A Child In Palestine: The Cartoons of Naji al-Ali
Verso, £9.99
The Guardian called Naji al-Ali: “The nearest thing there is to an Arab public opinion.” For 30 years his cartoons provided an incisive commentary on Arab politics until his career was cut short when he was shot outside the offices of the Kuwaiti newspaper al-Qabas in 1987. “No one knows who killed him. Everyone had a reason.”
He was born in 1938 in the Palestinian village of Al-Shajara which is now part of Israel. In 1948 his family were exiled to Lebanon and in 1960 al-Ali was imprisoned for political reasons. A year later, his first cartoons appeared in the Arab Nationalist Movement’s mouthpiece al-Hurriya. The UK enjoys a long tradition of free expression through political cartoons. Satire has become – perhaps like democracy itself – something we take for granted. We share a collective assurance in our right to dissent, expressed in the gleeful savagery of Gerald Scarfe or the sly deconstructionism of Steve Bell. Not so in the Arab world. It is less easy to make light of a regime that comes after you with a gun.
Naji al-Ali’s parodies were tempered with profound entreaties for change. He observed the Palestinian conflict through the eyes of a child: Hanthala. This destitute 10 year old boy with his hands clasped behind his back as he surveys the horrors of the Middle East has become an iconic figure. Al-Ali explained that he was ten when he left Palestine, and that Hanthala would not grow up until he was able to return.
This collection is divided into five chapters on Palestine; human rights; US dominance, oil and Arab collusion; the peace process; and resistance, with notes by Abdul Hadi Ayyad and perceptive captions by Dr Mahmoud al-Hindi. The cartoons reward the reader, not with biting humour but with expressions of heartfelt hope. They abound with icons of doves and olive branches, of the steadfast Palestinian with keys instead of feet, marching through a landscape of keyholes toward the realization of his goals of freedom, return and justice. A Child In Palestine is a poignant and remarkable document.
Earlier this month, Martin Rowson wrote in Tribune that one way of empowering people is through the ballot box but that “another equally effective method is through ridicule”. Naji al-Ali demonstrated how the latter could flourish without the former. But when freedom falters, when people are left homeless, stateless and limbless by brutal conflict, satire ceases to be a laughing matter.
Andy Bunday
