Is the following cartoon, published in an American newspaper last week, showing Iran as a sewer with cockroaches crawling out of it, offensive?
Iranian bloggers are in heated discussion about it (personally speaking, it seems fairly inflammatory, but hardly worthy of more than brief outrage.) Blogger Iran Writes argues:
What is the use even if we mange to force the Columbus Dispatch to apologize? Would it be the end? Unfortunately, we are the cause of it ourselves. As long as we identify ourselves as Iranians we are one with whatever is Iranian, Ahmadinejad and Khameneii included. Don’t you hear Ahmadinejad’s speeches everyday? Don’t you get angry and disgusted? Do you think he portrays us much better than those cartoons? I don’t think any of us wants to admit he is one of us, an Iranian. But he is, and the whole world sees it that way, no matter how hard we try to separate ourselves from him. For sure, these Americans won’t see us differently, and they don’t have to. If we need to be respected collectively, we should be respectable collectively and need to act respectfully, all us Iranians. It is time to learn that either we are Iranians or not. If we are, we share that with a whole nation. Not such a happy face, right?
