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Charlie Hebdo: We must not stop laughing at these murderous clowns Charlie Hebdo: We must not stop laughing at these murderous clowns
(35 minutes later)
The death threats come with the territory. Since the advent of the internet, people around the world who are disgusted or enraged by my cartoons have been able to threaten to kill me via email. Over the years these have included Muslims, Zionists, Republican Americans, a few angry Chomskyians, Catholics, Russians, some Serbs, and, I imagine, a large number of teenage boys locked in their bedrooms “having a laugh”. Hitherto I’ve tended, in my turn, to laugh them off, joking that a death threat by email doesn’t count: it needs a letter sent to my home address containing one of my loved ones’ ears to be taken seriously.The death threats come with the territory. Since the advent of the internet, people around the world who are disgusted or enraged by my cartoons have been able to threaten to kill me via email. Over the years these have included Muslims, Zionists, Republican Americans, a few angry Chomskyians, Catholics, Russians, some Serbs, and, I imagine, a large number of teenage boys locked in their bedrooms “having a laugh”. Hitherto I’ve tended, in my turn, to laugh them off, joking that a death threat by email doesn’t count: it needs a letter sent to my home address containing one of my loved ones’ ears to be taken seriously.
However, after the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous and the paper’s editor-in-chief Stéphane Charbonnier, who signed himself “Charb”, there’s a terrible temptation to stop laughing. Although that, I believe, would be a fundamental error.However, after the murders of the Charlie Hebdo cartoonists Cabu, Wolinski, Tignous and the paper’s editor-in-chief Stéphane Charbonnier, who signed himself “Charb”, there’s a terrible temptation to stop laughing. Although that, I believe, would be a fundamental error.
Laughter, it needs to be shouted, is one of the things humans do best, mostly because it makes us feel better. I’ve been convinced for years that laughter is a hardwired evolutionary survival mechanism that helps humans navigate our way through life without going mad with existentialist terror. That’s why we laugh at all those terrifying things like death, sex, other people and the disgusting stuff that pours out of our bodies on a daily basis.Laughter, it needs to be shouted, is one of the things humans do best, mostly because it makes us feel better. I’ve been convinced for years that laughter is a hardwired evolutionary survival mechanism that helps humans navigate our way through life without going mad with existentialist terror. That’s why we laugh at all those terrifying things like death, sex, other people and the disgusting stuff that pours out of our bodies on a daily basis.
Moreover, we’re very very good at laughing at those who place themselves above us, either as our leaders or intending to impose their beliefs to make everyone else exactly like them. That’s the basis of the craft I shared with my murdered colleagues in Paris. This universal capacity to use mockery as a form of social control is one of the main things that makes us human. Crucially, it’s also in defiance of the primary need of the powerful to be taken seriously, often against all the external evidence of their innate absurdity. Moreover, we’re very, very good at laughing at those who place themselves above us, either as our leaders or intending to impose their beliefs to make everyone else exactly like them. That’s the basis of the craft I shared with my murdered colleagues in Paris. This universal capacity to use mockery as a form of social control is one of the main things that makes us human. Crucially, it’s also in defiance of the primary need of the powerful to be taken seriously, often against all the external evidence of their innate absurdity.
In fact I suspect that throughout history that’s how political and religious power gained their original heft, by terrorising everyone else in suppressing their giggles at the endless cavalcade of priest-kings, emperors, thrones, courts, burning bushes, virgin births, hidden imams, flying horses and all the rest of it.In fact I suspect that throughout history that’s how political and religious power gained their original heft, by terrorising everyone else in suppressing their giggles at the endless cavalcade of priest-kings, emperors, thrones, courts, burning bushes, virgin births, hidden imams, flying horses and all the rest of it.
But even then, there appears to be something exquisitely intolerable to the serious mind about mockery when it’s visual. Largely this is due to the way the visual is consumed: rather than nibbling your way through text, however incendiary, a cartoon floods the eyes, gets swallowed whole and often makes the recipient choke. Worse, cartoons should be seen more as a kind of sympathetic magic than anything else: we steal our subjects’ souls by recreating them through caricature and then mock them in narratives of our own devising. Worst of all, we then pretend that it’s all just a good natured laugh: it is a laugh, but it’s also assassination without the blood. But even then there appears to be something exquisitely intolerable to the serious mind about mockery when it’s visual. Largely this is due to the way the visual is consumed: rather than nibbling your way through text, however incendiary, a cartoon floods the eyes, gets swallowed whole and often makes the recipient choke. Worse, cartoons should be seen more as a kind of sympathetic magic than anything else: we steal our subjects’ souls by recreating them through caricature and then mock them in narratives of our own devising. Worst of all, we then pretend that it’s all just a good natured laugh: it is a laugh, but it’s also assassination without the blood.
“Without the blood” is the key phrase. In a weirdly indefinable but obvious way, satirists can only really function when it’s hideously clear the objects of their mockery are much more powerful and with a far deadlier armoury than the satirists, as was demonstrated with such foul clarity in Paris this Wednesday. “Without the blood” is the key phrase. In a weirdly indefinable but obvious way, satirists can only really function when it’s hideously clear that the objects of their mockery are much more powerful and with a far deadlier armoury than the satirists, as was demonstrated with such foul clarity in Paris yesterday.
But is that entirely true? Almost nine years ago, when the Danish cartoons storm erupted, I argued publicly that I thought Jyllands Posten had been wrong to commission cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, as I suspected they were just another salvo in the paper’s decades-long campaign against immigrants, many of whom were Muslim, most of them poor and powerless, some of them cleaning the toilets in Jyllands Posten’s offices. I was roundly condemned by many for betraying free speech. Maybe I was, but claiming the greatest freedom is to say whatever you want about anyone whomsoever you choose is ultimately as ludicrous as demanding that freedom from being offended – from being upset, in other words – trumps every other human right. On that occasion the blood flowed in gallons, but mostly unnoticed or unreported as it gushed exclusively from over 100 Muslims, shot dead by Muslim police or soldiers on the streets of Muslim countries after they’d been fomented into rioting by Muslim clerics eager to flex their political muscles. But is that entirely true? Almost nine years ago, when the Danish cartoons storm erupted, I argued publicly that I thought Jyllands Posten had been wrong to commission cartoons of the prophet Muhammad, as I suspected they were just another salvo in the paper’s decades-long campaign against immigrants, many of whom were Muslim, most of them poor and powerless, some of them cleaning the toilets in Jyllands Posten’s offices. I was roundly condemned by many for betraying free speech. Maybe I was, but claiming the greatest freedom is to say whatever you want about anyone whomsoever you choose is ultimately as ludicrous as demanding that freedom from being offended – from being upset, in other words – trumps every other human right. On that occasion the blood flowed in gallons, but mostly unnoticed or unreported as it gushed exclusively from more than 100 Muslims, shot dead by Muslim police or soldiers on the streets of Muslim countries after they’d been fomented into rioting by Muslim clerics eager to flex their political muscles.
This time it’s cartoonists’ blood that’s been shed. Yet however much they may identify themselves as victims of mockery, those cartoonists’ murderers have clearly also identified themselves as on the side of the power, electing to act as agents avenging the hurt feelings of the most Powerful Being in The Universe. Don’t forget that demanding either respect or silence from everyone else is one of the most common abuses of power going.This time it’s cartoonists’ blood that’s been shed. Yet however much they may identify themselves as victims of mockery, those cartoonists’ murderers have clearly also identified themselves as on the side of the power, electing to act as agents avenging the hurt feelings of the most Powerful Being in The Universe. Don’t forget that demanding either respect or silence from everyone else is one of the most common abuses of power going.
But don’t fool yourselves this is about Islam. It was the Islamists’ secularist enemy Bashar al-Assad who got his thugs to break the fingers of the Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat four years ago. The Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali was murdered in London in 1987 by a student who claims to have been a double agent for Mossad and the PLO. The British cartoonists’ names filling the Gestapo Death List were just another manifestation, throughout history, of how hateful laughter is to despots. Which is why, now more than ever, we mustn’t stop laughing this latest bunch of murderous clowns to scorn. But don’t fool yourselves that this is about Islam. It was the Islamists’ secularist enemy Bashar al-Assad who got his thugs to break the fingers of the Syrian cartoonist Ali Ferzat four years ago. The Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali was murdered in London in 1987 by a student who claims to have been a double agent for Mossad and the PLO. The British cartoonists’ names filling the Gestapo Death List were just another manifestation, throughout history, of how hateful laughter is to despots. Which is why, now more than ever, we mustn’t stop laughing this latest bunch of murderous clowns to scorn.
Charlie Hebdo is planning to continue its magazine next week. As chairman of the British Cartoonists’ Association, I am calling on my fellow cartoonists to join me in donating a free drawing. Charlie Hebdo is planning to continue printing its magazine next week. As chairman of the British Cartoonists’ Association, I am calling on my fellow cartoonists to join me in donating a free drawing.