Carlos Latuff

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Carlos Latuff (2012)

Carlos Latuff , actually Carlos Henrique Latuff de Souza (born November 30, 1968 in Rio de Janeiro ), is a Brazilian cartoonist and caricaturist . He sees himself as an "artistic activist ". He sees his pictures as " anti-capitalist , anti-imperialist " and as support for human rights . His political caricatures often address the Middle East conflict with an anti-Zionist orientation. Many of his caricatures have been criticized as anti-Semitic .

Life

Carlos Latuff was born in São Cristóvão , a central district of Rio de Janeiro, to a housewife and a civil servant. His grandfather, whom Carlos Latuff did not meet himself, was Lebanese . At the age of 14, Latuff left school and worked as an office assistant in a bank, then in a company for orthopedic supplies and as an office assistant in a publishing house, where he also worked as a professional draftsman for the first time in the production of stickers.

Since 1989 he has worked for an advertising agency and since 1990 for union newspapers. According to his own statement, he made his first political works in 1998 on the occasion of the Zapatista uprising in Chiapas . According to his own account, he began drawing cartoons about the Middle East conflict , for which he says he will not accept payment, after a trip to the West Bank , which he undertook at the invitation of the Palestinian Center for Peace and Democracy in 1999. After that he felt great sympathy for the "cause of the Palestinians ". Latuff used on its website a photograph in which he the Flugzeugentführerin and PFLP -Funktionärin Leila Khaled embraced, venerated in the Arab world by its supporters as a liberation fighter, viewed in the West as a terrorist.

Works

A Palestinian in concentration camp-like camp clothing. The picture won 2nd prize in the International Holocaust Caricature Competition .

The subjects of Latuff's drawings include depictions of the Middle East conflict , the Iraq war , the living conditions of the poor in Latin America , the fate of indigenous people in Mexico and the oppression of Tibetans . Latuff caricatured politicians such as the Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon , the US President George W. Bush , the Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva , the British Prime Minister Tony Blair , the former Mexican President Ernesto Zedillo , the Chilean President and dictator Augusto Pinochet and the US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice and US President Barack Obama , whom he portrayed as Uncle Tom . During the Egyptian Revolution , his caricatures were directed against both the Mubarak regime and the subsequent ruling military council .

He often compares the fate of the Palestinians with that of the Jews in the Holocaust . For example, he depicted a Palestinian prisoner in a concentration camp on a drawing . With this caricature, Latuff took part in the Iranian International Holocaust Caricature Competition , in which anti-Semitic and Holocaust-denying caricatures were shown, and won second prize there. In an interview, Latuff said that he basically had little interest in participating in the competition, but that the Holocaust caricature competition offered an opportunity to draw attention to the suffering of the Palestinian population.

“I am a Palestinian,” a particularly controversial image in the series

In 2002 published Latuff the cartoon series We are all Palestinian ( We are all Palestinians ) with characters that belong to recognized groups that were suppressed in the past, including in addition to black South Africans at the time of apartheid , Tibetans under Chinese rule and Chiapas - Indians resisting Mexican troops and Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto . The characters shown shout: “I am a Palestinian!” The series is controversial because of the drawing of a Jewish boy in the Warsaw ghetto, as this equates the situation of the Palestinians in the West Bank and the Gaza Strip with the systematic murder of Jews during the Nazi era . The drawing shows a boy with a Star of David , who is standing on a wall with a “Jewish residential area - no entry” sign and a locked front door. According to an image analysis by Aktion Kinder des Holocaust, the drawing relativizes the Holocaust. Jews would only be perceived in their symbolism and the uniqueness of the Holocaust would be vilified. The Action Children of the Holocaust sued the Swiss branch of Indymedia because of the image publication, but lost the case. According to the court ruling by the Zurich District Attorney's Office, the cartoon does not compare the actual extermination of the Jews, but rather the territorial exclusion policy of the National Socialists with today's policy of the Israeli state .

Demand for the "end of the occupation" with the depiction of the embrace of a Jew and a Palestinian, from the series Forgiveness .

2004 recorded Latuff the series Forgiveness ( forgiveness ), shows the embracing Jews and Palestinians.

Latuff's poster for the AIW 2009

In 2009, Latuff created the theme poster for Israeli Apartheid Week . The posting of the poster was banned at many Canadian universities, among other things on the grounds that it was “instinctless towards the norms of civil discourse in a free and democratic society”. As a result, the poster became popular and repeatedly used as a symbol against alleged censorship.

In his caricatures, Latuff also addresses the US military operations in Iraq and Afghanistan . In his comic book series about the US duty system of Iraq Tales of Iraq War ( tales of the Iraq war ) acting according to Jordan Times is the political, social and economic changes in the country.

Latuff's drawings have featured in Brazilian editions of MAD and Z Magazine . Since he many of his cartoons under copyleft published license, they are often in blogs and anti-globalization and anti-capitalist publishing platforms such. B. Indymedia widespread. The American political scientist Norman Finkelstein has published a number of cartoons on his website. The Arab media in particular are interested in his work. According to Latuff, some of his pictures were shown by Al Jazeera and the Iranian state broadcaster Press TV .

Cartoon about the beginning of the revolution in Egypt 2011

During protests in Arab countries in early 2011, posters with cartoons by Latuff were shown at demonstrations in Egypt, Libya and Bahrain. The Guardian called Latuff "the strange star of the Arab Spring". According to former Cartoonists' Club of Great Britain chairman Graham Fowell, Latuff's images reflected "the globalization of everything - money, goods, language, and perhaps humanity," which he saw as not a bad thing. He compared her style to that of the British graffiti artist Banksy . The lecturer Soha Bayoumi , on the other hand, gave Latuff's works little artistic value; they were "too simplistic, prosaic and quite rudimentary".

criticism

Latuff's pictures were often criticized as anti-Semitic because of the use of anti-Jewish stereotypes. According to the German social scientist Christoph Hamann , he represents “extremely aggressive anti-Americanism and anti-Semitism”. He carried out a "perpetrator-victim reversal", whereby he did not deny the Holocaust, but used its well-known iconography and made an analogy between National Socialism and Israel's Palestinian policy. The Belgian political scientist Joel Kotek sees in some of Latuff's works a new form of the legend of the ritual murder and the motif of the Jewish infanticide . He referred to him in his book "Cartoons and Extremism" as the "contemporary drumont of the Internet". The 2003 annual report of the Stephen Roth Institute says that a Sharon caricature by Latuff is reminiscent of the anti-Semitic caricatures by Philipp Rupprecht in Stürmer .

The Iranian Holocaust Caricature Competition, in which Latuff took second place, was among others. a. criticized by Kofi Annan , Reporters Without Borders and the Anti Defamation League . Latuff's contribution was described as a typical example of the anti-Semitic motif of the "reversal of the Holocaust".

"The Boy Who Cried Wolf" (The Boy Who Cried Wolf), based on the classic fable The Shepherd Boy
and the Wolf of Aesop

Latuff denies anti-Semitism as a motive for his work.

" My cartoons have no focus on the Jews or on Judaism. My focus is Israel as a political entity, as a government, their armed forces being a satellite of US interests in the Middle East, and especially Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors of Palestinians. If they were Christians, Muslims or Buddhists, I would criticize them the same way. I made cartoons about George Bush, Condoleezza Rice, Tony Blair, Ernesto Zedillo, Pinochet, and none of them were Jewish.
My cartoons don't focus on Jews or Judaism . My focus is on Israel as a political entity, as a government whose armed forces are a satellite of US interests in the Middle East , and specifically Israel's policy against the Palestinians. The oppressors of Palestinians happen to be Israeli Jews. If they were Christians , Muslims or Buddhists , I would criticize them as well. I drew cartoons about George Bush , Condoleezza Rice , Tony Blair , Ernesto Zedillo , Augusto Pinochet and none of them are Jewish. "

The cultural scientist Edward Portnoy is of the opinion that Latuff is a "propagandist of the Palestinian side" who expresses his criticism in a "terribly disgusting way", but not an anti-Semite. In a review of Joel Kotek's book Cartoons and Extremism , Portnoy states that Latuff is viciously attacking the state of Israel, its leadership and the army, but that his representations are not directed against the Jewish people as such. Although Latuff uses the Holocaust as a “metaphor”, portraying Israeli leaders as “ devils and vampires ” and Israeli soldiers as “baby killers”, Portnoy considers it “an exaggeration” to describe his work as anti-Semitic. The sociologist Werner Cohn contradicts Portnoy and considers it permissible to view Latuff's caricatures as fundamentally anti-Semitic. On the one hand, Latuff's comparisons of Israeli actions with those of the Nazis go beyond sensible criticism in Cohn's view, and on the other, Latuff completely neglects to criticize brutality and hatred on the part of the Palestinians.

2010 cartoon of the Ship-to-Gaza incident . The octopus has an Israeli flag on its forehead, with the Star of David replaced by a swastika - a typical motif in Latuff's works, which are regularly criticized as anti-Semitic.

In a situation of diplomatic tension between Egypt and Israel over responsibility for the Gaza Strip, a caricature by Latuff dealing with the Ship-to-Gaza incident was published on June 15, 2010 in the Egyptian government -affiliated daily Al-Watani al- Youm to a complaint from the Israeli embassy in Cairo. The cartoon shows a ship symbolizing the Gaza flotilla and encircled by the tentacles of an octopus . On the forehead of the octopus is an Israeli flag , whose Star of David has been replaced by a swastika . An embassy spokeswoman told the newspaper that the idea of ​​using a swastika and its use at this point in the caricature was "an insult to humanity and synonymous with an anti-Semitic statement". Latuff described the allegations as "vicious" and said Israeli criticism would not prevent him from continuing to make his cartoons for the "brave Palestinian people".

Zoomorphism based on the octopus motif has been a common stylistic device in the visual language of anti-Semitic caricatures for decades. Octopus or shark motifs with reference to the incident of the Gaza flotilla have been used by a large number of other caricaturists in Arabic newspapers. In contrast to earlier National Socialist caricatures of Judaism as an octopus entwined with the globe, Latuff's caricature contains the statement that the Jewish state has transformed into the Nazi state.

The Simon Wiesenthal Center placed Latuff's cartoon of Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu wringing out the body of a Palestinian to win votes , published on the occasion of Operation Cloud Pillar, in third place on an annual list of the " Top 10 anti-Semitic / anti-Israeli insults ".

Web links

Commons : Carlos Latuff  - album with pictures, videos and audio files

Individual evidence

  1. Brazilian artist lives up to his promise . Gulf News, Jan. 18, 2009
  2. ^ A Nova Democracia , July 2007
  3. a b c d e Interview with Carlos Latuff: I Don't Trade Ideology for Money Salem-News from April 17, 2010
  4. a b Stuart Grudgings: Rio cartoonist inspires Arab rebellions from afar , Reuters , August 29, 2011
  5. ^ A Nova Democracia , July 2007
  6. Latuff and Leila Khaled in WSF Photo at deviantART
  7. The strict commandant - newspaper today - daily mirror
  8. Harvey W. Kushner: Encyclopedia of terrorism. Sage Publications, 2002. p. 372
  9. ^ "Latuff also has employed antiblack racist themes in criticizing President Barack Obama," Adam Levick: Anti-Semitic Cartoons on Progressive Blogs , JCPA , September 1, 2010
  10. www.zeitjung.de: I am with you with the soul and the heart ( Memento from April 3, 2013 in the Internet Archive )
  11. Manfred Gerstenfeld : Ahmadinejad, Iran, And Holocaust manipulation: Methods, aims and reactions . Scholars for peace in the Middle East , February 10, 2007.
  12. a b Latuff Cartoonist and opinion-maker . MENASSAT, December 23, 2008
  13. Steven George Salaita, Peter Gran: The Holy Land in transit: colonialism and the quest for Canaan . Syracuse University Press , 2006, pp. 63ff
  14. Is this caricature by Latuff, published by indymedia-switzerland, anti-Semitic? An analysis of action children of the Holocaust
  15. complaint against switzerland.indymedia.org Action Children of the Holocaust akdh.net
  16. Cartoon: A Palestinian boy with a Star of David stands on a square with a plaque with the plaque “Residential area of ​​the Jews - no entry”. GRA Foundation
  17. a b Cheryl Heines: "Brazilian cartoonist highlights Palestinian plight". Jordan Times, February 26, 2007.
  18. Aziz Choudry, Jill Hanley, Eric Shragge: Organize !: Building from the Local for Global Justice . PM Press, 2012, pp. 114f
  19. ^ Z magazine , Volume 19, Institute for Social and Cultural Communications, 2006
  20. ^ Website of the political scientist Norman Finkelstein with works by Latuff
  21. ^ Jeff Shenker: Carlos Latuff: The voice of Tripoli - live from Rio . The Guardian, Aug. 22, 2011.
  22. Cartoon symbols of the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, Arab cartoons that use antisemitic images are evidence of the damage done by festering hostilities , by Ian Black, guardian.co.uk , December 19, 2008
  23. Christoph Hamann : The Holocaust in the Middle East Conflict - Key Images as a Visual Paradigm . In: Christian Geißler, Bernd Overwien: Elements of a contemporary political education: Festschrift for Prof. Hanns-Fred Rathenow on his 65th birthday . LIT Verlag Münster, 2009, p. 271ff
  24. ^ Joel Kotek : Au nom de l'antisionisme . L'image des Juifs et d'Israël dans la caricature depuis la seconde Intifada. Editions Complexe, 2005, pp. 117ff. 161 et passim.
    English translation: Cartoons and extremism , Israel and the Jews in Arab and Western media, Vallentine Mitchell, Edgware 2009.
  25. a b Manfred Gerstenfeld : Holocaust Inversion: The Portraying of Israel and Jews as Nazis . JCPA, April 1, 2007
  26. a b Eddy Portnoy; Simply Offensive and Out there. Extreme Cartoons Distort Israel and the Jews. 2008
  27. Antisemitism and Racism ( Memento from October 25, 2009 in the Internet Archive )
  28. ^ Moroccan wins first place in Iran Holocaust cartoon contest in: Haaretz , November 1, 2006
  29. Associated Press: Iran says Holocaust cartoon contest expresses hatred toward oppressors ( Memento of May 16, 2008 in the Internet Archive ), November 2, 2006
  30. ^ Arab Media Review: Anti-Semitism and Other Trends July - December 2006 ( Memento of August 6, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), January 24, 2007
  31. Werner Cohn: Letter to the editor on the review of Portnoy, Forward , January 9, 2009
  32. Israeli mission complains over Egypt press cartoon . Reuters news agency, June 28, 2010
  33. "Using the Nazi swastika symbol in the heart of the cartoon, and even the idea of ​​using it, is an insult to humanity and is tantamount to an antisemitic statement.", Israel Complains to Cairo Over Anti-Zionist Swastika Cartoon , Arutz Sheva , June 29, 2010
  34. Egyptian paper criticized for Nazi cartoon . In: Jewish chronicle , June 29, 2010
  35. Joel Kotek: Anti-Semitic Motifs in Arab Caricatures ( Memento from May 19, 2014 in the Internet Archive ). Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs, June 1, 2004
  36. ^ The Arab Media's Response to the Gaza Flotilla Affair ( Memento June 8, 2010 in the Internet Archive ), Anti-Demation-League, June 4, 2010
  37. For example, the motif of an octopus clutching the globe with the face of British Prime Minister Winston Churchill and a star of David as a halo was depicted in a caricature by the draftsman Josef Plank as early as 1938 , who went by the name of "Seppla" a. a. worked for the National Socialist magazine Die Brennessel .
  38. ^ Adam Levick: Anti-Semitic Cartoons on Progressive Blogs , JCPA , September 1, 2010
  39. Simon Wiesenthal Center: 2012 Top Ten Anti-Semitic / Anti-Israel Slurs . (PDF; 908 kB; 5 pages)