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I recently attended an exhibition on 100 years of political cartoons. Initially, I was not enthusiastic about wasting my Sunday afternoon at an almost certain moral relativist celebration given its theme: ‘When we are for you, you call it satire; when we are against you, it is slander’. But I was thankfully surprised. Rather than push the Leftist line that one man’s intellectual terrorist was another man’s champion of free speech, the exhibit powerfully demonstrated how political cartoons have been used to promote all sorts of agendas from racism to fashion to human rights.
As much as cartoonists may claim to be the messengers of objective truth, they are merely imaginative spin doctors for some or other client. And last week after seeing Zapiro’s despicable cartoon of the Pope, it dawned on me that he has become (consciously or unconsciously) radical Islam’s leading PR guru in South Africa. It is not that he is only virulently anti-Zionist or even anti-Semitic, he actually bats for the counter-Judeo-Christian team.
The right to freedom of speech is the cornerstone of a democratic society. In a free society nothing or no-one (including religion) should be above criticism. But the tenor of criticism is also important. Rights come with responsibilities. I despise Zapiro because he just doesn't get this. He is an intellectual bully who feels he can draw what he likes, no matter how hurtful.
His latest anti-Catholic cartoon clearly exposes this. Portraying Jesus as a hippie and the Pope as a goat is not witty. In fact it actually makes no political point. It is just pure anti-Christian hate. Christian readers of the M & G should not let him get away with it. Turning the other cheek will only embolden him further.
But “Zapiro ridicules everyone” defends his followers. As if being malicious to everyone somehow makes you a better person then just being malicious to certain groups of people. But even this warped justification of Zapiro does not stand up to the evidence. Zapiro has penned some of the most blasphemous caricatures of Moses, Jesus, and the Pope but never Mohammed. Even when the Danish cartoon furore was raging Zapiro refrained from mocking Muslim religious symbols.
As much as Zapiro’s friends on the Left would have us believe that he is the suffering servant of Truth, reality proves otherwise. His refusal to criticise anything Islamic would rather seem to indicate that his ideological masters are the Ayatollahs of Iran.
| anti-Jewish | anti-Christian | anti-Muslim? | |
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Previously at IAS: Open letter to Zapiro by Jack Bloom
IAS Search: Zapiro
How does your idea that Zapiro is supporting the ideology of the Ayatollahs fit with his positions on pretty much all issues that aren't directly related to the Middle East? (Not that I'd agree with his opinions on the Middle East, though)
Posted by: Raphael | October 06, 2006 at 14:01
Its for Mike to answer but his ideas are in opposition on every issue except when it comes to Islam and Israel.
He is against the death penalty (I think), he is probably against too much state control, he is pro same-sex marriage and pro free speech.
Its part of a weird agreement the left seems to have with the fascist Islamists (and the idea of using state power to support and force an ideology is fascist).
They will support them on all issues concerning Israel, the US, the war on terror and perceptions of Islamophobia and they will completely ignore all other issues that the left normally champions that are an anathema to Islamic Republics.
Posted by: Steve | October 06, 2006 at 14:30
Its for Mike to answer but his ideas are in opposition on every issue except when it comes to Islam and Israel.
He is against the death penalty (I think), he is probably against too much state control, he is pro same-sex marriage and pro free speech.
Its part of a weird agreement the left seems to have with the fascist Islamists (and the idea of using state power to support and force an ideology is fascist).
They will support them on all issues concerning Israel, the US, the war on terror and perceptions of Islamophobia and they will completely ignore all other issues that the left normally champions that are an anathema to Islamic Republics.
Posted by: Steve | October 06, 2006 at 14:32
Raphael, it is symptomatic of the Stalin/Hitler pact of our time: this marriage of convenience between the Far Left and radical Islam. On the surface, you right, this relationship seems absurd for radical Islam represents the antithesis of a progressive ideology. Islamists oppose the separation between church/mosque and state, abhor gays, oppress women, discriminate against non-Muslim minorities and relish in the use of the death penalty (particularly beheadings). So why would a self-respecting Leftist like Zapiro ever throw his lot in with these guys?
David Horowitz in his book Unholy Alliance (300 pages dedicated to this topic which I recommended you read) convincingly argues that the far Left’s hatred of the ‘capitalist’ West is at the heart of the answer. The Left has undergone an interesting mutation over the last century. Before the collapse of the Soviet Union they supported the violent overthrow of the capitalist system and its replacement with a socialist utopia. But after the horrors of the Soviet Union’s proletariat ‘paradise’ were exposed, many Leftists were forced to discard the second part of their agenda. Thus all that has remained is a nihilist ideology hell bent on the destruction of the West.
Modern Left-wing radicals do not concern themselves with the morality of the means only of the end result. Thus Leftists unquestioningly support ultra conservative Islamic extremist so long as their goal is the annihilation of the West. The Lefts romance with Cuba’s long time dictator Fidel Castro is another example of this phenomenon. The exponential rise of the cult of Chavez is perhaps the most recent illustration of Leftists blind support for anything or anyone anti-American.
While Zapiro regularly denounces President Bush for his use of phrases such as ‘axis of Evil’ for being child-like and simplistic, his world view is equally if not more one-dimensional. He sees America as the ‘great Satan’ and anyone who opposes it, no matter how abhorrent, as righteous.
Posted by: mike | October 09, 2006 at 16:29