By Salgood Sam
I was trying to think about drawing this sunday, but this kind of filled my brain, and I had to get it down somewhere and put it out there.
So i’ve done a episode of the Spilt Ink Podcast, as a Sequential Pulp Editorial: An op ed commentary on Charlie Hebdo, censorship, and political cartooning. Warning, there’s some NSFW language!
Articles/media I referenced include Tom the dancing bug – “In Non-Satirical Defense of Charlie Hebdo” by Ruben Bolling. Canadalandshow.com, SHORT CUTS #7 CharlieHebdo/Ghomeshi/Keystone.
The reporting of The Minute’s racist insult to French justice minister Taubira on their cover in Nov 2013, and the story of Marine Le Pen’s National Front party suspending Anne-Sophie Leclere, a candidate who compared the minister to a chimp, and posted a photo to that end on her FB page. She’s since been handed a nine-month prison term.
All of which were the target and true subject of a Charlie Hebdo cartoon often misidentified as expressing Charlie Hebdo’s editorial or personal opinions. I have to issue a correction/retraction: I miss identified the words that accompany that comic. It was actually “Rassemblement bleu raciste”. Which literally translates to “Blue Racist Gathering” and is a pun on the slogan of the Front National “Rassemblement Bleu Marine” (Navy Blue Gathering, in French the name of the Front National leader is Marine Le Pen, and Marine means Navy). The comic is an attack mocking the Front National, not an attack on justice minister Taubira.
Silly farcical image is something I generated, quoting my friend and co worker, Daniel Rab. In relation to a related topic: the statements of Imtiaz Ahmed, an imam with the Ahmadiyya Muslim Community in Ottawa who said it should be against the law to publish cartoons that depict religious figures in a derogatory way.
A few other links related to all this I want to share: This by Arab cartoonist Karl Sharro on why the freedom to offend must be defended – not just from armed fanatics, but also from our own liberal anxieties. “One Student’s Epic Tweets Call Out the Biggest Hypocrites Marching for Free Speech In Paris“. “Charlie Hebdo: Norway’s Christians didn’t have to apologise for Anders Breivik, and it’s the same for Muslims now“. “Blasphemy and the law of fanatics“. & “Arab Newspapers React To ‘Charlie Hebdo’ Attacks With Cartoons Of Their Own“.
Special editorial on Charlie Hebdo, censorship, & political cartooning. by Sequential Radio on Mixcloud
Music is: Opening song by Joy Division, “Warsaw”.
Then a bit of Urgent Fury “Wasted Youth”.
Followed by Peter Gabriel’s Passion. The opening bars of “With This Love” to memorialize the dead.
Then I dropped a few bars of DJ Socalled’s “(These are) The Good Old Days”,
and made a point I hope with the best part of George Carlin’s “7 dirty words”.
Closing tack is “Situation” by SadOceanSpaceBear off of the self titled sadoceanspacebear.
I own none of those of course, and use hopefully under Fair Usage, encouraging you to support the artists!