MAIL TODAY
COMMENT

Caricature, parody and racism

THIS paper has received a torrent of angry mail from Australians because of a cartoon depicting an Australian police officer as a member of the Ku Klux Klan, the white supremacist organisation that did so much to terrorise African Americans in the southern part of the United States. Like all cartoons, the depiction was a caricature, an exaggeration if you will. But that is what political cartooning is all about.

There are cartoonists who delight by their drawings, others by their captions.

But there are also those who are more inclined to satire and savage caricature.

They have all been part of the history of political discourse of the democratic world. Most normal people will laugh off a cartoon. President Barack Obama of the United States has been the object of some that could be called racist, but the White House has simply ignored them. But there is a class of persons whom satirical humour manages to bypass. We seem to have a lot of them Down Under this summer.

This humble journal was indeed surprised at the condemnatory reaction we evoked from the acting prime minister of the country, Julia Gillard.

You could take issue with the KKK imagery which in a sense signified institutionalised racism of the US South where formal apartheid was the norm till the 1960s. But that is where that other issue comes in— the right of freedom of expression.

This was the right that Australians supported in generous measure when the Danish newspaper Jyllands Posten published a cartoon depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The M AIL T ODAY cartoon was not a caricature of Australians in general, but some in the police force who refuse to acknowledge that racism is playing a part in the series of attacks on Indians, mainly in the Melbourne area. Like educated and civilised people anywhere, there is no doubt that most Australians are appalled by the attacks, and embarrassed by the publicity. But they need to focus on the facts of the matter and insist that their police come up with some answers.

As M AIL T ODAY reported, Indian students comprise some 1 per cent of the population of Victoria State ( whose capital is Melbourne), but they have faced 17 per cent of the total robberies and assaults that have taken place there in the period July 1, 2007 to June 30, 2008. It is difficult to escape the conclusion that race is a factor in their being targeted.

Lost compassion

THERE are instances which make sane human beings feel wretched about being a member of the species called Homo sapiens . Fridays incident — whose footage was shown in nauseating detail on TV — where a Tamil Nadu police officer, Sub- inspector Vetrivel, lay bleeding to death on the road after being injured by criminals, with ministers and other worthies and passers- by passively looking on, was one such instance.

That a human being, leave alone a police officer awarded for gallantry, was writhing in pain and had to beg for help which came his way too late should shame the ministers and the bureaucrats present at the spot. Their inaction, allegedly on account of concerns for their own security, is a betrayal of the most basic human instinct to aid a fellow being in pain.

Leave alone help, the ministers and officials and sundry hangers on hesitated to approach the dying sub- inspector.

Coming as it does from ministers and officials, it is rank dereliction of duty.

There is a chance that if the officer had been rushed to the hospital in one of the cars in the ministers convoy, his life could have been saved.

Citizens who can help often treat such cases as a spectacle, panic at the sight of blood and injuries or think better of rendering assistance since it often involves problems with the police. Even if a braveheart does carry the injured for treatment, private hospitals refuse to admit him for fear of being harassed by the police.

We need emergency medical services in all our cities and towns and we require them on our highways. We need to change the police rules as well as the culture of apathy. We need to do so or else we will lose that unique attribute of human beings — compassion.