Charlie Hebdo cartoonist Renald “Luz” Luzier, who drew the toon of Mohammed holding a “Je suis Charlie” sign for the record-breaking post-massacre comeback issue of the French magazine, says he is done drawing pictures of Mohammed.
“I will no longer draw the figure of Mohammed. It no longer interests me,” Luz said in interview with Les Inrockuptibles magazine, as transcribed by Reuters. “I’ve got tired of it, just as I got tired of drawing Sarkozy. I’m not going to spend my life drawing them.”
Luz explained that he was not retiring Mohammed from his repertoire as a response to the terrorist attack on his magazine that killed numerous high-ranking editors. “They will have won if the whole of France continues to be scared,” he declared.
At least Luz spares us the nauseating sanctimony of his fellow cartoonist, Garry Trudeau, who prefers to hide his cowardice behind arrogant pronouncements about the nature of satire while sacrificing the free speech rights of other people. At least we don’t have to listen to blather about how the writers who withdrew their support from the PEN Freedom of Expression Courage prize, awarded this year to Charlie Hebdo, are actually protecting free speech by throwing it away. Luz has the grace to stand down without hectoring those who refuse to join him.
There is no “but” after “I support freedom of speech,” men and women of the West. Such qualifications are where bloodthirsty tyranny hides. Oppressors are pleased to hear their targets concoct high-minded explanations for capitulation.
As long as they bend the knee, the ostensibly “liberal” betrayers of the classical liberal tradition can excuse their submission however they please.