Judensau – ‘a parody of a caricature’

Swedish artist Lars Vilks, whose sketches of Muhammad as a rondellhund (traffic-circle dog statue) ignited the reprise of the cartoon jihad chronicled in the foregoing post, has explained his drawing of a "judensau" to the Swedish news agency TT:

Vilks said he had observed how Muslims were treated with greater care than other religious groups. It was with this in mind that he composed the drawing 'Modern Jewish sow, swollen by capitalism', a drawing he published on his own website as a response to a rhetorical question from a Swedish journalist.

"The 'Jew sow' is crystal clear and belongs to a particular situation. It's a parody of a caricature, it's so over-explicit. I understand that the picture itself in another context could be explosive. But I'm no anti-Semite.

"Otherwise I wouldn't have written the accompanying text about how Muslims are able to have a go at Jews in the roughest manner without any reaction because people are afraid to attack Muslims," said Vilks.

Roger that. My second language being Russian rather than Swedish, I didn't catch Vilks's clarification on his blog, but am glad to have it now.