| Drawing conclusions in ink and blood The political cartoon can be dangerous, especially for the cartoonist Tim benson -- The Times of London February 7, 2006 |
Despite the outrage in the Muslim world caused by the recent publication of cartoons of the Prophet Muhammad
in several European newspapers, such controversy is nothing new in the realm of political caricature.
Amazingly, 81 years ago David Low caused a similar response from the Muslim world when he drew a rather
benign looking Muhammad looking up at the English cricket hero, Sir Jack Hobbs. According to a Calcutta
correspondent, when it appeared in the Indian version of the Morning Post, it “convulsed many Muslims in
speechless rage. Meetings were held and resolutions of protest were passed�.
Cartoonists are thus only too aware that approaching religion can be a minefield. Steve Bell, of The Guardian,
admits that he was particularly conscious of this during the early 1980s with the Salman Rushdie affair.
According to Bell: “It does make you think twice, although I did my best at the time, taking the p*** out of
Ayatollah Khomeini.�
The Times cartoonist Peter Brookes believes that being provocative for the sake of it is not only â
€œmeaningless but also invariably leads to injury or violence to someone. If you asked the Muhammad
cartoonists whether they were glad now, I’m sure that they’d say no.� After the July 7 bombings
Brookes’s cartoon drawing an “immoral equivalence� between the atrocity and the bombing of Iraq led
to reader criticism.
A particular risk for the cartoonist is that as a visual image a cartoon can easily be misinterpreted. For example,
when Dave Brown, of The Independent, drew a cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby — an allusion
to a well-known Goya painting — to comment upon Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, many Jewish
people believed the imagery in the cartoon had been lifted straight from the virulent anti-Semitic Nazi organ Die
Stürmer . Mainly because of its contentious subject matter, the cartoon was voted Political Cartoon of the Year
2003 by members of the Political Cartoon Society. This resulted in the society receiving the condemnation of
Jews around the world.
Another famous example is a cartoon by Philip Zec, published in the Daily Mirror in March 1942, showing a
torpedoed merchant seaman hanging on to a life raft. The caption read: “The price of petrol has been
increased by one penny: official.� It was intended to show that the public should use fuel sparingly as it was
costing lives to bring it across the North Atlantic. However, the cartoon so infuriated the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, who misread it, that he almost had the paper shut down.
During the 1930s British cartoonists had the Nazis up in arms by ridiculing their Führer. On July 8, 1936, during
the Berlin Olympics, Sidney Strube, of the Daily Express, produced a cartoon to which Hitler took an instant
dislike. Orders were given that all copies of that day’s Daily Express were to be confiscated as soon as they
arrived in Germany.
A year later the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax held talks with Germany’s propaganda minister, Josef
Goebbels, who complained that British cartoonists were damaging Anglo-German relations. Goebbels singled
out Low for special attention. Halifax told the Evening Standard’s manager Michael Wardell, who was asked
to arrange a meeting between Halifax and Low: “You cannot imagine the frenzy that these cartoons cause. As
soon as a copy of the Evening Standard arrives, it is pounced upon for Low’s cartoon, and if it is of Hitler, as
it generally is, telephones buzz, tempers rise, fevers mount, and the whole governmental system of Germany is
in uproar.�
Halifax personally asked Low to modify his criticism of Hitler. Low agreed. However, the respite lasted only three
weeks as Hitler then occupied Austria. Low felt vindicated and renewed his attacks upon the Nazi regime.
The meeting between Low and Halifax was probably the only time that a senior member of the British
Government has personally censured a cartoonist. After the war Low and Strube found their names on a Nazi
death list, emphasising that a cartoonist’s lot is not always a safe one — as the cartoonists who have
depicted Muhammad have also discovered.
Dr Tim Benson is the founder of the Political Cartoon Gallery, London, UK.
in several European newspapers, such controversy is nothing new in the realm of political caricature.
Amazingly, 81 years ago David Low caused a similar response from the Muslim world when he drew a rather
benign looking Muhammad looking up at the English cricket hero, Sir Jack Hobbs. According to a Calcutta
correspondent, when it appeared in the Indian version of the Morning Post, it “convulsed many Muslims in
speechless rage. Meetings were held and resolutions of protest were passed�.
Cartoonists are thus only too aware that approaching religion can be a minefield. Steve Bell, of The Guardian,
admits that he was particularly conscious of this during the early 1980s with the Salman Rushdie affair.
According to Bell: “It does make you think twice, although I did my best at the time, taking the p*** out of
Ayatollah Khomeini.�
The Times cartoonist Peter Brookes believes that being provocative for the sake of it is not only â
€œmeaningless but also invariably leads to injury or violence to someone. If you asked the Muhammad
cartoonists whether they were glad now, I’m sure that they’d say no.� After the July 7 bombings
Brookes’s cartoon drawing an “immoral equivalence� between the atrocity and the bombing of Iraq led
to reader criticism.
A particular risk for the cartoonist is that as a visual image a cartoon can easily be misinterpreted. For example,
when Dave Brown, of The Independent, drew a cartoon of Ariel Sharon eating a Palestinian baby — an allusion
to a well-known Goya painting — to comment upon Israel’s treatment of the Palestinians, many Jewish
people believed the imagery in the cartoon had been lifted straight from the virulent anti-Semitic Nazi organ Die
Stürmer . Mainly because of its contentious subject matter, the cartoon was voted Political Cartoon of the Year
2003 by members of the Political Cartoon Society. This resulted in the society receiving the condemnation of
Jews around the world.
Another famous example is a cartoon by Philip Zec, published in the Daily Mirror in March 1942, showing a
torpedoed merchant seaman hanging on to a life raft. The caption read: “The price of petrol has been
increased by one penny: official.� It was intended to show that the public should use fuel sparingly as it was
costing lives to bring it across the North Atlantic. However, the cartoon so infuriated the Prime Minister,
Winston Churchill, who misread it, that he almost had the paper shut down.
During the 1930s British cartoonists had the Nazis up in arms by ridiculing their Führer. On July 8, 1936, during
the Berlin Olympics, Sidney Strube, of the Daily Express, produced a cartoon to which Hitler took an instant
dislike. Orders were given that all copies of that day’s Daily Express were to be confiscated as soon as they
arrived in Germany.
A year later the Foreign Secretary Lord Halifax held talks with Germany’s propaganda minister, Josef
Goebbels, who complained that British cartoonists were damaging Anglo-German relations. Goebbels singled
out Low for special attention. Halifax told the Evening Standard’s manager Michael Wardell, who was asked
to arrange a meeting between Halifax and Low: “You cannot imagine the frenzy that these cartoons cause. As
soon as a copy of the Evening Standard arrives, it is pounced upon for Low’s cartoon, and if it is of Hitler, as
it generally is, telephones buzz, tempers rise, fevers mount, and the whole governmental system of Germany is
in uproar.�
Halifax personally asked Low to modify his criticism of Hitler. Low agreed. However, the respite lasted only three
weeks as Hitler then occupied Austria. Low felt vindicated and renewed his attacks upon the Nazi regime.
The meeting between Low and Halifax was probably the only time that a senior member of the British
Government has personally censured a cartoonist. After the war Low and Strube found their names on a Nazi
death list, emphasising that a cartoonist’s lot is not always a safe one — as the cartoonists who have
depicted Muhammad have also discovered.
Dr Tim Benson is the founder of the Political Cartoon Gallery, London, UK.