Moroccan wins first place in Iran Holocaust cartoon contest

[Behind the Aegis]

Iran awarded a Moroccan artist Wednesday the top prize in an exhibition of cartoons on the Holocaust that has received international condemnation, including from UN chief Kofi Annan.

Meant to be a response to the Danish cartoons of Islam's Prophet Mohammed that sparked rage among Muslims around the world, the exhibit appears inspired by Iranian President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad's tirades calling for Israel to be destroyed.

Tehran has several times announced plans to host a conference to examine the scientific evidence supporting the validity of the Holocaust, dismissing it as exaggerated. Its most recent announcement came in September during Annan's visit to the Iranian capital, where he said he discussed the cartoon show with officials.

Abdollah Derkaoui received $12,000 for his work depicting an Israeli crane piling large cement blocks on Israel's security wall and gradually obscuring Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem. A picture of Nazi Germany's Auschwitz concentration camp appears on the wall.


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[Dr Batsen D Belfry]

1. A prime example of civilized versus uncivilized

Someone shows a picture of their prophet and they go nuts, threatening to kill people. They make a mockery of the death of my family members, some of who are visible in Nazi film footage being executed in the forests outside Vilnius.

Am I going nuts? No. Am I trheatening their lives over it? No. The difference between an enlightened mind and a brainwashed one I guess.

DBDB

[Nolo_Contendre]

2. The cartoon ridicules Israel, not Judaism

Unless Auschwitz is now considered holy to Jews.

[mallard]

3. Re: do we get to see it?

not on haaretz.com anyway

[Nolo_Contendre]

4. I couldn't find the cartoon reprinted in any newspaper anywhere

I only found it on the contest website.
http://www.irancartoon.com/

Ohhhh, the horror!

[rpannier]

5. It was pointed out on DU

that the Danish paper that published the orioginal cartoons, also published the Holocaust pictures.

[crikkett]

12. "Service Unavailable" there but here's a link

I found it here, via Google News
http://www.iranian.ws/iran_news/publish/article_18630.shtml

[sugapablo]

14. Holy Fucking Shit! THAT ONE WON!!?!?!?!?!?

Is that seriously the one that won?

I wonder if anyone realizes that that cartoon is NOT a knock on the Holocaust, or Jews, or Israel, but a knock on the Holocaust Contest itself!

Not only that, it depicts Muhammed (sp?) in graphical form! (Also, it got the swastika backwards.)

Foot. Aim. Shoot!

:rofl:

[Phx_Dem]

15. that is not the one that won

"Derkaoui's cartoon shows a crane with a Star of David sign, putting up blocks making a wall separating the Muslim shrine, the Dome of the Rock, from Jerusalem. The wall has a gate, shown in the distance, that looks like one at the Auschwitz concentration camp, where Jews were incarcerated and killed.

"The taboo is broken now. People should not think that by questioning the Holocaust, they are committing a crime," the minister said. The Moroccan cartoonist won $12,000."

[nodehopper]

20. how do you think it knocks the holocaust contest?

[saigon68]

16. Some one just "TOOK DOWN" the website

LOL

[cali]

6. Haven't seen the cartoon

so I can't speak to it, but don't you find the concept of a cartoon contest about Jews or Israelis a rather strange response to a DANISH cartoon printed in a Danish paper?

[Ian David]

7. In their world view, they see no difference

They see the non-Muslim world as being "The West," and they believe "The Jews" are secretly in control of all of it.

[Bassic]

9. The more things change, the more they stay the same.

Jews have been "secretly control of all of it" according to a lot of people for a very long time. That is one tough myth.

[Bassic]

8. I think the poster's point is that they are making fun of genocide,

and nobody's running in the streets screaming and tearing off their shirts. They haven't beeen brainwashed to see the devil everywhere.

[Ian David]

10. That's because this is nothing new.

If Iran wants to be shocking, they'll need to find new and creative ways to be anti-semitic.

But it's all been done before.

[Bassic]

11. I agree.

Since the dawn of time, it seems.

[smirkymonkey]

13. Iran: Grow UP!

:eyes:

[Poll_Blind]

17. Here is the cartoon that won:

PB

[devilgrrl]

18. To be brutally honest, it doesn't offend me at all

What's the problem with it?

[geek tragedy]

19. Rubbing the Holocaust in the face of Jews and comparing

them to the people that tried to exterminate them is deeply offensive.

This is both dumb and offensive.

[devilgrrl]

21. So building a wall around Palestinian areas and bulldozing houses...

isn't offensive? Seems that these "cartoons" are taking potshots at the current Israeli government.

[Behind the Aegis]

23. It isn't ....

Aktion Reinhard, Belzec, Sobibor, Treblinka, Auschwitz The infamous Holocaust death camp Auschwitz-Birkenau, Bergen-Belsen, Buchenwald, Mittelbau Dora, Chelmno, Dachau, Maidanek, or Mauthausen.

[cali]

24. Don't you find

a cartoon contest premised on the Holocaust in response to a Danish editorial cartoon of Muhammed, an odd and yes, bigoted response? Would you find a cartoon contest premised on demeaning Islam OK?

[devilgrrl]

26. No, I wouldn't find it okay.

However, I'm not exactly against taking potshots at Israeli or the Iran governments.

Think it's okay to kill Palestinians and claim that there has never been a Palestine? That's what serveral of those cartoons seem to be addressing.

Sorry that we don't agree here.

[geek tragedy]

27. The point is to insult and offend Israelis as Jews.

Imagine if someone used Holocaust imagery in an ad against Russ Feingold or Henry Waxman.

[devilgrrl]

28. Well. Then it's tit for tat. The Dutch had a rip on Muslims contest...

now the Iranians did a rip on Jews contest. They're both wrong - neither is right and quite frankly there are more serious matters at hand.

"Imagine if someone used Holocaust imagery in an ad against Russ Feingold or Henry Waxman."

I'm sure the extreme rightwing elements in the USA have done that already. They're wrong too.

[geek tragedy]

29. Except that "tit for tat" means retaliating against the people

who committed the original wrongful act.

Iran here is like Bush invading Iraq because of what Osama bin Laden did.

I'm not aware of any wingnuts running Holocaust ads against Democratic Jews.

[smirkymonkey]

30. What would have made more sense is for Iranians to have a

rip on Danes contest. The cartoons don't personally offend me, but the whole thing is just childish, imo.

[ButterflyBlood]

34. Then why didn't they make cartoons about Danes instead of Jews?

And I think there's quite a big difference between making fun of some guy who as far as I'm concerned was just some wacky desert nomad who raided trade caravans and screwed 12 year olds and the Holocaust. The equivalent to the Danish cartoons, even if we were to assume they were drawn by Jews, would be mocking Moses. I would only see this as a tit for tat response if it was in response to Jews making cartoons making fun of slaughters during the Crusades or something along the lines.

[cali]

35. That's OK

In order to agree with me, you'd need critical thinking skills.

[noamnety]

33. "They're building a wall"

I saw it as a political statement in the same way as David Rovics lyrics are a political statement.

they're building a wall (F.T.M.)


They're building a wall
A wall between friends
A wall that justifies
Any means for their ends
A wall between Semites
Rich and poor
Brothers and sisters
From not so long before
Many feet thick
And twenty feet high
No one can look through it
And into the eye
Of a person you might know
To whom you might confide
Now just a stranger
On the other side

They're building a wall
Between water and land
So we can eat fruit
And they can eat sand
A wall to make sure
That our orchards will grow
And our kids can get fat
And not need to know
Of the cities in ruins
And the children in fear
That your fathers and brothers
In tanks might be near
A wall to keep quiet
That which you fear most
So you don't have to listen
To your grandfather's ghost

They're building a wall
Between future and past
A wall to keep separate
The chambers of gas
From bulldozers, gunships
And the tears of a child
Dignity, love
And all honor defiled
To remove reality
From your facts on the ground
A wall to keep distant
The terrible sound
Of the houses that crumble
And the children that die
A wall to keep separate
The truth from the lie

They're building a wall
And at such a cost
Land, money and safety
And all the lives lost
A wall made of brick
But bricks can be broken
When the people of Zion
Have finally awoken
Anjd said no more walls
No more refugees
No more keeping people
Upon their knees
And then the history books
Will someday recall
Before apartheid was ended
They were building a wall

You can have a listen here: http://www.soundclick.com/pro/view/01/default.cfm?BandID=111310&content=lyrics&SongID=2281346 - like all his music, it's a free download under the creative commons license. If you don't know him, he's the guy Amy Goodman calls "The Musical Version of Democracy Now."

[Behind the Aegis]

22. The "winners"

This the 1st place cartoon:



He also had these entries:




2nd place went to Carlos Latuff of Brazil (the first one was the winner):



and A. Chard of France:



These are additional entries of Latuff's:








3rd place went to Shahram Rezai of Iran:


These and the rest of the entries can be found at Iran Holocaust cartoons.

Edited to add two more of Latuff's "cartoons." Added French winner's cartoon and adding this link: The Results of Holocaust Cartoon Contest-2006 (courtesy of Poll_Blind), which includes the "honorable mentions" and such.

The French traslation (roughly): bottom of the building (Mythe des chambres a gaz = Myth of the gas chambers), the question: Qui l'a mis par terre? = Who 'knocked it down?'; the response: Faurisson a French Holocaust denier.

[Poll_Blind]

25. The actual official link (not the one from the govt. of Iran) is...

here. Along with a list of winning entries.

PB

[HuffleClaw]

31. that sounds more like a political statement than anything else

an effective one too. not particularly tasteful however.

[Scurrilous]

32. No Iranian newspaper publishes cartoon

<snip>

"Iran's competition for cartoons mocking the Holocaust drew international reproach but made little impression at home Thursday, with not a single Iranian newspaper publishing the winning entries and people on the street saying it left them unmoved.

Iran awarded the first prize — worth $12,000 — late Wednesday to Moroccan cartoonist Abdollah Derkaoui, who drew a picture of an Israeli crane erecting a wall of concrete blocks around Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem, Islam's third holiest site. The blocks bear sections of a well-known photograph of the Nazi concentration camp at Auschwitz where as many as 1.5 million people — mostly Jews — died during World War II.

"The exhibition had no remarkable impact on public opinion," said Gohar Dashti, a professor at the Soureh Art University in Tehran. "It was neither a concern of students nor of the media."

Israel deplored the competition, which drew 204 entries from Iran and abroad."

http://news.yahoo.com/s/ap/20061103/ap_on_re_mi_ea/iran_holocaust_drawings

[provis99]

36. odd thing about these pro-palestine cartoons is

that I don't thing Iranians really give a damn about the Palestinians; Iranians are notoriously bigoted against Arabs, too. They just claim to support Palestinians because it gives them another excuse to rip on Israel and Jews.