The Four Color Media Monitor

Some left-wingers have to consider that, even if they do blindly support Islam, it's not going to persuade Islamofascists not to attack their work.

Cast in point: about a week or so ago in Germany, a university wanted to set up an exhibition on comics. Specifically, political ones. And soon after, vandalism took place (H/T: Atlas Shrugs):

BERLIN – A female Muslim student at the University of Duisburg-Essen ripped down parts of a graphic novel exhibit, which included the work of the internationally known Israeli artist Rutu Modan.

In a commentary in the left-liberal website Taz on Thursday, journalist Pascal Beucker attributed the June 24 attack on the exhibit “to an anti- Israel, if not anti-Semitic, motive.”

[...] The Muslim student cut with a scissor photographs from a collage based on Modan’s seminal work Exit Wounds (“Blutspuren” in German).
The collage showed a peace demonstration in Israel with a poster containing the word “Shalom.”

After the vandalism, the university pulled the plug on the exhibit. [...]

German media reported that Muslim students objected to parts of the larger exhibit, particularly the work from the comic book Habibi, penned by US comic and novel artist Craig Thompson. According to Taz, the students said their religious feelings were injured by the depiction of sex scenes in Habibi and because the word “Allah” is written in Arabic calligraphy.

On the surface, it's interesting that they'd take offense at either of these graphic novels, because neither one is negative to Islam per se. Andrew Harrod at Front Page Magazine describes a bit of what they're about, plus the viewpoint of Thompson:

One of the Graphic Novels examined in collage posters was Habibi, a tale of child (sex) slaves in Muslim Arab society by the award-winning American graphic novelist Craig Thompson. As the Westdeutsche Allgemeine Zeitung (WAZ) reported, this widely available, 2011 published book has aroused no indication “of being orient-hostile.” Thompson himself in a 2011 German interview described Habibi as “among other things a reaction to the increasing Islamophobia in the United States after 2001.”

A Muslim doctoral student, though, complained to library personnel multiple times that the UDE student poster presenting Habibi hurting her “religious feelings.” The Habibi collage showed a rape scene from the book juxtaposed next to the word “Allah” in Arabic calligraphy along with an English-text explanation. The doctoral student, who had previously obtained notoriety by devoting one of her class presentations to “Allah,” finally took it down on June 17, 2013.

The following June 24, the doctoral candidate used scissors to cut out part of a poster analyzing the award-winning graphic novel Exit Wounds by Israeli Rutu Modan. The destroyed book scene, viewable above and in a July 10, 2013 story by Berlin’s left-wing Tageszeitung (TAZ), showed Israeli peace rally participants packing their bags with three signs inscribed with “Stop the Occupation” in Arabic, English, and Hebrew. TAZ author Pascal Beucker speculated that the doctoral student’s anger derived from seeing the Arabic language depicted in the much-hated Israel. “It is more than probable,” Beucker suggested in an earlier TAZ article, that the Muslim student had an “anti-Israeli, if not anti-Semitic motive,” given that Exit Wounds deals with the Palestinian terror threat faced by Israelis. The UDE student government publication ak[due]ll, in contrast, countered TAZ, stating that library director Albert Bilo explained to the student senate that the Muslim student took offense at what she considered as a depiction of a sign with “Allah” on it going into the trash.

The picket signs with "stop the occupation" tell that Exit Wounds isn't bound to be very pro-Israel, and Bleeding Cool said about Modan's mishmash:

Then one protestor, attacked another exhibit showing for Rutu Modan's for having what were believed to be pro-Israeli sentiments, such as an Israeli peace march and the words Shalom, cutting them out of the exhibit. It's an odd choice for such a protest, Modan's work is culture all dense and multi layered, it's not a zionist work, rather one that seeks to understand multiple motivation and effects.

Unfortunately, much of the "peace marches" in Israel have been conducted by the left calling for surrendering Israeli land to the Islamists. And a special clip from School Library Journal on Amazon describes the story of Exit Wounds like this:

Modan doesn't shy away from criticizing some of the attitudes the state of Israel holds, hinting that these exacerbate some of the problems with the Palestinians.

But no criticism of any attitudes the "palestinians" hold towards Israel/Jews? Well then, I guess we know where this political item leans to. Yet it did not succeed in convincing the Muslim student it wasn't worth the vandalism. And Thompson's graphic novel, which doesn't sound or look very appealing either (I saw some of the nudity in it, which looks pretty gross), clearly didn't pass muster with them either. It could be because they think it ironically does paint an accurate picture of Islam, and maybe it's because of one panel that shows the lead character Dodola taking off a burka after looking at some western women walking around without those dehumanizing atrocities on a commercial street.

We can only wonder what Modan and Thompson think now if they know their work was rejected by those Muslim students at the German university. I'd say this serves as a perfect demonstration of how Islamofascists can look for any excuse for committing violence, vandalism and desecration, and no matter how much the work tilts in favor of their Religion of Peace, they can still reject it from the outset. So as Modan and Thompson have learned, no matter how left-wing/pro-Islam they are, there will still be quite a few Muslims out there who'll reject their work from the outset.

Labels: Europe and Asia, indie publishers, islam and jihad, misogyny and racism, moonbat writers, politics, terrorism, violence