Some good people gone

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posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:58:00 PM -- |    

 
Goyish
Charles Johnson, of Little Green Footballs, displays a spectacularly rabid cartoon in the British newspaper "The Independent." The cartoon shows Israeli Prime Minister Sharon bestriding the Gaza Strip while chewing on a baby, with the caption "What's wrong... you never seen a politician kissing babies before?" The image seems designed to echo the "blood libel" that secret Jewish rituals involve eating non-Jewish children. Via Johnson and Ha'aretz, I quote the Israeli embassy press secretary:

As Britain commemorates National Holocaust Day, I am shocked that The Independent has chosen to evoke an ancient Jewish stereotype which would not have looked out of place in `Der Sturmer', and which can unfortunately still be found in many Arabic newspapers.

While I've been critical of some of Johnson's own writing, he's right about other things such as the anti-Semitism currently fashionable in some corners of Europe's intellectual world. This is a despicable cartoon. Johnson provides a link to file a complaint.

Meanwhile, The Independent itself isn't apologizing -- it's capitalizing on the controversy, inviting all to join its "Satire or Anti-Semitism?" debate about the cartoon. It turns out that the image is a recycled version of a painting by Goya, "Saturn devouring one of his sons"; the words "after Goya" appear at the bottom of the drawing -- something it took me several viewings to notice, even after learning of the Goya painting via the newspaper's coverage. From the labored explanation by cartoonist Dave Brown:

By borrowing the image, I hoped to benefit from its associations; those who knew the classical myth of the Titan driven, by his fear of being supplanted by his children, to the insanity of devouring them, might draw some parallels.

Do I believe, or was I trying to suggest, that Sharon actually eats babies? Of course not – one of the other benefits of the borrowed image was that it was sited squarely in the field of allegory. My cartoon was intended as a caricature of a specific person, Sharon, in the guise of a figure from classical myth who, I hoped, couldn't be farther from any Jewish stereotype.

If you buy this, you're a more generous person than I am. Dave Brown is saying that the Palestinian child is Sharon's own? In what far-fetched sense would that be so? Brown is either singularly unsuited to be a political cartoonist -- a trade that requires clear messages -- or he knew very well what he was doing.

No: given what's actually being "allegorized," it's far more likely that Brown knew he was engaging in a visual "double entendre" (double regarder?). Sure, there's the Goya image and inscription for some readers to figure out; those so inclined will check their brains at the door and accept that fig leaf of an explanation.

But the message 9 out of 10 readers would come away with is: Sharon the evil Jew "eats children." It's conceivable just as few people know about the "blood libel" that message echoes as recognize the Goya reference or understood the inscription at the bottom of the panel. It's not plausible Brown or the Independent editorial staff are among those people. They have disgraced themselves.


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EDIT, 2/10: Title of Goya painting corrected.
UPDATE, 5/27: The British Press Complaints Commission has ruled that Dave Brown did nothing to deserve complaint.
UPDATE, 12/16/04: The British Political Cartoon Society has given the cartoon its top cartoon of the year award. See this post. posted by Thomas Nephew at 9:41:00 PM -- |    

 

Eyes wide shut all around
Tim Dunlop ("Road to Surfdom") draws attention to a Baltimore Chronicle article on some reporting done by German reporter Andreas Zumach late last year ("Blühende Geschäfte" -- Blossoming business). That report, published in the German newspaper TagesZeitung (aka "TAZ") provides a list of companies named in the lengthy Iraq report to the UN Security Council last year; as Dunlop rightly mentions, that report was heavily edited before it was forwarded to non-permanent Security Council members.

As the Guardian account of the report (link via Dunlop) points out, the TAZ list was

... not clear which companies were claimed to have sold what and whether they had knowingly or unknowingly contributed to Saddam Hussein's search for weapons of mass destruction. Nor was it clear which sales [by 80 German firms] to Iraq were said to have been made in violation of arms control sanctions imposed by Germany after 1980.

Tim's point -- and it's a good one -- is more about the lack of curiosity by American media about the redacted Iraqi report. But a reply is to point out a similar lack of curiosity by Tim's sources, from the Baltimore Chronicle through the Guardian and Independent, about the actual wrongdoing uncovered by the TAZ reports, as opposed to the implications of a list without dates or details. To wit (from "Hubschrauberteile und Prozessortechnologie" -- Helicopter parts and processor technology):

Firms from at least two of the five permanent members of the UN Security Council -- Russia and China -- carried on direct arms cooperation with Iraq, in direct contravention of UN resolutions, even after the Gulf War of spring 1991 and after the expulsion of UN inspectors (UNSCOM) in the middle of December 1998.

The Russian firms involved were Livinvest, Mars Rotor und Niikhism (helicopter parts), in 1995, while the Chinese firm Huawei Technologies Co.

...equipped Iraqi anti-aircraft facilities with cutting edge fiberglass [communications] equipment, in violation of UN sanctions

in 2000 and 2001. The TAZ report notes that in 2000 the US companies IBM and AT&T signed contracts with Huawei Technologies Co. for the delivery of processor technology, chips, and electronic switches, as well as for the "optimization" of the Chinese company's products, and muses

It can at least not be ruled out that U.S. technology and know-how figured in the improvements to Iraqi anti-aircraft installations by this route.

There! We knew it! The Guardian was more focused on the possibility the TAZ scoop was engineered by Americans to embarrass the German government, while the Independent.co.uk report also focused on the German connection, particularly a controversial sale of Siemens high-tech dental equipment with components that might conceivably aid in nuclear weapons development.

Granted, no one expects much of Russia or China; I expect they'll do almost anything to Chechens, Tibetans, what have you, or support any old murderous regime from Milosevic to Pol Pot, without much more than a "Russians and Chinese will be Russians and Chinese" from the press, Guardian and Independent included. Heck, no one even expects all that much of German companies. I mean, Siemens? Say no more.

There was a time when dealing in arms with Iraq was legal, if unsavory. Then there came a time after 1991 when it was illegal. Then there came a time when no matter the provenance of the weapons of mass destruction, they had to be reported fully and cooperatively, and there is some real question whether Iraq is doing so. Then came a TAZ report whose one substantive allegation turns out to be against Russia and China. It's a little rich (of the media involved, if not of non-German-speaking bloggers) to transmogrify that into another set of vague, veiled accusations against the United States. posted by Thomas Nephew at 2:00:00 AM -- |    

 

"Impudent, but not wrong"
That's the title of an editorial in Die Zeit (Unverschämt, aber nicht falsch) by columnist Richard Herzinger:

No question, Rumsfeld's comment was an unheard of, indiplomatic provocation, indeed an act of intentional loutishness. But more disquieting than [his] arrogance is the fact that he's not so very wrong. [...]

...The proudly invoked German-French peace position is just a defensive reflex. It doesn't answer the question how one gets to democratization and stabilization of the Middle East in the long run. Some naively point to UN inspectors, who are supposed to peaceably disarm Saddam Hussein. But would there have been any inspectors in Iraq, if the USA hadn't been loudly rattling its saber? [...]

The second part of his attack was intended to highlight the young democracies of Eastern Europe as the germ of a "new Europe," the Europe of the future, and to play them off against France and Germany. [...] Indeed Poles, Czechs, and Hungarians do define their membership in the western world mainly via their close alliance with America. This is based on the experiences of their recent history. They know that it was mainly American power that stopped the Soviet expansionism into the rest of Europe. ... European politics [while contributing to undermining communist dictatorships] tended over time to accommodate itself to the rule of the Communists. The Poles, for example, have not forgotten that Western Europeans were all too willing to accede to the martial law and repression of the Polish opposition in the early 80s. [...]

Given all that, [Eastern Europe] would rather throw in with the Americans, who have time and again proved their resolve to meet the West's foes with firmness and if necessary with military force. [...]

In decisive moments of world history, Europe stood for what was new; that's how it got to be so old. Now it risks losing contact* with history's leaders. With his characteristic impudence, Rumsfeld is telling Europe that to its face.

I should say this is a relatively isolated point of view in the German media as far as I can tell. But it's no less interesting for that.

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*"Anschluss verlieren": used in describing races, when the pack falls too far behind the leaders in the race to be able to catch up. I just can't think of a pithy translation for that, so yet another footnote will have to do. posted by Thomas Nephew at 10:01:00 PM -- |