This Daily Mail Anti-Refugee Cartoon Is Straight

Out Of Nazi Germany

The cartoon prompted outrage on social media.
Ryan GrenobleNews Editor, The Huffington Post

http://twitter.com/g_nobes
Posted: 11/17/2015 03:08 PM EST | Edited: 11/18/2015 10:24 AM EST

The Daily Mail just went there.

"There" being Nazi Europe circa 1939, as seen through the lens of
propaganda-laden cartoons depicting the Jews as rats to be swept out of
Germany. British cartoonist Stanley "Mac" McMurtry borrowed heavily from
that imagery for his latest piece in The Daily Mail. Instead of Jews, however,
the "rats" are a horde of Muslims:

In the foreground of Mac's cartoon, a man in a tunic carries a mat, presumably

for praying. Just past him, the darkened silhouette of a woman in a hijab
walks toward a sign that boasts of "open borders" and "the free movement of
people." "Welcome to Europe," it reads.
Another man, already past the sign, is unidentifiable but for the muzzle of a
rifle poking ever so slightly into the air from his back. Lest there be any doubt
about the ominously shadowed man's true nature, an unkempt beard sprouts
from his face, his head topped with a Pashtun cap of the sort worn by
Afghanistan's mujahideen.
All the while, rats scurry between the immigrants' feet.
Soon after The Daily Mail published Mac's cartoon, Internet commenters
linked it to this work, published in a Viennese newspaper by the name of "Das
Kleine Blatt" in 1939:

DAS KLEINE BLATT

The work depicts a swarm of rats, wiped from the doorstep of Germany, then
delights as they're barred entry from "democratic" countries -- the same ones
critical of Germany's treatment of the Jews.
Upwards of 750,000 refugees have sought asylum in Europe so far this year,
many of them fleeing violence in the Middle East. A prevailing -- if
overblown -- concern has been that religious extremists might infiltrate
countries by posing as a refugee.

The Daily Mail has been

accused of xenophobia after
publishing a cartoon that
depicts refugees as rats
Posted 11 days ago

by Bethan McKernan in news

http://i100.independent.co.uk/article/the-daily-mail-has-been-accused-of-xenophobia-afterpublishing-a-cartoon-that-depicts-refugees-as-rats--bkJRYorPYe

In the wake of the Isis terror attacks in Paris last week,

tensions over the idea of open borders have been running
high all over Europe.
The president of the European Commission, Jean-Claude Juncker, has urged
member states not to use the atrocities carried out by Isis as a reason to
backtrack on EU promises to take in 160,000 refugees.
Speaking at a news conference at the G20 summit in Turkey yesterday,
Juncker said:
We should not mix the different categories of people coming to
Europe. Those who organised these attacks and those that
perpetrated them are exactly those that the refugees are fleeing
and not the opposite.
The Daily Mail has been under fire recently for tasteless cartoons targeting
the desperate people washing up on Europe's shores from North Africa and
the Middle East, including one that suggested dead refugees trying to get
into heaven do so 'illegally'.

And sadly, it chose to ignore Juncker's words about the refugee crisis this
week as well, publishing this cartoon today:

Several people have pointed out the similarities between today's Mac cartoon
and anAustrian newspaper cartoon from 1939, showing how Jews fleeing
Germany were turned away by the rest of "democratic" Europe.

Depicting Jews as rats was a common trope of Nazi and other anti-semitic
propaganda from the 1930s and 40s.
Kate Allen, the director of Amnesty International UK, told i100.co.uk that
such images were "reckless" and showed a "lack of compassion":
The Daily Mails cartoon is precisely the sort of reckless xenophobia
that fuels the self-same fear and hate loved by those responsible for
atrocities in Paris, Beirut, Ankara and elsewhere.
Now more than ever is the time to stand together in defiance of the
perpetrators of violence with all of their victims and reject this
disturbing lack of compassion.
Since it's 2015, here's a cartoon i100.co.uk thinks is more appropriate...

Millions of people are fleeing a brutally oppressive regime and

almost certain extermination. And The Daily Mail depicts these
people as rats and mocks their desperation.
It's appalling and hard to believe -- but true. The Daily Mail
published a cartoon depicting Syrian refugees -- one
carrying a rifle -- and a throng of rats streaming into
Europe. It closely resembles an infamous piece of 1939 Nazi
propaganda depicting Jewish people as rats shut out from
democratic countries after escaping Hitler.
There is no excuse for this hateful, dehumanising cartoon.
Tell The Daily Mail to apologise and withdraw the image.
Anti-immigrant forces across Europe have already been
trying to demonise and dehumanise the four million Syrian
refugees fleeing ISIS and a catastrophic civil war back
home. With the recent Paris attacks, that trend has only increased.
For The Daily Mail to join in -- with imagery literally used by the
Nazis -- is beneath contempt.
The Daily Mail has been here before. It ran articles supporting
fascism, the rise of Hitler and Oswald Mosley's British Union of
Fascists, and later whipped up a frenzy of fear when Jewish refugees
were seeking shelter in the UK fleeing the Nazis. Now the Mail has
turned it hatred on Syrians fleeing war, violence and
persecution.
Our community has taken on the might of the Mail and the
media before. When it ran a horrible transphobic article that may
have contributed to the suicide of a trans school teacher, we were
there standing up for trans rights. When Murdoch's The Sun ran a
competition offering Page 3 girls as a raffle prize, we were
there demanding the competition was withdrawn -- and won! We
can't let the Mail's portrayal of desperate people to stand
unchallenged.
Join us in demanding that The Daily Mail take responsibility
for its cartoon that could have come straight out of Nazi
Germany.