Cartoon Wars revisited

[velvet]

Remember the recent trouble over the Mohammed cartoons in the Danish newspaper? I recently made the online acquaintance of Joanne Brooker, an Australian cartoonist who was visiting Iran at the time the controversy was peaking.

She has written a very interesting account of this experience on her blog ...

"I was invited to exhibit my artwork in Tehran two years ago. By February the final arrangements had been finalized and I had my ticket bought and my Iranian visa confirmed for my trip in March. I was in my usual comfy spot on the couch watching with one eye and ear to the news. The usual riots, protests, deaths, cartoons. Hang on, one of these words does not belong here. With mounting dread I watched as the issue escalated until, bingo, it reached Tehran, my exhibition venue. Instead of listening to the doomsayers that predicted my quick demise as soon as I reached Tehran, this new turn of events encouraged me all the more. I wanted to find out what was really happening on the other side of the newspaper headlines."

More here: http://purplespiderstudio.artsblogs.com/blog/blog.asp?entryId=69356

Nice pic here : http://purplespiderstudio.artsblogs.com/blog/blog.asp?entryId=69286 This is the Iran the media doesn't show us.

[ayeshahaqqiqa]

1. Very telling , especially this paragraph:

Our general media has skirted around the real issue with stories that complain that Muslims don’t have a sense of humor, the lack of artistic merit of the cartoons, the rights of free press and the opinions of a few Australian based newspaper cartoonists. Ask an Aussie what they think of the cartoon protests and they will invariably say that the Muslims should just lighten up, it was just a bunch of cartoons.

This is, in fact, a fascinating example of the power of the visual image used as powerful propaganda. These cartoons have literally illustrated the massive divide of understanding between the Christian world and the Muslim world.

This issue needs to be taken seriously not sidelined as some foolish aberration.