Enlarge image
Kurt Westergaard (1935-2021)
Photo: BO AMSTRUP / imago images / Belga
First things first: Kurt Westergaard, illustrator of one of the twelve Mohammed cartoons in the Jyllands-Posten newspaper, was 86 years old and died of natural causes.
This can no longer be taken for granted at a time when journalists are shot on the street or caricaturists at their drawing table.
Shortly after the caricature page was published, a bounty was also offered on Westergaard, he has been under police protection since 2007, an assassin broke into his house in 2010, and Westergaard saved himself in a bathroom that had been converted into a shelter.
Westergaard did not choose that, he apparently stumbled into it more - at the time already half retired - he complained about these consequences of his caricature in interviews, so he should not have expected them.
According to the »Jyllands-Posten« editorial team, the cartoonists themselves were part of an experiment: an author of children's books wanted to illustrate a story of Islam, but couldn't find a cartoonist for the Prophet.
The "Posten" culture section wanted to check whether caricaturists had similar scissors in their heads.
The drawn joke as a test of courage, so to speak.
One of the caricatures shows a draftsman who dares to paint the prophet, but only at night, by lamp, in complete silence.
Westergaard also dared.
But probably none of those involved suspected what he was getting into.
As if the required jump from the edge of the pool with blindfolded eyes suddenly turned out to be one from the ten-meter board.
When you're out there, you can't turn back.
In terms of content, the caricature was more of a kind of graphic ass bomb, especially since the prophet was already given as an element: Mohammed with a bomb as a turban.
Hitler with a bomb as a mustache.
Alexander Gauland with a bomb for his ass.
You can do anything, but you are more moderately sensitive.
The caricatured "Charlie Hebdo" brethren would not have cared about it, they would probably have understood the excitement as an award, as an indication of a direct hit.
But Westergaard was obviously not made that way.
His great achievement was therefore different.
Caricature as a demonstration of freedom of expression
Kurt Westergaard resisted that his drawing was taken out of context.
And he resisted their instrumentalization by right-wing extremists.
In 2012, the young fascists from Pro NRW used the poster for their election campaign - Westergaard protested emphatically, and rightly so.
Even in a very conservative newspaper like the Jyllands-Posten, his caricature of Mohammed is still primarily a demonstration of freedom of expression.
So also the freedom to show Recep Tayyip Erdoğan as the smuggler king, Viktor Orbán as a Pegasus intern with the Khashoggi killers, or Alice Weidel as a Trojan mare for Nazis.
In Pro NRW, on the other hand, the same caricature served as a pure agitation against Muslims.
And the enforcement of an understanding of freedom of expression comparable to that of the Reichsschrifttumskammer.
It would have been humanly understandable if Westergaard hadn't cared about this after his experience.
But it wasn't.
Last respect!