 Kiku Day , writing in the Guardian said , " We were a liberal and tolerant people until the 1990s , when we suddenly awoke to find that for the first time in our history we had a significant minority group living among us . Confronted with the terrifying novelty of being a multicultural country , Denmark took a step not merely to the right but to the far right . " Professor Anders Linde @-@ Laursen wrote that while the controversy " should be understood as an expression of a growing Islamophobic tendency in Danish society , " this is just latest manifestation of a long @-@ standing , and particularly deep conflict between traditionalists and agents of modernity in Denmark , and should not be seen as a major departure for Danish society . 
