Iranian Cartoonist Anjomrooz Sepideh

I can't offer a definitive interpretation of the cartoon, but I can try to explain the impression I receive from it.

The hand is positioned like that of God's in Michelangelo's painting Creation of Adam that adorns the ceiling of the Vatican's Cistine Chapel. This hand, however, doesn't seem godlike somehow, doesn't seem to have a lot of strength in it. But strength or not, it is certainly intended to represent a Christian version, or vision, of God.

The other feature in the drawing seems to be the bird of peace, a bird holding an olive branch in its beak. Both bird and branch, however, seem made of barbed wire. We think of the uses that material serves, chief of which is containing something by force, keeping it by threat of pain in pasture or prison. It's the bird of peace, but it's made out of violent stuff.

So, one way this pictorial commentary might be "read" is that, from the point of view of an Iranian artist, the Christian world—i.e., the USA—is playing God and ironically trying to offer (or dictate) peace through war. The original painting's hand of Adam, rather listlessly reaching to God in response, is absent here, suggesting that the barbed wire peace being offered is neither requested nor accepted.

The picture came from http://cagle.msnbc.com/, where there's an amazing collection of editorial cartoons on all sorts of national and international topics.


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