FRIDAY, March 29, 2024
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Satire at the expense of a dead child?

Satire at the expense of a dead child?

Charlie Hebdo strikes again. This time the French magazine and self-styled king of controversy has published a cartoon of drowned Syrian refugee child Aylan Kurdi alongside the suggestion that, had he grown up, he would have taken part in the mass sexual

Charlie Hebdo is taking a jab at the alleged link between the spate of sexual assaults and the influx of migrants to Germany, which in turn has reignited the refugee debate and put the spotlight on the 1.1 million asylum seekers who entered the country last year.
“Based on testimony from witnesses, the report from the Cologne police and descriptions by the federal police, it looks as if people with a migration background were almost exclusively responsible for the criminal acts,” said Ralf Jaeger, interior minister from the state of North Rhine-Westphalia. Hundreds of women have filed complaints of harassment against men of North African or Arab appearance.
According to Charlie Hebdo, this is “satire”. Depicting a dead toddler – washed ashore on a beach in Turkey – as a future sex offender is supposed to drive home a point. One may wonder what godforsaken point is Charlie Hebdo trying to make with what seems like character assassination and racism – the same methods used among the far-right? If the aim is to deliver a meaningful political statement, why do it in such a tasteless manner that could be misinterpreted as xenophobic and that seems to echo right-wing anti-migrant, anti-Arab rhetoric? Why confuse the masses if the supposed message of the cartoons is so righteous? And most importantly, why is a dead refugee child the object of mockery?
Just last year, Charlie Hebdo published a cartoon depicting Aylan Kurdi’s dead body under the caption “So close to his goal”. A McDonald’s-like sign on the beach says, “Promo! 2 kids menus for the price of one”. Defenders of the cartoon said that it was meant to “mock the West’s handling of the refugee crisis”. Again, if the whole point is to highlight the role of world leaders in creating and failing to manage the refugee crisis, why on earth isn’t David Cameron, François Hollande, Viktor Orban or Bashar al-Assad being turned into a caricature? Why is the lifeless body of a toddler who died trying to flee his war-torn homeland being satirised?
Many have started to question whether Charlie Hebdo has a far-right political agenda – one that is masked by convenient terms like “controversial”, the magazine’s calling card.
If so, we should probably stop calling Charlie Hebdo “controversial” and call it out for what it is – a hateful tool of propaganda.
The French magazine has repeatedly and deliberately provoked debate about freedom of speech. But in doing, that value has become distorted, politicised and self-serving. Why is the criticism of the caricature of a dead Syrian refugee seen as a “curb on the freedom of expression”? Are hate speech and free speech now synonymous?
Charlie Hebdo cleverly manoeuvres its way out of this quagmire by employing the twin defence of “satire” and freedom of expression.
(Let’s not forget that this is the same organisation that fired cartoonist Maurice Sinet for being anti-Semitic because he mocked Nicolas Sarkozy for converting to Judaism for money. So much for “freedom of speech”.)
By shamelessly capitalising on the link between migrants and the incident in Cologne, Charlie Hebdo not only serves the interests of far-right National Front leader Marine Le Pen, who has warned of a “giant migratory wave” swamping France, but also endorses the Orientalist view that the West is “superior” and “more cultured” than the East, insinuating that “savage” Middle Eastern males are more likely to sexually assault women than are white European men.
Amid the outpouring of public outrage over Charlie Hebdo’s latest cartoon, the best responses were those that hit back with alternative scenarios for Aylan’s future. Many posted a cartoon of Steve Jobs, whose father was a Syrian migrant, suggesting Aylan could have grown up to become a global innovator. Queen Rania of Jordan joined in, posting a cartoon on Twitter captioned “Aylan could’ve been a doctor, a teacher, a loving parent.”
But amid all the responses, one stood out. The dead toddler’s father wept when he saw the cartoon. “I appeal to this magazine and to the world, and urge everyone to respect the memory of all the dead children. Do not reopen the wounds of their loved ones as they continue to bleed,” said Abdullah Kurdi.

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