The Campaign Thus Far from Crikey

A broader perspective than Danish with your cartoons

If all the furore about some recent Danish cartoons has left you non-plussed to say the least,

a broader perspective came into view on The Religion Report this week.

A reasoned exposition of the portrayal of the Prophet Muhammed in many periods and places. Let's all have a cup of tea, a Bex, and a good lie down while we have a think about it.

Leunig hoax Cooke-d up

The deed has been done. The name has been named. The perpetrator of the Leunig hoax is Richard Cooke of The Chaser. Now The Chaser has definitely been hanging around the Federal Parliament for far too long - it has picked up the knack of deniability. Of not letting your right hand know what the left hand is up to. Instance, the Howard Government and the AWB. Similarly, The Chaser and Richard Cooke. Cute! Don't believe ya! In fact, that's the Cooke-d goose at the right. Clearly, there is a desire to use someone else's name one way or another. Read what he has to say about that here.

Photograph by Stephen Bacon

Published by The Sydney Morning Herald

Leunig unloved? 4

Leunig has been held up as an anti-semite in some quarters - and quite recently here in Melbourne. The problem is not with racism nor with bigotry nor anti-semitism. The cartoons in question portray an anti-war sentiment.

Empires survive on militarism - the American Empire of the USA no less than the British Empire or the Empires of other European nation states. Anti-war sentiment has never been welcome in the polity of empire and becomes punishable in many, if not most, societies in time of war. Australia is at war within the American hegemony. Israel is always at war with the Palestinians and watchful to the point of paranoia for anti-semitism and anti-zionism. Into this tangled web of paranoia, militarism, and misplaced ideology Leunig has fallen because of another's dishonesty and treachery. Anti-war sentiments and movements rarely find official acknowledgment. There has been no equivalent of the welcome home march for those who protested against Australia's participation in the Vietnam War. Yet this anti-war movement was significant for those who participated. It transformed my generation. It produced a generation of politicians many of whom are still scattered around the Parliaments of Australia. And, if this was not enough, many of us continued into the anti-apartheid movement to battle the Springbok tour of Australia and organise boycotts of South African products. I have never felt the need to read Mandela's biography - the anti-apartheid movement lived and worked in the shadow of his presence. Everyone loves Mandela to-day it seems yet few were around when the campaign was on. These two movements were and continue to be significant - yet little understood by the powerful in society, in a society dedicated to consumerism, material gain, and stratification by wealth and education.

It should be remembered there is, arguably, only one war in the last century which did not generate a widespread anti-war movement nor produce significant anti-war literature. This war was World War II. In this war, the evil and the enemy was clear from its political antecedents through to its conclusion. The anti-war literature of World War I is particularly significant from that of Vera Brittain through to Siegfried Sassoon. People of those generations felt like they had been hoodwinked. Young idealists had gone to give their all for their country only to see hundreds of thousands of young men used up as cannon fodder. While the anti-war movement of World War I was not replicated in World War II, war weariness was evident in the post-war election in the United Kingdom where renewal was at the heart of a nation who kicked out a victorious war Prime Minister in Churchill and sought a new world in the Britain's first Labour Government - a government which implemented the Beveridge Plan and introduced the Welfare State to the world.

Through our society runs the thread of anti-war sentiment which seeks to emphasise the productive and creative elements of the pursuit of peace and life in a humane society. It should not be misunderstood - nor should it be gainsaid. Nor should dishonesty and misrepresentation be allowed to bring it into disrepute.

Leunig unloved? - 3

A clarification on yesterday's post. When I posted yesterday, it was not clear that the cartoon entered in the Iranian competition was an authentic Leunig cartoon. The fraud I outlined is in the fact that someone other than Leunig - and without any authorisation or participation by him - entered the cartoon purporting to be Leunig in an accompanying note.

4.22pm
Crikey has just dropped its afternoon missive in my email which confirms that an unknown website writer for The Chaser has fessed up and apologised to Leunig. The clever dicks at The Chaser say they knew nothing about it and the proof that they knew nothing is that if they did do it or have knowledge of it is they didn't take credit for it.

"It's not a really Chaser style stunt.
We always try to claim credit for our stunts. He [the hoaxer] has spoken to Mr
Leunig and apologised. We certainly didn't intend for this to be reported on CNN
and Reuters. In general if The Chaser pull a stunt we'll be out there taking
credit for it from the word go, being the shameless publicity seekers that we
are."

Leunig unloved? - 2

Michael Leunig, one of Australia's favourite cartoonists, has been the victim of a cruel fraud. Recently published cartoons originating in Denmark, which have drawn the ire of Islamic communities, were initiated to test freedom of speech issues. In return, an Iranian newspaper is now calling for cartoons denigrating the holocaust to test freedom of speech issues in Western nations. Someone fraudulently posted a cartoon purporting to be by Leunig. It is now reported that this cartoon has been withdrawn. Needless, to say Leunig is upset about this 'set-up' and is feeling rather wounded. Some people say they don't get Leunig, don't understand some of his stuff. Clearly, there are people who do - and don't like it and can't stand him, to put it mildly. I can't help wondering if the fraud is some sort of fall out from the Jewish hatred of Leunig expressed recently which I posted about here.

Some one(s) clearly has/have a vested interest in discrediting Leunig. What better way to do it? Clearly, those who wield the pen are not necessarily sissies but frequently exhibit a great strength. They have the ability to affect the minds and opinions of people. To his great credit, Michael Leunig does just this. Even his own newspaper, The Age, finds him a bit much at times. Leunig discussed this last year at Writers at Como. As he pointed out then, there are those who take bulldozers to mow down ancient forests. He uses a pen to express thoughts and ideas and they think he's a bit much! Leunig is clearly effective. His humanitarian, peaceful, spiritual, and anti-war, anti-consumerism stance is hated and unwelcome in some very powerful quarters. This sort of treatment has always been meted out to the prophets.