In Europe in general, and Denmark in particular. Mark Steyn recalls the Mohammed cartoon crisis of 2005 and the sequels that have played out over the ensuing years:

In 2005 Jyllands-Posten, one of the biggest-selling newspapers in Denmark, as part of an exploration of the state of free speech, was willing to publish a dozen cartoons of Mohammed by prominent cartoonists.

In 2010, on the fifth anniversary, I was given an award by the Danish Free Press Society and appeared on stage with the society’s founder Lars Hedegaard and fellow freespeechers from across the Continent: the Norwegian comedienne Shabana Rehman, the Dutch cartoonist Nekschot, the Swedish artist Lars Vilks and the Danish-Iranian actor Farshad Kholghi.

If those names don’t ring a lot of bells for you, here’s the scorecard so far:

* Shabana Rehman’s family restaurant was firebombed, and she was forced to live under 24/7 police protection, which is not terribly conducive to a career in observational comedy. She died of cancer last year at the age of forty-six;

* Nekschot was already under so many death threats that he could only appear at public engagements with his face obscured and unidentifiable. So in Copenhagen that day he chose to wear a burqa. Funny, but not quite secure enough. He had already been arrested for “hate speech” – and with the Dutch authorities openly taunting him about the impending loss of his anonymity. The year after our appearance in Denmark, he gave up cartooning and went into hiding. I assume he is still alive;

* Lars Vilks was speaking at an event on art and blasphemy when a Muslim opened fire with a semi-automatic. A Danish film director was killed and three police officers. The jihad boy then went to a nearby synagogue and killed a second man. Lars retired from public life, and died in 2021 with two of his security detail when their unmarked police car crashed, somewhat mysteriously;

* oh, and our host Lars Hedegaard was shot at point blank range, but fortunately by an incompetent. So Lars survived, but his opponent managed to flee to Turkey.

Those outrages passed without much comment in the Western press. But the message was received.

In 2015, on the tenth anniversary, I was back in Copenhagen, this time with Douglas Murray.
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I woke up on the morning of the event to find that both the US State Department and the British Foreign Office had issued travel advisories warning their nationals to steer clear of both Copenhagen in general and Christiansborg Palace in particular.

Indeed. You don’t want to be caught in the shootout at a free-speech event, do you?
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Jyllands-Posten marked the tenth anniversary by re-publishing a perfect facsimile of the newspaper page as it had appeared in 2005 – except with white space where the cartoons had been.

“So sad,” said Katrine. “Violence works.”

As on other visits to Denmark, Mark and his companions were protected by security. But the restaurant where they had a reservation turned them away.

So by the tenth anniversary it was not just that once publishable cartoons are now unpublishable, but that figures even tangentially associated with them can’t get a table in a restaurant.

And this year, Denmark is about to pass an anti-blasphemy law to prevent insults against Islam. It will be illegal to burn a Koran.

So where are we now?

With hindsight, I think one can see that as a convergence of interests on the part of the jihad and progressive wisdom: You can come to your assault on free speech because you won’t hear a word against Mohammed …or because you won’t permit “disinformation” on Covid, climate change, whatever. The men who shoot up Lars Vilks events and those who try to get doctors struck off for disagreeing with the official propaganda are merely at different points on the same continuum. “Free speech” is a fringe cause now, for the “alt-right” and such like.

Mark concludes by noting the irony that it is now the Danes who are paying Danegeld. Their ancestors had more backbone, as did ours.