In Tehran, a riposte to the Danish cartoons

By Michael Slackman
The New York Times

TEHRAN The title of the show is Holocaust International Cartoon Contest, or "Holocust," as the show's organizers spelled the word in promotional material. But the content has little to do with the events of World War II and Nazi Germany.

There is instead a drawing of a Jew with a very large nose, a nose so large, in fact, that it obscures his entire head. Across his chest is the word "Holocaust." Another drawing shows a vampire, wearing a big Star of David, drinking the blood of Palestinians. A third shows Ariel Sharon dressed in a Nazi uniform, emblazoned not with swastikas, but with the Star of David.

The cartoons are among more than 200 on display in the Palestinian Contemporary Art Museum in central Tehran in a show that opened earlier this month and is to run until the middle of September. The exhibition is intended as a response to the cartoons in a Danish newspaper that lampooned the Prophet Muhammad and were condemned by Muslims as blasphemous.

The message of the Holocaust-themed show is as old as the fictional Protocols of the Elders of Zion, and as contemporary as the drawings of Israeli tanks running over Palestinian men, women and children. Each picture is hung with great care, carefully matted and placed in a soft wood frame and illuminated by gentle lighting.

"It is not that we are against a specific religion," said Seyed Massoud Shojaei, curator of the show, offering a distinction that visitors to the show are certain to question. "We are against repression by the Israelis."

In February, the Iranian newspaper Hamshahri said that it would challenge the West's concepts of freedom of expression by probing one of its own taboos and challenging accounts of the Holocaust. Iran's president, Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, was condemned in the West when he called the Holocaust a myth.

The idea of the contest is to expose what some here see as Western hypocrisy for condemning Ahmadinejad, while invoking freedom of expression when it comes to cartoons that many Muslims said were deeply offensive. The cartoons prompted riots in many countries that left people dead and several European embassies burned by demonstrators.

Shojaei said that more than 1,000 pictures from 61 countries were submitted, proving that "there is a new holocaust in Guantánamo Bay, Abu Ghraib, Palestine, Iraq and Afghanistan."

The show's provocative theme may attract the attention of the West. But it has gone little noticed here. Over a three-day period, the gallery was virtually empty at different times of the day.

A few visitors stopped by, mostly art students who said they had visited to examine artistic techniques. Many were also happy to take away a free poster: a photograph showing three military helmets piled up, the two with swastikas on the crown, a third with the Star of David.

"I came here to study the quality of the work," said Hamid Derikvand, 27, who said he was an art student at the university across the street from the gallery.

What did he think of the message? "I am not interested in politics," he said.

Technically, this is not a government show. The cash prizes that will be awarded to the winners - with a $12,000 top prize - will not come from the government, Shojaei said.

But the theme of the show fits well with the leadership's efforts to define itself as confrontational with the West and as a leader in the challenge to Israel's existence. At the height of the worldwide anger over the Danish cartoons, there were two protests in Tehran, both organized by officials.

But while people here say they are sympathetic with Palestinians and Lebanese, and angry at Israel and the United States, there did not seem to be a huge rush to see the show.

"Look, these cartoons are the reflections of U.S. and Israelis' deeds, but wouldn't it have been better if they were put on display in the U.S. or even in Israel?" said Ali Eezadi, 70, a retired industrial engineer who visited the gallery Thursday afternoon.

"If this was the case," he said, "certainly there would be a rationale for it. But having this kind of exhibition in Iran does not draw much attention. I mean, these things are said, written and expressed in lots of ways that makes people apathetic."

At first, Shojaei was keen to show visitors around. He was proud to point to his own drawing, a rabid dog with a Jewish star on its side and the word Holocaust around its collar.

He said there were three reasons for holding the show: The first was because, he said, in the West it is considered all right to insult religion, but impermissible to question the Holocaust.

The second, he said, is to ask why Palestinians must pay the price for the atrocities of the Holocaust - which he, unlike his president, did not deny.

And the third, he said, is to draw attention to what he called the creation of a new Holocaust against Muslims, primarily Palestinians.

"We have been accused of being advocates for neo-Nazis," he said, speaking in Farsi through a translator. "This is not true."

The show took up three floors of the gallery and Shojaei was on the third floor, surrounded by images, which at most used the Holocaust as a subtext: A dove chained to a Star of David. President George W. Bush seated at a desk swatting doves. A Jew, or Israeli, asleep with three Arab heads mounted to the wall above his bed.

"We are not saying the Holocaust is a myth," he said. "We are saying that by this excuse Israelis are repressing other people."

Shojaei was not interested in answering questions or being challenged on his statements.

"You will need to make an appointment for an interview," he said abruptly, and left quickly through the front door after an attempt to engage him.

There were cartoons from other countries on display, too. China. India. Brazil. Syria. Jordan. Pakistan. An Israeli soldier holding a gas can that said Holocaust on the side as the soldier poured the fuel into a military tank.

A razor blade in the ground, like the barrier Israel is building along the West Bank, with the word Holocaust along the side. Two firemen, each with a Jewish star on his chest, using Palestinian blood to extinguish the word Holocaust, which was ablaze.

Shojaei said that none of the images were intended as anti-Jewish, only anti- Zionist and anti-Israeli - and of course, anti-American and anti-British. As evidence of that idea, he said that Iranians live peacefully with the Iranian Jewish community in Iran.

But Morris Motamed, the one Jewish member of Iran's Parliament, said he did not go to the show because "it was in line with anti-Semitism and aimed at insulting Jews."

He added: "I felt if I went, I would get insulted and get hurt."