Image: Boris Grimback

Even before The Martyr Museum opened it had made a big fuss in the Danish media.

The Danish culture minister had announced that he would never want to see it and furthermore called it crazy.

Since then the story about the museum has hit the international news such as BBC, The Guardian and NPR.

But why has this exhibition caught so much attention?

Actually the museum is a combination of traditional exhibition, sound installations and performance since the museum guide is a role played by the Danish actor Morten Hee Andersen.

The exhibition wishes to examine why some people are willing to die for their beliefs and in this attempt puts martyrs as greek philosopher Socrates and socialist Rosa Luxemburg side-by-side with suicide bombers.

This is the reason behind the uproar in the media since some critics state that the exhibition thereby is endorsing terrorism.

Maria Thiemer, a Danish political science student, has seen the exhibition and thinks it’s interesting how the museum explores the different definitions of being a martyr.

She feels as if the exhibition portrays that not all martyrs are suicide bombers as she thinks that’s often what the word has been linked to the last couple of years.

In terms of the attention and criticism The Martyr Museum has received, she believes those people saying it’s condoning terrorism have not seen the exhibition.

She furthermore states that:

If we want to change the world and not have so much terrorism as we have right now, we should understand  people that are doing it because they are doing it out of their belief that this is the right thing to do

The exhibition is no longer running but received good reviews in the Danish press.

Written by Louise Tjaerandsen