An Interview with Kurt Westergaard

Kurt Westergaard is the cartoonist/illustrator who drew the most famous of the Mohammed cartoons. Because of death threats, he has moved around constantly under police protection. Today, the German publication Der Spiegel has a very good profile of Westergaard.

"I was just doing my job," says Westergaard. Unlike some of his colleagues, he still sees no reason to distance himself from his drawing and bow to the pressure of the street. When the newspaper asked him to draw the cartoon more than two years ago, he had no reservations. "Of course I had to do my job. And from a purely technical standpoint, it wasn't exactly a difficult task."

[...]

Most of the uproar over his drawing had in fact subsided long ago when the police took a death threat against him seriously for the first time. "It was a great shock," says Westergaard. It was on Nov. 8 of last year when he was told about the new situation at his paper's chaotic editorial offices.

Everything changed after that. PET urged him to cancel a weekend trip to Paris with his wife Brigitte, a gift from the editor-in-chief to commemorate his 25th year of service with the paper. Instead of strolling along the Seine the next day, he found himself hidden by the police in a remote summerhouse. Everything seemed gray, including the general mood.

Since then he has changed his secret locations at irregular intervals, following PET's instructions. He and his wife have spent time abroad, visited some of their other children and repeatedly stayed in various vacation homes. The one place Westergaard rarely sees anymore is his own apartment.

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His ordeal was reasonably pleasant for a while, when the Westergaards were put up at the luxurious Hotel SAS Radisson in Aarhus, the city's best hotel. They were given a comfortable business class suite next to the hotel's presidential suite, with a magnificent view of the city and with breakfast served in the hotel restaurant. But after they had been there for almost three weeks, it suddenly dawned on the management that Westergaard's presence could pose a risk for the other guests.

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But the situation is taking its toll, even if he doesn't show it. At the hotel, no one was willing to speak with him and at least try to explain the management's sensitive decision. Denmark is proud of its hero, and yet it has left him out in the cold. "It's like a slap in the face," says the illustrator, "and it gets my imagination churning right away. Will the same thing happen again? Can I even go to the theater or visit a restaurant anymore?"

He seemed lonely on the day the hotel asked him to leave as well as the next day, as he packed his clothes and visited Jyllands-Posten's editorial offices. His wife is spending a few days abroad to get some distance and just to get away from the situation. Westergaard is alone, aside from the bodyguards who sit with him when he eats breakfast or spends time in the hotel lobby in the evenings.

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He is especially upset about the impact on his wife. "I can set aside all fears," says Westergaard. "All I feel is rage," and he wants to express it.

But for his wife this situation, this constant moving around and never being able to go home, this running away from an invisible enemy, "is nerve-wracking," says Westergaard. "I notice it quite clearly." But even worse is the feeling that he can do nothing to help her. The one thing his wife probably wants him to do is something he refuses to do: to bend, to hold back, to cave in.

"I am not a brave man, but I have to react. I can't keep still," says Westergaard, "even if my wife is against it. Perhaps it's a sort of therapy for me."

"I am an old man. My life is nearing its end, and the public risk doesn't matter anymore," he says. It's the sort of remark that makes his wife even more afraid.

Westergaard lives a life that no one in their right mind would volunteer for. It's as if his life is controlled by a script written by George Orwell. He lives this life because he committed the insidious crime of doing his job, drawing political satire. Despite the harshness of his current existence Westergaard has not bowed down to the demands of his Islamist persecutors. For that, he deserves plenty of respect in my book.

If you were faced with such a situation, how would you act? I would hope that I would react the same way as Westergaard. But to be perfectly honest, I can't say with any certainty that I would be as resolute as Westergaard is. He lives a life that no one could ever truly imagine without actually living it.

This profile of Westergaard further illustrates (no pun intended) the depth of the overreaction to these cartoons. From the Islamist who continually protest you get a sense that those responsible for the cartoons are members of some powerful cabal out to destroy all Muslims. In truth, one of the creators of these cartoons is a simple illustrator in his 70s. I wouldn't classify that as a Great Satan.

(Hat tip: Hot Air)