Of
Andrian Kreye
The Danish cartoonist Kurt Westergaard has died. In 2005 he had a drawing for the conservative Danish daily Jyllands Post, which showed the prophet Mohammed wearing a bomb as a turban, sparked the cartoon controversy. It escalated in 2015 when it attacked the editors of the Parisian satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo and continues to this day. Westergaard was instrumentalized from two sides in this debate. On the one hand, European rights stylized him as an icon of a freedom of expression that, like the label “Islamic criticism”, was nothing more than a civil cloak for often uncivilized xenophobia. On the other hand, Islamic and Islamist forces demonized him as a symbolic figure for the godless West.