-elections.html?_r=1">recently aligned</a> with Labour party leader Isaac Herzog to form the left-of-centre party Zionist Camp. It led Naftali Bennett, minister of the economy and head of the religious Zionist Jewish Home party to accuse Livni of “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.632816">political sabotage</a>”, essentially because the move was bad election diplomacy. </p>
<p>So clearly, Netanyahu’s opponents can play at the election diplomacy game – and so it went in Paris after the January attacks there.</p>
<h2>Push to the front</h2>
<p>After the attacks on Charlie Hebdo and the Jewish supermarket Hyper Cacher on January 7 and January 9, a massive memorial march took place. </p>
<p>It is not surprising that Israeli politicians came to Paris and participated in the march, not just because of the anti-semitic aspect of the later attack, but because of as many as <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/france-draws-up-plans-to-evacuate-200000-franco-israelis-in-case-of-war/">200,000</a> French-Israelis are seen as <a href="http://www.npr.org/blogs/parallels/2015/01/16/377744173/french-immigrants-to-israel-bring-part-of-home-with-them">more likely to support</a> right-wing parties.</p>
<p>But French president François Hollande <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/.premium-1.636557">requested</a> that Netanyahu did not attend. According to Haaretz journalist <a href="http://forward.com/articles/212537/why-benjamin-netanyahu-attended-paris-anti-terror/">Barak Ravid</a>, Hollande feared that Netanyahu would use the occasion for politicking, as he did before the 2012 election following <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-us-canada-17426313">the deadly attack</a> on a Jewish school in Toulouse. </p>
<p>Netanyahu initially <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4613521,00.html">complied</a>, but after discovering that both Naftali Bennett and Avigdor Lieberman would be in Paris, he decided to participate after all. </p>
<p>In such a moment of crisis for French Jewry, fighting to exclude Netanyahu would have been a big blunder on Hollande’s part. Still, the visit that ensued was a strange one, especially considering Netanyahu’s reputation as a relatively media-savvy politician. </p>
<p>Netanyahu was filmed <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=w2LVDXpMXgQ">pushing his way onto the bus</a> to the march, and photographed slyly sliding towards the <a href="http://www.globes.co.il/news/article.aspx?did=1001000015">front row</a> of the leaders’ photoshoot – and later that Sunday, at a ceremony in Paris’s Grand Synagogue, Hollande left just before Netanyahu rose to say <a href="https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=pLlsDUUIVj4">exactly the sort of thing Hollande had feared</a>: calling on French Jews to migrate to Israel.</p>
<p>Bennett had a more successful visit. He <a href="http://www.algemeiner.com/2015/01/11/their-hands-are-covered-in-blood-bennett-denounces-presence-of-abbas-and-qatar-at-paris-anti-terror-rally/">had his picture taken</a> at the Hyper Cacher before the march, and used the opportunity to address the Israeli press. He criticised the presence of Palestinian and Qatari representatives who came to Paris “with blood on their hands”, and offered a “<a href="http://www.euronews.com/2015/01/11/zero-tolerance-on-terror-urges-israel-s-naftali-bennett/">message to every French Jew: you have a home, the home is in Israel</a>.” </p>
<p>Lieberman issued <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4613976,00.html">a similar call</a>. Attending an immigration information fair that received 500 visitors, he declared that “we [have] decided to augment the embassy and the representation of the Absorption and Immigration Ministry,” thereby aggrandising two governmental offices under the control of his own party.</p>
<p>Even more daring was another “election diplomat”, Knesset hopeful Eli Yishai, who distributed an <a href="http://www.inn.co.il/News/News.aspx/290938">amateurish</a> video from Paris. Like Bennett, Yishai attempted to visit Hyper Cacher. however he was not able to get to the site itself. With the supermarket far in the background, Yishai attempted made some statements to camera that were all but undecipherable due to the noise of the wind.</p>
<h2>Top target</h2>
<p>Meanwhile, things were hotting up on Israel’s border with Syria. In <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/1.637698">mid-January</a>, the Israeli Defence Force attacked a Hezbollah convoy in the Syrian Golan Heights, killing five people. Hezbollah <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/netanyahu-warns-of-severe-retaliation-for-hezbollah-attack/">retaliated</a>, killing two Israeli soldiers, and the situation almost became a serious cross-border <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/jan/28/israel-hezbollah-soldiers-binyamin-netanyahu-lebanon">confrontation</a>. </p>
<p>The incident stirred accusations that the IDF attack was a political stunt – and surprisingly came from a high-ranking former IDF official and current Knesset candidate, Yoav Galant. </p>
<p>Galant is the number two candidate in the newly formed Kulanu party, which is expected to become one of the larger parties in the next Knesset. He <a href="http://972mag.com/election-politics-war-crimes-and-assassinations/101575/">drew parallels</a> between the Golan Heights incident and a strike in Gaza during the 2012 election campaign, when the IDF assassinated Hamas deputy military commander Ahmed Ja’abari. The ensuing IDF operation, “<a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/diplomacy-defense/timeline-israel-launches-operation-pillar-of-defense-amid-gaza-escalation.premium-1.479284">Pillar of Defence</a>”, claimed 87 <a href="http://www.btselem.org/press_releases/20130509_pillar_of_defense_report">Palestinian</a> and four <a href="http://www.jta.org/2012/11/21/news-opinion/israel-middle-east/operation-pillar-of-defense-lessons-learned">Israeli</a> civilian lives.</p>
<p>Galant argued that the decision to eliminate him at that particular moment, so close to the general elections, must have been a matter of political expedience.</p>
<h2>Left out</h2>
<p>Perhaps the most extreme case yet of Israeli leaders using diplomacy for campaign purposes, and of what can happen when they go too far, is Netanyahu’s speech to the US Congress on Iran, scheduled <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/world/netanyahus-speech-to-congress-now-dominates-israeli-elections/2015/02/11/89f18bb6-b092-11e4-bf39-5560f3918d4b_story.html">to be given on March 3</a>, just two weeks before the Israeli elections.</p>
<p>It is of course the prime minister’s duty to raise concerns about the nuclear programme of a state that <a href="http://www.washingtonpost.com/blogs/fact-checker/post/did-ahmadinejad-really-say-israel-should-be-wiped-off-the-map/2011/10/04/gIQABJIKML_blog.html">has arguably</a> threatened Israel with destruction <a href="http://www.haaretz.com/news/middle-east/1.536095">and supported</a> attacks on it. </p>
<p>However, Netanyahu’s calculated delivery of fiery rhetoric to the American congress so shortly before the elections has been much to the chagrin of the <a href="http://www.cbc.ca/news/world/benjamin-netanyahu-s-election-timed-speech-to-congress-has-white-house-fuming-1.2952694">White House</a>, his <a href="http://www.ynetnews.com/articles/0,7340,L-4623961,00.html">usual supporters</a> among American Jewry, and even acting Israeli <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2015/feb/05/israel-switzerland-india-diplomats-recalled-tweets-netanyahu">diplomats</a>. </p>
<p>It was only recently revealed that the White House had <a href="http://www.timesofisrael.com/us-to-stop-updating-israel-on-iran-nuclear-talks-report/">stopped updating</a> Israel on the status of negotiations with Iran because Netanyahu has been using the information for campaign purposes. </p>
<p>Whether in Paris, Syria or the US, this grandstanding will not help Israel. Alienating his country’s strongest allies – especially as the Iranian nuclear negotiations face <a href="http://www.reuters.com/article/2015/02/09/us-iran-nuclear-obama-idUSKBN0LD23K20150209">another vital deadline</a>, which all parties are desperate to meet – will not keep his country safe <a href="https://theconversation.com/in-the-mixed-up-middle-east-can-the-us-and-iran-work-together-in-2015-35451">in the scrambled</a> Middle East of 2015.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37545/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Yoav Galai does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Israel will hold an early general election on March 17. The campaign is already in full swing – and it is not confined to Israel’s borders. In the wake of anti-Semitic attacks in Copenhagen. This has infuriated…Yoav Galai, PhD candidate in the School of International Relations, University of St AndrewsLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/370832015-02-16T13:11:11Z2015-02-16T13:11:11ZDenmark must not succumb to polarisation in the wake of Copenhagen attacks<p>Copenhagen has been left reeling from a series of violent attacks on February 14 and 15. A young man armed with an automatic weapon and other guns killed two civilians and injured five police officers on two separate occasions only hours apart in <a href="http://www.wsj.com/articles/danish-police-kill-suspect-in-copenhagen-shootings-1423989155">downtown Copenhagen</a>.</p>
<p>One shooting took place at a free speech debate hosted by a controversial Swedish cartoonist and the other in front of synagogue. Within 13 hours the police had tracked down the Danish-born 22-year-old male of Arabic descent. When they moved to arrest him he opened fire and was subsequently shot dead by the police.</p>
<p>The attacks come just weeks after the shootings in <a href="https://theconversation.com/uk/topics/charlie-hebdo-attack">Paris</a> that have left so many people questioning how we move forward. Life has certainly changed for many over the past few weeks.</p>
<h2>Profiles</h2>
<p>As a black person, a stream of thoughts runs through my head when I travel these days. Against a soundtrack of news of elevated terror alerts, I hit speed bumps – at the check-in and through security in Copenhagen, at immigration when I arrive in Brussels, at armed police checkpoints near potential terror targets.</p>
<p>There are so many people and so many speed bumps. But I can’t get rid of this nagging idea that travelling around is just a bit more difficult for some than others right now.</p>
<p>It’s an involuntarily feeling and I’m annoyed even having it at all. I want to see individuals first and then gender, religion, political or sexual orientation as secondary qualities – not as profiling parameters. It’s by fulfilling the criteria of one such profile that I often get stopped in my car.</p>
<p>Sometimes I have been greeted with a rather intransigent tone of voice and appertaining suspicion by police officers. I have been forced to explain myself at length and seen the suspicion only abating once I have revealed my ID, that shows I am a professor.</p>
<p>It’s the same profile that got my son – who in passing may look like everything in the “middle” – Middle Eastern, Middle European, Middle American – kicked out of a beach resort in Jordan, the lifeguards convinced he was a member of the indigenous population and thus unwelcome amongst the guests. My ethnic Danish wife has travelled the continents with her ethnic Danish kids and never been stopped. But since she married me she has had to start factoring in speed bumps, whether the trip is to Sharm Al Sheikh, Abu Dhabi, Norway, New Orleans or returning home to Copenhagen. </p>
<p>As we recover from these attacks and those in Paris and look on while far-right groups demonstrate in Germany about the <a href="https://theconversation.com/behind-the-rise-of-germanys-anti-islamic-street-movement-35930">“Islamification” of Europe</a>, profiling can easily creep in. Nuances have a tough time in times of polarisation but it is exactly now that nuances have to be observed in concert with reflection, enlightenment, carefully considered action and mutual respect between individuals.</p>
<figure class="align-left ">
<img alt="" src="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=237&fit=clip" srcset="https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=1 600w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=2 1200w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=600&h=480&fit=crop&dpr=3 1800w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=45&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=1 754w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=30&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=2 1508w, https://images.theconversation.com/files/72128/original/image-20150216-18500-1f64eud.jpg?ixlib=rb-1.1.0&q=15&auto=format&w=754&h=603&fit=crop&dpr=3 2262w" sizes="(min-width: 1466px) 754px, (max-width: 599px) 100vw, (min-width: 600px) 600px, 237px">
<figcaption>
<span class="caption">Omar Abdel Hamid El-Hussein caught on CCTV.</span>
<span class="attribution"><span class="source">EPA</span></span>
</figcaption>
</figure>
<p>Classification and arbitrary profiling generate preconceived ideas both ways. I have to be careful not to make the same profiling mistake when I meet strangers. I have to be careful not to get “racially annoyed” when having my luggage examined at customs or not feeling wronged again when pulled over by the police. </p>
<p>I may be encouraged to catalogue some people in a certain way, especially if I feel unfairly or iniquitously treated. I may start to develop fixed ideas about the people who stop me and question me. I might use race, gender, culture or politics as both an explanation and a frontline defence. That’s the first step to prejudice. And I should probably consider that the people I profile do the same. We are not that different as humans.</p>
<p>My father came as a black American to Denmark in 1963. He left with segregation and seats at the back of the bus fresh in his mind. He experienced Denmark and Europe as places where the individual comes first, not the colour of their skin. Yet a Somali cabdriver around 30 years of age recently told me that he had, while growing up, friends from the entire ethnic and religious spectrum. Now he was just considered a Muslim.</p>
<h2>Where do we go from here?</h2>
<p>In 2015 we should not return to the religious feuds of the days of old. Much blood has been spilt over religion and the same goes for the other parameters of profiling from race over gender to culture. Recently a <a href="http://www.b.dk/globalt/forudsigelige-terrorister-maend-uden-meget-at-miste">Danish newspaper</a> explained eloquently and poetically why certain “young men without much to lose” take to terror with reference to the recent attacks in France but which also seem befitting of the young man responsible for the horrifying Copenhagen shootings:</p>
<blockquote>
<p>They all came from the same place between two worlds, and two religions, two ethnic groups and two cultures, and instead of feeling blessed twice they felt cursed for two.</p>
</blockquote>
<p>One world is less than two by a measure of quantity, but two is not better than one by a measure of quality. They are just different things. One may indeed get wise and open minded at the intersection of religions, cultures, and nationalities but it requires both worlds wanting to meet.</p>
<p>There is a fine line between not sounding like the victim, not sounding like the aggressor, not sounding like the prosecutor, not sounding like counsel, not provoking further polarisation but at the same time pointing to differences without classifying, being informative without lecturing, being hopeful without sounding naive. </p>
<p>One thing is for certain: a sense of belonging is always what hits you when you come home from somewhere. You are awaited and welcome. We don’t want to get to a place where you are awaited but unwelcome.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37083/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Vincent F Hendricks does not work for, consult, own shares in or receive funding from any company or organisation that would benefit from this article, and has disclosed no relevant affiliations beyond their academic appointment.</span></em></p>Copenhagen has been left reeling from a series of violent attacks on February 14 and 15. A young man armed with an automatic weapon and other guns killed two civilians and injured five police officers…Vincent F Hendricks, Professor of Formal Philosophy, University of CopenhagenLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.tag:theconversation.com,2011:article/376222015-02-15T16:17:43Z2015-02-15T16:17:43ZCopenhagen shootings target democracy and pluralism<p>Two people are dead and five injured – including the suspected perpetrator – in what has been described as <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31475803">a cynical act of terror</a> against Denmark. Though they may have resulted in fewer deaths, the twin attacks which took place in Copenhagen over the weekend have a lot in common with the <a href="https://theconversation.com/what-do-the-norway-attacks-mean-for-multiculturalism-2489">2011 mass murder committed by Anders Behring Breivik</a> in Oslo. </p>
<p>In both cases, the intended target was political pluralism and democracy, perpetrated by an extremist convinced of the superiority of their own thinking. In both cases, the attackers took advantage of a high level of trust and relatively low levels of security to access their victims. Moreover, the basic motivation of both attacks was a refusal to accept the existence of people who think, act, and speak differently. </p>
<p>The location of the first attack – reported in some media as a café – was in fact an arts centre: the Kulturhuset Krudttønden. The centre was <a href="http://www.aljazeera.com/news/2015/02/shooting-targets-synagogue-denmark-capital-150215003951195.html">reportedly hosting a discussion</a> on art, blasphemy and freedom of expression, organised by <a href="http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/worldnews/europe/denmark/11413819/Lars-Vilks-the-Swedish-artist-never-far-from-danger.html">controversial artist Lars Vilks</a>, when the first attack occurred. </p>
<p>The gunman’s second victim was a synagogue guard, stationed outside of a Bar Mitzvah. Whether the second killing was premeditated or opportunistic is not known, but it will do nothing for the peace of mind for the Nordic countries’ small but significant Jewish communities. </p>
<h2>Lars Vilks’ controversial agenda</h2>
<p>Lars Vilks – the artist <a href="http://www.bbc.co.uk/news/world-europe-31472423">assumed to be the main target</a> in the Krudttønden attack – is a divisive figure in both Denmark and his native Sweden, where he has worked as an art lecturer. He is best known abroad for his <a href="http://news.bbc.co.uk/1/hi/world/middle_east/6996553.stm">controversial cartoons</a> of the Islamic prophet Mohammed. </p>
<p>In 2010 he was the <a href="http://edition.cnn.com/2010/WORLD/europe/05/11/sweden.cartoonist.attack/">subject of a disturbance</a> during a talk at Uppsala university, when he showed gay erotica featuring two men disguised as Mohammed by Iranian photographer Sooreh Hera, which explicitly sought to provoke Iran’s religious rules. Vilks himself has had bodyguards from the Swedish Security Services for many years and lives with a variety of safety measures to protect him from reprisals.</p>
<p>Politically, Vilks is an enigma, his single commitment seemingly being the right to write and do as he pleases. This has led to support from the Swedish far right, but also from Scandinavian liberals and left wingers who agree with some of his core principals if not with the medium in which he expresses them. Åsa Linderborg, a journalist with the Swedish left-wing daily Aftonbladet, <a href="http://www.aftonbladet.se/kultur/kronikorer/linderborg/article20318696.ab">wrote of the Copenhagen attacks</a>: “freedom of expression must be everyone’s or nobody’s.”</p>
<h2>A culture of discussion</h2>
<p>In the Nordic countries, cultural events and journalism are common forums for social discussion – and culture is seen as a safe space in which to challenge and experiment with ideas. </p>
<p>How well this ideology of liberalism functions in practice is debatable, but the Nordic countries have a strong tradition of protecting freedom of speech and expression both at home and abroad. <a href="http://www.government.se/sb/d/14476/a/232239">Newspapers are heavily subsidised</a> to guarantee a range of political and cultural views, as are political parties. </p>
<p>The irony is that this sometimes provides a forum for people whose political convictions are directly opposed to the maintenance of a pluralistic public space, and whose views on culture are fundamentally traditional. </p>
<h2>Liberty or security?</h2>
<p>Danish prime minister, <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/video/2015/feb/15/danish-prime-minister-helle-thorning-schmidt-defend-democracy-attack-copenhagen-video">Helle Thorning-Schmidt, has pledged</a> to defend democracy, saying: “this is not a struggle between the West and Islam.” But there will be those who see the Copenhagen shootings as just that. <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2015/jan/08/charlie-hebdo-norway-islamophobia-france-anders-breivik">Contrary to what some commentators like to think</a>, the Nordic countries are not above the knock-on effects of terror – and the parties of the far right play to that fear. </p>
<p>The Breivik attacks in Norway did nothing to stop <a href="http://www.independent.co.uk/news/world/europe/norway-election-results-antiimmigrant-party-with-links-to-mass-murderer-anders-behring-breivik-set-to-enter-government-under-conservative-leader-erna-solberg-8805649.html">the election of the populist, right-wing Progress party</a> to government, and in Sweden the far-right Sweden Democrats have <a href="http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/dec/14/sweden-democrats-flex-muscles-anti-immigrant-kristianstad">made political capital</a> by portraying both Muslims and their political opponents as extremists. </p>
<p>“Security and trust” is the slogan of the new right Danish People’s Party. The similar sounding “security and tradition” is the rallying cry of the Sweden Democrats a few miles across the water. The slogans of the new right in Scandinavia promise security and safety through homogeneity in a dangerous modern world. The actions of one individual, though, might be threat enough to give such movements a further push. </p>
<p>Unfortunately, the security of individual liberty is not something the new-right guardians of Nordic democracy are especially concerned about. With their plans to slash immigration, take hard stances on crime and insistence that a traditional <a href="http://www.danskfolkeparti.dk/Kulturpolitik">national culture</a> is the foundation of Nordic success, the Nordic values such parties have in mind are not those of an open and diverse society.</p><img src="https://counter.theconversation.com/content/37622/count.gif" alt="The Conversation" width="1" height="1" />
<p class="fine-print"><em><span>Dominic Hinde receives funding from the Arts and Humanities Research Council</span></em></p>Two people are dead and five injured – including the suspected perpetrator – in what has been described as a cynical act of terror against Denmark. Though they may have resulted in fewer deaths, the twin…Dominic Hinde, PhD Candidate in Scandinavian Studies, The University of EdinburghLicensed as Creative Commons – attribution, no derivatives.