PROTEST PROBLEMS: TOP TEN CARTOONS OF THE WEEK
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Hillary Runs from the Media
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Garry Trudeau and Charlie Hebdo
My cartoonist buddy Osama Hajjaj in Jordan drew a cartoon this week that he describes as depicting Arab women’s struggle and suffering under Islamic/Sharia Law. Osama tells me he’s received a torrent of abusive reaction to the cartoon from Muslim readers, but more of a concern are credible death threats from ISIS/ISIL/DAESH members emanating from Jordan and neighboring Syria. Osama writes:
“… but no matter what, those cowards won’t stop me and I still believe that Freedom of thought and expression is a human right. To detain and threaten people for exercising their human rights is the epitome of barbarism. Blasphemy is a crime for those who have weak ideas and corrupt morals.”
Osama sent me links to some news reports about the ISIL/ISIS/DAESH death threats, like this one, but I must admit, my Arabic is a little rusty. Police in Jordan are investigating. Being an editorial cartoonist in the Middle East is a dangerous job. See more of Osama Hajjaj’s work here.
Today I entered Iran’s Second International Holocaust Cartoon Contest. The first contest was a response to the Danish Muhammad Cartoons back in 2006. This time around, the contest is in response to the Charlie Hebdo murders.
People usually respond to events by doing what they would want to do anyway, so anti-Semitic cartoons are both the natural Iranian response and are what they would draw anyway if there was nothing to respond to.
The Holocaust Cartoon Contest Website shows three stacked army helmets, two with swastikas, and a third with a Star of David. There are two sections to the contest, the regular cartoon contest I entered, and a caricature contest where cartoonists are instructed to draw likenesses of Benjamin Netanyahu with Adolph Hitler. Most of the cartoons in the first contest were depictions of Jews as Nazis.
The site claims that they don’t deny the Holocaust, and that they are not anti-Semitic, but the cartoon winners from the first contest tell another story. The winner of the first Holocaust Cartoon Contest back in 2006 was Moroccan cartoonist Derkaoui Abdellah, whose winning cartoon showed an image of a Nazi concentration camp on a wall which a crane, marked with a Star of David, was placing around Jerusalem’s Dome of the Rock. The US State Department paid Derkaoui’s way for an extensive tour of America, including a visit to the Association of American Editorial Cartoonists convention, where I met him.
The Holocaust Cartoon grand prize is “12,000” which is a lot if that is US dollars, but if it is Iranian currency, that amounts to less than fifty cents; I’m not sure which it is.
In my cartoon, I drew Iran’s Supreme Leader, with his face as a butt that is farting out the words to his famous statement, “The Holocaust is an event whose reality is uncertain and if it has happened, it’s uncertain how it happened.” The fart-sentence takes the form of a “wafteroon” which is a cartoon term for a wavy, steamy, horizontal line that typically runs under someone’s nose, indicating that a character is smelling something. A wafteroon can come out of an apple pie, under the nose of a smiling face, or it can come out of the Supreme Leader’s butt-face, under the noses of a frowning crowd, as in my cartoon.
I have an Iranian cartoonist friend, Nik Kowsar, who was imprisoned in Iran for drawing cartoons that the clerics didn’t like. Nik was held in the infamous Evin prison in Tehran that now holds Washington Post reporter, Jason Rezaian. I asked Nik if I should enter my cartoon in the contest, or would that just be stupid and pointless? Nik said, “Yes! Enter it! It’s funny!”
My next problem was that I had missed the deadline. Nik told me, “They are good about taking late submissions. Don’t worry about it.” And Nik was right, the Iranians responded immediately to tell me that it was OK to submit my cartoon today, after the deadline.
I’m guessing the Iranians will not choose to include my cartoon in their exhibition and competition – but considering how the contest organizers complain about the “West” censoring “discussion” of the Holocaust, I thought it was a nice irony to give them a Holocaust cartoon that they would likely censor.
Now I’m kicking myself that I missed the deadline for “The Second Major International Award of DOWN WITH AMERICA” contest back in January. I need to pay closer attention to this stuff.
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Iran Cartoon for Cagle Column
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Florida Medicaid Expansion
Here’s my long interview with Bob Andelman (Mr. Media) about my work, the editorial cartooning business and editorial cartoons around the world.
This is a cartoon I was working on when I did the interview at my drawing table.
In his acceptance speech for a recent award, one of many awards he’s received in his long career, Doonesbury creator, Garry Trudeau, made these comments about the murdered Charlie Hebdo cartoonists:
“Ironically, Charlie Hebdo, which always maintained it was attacking Islamic fanatics, not the general population, has succeeded in provoking many Muslims throughout France to make common cause with its most violent outliers. This is a bitter harvest.”
“Traditionally, satire has comforted the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable. Satire punches up, against authority of all kinds, the little guy against the powerful. Great French satirists like Molière and Daumier always punched up, holding up the self-satisfied and hypocritical to ridicule. Ridiculing the non-privileged is almost never funny—it’s just mean.”
“By punching downward, by attacking a powerless, disenfranchised minority with crude, vulgar drawings closer to graffiti than cartoons, Charlie wandered into the realm of hate speech, which in France is only illegal if it directly incites violence. Well, voila—the 7 million copies that were published following the killings did exactly that, triggering violent protests across the Muslim world, including one in Niger, in which ten people died. Meanwhile, the French government kept busy rounding up and arresting over 100 Muslims who had foolishly used their freedom of speech to express their support of the attacks.”
Trudeau is all wrong. Satire, and great editorial cartoons, are about speaking truth to power – and the most powerful people are those with guns, enforcing their will through violence. Trudeau seems blind to the threats that the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists saw all around them as Islamic extremists continue raping, enslaving and killing thousands of innocents while threatening to murder even more cartoonists.
Editorial cartoonists work in comfortable safety in America, but around the world our profession has always been dangerous. Cartoonists are murdered, beaten and jailed by the powerful people with guns, who the cartoonists criticize. Editorial cartoonists outside of the USA are the bravest heroes of journalism.No personal bravery is required of editorial cartoonists in the USA, where the government we lampoon defends us against the dangers faced by our cartoonist colleagues overseas. It takes no bravery to blame a rape victim for her own rape, as it takes no bravery to blame a cartoonist for his own murder. Perhaps the rape victim wore a provocative dress, or the cartoonist drew a provocative cartoon, it shouldn’t matter. It is the violence that should be condemned, not the victim of the violence.
Trudeau’s cartoons don’t “comfort the afflicted while afflicting the comfortable;” Trudeau simply chooses targets that he feels comfortable afflicting – targets that don’t shoot back.
Editor’s Note: After I wrote this column, Trudeau appeared on NBC’s Meet the Press to answer widespread (mostly conservative) condemnation of his comments about the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists. In the interview Trudeau argued that he didn’t mean to blame the cartoonists, then went on to defend his comments and blamed the cartoonists again. Trudeau’s Meet the Press interview can be viewed here.
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Insure Tennessee Cuckoo Clock
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Euro Bomb Repost
This is my cartoon about the Clinton and Bush dynasties. Note that Hillary is on the left and Jeb is on the right.
Hillary is a great character for cartoonists; I’m still getting comfortable with Jeb Bush, who really looks very little like George W. and his parents.
Playing cards are a metaphor staple among editorial cartoonists. Here’s a nice oldie, from Taylor Jones, with Obama and McCain.
I got mail in response to my cartoon, from readers asking why both Hillary and Jeb were not Jokers. I suspect Taylor got some angry mail for calling Obama a “spade,” I would have avoided that. Still, nice cartoon.
As I was writing this, I did a search on our CagleCartoons.com site for cards, and I came up with the lovely Boligan cartoon below. Clearly, Boligan has in mind that the fat, happy tourist is flying around the world, spreading the money around from his many credit cards.
Sometimes I look at a cartoon and think, if only he had done something different, that would have made for another great cartoon. With this one, I would have had a consumer Sysiphus, with too many credit cards flying too close to the sun, with his credit card wings melting, falling apart. Maybe I’ll do that, with a “thank you” to Boligan.
Cards are great for cartoons, huh?
Florida Senator Marco Rubio announced that he is in the presidential race a couple of days ago. He’ll be running against his old mentor, Jeb Bush, so, here is Marco as a doggie, biting Bush in the butt.
Maybe it’s just me, but it seems that almost everyone running for president this time around is really easy to draw. A couple are duds, Scott Walker and Martin O’Malley have lousy faces, but hopefully I won’t need to draw them.
I like the line art better, and I send it out to newspapers as the black and white version, but I’ve notices that papers are more often printing a grayscale version of the color cartoon. Frustrating. Editors like the tone and color, even though simple lines are more elegant.
