Naji al-Ali

File:Al-ali.jpg

Naji al-Ali

Naji Salim al-Ali (c. 1937 - 29 August 1987) was a Palestinian cartoonist, noted for the sharp political criticism in his work. He drew over 40,000 cartoons, often expressing opposition to Palestinian and Arab leaders, and is perhaps best known as creator of the character Handala who has since become an icon of Palestinian defiance. He was assassinated by unknown persons in 1987.

Early life

Naji al-Ali was born in 1938 or thereabouts in the northern Palestinian village of Al-Shajara, located between Tiberias and Nazareth, in what is now Israel. He went into exile in the south of Lebanon with his family in 1948 during the Nakba and lived in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon, where he attended the Union of Christian Churches school. After gaining his Certificat he worked in the orchards of Sidon, then moved to Tripoli where he attended the White Friars' vocational school for two years.

Naji al-Ali then moved to Beirut, where he lived in a tent in Chatila camp and worked in various industrial jobs. In 1957, after qualifying as a car mechanic, he travelled to Saudi Arabia, where he worked for two years.

Career as a cartoonist and journalist

In 1959 Naji al-Ali returned to Lebanon, and that year he joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), but was expelled four times in the space of a year for lack of party discipline. Between 1960 and 1961, along with comrades from the ANM, he published a handwritten political journal entitled Al-Sarkha ('the cry').

In 1960, he entered the Art Academy of Lebanon, but was unable to continue his studies there as he was imprisoned for political reasons soon afterwards. After his release he moved to Tyre, where he worked as a drawing instructor in the Ja'fariya College.

The writer and political activist Ghassan Kanafani saw some of Naji al-Ali's cartoons on a visit to Ain al-Hilweh and printed the artist's first published drawings along with an accompanying article in Al-Hurriya no. 88 on 25 September 1961.

In 1963 Naji al-Ali moved to Kuwait, hoping to save money so as to be able to study art in Cairo or Rome. There he worked as an editor, cartoonist, designer and newspaper producer on the Arab nationalist Al-Tali'a newspaper. From 1968 on he worked for Al-Siyasa. In the course of these years he returned to Lebanon several times. In 1974 he started working for the Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir, which permitted him to return to Lebanon for a longer period. During the Israeli invasion of Lebanon in 1982, he was briefly detained by the occupying forces along with other residents of Ain al-Hilweh. In 1983 he once more moved to Kuwait to work for Al-Qabas and in 1985 moved to London where he worked for its international edition until his death.

Work, positions and awards

In his career as a political cartoonist, Naji al-Ali produced over 40,000 drawings. They generally deal with the situation of the Palestinian people, depicting suffering and resistance and harshly criticising the Palestinian leadership and the Arab regimes. Naji al-Ali was a fierce opponent of any settlement that would not vindicate the Palestinians' right to all of historic Palestine, and many of his cartoons express this opposition. Unlike many political cartoonists, specific politicians do not appear in person in his work: as he stated, "... I have a class outlook, that is why my cartoons take this form. What is important is drawing situations and realities, not drawing presidents and leaders."

Naji al-Ali published three books of his cartoons, in 1976, 1983 and 1985, and was preparing another at the time of his death.

In 1979, Naji al-Ali was elected president of the League of Arab Cartoonists. In 1979 and 1980, he received the first prize in the Arab cartoonists exhibitions held in Damascus. The International Union of Newspaper Publishers awarded him the "Golden Pen of Freedom" posthumously in 1988.

Handala

Handala, the Palestinian defiance symbol

Handala is the most famous of Naji al-Ali's characters. He is depicted as a ten-year old boy, and appeared for the first time in Al-Siyasa in Kuwait in 1969. The figure turned his back to the viewer from the year 1973, and clasped his hands behind his back. The artist explained that the ten-year old represented his age when forced to leave Palestine and would not grow up until he could return to his homeland; his turned back and clasped hands symbolised the character's rejection of "outside solutions". Handala wears ragged clothes and is barefoot, symbolising his allegiance to the poor. In later cartoons, he sometimes appears throwing stones or writing graffiti.

Handala became the signature of Naji al-Ali's cartoons and remains an iconic symbol of Palestinian identity and defiance; the artist remarked that "this being that I have invented will certainly not cease to exist after me, and perhaps it is no exaggeration to say that I will live on with him after my death".

Other characters and motifs

Other characters in Naji al-Ali's cartoons include a thin, miserable-looking man representing the Palestinian as the defiant victim of Israeli oppression and other hostile forces, and a fat man representing the Arab regimes and Palestinian political leaders who led an easy life and engaged in political compromises which the artist fervently opposed. The motifs of the Crucifixion (representing, again, Palestinian suffering) and stone-throwing (representing the resistance of ordinary Palestinians) are also common in his work.

Assassination

An unknown youth opened fire on Naji al-Ali in London on the 22 July 1987, hitting him in the right temple. He remained unconscious until his death on 29 August 1987. Although his will requested that he be buried in Ain al-Hilweh beside his father, this proved impossible to arrange and he was buried in Brookwood Islamic Cemetery outside London. It is still not known who was responsible for his assassination. British police investigating the killing arrested a Palestinian student in Hull University, Isma'il Hassan Sawan and found a cache of weapons in his apartment, but he was only charged with possession of weapons. Under interrogation, the Jerusalem-born man, Ismail Sawan, said that his superiors in Tel Aviv had been briefed well in advance of the plot to kill the cartoonist.

By refusing to pass on the relevant information to their British counterparts, Mossad earned the displeasure of Britain, which retaliated by expelling two Israeli diplomats from London. A furious Margaret Thatcher, then prime minister, closed Mossad’s London base in Palace Green, Kensington.

The BBC reported that commentators believed al-Ali was murdered as part of a plan to silence critics of the PLO. According to a colleague of the cartoonist, a few weeks before he was shot on July 22, 1987, a top PLO official called him to get him to change his "attitude". By way of response he published a cartoon satirising PLO chief Yasir Arafat and his acolytes. The PLO blamed the intelligence services of other Arab countries for the assassination.

A statue of Naji al-Ali by the sculptor Charbel Faris was erected at the northern entrance of Ain al-Hilweh camp, but shortly afterwards it was damaged in an explosion caused by unknown elements. It was re-erected but subsequently disappeared.

Media

A movie was made about the life of Naji Al Ali in Egypt, and the main role was assigned to the egyptian actor Nour El-Sherif.

External links

• Site dedicated to Naji al-Ali - English.
• Site dedicated to Handala.
• Site dedicated to Naji al-Ali - in Arabic, English section under construction as of 14 September 2005.
• BBC ON THIS DAY webpage on Mr al-Ali's assassination.

Sources

Naji al-Ali, kamil al-turab al-falastini (Naji al-Ali, All Palestine's Soil), Mahmud Abd Allah Kallam, Bisan lil-nashr w'al-tawzi' w'al-a'lam, Beirut, 2001.