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When Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten published the cartoons of the prophet Mohammed five years ago, Denmark found itself at the center of a global battle about the freedom of speech.
The paper’s culture editor Flemming Rose defended the decision to print the 12 drawings while the world went up in flames, and quickly he came to play a central part in the debate about the limitations to freedom of speech in the 21st century.
For the past few years, Rose has visited universities and think-tanks and participated in conferences and debates all around the globe in order to discuss tolerance and freedom. In The Tyranny of Silence Flemming Rose writes about people and experiences that have influenced the way he views the world and his understanding of the crisis; he writes about meetings with dissidents from the former Soviet Union as well as ex-Muslims living in Europe. He provides a personal account of an event that has shaped the debate about what it means to be a citizen in a democracy and how to coexist in a world that is increasingly multicultural, multireligious and multiethnic.

An excerpt of the book

How did this happen? Who, in fact, am I? To the world, I am known as an editor of the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. In September 2005 I commissioned and published a series of cartoons about Islam in Europe, prompted by my perception of prevalent self-censorship prevalent among the Danish media. One of these cartoons, drawn by the artist Kurt Westergaard, depicted the Muslim prophet Mohamed with a bomb wrapped in his turban. The other cartoons we published mocked the media itself, but it was Westergaard's image that would change my life. The Cartoon Crisis, as it came to be known, spiraled into a violent international fiasco as Muslims around the world erupted in protest of the images. Danish embassies were attacked and more than one hundred deaths reportedly occurred as a result of the protests. That morning in Lyon, I realized that I as a public figure have come to symbolize a much greater set of issues confronting the world today. This book is an attempt to reconcile that public symbolism with my personal story.

Книгата е дарение от Светла Костадинова.

Flemming Rose

Flemming Rose is M.A., journalist and Foreign Editor at Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten. After 14 years of working as a foreign correspondent in Russia and the USA, he returned home to Denmark in 2004 to pursue a more stable life.