Retten til at håne

Amerikanske aviser har generelt været tilbageholdende med at vise Jyllands-Postens karikaturer af Muhammed.

Og blandt "cartoonists" har der været delte meninger – såvel om JP's handlinger og om de danske tegneres rettigheder. Nogle af de amerikanske cartoonists har kritiseret JP-tegnerne for alene at være lavt betalte "illustratorer" – ikke rigtige politiske tegnere!

Nu går Art Spielgelman – amerikanske tegneseriers grand old man på banen. Spiegelman er blandt andet kendt for "Maus", der skildrede holocaust. Spiegelman forsvarer de danske tegnere i et interview med The Nation.

SPIEGELMAN: There has to be a right to insult. You can't always have polite discourse. Where I've had to do my soul-searching is articulating how I feel about the anti-Semitic cartoons that keep coming out of government-supported newspapers in Syria and beyond. And, basically, I am insulted. But so what? These visual insults are the symptom of the problem rather than the cause.

In 1897 politicians in New York State tried to make it a major offense to publish unflattering caricatures of politicians. They were part of a Tweed-like machine who didn't like insulting drawings published of themselves, so they spent months trying to get a bill passed and to make it punishable by a $1,000 fine and up to a year in prison.

What happened?

SPIEGELMAN: It got killed. We have this thing called the First Amendment that was in better shape, maybe, then than now.

2 thoughts on “Retten til at håne

  1. Poul Højlund

    Masser af amerikanske kommentatorer støtter de danske tegnere, check Mark Steyn, Diana West, Michelle Malkin og med dem mange andre. Debatten er levende dér og langt mere principiel end her. Googl dem og følg deres links.

    Svar
  2. Poul Højlund

    Her er en helt frisk kommentar fra USA:Stand up for Denmark!Why are we not defending our ally?By Christopher HitchensPosted Tuesday, Feb. 21, 2006, at 12:29 PM ET “Put the case that we knew of a highly paranoid religious cult organization with a secretive leader. Now put the case that this cult, if criticized in the press, would take immediate revenge by kidnapping a child. Put the case that, if the secretive leader were also to be lampooned, two further children would be killed at random. Would the press be guilty of “self-censorship” if it declined to publish anything that would inflame the said cult? Well, yes it would be guilty, but very few people would insist on the full exertion of the First Amendment right. However, the consequences for the cult and its leader would be severe as well. All civilized people would regard it as hateful and dangerous, and steps would be taken to circumscribe its influence, and to ensure that no precedent was set.The incredible thing about the ongoing Kristallnacht against Denmark (and in some places, against the embassies and citizens of any Scandinavian or even European Union nation) is that it has resulted in, not opprobrium for the religion that perpetrates and excuses it, but increased respectability!”Fortsæt på http://www.slate.com/id/2136714/fr/rss/

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