Publications in the Arab world, whether newspapers or magazines, still follow self-censorship as they don’t want to risk inviting the wrath of powers that be. But the social media, which is credited with igniting the Arab Spring, has come to the rescue of Arab caricaturists who are using the medium freely to give expression to their art and intellect.
“If it were not for the social media where I regularly display my works, I wouldn’t have been invited to a prestigious international cartoonists’ conference in France last year,” confesses Doha-based Khalid Albaih, a caricaturist of repute who earns his livelihood by doing another job.
Albaih told this newspaper yesterday that at the conference in France, he met cartoonists from various parts of the world, including the west, and when he told some of them that in Arab world you can be jailed for drawing a caricature that angers the leaders, they were in for a shock.
“They nearly ran out of their breath when I told them this. They didn’t believe a caricaturist can be jailed for his work,” said Albaih. “Things are, however, changing but the Arab world lags far behind the rest of the world in the art.” Interestingly, the conference in France was devoted to discussing whether cartoonists in Arab world would have more freedom after Arab Spring.
“Caricaturists like me have taken to the social media because publications don’t encourage us. They are not willing to accommodate our works even if we don’t’ ask for any payment,” said Albaih.
Drawing cartoons can also be dangerous. “Look at what happened to our Syrian friend, Ali Fazat!. He was quite close to (Syrian President) Bashar Al Assad but when he began drawing satirical cartoons of him and his regime, he was attacked and his hands were brutally injured,” said Albaih. It is also a well-known fact that the Syrian regime has put behind the bars a prominent cartoonist, Akram Arsalan, for his bold caricatures. However, it is true that after Arab Spring there has been a surge in political caricatures in the Arab world, he added.
The situation in the GCC region is described worse as political caricatures are unthinkable and what at best can be published — that too, with much difficulty — are caricatures that portray some social evil or economic woe.
Newspapers and magazines in the GCC have no specialists or set criteria to select cartoons, and caricatures lampooning the Gulf leaders are literally unheard of as they are a taboo. However, these same publications happily — and hypocritically — give prominent space to cartoons that depict and lampoon political leaders from other countries.
These publications, as a result, rely heavily on foreign agencies for the supply of caricatures and that explains why western cartoons dominate the GCC publications. “This is double standards and has to do with the GCC culture of fear and a lack of free expression,” said a critic. The tendency, however, reflects negatively on the situation in the region as regards freedom of expression.
Also, unlike in the west where drawing caricatures is a profession and can assure its practitioner a full-time job with handsome pay and perks, in the Arab world it is a ‘hobby’ for those who are fond of the art and are passionate about it. But cartoonists like Albaih are hopeful that things will change in future as public awareness grows, and the day wouldn’t be far when ‘paid’ cartoonists have both respect and money.
