Victor S. Navasky: Why Are Political Cartoons Incendiary?

Victor S. Navasky is a professor at the Columbia Journalism School, and chairman of the Columbia Journalism Review, who is at work on a book about political cartoons.

AS the founding editor and publisher in the late 1950’s of Monocle,  a “leisurely quarterly of political satire” (that meant we came out twice a year) whose motto was “In the land of the blind the one-eyed man is king,” whenever the offices of a satirical magazine are firebombed, I’m interested.

So earlier this month, when a Molotov cocktail landed in the offices of the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo — luckily no one was injured — I wanted to know more.  It seems the bomb arrived the day after the publication chose the Prophet Muhammad as its guest editor in chief for that week’s issue, and in a reference to Islamic law, or Shariah, temporarily changed its name to “Charia Hebdo.” The issue also featured a cartoon image of the prophet on its cover and a caption that said “100 lashes if you don’t die laughing.” 

An equal opportunity offender, the periodical, historically known for pillorying Catholic clericalism and Judaism, was heavily criticized by Muslims in 2007 after reprinting cartoons of Muhammad published by a Danish newspaper that caused outrage in much of the Islamic world.

The magazine’s editor, who goes by the name Charb, issued a statement saying “The prophet of Islam didn’t have to be asked twice” to be editor “and we thank him for it.” And the following issue featured a cartoon of Charlie Hebdo passionately kissing a Muslim man under the heading “Love is stronger than hate.”...