PTSD

The (other) cartoon row

Ah Germany...(and how many times in the past few centuries have people said this, I wonder?)

Bringing together my two interests of football and security, see here (the lettering is too small for me to make it out, even if I did understand German)

It's a cartoon of a group of German soldiers and the Iranian football team, standing side by side. The Iranian footy team is dressed as suicide bombers.

Note how the editor of the newspaper writes (in explanation),

"As a matter of fact the cartoon doesn't poke fun at the Iranian Football team but at German Minister of Defense Franz Josef Jung who announced the day before the cartoon has been printed that the German Army is going to help to secure the German stadiums at the World Championship of 2006. Mr. Stuttmann's cartoon thus criticizes what in his view is a huge exaggeration by the government of the threats that come along with the World Championship."

Ohhh...construction of threats! Mocking thereof! In cartoon forms. Why, this could almost be my PhD.

The German government is apparently making the World Cup out to be a site for potential danger. Okay, sounds fine so far...He adds,

"Everybody knows that the Iranian team won't enter the stadium equipped with suicide belts. The scene depicted, with the Bundeswehr lining up to play soccer against Iran, is so surreal that it raises the question of the German government's threat perception and the use of the German Army, which according to our constitution should be employed internally only in very few cases, are really appropriate."

So, "everyone" knows the Iranians won't do this? Well, that's fine but why were the Iranians chosen to depict this then? Wasn't the newspaper using common stereotypes of danger=Muslims (or at least danger=people with beards)?

In other words, why wasn't it David Beckam and Co. with bombs strapped around their waists? I wonder if either of the Irish teams--the Republic or Northern Ireland--had qualified, the newspaper would have chosen them to depict this "exaggerated perception of threats"?

ETA: It escaped my notice earlier but isn't Franz Josef Jung such a German name, especially for a defence minister? Almost MP-ian.

posted by Priya @ 9:57 AM