PRAGUE, 7 February 2007 (RFE/RL) -- The
destruction of the Danish embassies in Damascus and Beirut in recent days has
made for dramatic television footage. But the real damage to Danish interests
may be far more costly, if far less spectacular.
Astrid Gade Nielsen, the spokeswoman for
Denmark's Arla Foods, the second-largest dairy-products firm in Europe, says the
boycott of Danish products across the Middle East has been a disaster for her
firm.
"We have built up our
business over the past 40 years," she says. "And
within five days, our business came to a complete stop."
Arla sells products worth $500 million a year
in the Muslim world, mostly butter and cheeses. "It is a
substantial amount of our sales," she says, but
"more importantly, the Middle East is a strategic area for Arla Foods, and we
have just recently decided to invest in a further expansion of our business
there."
Now, though, "we sell no
products whatsoever in any country in the Middle East."
In a further escalation, Tehran on 6 February
announced that it is cutting all trade ties to Denmark, which exports some $280
million worth of goods to Iran each year. In addition, Bahrain's parliament on 6
February urged all Arab countries to boycott Denmark.
Tehran's move will not affect Arla, which does
not operate in Iran. But other Danish executives fear the cartoon row could
morph into an all-out war against Danish businesses.
Charlotte Simonsen, the spokeswoman for the
Danish toy-maker Lego, says Lego's products have already been taken off the
shelves of stores in Qatar, Kuwait, and the United Arab Emirates.
She said that Danish firms are
"of course" concerned about the boycott, "but the
violence, and the loss of lives right now, is very much in the minds of people."
For Anne Villemoes, the spokeswoman for Danish
Crown, which exports chicken to the Middle East, "the main
concern is a situation where we see how different cultures react to different
things. And that means that we as a company now have chosen to sort of hold our
breath and wait for a diplomatic solution."
That may be some time in coming, as some
analysts say it remains unclear to what extent some governments may be
encouraging the protests for their own political ends.
Neil Partrick, a Middle East analyst with the
Economic Intelligence Unit in London, says "the whole
issue has presented an opportunity for a number of governments in the region to
try and deflect pressure in a number of ways. There has been this very strong
suggestion, for example, that the Syrian government may have been doing
something similar."
Partrick was referring to accusations by U.S.
officials that the Syrian authorities effectively allowed protesters to attack
the Danish Embassy in Damascus in order to divert international attention away
from Syria's alleged complicity in the murder of the former Lebanese prime
minister Rafik Hariri. Syria is currently under intense pressure to cooperate
with the United Nations' investigation into Hariri's assassination in February
2005.
Partrick says Iran too may want to use the
cartoon row, in its case in order to weaken the international focus on its
controversial nuclear program, which the West suspects is aimed at developing
nuclear weapons.
Crowds in Tehran on 6 February pelted Denmark's
diplomatic mission with petrol bombs and rocks, and a small group tried to break
into the building before being stopped by police.
But, says Partrick, "it
isn't just about international relations, of course; it's also about an internal
context."
There is, he believes,
"genuine grassroots anger. And the governments say to themselves, 'Do we really
want to be seen to be in a position where we're using violence against people
protesting something which the great mass of their people feel very strongly
about?'"
That anger against Denmark and the growing
number of Western countries whose newspapers have reprinted the cartoon resulted
on 7 February in more clashes.
In Afghanistan, as many as four people were
reported killed when demonstrators stormed a base in the northwestern town of
Maymana that housed a contingent of Norwegian soldiers serving with the NATO-led
International Security Assistance Force. The cartoons have also appeared in a
Norwegian publication.