In politics, it’s said that when they laugh at you, you’re done. That’s the reason serious and humourless politicians hate satire. People driven by causes either from the left or the right, or with a religious agenda, also hate satire.
That’s why a few humourless fundamentalists couldn’t stand the cartoons that poked fun at the Islamic State and their leaders. The world is shocked over the brutal killing of 12 people at the Charlie Hebdo offices in Paris.
The crime of the Charlie Hebdo journalists was satire. They committed the unpardonable sin of ridiculing Muslim leaders and their political positions.
It isn’t as if this happened in isolation. The magazine routinely ridiculed politicians, the clergy and the pope without mercy or remorse. They believed that sacred cows made the best hamburger.
The reaction to the attack on journalists in Paris has reached around the world, and writers and cartoonists are united in their determination to remain free to practise their craft.
After the massacre, I googled Charlie Hebdo and found that the cartoons were crude and could be seen as racist.
But that’s my sense of humour, and people should be able to criticize and satirize freely. I don’t believe in censorship, because where do you draw the line?
That’s a decision for the individual.
For the past 25 years that I have written columns and made documentaries, I have self-censored and been subject to criticism.
Oddly, the most criticism comes from within my own ranks.
Early on, I wrote a column on boarding schools where I stated that they should all be closed and bulldozed to the ground, with one kept as a museum. At the time, there were several boarding schools open, and these were run by local tribal councils.
I got angry phone calls and was told that I was jeopardizing their chances for funding.
As it turned out, I was on the right side of history, and the chiefs in Saskatchewan have the dubious distinction of being the last region to hang on to residential schools.
When Nunavut was created, I wrote that the Dene had a right to hunt in their traditional territory, which is north of the Saskatchewan-Northwest Territories border but now within the new Nunavut territory. An Inuit woman phoned and called me names and accused me of being anti-Inuit, among other things. I never did get her name.
Documentary filmmaking has not been without its pitfalls, either. When I’m shooting a scene, an elder will often place something off-limits. Most times it’s valid, but often it is also someone on a power trip using their position to say no.
If people who don’t normally have power get the opportunity to refuse something, they will use it to exercise the right to say no.
Without a doubt, the best cartoonist and satirist in Indian Country was my friend the late Everett Soop from the Blood Reserve in southern Alberta. He worked for the local paper, the Kainai News. He was constantly in trouble with the leadership or someone else.
One of his favourite cartoons showed the chief with a bunch of arrows in his back, proudly proclaiming that his people were still behind him.
He once penned a cartoon that illustrated a jackass being dragged into council chambers, with the caption: “But the reserve elected him.” Everett told me that every council member took it personally and demanded an apology.
But satire and freedom of speech are fundamental to a healthy society. A columnist and cartoonist’s role is to present opinions that might be different from the mainstream.
Our job is to take people from their comfort zone and make them think, with the hope that one day you can stampede the herd.
Charlie Hebdo journalists might not have been the poster boys for free speech, but they didn’t have to pay with their lives.
Je suis Charlie.
Doug Cuthand writes for the Saskatoon StarPhoenix.
