Political cartoonist Joe Sacco NAILs moral questions surrounding Charlie Hebdo attacks

[kpete]

We need to do nuance

by digby

Political cartoonist Joe Sacco really nails the complexity of the moral questions surrounding the Charlie Hebdo attacks:


http://digbysblog.blogspot.com/2015/01/we-need-to-do-nuance.html

[Dont call me Shirley]

1. Profound.

To all who have suffered and died from the hands of senseless violence

[Starry Messenger]

2. k&r

[Bagsgroove]

3. Political cartoons can be powerful. This proves it.

Charlie Hebdo's "satire" strikes me as being like the dim-witted junior high school bully who thinks it's hilarious to shout out slurs. I defend his right to do that, but he's still a dim-witted junior high school bully.

Much respect to Joe Sacco.

[gratuitous]

4. Nice cartoon, four-eyes

The drawing in panel 8 is not mine.

Your friendly neighborhood gratuitous
Who fervently wants to do nuance

[Spider Jerusalem]

5. Except that in some important respects, he really, really doesn't.

Far milder things than the "satire" of Charlie Hebdo have provoked death threats. For instance:

On 12 January I participated in a BBC debate on human rights and religious rights. Two students were wearing T-shirts depicting a stick figure of Jesus saying "Hi" to a stick figure called Mo, who replied: "How you doin'?" Some Muslims, having just argued for their own right to veil, took issue with the students. I argued that just as Muslim women have the right to veil, atheists have the right to wear these T-shirts.

I am acutely aware of the populist sentiment in Britain that derides Muslims who seek special treatment for their sensibilities, so I tweeted the bland image and stated that, as a Muslim, I did not feel threatened by it. My God is greater than that.

By the time the week was up I had received death threats, the police were involved, and a petition set up by some conservative Muslims to have me dismissed as the Liberal Democrat parliamentary candidate for Hampstead and Kilburn had gained 20,000 signatures. Then a counter-petition went up in my support, and many liberals jumped to my defence. In other words, all hell broke loose. So why did I do it?

My intention was not to speak for any Muslim but myself – rather, it was to defend my religion from those who have hijacked it just because they shout the loudest. My intention was to carve out a space to be heard without constantly fearing the blasphemy charge, on pain of death. I did it for Salmaan Taseer, the governor of Punjab who was assassinated by his bodyguard for calling for a review of Pakistan's colonial-era blasphemy laws; for Malala Yusafzai, the schoolgirl shot in the head by the Taliban for wanting an education; and for Muhammad Asghar, a mentally ill British man sentenced to death for "blasphemy" last week in Pakistan.

http://www.theguardian.com/commentisfree/2014/jan/28/speaking-islam-loudmouths-hijacked

It seems to me that using an image of the horrors perpetrated by Americans against prisoners at Abu Ghraib to pose the question "why do some images offend Muslims" is its own sort of lack of nuance. Since it's not merely overtly offensive images but *any* images.

[KittyWampus]

8. Yes, but there's a larger point being made and it isn't the sophomoric provocation just for the sake

of shits and giggles. I refer to using the image of Abu Grahib.

[Spider Jerusalem]

11. So, the following is "sophomoric provocation"?

NB that I specifically referenced similar things that have nothing to do with the sort of satire practised by Charlie Hebdo.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

6. No, he really doesn't.

Jonathan Chait nails this, I think:

http://nymag.com/daily/intelligencer/2015/01/charlie-hebdo-point-missers-miss-point.html

"Ross Douthat, writing a bit more patiently than me, laid this out more explicitly. Douthat was very clear about his argument: Vulgar expression that would otherwise be unworthy of defense becomes worthy if it is made in defiance of violent threats. Bustillos assails Douthat by pointing out various times when he has criticized vulgarity, neglecting even to consider the distinction that forms the entire core of his argument.

Greenwald and Sacco make the same analytic error, and throw in references to various Western misdeeds against Muslims in Iraq and elsewhere. This is the sort of moral distraction it is common to find when a person believes the wrong kinds of victims are being celebrated or the wrong kinds of perpetrators decried. (Greenwald: “the west has spent years bombing, invading and occupying Muslim countries and killing, torturing and lawlessly imprisoning innocent Muslims, and anti-Muslim speech has been a vital driver in sustaining support for those policies.”) It’s the same impulse driving conservatives to turn cases of police brutality into meditations on black-on-black crime. That is that; this is this.

“No mainstream western cartoonist would dare put their name on an anti-Jewish cartoon, even if done for satire purposes, because doing so would instantly and permanently destroy their career, at least … " writes Greenwald, “Why aren’t Douthat, Chait, Yglesias and their like-minded free speech crusaders calling for publication of anti-Semitic material in solidarity, or as a means of standing up to this repression?” Well, the answer is very simple: because nobody is murdering artists who publish anti-Semitic cartoons."

[KittyWampus]

7. No, he really doesn't. Satire is about PROVOCATION. And it usually involves challenging the powerful

And it can also be pointed out that some satire is intended to make a political statement and some satire is intended simply to provoke like a 5 year old who screams fuck cause he knows it'll get attention.

There is a point in Sacco's work and it makes people uncomfortable.

I am also going to note that many on DU seem to want to defang satire and pretend it something gentler than it is.

[Donald Ian Rankin]

9. Well, insulting Mohammed is challenging the powerful in spades.

Even if we accept your claim that power is important here (which I think it isn't).

1) Islam is an immensely powerful, and immensely repressive and harmful, world religion.
2) Even in the West, Muslim fanatics have demonstrated the power to murder, to the extent that launching a high-profile challenge to them is far from safe, as has just been tragically demonstrated.

[geek tragedy]

12. Yeah, Mohammed and his 1.7 billion followers

are just a tiny, helpless minority.

[Violet_Crumble]

24. Uh, Muslims are a minority in Western countries n/t

[geek tragedy]

25. Yet their faith is the only one

for which westerners die if they blaspheme.

Not enough to stamp out infidels in their half of the world?

[Violet_Crumble]

27. How is that the fault of the Muslim population in Europe? n/t

[geek tragedy]

29. It's not. European Muslims are not a threat.

Militant Islam is. It is a form of transglobal tyranny.

[Violet_Crumble]

32. Then I agree with you on that...

I'm concerned that a few DUers don't and view most Muslims as being religious extremists who'd support things like the terrorist attacks in Paris. They're playing into the hands of both the fascist types in Europe, as well as the religious extremists themselves, who want nothing more than to have mainstream Muslims in Western countries alienated in the hope that they'd embrace extremism...

[geek tragedy]

33. The terrorists here were hoping to provoke such a response.

I think people on the left should focus more on Ahmed the hero and not the villains. Ahmed is the face of European Muslims.

[sabrina 1]

35. Douthat and Chait have written some dumb stuff in their not so notable careers. His last sentence

shows a lack of information on this subject. We have fired people for making what were perceived to be insensitive remarks about minorities.

A better question, now that we have suddenly found our 1st Amendment again, SHOULD anyone be fired for making 'insensitive' remarks, and I may google these two on that subject, to find out where they stood before all this 'free speech euphoria' at a time in the US when a NYT Journalist is being threatened with jail for refusing to reveal his sources, which of course, would cause untold hardships for THEM and strike a real blow to a journalist's right to publish information that is in the public's interest.

As a matter of fact, over the past decade or so, such blows HAVE been struck against free speech, shamefully.

But if all this sudden support for free speech results in no more persecutions of journalists and Whistle Blowers, then I can forgive Douthat and Chait for any hypocrisy they may be engaging in.

Greenwald at least has been consistent.

[geek tragedy]

10. So his ultimate reaction is that we should learn why the fact that

Islamic radicals killed people over a cartoon is just a cultural misunderstanding that is driven by insensitive non-Muslims.

Sorry, this is borderline terrorist apologist crap imo. He spends all of his efforts attacking what the victims did and none critiquing the mindset or actions of the killers.

Anything to avoid placing blame where it belongs. Just a little perfunctory sadness for show.

I'm sure he'll make sure to avoid offending those aggrieved by the cartoons, which were obviously the real crime to begin with.

It's obviously our fault we don't understand Team ISIS and why they don't tolerate our apostasy.

[wellst0nev0ter]

14. Maybe It'll Be Easier To Accept Their Barbarity

When they attack us with predator drones.

[geek tragedy]

17. Whatever you tell yourself to avoid blaming the killers. nt

[wellst0nev0ter]

42. No, Just Putting It In A Different Perspective

plus outrage fatigue.

[n2doc]

13. Limiting Satire to Nuance is limiting speech

And yes, the USA certainly has provided provocations of its own. I didn't see these killers attacking US interests in france. I will note that the Taliban was conducting barbaric acts and destruction of cultural artifacts long before 9/11. And the Saudi's have done the same since they assumed power in the 1920's. We could go back to the Conquistadores and to the burning of the Library of Alexandria.

There are plenty of people doing nuanced cartoons. I post many of them every day. But I strongly believe that we cannot condone in any way the killing or physical silencing of any artist. We are free to condemn them in many ways, shun them, ignore them, etc. To go further is to do the same type of controlling acts that all authoritarians, religious or otherwise, use as a weapon.

[NYC_SKP]

15. ************* ~~~~~~~~~~ People won't read it but THIS PART: RIGHT HERE:

This part says it all, yet seems to be lost on 99% of us.

In fact when we draw a line, we are often crossing one too. Because lines on paper are a weapon, and satire is meant to cut to the bone. But whose bone? What exactly is the target?

And why?”

~snip~

And what is it about Muslims in this time and place that makes them unable to laugh off a mere image. And if we answer, "Because something is deeply wrong with them" -certainly something that was deeply wrong with the killers- then let us drive them from their homes and into the sea...

For that is going to be far easier than sorting out how we fit in each other's world.

http://yournz.org/2015/01/10/satirical-cartoons-where-should-the-line-be-drawn/

There's a better way to win this war than with guns and with insults.

Thank you kpete!

[geek tragedy]

16. Satire is not a weapon. This is where those who can't bring themselves to

oppose the killers and denounce them go astray.

Lines on a paper are lines on a paper. They are not weapons.

No one had ever been materially harmed, let alone killed, by blasphemy.

Civilized people understand this.

[KittyWampus]

18. satire is absolutely a weapon. Stop minimizing what satire is and its effect. Satire has a long

honorable history of challenging power structures and helping to bring about societal change.

There is a reason why authoritarians and tyrants have imprisoned them and other artists.

You have a grave misunderstanding of what satire is.

SATIRE AND ART ARE THE WEAPONS OF THE UNDERCLASS AND POWERLESS.

[geek tragedy]

23. So in your view the killings were a response in kind to a weaponized

attack on Islam?

[KittyWampus]

26. "a response in kind"? WTF? To ask that question or imply I said anything remotely like it

is disgusting.

You made a stupid assertion that satire is not a weapon.

It is.

To then try and suggest I equate satire with bullets shows an intellectual dishonesty or confusion.

[geek tragedy]

28. You're arguing that satire is both a weapon and a provocation.

How is that not trying to show that a violent attack is an understandable response?

[smirkymonkey]

36. Oh for fuck's sake, you, and the idiots who are offended

by this shit need to grow up.

Seriously, just grow up.

[NYC_SKP]

19. Tell it to targets of brutal homophobia and sexism in written and cartoon form, geek tragedy.

.

Go share that bit of simplistic binary wisdom with them.

Go tell the young people who have killed themselves because of the electrons used by the Internet bullies.

Go tell them all, dude.

I'm sure they'll stop being hurt by it.

[geek tragedy]

21. Lines on a paper depicting an historical figure

are not hurting anyone.

[Ken Burch]

45. Of all the fights to engage in, the fight to draw Mohammed is the least important. Let it go.

It's not an important battle, there are no points about anything that require the Prophet to be depicted, and besides, many of the cartoons were stupidly unfair...such as the ones that seemed to hold the Prophet responsible for Pakistan having nuclear weapons(does anybody hold the early figures in the growth of Hinduism responsible for India having the bomb? Or Moses for Israel possessing it? Or St. Paul for any Christian country having nuclear capacity?

There's just nothing that freaking crucial about having the right to depict the Prophet. It serves no purpose and can lead to no great advance in human consciousness. No one is freed by depicting the Prophet and nothing is ever going to be made better.

Besides which, everyone forgets the REASON Muslims don't want the Prophet depicted...the point has always been to avoid idolatry, to avoid people becoming confused and starting to worship the Prophet. The Prophet isn't God.

The killings were wrong, unconditionally wrong, but reducing this to a fight to reprint bad and questionably motivated drawings of Muhammad is a complete waste of time and does nothing at all to stop extremist violence.

[Bluenorthwest]

37. Tell it to the preachers and priests, mullahs and imams who spit venomous language against gay

people and who in many places carry out their bigoted views with the lash, with prison cells and with stoning.
I think it is extremely revealing that so little mention is made of the fact that the vast majority of certified, artless, emphatic hate speech comes out of religious figures and groups.
The Pope calls gay people disordered and says fighting our rights is God's war. Why is that accepted, tolerated, why is that not the subject of great fury and passion out of these folks so angry at cartoons?

[Prism]

20. It's not nuance. It's faux sophistication.

When a right-winger killed an abortion doctor, how much did we scramble to start in on, "Yes, the assassination was awful, but . . ."

Easy answer: Not. At. All.

Only with Islam does the Left tie itself up into knots like this, in an embarrassing display of pseudo multicultural sophistication. When Christians or the right-wing commit an atrocity, we get it. When Muslim fundamentalists do, suddenly it's "Let's explore how the victims brought this on themselves, shall we?"

It's embarrassing, poseuriffic piffle that makes us unworthy heirs of the liberal civilization we've inherited. Wave another culture in our face, and suddenly freedom is negotiable and nuanced and shit.

Not for this liberal.

[geek tragedy]

22. The old joke about a liberal not being willing to take

his own side of an argument.

[panader0]

30. This guy draws like R. Crumb.

[kpete]

41. I thought so too

mr. pete & i have a copy of:
http://ecx.images-amazon.com/images/I/61HpbnVShuL._SY344_BO1,204,203,200_.jpg



peace,
kp

[oberliner]

31. He absolutely does not

And it is not at all surprising considering the circumstances.

[ellenrr]

34. He absolutely does

[whatchamacallit]

38. Any chest beating DU free-speechers got a problem with this?

Last edited Fri Jan 9, 2015, 09:17 PM - Edit history (1)

Because if you do you're a hypocrite.

[Spider Jerusalem]

39. Disagreeing with the message is not the same thing...

as thinking that the cartoonist should be killed for his work, or that it shouldn't be published.

[whatchamacallit]

40. Thanks Master of the Obvious!

Glad you support this comic!

[whatchamacallit]

43. Kick :)

[Hekate]

44. Very thought-provoking, kpete. Tellingly, it is not a knee-jerk reaction, it's not simple....

....and that really frustrates some people. When confronted with an outrage, it's human to want simple reactions and simple answers -- but it's worthwhile to reflect that that is what George W. Bush gave us, and look where that kind of thing got us.

[nomorenomore08]

46. I've been rather vocal in my disgust at equating bad satire with mass murder.

Yet I also can appreciate Sacco's thought-out response to the tragedy.

The wrongness of killing over words and images may be black and white - and as an artist (writer) myself, I would certainly say it is - but the factors contributing to such acts can be more nuanced, at the same time.

[nilesobek]

47. Sacco's books on Palestine, Gaza and Bosnia

were censored by our local fascist librarian. Her explanation to me was, "cartoons are for children, children will read these books just because they are cartoons and if they read this, what will they think?"

[greyl]

48. True cultural alchemy isn't permissable to an average American, let alone religious fundamentalists.

In its stead ferments the lamely-issued edict "The Others must die, for ours is the One Right Way to Live!"