Cartoon Conflict: Pinpointing Responsibility

"So now it's here, too. A cartoon in Friday's edition of the Berliner 'Tagesspiegel' races round the world and the result is Molotov cocktails being thrown at the German embassy in Tehran and death threats for the cartoonist, Klaus Stuttmann, who is now too afraid to return to his apartment," writes Miriam Lau, describing the violent reactions to the cartoons depicting the Iranian football team dressed up as suicide bombers. "And yet again, it's patently obvious that it's not blasphemy that has triggered the row, although Iranian footballers are worthy of adoration. The anger has been provoked by associating Islam with terrorism, something which, as everybody is aware, was not invented by Stuttmann. The freedom of self-irony also provokes anger, because the caricature was also aimed at state power in the form of the armed forces – you can't get away with that in most Islamic states."

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