Unless you can read Danish, the only word you probably deciphered above was shitstorm.
Danes love to use American profanity and vulgar slang, so words we Americans cannot say publicly, are normal in the Danish press. In this case, shitstorm refers to an incident that went viral on social media when a radio station announced that Bilka, (think Walmart or Target) had fired a teenage boy for participating in an internet debate about Islam.
The back story: 17-year-old high school student, Mohammad Al Jawahiri responded to comments on the Facebook group 'YES TO FREEDOM - NO TO ISLAM' and this led to his dismissal. Some have suggested that he was foolish to even try and reason with the ones who write for it. Nevertheless, he couldn’t resist. He entered into a debate and was argumentative. In one of his postings, he happened to mention that he worked at Bilka as a cashier and how much he loved being a Danish citizen. Someone took offense and reported him to the super store’s management. Mohammad was called into the office and forced to sign a document that he was resigning. The story found its way to a radio station and went viral on Facebook.
Outrage. Indignation. “Boycott!” many Danes cried.
A lot has happened since the infamous cartoon crisis of 2006. A closer look at “Bilka Gate” shows the division in Danish culture between those who accept the notion of Islam as a religion of peace — the dominance of the so-called “Mecca scriptures” — over the later, so-called “Medina scriptures” that emphasize warfare, an inevitable development since Islam was fighting for its existence. Medina is 210 miles from Mecca and this migration not only affected where the revelations were made to the prophet – a fact that is noted in the Qur’an. It also marked a shift in the content of the Qur’an.
There are several contemporary Muslim scholars such as Emory University law professor, Abdullahi Ahmed An Na’im who make this distinction. Many scholars recognize the significance of this difference and say that the Qur’an is similar to the Bible when it comes to holy scripture. The late Christopher Hitchens carefully noted the violence in the Hebrew Bible and the New Testament; “instructions from God” that related to conquest and survival; infanticide, misogyny and a fierce justification for slavery.
The Qur’an is no different.
”ISIS' harsh and regressive interpretation of Shari’a draws on the Qur’an of Medina,” says Professor An Na’im, ”which repeatedly instructed Muslims to support each other and to separate themselves from non-Muslims.” What is needed to beat ISIS,” he says is ”an alternative view of Shari’a, one that argues that the scriptural sources that ISIS relies on must be seen in their wider historical context.”
This is a highly nuanced discussion. In the meantime, there are a lot of folks who don’t want to hear anything at all that is positive about Islam.
Nasar Khader is a Danish politician who wants his fellow Muslims to acknowledge Islam’s scriptures that promote violence (fair enough), yet he fails to acknowledge their historical context and the peaceful profile that is emphasized in the earlier Mecca scriptures. Khader is also a confirmed secular humanist who basically doesn’t respect religion so it’s not hard to understand why Islamophobic Danes would find in Khader the perfect poster boy for anti Muslim sentiment.
But back to the front story: Someone in the Facebook debate, rebuked teenaged Mohammad Al Jawahiri and told him to listen to Nasar Khader and follow his example. And then the exchange got nasty. The thread is available on the internet and it reads like a conversation between two petulant 10 year olds. Yet one is a 71-year old ethnic Dane and the other, a well educated second generation Muslim adolescent.
They don’t really debate. Instead, they sling insults and call each other names. At one point, the “adult” tells the “kid” that he is obviously a terrorist and a suitable candidate for surveillance by the security police. When Mohammad says his ideas are democratic and in accordance with the Danish Constitution, he is ridiculed and informed that he is not welcome in Denmark. When sassy Mohammad says that “you’ll never get rid of us!” his sparring partner goes ballistic with veiled threats about his safety. The teenager won’t back down and to get any semblance of the last word, the senior citizen calls Bilka and demands that he be fired.
Why Bilka agreed is something we are still waiting to find out.
As it is, Dansk Supermarked, Bilka’s parent company agreed to meet with Mohammad on Tuesday morning to sort things out. The teenager was accompanied by his father and his lawyer who witnessed the company’s admission that ”procedural errors” had been made that they regretted. At the end of the meeting, Mohammad was reinstated, should he choose to accept.
It is worth mentioning that Mohammad’s case was publicly criticized by HK, one of Denmark’s biggest labor unions. Although he is not a dues paying member of HK, the union supported him anyway because there was simply too much at stake. Not just wrongful dismissal but human rights.
Namely, free speech. But this time for the nation’s Muslims.
(I promise to let you know what Mohammad decides.)