Danes are great at executing their freedom of speech only when it comes to the public sphere. In the private sphere they're (in)famous freedom of speech morphed into something completely different - self-censorship.
I am not sure how to explain how it came to be this way but I will give it a try, with saying that is only my speculation. Freedom of speech, which they took so far - by some - also entail that one needs to form an opinion about a certain topic. It would be hard to voice it without having one. Now, having a right to speak and hold an opinion, apparently in Denmark also entails the right to not have your opinion challenged. So if one thinks that pink baby unicorns are the best thing that happened to Denmark, he has the right to voice it and not have it challenged. Challenging that opinion would by default cause a potentially unpleasant situation since a heated discussion could ensue and could potentially destroy hygge. Since voicing your opinion in person, will in a lot of cases imply social gatherings and social gatherings are all about a good atmosphere that is almost sacred in Denmark. People will simply refrain from stating their opinions if they know that it could potentially start a discussion, which would in turn make the hygge situation much less hygge. So, in this way, Danes morphed their beautiful freedom of speech into a self-censorship monster when it comes to private gatherings and parties.
But if you think about it self-censorship isn't such a foreign concept in modern society. A lot of things, in a sense of the word, became self-censored with the rise of awareness in political correctness. It is not considered appropriate to call the person of African-American heritage a ******, it is not ok to flaunt around casual nazi jokes, jokes about people with disabilities or sexsist jokes. As I write this, there is a huge debate going on in Denmark about sexism and a couple of high political figures stepped down from their posts because they were accused for sexism by their victims from 10 years ago. And they were not accused of rape or any other type of violation on that level, they were accused of inappropriate advances towards women. If you are a high appointed politician in modern day Danmark, you could end up with a resignation if you cracked a sexist joke out in public.
So self-censorship is socially accepted and self enforced in modern day Denmark. And as such it represents a self imposed and society imposed limits to the freedom of speech and that is not considered a problem. Because, we became aware that the aforementioned type of humor could be insulting to certain members of society and that is why it became a cultural norm to willingly refrain from voicing those types of opinions.
But there is another debate/event that resurfaced recently in the world, Denmark included. The problem of Muhammad drawings that were originally posted by Jyllands Posten in 2005. They caused a global uproar among muslim population in the whole world and they are causing it again today as they were dug out again. Recent events got me wondering, if self-censorship became so widely accepted today in the most of the world, because we came to the realisation that certain words, opinions and actions could insult certain groups in our society and it basically became a cultural norm to refrain from voicing such opinions in public, like the ones I have mentioned earlier. And not a lot of people would be willing to step out and say, he has the right to voice his opinion about, (INSERT GROUP HERE) because it is his right to freely express his opinion, even though it is insulting to (INSERT GROUP HERE). How come that same type of willing, civilized type of self-censorship does not extend to Islam?
So we will not crack nazi jokes because we know that it is insulting to people of jewish heritage, even though it is in our rights to free speech to do so. We will not call people of African-American descent ******* because we know that it is insulting to them, even though it is in our rights to free speech to do so. We will not crack sexist jokes because we know that it is insulting to women, even though it is in our rights to free speech to do so. But when it comes to words or actions that are insulting to people of Islamic cultural heritage, then it is considered appropriate because it is in our rights to free speech even though we know it is insulting to them. Why is it so? Why are they not deserving of the same considerations, awareness and political correctness just as women, people of jewish cultural heritage and people of African-American descent are? They get equally insulted or more. Is there some double standards here or am I missing out on something?
