Don't shoot the cartoonist
It's not easy being a newspaper cartoonist. It seems a hard-hitting political cartoon can raise people's anger even more than the sharpest essay. Daryl Cagle's weblog (which alas lacks permalinks) gives a lot of background for the great political cartoons on the main site. Very recently, cartoonist Malcolm Evans was fired from New Zealand Herald for a cartoon critical to Israel. He depicted the word "apartheid" with an "a" changed into a David's star.
The other side has no better sense of humour. Have a look at this cartoon by Sandy Huffaker. It has seriously drawn the ire of many muslims worldwide who, as we will remember from the Salman Rushdie incident, are rarely friends of freedom of speech unless it only applies to themselves.
The Council of American-Islamic Relations (CAIR) organised a letter-writing campaign to both Sandy and the website, which Cagle describes like this:
The CAIR e-mails repeat these themes: demands for an apology, demands that we take the cartoon down, suggestions that we should read the Koran and seek advice on it's interpretation, suggestions that we shouldn't listen to the Western media, suggestions that we should be aware of the cartoonist's ignorance, questions about what the Iraqis or Palestinians should be grateful for, assertions that Christianity is terrible, reminders that God is great, complaints that they don't "get it" and simple name-calling. I find it interesting that many of the angry Muslims assume that the soldier in the cartoon is Israeli rather than American. Also, many assume that Sandy is a woman.
Sandy himself gives the following reply:
I just don't see or read of Islam questioning itself. What I see is either SILENCE or QUIET SUPPORT, not to mention outright financial or military support to terroriism. Christianity had a needed reformation, so why not Islam? I have traveled in Sudan, Morocco, Israel, and other parts of Africa, so I have a gut reaction on this subject --basically I couldn't wait to leave and go to southern Africa where all seemed well. The people were happier and love seemed to triumph over revenge.
"Mohammed was a terrorist," says Jerry Falwell, and Franklin Graham has said that "Islam is an evil religion." I don't want to go this far. This country stands for freedom of religion and separation of church and state, therefore we need no more Crusades! My fear is that Mohammed drew no lines between church and state, and neither do many Islamists today.
Spot on! I don't think Islam is more or less destructive than Christianity. But Christian countries have been through a long, painful process of removing religion from power. Only very reluctantly did the churches give up the right to burn people on the stake. Most Islamic countries have not gone through a comparable process, and to the dgeree they have, Islamists have reversed it over the last decades.
Islamists insist on religion holding power over life and death also in this world. That is totally unacceptable in liberal democracies, and on this count there can be no negotiation, no compromise. Religion should have no direct physical or legal power over people who do not voluntarily adhere to it.
8:00:45 AM 
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