I learned today of a particularly disturbing political cartoon published on September 4th in the Columbus (Ohio) Post-Dispatch. Drawn by Michael Ramirez, the cartoon very much illustrates themes I’ve written about here several times before — that when all else in the Middle East fails, the change-the-subject Bush/Cheney Administration and friends can resort to the fail-safe “blame Iran game” as the root of all such troubles.
The cartoon in question displays a regional map with Iran and a sewer pipe at its center, the source of hordes of cockroaches infesting the region. You can see the Dispatch version here. I have since discovered that the cartoon was first published on June 25th, in full color, in the internationally circulated Investors’ Business Daily. (click here or here)
Before presenting additional details about the artist and the controversy, I am pleased to publish here an eloquent and courageous open letter to the Columbus Post-Dispatch, from Marsha B. Cohen, a scholarly colleague at Florida International University in Miami. (with my emphasis added)
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From: Marsha Cohen
To the Editor: Columbus Post Dispatch
For over four decades, Fidel Castro has been considered one of the most odious leaders in the Western hemisphere. After he took power, hundreds of thousands of Cubans fled their island home for Miami (where I live and work), and where they have prospered. Many of them have been among the most vocal opponents of any moves by the US government to normalize relations with Cuba. Even now that Castro is old and sick, and at death’s door, he remains a hated symbol of a revolution gone wrong, that rapidly morphed into a detested enemy of the interests and values of the US.
Nevertheless, no Florida newspaper would ever dare to depict Cuba as a sewer, with cockroaches from it spreading out across North and South America. The outrage expressed, even by the regime’s most vociferous opponents, to the insult to their Cuban identity and beloved homeland, would put the police on crisis alert, and make headlines throughout the entire country.
Yet in an editorial cartoon, published on Sept 4. the Columbus Dispatch had no compunctions about portraying Iran as a sewer, and Iranians as cockroaches. Its decision to do so–regardless of the political motives of the editorial board, of the artist, or the message they were trying to convey–is unfortunate, and reflects more shamefully on the values and integrity of your newspaper than on the Iranian people, both in Iran and and those who have made their home in this country and other parts of the world, that this cartoon (whether intentionally or unintentionally) maligned and demeaned.
I hope that every organization that considers itself a champion of civil and human rights will express its outrage at the publication of this cartoon. Had the “cockroaches” been designated Jews, Blacks or Hispanics, the cartoon never would have made it into print in a respectable newspaper. And if it did, the objections and the fury generated throughout the community would have been loud, swift and resonant.
Anyone who would not want to see themselves and their ethnic group depicted in this way by a cartoonist is morally obligated to vociferously object to its publication. While the rights of a free press may extend to the promotion of racism, hatred and dehumanization, this does not mean you, as a newspaper, are obligated to exercise that right, or that decent people everywhere should not denounce your decision to do so when you do. Your disgusting representation of Iranians–irrespective of their regime–deserves nothing less than nationwide condemnation.
Sincerely,
Marsha B. Cohen
Miami, Florida
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Well said and thanks Marsha Cohen.
A few additional tidbits on the cartoonist and the controversy:
1. Again, the cartoon was first published in late June in The Investors’ Business Daily, where Ramirez has been based since 2005. Ramirez columns are syndicated via the Copley News Service, potentially to over 400 local papers. That has me wondering why the cartoon only now is getting attention. (If anybody has any evidence of reactions published to the original IBD version or reprints elsewhere, please post to the discussion.)
2. Michael Ramirez is no rookie cartoonist, having begun his career over 20 years ago, over half of that time with the Los Angeles Times. Indeed, he’s won several prestigious recognitions for his work, including a Pulitzer Prize (sic) in 1994.
3. Yet Ramirez is also no stranger to controversy. An October 2000 cartoon of his has two persons “Worshiping Their God” in front of the Jerusalem “Wailing Wall” – with large block letters “HATE” emanating prominently from the stones.
The wall cartoon inspired a critical firestorm from readers and Jewish organizations like the Anti-Defamation League who deemed the cartoon to be branding Jews as blinded by hate. Ramirez responded to the controversy by claiming he drew both a Jew and a Muslim as together “worshiping hate.” Yet the LATimes ombudsman at the time agreed with the “unprecedented” protests:
Obviously, the cartoon failed to communicate his (Ramirez’s) message. In addition, virtually no one saw the image as anything but the Western Wall, the use of which in the cartoon was careless and insensitive.”
One might generously surmise today that Ramirez has become an equal-opportunity offender, with careless insensitivity for all.
4. A Columbus Dispatch Editor, Glenn Sheller, has lamely defended the Ramirez cartoon, in part, by claiming that it equates “extremism,” not all Iranians, with cockroaches.
Yet without a magnifying class, one will be hard-pressed to find the fine print “extremism” in the cartoon. Even in the original color IBD version, you can only make out the word “extremism” if someone tells you to look for it, and even then it’s badly smudged. Compare that with the prominent white letters for Iran, at the center of the cockroach plague.
If the Dispatch or IBD had an ombudsman review this like the LATimes, they would conclude now, as in 2000, that “virtually no one saw the image as anything but {Iran}, the use of which in the cartoon was careless and insensitive.”
I wonder if the ADL has had, or will have, anything to say about the blatant racism inherent in this cartoon?
If not, are Iranians being set up as insidious, inhuman, pests, for which the final solution is to exterminate them?
let them do what they used to be doing years ago, when Saddam invade Kuwait, US media showed Saddam’s cartoon in toilets the flush pushed then Saddam’s cartoon went down inside the toilets.
That cartoon prompted Saddam to put GWB senior photo on the pathway of Baghdad Sheraton Hotel where all VIP official walk pass through that Pathway over GWB Senior!!!
So if Saddam did that its not a shameful thing done as such because he is some one uncivilized dictator leader from the Third World, isn’t?
But a civilized country proud of liberty’s Statue standing high in the capital bringing these doggy things is so shameful, discussing and vomoting.
Let laugh all here:
SYDNEY, Australia — President Bush had a terrible, horrible, no good, very bad day at the Sydney Opera House.
He’d only reached the third sentence of Friday’s speech to business leaders, on the sidelines of the Asia-Pacific Economic Cooperation forum, when he committed his first gaffe.
“Thank you for being such a fine host for the OPEC summit,” Bush said to Australian Prime Minister John Howard.
The president’s next goof went uncorrected — by him anyway. Talking about Howard’s visit to Iraq last year to thank his country’s soldiers serving there, Bush called them “Austrian troops.”
Then, speech done, Bush confidently headed out — the wrong way.
He strode away from the lectern on a path that would have sent him over a steep drop. Howard and others redirected the president to center stage, where there were steps leading down to the floor of the theater.
http://www.ctv.ca/servlet/ArticleNews/story/CTVNews/20070907/APEC_BUSH_070907/20070907?hub=CTVNewsAt11
The problem with Marsha Cohen’s letter is that it is cowardly. Does Cohen really believe what she says about Cuba? One doubts it, her rote denunciation is designed to curry favour with those who rule Florida. The truth is indivisible: it is impossible to have a reasonable discussion on Iran while condoning cheap and misleading demagogy about Cuba.
There are an increasing number of subjects in the US on which public debate has ceased and it has become necessary to demonstrate one’s loyalty by trotting out the Party Line: one is Cuba, another is Israel. The result is that when the question of attacking a country comes up, the question is already half decided because it is almost impossible for reason to be heard over the cacophony of racism and bigotry evoked by the mere mention of names like Hamas, Hizbollah and whatever else is on the current litany of Public Hating.
The real fault of the cartoon, apart from a sub realist style, is one of perspective: the sewer cover is the artist’s vantage point. From it he views the world.
the cacophony of racism and bigotry …..is one of perspective: the sewer cover is the artist’s vantage point. From it he views the world.
Yes that said, in other world reflects the attitude of colonialism/imperialism
the necessity for a human being to dehumanize and marginalize another human being in order to kill them. Dehumanization is a mind game military-leaders the world over have used to indoctrinate recruits with and it also seems to be the case with these mercenary soldiers.
Sanded In Baghdad
Tom Fox
Tuesday, July 12, 2005
Shah of Iran on Persian Gulf, and American
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=hQgZ3oLp_WY&mode=related&search=
Shah of Iran and Anwar Sadat
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=j1fzFNsu15U
Hey Bevin, I think you missed the comparative point Marsha was making in referencing the Cuban-American communit(ies) where she lives in South Florida. Whatever we may think of the current Cuban government, she is objectively observing that cubans of all political stripes (including those with the most intensely negative sentiments towards Castro) would have reacted in horror if a cartoonist had depicted their beloved Cuba in a similar “cockroach” fashion.
Marsha happens to be a keen observer of both Iranian and Israeli politics, and I can vouch that she is no “coward” in her very “independent” writings. (and she’s not any more “tenured” anywhere than I am — in the current atmosphere, saying anything that challenges the intense Iran-a-phobia in our land takes “courage.”) Branding Marsha a “coward” seems an unfortunate cheap shot.
I am happy to cast my lot with Marsha and other voices daring to suggest that something has gone very wrong in our public discourse.
If I am not wrong in this, Marsha B. Cohen, a scholarly colleague at Florida International University in Miami,
She is more Israeli than American!! She is “an eloquent and courageous oh yah Scott
Hi Salah
I looked at the Marsha Cohen website you linked to. Thanks for the link
She is Jewish. Great. Her religion is her business.
She teaches International Relations of the Middle East which is interesting. I don’tknow about you but I do a scan of peoples bookshelves when I visit their offices and homes to get a picture of their mental processes.
If she is recommending the outspoken Ali Ansari as an author of undergraduate texbooks then she is not someone who trots out the party line. (this by the way qualifies her to respond to the Iran cartoon)
I looked at her syllabus for the undergraduate couse and I like what I see. She is making the students think and evaluate and challenge the press reporting by comparing it to facts.
Notice how she includes the MEMRI sites in her list of news sources. Juan Cole complains long and bitterly about the role of MEMRI in spreading disinfomation.
Use your blog to reflect critically about the news you are reading. Describe some of the contradictions you find between official and unofficial sources. What do you find most interesting? Confusing? Surprising? Disturbing? Do you think your country is portrayed fairly or accurately in the foreign (including U.S.) media? Why or why not? What are you learning about this country that you wouldn’t have known if you weren’t doing this project? Should this sort of information be more readily available or widely discussed in the U.S.?
Remember this is in the US where none of the cable networks will carry Al Jazeera TV.
I am helping a friend prepare a similar course on the Modern Middle East based around Fred Haliday’s “100 Myths about the Middle East”. It is about bringing the students into Edward Said’s process of unlearning.
It follows much the same lines as Professor Cohen’s course though Professor Halliday goes into some interesting areas like water.
So in response to your unstated question, I suspect that she is someone you can trust enough to read more of what she says.
I think she is one of the good guys.
Did you see this? Very offensive cartoon directed at Cuban Americans. No one outside their community said anything about it.
http://www.babalublog.com/archives/005908.html
Courtesy the Washington Post.
If she is recommending the outspoken Ali Ansari as an author of undergraduate texbooks then she is not someone who trots out the party line.
Based on the books and online sources listed on her web site, she doesn’t trot out anyone’s party line – which, I suspect, is Bevin’s real complaint.
Here is the response I got from the editor. I still can not figure out how I am misreading the cartoon?
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People are misreading the cartoon, but I support their right to do so.
I appreciate your support of a free press.
All the best,
Glenn Sheller
Editorial Page Editor
The Columbus Dispatch
614-461-5072
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Sent: Thursday, September 06, 2007 5:35 PM
To: michael.ramirez@investors.com
Cc: Glenn Sheller; info@cair.com
Subject: Iranians as Roaches Fleeing Sewer
As a Moslem and an Iranian I support your right to publish whatever you like no matter how hateful it is.
Peace
Fereydoun
http://iranians4ronpual.blogspot.com/
I see (thanks to payvand.com/news) that Kavah Afrasiabi has an excellent essay on same subject in the Asia Times:
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II11Ak06.html
He’s all too on-target in recalling an ominous parallel from the Nazi era…..
http://www.atimes.com/atimes/Middle_East/II11Ak06.html
One wonders if Mr. Sheller ever studied such events?
I’ll be curious to see if he’s bothered to publish any of the letters protesting the cartoon? (like the one sent in by Marsha Cohen?)
By the way Salah, I’m afraid you rather egregiously illustrated the insidious dangers at hand….
What should matter isn’t the ethnicity or identity of the person raising the concern, but the merits of the complaint itself.
Alas, it’s been your tendency to question/shoot the messenger first, and examine the message later, if then — though surely it’s a weakness we all should keep reminding ourselves of in these tense days.
Mr Sheller
It would be very helpful if you give your opinion about the cartoon so that all Iranians are not “misreading” the message. We all know what it means!
I see the Dispatch does have one on-line letter up:
http://www.dispatch.com/live/content/editorials/stories/2007/09/10/Jevrem_ART_09-10-07_A6_IA7RBL8.html?sid=101
(don’t know about the print version)
And fyi, here’s the contact info for Mr. Sheller and letters’ guidelines:
http://www.dispatch.com/dispatch/content/editorials/index.html
Last, in Kaveh’s essay, he references a romantic ditty about an idealist young Ohio native who today remains a hero among many Iranian nationalists (though the AT editor messes up the spelling — it’s Howard Baskerville, the young American history teacher who managed to get himself martyred in Tabriz, as Iran’s “Constitional Revolution” era was being crushed by the Russians/Brits — nearly 100 years ago.)
http://www.iranian.com/main/2007/ballad-howard-baskerville
I want to ask Michael Ramirez that does he really think Alquada, religious vahabi fanatic in Saudi Arabia, and muslim fanatics in Pakistans and all perpetrators of Sep 11 had anything to do with Iran? All the terrorism in recent years coming from US allies, Saudi Arabia, Egypt, and Pakistan.
taraneh,
Alquada, religious vahabi fanatic in Saudi Arabia
Regrettably this misleading statement.
It’s very clear under Islamic law and Quranic teaching these are criminals and gangs deserved to be punished in hard way for their crimes.
If the writer of the above post a Muslim by linking them or name them as “Religious”, “Muslims” is just not right, it’s wrong and should be very clear to all of you.
taraneh, your lines smears hatred to Arab very clear here.
“In his new book, The Enemy at Home: The Cultural Left and Its Responsibility for 9/11, far-right provocateur Dinesh D’Souza argues that Al Qaeda really does hate our freedoms–and so does he. Forget geopolitics–Israel/Palestine, US military bases in Saudi Arabia, our support for assorted corrupt regimes, Arab socioeconomic stagnation. No, 9/11 was provoked by feminism, birth control, abortion, pornography, feminism, Hollywood, divorce, the First Amendment, gay marriage, and did I mention feminism? Muslims fear the West is out to foist its depraved, licentious, secular “decadence” on their pious patriarchal societies. And, D’Souza argues, they’re right.”
Ayatollah D’Souza
By Katha Pollitt
http://www.thenation.com/doc/20070205/pollitt