Muhammad Cartoon Author Kurt Westergaard: There Is Nothing Sacred in Denmark

An exclusive interview for Novinite.com (Sofia News Agency) with Kurt Westergaard, the Danish cartoonist who created the controversial cartoon of the Muslim Prophet Muhammad wearing a bomb in his turban in 2005.

The cartoon was the most contentious of the 12 Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons, which met with strong and sometimes violent reactions from the Muslims world. Since the drawing of the cartoon, Westergaard has received several death threats and murder attempts.

On 2 January 2010, a 28-year-old Somali Muslim intruder armed with an axe and knife entered Westergaard's house and was subsequently shot and wounded by police.

November 2010 saw the publication of his memoirs entitled "The Man Behind the Line" . According to rumors, Westergaard considers a long-term move to the Faroe Islands.

On December 29 2010, the police in Copenhagen and Sweden apprehended 5 men for planning a terrorist attack on the Danish Jyllands-Posten daily.

Why was your memoir book, "The Man Behind the Line", published just at the end of 2010, five years after you gained international fame?

A good friend of mine, the Danish journalist Jon Lykkegaard was willing to write a book about me. I now regret that. My life has been just as boring as most people's. The book has also received bad reviews.

Your life was threatened at the beginning of 2010. Can you honestly say you are not afraid now?

I am quite angry at the attacks against me. My anger is a good mental defense against fear.

Do you consider moving to the Faroe Islands for good and for what reason?

To begin with, I would enjoy a vacation to the Faeroe islands.

Much was said about your cartoon of the prophet Muhammad with a bomb in his turban. But was that really the prophet you pictured, or somebody else?

First and foremost, I pictured a terrorist who has been inspired to commit a terror attack by a version of the Islamic religion. It is about how one's religion becomes one's spiritual ammunition.

Five years after the cartoon was published, can you say that you expected such a reaction in Denmark and around the world? And how do you answer to the criticism against you?

I just answer that I have followed the Danish satirical traditions. In Denmark, there is nothing sacred when it comes to the satirical depiction of the world, including God, the Queen, the Prime Minister, another Danish person or a religious prophet.

How do you imagine the situation of the Muslims in Europe 25 years from now?

Hopefully, their integration will have reached the point in which we all can live in peace with each other, in which the Danish democratic values are applied in the political life.

Your cartoons are often about religion, you have also pictured Jesus with a briefcase once. Are there any personal experiences, which have fueled your interest in this area?

It is the Christian Sunday school from my childhood, when we learned equally as much about Heaven and Hell.

The Czech Artist David Cerni's Entropa, created to mark the Czech presidency of the European Union Council during the first half of 2009, Bulgaria was depicted as a collection of squat toilets and Denmark was pictured as one of the Muhammad cartoons. What would you make out of a EU map?

I think David Cerni's work was just fine. A vast organization like the European Union must be able to tolerate satire.

What do you think about your compatriot, former Prime Minister of Denmark and NATO's Secretary General Anders Fogh Rasmussen and his relation to the Muslim world?

I believe Anders Fogh Rasmussen reacted quite correctly during the Muhammad crisis, when he defended Jyllands-posten's right to publish the cartoons.

But in my opinion, the fact that Secretary General Rasmussen is raging a war in Afghanistan is a mistake. Big parts of the Muslim world do not want the western values imposed on them - democracy, freedom of speech, etc. The war in Afghanistan may become the second Vietnam.

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