Al Jazeera’s The Stream hosts a debate between several US cartoonists (including CM members Sousa & Machado). The central question: Do editorial cartoons enrich political debates or deepen divides?
We are wrapping up our partnership with the Justice and Security Research Programme (a research consortium lead by the London School of Economics) with two comics about issues of justice and security in northern Uganda. The aim of these comics is to translate LSE research into more accessible narratives that explore and question the concept of justice.
One comic, eight pages written by Lacan and drawn by Tom Humberstone, explores the problem of land conflicts. After decades of war, the displaced Acholi people return to their lands, but conflicts emerge as there are no written records and the lands have changed in intervening years.
The other comic, by Holly Porter (words) and Victor Ndula (art) tells an even more dramatic tale. The comic tells the stories of two rape victims and (extreme) difference in achieving justice afterwards.
The comic ‘Land Conflicts in Northern Uganda’ will be published next week; the week after that we’ll run ‘A Story of Two Rapes'.
The Festival of Europe brings together 20,000 people each year in May in Ile de Loisirs de Bois-le-Roi, a municipality just south of Paris, France. The festival aims to raise awareness about Europe and European issues with debates, art, comedy, lectures, exhibitions and performances.
Cartoon Movement will be present at the 6th edition which will take place on 27 & 28 May, 2017.
In addition to an exhibition of cartoons about European issues, 10 of our cartoonists from all over Europe will participate in the festival:
Gatis Sluka from Latvia.
Dino from Greece/Belgium.
Ant from the UK/Spain.
Emanuele Del Rosso from Italy.
Kianoush Ramezani from Iran/France.
Trayko Popov from Bulgaria.
Ivailo Tsvetkov from Bulgaria.
Niels Bo Bojesen from Denmark.
Marilena Nardi from Italy.
Tjeerd Royaards from the Netherlands.
Our artists will draw live during debates, compete with each other in sketch battles, and collaborate on large sized cartoonist that will be created at the festival. The festival is free, so if you are in the Paris region in May, we’d love to see you.
Nasreen Mitu is a cartoonist from Dhaka, Bangladesh. She has been making cartoons since 2006, and currently she is an associate editor of 'Unmad', the oldest satire magazine of Bangladesh and cartoonist for a news website in Bangladesh. Check out more of her work on her Facebook page.
Vitaly Podvitsky is a cartoonist rom St. Petersburg, Russia, working for RIA Novosti and Sputnik International. His cartoons give a Russian perspective on world news.
This post is a guest contribution by Italian cartoonist Emanuele Del Rosso.
Lately I’ve been thinking quite a lot about a Woody Allen’s sketch on Nazis, from the movie Manhattan.
Still from Manhattan.
At the opening of an exhibition, Isaac Davis, the protagonist, is having a chat with some other guests, and says: “Has anybody read that Nazis are gonna march in New Jersey? […] We should go down there, get some guys together, ya know, get some bricks and baseball bats, and really explain things to 'em.” At this point another guest replies: “There was this devastating satirical piece on that on the op-ed page of the Times, just devastating.” And Isaac goes on: “ Whoa, whoa. A satirical piece in the Times is one thing, but bricks and baseball bats really gets right to the point of it.” Then the other guest sticks to her believe that satire “is always better than physical force.” But Isaac disagrees, saying: “No, physical force is always better with Nazis.”
I’ve been thinking a lot about this, lately. The sketch is a perfect example of what I believe satire is. The conversation suggests violence is better than satire to deal with Nazis, but, because this is a sketch, physical violence over Nazis is named, but it is never applied. The suggestion of physical violence is itself satire, as within the sketch it is suggested that Nazis are too stupid for satire to be effective. I found it really clever.
But the problem Woody Allen raises, the question if satire is effective on Nazis, still stands and takes the shape, for me, of this broader and trickier question: Is satire ineffective when applied to a certain kind of people?
Of course I believe in the power of satire – I’m a political cartoonist myself, I couldn’t think otherwise – in its power of making people think, pointing out the contradictions and ineptitude of the targets.
On the other hand, as Emily Nussbaum wrote in the New Yorker, it is jokes and humor that helped a neo-fascist strongman to sit in one of the most important – if not the most important – chairs in the world. “Nazis were humorless,” she says, and “jokes were a superior way to tell the truth.” But now all has changed, and it is easy to hide behind a joke, or to justify having said or done something awful by simply saying that it was meant as a joke no one understood. Say I'm insulting, as Berlusconi did, another minister, calling her a monkey for her African origins: a joke, dudes! Say I’m mocking a reporter with health problems, imitating his moves in front of the world, and say I’m the President of the United States: c’mon, it’s a joke! No one should take these things so seriously, and if you do you’re a humorless Nazi.
The problem is that, going this way, making political cartoons becomes a drag. It is true that with people like Trump in the Oval Office there will be material for thousands of cartoons, but the problem he poses for the effectiveness of such cartoons is, I’m afraid, quite clear.
First of all, it is impossible to mock him. Caricatures come too easy, because he is a real clown and people don’t care. After all, mocking someone's appearance is exactly what he is blamed for, so doing the same cannot really help – I’m surprised many cartoonists are not getting this. Concentrating on his on his wavy hair or his orange complexion is useless. Many satirists made this mistake, from The Simpsons to the New Yorker. He’s OK with that, everyone is OK with that, and rightly so.
Cartoon by Mike Luckovich.
But then, there are other things that are not OK. On those, satire should focus. We can try to focus on his racism; or on his machismo; or on his xenophobia. But he’s so adamant and blatantly open about them that it is impossible to make people realize he has crazy positions. His racism sticks out like his shiny hair, ridiculous enough to become funny. His machismo is equally funny because of his unappealing appearance and makes him look like a loser. But a loser he is not, as he is the 45th President of the United States.
What he does, the danger he poses, is absolutely not funny.
We have moved beyond the realm of constructionism, where you bend reality to your believes, where what you say true becomes real. That was the position of the US administration under George W. Bush: America is a superpower and what we say is true, and you journalists have to comply to our standards of truth. Now we are in the realm of fake news, where nothing – or everything – is true, so what’s the point of getting riled up over some racism or some machismo? It can be fake. Power doesn’t shape reality, just messes with it in a comical way. Jokes are a weapon at the disposal of the bad guys as well.
Moreover, in the realm of fake news, satire can be fake too – or it can be applied on fake believes. It's useless to try to ridicule a fake character, overtly incapable of anything and still OK with that, and still voted in office by millions. It looks like there’s no shame in being dangerously ignorant and aiming for power. And this is, I have come to think, the big failure of the liberal intelligentsia – among which political cartoonists are often counted.
And so, what do you do with someone like Trump, or European leaders like Farage, Le Pen or Salvini, that is beyond satire? This is a real question, because I do not have an answer to this. Every time I want to draw about this topic, I find myself overwhelmed by the awareness that nothing will work, because we passed so many thresholds my imagination almost cannot cope. There is no grip on reality, and we seem to be OK with the monsters generated by the popular rejection of reason.
Again, a New Yorker cartoon summarizes how I feel.
Cartoon by Robert Leighton.
I often think about that Woody Allen’s sketch. I really do. And I ask myself if going on with intelligence, trying to find other ways of confronting this brain tumor that is tearing civilization apart, is the right way to go. Maybe these people are immune to intelligence. But maybe they are not immune to bricks and baseball bats.
What? I’m just joking, dudes!
Eaten Fish is the pen name of a 24-year old Iranian cartoonist currently interned in the notorious Manus Island immigration detention camp in Papua New Guinea. The camp is funded and overseen by the government of Australia. He is the recipient of the 2016 Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award. In September 2016, we launched a newsroom to produce cartoons in support of a campaign by Australian cartoonists to urge the Australian government to release Eaten Fish.
Unfortunately, he has yet to be released. Yesterday, the alarming news reached us that Eaten Fish is now on hunger strike. See the press release from Cartoonists Rights Network International below for more details.
Cartoon by Antonio Rodriguez.
Eaten Fish has been on a hunger strike for 6 days now and weighs 48 kilos. It has been well documented in the press that Eaten Fish suffers from debilitating mental health issues. He has also been the victim of sexual assault, chronic sexual harassment and abuse within Australia’s immigration prison camp on Manus Island for the past 3 and a half years.
Due to his extremely fragile mental health and ongoing sexual harassment, Eaten fish has been held in the Special Supported Accommodation compound [also referred to as VSRA] for the past 8 months.
In a document from PNG Immigration and Citizenship Service Authority dated 29th of January 2017, it is stated that ABF have spoken to Eaten Fish and told him that his allegations of sexual assault and abuse have not been substantiated and that he will be returned to the compound and that PNG ICSA. Worryingly it also states that they will not negotiate with Eaten Fish on any grounds. It is this that has forced Mr Fish’s actions.
In an urgent letter to Australian Border Force Chief Medical Officer Dr John Brayley dated 2nd February 2017, Dr Sue Ditchfield writes: ‘Bizarelly he [Eaten Fish] was expected to prove the assaults to the satisfaction of PNG authorities. He was unwilling to identify his assailants because of his fear of retribution and of course any assaults take place well away from the compound guards’. Further those authorities Eaten Fish was to prove the assaults to were the same authorities who had assaulted him late in 2016.
In a letter to CMO Brayley Janet Galbraith writes: ‘ At the beginning of the hunger strike he [Eaten Fish] only weighed 53 kilos and he has already lost a substantial amount of weight. He reports to me today that he is shaky, weak, has a lot of body pain, no longer feels hunger, is losing his memory and his heart is beating fast. He says he can no longer shower.’
‘I cannot suffer anymore. I know now that I will have to die because I cannot suffer anymore’, Mr Fish told Ms Galbraith.
When asked by authorities within the prison camp what he wished to accomplish through his hunger strike Mr Fish said: ‘Something happens with hunger strike and I think you know what that is. I will die and this will all finish’.
Cartoonists Rights Network International (CRNI) write: ‘It is with profound alarm and sadness that [we] learn that our friend and colleague, cartoonist Mr. Eaten Fish, currently held in an Australian refugee rendition camp in Papua New Guinea has decided to undertake a hunger strike... He is a man who has given up hope, cannot struggle any longer, cannot face the future that is being forced on him, and he would rather die than submit to the indignities of further inhuman treatment.’
The Australian government has been petitioned many times both from within Australia and internationally asking that Eaten Fish be brought to Australia for medical treatment.
Dr Ditchfield says, ‘I urge you to be pro-active in transferring this critically ill young man to Australia. I have no doubt that failure to do this will lead to yet another death of an Asylum Seeker on Manus Island’.
Naser Jafari is an award-winning cartoonist from Amman, Jordan. He has worked as a cartoonist and cartoon editor for various newspapers in Jordan and the Palestinian Territories. Follow him on Facebook or Twitter to see more of his work.