When I joined Arab News in early 1980s we had only one full-size cartoon in the paper, on the Edit Page. This was mostly by Mahmoud Kahil with occasional drawings by Abdul Rahim Alireza. While Kahil concentrated on the Middle East, Alireza’s caricatures invariably touched on Saudi interaction with expatriate workers, mostly Filipinos. Today, we have three cartoons — on Page 3 and the Op-Ed and Opinion Pages. Page 3 cartoons are taken from local Arabic newspapers — Al-Watan, Al-Madinah, Al-Riyadh and Al-Nadwah among others; indeed, this has allowed Saudi cartoonists to reach a much wider audience. Some of them are as good as any found outside the Kingdom.
Drawings by Ali Al-Ghamdi, Sultan Al-Subaie, Adel Saeed, Khaled, Rabea, Yazeed, Fahd Al-Khameesi and others deal satirically with various aspects of Saudi life — bureaucracy, municipal elections, unemployment, environment, the rise in living costs, oil prices, education and the like. As cartoonists, they also take shots at international politics but Page 3 publishes those relating only to domestic issues.
Occasionally Op-Ed and Opinion Pages reprint cartoons from local Arabic newspapers dealing with foreign affairs. We have also introduced a young Saudi cartoonist, Muhammad Raees. All these cartoonists have their own distinctive style, using a minimum of words to convey their message. Whatever the subject, they never lack bite.
Mahmoud Kahil, our Opinion Page cartoonist until his death two years ago, also gave more importance to the visual rather than the word. Even on those rare occasions when he chose a non-Middle East subject (such as Marcos’ eroding support leading to the “people power” revolution in the Philippines or Indian Prime Minister Indira Gandhi’s death, or bomb blasts in Bombay), there were no words, not even names for the main characters in the cartoons. His humor, always biting, became savagely ironic and scalpel-sharp when it came to attacking Israeli barbarities, American hypocrisy and Arab ineptitude. I have always felt that Kahil was expressing the common man’s anger and helplessness at some of the things going on in Lebanon and the occupied territories and, as such, had a cathartic effect on Arab psyche.
I still remember the cartoon he drew when Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin removed Ariel Sharon as defense minister after the Israeli commission that probed the Sabra and Shatila massacre published its report, only to reappoint him as housing minister. The cartoon depicted Begin standing at one side of a photocopy machine with pictures of Sharon rolling out at the other end.
When we remember that the Lebanon war brought about some of his best drawings, we realize what and how much we have lost in the last two years of turmoil in Iraq and the deteriorating situation in the occupied territories. We miss what would have been his sharp observations on the Iraq war and the subsequent Vietnam-like quagmire there and, the situation in his native Lebanon (he was born in Tripoli), Hariri’s assassination, the “cedar” revolution and the ominous bomb blasts after a relatively long period of peace and stability. I can only wonder what hilarious and thought-provoking cartoons he might have drawn about George Bush’s landing aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln with a giant “Mission Accomplished” sign behind him and about the new-look Sharon who is repackaging himself as a man of peace though the mask slips badly every now and then. Indeed, with the situation in occupied territories much the same, with Sharon still at the helm and Lebanon once again capturing headlines for the wrong reasons, an amazing number of his cartoons could be published today without any alteration.
Palestinians in particular will miss him for he was as much a critic of Israeli policies in the occupied territories as he was a great supporter of the Palestinian people and their just cause for independence.
Kahil died in London on Feb. 11, 2003 from complications during a heart surgery.
The style of Amjad Rasmi who succeeded Kahil is in sharp contrast. Whereas Kahil used bold strokes, Rasmi is more like a painter, drawing his caricatures as if they were reproductions of original photographs. Application of different techniques is important for the success and effectiveness of cartoons because, as Rasmi says, “you present an idea or thought using drawings, not words”. He believes that too many words weaken a cartoon.
Where does he get ideas from?
Rasmi, who has been in the business for the last 10 years, says ideas are his own. He does not consult editors or colleagues, although he is not averse to accepting suggestions.
Drawing a cartoon is not an easy job, he says. “You have to select the best ideas and viewpoints from a Niagara of thoughts and suggestions.” And these ideas should be in keeping with what readers think. Going by the reactions we get, he and our readers seem to be on the same wavelength.
Stephff whose cartoons adorn our Opinion Page is French and always fresh. Based in Bangkok, he has often been described as Thailand’s leading cartoonist. What he admires in other cartoonists is equally true of himself: Like them he draws cartoons that “one can understand at first glance with very little text or with no text at all”.
The 40-year-old Stephff says he tries to convey as much meaning as possible — “trying to pass a message whenever I can about topics that are important to me. Being meaningful as often as possible is more important than to be funny as often as possible”.
He does not believe that there is good and evil, only hypocritical human beings who always like to think that evil is what is done by others to whom they are opposed. The role of a cartoonist is to contribute to peace whenever he can, “so I shouldn’t add any oil on to the fire of hatred”, whether it is Arab-Israeli conflict or India-Pakistan dispute.
Stephff also thinks drawing should be more important than words. “A political cartoon is an editorial piece that is written without words,” he says.
What about the ideas he seeks to convey? Ideas come easily from your own point of view of the particular topic, he says. The more you read, the easier it is to find a good idea for a good cartoon.
Kahil’s cartoons had a small black crow somewhere in the background; in Stephff’s there is always black humor — a cynical smile on the face of his characters. He hates the old way of political cartoons, Disney-style, that always try to be clean, not showing dead bodies or blood. The editor of the latest American newspaper he tried to work with, the Christian Science Monitor, told him that his cartoons were far too much “gore” and “bloody” for the American public. “We see graphic pictures of war all the time on TV; how can then blood in a cartoon be so unbearable?” he asks.
It is perhaps no surprise that Stephff’s favorite Arab cartoonist was Kahil (now it is Jordan’s Hajajj). As for European cartoonists, his preference is for the Swiss Chappatte. “Switzerland has good cartoonists but not enough newspapers,” he says.
Fortunately Saudi Arabia has pretty good newspapers and equally good cartoonists. Personally, my only regret is that no Saudi newspaper publishes a pocket cartoon occupying only a square inch or two of the daily acres of the newsprint — a cartoon in which a central character exorcises his demons and makes funny or scathing comments on the most important topic of the day.
(Senior Editor A.M. Pakkar Koya edits the widely-read Op-Ed Page.)
