Murderous idiots have killed at least 12 members of the staff of Charlie Hebdo, a French satirical magazine famous for its offensive humor. The publication had particularly angered some Muslims with its disrespectful depictions of Prophet Mohamed. The masked gunmen who shot the magazine's staff as well as two policemen this morning in central Paris reportedly yelled that they were "avenging" the Prophet. The attackers we able to flee. This is awful -- part of the awfulness that seems to be growing all around us these days. The attack suggests the French police is pretty hapless (there have been attacks and threats towards the magazine before) and will very likely exacerbate fear and hostility towards Europe's Muslim minorities.
From left to right: the (original) Israeli, Syrian and Egyptian version of the cartoon.
Sarah Carr notes this cartoon is making the social media rounds from an pro-Interior Ministry Facebook page in Egypt, depicting the Egyptian Army as the defender of the public against the Muslim Brotherhood. However, Tom Gara pointed out on Twitter that another version exists on pro-Assad Arabic language venues - as the FSA vs. the Syrian Army: and in fact, that shows how the entire image is a repurposed commentary about the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.
That's pretty impressive traction for a political cartoon. The same cannot be said of the photoshopping, though. There are still Hebrew letters in the lower right hand corner of the Egyptian version. In the anti-FSA take, the soldier's helmet is discolored because the image has been edited over to make a comment on multiple armed conflicts. And ironically, because only factional/national symbols are changed, the this means that the Egyptian and Syrian soldiers are both using an Israeli-manufactured assault rifle. In fact, this Egyptian version didn't even bother removing the flag of Palestinian armband from the jihadist, which, funny enough, would match up with the growing Israeli-Egyptian consensus on the Sinai: that all of the agitation and lawlessness there is Hamas' fault. In all likelihood, though, this image is probably more of a comment on the demonstrators who were shot outside of the Republican Guard headquarters in Cairo than an attempt to conflate Hamas with the ousted Brothers.
[Ed note: if the cartoon showed up only a few days ago, it is probably a commentary on Friday's Mansoura protest, in which thugs attacked women and children in a MB rally and killed three. Anti-MB commentators in the press have been accusing the group of using human shields.]
But since the original image depicts a view of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict that has little popular appeal within the Middle East outside of Israel itself, one imagines that some of the photoshoppers are not quite aware of the implications of the original. Other photoshops of this image show just how much mileage this image can get internationally, including the (preposterous) suggestion that only Muslims fight behind human shields, while Westerners always protect noncombatants. One could also have a field day with respect to the way the women and children are portrayed on the two sides, but that would be another post entirely.
Nonetheless, officials in all three countries depicted here as the defending soldier might actually agree on the general presentation of the common denominator: Islamist (née anti-government) political violence.
Such a force has always been seen as a great threat by governments in the region since at least the early 1980s, if not earlier, with such actions as the outlawing of the Egyptian Muslim Brotherhood for decades, the 1976-1982 Syria internal conflict, Israel's arrests of the clerics who would go on to found Hamas, etc. Everything that has happened since the beginning of armed resistance in Syria (the ethnic cleansing, the Lebanese spillover) and the Muslim Brotherhood's election in Egypt (the constitutional changes, the Maspero massacre) have revived these fears with a vengeance. It is, perhaps, one of the few transnational issues almost all of the governments in the region - aside from pro-Brotherhood Tunisia, Qatar, and Turkey - can agree on as a significant threat to their current state of rule.
Bashar al-Assad studied ophthalmology in London in the 1990s. Via Michael Collins Dunn via Wael Ghonim.
Links for February 20th through February 21st:
- The tea war - Kenya's troubles will mean more expensive cup of Arousa
- Egypt?s Parties Committee Seizes Ayman Nour?s Asset - When will the hounding of Ayman Nour cease?
- Egypt bans Western papers over prophet cartoons - WSJ, Observer, Die Welt and Allgemeine Zeitung banned
- Egypt Govt Summons Danish Ambassador Over Caricatures - Egypt continues to fan the Danish cartoon flames
- Embattled Middle East Hand Strikes Back At Political Critics - Obama advisor strikes back at slur campaign
Automatically posted links for January 12th:
- The Lost Archive - Recovery of lost German archive of early Qurans
- Egypt?s cartoon revolution - Yemen Times - Profile of Destour cartoonists
- Rival Egyptian families agree to end 'mustache war' - Saidi mustache vendetta ends in reconciliation
- Egypt's new golden age of television | Menassat - Review of Egypt's satellite channels
- Bush Alters Stand on Palestinians - WaPo as bad as NYT, thinks Palestine occupation is just "presence"