Carlos Latuff

Carlos Latuff
Born	November 30, 1968 Rio de Janeiro, Brazil
Nationality	Brazilian
Known for	Political cartoons, Social commentary
Movement	Anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, anti-imperialism, anti-Americanism, anti-Zionism, Marxism, socialism, indigenous rights

Latuff's cartoons are often used in protests. This demonstration was against Folha de S. Paulo's usage of the term "ditabranda" to describe the Brazilian military dictatorship (1964–1985).

Carlos Latuff (born November 30, 1968) is a Brazilian freelance political cartoonist known mostly for his anti-Semitic, Nazi-style cartoons. His works deal with an array of themes, including anti-globalization, anti-capitalism, and anti-U.S. military intervention. Moreover, the issue that he is best known for, are his images depicting the Israeli–Palestinian conflict. Latuff himself has described his work as controversial.

Early life

Latuff was born in São Cristóvão (Rio de Janeiro), Brazil, and is of Arab Lebanese ancestry.

Published works

Latuff's works have been posted mostly by himself on Indymedia websites and private blogs. However, some of them have been picked up and featured in magazines such as the Brazilian edition of Mad Le Monde Diplomatique and the The Toronto Star. In addition, a few of his works were published on Arabian websites and publications such as the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (JAMI) magazine, the Saudi magazine Character, the Lebanese newspaper Al Akhbar, among others.

Themes

'Global Intifada' by Latuff shows a 'global persona' wearing a Keffiyeh, making the V (victory) sign with the left hand and holding a slingshot in the right hand, in front the Palestinian flag.

'Uncle Sam wants you DEAD!' by Latuff shows Adolf Hitler with Uncle Sam's top-hat (representing U.S.A.) and a Nazi swastika atop it informing the cartoon reader that Uncle Sam wants him dead.

A vast number of Latuff's cartoons are related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which "became important to Latuff after he visited the area in the late 1990s." These cartoons are heavily critical of Israel and have drawn criticism and allegations of uninhibited utilization of "judeophobic stereotypes in the service of the anti-globalisation movement."

In his We are all Palestinians (Arabic "كلنا فلسطينيون") cartoon series, various famous oppressed groups, including Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, Black South Africans during Apartheid, Native Americans, and Tibetans in China, are all shown stating "I am Palestinian".

Latuff has also made a series of cartoons that portray Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, United States President George W. Bush, Brazilian president Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and British PM Tony Blair among other politicians as monsters and as Nazis.

Latuff is also critical of US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan. He has made promotional cartoons for anti-US militancy as well as cartoons alleging US actions have been motivated by the chance of making profit from oil. Among the cartoons, there are also some that portray US soldiers as severely wounded, dead, or paraplegic or as harming Iraqi civilians.

In his comic series Tales of Iraq War (Arabic "حكايات من حرب العراق" ) he portrays "Juba, the Baghdad sniper", an Iraqi insurgency character claimed to have shot down several-dozen US soldiers, as a "superhero". He also have made a caricature of US President George W. Bush laughing over US casualties.

He made several caricatures which might be interpreted as mocking the September 11, 2001 terror attack victims, or hailing Osama Bin Laden or expressing support of the attack. Other caricatures can be understood as supporting Iranian dictator Mahmoud Ahmadinejad involvement in aiding Arab insurgents, to kill US soldiers in Iraq.

Many of his cartoons express sympathy or support for the Iranian Muslim cleric regime ambitions, for nuclear weapons

'Just following orders' by Carlos Latuff shows Nazi soldiers opposed to Israeli soldiers described as "born to kill". Text in the shape of a Nazi swastika says: "Israeli soldiers are just following orders".

In 2003, at the peak of a series of Arab suicide attacks on civilian Israeli city buses, murdering scores of civilians, he published several works: in one cartoon he depicted an Israeli bus in the shape of a coffin, standing at a bus station, and a person with "Jewish characteristics" (i.e. wearing a yarmulke), standing near the bus looking frightened and weary. Another cartoon show a bus exploding with human body parts and the words: "I am result of occupation" another cartoon depicts five Israeli civilian busses as a hand granddads

Although published hundreds of caricatures on Indymedia sites , Latuff hardly never criticized, past or ongoing atrocities, or any other wrong doings, conducted buy Arab or Muslim individuals, organizations or countries.

His works were criticized by a writer for the Institute for Global Jewish Affairs, part of the Jerusalem Center for Public Affairs (an Israeli NGO), for allegedly containing "Zoomorphism" see few examples

- About the alleged anti-Semitic nature of these works and the way they resemble typical anti-Semitic propaganda of the beginning of the 20th century, there are debates among media critic bloggers and websites, institutions investigating anti-semitism and media experts.

In 2002 the Swiss-based Holocaust survivors organization Aktion Kinder des Holocaust sued the Indymedia of Switzerland on the charge of anti-Semitism for publishing Latuff's cartoon titled We are all Palestinians series in their website, which depicted a Jewish boy in Warsaw Ghetto saying: "I am Palestinian." The criminal proceedings were suspended by Swiss court.

In 2006, Latuff placed second and won $4,000, for his cartoon comparing the Israeli West Bank barrier with the Nazi concentration camps, in the controversial Iranian 'International Holocaust Cartoon Competition'. The contest was created in response to Muhammad cartoons published by a Danish newspaper (see Jyllands-Posten Muhammad cartoons controversy), under the notion that those who supported the right to free speech in matters concerning Islam would be placed in a precarious position were they to condemn the antisemitic cartoons aimed to mock and ridicule the Jewish Holocaust. Latuff's entry was described as "Holocaust inversion" by Manfred Gerstenfeld.

A 2002 cartoon by Latuff depicting Marxist revolutionary Che Guevara wearing a Palestinian keffiyeh.

In their 2003 Annual Report, the Stephen Roth Institute compared Latuff's cartoons of Sharon to "the antisemitic caricatures of Philipp Rupprecht in Julius Streicher's Der Stürmer." The SRI also complained over a cartoon showing Che Guevara in a Palestinian keffiyeh.

Joel Kotek a professor at Belgium’s Free University of Brussels, in his book “Cartoons and Extremism” calls Latuff “the contemporary Drumont of the internet.”( Edouard Drumont was the founder of the French “Antisemitic League of France” and the publisher of "La Libre Parole", a magazine that printed numerous classically antisemitic cartoons during the years of the Dreyfus Affair).

In an interview with the Jewish-American weekly newspaper The Forward in December 2008, Latuff responded to charges of antisemitism and the comparison to Streicher:

My cartoons have no focus on the Jews or on Judaism. My focus is Israel as a political entity, as a government, their armed forces being a satellite of U.S. interests in the Middle East, and especially Israeli policies toward the Palestinians. It happens to be Israeli Jews that are the oppressors of Palestinians.…My detractors say that the use of the Magen David in my Israel-related cartoons is irrefutable proof of antisemitism; however, it’s not my fault if Israel chose sacred religious motifs as national symbols, such as the Knesset Menorah or the Star of David in killing-machines like F-16 jets.

External links

• Latuff's official page on Twitpic
• Latuff's official page on DeviantArt