Bringing to an end the long, tragic, controversial run of the popular character Muhammad in Charlie Hebdo cartoons, the cartoonist Luz has said he won’t draw the prophet anymore. Luz, the man who rendered the image of the prophet that so enraged Muslim extremists that two of them attacked and murdered 12 of his colleagues at the magazine, told Les Inrockuptibles that drawing Muhammad “no longer interests me.”
Luz was one of the survivors of the attack last January that shocked the world. The elegant, cheek-turning response by the magazine’s remaining staff was to publish a new edition of Charlie Hebdo with the cover reading “All is forgiven.” Forgiven, perhaps, but impossible to forget, the attacks changed the lives of many and the political calculus in the West. Luz, by no longer drawing Muhammad, may be adding his attempt at forgetting to his and his colleagues’ public declaration of forgiveness.
