Latuff on allegued anti-Semitic cartoons

PUBLIC STATEMENT FROM BRAZILIAN CARTOONIST LATUFF ON ALLEGED ANTI-SEMITIC CARTOONS

Repeated allegations of anti-Semitism from readers of Independent Media Centers in Germany, Austria and Switzerland were the reason for the release of this public statement.

On January 06, 2002, I sent a message to IMC Germany:

"Dear sirs from Indymedia Germany,

I am really impressed with such an immediate response from your readers everytime I post some Israel related cartoon. I see your decision to repost my "PRO-Semitic cartoon" article as a gesture of goodwill, for the benefit of healthy discussion on sensitive Israel/Palestine affairs. Thank you! Probably many readers from IMC Germany, and even from other IMCs, have questions regarding my creative process and political views. I suggest an on-line IRC chat with me, editorial staff of IMC Germany and readers, and together to clarify some points. Content of this conversation could be available on IMC Germany web site.
If you think it would be suitable, please, reply me.

Latuff - Image Maker
Rio de Janeiro Brazil"

Unfortunately, until today, January 10, I was not contacted regarding my proposal.

Since 1990, I've been a political cartoonist for many leftist trade-union publications in Rio de Janeiro, Brazil. My cartoons dealt with local and national affairs such as police brutality and human rights violations. When I first gained Internet access in 1996, my art began to reach international audiences. My first "artistic support" was for the Zapatista movement and their struggle for the rights of natives of Chiapas, Southern Mexico.

However, the Zapatistas were not the only resistance movement I was aware of. Soon, I was producing non-profit cartoons for organizations related to Tibetans, Kurds, Mohajir (Pakistan) and Palestinians. One of them, the Palestinian Centre for Peace and Democracy, invited me to see with my own eyes the situation of Palestinians in the Occupied Territories. In 1999, for about 10 days, I visited Palestinian areas controlled by Israel in the West Bank with both Palestinian and Israeli peace activists. I listened to Palestinian civilians and Israeli settlers. What I saw and heard there was enough to reinforce my support for an independent Palestinian State.
Back in Brazil, I started to produce and publish copyright-free cartoons for Palestinian/Israeli NGOs like Gush-Shalom and Peace Now. At that point I was introduced to a very sensitive dilemma: how to draw cartoons criticizing Israel policy without crossing over into anti-Semitism?

I remember receiving advice from a friend in Gush-Shalom about drawing characters with big noses. It sounded weird to me, since caricatures are usually grotesque, and big-nosed characters are very common in caricatures. However, due to Nazi-era cartoons where Jews were shown with big noses, what could be seen as an ordinary detail in other circumstances would be taken as intentionally racist in Israel. In November 2000, I drew a cartoon published by Gush-Shalom on their website depicting Ehud Barak, Israeli Prime Minister at that time, as a trigger-happy fat boy. This illustration was responsible for a lot of trouble. See below a press release from the Anti-Defamation League, described in their own words as "the world's leading organization fighting anti-Semitism through programs and services that counteract hatred, prejudice and bigotry" :

"Press Release Israel Regional Office

ADL Outraged at "Peace" Group's Portrayal of Prime Minister Barak as Child Killer

Jerusalem November 7, 2000

The Anti-Defamation League expressed outrage at Gush Shalom's portrayal of Prime Minister Barak as a killer of Palestinian children in a caricature on its web site.

'The image of a militant Barak standing on the bleeding bullet ridden body of a Palestinian child is abhorrent and certainly unbecoming of a group which describes itself as "advocating peace",' said Rabbi David Rosen, Director of ADL's Israel Office. 'At this particularly tense time, and as we are commemorating the fifth anniversary of the assassination of Yitzhak Rabin it behooves individuals and organizations to express their political views in a responsible manner avoiding inciteful language and imagery . Regretfully, this is not the only example of offensive and inciteful web postings by Gush Shalom,' he added".

In spite of many complaints, Gush Shalom kept publishing my artworks for a time. Meanwhile, I continued producing and distributing Palestinian-related cartoons and photomontages around the Web through emails, web sites and newsgroups. Angry, vitriolic emails from supporters of Israel's policies were a kind of standard procedure. Profanity, threats, and condemnations were sent to me by casual readers and radicals from the Jewish Defence League. I was learning, step-by-step, how difficult it is to make clear to people the difference between political criticism of Israeli apartheid and its supporters, and anti-Semitic harassment.

When I came across the Independent Media Center and their principles of freedom of speech and alternative resources of information, I thought to myself that it would be a nice place to promote the struggle of the Palestinian people, as well as many other world political/social issues. Some of my Israel/Palestine related posts on IMC Switzerland, Austria and Germany produced heated discussions on anti-Semitism. Here I am, one more time, trying to clarify some important differences between my cartoons and real anti-Semitic cartoons.

First, it is necessary to declare that I do not have any ties with religious or racial supremacist groups. I do not follow theories of racial superiority, or religious concepts of "elect people" and "infidels". I am not a revisionist and do not support theories denying the Holocaust. I don't believe in any conspiracy guided by Jews to conquer the world. As Tears for Fears sang, "everybody wants to rule the world," regardless if a person is Jewish, Christian, Muslim or atheist. It's not about religious beliefs, but humans thirsting for power.

Most allegations of anti-Semitism in my cartoons came from IMC web sites hosted in European countries, and there is a strong reason for such concern. It was in Europe that the term "anti-Semitism" was used for the first time, in 1870. In many nations, Jews were seen as a menace, responsible for all poverty and unemployment, who benefited from the misery of others. This was a suitable environment for growth of the myth of a "Jewish conspiracy". Caricatures of Jews, depicted as being ostentatious, coward, and corrupt, were published in newspapers, even on postcards.

Conservative, and even Socialist parties at the end of 19th century, looking for votes, took advantage of popular anti-Semitic sentiments through propaganda, primarily in Austria, France and Germany. Jews were portrayed in derogatory ways in election posters, bulletins, etc. We know the results of this propaganda: persecution, boycotts, deportations, and finally mass killings.

Comparing my Israel/Palestine-related cartoons with notorious cartoons from the Nazi Germany newspaper "Der Sturmer", important differences can be pointed out. In Nazi cartoons, Jews were usually compared to ugly or nocive creatures (snakes, rats, worms, etc). I recall two incidents where I drew Jewish settlers in Palestine as animals (a docile dog and a malicious cat). However, such a depiction is not about their religion or race, but refers to Israel's policy of building settlements in the Gaza Strip and West Bank, areas of predominantly Palestinian population. Hardcore religious radicals, with a defiant and agressive attitude toward their Palestinian neighbours, are allowed to carry automatic rifles. There are many documented incidents of Palestinian civilians being beaten or shot by settlers, sometimes with the assistance of the Israel Defence Force. I see Israeli settlers as nationalist extremists, above all else. However, due to their look (kipah, beard, etc) I draw caricatures with these characteristics. They are murderers not because they follow Judaism, but because they kill Palestinians.

Nazi cartoons refered to Jews as evil beings threating the nation (i.e. a serpent adorned with Magen Davids coiling up around a defenceless blonde woman). Israeli soldiers are also shown by me as evil beings, but I draw many other soldiers from different countries as monsters, psychos and so on, because I believe that the only job for a soldier is to kill. That's what soldiers are trained and equipped to do. Sometimes I put Magen Davids on soldiers to associate them with the state of Israel, because that is the symbol on the Israel. Israeli soldiers are not murderers because they are Jews. They are murderers because they are soldiers.

Let's now to compare my works with so-called "Arabic anti-Semitism" (an oxymoron, since Arabs are Semites too). In Arab papers, Israeli leaders are frequently shown wearing Nazi uniforms and swastikas. Even in Israel, politicians seen as "liberals" by right-wingers are depicted this way (i.e. Yitzhak Rabin), as well as Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat. I drew Ariel Sharon and former prime minister Benjamin Netanyahu as Nazis, because I see Nazism as the best example of state-sponsored terrorism. I applied the same idea to Slobodan Milosevic when he ordered massacres and "ethnic cleansing" to Muslim populations in Bosnia. In my view, Nazis are not only those who built concentration camps and gas chambers, but also those who submit whole populations, such as Palestinians, to suffering and death. However, I must confess that such depictions have become a cliche, and I don't want to use those images any more.

Another two cartoons I did, which has been referred by IMC Germany as definitive proof of anti-Semitism, are called "The American Talk Show" and "In the Hollywood video rental store". The first one is a comic-strip where an actor plays a talk show in a fictitious Hollywood nightclub. He makes racist jokes about Orientals, Blacks, Latins, and Arabs. When he decides to make a joke about Jews, he's kicked out of club. The intention of this comic-strip is to denunciate the hypocrisy surrounding racial and ethnic humour in movies produced by Hollywood, rather than accuse Hollywood of being part of a Zionist conspiracy. As I said in a note sent to IMC Switzerland:

"...Hollywood cinema has served to the U.S. foreign policy many times and now again. George W. Bush has claimed for patriotic movies, a support to his 'War against Terrorism'. It's a fact that many Hollywood producers are Jews and it's a fact too the mostly of U.S. movies are strongly biased with reference to Latins, Orientals and Arabs.

Just have a look, for example, in a recent U.S. movie, 'Traffic', broaching drug business in Mexico and United States. Mexican scenario is yellow-coloured to instil sensation of a sweltering hot weather. Mexican characters are sweaty, violent and corrupt. However, a smooth blue filter is applied to U.S. scenarions, suggeting a fresh weather, with skycrapers and well fited people.

Let´s check another example of biased movies from well-known Jewish cinema producers, Menahem Golan and Yoran Globus. In their 'Delta Force', German actress Hanna Schygulla plays an air hostess in a hijacked plane. She´s forced by sweaty beared Arab terrorists to list Jewish passengers. She refuses to do it, saying more or less this: 'I can't do that. Can't you see I am a German? The Jews, the Holocaust, the six millions...'. The Arab character replies: 'Six millions? It should be much more!'. In 'Missing in Action' series, where Chuck Norris plays a U.S. veteran who go back to Vietnam to rescue prisoners, Vietnamese are depicted as brutal and cruel psychos, what justify killing of many by Norris.

Same propaganda can be seen in 'Rambo' series. Special attention to the last one, where 'Mujahideens' from Afganisthan are glorified in this Reagan-era film. I could do mention of many other movies like these, where different races than U.S. caucasians are shown in a derogatory way..."

The second cartoon, "In the Hollywood video rental store", shows an anarchist-style black teenager asking for a movie about massacres of Palestinians in a video rental shop, eliciting a vehement negative response from the clerk. Beside the customer is a section with many Holocaust-related movies. Denial of the Holocaust was not what I intended in this image. I wanted to expose the one-sided portrayals in Hollywood movies about Middle Eastern affairs. Masterpieces such as Steven Spielberg's "Schindler's List" are both historical documentation of the Holocaust, as well as a strong reminder about the dangers of intolerance. When will we see Spielberg direct a movie where Israeli soldiers shoot at Palestinian boys throwing stones? When will we see a Hollywood movie where Palestinians are victims, not villains? Is it not a demonstration of intolerance? Is the Israeli occupation of Palestinian territories not full of violence and intolerance? Should movie audience be kept from seeing the suffering of Palestinians? Why? Are directors and writers afraid to promote the Palestinian struggle for freedom, possibly gaining sympathy from public opinion? I am convinced that Hollywood movies about the Middle East are not well-balanced. I don't believe in a "Zionist conspiracy", only that the portrayal of Arabs is a result of U.S. interests in that petroleum-fertile region.

I would like to finish this statement emphasizing to all of you that, if any detail of my artwork is even slightly reminiscent of Nazi cartoons, I apologize. Through the centuries, Jews has been attacked due to their traditions and beliefs. I am aware of this, and am always worried that my art will be used by real racists to promote anti-Semitism. Jews were victims for a long time. Now they have their nation and their rights, and I think another Holocaust will not be carried out. Let's keep our eyes on anti-Semites, but we should also watch those who oppress and kill people for reasons other than hatred of Jews.

I am not anti-Semitic. I am against Israeli policy towards Palestinians. This is not about Jews. This is not about Judaism. This is not about race, religion or culture. Palestinian people deserve the same rights as Jews for a nation. My position is not eternal. I will support Israel if it decides to withdraw its troops and settlements from the Occupied Territories of Gaza and West Bank. I continue to support Jews from Israel, the United States, and around the world who defend Palestinian human rights and self-determination.

My wish is not to destroy Israel, but to build an Independent Palestinian State.

If you still have any doubt about my points of view, I welcome your questions. Everyone is invited to express opinions on my art. However, I will no longer reply to insults, venom, or baseless accusations of anti-Semitism posted on IMC Germany or any other place.

Latuff - Image Maker
Rio de Janeiro - Brazil
January 10, 2002

P.S.: Author would to like to thanks to Mr. Mark Bialkowski for his kind assistance.

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