Blowback Cartoon

Above is a cartoon made by Adriaan Soeterbroek depicting Dutch politician Geert Wilders and as you can see it's quite charged and politically incorrect. There's a background story to this. Last week Wilders opted to round up all the scum from the streets and put them into specially constructed villages (made out of containers) so that they would no longer be a danger to society. Wilders heads the right wing party PVV here in Holland. Not everyone took that comment very well including the aforementioned cartoonist.

In the cartoon itself there are a number of references to WW2 and the persecution of Jews yet the people displayed are off Muslim descent. That's because Wilders is a staunch anti-Islamist. The figures also wear the letter T on the chest which is a reference to the Dutch word "Tuig" meaning scum. The placement is also reminiscent of where the Jews had to wear the Star of David. The cartoon clearly depicts a fenced camp site and the guard (Wilders) is halting them and pointing towards a sign named "douche" which means shower in Dutch. The references are there for anyone to see.

Naturally Geert Wilders was more than a little bit upset and called the cartoon 'disgusting and sickening.' Which is quite weird since he had no problem defending Danish cartoons depicting Mohammed in less than flattering ways in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper. Back then Wilders harped all about freedom of speech. It's causing quite a stir here in Holland. There are a number of people who defend him and there are those that attack him. What's obvious, at least to me, is that Wilders is a "do as I say - not as I do" kind of person. Freedom of speech apparently wasn't a main concern for Wilders when the negativity was focused on him.

He has no problem criticizing Islam on a regular basis and was also heavily involved with the controversial film Fitna. The fallout of such actions are highly predictable, even for Wilders - make no mistake. Clearly he loves to tackle but if he's the one on the receiving end he screams bloody murder. But then again he's a politician who loves to create waves in the masses but when accountability knocks on the door he's not home. Personally I think that although the cartoon is distasteful, it is food for thought on multiple levels.