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 Naji Al-Ali: Immortal Palestinian Cartoonist Mr. Naji Al-Ali Naji al-Ali developed a stark and symbolic style during his thirty-year campaign on behalf of the Palestinians. Unaligned with any political party he strove to speak to and for ordinary Arab people. His life was seamlessly interwoven with the trials of exiled Palestinians. Due to invasion, censorship and threats he lived in exile most of his life, much of the time between Beirut and Kuwait. The last two years of his life he spent in London.
Background, motivation & influences Though the exact date of his birth would appear uncertain, he was born in 1936 or 1937 in Al-Shajara village between Nazareth and Tiberias in Galile. In 1948 and at the age of 11 the young boy as many other Palestinians, was forced out of Palestine. Naji along with has family settled down in Ain-al-Helwe refugee camp in Sidon in Southern Lebanon. In the late 1950's the late Palestinian poet Gassan El-Kanafani discovered Naji's talent in drawing while on a visit to this camp.
Work, interests and philosophy Naji al-Ali finished his school education in Sidon but was unable to finish higher education in the Art institution he has enrolled in because of his family difficult financial situation. In the beginning of the sixties, the young man left to Kuwait to work in Al-Taliah magazine. In the early 1970's he returned to Beirut from Kuwait and was on the Editorial Board of the prominent Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir:
During this period he also contributed drawings to Al-Khalij newspaper in the United Arab Emirates. In 1982 during Israeli invasion of Lebanon, Naji al-Ali was an eyewitness to the terrifying massacre that took place in the Palestinian refugee camp of Sabra and Shatila. The devastating experience urged al-Ali to leave the country he grew up in to settle in Kuwait. During this period, he worked for both Al-Qabas (meaning ‘The Light‘ in English) – the largest Independent daily newspaper in the Middle East - and Al-Khalij newspapers.
In 1985, and due to political reasons the artist was expelled from Kuwait. He settled in London and continued to work for the Kuwaiti newspaper Al-Qabas. His work was published daily in Cairo, Beirut, Kuwait, Tunis, Abu Dhabi, London and Paris in publications ranging from far Right to far Left. He is thought to have been the highest paid cartoonist in the Arab world. Naji al-Ali had no political affiliations and the absence of slogans and dogma in his work brought both success and criticism. He was opposed to terrorism and the absence of democracy and, not belonging to any political group, tried to be a true representative of Arab public opinion.
Few regimes or political groups in the region escaped his satirical drawings. His cartoons portrayed the bitter struggle and plight of the Palestinian people against Israeli occupation and oppression. He also campaigned against the absence of democracy, widespread corruption and gross inequality in the Arab world. He was said to have antagonized virtually everyone in the Middle East, Arab, and Jew, conservative and radical alike. He believed his period of work in Beirut was the best part of his career and that his periods of exile in Kuwait and the UK restricted his creativeness in ways he could not understand and counter. He missed the inspiration of the reality of the refugee camps in southern Lebanon. Naji al-Ali's philosophy can perhaps be best encapsulated in his explanation about Hanzala, the little boys who appears as a spectator in each of his cartoons:
Hanzala is now the official logo of the Commission for Freedom and Justice Through Humor, a recently created arm of WATCH and an affiliate of UNESCO. Censorship Naji al-Ali was frequently detained by police and continually censored. He received many death threats during his life. Because of his work he was said to be one of the most wanted men in the Middle East and this forced him to leave Lebanon and work in Kuwait and London. He emphatically refused to speak about his oppressors and those who might censor his work; he drew them instead. The Death Of Naji al-Ali On Wednesday July 22nd, 1987 he was shot in the head by a lone gunman as he was going to work at the Al-Qabas offices in Ives Street, Chelsea. After five weeks in a coma on a life support machine in a St Stephen's and Charing Cross hospitals in London, he died at 1am on Saturday 30th August at the age of 51.
He was posthumously awarded the annual Golden Pen award of the International Federation of Newspaper Publishers (FIEJ) in 1988. This award is given to recognize outstanding actions in favour of freedom of expression and the jury was composed of publishers from 28 member countries. Individual publishers in Brazil, Ireland, Mexico, New Zealand and Pakistan are associatemembers as are 13 leading western news agencies. References: i) Invaluable help was kindly provided by the late Naji al-Ali's son
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