Pro-Protesters: 'Great Danes'

Torben Gettermann, the Danish general consul, had been on the job for just under six months when the consulate began to be bombarded by angry denunciations. Overseas, virulent protests in Europe inspired deadly riots in Syria, Iran, and Nigeria, as well as a crippling boycott of Danish products. In New York, the consulate received thousands of phone calls and emails decrying the publication by a Danish newspaper of cartoons depicting the Prophet Mohammed.

Gettermann, a kindly man with white hair and a heavy mustache, smiled while recounting the past month. His office on the 17th floor of a building a block away from the United Nations looks down over a plaza where four anti-Danish demonstrations have taken place. But on Friday, Gettermann looked down on a rally of some 150 people waving Danish flags, eating Havarti cheese and chanting free speech slogans.

"I hope that Denmark will realize that there are those in the world who stand with them," Michael Weiss, the organizer of the rally, told the crowd. Although starkly white, the crowd was decidedly mixed politically -amicable arguments over partisan politics could be heard as people thrust out their signs and cheered at honking truckers passing by. Signs ranged from the earnest-"NY hearts Denmark" and "Vier All Dansk Nu" ("We're all Danes now")-to the lighthearte-one demonstrator painted his face with the Danish flag, while another attached a can of Danish ham to a stick.

Weiss, 25, runs the Internet blog Snarksmith.com, and had been inspired by a similar rally the previous week in Washington, D.C. That rally drew considerable press attention, as well as journalists Christopher Hitchens and Andrew Sullivan. Both men helped the considerable online effort to publicize this rally, although neither attended.

"Let's stand up for this," exclaimed Michael Ludders, a 22-year-old Manhattan paralegal, "even if the people who are supposed to didn't!" One common sentiment was a sense of institutional failure. Poli-ticians had attacked the original cartoon, and the American media, for the most part, had failed to reprint the offending cartoons.

"Where'd you see the cartoons?" asked one demonstrator.

"Online!" shouted the crowd.

"There is no mainstream media here," came the response, "and yet they came for the Islamic rally!"

The largest anti-Danish rally occurred exactly two weeks before this, and included over 1000 people as opposed to the 150 for this. It cast a long shadow, however, as the rally at times shifted away from its emphasis on simply free speech.

"I can warn you first hand of the dangers of Islamic extremism," shouted Lisa Ramaci, a woman in her mid-30s wearing a black leather jacket. "It has robbed me of my husband, it has robbed me of my future, and it has robbed me of my life."

Ramaci has spent much of the past half-year protesting against Islamic extremism, ever since her husband, Steven Vincent, was killed in August 2005 while working as a freelance reporter in Basra, Iraq. Vincent had just written an expose of the infiltration in the Basra police force of Shiite fundamentalists.

Ramaci's friend Judith Weiss (no relation to Michael), a 53-year-old instructional designer, explained her perception of radical Islam. "The minute you start making exceptions for free speech, you lose it. Here's radical Islam saying 'we're an exception.'"

"We're opposing radical Islam to the extent it's trying to squelch free speech on a global scale," said Weiss.

As demonstrators circled around speakers such as Weiss, they passed around Arlo havarti cheese and fliers describing various Danish products for sale in the country.

The campaign to "Buy Danish," intended to counter the boycott of Danish products in the Middle East, has actually been waged primarily on the Internet. Chris Elliott, the webmaster of one site, Buy-danishproducts.com, explained in an e-mail that "I believe Denmark is being unfairly targeted and wanted to do something to help."

That this campaign is at all successful remains uncertain. Torgen Gettermann, the Danish consul, said that there has been no noticeable decline or increase of Danish products here in the United States.

This didn't mean that Gettermann wasn't delighted to see this rally. He even circumspectly came down to Dag Hammerskjold plaza himself, where he stood in the back of the crowd for a bit.

"It is nice to see a show of support for us," said Gettermann, who noted that while some 2,000 phone calls and e-mails have come in complaining about the cartoons, another 1,000 have come in supporting Denmark. We've gotten a tremendous number of e-mails and phone calls, including some asking 'where can we buy Danish products?'" said Gettermann.

Asked whether he supported newspapers reprinting the original cartoons, Get-termann shifted in his chair.

"You're asking a difficult question,"he responded."I'm here in two capacities; as myself, and as the person sitting in this chair. As myself"-he looked out the window, where down below the rally had just taken place-"I may have one opinion. But as the person sitting in this chair, I must say 'no comment.'"