Patrick Chappatte Quotes
Some felt as if 'Charlie Hebdo' was obsessed with its 'Screw Allah' stance. It's a sort of provocation that caused a lot of debates.
Chappatte, Patrick. Interview. The New York Times, 15 Jan. 2015.
Rushdie was commenting on the Danish Cartoons that had been published the year before depicting the Islamic Prophet Muhammad to the great distress of some fundamentalist Muslims some of whom orchestrated riots in many countries involving much property destruction and some loss of life. See {590918} as an example of the concern.
This quotation is one of history’s great examples of the classic problem of quotes taken out of context. The Blog was dealing with the potential reactions if Islamic terrorists set off a nuclear device or a radioactive dirty bomb in the United States. Lowry was reporting that in the event of a retaliation there was then a considerable amount of sentiment for attacking Mecca, the holy city of Islam. However, the Arab press picked up Lowry’s quote and Muslims throughout the world were told that the Editor of a prestigious American Journal admitted that there was much American public sentiment for a nuclear attack on Islam’s holiest city. By the time this “fact” was spread by word of mouth, a huge proportion of Muslims the world over truly believed that America was indeed out to destroy Islam. The fact that the “sentiment” was only in the context of a hypothetical retaliation for a first nuclear strike was totally lost by the time it reached most Muslims.
In September of 2005 a Danish Newspaper published some political cartoons showing the hypocrisy of some Muslims who use Islam to justify murder of innocents and terrorism. Months later, many in the Middle East protested vehemently and Muslim riots broke out and Danish boycotts ensued because the Prophet Muhammad's visage was depicted against Islamic tradition. Many Muslim leaders claimed that insulting religion was an “abuse” of freedom of speech including those from nations which regularly publish material that is virulent against Christians and Jews. Although France had a large Muslim minority, reaction of French Muslims was much more mild than that of Middle Eastern Arabs where the governments either encouraged the rioters or refused to take action to deter them from sacking Danish property.
Just days before September 11. While in America, such a remark would just be considered an insensitive and inappropriate utterance, in France, he was brought before the courts and threatened with jail and a large monetary fine under a 1972 French law which bans hate speech. See {595311}
The Vatican Congregation of the Index had banned Greene’s Book, The Power and the Glory. See {598544}.
Patrick Chappatte (known simply as Chappatte) is a Lebanese-Swiss cartoonist known for his work for Le Temps, Neue Zürcher Zeitung (Sunday edition), the German news magazine Der Spiegel, and The New York Times International Edition. He also worked as an illustrator for the New York Times and as cartoonist for Newsweek. Many of his cartoons reflect events in Swiss and international news, such as the September 11 attacks, the rise of the Swiss People's Party, and the Israeli–Palestinian conflict.
