The Cartoon Wars.

What's more offensive? This:

Or this:

The true answer is, for various people, both and neither. I am in the seeming minority of those who do not take offense much to cartoons so maybe I'm not the best person to opine on these Cartoon Wars.

What is instructive is how the lines are being drawn around these two cartoons and what they say about those offended by them and from those defending them.

In the case of the first cartoon, the Joint Chiefs of Staff were so offended that they sent of a stiffly worded letter to the Washington Post.

In the second, threats of bombings and boycotts were the reaction.

Hmmm. Letters versus physical threats.

The left is all atwitter that the Chiefs should criticize Tom Toles:

AMERICAblog's liberal John Aravosis describes the letter as a "threat": "I have no problem with citizens speaking out about political cartoons they find offensive ... But when the government does it, that's a whole other story that smacks of censorship, especially when that government is the Pentagon threatening you during wartime." So does Seeing the Forest's Dave Johnson: "This is THE MILITARY DIRECTLY THREATENING A NEWSPAPER on behalf of the Republican Party. This is WAYYYY beyond unprecedented. This is past "find a safe refuge in Canada" time. This is a serious WATCH YOUR BACKS!!!!" Atrios: "The central theme of the cartoon is that Rumsfeld is an asshole, which he is. They repeatedly deflect criticism of the civilian leadership by implying it's a criticism of the troops."

Now, I have read the letter and I can't find a threat anywhere. Just an expression of displeasure. The howling of censorship is disingenuous. No one is threatening Mr. Toles or the Post. In fact, the letter states that the paper is "obviously free to address any topic..." Yeah, that sounds like a threat to me.

Contrast this with the reaction of much of the Islamic world to the Mohammed cartoons and you can see in relief the difference in how societies operate. I have read many of the righty blogs, and I have yet to see anyone call for a fatwa against Toles.

I understand that Albert Brooks' Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World is pretty bad, which is a shame. I know several Muslims and most of them have advanced senses of humor. But then again, all of them happen to be quite "western" in their demeanor, so maybe I'm missing something. Surely, those who are now calling for all kinds of hurtin' because of a few cartoons are just reinforcing what many in the west suspects of them.

At least someone in the Muslim world gets it. The Jordanian "gossip weekly" Al-Shihan has published the offending cartoons and editorializes:

"What brings more prejudice against Islam, these caricatures or pictures of a hostage-taker slashing the throat of his victim in front of the cameras or a suicide bomber who blows himself up during a wedding ceremony in Amman?" wrote Jihad Momani.

 

He told the AFP news service he decided to publish the offending cartoons "so people know what they are protesting about... People are attacking drawings that they have not even seen."

Atrios is right (I can't believe I'm saying this) Toles' toon was more mocking of Rumsfeld than the troops. It highlighted a callousness that the SecDef sometimes affects and was actually quite articulate. I think that the Chiefs overreacted, although a strong letter is hardly a threat.

Al-Shihan is right. Muslims can't complain that they are being stereotyped, no matter what Bill says, when they act in a stereotypical manner.

Comments

[Jack]

Our nut jobs are more targeted, whether it is Ann Coulter calling for the assassination of a Supreme Court Justice (as a joke, but how much more in poor taste can you get, and how much would her worshipers rip into someone from the left-wing calling for assasination of President Bush as a joke?), or if it is a website named "pro-life" in an irony all the more biting for being unintentional listing the names of doctors who perform abortions, naming them as "murderers", a website being run by a group known to say it is not a sin to kill a murderer.

So...

Do we label our society by the nutjobs just as we label other societies by their nutjobs?

[ckreiz]

Jack struggles with blanket labeling of groups- I understand this. My view is that it depends on facts. Here's an example. A few years ago, Gallup polled 6 Muslim countries and found that 18% of those polled believe that Arabs carried out the 9/11 attacks. (My recollection is that 80% tagged Israel.) See this link for supporting details:

http://www.publicagenda.org/aboutpa/pdfs/yankelovich_terrorism.pdf

So, returning to the "nutball" determination, this specific evidence doesn't permit me to say 'all Arabs are nutballs'. But 'the math', if you will, is disturbing. Give me more facts and it may alter my opinion. This isn't extraordinarily difficult.

Btw, Daniel, I like your blog. Glad I found it.

[Daniel]

Welcome and thanks for the input.

For anybody interested, I posted a response to Jack's post at TMV here.

[ckreiz]

We recognize that generalizations are just that- there are exceptions to every rule. But that doesn't preclude us from making discerning judgments, using novel concepts such as "many", "most", "some" or "few". There are evils in blanket labeling but there are also pitfalls in the intellectual paralysis resulting from use of metaphysical perfection as a political yardstick.

[Frank Denbar]

In the papers, all sorts of jokes some of which are in very bad taste, saying that Jesus Christ was gay or homosexual simply because he was in the company of his apostles or disciples, maybe it was meant as intentional or unintentional, however, and regardless of whomever said it or printed it publicly, no one being a devout Christian or not went on the rampage burning international flags, international embassies, etc.

You just can't blame national or international communities for what has been said, in this case we know who they are and they themselves are fully and completely responsible for what they have printed.

[Richard]

I have been trying to understand why there has been violent reaction to such simple images. I do not believe that the images were directed towards religion, but at the people who terrorize, maim and kill others in the name of religion.

Will the sword be mightier than the pen ?

In this struggle between the Pen and the Sword the battles can be summarized below:

1. The Sword (terrorists) kill and maim innocent people on a regular basis in the name of their religion for belief of rewards in their heaven.

2. The Pen (intelligent populace with freedom of speech) is frustrated at seeing people killed daily and responds with a cartoon portraying the Sword's belief of rewards in heaven for barbaric acts as comical.

3. The Sword reacts like a bully, by threats on the cartoonist, press, nation and other innocent people. The threat is re-directed by claiming that the cartoon was directed towards heaven and thus their religion.

4. The Pen (press) in other countries protects it's freedom to speak by publishing the cartoon, while nations that are fearful of the Sword bow to it's power and critisize the Pen.

5. The Sword continues to use religion as the front for more violence against the Pen.

Where will this all end ? We are all now fearful of the terrorists, so much so that the shout of "bomb" in the Phillipines will result in 88 people dead in the stampede; and Governments too afraid to say what they really think for fear that their citizens will be punished by the Sword.

Satirical cartoons enable free societies to voice the opinion of the people where it may be controversial or dangerous. The cartoon was not an afront on religion, but made fun of the twisted minds of terrorists who kill in the name of religion.

Religious people should see the message and not kill the messenger. The terrorists have hijacked their religion and portrayed it as a violent sadistic religion and truly religious men and women should see the truth and act against the terrorists.

In the name of Peace - don't kill the messenger, but hear the message and take the right action.