What a ridiculous, mentally suffocated country we live in! And, no, I am not talking primarily about the person in the street, but specifically about our politicians, self appointed untouchables and demigods, lapping up the adulation of inferiors whose only claim to fame is to be seen in the shadow of the "great".

So the Labour Party has seen fit to be "hurt" by one of MTB's cartoons - a rare foray by the master cartoonist into the land of the comic strip, in which he draws on a number of literary and anagrammatic references that go well over the head of the Labour administration on the constant lookout for political scapegoats. Because it takes a very literal reading of the names the cartoonist uses in his strip (Alfossa and Poohland) for them to be interpreted in the way the "hurt" party has deemed to interpret them. It is in the very nature of cartoons to be read on many different levels. Those who seek to be hurt will always find something there to be hurt about. Very often, it is the literal reading of those who would not know satire if it hit them smack in the face that will cause ripples and be latched onto for diatribe.

But my argument does not rest there. What if the way they have interpreted the strip, with Alfred Sant being called a cesspit and the land of Malta (far-fetchedly ignoring the "h" at the end of "Pooh", if Mr Milne will excuse me for doing so) scatologically referred to - what is wrong with that? What do they have to fear that ridicule from the vitriolically charged pen of the cartoonist will make them cry foul and demand apologies? How tenuous and unstable is their footing in the public eye for them to be terrified of being made fun of?

And on top of everything else, in this European land that professes freedom of expression, we get the MLP stating that "it did not agree with those (cartoons) whose sole aim was to ridicule and show disrespect to public persons" (The Times, September 29).

That is what cartoonists do! They make fun of public figures, because they speak for the common person who does not like it when overbearing politicians and servants of society decide they are above that very society they are supposed to serve. The cartoonist speaks for all of us without a voice in pointing out the flaws in the perfection that is portrayed, in pricking the inflation, in (exaggeratedly) drawing a portrait that is full of pock-marks and defects of what is spun as flawless.

Is Malta going to go the way of Turkey, with the Prime Minister there drawing international chastisement for being so sensitive as to sue for libel a lot of cartoonists and have their exhibitions closed down by the police? Check out WittyWorld's excellent site, and particularly the page (http://www.wittyworld.com/countries/turkey.html) that lists the shame of world politicians at war with, and at times even killing, cartoonists.

I am not saying there should not be an ethical line drawn by cartoonists, though some would disagree with that, as we've seen in the debacle of the Danish Jyllandsposten's cartoons satirising the prophet Mohammed. There common sense should have drawn the line before the offence happened - a situation that went beyond the need to emphasise the right for freedom of expression.

But some Muslim communities did over-react to the cartoons, in my opinion - demanding of governments despotic measures that are not within the remit of democratic countries' administrations. They burnt and threatened because they had been offended deeply. This showed the power of the cartoon, but said lots, also, of the irresponsibility that can be the cartoonist's, and the lack of tolerance because of shaky self-images that those that react to the face-value of the satire have. I think Muslims were right to be offended by the irresponsibility, but wrong in the overreaction of some of them. That is a great religion that does not need to react to criticism because it is great in itself.

MTB was anything but irresponsible in the strip that offended the Labour administration. He played cleverly on the interplay between the metaphorically biblical and the semantically straight meaning of the Labour general secretary's words and wrought a wonderful, satirical fable with them. Trust Labour to pick out one or two words that they insisted implied offence, pulled them out of context and cried foul!

Ridiculous. This is a cartoon all by itself, and would be extremely laughable were it not fraught with a danger to our public ability to express ourselves freely, knocking giant statues of despotic tyrants off their pedestals if need be. The tyrant will always have the democratic right to refer to a court of law if he or she feels they have been slighted in a way that goes beyond fair comment. But fair comment by a cartoonist is an internationally acknowledged right to ridicule and make sure that our state of mental health is sane and not feverish.

I was in Denmark this summer when a newspaper there reproduced cartoons about the Holocaust published by an Iranian paper and intended as reprisal for the Mohammed cartoons. It is significant that an article run a few days after the republication said that as a result of the cartoons being published in Denmark, there was no international outrage, and no embassies were burnt down.

Isn't it ironical and double faced too, that that same edition of Labour's Maltastar.com that runs the article on the party's outrage at the MTB cartoon also runs a number of cartoons itself ... with one of them having Austin Gatt on a toilet labelled "Parliament"?

Talk about "poo(h)" indeed!

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