| Cartoonists uneasy under fire By Peter Graff -- Reuters February 10 2006 |
LONDON (Reuters) - Imagine you are a political cartoonist, colleagues are receiving death threats and
sparking riots around the globe. Now: draw something clever about it.
They are used to flinging barbs about the toughest issues of the day, but now their own profession has
become the focus of a firestorm, some cartoonists say they are angry, others frightened, others simply
stumped for good material.
Strong supporters of free speech and natural iconoclasts as a group, many nonetheless said a series of
cartoons in a Danish newspaper that inspired angry protests around the Muslim world had overstepped a line
that can be difficult to judge.
But others said the furore was not a result of cartoons, but of political leaders manipulating them to make a
point.
One of the few to turn his pen directly to the controversy was Patrick Chapatte of the International Herald
Tribune. He drew Syrian President Bashar Assad and an Iranian cleric both gleefully surveying an angry
demonstration against the West.
"I love cartoons!" the Syrian leader says.
In an essay published alongside, Chapette wrote: "What is sickening to me about the recent events is the
misuse that has been made of cartoons -- in this case by both sides."
Many cartoonists rallied behind their colleagues.
"We are apologising for jokes which do not require an apology. We fire editors-in-chief who did nothing
wrong," Czech cartoonist Stepan Mares told the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes.
"Should we respect and honour the right of terrorists to kill and terrorise in the name of Mohammad?"
But others took the opposite view.
"I fully understand the sensitivity of the Arab world to these cartoons. How would we feel if someone showed
us an indecent picture of the Virgin Mary?" asked Stathis Stavropoulos, a cartoonist at the Greek daily
Eleftherotypia.
"A cartoonist targets the ills of society. The Prophet Mohammad is not one of them, the war in Iraq is," he
added.
"PROFESSIONAL MISTAKE"
For Rene Petillon, a leading French cartoonist who has taken on Islamists in work like his best-selling book
"The Headscarf Affair", the question was partly "a professional mistake".
"There is only one that is a problem, the famous one with the bomb in Mohammad's turban. It was very clumsy
because all Muslims feel attacked. You have to be very careful to separate the dangerous extremists on one
side and the large majority of Muslims on the other," he told Reuters.
Some have explored the sensitivity of depicting religion generally in their work, without directly addressing
Islam.
Jonathan Shapiro, who draws under the name Zapiro for several South African papers, drew a cartoonist
gingerly trying to avoid stepping on the exposed heads of a rabbi, priest and other religious figures buried in
the ground.
A sign reads "Danger! Religious Minefield."
But he told Reuters he liked one of the Danish cartoons -- one depicting the Prophet Mohammad pleading
with suicide bombers to stop because of a shortage of virgins.
"If there's a small faction within any religious group that believes crazily that by strapping on bombs and
blowing themselves and other people up, that's going to earn them 72 virgins in heaven, they deserve to be
satirised," he said.
Steve Bell of the Guardian, has long tweaked religion by using a white-robed God as a stock character.
This week he has run a series depicting a portraitist trying to persuade God to pose nude.
"As an atheist, God for me actually is a cartoon character and that's the end of it. I mean: he is an imaginary
character," Bell told Reuters. He described the furore over the Danish drawings as "synthetic outrage at
some rather crap cartoons".
But other cartoonists said they were still too frightened to tackle the issue head on.
"How sad that you allow yourself to be insulted by a drawing, by a pencil," Dutch cartoonist Frans Mensink told
a debate on Wednesday. "But it's the hard reality. I already drew a reaction to the issue, but don't dare publish
it. My windows would be smashed within a day."
sparking riots around the globe. Now: draw something clever about it.
They are used to flinging barbs about the toughest issues of the day, but now their own profession has
become the focus of a firestorm, some cartoonists say they are angry, others frightened, others simply
stumped for good material.
Strong supporters of free speech and natural iconoclasts as a group, many nonetheless said a series of
cartoons in a Danish newspaper that inspired angry protests around the Muslim world had overstepped a line
that can be difficult to judge.
But others said the furore was not a result of cartoons, but of political leaders manipulating them to make a
point.
One of the few to turn his pen directly to the controversy was Patrick Chapatte of the International Herald
Tribune. He drew Syrian President Bashar Assad and an Iranian cleric both gleefully surveying an angry
demonstration against the West.
"I love cartoons!" the Syrian leader says.
In an essay published alongside, Chapette wrote: "What is sickening to me about the recent events is the
misuse that has been made of cartoons -- in this case by both sides."
Many cartoonists rallied behind their colleagues.
"We are apologising for jokes which do not require an apology. We fire editors-in-chief who did nothing
wrong," Czech cartoonist Stepan Mares told the daily Mlada Fronta Dnes.
"Should we respect and honour the right of terrorists to kill and terrorise in the name of Mohammad?"
But others took the opposite view.
"I fully understand the sensitivity of the Arab world to these cartoons. How would we feel if someone showed
us an indecent picture of the Virgin Mary?" asked Stathis Stavropoulos, a cartoonist at the Greek daily
Eleftherotypia.
"A cartoonist targets the ills of society. The Prophet Mohammad is not one of them, the war in Iraq is," he
added.
"PROFESSIONAL MISTAKE"
For Rene Petillon, a leading French cartoonist who has taken on Islamists in work like his best-selling book
"The Headscarf Affair", the question was partly "a professional mistake".
"There is only one that is a problem, the famous one with the bomb in Mohammad's turban. It was very clumsy
because all Muslims feel attacked. You have to be very careful to separate the dangerous extremists on one
side and the large majority of Muslims on the other," he told Reuters.
Some have explored the sensitivity of depicting religion generally in their work, without directly addressing
Islam.
Jonathan Shapiro, who draws under the name Zapiro for several South African papers, drew a cartoonist
gingerly trying to avoid stepping on the exposed heads of a rabbi, priest and other religious figures buried in
the ground.
A sign reads "Danger! Religious Minefield."
But he told Reuters he liked one of the Danish cartoons -- one depicting the Prophet Mohammad pleading
with suicide bombers to stop because of a shortage of virgins.
"If there's a small faction within any religious group that believes crazily that by strapping on bombs and
blowing themselves and other people up, that's going to earn them 72 virgins in heaven, they deserve to be
satirised," he said.
Steve Bell of the Guardian, has long tweaked religion by using a white-robed God as a stock character.
This week he has run a series depicting a portraitist trying to persuade God to pose nude.
"As an atheist, God for me actually is a cartoon character and that's the end of it. I mean: he is an imaginary
character," Bell told Reuters. He described the furore over the Danish drawings as "synthetic outrage at
some rather crap cartoons".
But other cartoonists said they were still too frightened to tackle the issue head on.
"How sad that you allow yourself to be insulted by a drawing, by a pencil," Dutch cartoonist Frans Mensink told
a debate on Wednesday. "But it's the hard reality. I already drew a reaction to the issue, but don't dare publish
it. My windows would be smashed within a day."