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ATLANTIC HIGHLANDS HERALD |
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CARTOONS THEN AND NOW My father was a great fan of Spike Jones and his zany music. I was five when Pop took me to a Spike Jones “concert” at the old Lyric Theater in Allentown. I can still recall the zoot-suits, the Maestro firing revolvers to direct the orchestra, chickens falling out of the stage rigging, and the sonorous “Fiedelbaum” resonating over the William Tell Overture. (They say you are truly a musical egghead if you can hear the WT overture without thinking of either the Lone Ranger or Spike Jones. Of course, you might just be younger than 55.) Jones’ signature applause-line was, “Thank you, music lovers.” I was an adult, however, before I realized that Jones was actually a gifted political cartoonist who used music instead of a pen to make his point(s). I never get tired of hearing “Der Fuehrer’s Face” – a wickedly satirical caricature of Adolph Hitler and the whole Nazi thing: Venn der Fuehrer says, “Vee iss der Master Race,” Vee Heil (ppphhhhttt)! Heil (ppphhhhttt)! right in der Fuehrer’s face. Not to love der Fuehrer iss a great disgrace, So vee Heil (ppphhhhttt), Heil (ppphhhhttt), right in der Fuehrer’s face. Are vee not the supermen, Aryan pure supermen? Vee bring duh vorld to order. Etc. After decades of laughing at the words and the oompah style of the song, I realized that the City Slickers were pretty lucky that der gute Adolph didn’t win. Without a doubt, the Slickers were on Himmler’s list for immediate elimination as soon as the Nazis took New York. Of course, it was the Nazi’s inability to touch us that made Der Fuehrer’s Face comical. Had Nazi agents actually assassinated Jones, or blown up one of his concerts, it wouldn’t have been so funny. Six decades after we thumped Hitler, few Americans understand how close he came to defeating both England and the Soviet Union. Had he actually done it, we might have had a tough time beating a victorious Germany that bestrode two continents. Perhaps we could have pulled it off, but it would have been a much different war. To my knowledge, no political leaders in those days asked writers or cartoonists (or band-leaders) not to mock the enemy. I doubt if FDR asked Spike Jones to take it easy on Hitler. Ditto for cartoonists who caricatured Japanese Emperor Hirohito and his samurai warriors. Well into the 1950s, war “comics” depicted Japanese soldiers in the most grotesque racist fashion, and contained violent dialog about sending them “to their ancestors”. That this was actually a crude allusion to Shintoism received not the slightest recognition. Pamphlets claiming that Catholics planned to take over the world also circulated then. Protestant ministers were mostly depicted in films as degenerate drunks, a la Elmer Gantry. (It was equal-opportunity religion-trashing.) Buddhism and Islam were not on the American radar screen. Recently, much political and journalistic angst has been expended over twelve cartoons depicting Muhammed that were published last year by a Danish newspaper. After five months – during which time the drawings caused no apparent offence to anyone, either Muslim or Infidel – the “Arab Street” finally erupted over the “insult” of printing the Prophet’s likeness. During recent riots in Lebanon, Syria, Pakistan and Afghanistan, angry mobs have torched Danish and Austrian embassies and Danish-owned businesses. (What the Austrians did is not clear at this writing. Maybe Europeans all look alike to mob-extras.) Consequently, the Danish cartoonists have gone into hiding. Most editors of American and British newspapers have declined to publish the offensive material, citing sensitivity to Muslim feelings and respect for their faith. (The Washington Post and New York Times – those fearless crusaders of free speech – have made nary a move to publish the cartoons.) Even President Bush felt constrained to urge respect for other religions. To the surprise of many, a furious debate over press freedom is now raging across Europe, as several French and German papers have published the subject cartoons in defiance of open threats from radical Muslim factions. The cartoons are on the Internet, and I have looked at them. To my possibly jaded western eye, none looks very offensive – within the usual western meaning of the term. (Even Muslims might have smiled at Muhammed telling Muslim warriors at the Pearly Gates that they have run out of virgins.) Certainly, none approaches the degraded level of Piss Christ – the highly acclaimed photograph of a crucifix immersed in a glass of urine – which took the New York “artistic” world by storm in 1987. Although Christians protested its National Endowment for the Arts subsidy, no political or “street” pressure was brought against the photographer, Andres Serrano. How the Muhammed cartoons look to me (or to Americans or Europeans), however, is not the only question. How they look to Muslims is at issue, too. But here the waters become murky. Reports seem to differ over whether drawing the Prophet’s likeness is truly prohibited under Islamic law. Columnist Tony Snow points out that a Danish Imam named Abu Laban tried for five months to agitate the Arab Street over the cartoons, across the Middle East, without result. Only after Laban and other provocateurs fabricated a skein of lies – including false charges that Danes were planning a movie mocking Muhammed and that the Danish government had burned, desecrated and banned the Koran (hoi! not the Koran in the toilet again!) – did mobs riot in the aforementioned countries. More than a dozen lives have been lost thus far. I admit to being troika-minded on the issue. On one hand, I dislike grotesque characterizations of religion and disrespect toward adherents. This is not what America and Americans are about. I don’t believe in Islam, but I wouldn’t countenance desecrating their houses of worship, books, or other symbols. Some Muslim clergy might actually be preaching edition and violence, but I don’t want the cops knocking over their prayer or worship services to get evidence. Secondly, only American laws and customs apply in America. We are not under sharia (i.e., Muslim law for Infidels). These were, after all, only drawings – far from “offensive” as we understand the term. Muslims can insist all they want that cartoons of Muhammed are an offence to Islam, but Americans won’t buy it. (As they say in Jersey – so sue me.) Thirdly – and most significantly, I think – religious tolerance in the USA is really a “gentleman’s agreement” between adherents of various faiths. Believers from various traditions and religions agree to let each guy worship as he wants in return for his agreement to let others do the same. Everyone minds his own business, keeps his own traditions, and obeys his religious rules without trespassing on another’s rights to keep his traditions or to keep none . And no one gets to say his brand of faith is The One that supersedes all others in the American system. This is a pretty important deal – actually codified in our Constitution (Amendment #1). We haven’t always been perfect at honoring it, but mostly we have done so. The difficulty (for us) comes when this agreement clashes with other agreements – like those about free speech and a free press (also mentioned in Amendment #1) – or when some parties try to elevate one agreement and subordinate others to it. Some Muslims in this country are trying to do this by proclaiming that respect for their religion must trump free speech or freedom of the press. This argument might fly, had Christians ever benefited from such an arrangement in the USA. Clearly, though, that has not been so. Muslims are trying to make their religion into a special case, exempt from criticism and adverse characterizations. What is more, they want non-believers to honor Islam’s traditions and rules. Anyone who understands Americans – even a little – knows this is not going to happen. This news is bad enough. But the really bad news is that this insistence on special treatment is backed up by the sword. Unlike Methodists or Quakers, Muslims don’t write letters to the editor when they think their religion has been dissed. Instead, they fire rockets, throw bombs, or fly airplanes into buildings. They stab movie producers and pin notes to them, or they kidnap teachers and behead them on camera. They do not play by the Marquis of Queensbury rules. The fact is that our oh-so-modern politeness and sensitivity toward Islam is being driven by a very old-fashioned dynamic: F-E-A-R. From President Bush and his Secretary of State, down to film directors, writers and editors of every small-town newspaper in America, FEAR is the new reality – the big dog on the block. Today, nobody is merrily singing, “Venn Muhammed says, ‘Vee iss der master race…’” because each of us knows he could end up on video-tape, pleading for his life, before starring in his own beheading. This is the first time in our history that Americans have been cowed into quiescence toward an external enemy. It is the first time our traditions of free speech and action have been threatened directly. And it is all because this is the first time an enemy has been able to touch us significantly in our own land while living among us with relative impunity. Eventually, we’re going to figure out what has to be done to defeat this ruthless enemy, and we’ll all start pulling together. But before we get there, things will get a lot uglier than just a few cartoons. The Nazis were real bad guys, but they’ll look like gentlemen next to Usama, Abu Laban, and the rest of that gang. Before we finish them, a lot of Americans who thought this war was somebody else’s fight will find out – like the Danish cartoonists – that they’re in it too.
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