Satire: Cartoons: Cox & Forkum and the semiotics of the atheist critique of religions

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Cartoonists, John Cox & Allan Forkum, carry a torch for the perps of the Jyllands-Posten episode, while broadening our understanding of the militant-atheist agenda conducted in the name of "secular Humanism" to polarize society against all religion, especially perhaps against Muslims however meek and mild, by stereotyping all as incipient Islamofacsists.

Semiote Analytics, by Anaximaximum

Of course, refWrite is known for its discourse against Islamofascism, and in support of the War on Terrorism (in that support joining the admirable atheist Christopher Hitchens, among so many others in doing so).

That Christians generally respond to mockery and abusive images of the Lord Jesus Christ and of our basic sacred symbols (like that of the Sign of the Cross or the depiction of Saint Mary), responding only by a counter-discourse or by resolutions of censure (not censorship) or by boycotts – all these Christian tactics of principled tolerance are well known, even tho we have no actual communal strategy to speak of; and every counter-example to our main tendency of response is displayed and our noses rubbed into it in order to keep us in our place.

On the other hand, the militants among the atheists (in America, at least) want to trash all symbols and imagery associated with any particular religion's claim. But what about the religious claims of such atheists? They want no absolutizations, like the deity of God, instead pretending that their own absolutization of freedom of speech (some writers, film-makers, etc, voctionalize and profesionalize this secularist god-making) and likewise freedom of expression (some painters, playwrites, actors, film-makers, etc, vocationalize and profesionalize their secularist god-making at work, quite aside from any private faith or spirituality they may otherwise espouse): all the while pretending their own absolutization of freedom of speech/expression is properly a value with no limits, and thereby (however much unacknowledged) a religious absolute – which is at its best a pititude of nonsense!, at worst an ideological cover for their own atheist totalitarian streak.

Now, I hold no brief for making l+t of persons who choose one form of atheism or another, whether Western Engl+tenment varieties (neo-Darwinism, Freudianism, Marxism, etc) or various sects of Buddhism (Zen, Theravada, Dalai Lamism, etc). Principled existence is important to all of us, and some American atheists (both secular Humanists and Buddhists) respect the huge Christian presence in America since the coming of the first European settlers and then the founding of the USA, r+t up until our own time. President Bush has gone out of his way to affirm the r+ts of atheists, and welcome atheists of goodwill in public life. These latter atheists often respect the Christian community/ies, their cultural influence, their deep involvement with much that is good in our society over the centuries.

But militant atheism, like Islamofascism, has an agenda of destruction and of barring American Christians and observant believing Jews, and Muslims and others of good-neighbourly disposition, all of us the militants want to cast out of the public square. That's why militant atheists are only too happy when yahoo Christians push all Muslims into the category of Islamofacism, making generalized stereotyping judgments of every Muslim on earth as incipiently a terrorist. Such woefully-mistaken Christians are only playing into the hands of the atheist militants whose thawt determines the policies of, for instance, the American Civil Liberties Union, in its relentless drive to push Christian cultural influence from the public square.

Now, professional cartoonists may be forgiven to some extent when some of them get trapped in the freedom-of-expression absolute, giving it a godlike character (in their work, not necessarily in their "private" life and expression). That's what I'm feeling as I view Cox and Forkum's Apr1,2k6 dipiction of Jesus and Moses and Capitalist Pig playing cards with a generic Muslim.

My caption: Cox & Forkum in this editorial cartoon, Graven Images, wish to mock every religion but their own implied atheism it would seem (the Devil in the piece is the Capitalist Pig), but the Jesus caricature asks Moses why "Mo"'s people (Jesus is a Jew too!, I point out) can't take a joke; meanwhile some implied Muslim (not the Prophet, to be sure) rebukes Jesus with a thwunk! of his scimitar into the table, quoting Jesus' idea of turning the other check, r+t back at 'cha, Crusader! This is C&F's rejoinder to all religions, in my opinion – except no critique of the religion that absolutizes freedom of expression above every other value (of logical necessity that antinomious religion would be a secularist "humanism" of a variety which opposes cigaring Capitalism along with Jesus and Moses (hence, a Marxism variety?), CapPig being the real Devil (note the arrow-tipped tail) in whose company the religions play the game.

What Cox & Forkum purposefully omit is the fact that atheism too is part of the human condition, and is responsible for the greatest terror the world has ever known in the slawters wrawt by Hitler and Stalin. Then consider beyond Europe, the same kind of slawterhouses that marked the regimes of Mao and Pol Pot. Atheists are such a dandy lot! - Semaphore for Anaximaximum (Semaphore is a kind of secretary for CoCommenting refWrite's stuff).

Now, our cartoonists attach to their graphic work (above) a bevy of textual supplements:

The jihad over the Danish Mohammed cartoons continues, and the West appears to be losing the battle for free speech:

From Middle East Times: Muslim gang forces Paris cafe to censor cartoon show. (via Dhimmi Watch and Tom Pechinski)

A gang of young Muslims wielding iron rods has forced a Paris cafe to censor an exhibition of cartoons ridiculing religion, the owners of the establishment said on Friday.

Some 50 drawings by well-known French cartoonists were installed in the Mer a Boire cafe in the working-class Belleville neighborhood of northeast Paris, as part of an avowedly atheist show entitled, "Neither god nor god".

The collection targeted all religions - including Islam - but there were no representations of the Prophet Mohammed such as sparked the recent crisis between the West and the Islamic world, according to Marianne who is one of the cafe's three owners. ...

Refusing to dismantle the exhibition, the owners have placed white sheets of paper inscribed with the word 'censored' over the cartoons that were targeted by the gang.

"To take down the cartoons would have been a surrender. But on the other hand we cannot expose ourselves to this kind of violence. This way you can still see the pictures if you lift the paper," said Marianne. ...

"Putting on this type of show in this place was not in the least a provocation. Unless you think that freedom of expression in itself is a provocation," the cartoonist Charb told Le Parisien newspaper.

Interestingly, the atheism of the cartoonist's work Graven Images privileges Islam by not depicting the Prophet most treasured by that religion, while it is not so fastidious in regard to depicting for its satirical purpose, God Incarnate in Jesus Christ, nor the Jewish Prophet Moses (thank God that Jews have always had a sense of humour and have not excluded Moses from many a fine joke, we Christians are a lot more reticent in treating Jesus disrepectfully for the sake of humour, but many of our theologies about him are laffable idiocies, to be sure).

This semiotic analysis of a satirical work of cartoon art by Cox and Forkum, together with presentation of the news report with which they supplement their graphics-based art is meant to advance our understanding of the work at hand, the inherent religious motives in such works, and to demonstrate there's nothng easy for anyone really around the ongoing Cartoon Wars. - Anaximaximum

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• atheism
• christianity
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