Johannes Leak returns fire over Mehreen Faruqi defamation threat

Johannes Leak was shocked – but not entirely surprised – to discover himself, for the first time, on the end of a legal threat to sue for defamation and a demand to withdraw a cartoon.

Mehreen Faruqi on Thursday, and Johannes Leak. Picture: John Feder

Johannes Leak was shocked this week to discover himself, for the first time, on the end of a legal threat to sue for defamation – and a demand to withdraw a cartoon.

Shocked but not entirely ­surprised.

The cartoonist has skewered many politicians in the past, but when Greens senator Mehreen Faruqi claimed his cartoon depiction of her was racist and would cost her votes at the next election, he recognised something else in her accusations.

Not just a politician with a thin skin but a disturbing sign of a growing intolerance to criticism and strong debate about difficult subjects.

“I think there was a big element of deliberate misunderstanding; it’s sort of confected outrage,” he said.

“They deliberately misunderstand the meaning and motivation behind a cartoon and say, ‘Well, it’s simply racist’, because some ­people might be offended.

“The priority for a cartoonist should never be ‘Oh dear, I might upset somebody’.

“I think it highlights a very practised sense of victimhood, deeply ingrained and well rehearsed. It’s symptomatic of the sort of woke mindset which is: oppressors/oppressed, victims/oppressors; and she has almost reflexively turned herself into the victim of some unfair attack.

“This is the way these games are played these days by people who don’t understand that satire and the tradition of ridiculing politicians is a way of making robust commentary on affairs of the day.”

Leak’s cartoon portrayed Senator Faruqi wearing a Hamas headband and whitewashing a wall bearing the words ”October 7” while saying “What’s the big deal? It’s just a bit of paint …”

The cartoon followed her repeated refusals on the ABC’s Insiders program to call for the terror group to be dismantled, saying that was up to the Palestinian ­people to decide.

The Australian has told Senator Faruqi it will not accede to any of her “grossly hypocritical” demands, and that the cartoon – which it argues is clearly protected by truth and honest opinion defences – will remain online.

The Johannes Leak cartoon at the centre of the legal threat.

“The mere fact she got her nose out of joint about it means that her impulse is to cry racism and ring the lawyers – that’s the new game,” Leak says.

“I’ve done some really insulting and offensive cartoons about lots of people and they don’t ring the lawyers straightaway. So I think there’s an authoritarian impulse under the surface that says: everything that I don’t like, or that I disagree with, must be basically airbrushed and whitewashed out of existence.”

Senator Faruqi’s claim that the cartoon was “racist” – an allegation for which neither she nor her lawyers provided evidence – has left him even more perplexed.

“I’m just left scratching my head about that because I’ve given her the same kind of caricature, the same treatment, that I give every public figure.

“And she’s given no explanation as to how it was racist – unless she believes that to be portrayed in any negative light amounts to racism.

“She’s a sitting member of the Senate and being a woman of colour does not make her above criticism, and it does not turn every cartoon about her into an act of ­racism.

“I’m sure there are plenty of people who think that it would be great if the only people that could be lampooned were old, straight, white men, but everybody is on the receiving end of satire now and again if they’re in politics – it’s part of the game. She is a public figure.”

The threat of legal action over the cartoon brought back memories for Leak of the time, eight years ago, when his late father, Bill Leak, came under sustained attack from some quarters over a cartoon highlighting parental neglect in Aboriginal communities.

“It’s a sad sort of reflection of where we are now, where the impulse is to silence and censor things that people just don’t like and to throw allegations of racism around so freely and so willingly. Yes, there’s definitely parallels there. But as a cartoonist, you’ve got to stand by what you do.”

And Leak does stand by this cartoon, as his father did in the face of an attempt to bring him before the Human Rights Commission on allegations of racial vilification.

“He didn’t apologise and I don’t think you should, if you’ve done nothing wrong.

“And when you believe, like he did, that he was only doing his job.

“And in the case of that particular cartoon, probe a bit deeper, bring the essential truth to light, no matter how tough and unpalatable that might have been for people, he knew that that’s the job of a ­cartoonist.

“If I felt that I had really let myself and my standards down and done something I thought deep down was wrong or smacked of any sort of racism or bigotry, then that would be a cause for me of course to apologise.

“But I am careful and I am considered and while it might look like my cartoons are a bit tough, there’s a lot of thought behind them.”

Leak is encouraged by the support he’s received from many fellow cartoonists, but aware others will take a stand against him along culture war lines rather than stand up against an attack on all who practise journalism.

“The cartooning community these days is quite polarised, like everything in the media landscape. I have no doubt there will be cartoonists who will take the absolute opposite side to me on this.”

There’s an obvious danger in that stance, he points out.

“They might be coming for me now, but they could be coming for anybody if suddenly there are restrictions and red lines drawn up around what we can and can’t say or comment on.

“It’s dangerous for free speech, and it’s dangerous for a free press.”