31 A USTRALIAN AND other Western ig- norance about the Arab world—its people, religion, culture and litera- ture—has mutated into many stereotypical forms: jokes, cartoons, TV commercials, seri- als, songs and films. Cartoons are particularly a unique species. They require different criteria of assessment and approach. Unlike editors and news ana- lysts, cartoonists may not feel obliged to present all sides of the story. Rather they make a blunt assault on the characteristics of their subjects, and pride themselves on being se- lective in their presentation. Clearly cartoons are created for a quick fix of entertainment. They present information and transmit unambiguous messages. They have also played a significant role in the defining of racial stereotypes. The long-term effects of racist cartoons are enormous. My intuition compels me to believe that the damage caused to Australia’s Arab image—Christian and Muslim—is arguably beyond repair. Other minorities such as Abo- riginals, Asians, Greeks and Italians have been the cartoonists’ delight since WWI, but with a difference. The pitch of imagery targeting Muslims finds no match. Its persistence has exceeded thirty years—the longest of what any other minority has endured. The extent of psy- chological maim may warrant a nationally funded survey. Admittedly, the so-called Arab (Christian and Muslim) community leaders have made bad lawyers in presenting their case. Following the Six-Day War Australian car- toonists adopted a different standard of as- sessment from those of ordinary journalists. To them an ‘objective’ political caricature has been considered a contradiction in terms. For a Muslim caricature to help sell more editions, the political or social comment must be graphic, blunt and succinct. It should also lead to a distortion of selected behavior or mor- als. Cartoonists in the Australian/Western press tend to pride themselves on their independ- ence, and so they consider protests from their victims as attacks on their own integrity. On several occasions they recognised that their success depends on their ability to reflect the prejudices and preferences of their readership. On most other occasions they seem to reflect those of their employers. When the recent racial vilification laws were introduced most Australian cartoonists defended demonizing Muslims in cartoons as satire. A cartoonist of a regional paper rejected the accusation that he was a propagandist pro- moting a particular editorial posture. However, he recognized that Muslim caricatures were often more effective in influencing commu- nity attitudes than news and current affairs pro- grams A 20th century Punch-like caricature of a bog Irishman or long-nosed Jew, or Norman Lindsay’s grotesque Huns or Chinamen now seem repugnant. Not so the caricatures of Australia’s Christian and Muslim Arabs. Clearly the cartoons are now infrequent, but are highly pitched when they surface. Early in the nineties a sign placed in the foyer of a DEMONIZING AUSTRALIA’S CHRISTIAN AND MUSLIM ARABS IN CARTOONS ABE ATA