Naji Salim Hussain al-Ali
Najial-Ali was one of the most prominent cartoonists in the Arab world. His cartoons were drawn from his first-hand experience as a Palestinian refugee dealing with all sorts of hardships. Influenced by his own struggles and adversities his cartoons reflected his un-aligned political stance in Sarcastic, poignant, and courageous form.Through his cartoons he analysed the relationships between the governments of the United States, Israel and the Arab regimes and the ramifications for the Palestinians. He has been described as the greatest Palestinian cartoonist and probably the best-known cartoonist in the Arab world.
Ali was born in 1938 in the northern Palestine village of Al-Shajara,located between Tiberias and Nazareth.At the age of 10, as Zionist armed groups encroached on his home village in 1948 and he along with his familyfled to Lebanon. They lived in Ain al-Hilweh refugee camp near Sidon, where Ali attended the Union of Christian Churches school. After graduation, he worked in the orchards of Sidon, then moved to Tripoli where he attended the White Friars’ vocational school for two years. Ali then moved to Beirut, where he lived in a tent in Shatila refugee 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.
In 1959, Ali returned to Lebanon and joined the Arab Nationalist Movement (ANM), only to be expelled four times in the following year. Between 1960 and 1961, he and ANM comrades published the handwritten political journal Al-Sarkha (‘the scream’). He enrolled in the Lebanese Academy of Fine Arts in 1960, but was unable to complete his studies because he was imprisoned for political reasons shortly afterwards. He moved to Tyre after his release and worked as a drawing instructor at the Ja’fariya College.
Ghassan Kanafani, a Palestinian writer who was assassinated in 1972, met Ali at the Ain al-Hilweh camp in the 1950s and was impressed by his work. Ali was able to secure commissions in several Arab newspapers as a result of his recognition, and he eventually relocated to Kuwait, where he worked for the newspapers Al-Siyasa and Al-Qabas. Throughout his life, Ali was politically unaligned and outspoken, his cartoons reflected the struggle of common Palestinian as well as Arab leaders’ perceived inactionearning him the respect of ordinary Arabswith some referring to him as the Palestinian Malcolm X.
Ali drew over 40,000 cartoons, which often reflected Palestinian struggle and criticized biased attitude of political leaders. All his characters are influenced by the experience of becoming exiled from his homeland as a child and reflected the unbearable life of refugees full of despair and poverty. His scruffy, dazed, and barefoot 10-year-old Palestiniancharacter ‘Handalawhich first appeared in a Kuwaiti newspaper in 1969, represented Ali and other Palestinian children expelled from their homes to make way for the establishment of Israel. Talking about this character Ali had once said “He was the age I was when I had left Palestine and, in a sense, I am still that age today, and I feel that I can recall and sense every bush, every stone, every house and every tree I passed when I was a child in Palestine.”
Ali created Handala in his cartoons as a young witness of events happening around, and it became an icon of Palestinian defiance. 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 is actively participating in the action depicted not merely observing it. The artist vows that his figure, Handala will “reveal his face to the readers again only when Palestinian refugees return to their homeland”.
Handala has also been used as the web mascot of the Iranian green movement. The artist had remarked that “He was the arrow of the compass, pointing steadily towards Palestine. Not just Palestine in geographical terms, but Palestine in its humanitarian sense—the symbol of a just cause, whether it is located in Egypt, Vietnam or South Africa.”
Other characters in NajiAli’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 Palestinian suffering) and stone-throwing (representing the resistance of ordinary Palestinians) are also common in his work.
Ali moved to London with his wife and five children in 1985 to work for Al-Qabas’ London branch. He was well-liked for his work, but also despised for criticising both Palestinian leadership and the brutality of Israeli occupation. Throughout his career, Ali received numerous death threats, and on 22 July 1987, he was shot outside Al Qabas’ London office on Ives Street. It is still unknown who opened fire. Ali was taken to the hospital and remained in a coma until his death on August 29, 1987. Although his will requested that he be buried alongside his father in Ain al-Hilweh, this proved impossible to arrangeand he was buried in Brookwood Islamic Cemetery outside London.
To this dayHandala a Palestinian refugeehas not turned around and to this day his face is a mystery.Ali in an interview hadsaid,“I drew him as a child who is not beautiful; his hair is like the hair of a hedgehog who uses his thorns as a weapon. Handala is not a fat, happy, relaxed, or pampered child. He is barefooted like the refugee camp children…his hands are clasped behind his back as a sign of rejection at a time when solutions are presented to us the American way.”
