Not Only In Denmark You Say? Pity!

For Those Who Missed It

I stand and walk tall today on learning that a Canadian can take credit for the recent New Yorker magazine cover on Obama......political satire at it's finest.

Satire’s not dead, it’s just sleeping

On the Canadian-born illustrator behind the recent New Yorker cartoon controversy and toothless satire

Brian Bethune | Jul 28, 2008 | 11:56 am EST

Barry Blitt has been keeping a low profile lately, and it’s hard to blame him. The last time the Canadian-born illustrator stuck his neck out—with his now notorious July 21 New Yorker cover of Barack and Michelle Obama—the lineup to chop off his head stretched for miles. And that was just his (former) friends. Blitt’s illustration was a note-perfect capture of every paranoid anti-Obama conspiracy theory going: now president—the scene is set in the White House’s Oval Office—Barack, dressed in traditional Islamic garb, is “terrorist” fist-pumping wife Michelle, who is sporting a Black Panther afro to go with her camouflage outfit and AK-47; meanwhile, an American flag burns in the fireplace and a portrait of Osama bin Laden beams benignly down.

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Cartooning And Islam Don't Mix

Should cartoonists get danger pay? Maybe it's time. Canada's own Barry Blitt has gone to ground after his infamous, satirical New Yorker cover depicting the Obamas as gun-toting Islamic militants. Obama fans hated it. MORE... First, They Came For Jyllands-Posten There's something altogether too "informative" about this Margaret Wente column; Fortunately [the creator of the Obama cartoon cover for the New Yorker] works in the United States, where the worst they can do is denounce you. Here in Canada, they can take you to a human rights commission. That's what happened in April when Halifax's Chronicle-Herald ran a political cartoon by Bruce MacKinnon. It shows a burka-clad figure identified as Cheryfa MacAulay Jamal, a woman who demanded a large amount of compensation after her husband was arrested in an anti-terrorism raid and later released. She holds a sign that says, "I want millions," and her speech bubble says, " I can put it towards my husband's next training camp." Outraged, a local Muslim group complained to the human rights commission, and, for good measure, called the police. [...] But it's Europe where cartooning and Islam really don't mix. In the Netherlands, eight police officers showed up recently to arrest an obscure cartoonist for sketching offensive drawings of Muslims that appeared mainly on his own website. He spent two nights in jail, and Dutch authorities are deciding whether to charge him with inciting racist hatred. Wente shouldn't have to expend column inches to fill in the background on these cases - they should have been reported on the front pages of every paper in the country and led every national newscast at the time they happened. That's what a responsible press would have done in the face of a force that threatens a fundamental right - but these aren't responsible times in the media industry. The Organization of the Islamic Conference, a group of 57 Muslim nations, has declared that Islamophobia is a menace and that any such defamation of religion should be criminalized and prosecuted vigorously. The OIC, which has growing clout at the United Nations, wants the UN to enact international "anti-defamation" rules that would forbid blasphemy. Islamic members of the UN's Human Rights Council have succeeded in changing the mandate of the UN's special rapporteur on freedom of expression. In addition to investigating cases of censorship and violations of free speech, this person will now "report on instances where the abuse of the right of freedom of expression constitutes an act of racial or religious discrimination." One can only hope that the when the times comes that the crocodile comes for them, the bite is neither swift, nor painless. Posted by Kate at 10:41 AM