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TOONSTERS DUEL
US cartoonists Art Spiegelman and Joe Sacco offer differing opinions on Danish drawings:
Sacco: My initial reaction was, “What a bunch of idiots those Danes were for printing those things.” Did they not think that there was going to be some sort of backlash?
Spiegelman: I have spent a lot of time soul-searching and still come out on the same side of the equation. If there’s a right to make cartoons, there has to be a right to insult ...
Sacco: An editor, working in the real world, has to balance a number of things. There is a value in showing people what the fuss is all about, but the impact might be violent, and an editor does have to think about those things.
Spiegelman: If The Nation and the New York Times had simply said, “We’re scared shitless,” I could take that.
UPDATE. Wisconsin philosophy student Josh Cohen:
The longer these cartoons go publicly unacknowledged, the greater their force will be driven beneath the surface, and the more frighteningly inexplicable their consequences will seem.
Ha! He’s actually talking about the latest Abu Ghraib pictures (“The U.S. government has done an incredible job of keeping these images hidden”).
UPDATE II. NPR’s Juan Williams supports publishing:
“I just don’t see why anyone would resort to violence in response to a cartoon that they found objectionable,” he said. “To encourage young Muslims to act in a violent way is tragic ... But I will always side with the notion of freedom of speech and the right to publish.”
UPDATE III. Yet more cartoon trouble, this time in Malaysia:
The cartoon, which appeared in the [New Straits Times’] Tuesday edition, showed a street cartoonist doing a sketch on a drawing board with a sign next to him saying “Caricatures of Muhammad while you wait” and a caption saying, “Kevin finally achieves his goal to be the most feared man in the world.”
Muslim groups have called for action to be taken. Presumably similar to the action taken against Jihad Momani:
In a direct challenge to the international uproar over cartoons lampooning the Prophet Muhammad, the Jordanian journalist Jihad Momani wrote: “What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras, or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony?”
To illustrate his point, Momani published selections of the drawings — and for that was arrested and threatened with a lengthy prison term.
UPDATE IV. Related free-speaky thoughts from the Brussels Journal.
“The longer these cartoons go publicly unacknowledged, the greater their force will be driven beneath the surface, and the more frighteningly inexplicable their consequences will seem.” Actually, the meaning of this statement is pretty “frighteningly inexplicable”. As blog-father Glenn Reynolds is fond of saying, “Read the whole thing”. This is one philosophy student who’d better get his application into McDonald’s asap.
The Badger Herald was, when I was there, the conservative paper at Wisconsin. When I wrote for them, a professor called me in my dorm room to tell me I got our interview all wrong. I felt embarrassed, and suggested he write a letter to the editor. I took up drama the following year. I have a little more sympathy for Josh than you might think.
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 02 22 at 11:06 AM • permalinkArt Spiegelman had to do a lot of soul-searching?
It’s amazing the people you thought were free who even had to THINK about it. He sure didn’t search his soul for long to publish provocative New Yorker covers about 9/11 and so on. But even then, Islam, the poor oppressed multitudes of Islam (ha!), the sort of victims of American empire every good lefty artist must reflexively support without question—he had to search his soul as to whether he might support criticizing their medieval barbarism in some fashion.
Christopher Hitchens says (in Letters to a Young Contrarian) that he had a standard test during l’affaire Rushdie—he would ask the writer, or political figure, or whomever he was talking to if, as a simple matter of principle, whether they were opposed to the state sponsor (by any state) of murder for writers in other lands. If they hemmed and hawed and tried to make it more complex, he was finished talking to them. A large number of people could talk themselves into some degree of justification for the idea….
The pendulum on Art Spiegelman seems to be swinging back in a good direction, maybe, hopefully, kind of. I sure didn’t enjoy the transition (3 or 4 years ago) from loving his work to despising him personally, and yeah I hold it against him, but if he IS coming around on the Free Speech issue, then I guess I’ve gotta say good for him.
How long do I have to wait for him to bring out a graphic novel where the nazi cats are wearing turbans?Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 22 at 12:41 PM • permalinkLIttle Green Footballs has a Badger Herald story today:
http://badgerherald.com/news/2006/02/22/cartoon_debate_heats.php
Posted by chinesearithmetic on 2006 02 22 at 01:38 PM • permalinkJoe Sacco has, of course, spent more than a decade cultivating his own sympathy for the Palestinian cause, and among graphic novel fans worldwide, to great acclaim. His cause is their cause, so there’s no real surprise there - he’d never willingly incur their wrath, so he feels safe. For now.
Posted by rick mcginnis on 2006 02 22 at 02:01 PM • permalink“Eleven suspected foreign fighters from Egypt and Saudi Arabia were seized by gunmen from a prison in Iraq’s largely Shiite second city of Basra yesterday [22 Feb 06] and all but one of them lynched.”
I bet that from now on most of the captured al-Qaeda enthusiasts will pressure the ABC, SBS, Coffee Onan, and Amnesty International to have them sent to the US-controlled Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay prisons. They surely be much safer over there.
The debate continues to focus on whether or not a newspaper should or should not show the cartoons. It should be about how does somebody in Pakistan get to see and get so fired up about the cartoons that people die?
I am an atheist although a “christian” one in the sense of my upbringing and culture. I am sensitive in the ordinary way to insulting people and certainly to insulting their beliefs. Icons or representations have a long history of bringing about violence. In one way the dispute about icons made a major contribution to the end of the Byzantine empire and certainly many, many were killed in the civil wars that erupted at the time.
The outcome of that dispute was that Christian churches more or less agreed that icons were ok (the people who believed otherwise were dead) and, by extension, painting. It should be noted that the dispute was not without violence. There are lots of major divisions in the Islamic world today. Christopher Hitchens sees a fundamental war going on between the Koran and Sharia law. There is certainly a dispute between moderate and extremist.
It would be helpful, as John Howard has pointed out, to recognise that Muslims are not monolithic. There are some who are potentially allies and some who are certainly enemies, even to other Muslims. Identifying these elements will aid in defeating them. In order to make sure that the “right” side wins, we also need allies from within the Muslim religion and we need to know who they are and reassure them.
Just because the tanks are not lined up doesn’t mean there is no war going on.
“Come out our moslem allies! Join us against extremists”
*crickets chirping*
Posted by Pedro the Ignorant on 2006 02 23 at 04:30 AM • permalinkIn order to make sure that the “right” side wins, we also need allies from within the Muslim religion and we need to know who they are and reassure them.
You’ll first have to get the “moderate” Muslims to stop considering the whole thing a team event where it’s Muslims vs. everybody else no matter if that puts them on the same side as terrorist murderers. In other words, some education on that whole “cutting off your nose to spite your face” thing is definitely in order, though I’ve begun to doubt that Islam is fundamentally capable of that kind of introspection.
12 Allan, are you a protestant atheist or a catholic atheist?
Posted by Stoop Davy Dave on 2006 02 23 at 12:31 PM • permalink
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I really have trouble imagining the fantasy world you’d have to concoct to be a righteously lefty college student.