The questions of my personal safety over the last weeks have been constant. My mother, friends, family and the like have all questioned how dodgy it has become here in Aarhus, the home of the now infamous Jyllands-Posten. But every time I hear my mother’s worrying voice my face winces and I wonder why they think I’m in such danger. I am an American student studying in Aarhus, a town of about a quarter million people and Denmark’s second largest city next to Copenhagen.

The images coming in from around the world are amazing. Frantic mobs of people waving green and white Muslim flags while burning red and white Danish ones. Embassies burning while enormous crowds of people shout unsettling, threatening things.

That is a sharp contrast to what’s going on here. No mobs have taken the city by storm. None of the town’s buildings have been set ablaze by angry or radical Muslims in retaliation to the offensive cartoons. Shop windows remain intact.

The Aarhus police department have reported no increase in the amount of crime.

It’s not an especially pretty town. Many of the buildings are made of cement or drab yellow brick and the weather is neither clear nor warm this time of year. It has its charm though, the same charm of many mid-sized European cities: a town hall with a big clock tower; antiquated churches; and a town center walking street with nice department stores and boutique shops. There’s also a large presence of American commercial enterprises such as McDonalds, Blockbuster and 7-11. But it’s not a scenic place. There’s no Golden Gate Bridge in Aarhus.

Instead Aarhus has the #15 bus line, popularly known to some Danes as the garlic express. The #15 gets its namesake because it takes you to Brabrand, the neighborhood where most of Aarhus’ Muslim immigrants live.

Brabrand is the suburb. Gellerupparken is the area, and arguably the largest ghetto in Denmark. Seventy-five to eighty-five percent of Gellerupparken’s residents is not ethnically Danish. They live in the same relative segregation as immigrants in most of western Europe.

Likewise many of the residents are 2nd generation Danes or “new Danes.” Many of them have trouble getting jobs because of the stereotypes attached to their Muslim surnames.

The residents of the neighborhood live in long, tall, eight-story-high apartment buildings with satellite dishes hanging from balconies.

Outside their homes last Thursday 300 members of the community got together in a candlelight vigil to protest the violence that’s taken place in the Middle East. Since the cartoons became first page news, Denmark’s Muslim community hasn’t reacted with radical support of the embassies’ destruction or Danish flag burning.

Instead, the community has come out with statements of disapproval of both the drawings and the violent protests. In Copenhagen those crowds swelled to 1000 people.

Away from the streets and on the computer screen, protests to Danish antipathy for Muslims has come forward.

A group of young Danes have come together to create a website called www.anotherdenmark.org which aims at creating tolerance and respect between Muslims and Danes.

“To break down prejudice it is important to show that far from all Danes are hostile to Islam,” said Nikolai Lang, one of the five creators. The site has received some 11, 000 greetings addressed to the Muslim world.

Another website that has seen a flurry of attention in response to the drawings is www.sorrynorwaydenmark.com. The website was created by 20-30 Muslims outside Denmark, mainly of Palestinian descent. Their site, which apologizes to the Danish and Norwegians for damage done to their embassies in the Middle East, was established 8 days ago. Since last Sunday they have received some 153, 000 hits and almost 5500 postings on their guest book. The rhetoric of those postings, mainly from Danes, is full of thanks, appreciation and returned apologies for the vulgarity of the drawings.

The cartoonists and editors of the Jyllands-Posten were not alone. Anti-Muslim resentment exists in Denmark and may be gaining strength (need a little help on phrasing that differently, too subjective).

On the other side, there is anti-Muslim feeling. Last Sunday Danish Radio reported that unknown assailants defiled the Muslim section of a cemetery in Esbjerg, a city outside of Copenhagen, “completely destroying 25 grave sites.”

The ultra right winged Danish People’s Party, who received 13 percent of the vote in the last February election, is benefiting from the cartoon crisis. A recent poll showed that if an election was held today the DKK, who proudly states on their website that they do not believe in a multicultural society, would receive a 5 percent boost in support from the electorate, the largest gain any party of the 10-party system would get.

In a dispute with the Swedish government over a bridge that connects the two nations, Pia Kjaersgaard, the party’s leader, told BBC World News that, "If they want to turn Stockholm, Gothenburg or Malmo into a Scandinavian Beirut, with clan wars, honour killings and gang rapes, let them do it. We can always put a barrier on the Oeresund Bridge."