In a 2009 interview, Westergaard said he was trying to "show that terrorists get their spiritual ammunition from parts of Islam and with this spiritual ammunition, and with dynamite and other explosives, they kill people." He took issue with the way Danish people have judged his intentions, telling Canadian blogger Jonathan Kay that he was shunned by many of his former friends: "One of my old friends from the left, he said last year to me 'There are many who say that if something happens to [you], you were asking for it' — that it would be my own fault." Alt URL Westergaard also criticised the reaction of immigrant communities in Denmark to his cartoon, stating that "many of the immigrants who came to Denmark, they had nothing. We gave them everything – money, apartments, their own schools, free university, health care. In return, we asked one thing – respect for democratic values, including free speech. Do they agree? This is my simple test."
