Images That Come Unbidden: Some Thoughts on the Danish Cartoons Controversy (Special ISSUE: RELIGION AND Sexuality) (Essay‪)‬

Introduction In September 2005 the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten printed twelve editorial cartoons caricaturing the Prophet Muhammad. Objecting to their publication Danish Muslims held several public demonstrations. The demonstrations in Denmark were accompanied by two spells of worldwide protests in 2005 and 2008, which eventually ceased after the editors of Jyllands-Posten printed an apology for the hurt caused by the publication of the cartoons. The event remains much discussed in terms of the freedom of speech, with worries of self-censorship encountering the charge that the cartoons constituted hate speech (Klausen 2009). As Heiko Henkel (2006) reminds us, anxieties attending to the growing presence of Muslims in Denmark, and Europe more generally, serve as the necessary background to the controversy.