The Geopolitics of Cartoons

An old adage states, the pen is mightier than the sword; another that a picture is worth a thousand words. What then might occur, when pen and ink combine in a politically charged image?

The 2005 publication of caricatured, cartoon renditions of the Muslim prophet Muhammad in the Danish newspaper Jyllands-Posten sparked uproar in Islamic communities the world over.

What prompted the publication of these controversial images?  Just as importantly, why was the Danish government derelict—in the words of a U.N. report—in allowing what would be described as Denmark’s worst international incident since WWII to escalate? The initial unapologetic stance maintained by both the government and press would fuel massive, global demonstrations and political controversy. A worldwide boycott of Danish goods by Muslims organized in protest would result in approximately US $170 million dollars in export losses.

Defenders of the Danish press argue that it was a statement against self-censorship—a stand against the fear of violence for any critical examination of Islam in the media—and that furthermore, the ability to caricaturize Muslims reflects their acceptance as a community. Critics believed, however, that even the unwittingly offensive use of cultural and religious iconography reveals how deeply entrenched anti-Islamic sentiment remains in Danish and European society.

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Peter Gottschalk, an associate professor of religion at Wesleyan University, once asked an editor of the New York Times why the venerable paper did not include cartoons in its editorial section. The editor’s response was that cartoons were too powerful, and that they simply “sucked the air out of an editorial page.” People would go straight to the images and ignore whatever text was written.

In a book co-authored with Gabriel Greenberg, Islamophobia: Muslims and Islam in American Political Cartoons, Gottshalk documents the evolution of Arab-Muslim images over time and in relation to changing geo-political events. A major theme he notes is a gradual transformation from an Arab portrayal of an effeminate man or an exotic, oriental woman (i.e. Barbara Eden’s television character in I Dream of Jeannie), to that of an angry, scimitar wielding Islamic male, or a politically and sexually oppressed female clad head-to-toe in a burqa.

The power of political cartoons, Gottshalk argues, comes from their ability to elicit, probe, and examine even taboo cultural beliefs, subjects, and assumptions in a format that the casual reader can identify with and interpret. The Danish case served as a stark reminder of the power of an image to inspire, provoke, and, more profoundly in this particular case, enrage and mobilize. So, is the pen mightier than the sword? Perhaps the more relevant consideration is the manner in which the two are inextricably entwined.