http://tabletmag.com/jewish-arts-and-cul...protesters
EXCERPT: The great peculiarity of the PEN-and-Charlie Hebdo controversy earlier this month was a combination of ostensible agreement on values [...] and spectacular disagreement on facts. The protesters, most of them, wanted the world to know that, in regard to press freedoms, their commitments were absolute. Willingly they would defend the right even of Nazis to say whatever terrible things Nazis might say, as the ACLU once did in Illinois. But they honestly believed that Charlie Hebdo is a reactionary magazine, racist against blacks and bigoted against Muslims, obsessively anti-Islamic, intent on bullying the immigrant masses in France. A dreadful magazine. Nazi-like, even—therefore, a magazine not even remotely worthy of an award from PEN. On these points the protesters were adamant. Only, why?
[...] A modest heap of useful information about racism in France and the distinctly non-Nazi political nature of Charlie Hebdo and its cartoons did accumulate during the course of the affair, and the modest heap ought normally to have changed a few minds. Nobody’s mind seemed to change, however. Would an additional sprinkling of facts and authoritative endorsements have helped? I attended the PEN Gala and listened to the speeches and found myself wishing that my friends among the protesters, having boasted to the entire universe of their boycott, had sneaked in, anyway. They would have watched the leaders of PEN bestow the award on Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staffers, and this would have of course been galling, given what they believed about the magazine. They would have heard Charlie Hebdo’s editor utter his incisive mot, “Being shocked is part of democratic debate. Being shot is not,” which was impressive and true and maybe immortal, yet would have left them unmoved because it did not speak to their objection. But what would they have made of the speech by Dominique Sopo, who is the president of an organization called SOS Racisme? SOS Racisme is the liveliest and most prominent civil-rights organization in France, and its president’s speech was the liveliest moment of the controversy. The moment of maximum lucidity. At the Gala, Sopo did get a cheer.
[...] Yes, what would the protesting writers at PEN have made of any of this, if only their own boycott had not prevented them from hearing Sopo make his argument? Or if they had conducted a bit more research into Charlie Hebdo and its politics? They would not have enjoyed hearing Sopo deliver one remark in particular. “It is very important that we do not kill those who died a second time,” said the president of SOS Racisme. This meant: “You Americans who know nothing about the struggles of us immigrants and children of immigrants in France, you Americans who consider Charlie Hebdo to be unworthy of an award from PEN—you Americans should stop slandering our murdered comrades.” In sum, “Touches pas à mon pote.” I suppose the protesters would have shrugged this off, as they shrugged off the remarks of everyone else who tried to reason with them.
Only, why? Is it really true that, in the ranks of PEN, one person after another is blinded by a provincial ignorance of everything not American, beginning with France’s language and ending with its cartoons? At the gala, the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Bob Mankoff, lamented into the microphone that, when it comes to cartoons, not everybody gets the joke; and it may be that, in regard to Charlie Hebdo, an American education does make it hard to get the joke. The Charlie cartoonists have worked up a double-entendre ironic style that amounts to a politically incorrect anti-racism. This is inconceivable, from a certain American standpoint; and what is inconceivable must not exist. In the Charlie cartoons, Arabs sometimes have hooked noses and big lips, not to mention the Jews, not to mention the blacks! This does not mean that Charlie Hebdo is Der Stürmer. The protesters at PEN believed otherwise. They were aghast. Nazi comparisons became a trope of their protest. The Charlie cartoonists sometimes cultivate a raucous style aimed at 16-year-olds. This makes the cartoons look even worse to Americans whose beau ideal is The New Yorker. We sophisticates adore the elegance of Jules Feiffer (and yet, in reality, the Charlie cartoonists command more than one style, and Luz, in his brand-new cartoon memoir, has drawn some dancing terrorists in a visibly Feifferian mode, and it is a mistake to underestimate the French arts).
But I don’t take the argument about American parochialism too seriously. PEN American Center may be full of odd ducks, as befits a literary institution, and there is always someone who enjoys waving a demagogic fist, but the odd ducks and fist-wavers (as I remember keenly from my years on the PEN board) tend to be well- and even polyglotically educated. Even today, if you spend enough time at one of the café tables lining the Boulevard Saint-Germain, a goodly percentage of PEN’s American membership will eventually give you the pleasure of strolling by, on their way to the American literary tradition that is the Brasserie Lipp. And everyone among the more prominent writers has French friends and publishers and translators and friends of friends—which means that, among the protesters at PEN during these last few weeks, something more than Uncle Sam know-nothing-ism must account for the peculiarly American upset over Charlie Hebdo.
[...] I think that panic has set in. The panic was of course provoked by the Islamists, beginning 10 years ago with the campaign against the Jyllands-Posten caricatures of Muhammad (and against Charlie Hebdo, too, after Charlie had loyally reprinted the Danish cartoons). And the panic has been unwittingly compounded, modified, and disseminated by the principal English-language news organizations, beginning in that same 2005 with their decision, poorly thought-out, to refrain from reprinting or broadcasting the Danish cartoons—this early decision that set the precedent for this year’s decision not to reproduce Charlie Hebdo’s post-massacre cartoon of the prophet. And the PEN controversy shows the consequences.
The terrorists launched their campaign against cartoonists because of the fundamentalist injunction against icon worship, combined with the grand supernatural conspiracy theory that dominates Islamist political doctrine.
[...] The major English-language news organizations compounded the hysteria by deciding to regard it as other than hysterical. Everyone knows that, in the cases of the Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo alike, and perhaps in a few other cases, too, the journalistic logic for reprinting or broadcasting the cartoons was and is overwhelming. The cartoon crisis has been a significant event in world affairs for 10 years now, and it is impossible to understand the crisis without seeing the cartoons. The news organizations, in justifying their decision not to reproduce the images, have not seriously argued otherwise. The news organizations have taken the position, instead, that, if they were to publish or broadcast the images, they would inflict a tremendous emotional wound on their Muslim readers and viewers—a wound so grievous as to counterbalance the public’s need to examine the cartoons, including everyone among the public who might be Muslim.
And yet, the cartoons are offensive or injurious only if you assume the fundamentalist injunction and the demonic conspiracy theory. Otherwise, nothing in them is illegitimate or especially offensive. The most famous of the Danish cartoons shows Muhammad as a suicide bomber with a lunatic look in his eyes and a bomb tucked into his turban, which is obviously a reasonable commentary on the deplorable uses to the which the prophet has been put. The Danish cartoon is even somewhat witty, given that, in Western art and poetry during the last few hundred years, Muhammad has been conventionally portrayed in the way you can see on the frieze of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., as a lofty and law-giving hero of world civilization. And here was the Danish cartoon to point out that, in the hands of the terrorists, Muhammad has lately been assigned an opposite role. The famous January Charlie Hebdo cover by Luz, entirely different, offers, of course, a defense of Prophet Muhammad against the terrorists themselves—in fine display of Charlie Hebdo’s nuanced instincts and sympathy for ordinary Muslims.
[...] I could go through the list of famous names among the American protesters, recording the insults they have tossed at the murdered French cartoonists and their colleagues, but I do not have the heart for it. I make a prediction, though. I predict that, next year, or in five years, some other novelist or memoirist or artist somewhere in the world will have the good luck to escape an Islamist assassination attempt or massacre. And when the terrified survivor comes limping afterward into Manhattan, in search of solace and friends, that person, too, will discover that, in some of the finest of circles of literary New York, everybody hates a loser, and the protesters have gathered on the sidewalk outside the hotel, and the vilification has begun....
EXCERPT: The great peculiarity of the PEN-and-Charlie Hebdo controversy earlier this month was a combination of ostensible agreement on values [...] and spectacular disagreement on facts. The protesters, most of them, wanted the world to know that, in regard to press freedoms, their commitments were absolute. Willingly they would defend the right even of Nazis to say whatever terrible things Nazis might say, as the ACLU once did in Illinois. But they honestly believed that Charlie Hebdo is a reactionary magazine, racist against blacks and bigoted against Muslims, obsessively anti-Islamic, intent on bullying the immigrant masses in France. A dreadful magazine. Nazi-like, even—therefore, a magazine not even remotely worthy of an award from PEN. On these points the protesters were adamant. Only, why?
[...] A modest heap of useful information about racism in France and the distinctly non-Nazi political nature of Charlie Hebdo and its cartoons did accumulate during the course of the affair, and the modest heap ought normally to have changed a few minds. Nobody’s mind seemed to change, however. Would an additional sprinkling of facts and authoritative endorsements have helped? I attended the PEN Gala and listened to the speeches and found myself wishing that my friends among the protesters, having boasted to the entire universe of their boycott, had sneaked in, anyway. They would have watched the leaders of PEN bestow the award on Charlie Hebdo’s surviving staffers, and this would have of course been galling, given what they believed about the magazine. They would have heard Charlie Hebdo’s editor utter his incisive mot, “Being shocked is part of democratic debate. Being shot is not,” which was impressive and true and maybe immortal, yet would have left them unmoved because it did not speak to their objection. But what would they have made of the speech by Dominique Sopo, who is the president of an organization called SOS Racisme? SOS Racisme is the liveliest and most prominent civil-rights organization in France, and its president’s speech was the liveliest moment of the controversy. The moment of maximum lucidity. At the Gala, Sopo did get a cheer.
[...] Yes, what would the protesting writers at PEN have made of any of this, if only their own boycott had not prevented them from hearing Sopo make his argument? Or if they had conducted a bit more research into Charlie Hebdo and its politics? They would not have enjoyed hearing Sopo deliver one remark in particular. “It is very important that we do not kill those who died a second time,” said the president of SOS Racisme. This meant: “You Americans who know nothing about the struggles of us immigrants and children of immigrants in France, you Americans who consider Charlie Hebdo to be unworthy of an award from PEN—you Americans should stop slandering our murdered comrades.” In sum, “Touches pas à mon pote.” I suppose the protesters would have shrugged this off, as they shrugged off the remarks of everyone else who tried to reason with them.
Only, why? Is it really true that, in the ranks of PEN, one person after another is blinded by a provincial ignorance of everything not American, beginning with France’s language and ending with its cartoons? At the gala, the cartoon editor of The New Yorker, Bob Mankoff, lamented into the microphone that, when it comes to cartoons, not everybody gets the joke; and it may be that, in regard to Charlie Hebdo, an American education does make it hard to get the joke. The Charlie cartoonists have worked up a double-entendre ironic style that amounts to a politically incorrect anti-racism. This is inconceivable, from a certain American standpoint; and what is inconceivable must not exist. In the Charlie cartoons, Arabs sometimes have hooked noses and big lips, not to mention the Jews, not to mention the blacks! This does not mean that Charlie Hebdo is Der Stürmer. The protesters at PEN believed otherwise. They were aghast. Nazi comparisons became a trope of their protest. The Charlie cartoonists sometimes cultivate a raucous style aimed at 16-year-olds. This makes the cartoons look even worse to Americans whose beau ideal is The New Yorker. We sophisticates adore the elegance of Jules Feiffer (and yet, in reality, the Charlie cartoonists command more than one style, and Luz, in his brand-new cartoon memoir, has drawn some dancing terrorists in a visibly Feifferian mode, and it is a mistake to underestimate the French arts).
But I don’t take the argument about American parochialism too seriously. PEN American Center may be full of odd ducks, as befits a literary institution, and there is always someone who enjoys waving a demagogic fist, but the odd ducks and fist-wavers (as I remember keenly from my years on the PEN board) tend to be well- and even polyglotically educated. Even today, if you spend enough time at one of the café tables lining the Boulevard Saint-Germain, a goodly percentage of PEN’s American membership will eventually give you the pleasure of strolling by, on their way to the American literary tradition that is the Brasserie Lipp. And everyone among the more prominent writers has French friends and publishers and translators and friends of friends—which means that, among the protesters at PEN during these last few weeks, something more than Uncle Sam know-nothing-ism must account for the peculiarly American upset over Charlie Hebdo.
[...] I think that panic has set in. The panic was of course provoked by the Islamists, beginning 10 years ago with the campaign against the Jyllands-Posten caricatures of Muhammad (and against Charlie Hebdo, too, after Charlie had loyally reprinted the Danish cartoons). And the panic has been unwittingly compounded, modified, and disseminated by the principal English-language news organizations, beginning in that same 2005 with their decision, poorly thought-out, to refrain from reprinting or broadcasting the Danish cartoons—this early decision that set the precedent for this year’s decision not to reproduce Charlie Hebdo’s post-massacre cartoon of the prophet. And the PEN controversy shows the consequences.
The terrorists launched their campaign against cartoonists because of the fundamentalist injunction against icon worship, combined with the grand supernatural conspiracy theory that dominates Islamist political doctrine.
[...] The major English-language news organizations compounded the hysteria by deciding to regard it as other than hysterical. Everyone knows that, in the cases of the Jyllands-Posten and Charlie Hebdo alike, and perhaps in a few other cases, too, the journalistic logic for reprinting or broadcasting the cartoons was and is overwhelming. The cartoon crisis has been a significant event in world affairs for 10 years now, and it is impossible to understand the crisis without seeing the cartoons. The news organizations, in justifying their decision not to reproduce the images, have not seriously argued otherwise. The news organizations have taken the position, instead, that, if they were to publish or broadcast the images, they would inflict a tremendous emotional wound on their Muslim readers and viewers—a wound so grievous as to counterbalance the public’s need to examine the cartoons, including everyone among the public who might be Muslim.
And yet, the cartoons are offensive or injurious only if you assume the fundamentalist injunction and the demonic conspiracy theory. Otherwise, nothing in them is illegitimate or especially offensive. The most famous of the Danish cartoons shows Muhammad as a suicide bomber with a lunatic look in his eyes and a bomb tucked into his turban, which is obviously a reasonable commentary on the deplorable uses to the which the prophet has been put. The Danish cartoon is even somewhat witty, given that, in Western art and poetry during the last few hundred years, Muhammad has been conventionally portrayed in the way you can see on the frieze of the Supreme Court building in Washington, D.C., as a lofty and law-giving hero of world civilization. And here was the Danish cartoon to point out that, in the hands of the terrorists, Muhammad has lately been assigned an opposite role. The famous January Charlie Hebdo cover by Luz, entirely different, offers, of course, a defense of Prophet Muhammad against the terrorists themselves—in fine display of Charlie Hebdo’s nuanced instincts and sympathy for ordinary Muslims.
[...] I could go through the list of famous names among the American protesters, recording the insults they have tossed at the murdered French cartoonists and their colleagues, but I do not have the heart for it. I make a prediction, though. I predict that, next year, or in five years, some other novelist or memoirist or artist somewhere in the world will have the good luck to escape an Islamist assassination attempt or massacre. And when the terrified survivor comes limping afterward into Manhattan, in search of solace and friends, that person, too, will discover that, in some of the finest of circles of literary New York, everybody hates a loser, and the protesters have gathered on the sidewalk outside the hotel, and the vilification has begun....