It was 20 years ago today . . .

"The Face of Mohammed"

. . . Jyllands-Posten published their famous twelve Mohammed Cartoons to start a debate about self-censorship among artists,

In an article today, foreign editor of Jyllands-Posten at the time, Jan Lund, tells how at the end of 2005, three months after having published the cartoons, the editors of Jyllands-Posten came to the conclusion that the debate had come to an end.

Here on December 16, 2005, the debate seemed to have come to a complete standstill and everyone in the room could see that the approaching Christmas would extinguish the last sparks. [editor-in-chief Carsten] Juste stated that we might as well bury the matter. Everyone agreed.

Three days passed, and then the house of cards fell. Less than two months later, the Danish embassy in Damascus and the Danish consulate in Beirut were set on fire.

On this blog we have met the Egyptian ambassador Mona Omar Attia before: Cartoon-jihad or vendetta, Egyptian double-dealing, Egyptian double-dealings, Part II.

According to Jan Lund, Mona Omar wanted revenge over the Danish prime minister Anders Fogh Rasmussen because of a slight he had made back in March:

Fogh was in Israel on 15 and 16 March 2005 and from there he was to continue to Cairo to open Denmark's major prestige project, the Danish-Egyptian Dialogue Institute (DEDI). It was the first concrete result of the government's prestige plan from 2003, "The Arab Initiative".

Now it was to be inaugurated on March 17, and back home in Denmark, Egypt's ambassador Mona Omar had worked non-stop for months to create a grand event. Her persistent insistence prompted the Prime Minister to attend the opening in Cairo together with Egyptian President Hosni Mubarak.

A splendid piece of diplomatic work on the internal lines of Denmark and Egypt. There was a prospect of a historic event with international impact.

But in the hours before he was due to take off from Israel for Cairo, Fogh canceled the visit. The official justification, as formulated by Foreign Minister Per Stig Møller, was security: fear of demonstrations when Fogh came directly from Israel.

The real reason was that Fogh could not be allowed to meet a representative of the Egyptian opposition. The government's democratizing policy of dialogue with the world made this a cardinal point.

So Fogh canceled his visit, Mubarak got furious and stayed away as well. Mona Omar's masterpiece had collapsed, and of all things: By a telephone call from Israel.

That's when Mona Omar Attia got in action: First a coordinated letter from 11 diplomats, asking Fogh to take legal action against the artists - which he of course was unable to comply with. Then a letter from 22 Danish top-diplomats, active as well as retired, and finally Egypt invited the Danish Imams, Abu Laban and Ahmed Akkari, to Cairo and to various international forums such as the Arab League and the Organization of Islamic Cooperation (OIC) to present their false Mohammed cartoons.

Jan Lund's article (in Danish) can be found here: Vengeful woman kept the Muhammad crisis alive.