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A famend Australian cartoonist has mentioned he misplaced his prime spot in a Melbourne-based newspaper after he drew parallels between the Tiananmen Sq. protests and Covid-19 vaccine mandates in a brand new cartoon.
Cartoonist Michael Leunig, generally known as Australia’s “dwelling nationwide treasure,” has revealed that he was pressured out of his place on the editorial web page of The Age day by day newspaper after publishing a political cartoon criticizing the federal government’s push for obligatory vaccination.
Chatting with The Australian on Monday, Leunig mentioned that whereas the editorial group has censored a few dozen of his works this yr, the final straw seemed to be an anti-mandate cartoon which was a play on the long-lasting ‘tank man’ photograph. Leunig’s cartoon exhibits a person staring down a tank, with its most important gun being changed by a syringe.
The unique photograph depicts a lone Chinese language protester standing earlier than a line of tanks through the 1989 pro-democracy protests at Tiananmen Sq..
Whereas his cartoon was rejected by The Age, Leunig printed the drawing on Instagram, triggering backlash from the proponents of vaccine mandates.
Shortly after the controversy erupted, Leuning, who labored on the newspaper for over 20 years, was advised that his providers as a political cartoonist have been not wanted. The Age’s editor, Homosexual Alcorn, reportedly advised the artist that he was “out of contact” with readers earlier than notifying him of his dismissal. Whereas Alcorn praised Leuning as “sensible” in a remark to The Australian, he confirmed that his works would not seem on the editorial web page. The newspaper nonetheless plans to commision way of life cartoons from Leuning, nevertheless.
Leuning accused the newspaper of “wokeism and humorlessness,” defending the cartoon as an correct reflection of the instances.
“The Tiananmen Sq. picture is usually utilized in cartoons world wide as a Charlie Chaplin-like metaphor for overwhelming drive assembly the harmless powerless particular person. In my opinion, it’s a honest sufficient problem to boost in probably the most locked-down metropolis on this planet,” the cartoonist mentioned, referring to Melbourne, which set a report for the longest cumulative Covid-19 lockdown after shutting down for 262 days.
Australia’s second-largest metropolis started stress-free its sweeping Covid-19 restrictions on Friday. The much-awaited transfer sparked celebrations throughout the town, with residents seen cheering from their balconies because the clock struck midnight.
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