Why cartoonists should give it a rest

The latest Charlie Hebdo cartoon, produced after last week’s horrific attacks on the Paris magazine’s offices, literally adds insult to injury. Admittedly a portrait in mixed messages, the cover reads “All is forgiven” above a drawing of the Prophet Mohammed, who is holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign. Who, exactly, is supposed to be doing the forgiving and who must be forgiven is not clear.

Zineb El Rhazoui, a writer with Charlie Hebdo, said the cover means the magazine’s journalists were forgiving the extremists for the killings. But the cover could also be interpreted as Mohammed saying he forgives the cartoonists in a way the terrorists, obviously, did not.

But the cartoons are somewhat irrelevant. As Middle East analyst Juan Cole has argued, they were just an excuse for Islamic zealots to further widen and exploit the perceived gulf between Islam and “the West.” Cole writes, “Al Qaeda wants to mentally colonize French Muslims, but faces a wall of disinterest. But if it can get non-Muslim French to be beastly to ethnic Muslims on the grounds that they are Muslims, it can start creating a common political identity around grievance against discrimination.” Enter the cartoons.

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