Abstract
Popular discourse assumes that political cartoons and caricatures are
much different than the other journalistic genres due to their unique nature of
satire, wit and humor. This is the reason that no one can reject or raise questions at
political cartoons for ethical reasons. While subsuming all kinds of humor under
this single paradigm, political cartoons can be unfair and no subject can be tagged
as an inappropriate for them but on the other hand, the cartoon controversy of
Blasphemy always raises a serious debate between two schools of thoughts. One
of them supports the absolutist view and complete freedom of expression while the
other always criticizes ridiculing the religions and offending their followers on
ethical grounds. The French cartoon controversy of Charlie Hebdo is one of the
several examples when the world has witnessed the same polarization of ‘us
versus them’. Almost the whole world chanted that ‘are you Charlie Hebdo’ or
‘freedom hating fanatic’? The West supported Charlie Hebdo for its freedom of
expression while the East and the Muslim states declared it as a continuous
publication of hate speech and politics of emotions. This paper provides the
panoramic view of the ongoing debates of two complete opposite poles and
observes that there is still no end of this ‘love-hate syndrome’ and the story of ‘us
versus them conflict’. This also highlights the functions and responsibilities of
political cartoons and emphasizes to distinguish a thin line between humor and
offensiveness according to social conventions operative in any social context. This
further draws a new paradigm of “responsible freedom of expression” in political
cartooning as the need of the hour to bring freedom lovers and ‘absolute freedom’
haters to a central point of tolerance
Ayesha Ashfaq, Savera Shami. (2016) Freedom to Political Cartoons: Charlie Hebdo & Ethical Dilemmas in Cartoon Communication, Journal of the Research Society of Pakistan, Volume 53, Issue 2.
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