Criticism
Nekschot has met with strong resistance from elements in society he seeks to criticize. His early work appeared in the satirical Amsterdam student magazine Propria Cures. The mainstream newspapers were unwilling to publish his cartoons on a regular basis, with the exception of weekly magazine HP/De Tijd. Nekschot says he has been threatened by fundamentalist Muslims and Dutch anarchists. Dutch Jews, perceiving parallels with cartoons in Nazi publication Der Stürmer, and a member of parliament for the CDA party emailed him with strong objections to his cartoons. After his release Nekschot said he had never before received objections from authorities. Only a local initiative against discrimination of Muslims, supported by a city district of Amsterdam, once summoned him to remove cartoons from his website. However, he deliberately seeks to criticize Islam because of the 'apartheid' it advocates between men and women, Muslims and non-Muslims and because he considers circumcision of children a crime. The cartoonist was nominated for a Clickies, a Dutch web-comic award in 2005. A review of his Misselijke grappen in de Volkskrant newspaper of March 31, 2006 considered his (quoting the artist himself) 'needlessly offensive' work was not mirrored by any form of idealism. The reviewer did not discuss who is to judge the need or cause to offend. Having no such judge, may in itself be an ideal. When asked where he himself believed freedom of speech should stop, Nekschot replied that a cartoon should never call for violence.
Read more about this topic: Gregorius Nekschot
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