By Azmat Haroon
In 1987, Naji Salim Al Ali, an iconic figure of the Palestinian struggle for independence, was shot in the face by Mossad agents in London. He succumbed to his injuries five weeks later.
Naji was neither a politician nor a military man. He was, in fact, a cartoonist who used his characters to portray the intense agony and estrangement of the life of a refugee.
Even after his death, Naji continues to live through his works and has inspired hundreds of Arabs to choose art over arms, though the political controversy surrounding his assassination too continues to rage.
“When I was about 18 years, I planned to leave home and go to Lebanon without telling anyone in the family. There were many Palestinian organisations at the time fighting against Israel,” Nidal Hashem, a cartoonist based in Jordan, told The Peninsula.
“But then I heard about the assassination of Naji Al Ali,” Hashem said, explaining how he could not understand the reason why a cartoonist was brutally murdered. “It was then that I realised you do not need guns to fight a cause. The creative medium has a stronger and larger impact,” he added.
Hashem, along with a number of other Arab cartoonists, was in Doha last week for Dar Al Sharq’s Arabic cartoons competition. The competition was organised to mark the 25th anniversary of Al Sharq.
The turning point in Hashem’s life led him to explore the world of cartoons, and consequently he began searching for cartoonists around him.
More than three decades after Naji’s assassination, the issues faced by cartoonists in the Middle East and North Africa (Mena) remain the same.
Last year, Ali Farzat, a Syrian cartoonist, was brutally beaten and had his hands broken by the security forces in Damascus. The 61-year-old was assaulted for his satirical cartoons against President Bashar Al Assad.
Most of the caricaturists in this region have to fight against the restrictions on the creative contents of their work every day.
“In my country, Jordan, for instance, we cannot target top leaders and sometimes we cannot even draw caricatures of leaders of other countries,” Hashem, who has been a professional cartoonist for the past 12 years, said while speaking about the restraints on cartoonists.
Cartoons are, in most cases, considered more powerful than articles and reports for highlighting and addressing critical social, political and economic issues in simple ways.
“Additionally, many Arab countries have a particular stance on issues such as the Syrian crisis. It would be impossible for a cartoonist to defy the political stance of the country where he or she is living,” he added.
Khalid Albaih, a cartoonist in Qatar, says that convincing editors to publish work is another hurdle.
“Speaking from my personal experience, I tried to submit my works to newspapers, but it didn’t work out,” said Albaih, who argues that newspapers here are used to the old formats. “They (editors) look for sketches with speech bubbles, and texts that would make people laugh,” he added.
The modern format is more graphic and digitally altered, which makes caricatures very appealing, insists Albaih.
He also believes that Arab cartoonists are more likely to get attention and praise from the international media than from people from their own region. “My work has been featured in magazines in Italy and France,” said Albaih, who is an interior designer by profession.
New mediums
Cartoonists in the Arab region are increasingly looking at the new media to publish their works. This is in essence to have complete control over the content of their drawings, as well as to reach out to a larger audience.
Additionally, finding work can also be a major challenge for cartoonists in Arab world, says Hashem, who works in the trading business. In Jordan, there are four daily newspapers and most of them have only one cartoonist each, he explained.
“We have a cartoonists’ association in Jordan that has some 20 members. Less than a quarter of them have work as cartoonists,” said Hashem.
Few of these have contracts with newspapers, and some work as freelancers or graphic designers, while most members in the association use social media sites to publish their works.
The pattern is similar across the Middle East.
“My works have been published by some magazines and newspapers as a freelancer but I primarily use social media sites for expressing my thoughts,” said Khalid Cherradi, a Moroccan cartoonist, who has not had a contract with a newspaper to date.
Albaih, who has over 20,000 followers on his Facebook page “Kharoon!”, says that Internet is a more potent medium for cartoonists in this region.
“Instead of going through newspaper and magazine editors, my fans have become my editors. Based on the number of ‘likes’ my cartoon gets, I can determine the quality and popularity of my work,” he said.
Currently, there is no platform that brings together cartoonists in the Mena region. Although there are associations in countries such as Egypt, Iraq and Sudan, there is a dire need to form an organization that would unite cartoonists in the region.
“Because there is no institution where cartoonists receive training, we depend on each other for learning new techniques,” said Hashem.
He believes that establishing an institute for cartoonists might not be a feasible idea at this point because artists are spread throughout the world and a majority may not have access to institutes.
“What we need is an annual conference of some sort or perhaps more events that would help promote the works of indigenous cartoonists,” said Hashem.
He also called for more cartoons exhibitions, such as that organised by Dar Al Sharq last week.
“This is the first edition of the competition but I hope they can expand it in the coming years,” he added.
With more such events, many youngsters will be inspired, and this profession will also be looked at more seriously. Despite the talent, there are many Arabs who do not consider becoming professional cartoonists, which is why they are still amateurs.
Within Qatar, there are only a handful of cartoonists and there is a need to have more people in this profession, says a popular Qatari cartoonist.
“We only have five cartoonists in Qatar, and there is a need for more people to enter this profession,” said Abdul Aziz Sadeq, who draws for Al Sharq daily.The Peninsula
