Wednesday, February 08, 2006

A Cartoonist on the Danish Cartoons

Signe Wilkinson is uniquely qualified to comment on the Danish Cartoons Crisis (previously known as the Danish Cartoon Controversy.)

Signe (we're on a first name basis as we worked together for nearly 20 years) is a political cartoonist herself. In fact, she was the first (and last) woman to win a Pulitzer Prize for editorial cartooning in what is pretty much an all-male world. Her in-your-face images such as the one above, drawn for the Philadelphia Daily News, have long been a lightning rod for controversy. And, she is a woman of faith.

For all those reasons and more, you should read her commentary at beliefnet.

An excerpt:
I hope Muslims come to know that they aren't the first, and won't be the last, to be offended by a political cartoon. I know cartoonists will take into consideration the reaction to this caricature when drawing their next ones on Muslim issues. If the reaction of the “Arab street” continues to be violence whenever they don’t like something they see in someone else's newspaper, then I predict more such cartoons are on the way. My suggestion is that instead of threatening to draw blood, Muslims should pick up their pens and draw return cartoons instead.
(Hat tip to Will Bunch at Attytood.)

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