New Yorker on Obama is not satire, it's crap

A so-called satirical cover of the New Yorker magazine, depicting Barack Obama as a Muslim and his wife as an armed terrorist, has created a huge storm among the media, politicians and religious leaders.

While the publication tries to justify it as a reflection of right-wing views of Obama, it is at best a stretch, with the drawing of Michelle as a gun toting moll so removed from reality it makes a mockery of any pretension to satire.

Needless to say it has amused neither the Democrats nor the Republican camp.

As we saw with the Danish cartoons and a Teddy Bear named Muhammed the issue went right to the core of Islamic beliefs. Here we are not dealing with the rights covering freedom of speech or expression as opposed to the obligation to respect religion but rather ridiculous sensationalism and poor taste posing as satire.

The saddest part of the whole exercise is that the editor and staff of the New Yorker could never, in their wildest dreams, have dreamed that they would get a worldwide response such as this. Regardless of how this debate pans out this issue of their magazine will be deemed a roaring success.

Translate that into editors and staff around the world trying to figure out how low they have to go to attract the same sort of attention.

In Australia the proverbial is hitting the fan as critics try to figure out whether a picture of a naked young girl on the front cover of a leading arts journal Art Monthly, Australia is in fact art or abuse.

In many countries around the world if they caught you with pictures like the one referred to, on your computer, you would be arrested.

In both cases the publication’s representation that they comprise satire or art respectively, could just as easily be construed as pornography or child abuse in the case of the Australian and an attempt by the New Yorker to incite religious hatred.

Where do you even begin to draw the lines on issues such as these? Even if you could would it be possible to ban and then enforce that prohibition on the internet? If it is or becomes possible, would it be desirable?

In an age where communication has become so advanced as to offer anything from cellphone internet to television, that allows you to rewind live action, and so fast that a press release in Russia can be read in Brazil within seconds, freedom of speech and expression and the controls we place on it become issues of vital importance.

The trick is finding the balance between encouraging people to express themselves while implementing measures to ensure that they do it responsibly.

Getting them to agree where one ends and the other starts is one of the major problems. Items are often going out worldwide and what constitutes “responsible” may well depend on where you are. What is art in Australia might well be pornography in Pakistan.

In terms of political free speech any attempt to curb the media goes much further than just the issue of freedom of speech or expression. It deals with removing the public’s safeguards against government tyranny, incompetence and corruption.

While the ANC hop from foot to foot about safeguarding media freedom they might want to bear in mind that Polokwane could never have happened under a Zimbabwean type media. All that stood between Zuma and engineered meltdown was the relentless pressure from the press to avoid the government using the organs of state as a political tool.

If that had been blocked then concerns about protecting individual dignity and privacy would have been replaced with “whatever happened to Jacob Zuma?” Perhaps JZ and the party might want to have a look across the Zimbabwean border and consider the plight of Morgan Tsvangirai and how this was handled by their press. In turn, should Mbeki wish to make a case for his return, how would his proponents put their case across? Would they be afforded the same opportunity or just be stifled along with the press?

If the ANC intend starting their own newspaper it might be in their own interest to consider what would happen if a rogue element of the party came to control the party, the country and the machinery of the press.

Instead of Zuma — here read candidate of choice — you would get a Mugabe, the candidate chosen for you and without any way of checking whether this is fact or engineering.

Don’t let nonsense about the press being insensitive to people’s feelings when they are incompetent or corrupt cloud your judgement. The protection of the people of this country, including the politicians, depends on the public’s right to be kept informed. In many cases that’s all that’s left between them and Armageddon.

Think!