EGYPTIAN POLITICAL SATIRE BY AMR OKASHA IN ROME
ANSA Med, Italy
Oct 31 2013
Vignettes and history of satire at the Academy of Egypt
(ANSAmed) – ROME, OCTOBER 31 – The recent history of Egypt as told
through the biting satire of the vignettist Amr Okasha is on display in
Rome through November 12. Part of the activities for the reopening of
the Academy of Egypt in the Italian capital, the forty caricatures by
the young artist are a vehicle for him to tell of his experience and
that of the many that came before him. The result is a fascinating
look at political satire through drawing, a practice that dates
back to the Khedives, “when the only ones to create vignettes were
Armenians, Greeks, Spaniards and Turks, and only foreign magazines
published them”.
At 42 years old and after 38 years of drawing, Okasha is one of
the most well-known Egyptian caricaturists. He mainly publishes in
the newspaper Al-Wafd – for whom he has been working since 1991 –
and Al-Dostur. Many of his vignettes, however, have been taken up by
English-language media outlets such as the Associated Press, BBC and
The Economist. Others, like the Washington Post, instead often ask him
to express his opinion through his satirical images. “When Mubarak
fell,” he said, “I drew a vignette for them: the destruction of a
statue of a pharaoh, surrounded by people running in all directions
with fragments of it in hand.
Egyptians were contributing to the dissolution of the regime”. The
second vignette published, he continued, “was one in which a sailboat
flying a US flag had just thrown President Mubarak overboard. Three
sharks surrounded him: Turkey, Iran and Israel”. The caricatures are
much more eloquent than many editorials put together. Portraying the
powers that be – in the case in point, Mubarak – has never been easy.
“Especially since it was prohibited to draw him in his entirely. The
first vignette I was able to draw him completely was one in 2010
during Obama’s historic speech in Cairo.” Before then, “it was
impossible to touch him, his wife Suzanne or his sons – especially
Gamal.” Censorship has existed to varying extents in all eras – in the
time of the Khedives as well as under the British protectorate, the age
of King Fouad and then Farouk. “Farouk,” Okasha said, “prohibited any
caricature from bearing his features.” At that time the first vignettes
in Egypt were by foreigners and were published mainly in the Armenian
and French press. “Publishing the first vignettes in Egypt was Le
Journal d’Abou Naddara, founded in 1877 by Yacoub Sanou,” Okasha said.
The father of modern Egyptian political caricature was instead the
Armenian Saroukhan in 1924-1925.
“We had to wait until 1929 before there were Egyptian drawers, as
well as the appearance of the historic publication Rose Al-Youssef.”
Pressure on newspapers did not let up with the coming of Nasser. “In
the 1950s there was another crackdown. In every daily or magazine,”
Okasha said, “there was someone – not a journalist – charged with
monitoring who set down rules as to what could be published or what
the vignette of the following day could be on.” Foreign policy and
the Arab-Israeli conflict was the major issue focused on in those
years. After the October War, however, the attention shifted to
domestic policy and social issues.
Okasha’s vignettes now take aim at any and every issue – or almost.
Having declared his opposition to the Muslim Brotherhood, under Morsi
both he and his family received death threats. “Under the Beblawi
government, instead, nothing is prohibited,” he said – but avoids
vignettes on the military and General Al-Sissi. “I don’t want to do
anything that could harm the current situation,” he said. “We are
going through a very difficult time.” His next vignette will be coming
out in Al-Wafd on Saturday. “Beblawi as a tiny boxer, surrounded by
four heavy-weights: strikes, terrorism, inflation and the economic
crisis. I wonder whether he will be able to defeat them.” (ANSAmed).