Ali Ferzat - Cartoonist

Ali Ferzat is a Syrian cartoonist, who works for various newspapers, magazines and has his own magazine named al-Domari, and also won international awards. His drawings are very controversial within his country, which most of his topics addresses militarism, corruption and women’s rights, also against dictators.

His drawings are another form of communication with the goal to express opinions, emotions and people’s rights in which citizens and other people around the world can relate to, at the same time giving them voice and hope.

“I speak in all languages without speaking any language”- (Ali Ferzat, The Guardian interview, 2013)

The cartoon drawings are a very good example of ‘Power from Below’. These drawing are simply drawn by just pen on paper and are very powerful, through their meaning. The way these drawings are drawn are to show powerful meanings through metaphoric caricatures, only created by one individual. One day, Ali Ferzat critically drew about Bashar al-Assad, the president of Syria, this led him to be seized and beaten. This event shows the power of his drawings.

Theme: Violence (Ferzat, A., 2002. The Guardian)

This is one of the most drawings which I think has a powerful meaning, which consists of a simple gun, with its trigger in the shape of a blade and a piece of finger cut below it. Its main message is that while one is using a gun against someone to physically hurt him/her, at the same time it is actually hurting the one using it, subconsciously and mentally. His approach to this drawing might only be targeted to his fellow citizens, but I think anyone around the word recognizes and relates to the message being interpreted within.

Theme: Women's rights (Ferzat, A.)

 This drawing is about the women’s rights. It is showing how women are typically used and manipulated by men in Syria. It’s like women has to do only what men orders and that they don’t have the right to speak or express their opinion. This drawing is just showing the current realities, with the aim to make people realize that it’s not the right thing to do and the fact that he’s a man is also giving hope to women that not all men should behave that way.  

Theme: Dictatorship. (Ferzat, A., 2002. The Guardian) 

The meaning of this drawing is that all dictators are giving more importance to their own benefits and having enough money to buy weapons, while at the same time treating their people badly by starving them. As soon as I saw this image, I didn’t get what it’s meant to communicate, it actually made me confused. Maybe it’s because I’m not experiencing any of the mentioned issues their country might be experiencing. Well, when I actually understood the scope of this drawing, it actually made sense as it is very metaphoric and could have a powerful message to which citizens can relate to.

Now that I saw some of his drawings and their powerful meaning and the impact on society it made, I really think that drawings are a powerful way to reach great criticism. This also reminds me about the attack on Charlie Hebdo magazine (satirical magazine), where a number of the magazine workers were killed and beaten because of the high criticism the magazine company was showing through cartoon caricatures. This incident also is a great example of how art is actually ‘Power from Below’.

References:

Stelfox, D., 2013. Ali Ferzat, cartoonist in exile. The Guardian [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/2013/aug/19/ali-ferzat-cartoonist-exile-syria. [Accessed 11 November 2016].

Stelfox, D., 2013. Ali Ferzat's cartoons – in pictures. The Guardian. [online] Available at: https://www.theguardian.com/world/gallery/2013/aug/19/ali-ferzat-cartoons-in-pictures. [Accessed 11 November 2016].