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So yeah, I'm a newspaper cartoonist --
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political cartoonist.
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I don't know if you've heard about it -- newspapers?
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It's a sort of paper-based reader.
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(Laughter)
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It's lighter than an iPad,
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it's a bit cheaper.
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You know what they say?
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They say the print media is dying --
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who says that? Well, the media.
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But this is no news, right?
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You've read about it already.
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(Laughter)
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Ladies and gentlemen,
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the world has gotten smaller.
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I know it's a cliche, but look,
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look how small,
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how tiny it has gotten.
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And you know the reason why, of course.
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This is because of technology -- yeah.
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(Laughter)
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Any computer designers in the room?
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Yeah well,
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you guys are making my life miserable
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because track pads used to be round,
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a nice round shape.
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That makes a good cartoon.
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But what are you going to do with a flat track pad,
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those square things?
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There's nothing I can do as a cartoonist.
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Well, I know the world is flat now.
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That's true.
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And the Internet has reached
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every corner of the world,
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the poorest, the remotest places.
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Every village in Africa now has a cyber cafe.
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(Laughter)
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Don't go asking for a Frappuccino there.
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So we are bridging the digital divide.
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The Third World is connected,
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we are connected.
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And what happens next?
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Well, you've got mail.
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Yeah.
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Well, the Internet has empowered us.
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It has empowered you,
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it has empowered me
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and it has empowered some other guys as well.
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(Laughter)
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You know, these last two cartoons --
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I did them live
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during a conference in Hanoi.
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And they were not used to that
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in communist 2.0 Vietnam.
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(Laughter)
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So I was cartooning live on a wide screen --
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it was quite a sensation --
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and then this guy came to me.
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He was taking pictures of me and of my sketches,
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and I thought, "This is great, a Vietnamese fan."
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And as he came the second day,
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I thought, "Wow, that's really a cartoon lover."
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And on the third day, I finally understood,
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the guy was actually on duty.
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So by now, there must be a hundred pictures of me
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smiling with my sketches
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in the files of the Vietnamese police.
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(Laughter)
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No, but it's true: the Internet has changed the world.
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It has rocked the music industry;
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it has changed the way we consume music.
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For those of you old enough to remember,
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we used to have to go to the store
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to steal it.
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(Laughter)
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And it has changed the way
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your future employer
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will look at your application.
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So be careful
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with that Facebook account --
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your momma told you, be careful.
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And technology has set us free --
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this is free WiFi.
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But yeah, it has liberated us
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from the office desk.
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This is your life,
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enjoy it.
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(Laughter)
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In short, technology, the internet,
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they have changed our lifestyle.
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Tech guru, like this man --
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that a German magazine called the philosopher of the 21st century --
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they are shaping the way we do things.
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They are shaping the way we consume.
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They are shaping our very desires.
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(Laughter)
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(Applause)
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You will not like it.
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And technology has even changed
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our relationship to God.
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(Laughter)
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Now I shouldn't get into this.
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Religion and political cartoons,
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as you may have heard,
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make a difficult couple,
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ever since that day of 2005,
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when a bunch of cartoonists in Denmark
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drew cartoons that had repercussions all over the world --
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demonstrations, fatwa,
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they provoked violence. People died in the violence.
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This was so sickening;
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people died because of cartoons.
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I mean --
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I had the feeling at the time
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that cartoons had been used by both sides, actually.
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They were used first by a Danish newspaper,
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which wanted to make a point on Islam.
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A Danish cartoonist told me he was one of the 24
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who received the assignment to draw the prophet --
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12 of them refused. Did you know that?
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He told me, "Nobody has to tell me what I should draw.
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This is not how it works."
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And then, of course, they were used
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by extremists and politicians on the other side.
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They wanted to stir up controversy.
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You know the story.
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We know that cartoons can be used as weapons.
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History tells us,
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they've been used by the Nazis
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to attack the Jews.
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And here we are now.
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In the United Nations,
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half of the world is pushing
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to penalize the offense to religion --
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they call it the defamation of religion --
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while the other half of the world is fighting back
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in defense of freedom of speech.
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So the clash of civilizations is here,
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and cartoons are at the middle of it?
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This got me thinking.
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Now you see me thinking
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at my kitchen table,
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and since you're in my kitchen,
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please meet my wife.
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(Laughter)
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In 2006, a few months after,
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I went Ivory Coast --
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Western Africa.
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Now, talk of a divided place -- the country was cut in two.
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You had a rebellion in the North,
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the government in the South -- the capital, Abidjan --
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and in the middle, the French army.
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This looks like a giant hamburger.
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You don't want to be the ham in the middle.
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I was there to report on that story
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in cartoons.
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I've been doing this for the last 15 years;
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it's my side job, if you want.
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So you see the style is different.
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This is more serious than maybe editorial cartooning.
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I went to places like Gaza
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during the war in 2009.
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So this is really journalism in cartoons.
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You'll hear more and more about it.
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This is the future of journalism, I think.
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And of course, I went to see the rebels in the north.
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Those were poor guys fighting for their rights.
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There was an ethnic side to this conflict
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as very often in Africa.
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And I went to see the Dozo.
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The Dozo, they are the traditional hunters
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of West Africa.
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People fear them --
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they help the rebellion a lot.
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They are believed to have magical powers.
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They can disappear and escape bullets.
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I went to see a Dozo chief;
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he told me about his magical powers.
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He said, "I can chop your head off right away
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and bring you back to life."
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I said, "Well, maybe we don't have time for this right now."
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(Laughter)
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"Another time."
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So back in Abidjan,
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I was given a chance to lead a workshop
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with local cartoonists there
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and I thought, yes,
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in a context like this, cartoons can really be used as weapons
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against the other side.
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I mean, the press in Ivory Coast was bitterly divided --
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it was compared to the media in Rwanda
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before the genocide --
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so imagine.
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And what can a cartoonist do?
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Sometimes editors would tell their cartoonists
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to draw what they wanted to see,
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and the guy has to feed his family, right?
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So the idea was pretty simple.
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We brought together cartoonists
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from all sides in Ivory Coast.
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We took them away from their newspaper for three days.
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And I asked them to do a project together,
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tackle the issues affecting their country
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in cartoons, yes, in cartoons.
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Show the positive power of cartoons.
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It's a great tool of communication
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for bad or for good.
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And cartoons can cross boundaries,
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as you have seen.
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And humor is a good way, I think,
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to address serious issues.
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And I'm very proud of what they did.
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I mean, they didn't agree with each other -- that was not the point.
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And I didn't ask them to do nice cartoons.
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The first day, they were even shouting at each other.
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But they came up with a book,
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looking back at 13 years
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of political crisis in Ivory Coast.
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So the idea was there.
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And I've been doing projects like this,
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in 2009 in Lebanon,
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this year in Kenya, back in January.
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In Lebanon, it was not a book.
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The idea was to have --
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the same principal, a divided country --
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take cartoonists from all sides
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and let them do something together.
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So in Lebanon,
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we enrolled the newspaper editors,
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and we got them to publish
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eight cartoonists from all sides all together on the same page,
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addressing the issue affecting Lebanon,
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like religion in politics and everyday life.
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And it worked.
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For three days, almost all the newspapers of Beirut
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published all those cartoonists together --
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anti-government,
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pro-government,
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Christian,
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Muslim, of course,
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English-speaking, well, you name it.
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So this was a great project.
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And then in Kenya, what we did
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was addressing the issue of ethnicity,
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which is a poison in a lot of places in Africa.
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And we did video clips --
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you can see them if you go to YouTube/Kenyatoons.
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So, preaching for freedom of speech
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is easy here,
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but as you have seen
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in contexts of repression or division,
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again, what can a cartoonist do?
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He has to keep his job.
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Well I believe that in any context anywhere,
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he always has the choice at least
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not to do a cartoon
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that will feed hatred.
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And that's the message I try to convey to them.
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I think we all always have the choice in the end
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not to do the bad thing.
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But we need to support
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these [unclear], critical
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and responsible voices
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in Africa, in Lebanon,
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in your local newspaper,
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in the Apple store.