After you’ve perused Charlie Hebdo cartoons for a while, and learned about the magazine’s history and views, you can look at the cartoon below, drawn by Charlie Hebdo’s new editor Laurent “Riss” Sourisseau, and understand what it’s trying to say. To ensure accuracy of translation, I’ve asked Matthew, who speaks nearly perfect French, to give us the English:
Top: “What would have happened to little Aylan if he had grown up?”
Below: “He’d have become an ass-groper in Germany!”
“Aylan”, of course, is Aylan Kurdi—more correctly spelled as “Alan Kurdi“—the 3-year-old Syrian boy who drowned trying to make it to Europe as a refugee. His death symbolizes the terrible plight of those refugees, as well as the soul-searching of countries trying to deal with a huge wave of immigrants. And the photo of the dead boy aroused the sympathies of many people, bringing out the better nature of those who decided that absorbing as many refugees as possible was the right thing to do.
When I saw that cartoon, and made out the caption in my rudimentary French, I knew exactly what it meant: it was mocking the anti-refugee camp who argued that letting in Muslims would lead to a wave of rape and thuggery like that inflicted on hundreds of women in Cologne on New Year’s Eve.
As Grania wrote here a week ago, and I agree with her completely:
Whatever the investigation eventually uncovers about the attacks in Cologne on New Year’s Eve, three things will remain true: it is not the fault of Europe’s trying to help as many refugees as they can; the overwhelming majority of Muslim immigrants to Europe arrived there only to seek a new and better life for themselves and their families; and the mass attacks on women in Cologne that night were not an example of “everyday sexism”.
The nearly 700 complaints of harassment that resulted from the Cologne attacks haven’t yet worked their way through Germany’s judicial system, but people are already arguing that the cartoon shown above is actually supporting calls to restrict immigration, and claiming that it’s racist and “Islamophobic.”
In fact, it shows the opposite. Charlie Hebdo has had a history of mocking the racist and anti-immigrant French Right, like Marine Le Pen and her National Front Party. The cartoon clearly satirizes the extremist views of that Right on immigration, in precisely the same way that this famous New Yorker cartoon mocked those who questioned Barack Obama’s origins and sympathies before the 2008 election:
Yet, as the BBC reports, the Charlie Hebdo cartoon has lit a fuse of outrage. Here’s some of it
From an Iraqi journalist in London:
Charlie Hebdo latest racist cartoon dishonouring memory of poor Alan Kurdi is unforgivable https://t.co/e59XVapmTH
— Mina Al-Oraibi (@AlOraibi) January 13, 2016
From British journalist Sunny Hundal:
Disgusting cartoon in Charlie Hebdo
("what would've become of Aylan had he grown up? A groper") via @faizaz pic.twitter.com/iB4myFb1ke— Sunny Hundal (@sunny_hundal) January 13, 2016
From a British politician and former MP:
I wonder how many lovers Charlie Hebdo has now? A disgusting racist Islamophic cartoon of little Aylan Kurdi later…
— George Galloway (@georgegalloway) January 14, 2016
But least one person got it: a Sudanese-born writer and columnist in Britain:
In a piece at the Guardian, “Charlie Hebdo’s refugee cartoon isn’t satirical. It’s inflammatory“, Jonathan Freedland, while admitting that the cartoon might be mocking anti-refugee sentiment (he’s not sure, which shows how clueless he is), it simply gives fuel to the bigots:
Perhaps the cartoonist wanted to take a stand against the current hardening in attitudes to those seeking refuge. In fact, he simply provided another example of that very shift. His image takes its place alongside the Danish decision this week, apparently echoed by the Swiss, to confiscate valuables from new arrivals – everything except their wedding or engagement rings – and Turkey’s illegal policy of sending refugees back to the Syrian hell they fled. It doesn’t challenge the current mood of fear and loathing, it just adds to it.
Freedland even says that the New Yorker cartoon of the Obamas, which I found thrillingly appropriate, did the same thing:
The [New Yorker] insisted it was “clearly a joke”, sending up all the scare stories about Obama. But despite that noble intention, the cartoon served to hone – more elegantly than any of the candidate’s enemies had done – the rightwing caricature of Obama into a single, memorable image. Up to that point, no opponent had explicitly said Obama was a terrorist-loving Muslim but now they didn’t have to. Now there was an image lodged in the consciousness that did the job for them.
That’s just wrong. Maybe no famous political opponent of Obama had called him out as a secret Muslim, but plenty of regular American opponents already had. The cartoon produced, as far as I can see, no inflammatory effect. Likewise, the denigration of refugees by the European right began well before the Charlie Hebdo cartoon appeared (which was clearly in early January). In the end, Freedland resorts to the trope of Keyboard Warriors everywhere:
Maybe a couple of the satirists’ own rules might be helpful. The former Spitting Image writer John O’Farrell says he adheres to the time-honoured maxim that the comic should always be “punching up”, not down. Laughing at the weak is never funny, and there is nobody weaker than a dead child washed up on a beach. As for the second rule, O’Farrell recalls David Attenborough’s advice to the Monty Python team: “Use shock sparingly.”
Can Freedland get any wronger than that? I largely reject the “punching up” versus “punching down” distinction, for harmful views and bad behavior deserve to be criticized or satirized regardless of who espouses them, but what Freedland doesn’t seem to get is that the cartoon is indeed “punching up”! It’s not laughing at the weak, but laughing at European right-wingers, bigots and fascists. Is it “punching down,” for instance, to mock the views of Marine Le Pen? I don’t think so.
Now you can question whether Riss’s cartoon is tasteful, in that it mocks the right by showing the dispossessed, but I don’t know a more effective way to do it. It’s certainly an outrageous, even shocking, cartoon, but it makes its point clearly. Does it offend me? Well, I find it a bit shocking, and it surely offends the family of Alan (reports are that it did), but one has to ask if that offense is necessary to make a greater point: showing the stupidity of stigmatizing all refugees. Call the cartoon tasteless if you will, but you can’t call it racist or Islamophobic. And if that’s Islamophobic, than so were the Danish cartoons of the Jyllands-Posten, and the earlier Charlie Hebdo cartoons of Mohammed. By what light can we satirize the malevolence of the Catholic Church, but not that of Islam, or of bigoted right-wingers?
h/t: Randy
Why do so many peoples’ sarcasm detection modules suddenly shut down when discussing CH?
I think that sarcasm in this particular cartoon can be seen only if one seeks for it actively, presuming best intentions of the authors.
The same way, one can find deep metaphors and alternative meanings in every single nasty line of any “holy” book.
I don’t think that’s true at all. To me Riss is clearly mocking the anti-migrant crowd, and that is consistent with his almost 25 years as a ‘Charlie Hebdo’ cartoonist. There’s no comparison with sacred texts here.
Charlie Hebdo’s history isn’t just in mocking religion, it’s also in mocking the views of right-wing politicians.
Personally, I’m shocked that anyone thinks this isn’t mocking the anti-migrant crowd.
In my opinion, both anti-refugee crowd and Cologne attackers have to be mocked, and at least on the first look it is mocking just the latter.
Nearly 700 women have been sexually assaulted by refugees in Germany during one day. It has just transpired that Swedish authorities covered up similar mass attacks on girls as young as 12 by Afghani migrants (for at least two years!), the majority of UK public already wants to vote ‘Brexit,’ and Austria has just suspended Schengen imposing border controls for Europeans, in the aftermath of the migrant crisis, and you still want to mock people who are critical of the handling of the migrant situation?
Since some people who are critical of handling of the migrant situation express their criticism by beating up random immigrants on the street, then yes, absolutely.
Oh yeah, and thanks for adding the authorities who try to hush up the sexual assaults to the to-mock list.
“I think that sarcasm in this particular cartoon can be seen only if one seeks for it actively, presuming best intentions of the authors.”
I agree. I’ve been a strong supporter of CH from the beginning, but even I think they’ve made a mistake with this cartoon. I’m not saying it’s racist, but I’ll have a hard time convincing others it isn’t, and I think understandably so.
I agree. Anyone who sees this cartoon in isolation, not knowing any of the back history of Charlie Hebdo, could easily assume that the cartoon is critical of allowing immigration from certain parts of the world.
The same cartoon could equally have been produced by a right wing racist group and *their* meaning would have been crystal clear.
I have to agree there (though it becomes much clearer in context, see comments lower down).
cr
On the contrary, it is Charlie detractors in the English speaking world who will do anything to arrive at the endpoint of any argument that says, not this speech, we can skip protecting this one. It’s offensive, it’s in poor taste, it’s racist, any means to get there, the great flowering of Charlie Hebdo experts who rose up from the vast sea of bullshit that is the internet LITERALLY overnight, not even 24 hours after the assassination, everyone, absolutely EVERYONE speaking no French and never having heard of Charlie before knew, KNEW, beyond the shadow of a doubt what it was and, more importantly, what it did and did not have coming to it at the business end of an AK47.
The covers you have seen, the images you have seen, these are a TINY percentage just of the covers, and no one has yet bothered to open the magazine and read what’s inside (hint: there are words in there, and not just pictures. Crazy!). No one knows the lives and opinions of the contributors, their alliances and commitments, their other work and engagements, their unshaken alliance to the progressive left. Most people don’t even know the names of the people they are so busy slandering. None have ever watched an interview with the editor, Charb, who has been asked all these questions before and answered them, repeatedly, on the record.
Even the Charlie supporters make this mistake, even this blog post. Getting a translation is perhaps a good bare minimum, but it doesn’t mean you understand what is happening in the cartoons. You are not in a position to decode the meaning of these works, because you do not understand the first thing about context. The NYer cover above is a decent analogy, and I have seen it before. To understand the cover, you need to know not only who is in the image, but also what the New Yorker is, what its readership is like, what its contents have, historically, over decades, been.
Here’s another example. Watch this video, and tell me if you think these people are christian apologists: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=12kcpP-8jfM
Now imagine, I challenge you to imagine. Imagine I come from another country, I don’t speak English, but a friend of mine once took some second year courses in high school, and she explained to me what the lyrics mean, and, well, gosh, it looks to me an awful lot like they are in favor of a divine rights conquest pro-war crusader thing.
It’s just unthinkable. It’s not just wrong, it’s LAUGHABLE to claim that about this video. It’s ridiculous, not just wrong, but ridiculously wrong, to suggest that the NYer editorial staff thinks Obama is a blank panther.
It’s not just wrong, it’s LAUGHABLE to claim that Charlie is racist. If you see an image you don’t understand from CH, here’s what you should say: “I don’t understand that image.” Here’s what you should not say: anything else.
+1
And I might add, these are the same English speakers who excuse the satire that comes out of Stephen Colbert and the Onion.
“It’s different’ they say, without explaining why. They just ‘know’ that CH is racist.
We should agree with the critics of Charlie Hebdo in one aspect: the cartoon is racist and disgusting. And that’s precisely why it works. The fallacy comes from falsely assuming that just because the contents of the cartoon are racist, its message (or authors) must be, too. The whole point of satire is the inversion of these rules.
Ironically I think you are misinterpreting Nesrine Malik’s tweet: at least most people seem to assume that she’s ironic, and her tweet is satirising the defenders of Charlie Hebdo as dismissing all criticism via “you just don’t get it”. (Hard to verify now that she has made her account private.)
This is of course the danger of satire: at some point we honestly have no idea what the authors meant. But in the case of CH it’s really quite disingenuous to assume this: the meaning of the cartoon is clear as day. Its critics would probably have accused Jonathan Swift of eating children.
Yes, Malik’s tw**t didn’t ring true. If she had said “if you feel appalled” I would have said she got it, but the wording is off.
I’m not sure if it is “the danger of satire”. It’s better when we don’t know what the author meant, that’s what makes this cartoon brilliant in my view. Indeed you may argue that satire with a strong point is propaganda somehow, all caricatures are straw men of some sort, and there’s the fallacy that what is funny should be true, because it feels right. This one made me laugh actually :).
Jerry did say that Malik got it – you’re reading her right, but you missed what Jerry wrote.
So you’re saying that Jerry’s characterisation of her tweet was ironic as well? Where does the rabbit hole end?
I think we’re getting mixed up here. 🙂
Jerry got it. Malik got it. Jerry got that Malik’s tweet meant she got it. All is right with that part of the world at least!
Then you misunderstood me: I’m saying (and I’m fairly sure) that Malik *didn’t* get it. Or at least that she’s (implicitly) saying “this cartoon is terrible and racist, and defenders of CH will simply say that critics didn’t get it.”
Oh OK. Her tw**t is badly worded so it’s hard to tell. We could both be right!
My money’s on your interpretation.
“the cartoon is racist and disgusting. And that’s precisely why it works.”
It works if you’re aware of the fact that such a sentiment is so out of character for CH, and just the type of things those it historically criticizes would say. If you aren’t it doesn’t.
It works better when it is isn’t “quote mined” and displayed out of context, as described elsewhere on this page.
Agree completely. Hadn’t seen that pointed out until I’d commented.
“ If you aren’t it doesn’t.”
– But that’s true of all good satire. I mean, people were actually convinced that Jonathan Swift’s “Modest Proposal” was a serious suggestion to eat poor children.
And it’s not exactly hard — even without specific context — to know what Charlie Hebdo stands for.
What’s so irritating is that people who know the context still claim that the cartoon is inexcusable. They simply ignore the rules of satire. It’s like the N word in the US: it doesn’t matter what context you use it in, even if it is epistemological or linguistic, if you use the word “nigger” you’re a pariah. Of course that’s simply not sensible.
A couple of days ago, I was accused of “Rassenwahn” (racial fanaticism), a term used only to describe Nazi ideology, by supporters of the regressive left in the comments section of a German local newspaper.
My crime: I stated that religions aren’t races, as you can enter and leave a religion, and thus criticism of religions isn’t racism. Being a local chairman of ther German Liberal Party FDP, yeah, the chances of me being a right wing nut are truly enormous. Snark.
How is it possible that allegedly progressive people defend medieval, misogynistic religions with such vitriol?
RolandG, The reaction to your perspective you describe can be summarized as regressive liberalism. It is when liberals bend over so far to defend a perceived “minority” that they end up attacking one of their core ideals.
A recent example involved a new Liberal MPP in Canada’s recently elected Federal Parliament, Chrystia Freeland (Canada’s Minister of International Trade). She participated in Bill Maher’s show Real Time. The discussion centered on Islam and whether calling out certain cultural/religious aspects was bigoted. Freeland was so distorted that she made fool of herself (from the National Post’s summary of the exchange, the video seems to have disappeared):
Maher and Freeland clashed when the late night comic said there is a small percentage of Muslims who support ISIL and practices like honour killings and forced marriages.
“I think now it is incredibly dangerous and very wrong to persecute Muslims and say there is something wrong with being a Muslim,” Freeland said, who appeared on a panel with former Maine governor Angus King and Conservative blogger Ben Domenech.
Maher denied he’s demonizing Muslims, but said their ideas need to be changed.
“You’re saying their ideas are bad?” Freeland asked.
“Killing women for being raped, I would say is a bad idea. I do. Hang me for it,” Maher shot back.
——
Here’s hoping that Chrystia Freeland’s thinking improves and she is able to be less ideological in fulfillment of her Ministerial duties.
A regressive leftist told me that we couldn’t be so mean to Muslims who stone women to death for being raped *because Quiverfull is just the same. Did you see how Josh Duggar’s sisters were shamed for being victimized. Same thing*
Quiverfull might have stone age ideals, but they don’t murder apostates. And they don’t have a theocracy to back then up in that
I think debating whether it’s ‘anti-immigrant’ is a bit missing the point also, that these subjects need to be addressed (and is avoided), that what is being objected to by many is not ‘racism’ as such but culture. Like religion, culture is a learned pattern.
By any objective standard, there is a ‘rape culture’ in much of the Middle East far worse than drunken frat boys (the current target du jour). It’s mainstream behavior to savagely abuse women, gays, minorities… things that we are hoping to move away from. The binging on New Years constituted an astronomical spike in violent behavior by European standards, even though in much of the current climate, that’s simply something that you ‘cannot say’.
But it needs to be addressed, without covering one’s ears an immediately resorting to shouting down ‘racism’. Countries have an obligation to be selective in warmly welcoming people (including Syrians) who genuinely want to join in enlightenment values, but rejecting those who want to convert their new home into another Sharia hell hole.
There I’ve said it.
“Countries have an obligation to be selective in warmly welcoming people (including Syrians) who genuinely want to join in enlightenment values, but rejecting those who want to convert their new home into another Sharia hell hole.”
The practical problem is, how can you tell which is which?
(When they arrive at the border, I mean).
cr
I suppose you could start with some questions like “What should happen to apostates?” and “If someone is a blasphemer, what should be done?”
You could ask, assuming they’ll tell the exact truth.
(Obviously terrorists would lie, but they’re not the aspect of the problem we’re trying to address.)
People will hide their feelings, for all sorts of reasons, including expediency (they’re desperate and want to get in), or not wanting to screw it up for the rest of their family group, politeness and not wanting to offend (even religious hard-liners may exhibit that), or even a self-righteous feeling that it’s none of the questioners’ business.
Their feelings may change once they’re secure, they may feel much less accommodating, particularly after they encounter (as they will) some local citizens who don’t think much of them.
Now I’m NOT suggesting that Muslims are any more prone to that than the rest of us. We’re all human. I’d lie like a bastard to get my family into a safe home.
All I’m saying is that it makes the ‘screening’ process very difficult to do. It gets even more complicated if some of a family group are a ‘pass’ and one or two are a definite ‘fail’ – what can you do, break them up?
It’s very difficult, really a no-win situation. Which is not to say one shouldn’t try.
cr
Yeah. No reason to ask because terrorists will lie.
“Start with” means just that. What’s your alternative approach? Throw up the hands?
No, I didn’t say either of those things.
Obviously there’s no point whatever in trying to catch terrorists that way, and I don’t think that was Jay’s point.
The aim was more (as I understand it) to keep out immigrants whose beliefs, lifestyle or whatever are incompatible with our society and who are likely to poison social relations, rather than adapt. Or something like that.
I can entirely see his point and I think something like that probably has to be tried. I was just pointing out that it’s not going to be simple.
cr
You are right. It isn’t simple. Nor will it be perfect. But you have to do your best at the effort.
You’re last sentence is indicative of just how toxic the environment is around this debate. I understand the hesitation you felt by even saying it and the relief when you finally got it out. Expressing any reservations or even a desire to enter into a discussion opens up the possibility that you will be labelled an Islamophobe or a bigot by some of the more dictatorial forces on the left. I don’t disagree with the idea of taking in refugees, I just am not fully on board with this narrative that there is no way anything could go wrong. The moral argument for taking refugees is stronger than the argument that there is no risk at all. There is a little risk, at least, but it can still be right thing to do. The moral argument is not vulnerable to being refuted by future events either.
So glad you put clarity to that. The Guardian and other crazies are a sick bunch.
It doesn’t matter if the cartoon IS “racist” or “disgusting”: what’s being forgotten here is, once again, the issue of free speech: CH should have the “right” to publish any kind of cartoon or statement they wish (unless, as PCC has noted, they directly incite violence). In the same light, those commenting negatively ON the cartoon are entirely within THEIR rights, as well, as are the people who disagree with their judgments, and so on.
The problem is that Europe doesn’t have the constitutional history of free speech that we are lucky to have here (thank the deterministic universe for that!); they have an old “tradition” of organized religion, rulers, etc. proscribing actions even vaguely perceived to be “insulting” as a means of stifling dissent, and the “P.C.” crowd and Muslims have seized upon this to try (with some success) to pass laws forbidding the unfettered exercise of free speech.
I wish I could translate some old “National Lampoon” magazines from the 70s into French and post them on the media over there: their vicious ethnic jokes, slurs and stereotypes would cause numerous people to have a stroke! We used to get high and read them to each other, laughing our asses off, but we never believed those stereotypes, they were just humor.
What concerns me is that reactions like this one are just steps in the “dehumanization” process that ends, ultimately, in making those who say things you don’t like “justifiable” targets for physical abuse and/or murder.
I feel that the cartoon would have benefitted from some disambiguation. Something along the lines of adding “selon les regles de la presse populaire”. If the goal is to satirise, it had to be recognised as satire. But otherwise I agree with your analysis
“If the goal is to satirise, it had to be recognised as satire.”
But all of the satirical cartoons in Charlie Hebdo are satirical cartoons!
It has to be recognized as satire even if the reader doesn’t know what CH is.
I think that might be asking a bit much. Lots of things could be misinterpreted by a reader lacking all context.
Somebody actually added more context in the comments below – that this cartoon is one of a three on a page – and that makes it more clear that it’s satire.
Let me chart a middle course: It has to be recognizable as satire, if one is willing to give it sufficient thought. If, on the other hand, the meaning is obvious from the get-go, it doesn’t really work as satire, does it?
Not sure why people have such a hard time understanding the satirical perspective of Charlie Hebdo cartoons. The critics certainly miss the point that the cartoon are intended to cause one to think. It also would appear that the Guardian’s Jonathan Freedland needs a lesson in satire, particularly the French variation!
“Not sure why people have such a hard time understanding the satirical perspective of Charlie Hebdo cartoons.”
Righteous indignation is intoxicating.
That seems to be it. I hear conservatives saying things like, “The left are always so serious and they have no sense of humour,” and I reflexively think they’re wrong. Then I see things like the reaction to this cartoon and I wonder if they’re correct.
It’s probably the original human intoxicant — even before our ancestors began to brew roots or ferment berries or lick toxic toads.
Is there a 12-step program for that?
Once again I see a well-meaning defender of the cartoon fail to mention that the cartoon as presented is INCOMPLETE (Friendly Atheist missed it too). The cartoon is a part of a set of cartoons. All under a header that says “France isn’t what people say.” Of course people are confused, it’s because the section being shown has been excised! This is visual quote mining. I’m sure this was done maliciously and then it spread in its current form. Once you see the full set of cartoons the message is pretty obvious. The butt of the joke are racists and xenophobes not the dead child.
https://twitter.com/ystriya/status/687415698008764421
I missed it, too! Many thanks for the link, which makes things even clearer.
Been reading this blog for years. Glad my first comment was of use. I saw this shared by Maryam Namazie on Facebook. Really glad conscientious people pay close attention to this stuff.
There’s a fourth one too: https://twitter.com/ystriya
Got the link wrong – it was posted a couple of days after the first three.
Try again: https://twitter.com/ystriya/status/687415698008764421/photo/1
It’s in that link, but you have to scroll down a bit.
Could some kind person do a translation please, my schoolboy french just isn’t up to the task. Thanks.
There
are translations here.
The top one is saying: “As a minister, you strip [terrorists of their citizenship] or you resign!”
The bottom one is:
“Since the #CharlieHebdo attacks, we don’t draw the same way anymore.” “We do self-portraits”
Thanks, Pier!
My pleasure. Was lucky to catch Maryam Namazie sharing this series of tweets. Otherwise I’d be in the dark as well.
Yep, helps me see the satire more clearly.
BTW, who is that (half) a picture of over the fireplace in the Obama cartoon? Some ayatollah or mullah or imam? Does The New Yorker say, for the record? Surely not THE Mohammed, eh? Does half a picture of Mohammed count as blasphemy? If so, how about a fourth? An eighth, etc.? A chin whisker?
Great example, the Obama New Yorker cover!
Satirical cartoons and tw**ts share at least two common features: they are concise (often to a fault) and prone to misinterpretation.
people don;t realize the commentary is on the audience who lurch from loving migrants – the boy’s death – to fearing them – the Cologne mass ass grope
A couple days before he was murdered Stéphane Charbonnier, a.k.a. “Charb” completed an extended essay which has now been published as “Open Letter: On Blasphemy, Islamophobia, and the True Enemies of Free Expression” available at the usual outlets.
Read it and weep for the fate of those who defend free expression. It nails the concept of “islamophobia” into the ground.
“Well, I find it a bit shocking, and it surely offends the family of Alan (reports are that it did), but one has to ask if that offense is necessary to make a greater point: showing the stupidity of stigmatizing all refugees.”
I don’t think there’s anyone in the world who thinks that all immigrants from the Middle East and Africa are rapists or molesters. One could make a similar cartoon mocking the critics of Islam which would suggest that the said critics stigmatize all Muslims.
As far as stylistic devices go, satire and irony are the most difficult and dangerous to use. I think it was Churchill who said “Use irony and you’ll give the greatest speech you’ll ever regret”. Too many people are such linear thinkers they won’t get it. Also, with their huge global recognition nowadays, Charlie Hebdo has to cross so many cultural borders. Such subtle style like satire doesn’t travel well. So at the CH they must have known this cartoon was likely to be misunderstood.
Secondly, many decent muslims and other people of colour really do encounter this accusation of being sex-maniac rapists on daily basis. So, without my knowledge of the style of Charlie Hebdo, my interpretation of the joke would also be the straight racist one. After all, the internet is full of racist jokes, but satire is scarce.
Also, we shouldn’t expect too much of the cognitive level of the non-French rasists. By far, most of the people who do find this cartoon funny — at least in Northern Europe today — would laugh exactly because they understand it as a straightforward racist joke, as in “Yeah, the little arab really would have become a serial rapist, so good riddance, ha ha.”
So, I’m sure a lot of racist sites are already circulating a translated version of this cartoon to serve their purposes. The racists don’t care it’s actually satire, this works for them perfectly without such subtlety. So, sadly and against its original intention, this cartoon will quite possibly be used to inspire a moronic racist gang to beat up an underage asylum seeker.
It’s possible it will be used by racists, but that is not a reason not to do the cartoon.
As the controversy over this cartoon illustrates, many people simply do not get the satire. The result is that people, already so inclined to bigotry, may see that attitude grow rather than be diminished by the cartoon. Of course, satirists, as everybody else, should and must enjoy free speech, but it is socially irresponsible not to take into account the potential effects of what they do. In the case, the effect of the cartoon may be the opposite of the satirist’s intention.
As I think about it, I have concluded that the test of good satire is that it is clear that in fact the writing or cartoon is in fact satire without the need for it to be explained or told who wrote it. If it was not known that the cartoon was from Charlie Hebdo would a “sophisticated” viewer be so sure it was satire?
Yesterday, in regard to his interactions with Facebook, Professor Coyne posted a viciously anti-Semitic cartoon that was intended to be taken on its face value. But, what if readers were told that this cartoon had been published in Charlie Hebdo? I think the reaction of many would have been, “yes, this cartoon is so over the top that it was intended to satirize the morons who perpetuate antisemitism.”
In other words, if reasonably intelligent people cannot tell whether a cartoon or writing is satire without knowing its source then it is not good satire.
“In other words, if reasonably intelligent people cannot tell whether a cartoon or writing is satire without knowing its source then it is not good satire.”
True. But do keep in mind that it’s unfair to judge a piece of satire if it’s intentionally presented in an incomplete manner, which is the case with this particular cartoon. Once you see the full set of cartoons then the intent is pretty clear. The cartoon in its excised form is confusing, but then it wasn’t supposed to be presented that way.
I would disagree. The litmus test you propose is more an assessment of accessibility than quality. An author of satire has a point he or she is hoping to make, but as visual arts don’t come with footnotes it’s a bit of a crap shoot whether a given individual will get the joke after it’s passed through their personal set of ideological and taste filter. Finally there is a growing population of individuals who insist on displaying surrogate offense on behalf of some group with which they developed a particular paternal attachment.
I think satire should stand on its own, without knowledge of the identity of the writer or the publication in which it appears.
On the other hand, I think a satirist is entitled to assume a familiarity with cultural background and context on the part of the reader, and that the reader possesses reasonable analytical powers for interpreting the piece.
“As the controversy over this cartoon illustrates, many people simply do not get the satire.”
From the interpretations of these cartoons I’ve read, the argument is that many other people do not get it’s satire, thus it perpetuates the racism. Of course, this is being done by English-speaking media writing for various English-speaking audiences – they are in effect making it racist by divorcing it from its context.
“As the controversy over this cartoon illustrates, many people simply do not get the satire.”
Which leads to the question: if the targets of the satire don’t get it, then what what social good is produced? Is this just a vehicle to intensify inter-tribe hostility?
No, it is a vehicle to influence people who might be ambivalent or who may be “fence-sitting” on an issue.
Beware of the people who get swayed by satirical cartoons.
I’m more wary of those who don’t understand satire.
If Jerry gets it right the cartoon is basically a strawman argument as it is supposedly ‘showing the stupidity of stigmatizing all refugees.’ And the vast majority of (if not all) critics of the mishandling of the migrant situation by European politicians don’t do it at all.
Actually, Scientifik, your cautionary note stakes me as off-base. It is equivalent to saying “Beware of the people who get swayed by argument.” Satire is a way to make a point. There’s nothing scary about people being able to “get” a point.
It’s downright scary that people who are on the fence about serious political issues look to cartoons to make their final conclusions.
It is more scary when nobody is able to change their views on serious political issues.
If you don’t get political cartoons, fine. That’s an idiosyncratic limitation, IMO. But I honestly can’t understand why you would decry satire as a form of political speech any more than any other form.
I get political cartoons, and more importantly, I also understand their goal: to strawman the arguments of people you disagree with, to oversimplify complex political issues, and call it a point.
How ironic.
You are now strawmanning political cartoons by stating that they are *only ever* about strawmanning.
You equate satire with straw-manning. That suggests a failure to “get” it in my book.
@Cindy…
If I was any good with pen and ink I’d draw a cartoon about it.
“You equate satire with straw-manning. That suggests a failure to “get” it in my book.”
In far too many case, satirical cartoons are just that.
And yes cartoons, by their very nature, often oversimplify complex political issues. They, thus, can’t be a vehicle for adjudging them, if we are to be serious about the democratic project.
There’s a great way to advance democracy. Ban political satire because it “over simplifies”.
I feel like I’ve tumbled into Alice’s rabbit hole.
The great way to advance democracy would be to teach the public the fundamentals of systems thinking and how it applies to complex social issues. When we succeed at that, there won’t be any need to lay out to anyone why over simplifying complex matters in cartoons is just wrong.
Is it really over simplifying anything though? We have a Presidential candidate who wants to ban all Muslims. I’ve failed to catch on to the complexities and nuance of his well thought out immigration policies. People the world over share his views. Not all people, mind you, but this is starting to sound like the retreat of the religious when they claim not all religious people believe X. For many people, the issue is simple–oppress all Muslims. Charlie Hebdo satirizes this view beautifully.
It is a grim, humorless world you advocate. No thanks. I’ll take mine with a healthy dose of Stephen Colbert and Charlie Hebdo.
A world where people made decisions based on deep analysis of complex issues sounds like nirvana. Sadly we live in a world of the 7 second elevator pitch, the sound bite, and twitter so I’m not holding my breath.
The good news is that those oversimplified cartoons seem to be generating a fair amount of deep conversation, so maybe there is hope.
“A world where people made decisions based on deep analysis of complex issues sounds like nirvana. Sadly we live in a world of the 7 second elevator pitch, the sound bite, and twitter so I’m not holding my breath.”
Tell me about it. It’s for this reason I earlier compared satirical cartoons to tweets!
“Is it really over simplifying anything though? ”
It’s over simplifying the huge immigration problem Europe is facing, without a doubt, as it throws out the window all legitimate concerns Europeans have about the current state of affairs. It’s just a cartoon, so it oversimplifies thinks by definition, like your average tweet.
“Not all people, mind you, but this is starting to sound like the retreat of the religious when they claim not all religious people believe X.”
The argument presented in the cartoon is more like that of Muslim apologists who say that not all Muslims blow themselves up or hold misogynistic views. Look, most everybody knows that there are Muslims like Maajid Nawaz, but it doesn’t change the fact that Muslim terrorism and, more broadly, fundamentalist beliefs held by many Muslims remain a problem. Would anyone on here be willing to cease criticizing Muslim fundamentalists after they were shown an image of a drowned Muslim boy?
Cartoons are like visual haiku. They can rise to the level of high art. The point worth making is that not everything has to be a dissertation to have layered subtlety. I suspect your average cartoonist takes a great deal more time contemplating the content of their panels than your average tweeter.
Perhaps one day dissertations will be obsoleted by cartoons… Who needs those lengthy and detailed analyses when we have “multi-layered” cartoons at our disposal. 🙂
The problem with a left approach–and I am tagging Jerry with a left approach, maybe unfairly, is that argument is X is really not Islamaphoic.
In contrast, in a free society, a free person should be able to dislike some or all religions, and should be free to blaspheme, mock, parody, those religions and perpetrate generalizations and stereotypes about those religious groups (for example, Larry Flynt’s cartoon mocking Falwell utilizing nasty stereotypes about rural white people).
Certainly, a political movement which has given us such insights as “All White people are racist beneficiaries of White privilege” and “All heterosexual sex is rape” has all the moral credibility of a pedophile priest lecturing on sexual ethics us when they tell us not to stereotype or over-generalize about their precious groups.
Here is a good sample:
http://www.huffingtonpost.com/entry/11-things-white-people-need-to-realize-about-race_55b0009be4b07af29d576702
[Obviously, in an Islamic theocracy, it would be more than appropriate to impose criminal sanctions on people within the territorial jurisdiction of the State.]
What is wrong with the fact that someone expresses so-called “Islamophobia” except that maybe its not polite, or fair, or it hurts someone’s feelings–boo hoo!
Trust me, if the left wing parties didn’t see potential left wing voters in these Muslim hordes, you would be reading about how “all Muslim men have Islamic male privilege and feel they can take sexual advantage of women and children on account of their patriarchal religious beliefs”. I have no problem with left wingers sucking up to potential new voters, but I am not willing to change what I believe, or how I live or what I think or say because the Democrats or the Labor Party wants an electoral victory.
True.
But when the Islamophobia is expressed by those acting on behalf of the state — as when, for example, we are urged to refuse safe haven to Muslim refugees — the consequences can be dire indeed.
However, I also mention that there is little talk about Christian and Yazidi refugees.
The question for any government is what groups are favored, and what groups are disfavored. The US set up immigration preferences for Soviet Jews in the 1970’s, which in turn disfavored immigration by Soviet non-Jews. I suppose this was bad for Soviet non-Jews seeking to get out of the Soviet system, but why is that America’s problem?
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Let me just add that Muslims in my country have their own party (responsible for some of the worst governments in our new history), so the left-wingers’ best-laid schemes may go wrong.
One thing that the pro-science community can do is popularize one of the most well replicated findings of social science: most stereotypes are generally accurate (with a few caveats, political stereotypes of political opposition are often false).
http://www.rci.rutgers.edu/~jussim/unbearable%20accuracy%20of%20stereotypes.pdf
Although this finding is much more empirically sound than many of the “studies proving white privilege” you hear about in the MSM, you won’t find it in undergraduate textbooks.
Certainly, there is a fairness issue, something while generally true is rarely universally true, so there is an inherent unfairness in relying on stereotypes with specific individuals, especially when more individualized data is available.
The fact is that humans evolved socially, and they are very adept at monitoring what other persons and other groups are doing, and forming accurate generalizations in this context. So, political correctness is an effort to undo what thousands of years of evolution has done, while at the same time, if successful would decrease cognitive aptitude.
It is undoubtedly correct that there is a kernel of truth to many stereotypes. (Hell, this is why humor playing off of certain stereotypes works so well.) But stereotypes are ill-suited to be used as heuristics for drawing crude categorizations of individuals (as you appear to acknowledge).
I certainly agree that academic research (and information more generally) should be available for broad dissemination, unfettered by ideological censorship of any stripe.
But what, precisely, are you suggesting is the social utility of stereotypes? Care to explain?
If I were a medieval Jew living in a ghetto in Europe, I would imagine it would be useful to have a sense of where the Christian population was at any particular time, so I could get out of Dodge before the next pogrom.
Certainly, stereotypes are useful in international security screenings, where you are looking for a needle in a haystack anyways. I think the Israeli’s have a lot to teach an increasingly diverse Euro-America on how to manage diversity, and being a Nation that would rather be called names than have their children blown up in discos and buses, I think they have a pretty pragmatic attitude that would be more beneficial if more widespread.
Such stereotypes more likely lend themselves to noxious use. The Christians of medieval Europe, after all, conducted their pogroms against the Jews based on just such a stereotype. Apartheid states are always based on stereotypes, as was the case in Rhodesia and South Africa. Which is why any just society must insist on equal treatment under law for all its citizens.
To quote Paul Bloom:
“We often think of bias and prejudice as rooted in ignorance. But as psychologist Paul Bloom seeks to show, prejudice is often natural, rational … even moral. The key, says Bloom, is to understand how our own biases work — so we can take control when they go wrong.”
From Ted-talk:
“https://www.ted.com/talks/paul_bloom_can_prejudice_ever_be_a_good_thing?language=en”
Punching down? One of the best satires the BBC ever broadcast, Till Death Us Do Part, was partly a satire on white, working class racism.
And lots of people didn’t get that either.
The American version of that show was “All in the Family,” and yes, a lot of people thought that it was promoting bigotry.
In one episode, the main character, Archie Bunker was afraid that if he got a blood transfusion from a Black, he would turn Black. I saw a letter in the newspaper criticizing the actor, Carroll O’Connor, for being stupid enough to believe that.
OTOH, back in the 90s, Rush Limbaugh’s TV show featured ads for “All in the Family” on DVD. Did the sponsors think Limbaugh’s audience would buy the DVDs because they agree with Archie?
The BBC is currently into its 4th series of ‘Citizen Khan’, a comedy about a Muslim family. And Mr Khan is as much a figure of fun as any white sitcom character ever was.
(Not as obnoxious as Alf Garnett used to be, but then few are). I find it genuinely funny, in a lowbrow way.
The Beeb or ITV has always done that sort of culturally risque comedy. My daughter just discovered (on Youtube) Rising Damp, c.1970, where Don Warrington got his start as a black student in a boarding house run by the reactionary Rigsby (Leonard Rossiter).
cr
I doesn’t surprise me that the chattering class has turned on Charlie Hebdo, the way they think guarantees it.
The chatterers insist that virtue is not only to be worn on the sleeve but must be banner headlined as well.
Of course when something similar to appeasement goes wrong somebody else does the fighting and their banner becomes a white flag
I must admit that — though I had been aware of Charley Hebdo generally, and even more generally of the French satirical tradition from which it arose, for a while — I never focused much on its cartoons until the 2011 firebombing attack. From then through last year’s shooting, I simply took at face value that the cartoons were what their Anglophone critics represented them to be: Muslim-mocking and misogynistic. (And from a policy standpoint it didn’t matter to me; such speech should be protected absolutely, whether noxious or benign.) It wasn’t until I read explanations of the cartoons by fluent French speakers, including by Matthew in an earlier post here, that I came to appreciate that they were quite the opposite, a vicious send-up of the attitudes being depicted.
BTW, I love that New Yorker cover; it perfectly mocks the paranoid right’s fever dreams of what they fear Barack and Michelle to be. (And speaking of sister Michelle, didn’t the First Lady look especially fine at the recent SOTU address? Barack has aged in office, as all of our presidents seem especially to do, but Michelle looks as good as she did the day she accompanied Barack to give his big speech before the 2004 Democratic convention.)
The global and instantaneous spread of information have done away with context, nuance, and sarcasm. Charlie Hebdo will continue to be a headline while Muslims are attacked in the media because it’s easy to tie Charlie Hebdo in with the racists. Never mind what is the truth about Charlie Hebdo, or where they fit in the French culture. The world is too global for that.
Why is that cartoon racist? What specific race is being condemned?
I am not saying it’s not offensive, it just seems as if the word “racist” is like an outrage jam spread haphazardly.
So, if only punching up is allowed, do we keep punching up until the up are down? When they’re down, do we then obligate ourselves to punch up and make the down up again? This whole mentality seems upside down to me.
I must admit (and I’m generally a Charlie Hebdo sympathiser) my first reaction on seeing the cartoon on this page was that it was attacking ‘what the dead boy might [/would] have become’.
It was only by a bit of mental gymnastics that I could see it as being so outrageous it was satirising that viewpoint.
However, seeing it in context (as posted by Pier Bove) makes it much clearer.
Shame on whoever took it out of context, and a minor degree of collateral shame on all those (including me) who forgot to ask ‘is it in context’ before commenting. (I mean all commenters on the net, not just here).
cr
I’m all for free speech, but *if* the following articles are true, then the family of Aylan didn’t get the satire. I don’t know if this attempt at satire was worth all the hurt it might have caused his family. It’s very understandable that they would possibly be found to be humorless over something like this. Their grief over Aylan must still be very raw.
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/news/article-3398248/Fury-Charlie-Hebdo-cartoon-suggesting-Aylan-Kurdi-drowned-migrant-boy-body-Turkish-beach-grown-Cologne-sex-attacker.html
http://www.thenational.ae/world/middle-east/drowned-syrian-toddlers-father-wept-over-charlie-hebdo-cartoon
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I sincerely doubt that the family was shown the cartoon in its proper context. Which makes their pain the fault of a lazy, exploitative media, either directly by reporters showing it to the family for their response or indirectly by the media as a whole presenting it without context, not CH.
If the cartoon depicted MY dead child, I would find it appalling, no matter what the context.
Additionally, Aylan Kurdi has already been reduced to a symbol in death–his body has been splashed all over the media–so Charlie Hebdo has made use of what has become a public symbol of refugees to make a point about anti-refugee prejudice.
It’s sad that the boy’s family has interpreted the cartoon as an attack on him, but they would not have to look too far to see that was not CH’s intention. That’s what I hope anyway–it would be good to see someone in the media stand up and defend CH instead of demonizing them.