U. S. Cartoonists fight back
The quality isn't great, but that is because these are thumbnails. To see each one in hi-res, click on it [Sent to me by BenS and Clive].
The Winter Polemics
by Robert Ariail, The State, February 10, 2006
Drawing the Line on Free Speech
by John Branch, The San Antonio Express-News, February 10, 2006
Maybe Now You'll Learn Tolerance and Respect for the Views of Others
by John Cole, The Scranton Times, February 8, 2006
Oh Oh... What Did I Do Now?
by John Darkow, The Columbia Daily Tribune, February 10, 2006
by Bob Gorrell, AOL News, February 8, 2006
by Steve Greenberg, The Ventura County Star, February 9, 2006
Crowded Embassies are Different
by Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer, February 8, 2006
Why Do You Want a Face Transplant ...?
I'm the Guy Who Drew the Cartoons...
by Dana Summers, The Orlando Sentinel, February 7, 2006
The Dialogue
by John Trever, The Albuquerque Journal, February 9, 2006
Cartoon Therapy
by Gary Varvel, The Indianapolis Star-News, February 9, 2006
Send More Body Armor....To Cartoonists
by Walt Handelsman, Newsday, February 10, 2006
The Winter Polemics
by Robert Ariail, The State, February 10, 2006
Drawing the Line on Free Speechby John Branch, The San Antonio Express-News, February 10, 2006
Maybe Now You'll Learn Tolerance and Respect for the Views of Others
by John Cole, The Scranton Times, February 8, 2006
Oh Oh... What Did I Do Now?
by John Darkow, The Columbia Daily Tribune, February 10, 2006
by Bob Gorrell, AOL News, February 8, 2006
by Steve Greenberg, The Ventura County Star, February 9, 2006
Crowded Embassies are Different
by Kevin Siers, The Charlotte Observer, February 8, 2006
Why Do You Want a Face Transplant ...?
I'm the Guy Who Drew the Cartoons...
by Dana Summers, The Orlando Sentinel, February 7, 2006
The Dialogue
by John Trever, The Albuquerque Journal, February 9, 2006
Cartoon Therapy
by Gary Varvel, The Indianapolis Star-News, February 9, 2006
Send More Body Armor....To Cartoonists
by Walt Handelsman, Newsday, February 10, 2006
Category: Eclectic Miscellany Posted on
Thursday, February 23, 2006 at 7:32pm
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This cartoon about sums it up.
You cannot be racist towards a set of ideas and the people that choose to believe in them. That is the difference between the publication of the cartoons and the publication of cartoons that would make fun of the racial features of African Americans or Jews. African Americans are defined by qualities that they are born witb and cant change. Jews are born Jews. That designation is more than a set of religious ideas. It is their /genetic tribal identity and can no more be changed than a black person can choose to turn white. A Jew can switch religions and still be of Jewish descent. This is the same as saying that a person is born an Arab. If they become a Christian, they become a Christian of Arab descent.
Muslims choose to believe in a certain set of ideas that they can change or modify. Making fun of those ideas is well within the realm of permissable free speech. The purpose of free speech is to be able to test and criticize ideas.
We must flat reject any attempts to equate the cartoons with racism. Anyone who tries to claim that they are needs to be smacked down with the truth.
Cartoonists
Radical Mooselimbs
Yes, the cartoon sums it up but note this:
1 - Ms. Liberty is drawn like a slut. No veil and dares expose her entire arm
2 - Mohammed the prophet arm in arm with a woman like that? That's Fatwah Talk.
3 - it shows Mohammed {PBUH}. It could show him providing nurture and care to infants and the diseased, it could show him attacking Bush. Don't matter. It shows him. More Fatwah Talk.
Also note that in the Turkish Muslim tradition, Mohammed is depicted in statuettes, but his face is featureless and rays of light emanate from under his head covering.
In short - the cartoon is meant for consumption by people like us in the West - not by the "The True Beleivers" or perpretators of violence.
A thoughtful post, but if you look at the original 12 cartoons more closely, it charicaturizes Mohammed as either JAFT [just another terrorist] or as a wild eyed arab with long knife/sword in hand. If that isn't racism, don't know what is.
If you're looking for truthful depictions of individuals, don't go looking for it in a cartoon. They are meant slander, provoke, and slur. And yes, I have seen the original 12. Some don't even have a picture of Mohammed {PBUH}in them but attack certain religious beleifs [which is OK by me].
But fully half are not insulting whatsoever. two are just pictures of him standing. One is a picture of a cartoonist drawing him.
How about the police lineup? #1 is a hippy, #2 is a Danish politician (right wing, female), #3 is Jesus, #4 is a woman from India, okay - #5 or #6 might be intended as Mohammed, #7 is a cartoonist.
#7, the cartoonist, is depicted in another cartoon, decrying the request for cartoons as a PR stunt. That's insulting to Mohammed?
I think you are a liar and you have not thought about the cartoons at all.
The "Heathen" part is amusing, claiming to be what the Koran calls for killing.
"Are you claiming that discrimination can only be "racial" but not "religious"? Why the heck then the international human rights have clauses about religious freedom? Why the US govt whine about religious persecution in other countries? Bigotry against a group based on religion is still bigotry. You are a fool if you claim no such thing can exist. Besides, what race are Jews anyway? Ethiopian Jews look like African. European Jews look like European."
http://tinyurl.com/fvmm6
http://paha.suojelupoliisi.org/sarjis/
try "challenging the ideas" of Black American Culture or of being Jewish and see how unbigotted you are perceived. Nah-uh. Ain't gonna work. As for my other friends on this forum accusing me of being a liar, etc. I suspect no amount of verbiage will change their minds. To all who read this forum go to Wikipedia and look at the cartoons for yourself [http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Danish_cartoons] . Of course not every single one is equally inflammatory. I've stated as much in previous posts. But look at the responses and their intollerance. Half baked sophistry, nuanced balderdash, bleatings of insecure sheep. What a sad sight indeed.
In a world cowered by "The Dictatorship of Relativism" you are correct. In the same world where the much overused term "Political-Correctness" prevails, it's your [our] tough luck to be subjected to someone's elses irate insecurities.
I guess the nub of your post remains: the difference between "challenge" and "persecution". Intent - desired outcome - perception quite frequently are disconnected and the results are miserable. Just look at what's happenning in Ontario, Canada with the book Three Wishes. It's a child's eye view of the conflict in the Middle East. It was chosen as prefered reading for grades 4-6. The Jewish Congress is incensed because among other things there is a statement in there from a young Palestinian girl who had a sister that was a suicide bomber and if she had only known, she would have made her a special breakfast before she went out that day.
"what-a-world, what-a-world, what-a-world ..."
I totally agree that messages are more often than not misinterpreted. This, as you put it is our "tough luck." It is in the very nature of communication that messages are sometimes confused with other meanings. However this should be countered with more discourse, rather than violence and blatant or veiled threats.
You communicate well. And you're bang on with your observation. Having worked in the Middle East for several years and acquired many good Muslim friends, discourse comes easily to these people. Everything is up for negotiation. They will talk endlessly - almost to a fault. I suspect the violence and the threat of violence comes from a more general situation of cultural malaise and desperation. The root causes have very little to do with cartoons or freedom of speech. It has a lot to do with politics, trying to assert ones culture and religiosity as a counter to encroaching western ideas [some good - some bad]. Many of my Muslim friends are deeply insulted by some of the cartoons. But they don't go rioting in the streets. The insult is genuine. The hurt they feel is genuine. Islam is so huge and so geographically spread out and cultutrally diverse, there will undoubtedly be elements of the community that are highly immature and insecure. Witness the two Danish Muslims who presented the 12 cartoons to various Islamic organizations and added a few more cartoons that were unpublished but much more incindiary. Or the protesters in the UK and Canada that sport signs such as "Have you not learned from 9-11?" etc. The same kind of inflamatory rhetoric is seen on some Israeli protesters who carry signs like "we'll stop shooting your children when they stop throwing stones at us", and so on.
Discourse and debate - yes.
arguements and rhetoric - not helpful.
violence and threat of violence - criminal, even in the case of State sanctioned violence like US invading Iraq, Iraq invading Kuwait, Iran and Iraq invading each other, and so on.
I'm not sure I can see what point you are trying to make. I'm not arguing that the cartoons aren't offensive, people from all walks of life are equally offended every day, but it doesn't make worldwide news for a month. It seems with the final thought of your last statement you are trying to steer debate towards the Iraqi war. If so, that's fine, I just thought the debate was over the right of the cartoonists to their free speech.
In that regard I believe that the cartoonists have every right to create whatever kind of cartoon they wish. Do I think they should? No. It is also the right of the journal to publish the cartoons or not as they see fit, or to apologize to the Muslim community accordingly. The government should not get involved until actual criminal activity occurs. The fact is that the cartoons are views expressed by a handful of individuals, and not by an entire people. The cartoons are news like it or not, so they will be reprinted by other publications, so that other people can see what all of the fuss is about.If anything, just the verbal responses to the cartoons were way worse than the cartoons that incited the controversy. "Didn't you learn anything from 9-11?" As if the two are in some way related.
As for your comment about Muslims trying to assert their values and beliefs this is fine, they can do it however they see fit. Unless they are in a western country and deem it necessary to make threatening statements that are against the laws of the land. No one is trying to make Muslims conform to their belief system, but only to abide by the basic laws of conduct and descency in a given society.
I was taking issue with the posters on this forum who either didn't understand or didn't want to understand the hurt and rage the Muslims are feeling right now.
In the last post I was wrestling with the issue of proper discourse. The criminality part was sure to invite comments about the Iraq invasion pro/con so I brought it up first. Doesn't change the point. The violence whether pro or anti West is criminal. And yes I did enlarge the scope of the discussion to include international relations and cultural clashes because like I said the root causes of the violent behavior from some Muslims is not the cartoons, but anti-western sentiment.
Notice where the riots took place? Not in the Heartland of the Great Satan{s} but in their own backyard. Still technically criminal, but it comes and goes like so many other riots. Notice also those people that hurled rhetoric in our faces such as "haven't you learned from 9-11?" are not in jail. They're hated, probably had themselves videotaped by security types, but still free. The point remains - needless rhetoric is unhelpful and not related to the issues at hand.
Last point: just as the cartoons are an expression of a few individuals and not representative of a whole nation, the flag burning and threats are voiced by over excited and immature Muslims and not representative of an entire faith. Even the Fatwah is not representative of an entire faith. They have no Pope or Vatican as such. It is very decentralized. The hurt and insult, I maintain, remain and are very real. Especially to Sunnis. That's not relative. That's real.
I understand that the Muslims of the world are deeply offended. So what are we to do? Should we shut down all of the offending publications because of what they've printed? Or maybe we should allow the Muslim community to proofread every issue of every major publication so that no one is offended. Although then we would have to make the same consideration for every societal group.
I am an American Christian, and have seen and put up with many forms of blasphemy my entire life. Here and abroad some of it is even revered as art. I think things like this are disgusting, but I'll be damned if the offending parties are not allowed to express themselves. I know that much of the time "artists" like this only motive is to inspire anger, because any publicity is good publicity.
Yes many Muslims were offended, join the freakin' club! They should look on the people that did this with pity rather than disdain. If this is the biggest offense in so many people's lives than I don't know what to say. Don't take me as underestimating the gravity of the insult, but if we let those insults control our thoughts and actions, then anyone who insults us is in direct charge of our life.
We have much to agree upon.
Some of the same Muslim friends who are hurt by the cartoons were also studying at Universities in California, Ohio, and the UK. The slander they heard about Jesus also got them upset. Again, they didn't riot or threaten, but they clearly did not like it. Jesus is, after all, a prophet for them as well.
And you're quite right, when you allow insult/satire/disrespect to overcome your emotions and actions, you are not in control - the perpretators of these acts are. Which is why I call the over-reaction immature. A schoolyard scenario comes to mind on this one.
Again, they're not all like that. I was in Muscat, Oman for a while and noticed some wonderful things, like a very old Christian Church and even a Hindu Temple and Buddist Shrine. The Arabs of the region are known as Ibdhazi Muslims and were an early off-shoot of Islam that isolated themselves from the rest of the Islamic world many centuries ago. They were subject to many persecutions by fellow Muslims and they know first hand what it's like to be discriminated against by your first cousin. So they are very open and relaxed with other religions in their midst. Quite an eye openner.
I'm also surpised at the amount of respect shown by North American media on republishing these 12 cartoons. They have vigorously debated the issue, sometimes comically one-sided, yet they didn't go out of their way to re-publish them. My hope is that they have shown sensitivity and respect. Other posters on this forum will want to bleat that it is done out of fear.
I guess that's pretty much relative, isn't it?
Peace.
AH SALAM AH LAKUM.
SHALOM.