It was a year ago today that the world finally became aware of the dangers involved in satirizing and criticizing Islam. The Danish cartoon issue in 2005, with its attendant riots in Muslim lands, and the 2004 murder of Theo van Gogh for making the film “Submission“, should have already told us that, but the real wake-up call was the slaughter of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices on January 7, 2015. Yet people are still claiming that the magazine brought the attack on itself. Today another man was killed after assaulting a police station in Paris, reportedly shouting “Allahu akbar.”
This morning the Jesus and Mo artist put up the following cartoon, called “restons,” described in the email as “a placeholder until next Wednesday.”
The translation: “We remain Charlie Hebdo.” It’s surely based on the slogan “Je suis Charlie Hebdo” (“I am Charlie Hebdo”), but I’m not quite sure why Jesus and Mo themselves are holding the sign.
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First try: forgot to type in nym & eddress. Second try: forgot to check the box. Third try (the charm, of course)–still have to type in nym & eddress just to frickin sub.
I think it was really the ‘Satanic Verses’ that started this off, but others may differ. That was 27 years ago, can you believe! He was attacked by right & left & centre. If he had not gone into hiding, who knows?
https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/The_Satanic_Verses_controversy
Does the sign mean that Jesus & Mo remains as a cartoon, i.e. is still going, & that murderers will not stop lampooning or ‘silence’ satirical cartoonists?
Author calls it an “actors statement” (remember that Mo is a body double).
For me, as long as religion is given a special place above other thought and ideas and things like blasphemy laws remain, we require cartoons like Jesus and Mo.
I tend to laud my country for its humanism, rationalism, 42% atheism, low levels of racism and homophobia etc, but NZ still has a blasphemy law. It’s never used, and other human rights legislation and the high bar needed for it to be, mean it probably never will be, but that’s not the point. It exists, and I consider it an embarrassment and a blot on the character of the country.
I agree with you entirely, unfortunately for NZ just like Canada this is a hang on from the colonial past and those outdated laws.
It is interesting that:- The common law offences of blasphemy and blasphemous libel were abolished in England and Wales in 2008 with the passage of the Criminal Justice and Immigration Act.[2] Other countries to abolish or repeal blasphemy laws include France in 1881, Sweden in 1970, Norway with Acts in 2009 and 2015, the Netherlands in 2014, and Iceland in 2015.
I don’t think you can blame the blasphemy law on the ‘colonial’ (i.e. British Empire) aspect of the past specifically. The immigrants from other European countries were just as religious.
That aside, I doubt it’s likely to be repealed in the near future, for the sole and simple reason that it’s virtually forgotten and highly unlikely ever to be used. No politician is going to see any percentage in raising the issue.
What it would take to make it an issue would be an actual prosecution, with a lot of publicity. And no policeman or Crown Prosecutor is going to want to touch that with a barge pole. I suspect many of the established churches wouldn’t want to see it either. Too likely to fail on free speech grounds, and it makes them look bad either way.
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Yeah. Aussie inherited the same laws as us, and they’ve got rid of them too. And I really HATE admitting it when they do something better than we have!
I’ve written about this a few times, but this is the main one: http://www.heatherhastie.com/abolish-new-zealands-blasphemy-law-must-be-abolished/
A missing comma, peut-être ?
As to why J & M are holding the sign, I would guess that on this occasion the author had them step out of character.
I agree. And seeing the figures as actors for a moment makes it especially powerful.
So, is Mo fat, or does he simply wear more robes than Jesus?
This J&M is an unfortunate reminder that we are still not grown up.
I imagine there were similar people living during the Crusades thinking, “What’s the point of all of this?” The difference now is there’s a new formal establishment of secularism that steps way from the benighted ignorance and brainless attitudes.
I think the point is that Jesus&Mo is a cartoon depicting Mo’ in an unflattering light, as such, the cartoonist is almost certainly a target in precisely the same way as the Charlie Hebdo staff were and are targets.
The artist is saying “I could be killed for this, just like Charlie Hebdo.” And if the artist died, so too would the characters, so they too are targets of terro, and so they too are Charlie Hebdo.
I like that interpretation.
Why, Jesus and Mo, by carrying the sign, are building a sense of community for us.