It means “solidarity” in Danish, and specifically solidarity with the endangered liberties of Denmark, where some of the “Mohammed” cartoonists live in hiding after threats to their lives. (Michelle Malkin, Mar. 3, complete with “Lego My Free Speech” rally sign; Flemming Rose, “Why I Published Those Cartoons”, Washington Post, Feb. 19). More here and here. 
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I find it interesting that people are still rallying around Jyllands-Posten and its right to free speech when the editors finally owned up to the fact that in 2003, they refused to publish cartoons of the resurrection because it would inflame the Christian community.
A bit of a double-standard for a journalistic entity to have, isn’t it?
Don’t get me wrong…I’m not arguing against their right to publish the cartoons. I’m also not defending the reaction; it was outlandish and barbaric, to say the least. But to publish them and then hide behind the farce of journalistic integrity?
The whole issue is one side commiting violence due to an artistic shot at their prophet, and the other side rallying around unprofessionalism.
Perhaps they are rallying on behalf of the individual cartoonists who now live in hiding. Or the Danish nationals elsewhere who have experienced reprisals. Why assume that their main concern is to vindicate the editorial policies of one particular paper?
After the fatwa sentencing Salman Rushdie and his translators to death, I suppose one could have gone looking for ways in which Rushdie’s publishers fell short of perfect consistency in their choice of manuscripts to accept. For most of us, however, I think that would have missed the point.
You raise a decent point in terms of Rushdie’s publishers, and it would be an interesting one to research. I absolutely support the cartoonists in drawing whatever they’d like, even the right to publish it. I just wish the issue would engender a dialogue not only about how Islam needs to open up to criticism much, much further, but also a dialogue about the difference between professional and unprofessional criticisms through the press.
“A bit of a double-standard for a journalistic entity to have, isn’t it?”
I find it interesting that you are equivolcating minor unprefessionalism and some hypocrisy to massive vandalism, death threats, and murder.
The only definition I know for “equivocate” is to beat around the bush, be deliberately ambiguous in order to conceal or withhold information. I don’t believe I’ve been ambiguous at all; I have condemned the reaction to the cartoons as barbaric, and supported the cartoonists in their explicit right to cartoon and publish what they want. I simply stated that I’d love a seperate dialogue to spring up about professionalism, in the context of the unprofessional decision to publish some of those cartoons in a journalistic setting. They’re two seperate dialogues, with two very, very different levels of intensity. However, they both need to be addressed.
What is SAMMENHOLD?
By now, many of you know the meaning of the word "sammenhold." For those of you you do not, I’ll let the words of the High Priestess of Sammenhold speak for themselves:
A reader sent me the Danish word for solidarity t …