Helen Szamuely listens to different perspectives on Denmark after the cartoon affair

It is quite a pleasure to attend a meeting where one panellist turns to another one and tells him that he knows absolutely nothing about his subject.

That is what happened at the meeting organized by the New Culture Forum in the House of Lords, where it was sponsored by Lord Pearson of Rannoch. Farshad Kholghi, an Iranian born Danish writer and actor, a passionate believer in free speech, turned to Jakob Illeborg, a liberal Danish journalist, who is based in Britain, reporting on Danish TV and writing for the Guardian, and announced that the latter knew nothing about Islam. He was supported by the third speaker, Helle Merete Brix, a very well known Danish journalist, who, among other things, edits the magazine of the Free Press Society. She told Mr Illeborg that he understood nothing. For a few blissful moments the audience expected a punch-up but, in the end, the debate continued in a civilized fashion.

The topic was the situation in Denmark after the cartoons and the report given by Ms Brix was not very encouraging. She spoke of a “tsunami” of “dialogue projects”, “cross-culture projects” and “we are sorry projects”; of demonstrations led by well-known actors that pleaded for forgiveness; of writers’ events devoted to the concept of toleration, which all turned out to be one-sided. While we in Britain groan about the fact that no main-stream media outlet dared to publish those cartoons, Danish commentators like Ms Brix say that it would not be possible to have plays like “Now and Then” or “England People Very Nice” performed in Denmark.

Farshad Kholghi spoke passionately about the need for freedom of speech and of thought. He drew attention to the destruction of it all in Iran where fascism reappeared, as he put it, not just with an ugly moustache but with an ugly full beard. The West should support Iranians who want freedom, it should support all those in Islamic countries who are fighting for secularism, which would mean freedom to speak and write. (Actually, I think he overestimates the freedom-loving qualities of secular political societies but one can understand why he feels that way.) Western countries are in danger of giving away their liberty, fought for by many previous generations, all in the name of “tolerance”.

As if to prove his point, Mr Illeborg spoke of the need to be tolerant, to understand other people’s point of view, other habits and not to be “fundamentalist in our views of liberal western values”. Sadly for him, he found that not only the other speakers but the audience was against him, making it clear that what he was advocating was surrender to tyranny, authoritarianism and totalitarian methods of thinking.

Curiously enough, Mr Illeborg himself did not seem to believe in his own peroration. He maintained that in Britain we have created a much better multicultural society than the Danes did in Denmark, where, according to him, there were ever stronger feelings about Muslim immigrants. (Nothing to do with the threats to murder all those cartoonists who have to live in hiding, I am sure.) When he was asked how he felt about some British women being denied the rights that had been fought for by previous generations and others took for granted: education, jobs, right to ownership of property, equality before the law and the ability to walk about without having one’s face covered up, he assured us all volubly that women’s rights must be fought for. Gays’ rights, too, he added. And the Home Office trying to ban Geert Wilders was completely wrong.

So even he could not really explain why we must give in to political and intellectual tyranny, not even in the name of that all-encompassing idea, tolerance.