Al Jazeera’s Maronite Patriarch Caricature

Taking a cue from Saudi Newspaper Al Watan (click here), Al Jazeera decided to tackle the Patriarch’s visit to Syria in their own way. If you thought the Saudi caricature was bad, this one is even worse – at least the other one was decently drawn:

I reiterate what I said before regarding these caricatures.

• I don’t care about the content of the caricatures: Bechara Al Raï is not a holy figure.
• I care about the source of the caricatures – Al Watan and Al Jazeera are of the same mold.
• If these caricatures came from a country where freedom of speech reigns supreme, I would have accepted them without any hesitation. I’d have made posters out of them.
• These caricatures originate from countries that have no freedom of speech, next to no liberties and are only functional because of the copious amounts of oil beneath their soil.
• The publications in such countries do not get the right to exert their freedom of speech on me when they have countless problems in their own backyard that could be discussed.
• Seeing as these publications’ corresponding governments have supreme control over what appears in them, it wouldn’t be far fetched to assume this has also passed through the approval of relevant authorities.

Of course, such caricatures do not warrant replies from Lebanese that – although very creative – go like this:

It’s not because we have to worry about our expats. It’s not because we have to worry about the Saudis coming for tourism. It’s simply because their low level of discourse does not even warrant the effort put into that poster.

Now let’s await a new poster for the Qatari prince and then Qatar will definitely act out all hormonal and threaten to kick all the expats out of its land because its ego was bruised.