Tuesday, May 09, 2006
LEUNIG DETERMINED TO BRING LEUNIG DOWN
Andrew Denton interviews duck-fixated Age cartoonist Michael Leunig, whose work was earlier this year prankishly entered in an anti-Semitic scribble contest:
DENTON: And at that time, before you knew it was a hoax, you said, “Ah, there are people determined to bring Leunig down”.
LEUNIG: Did I say that?
DENTON: Yes, you did.
LEUNIG: Oh, I don’t think I said that, that sounds too paranoid to me.
DENTON: No, you did say - that was your actual phrase - people determined to bring ...
LEUNIG: Oh, but where did you read that?
DENTON: I think I read it in ‘The Age’.
LEUNIG: Yeah, but that doesn’t mean to say I said it ...
Interesting; Leunig doesn’t even trust his own employer. Leunig also defended his warm feelings for Osama bin Laden (“Osama’s our relative”):
LEUNIG: There was a hate-fest going on in the paper. You know, ‘We hate Bin Laden’. This hate building, hate, hate, hate, hate. The war hadn’t begun in Iraq and I think what good is going to come of this hate? In my cultural upbringing was this Christianity there which said the most challenging and radical thing in Christianity is what? To love your enemy. And, and I think I was - I just raised that. I said, “Well, he’s one of our brothers. He’s part of our family. He’s not some demonic creature”. And we were, so little we knew about him and still so little we know about him. I just wanted to raise it and I, I stick by that. I stick by that to this day.
Leunig is closer to Jew-loathing mass-killer Osama (“one of our brothers”) than he is to his own family:
DENTON: You’ve got four siblings. Are you close with them?
LEUNIG: No, I’m not particularly.
DENTON: Why is that?
LEUNIG: I don’t know.
Maybe they’re allergic to idiots.