ناجـي العليحنظلة 1937- 1987

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 1950s the late Palestinian poet Gassan El-Kanafani discovered Najis talent in drawing while on a visit to this camp.
" I started to use drawing as a form of political expression while in Lebanese jails. I was detained by the Deuxime Bureau (the Lebanese intelligence service) as a result of the measures the Bureau were undertaking to contain political activities in the Palestinian camps during the sixties. I drew on the prison walls and subsequently Ghassan Kanafani, a journalist and publisher of al-Huria magazine – he was assassinated in Beirut in 1971 - saw some of those drawings and encouraged me to continue, and eventually published some of my cartoons.“.
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 1970s he returned to Beirut from Kuwait and was on the Editorial Board of the prominent Lebanese newspaper Al-Safir:
"Working for al-Safir newspaper in Beirut in 1971 was the best part of my life, and the most productive. There, surrounded by the violence of many army, and finally by the Israeli invasion, I stood facing it all with my pen every day. I never felt fear, failure or despair, and I didnt surrender. I faced armies with cartoons and drawings of flowers, hope and bullets. Yes, hope is essential, always. My work in Beirut made me once again closer to the refugees in the camps, the poor, and the harassed."
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.
"As soon as I was aware of what was going on, all the havoc in our region, I felt I had to do something, to contribute somehow. First I tried politics, to join a party, I marched in demonstrations, but that was not really me. The sharp cries I felt within me needed a different medium to express what I was going through. It was some time in the fifties that I started drawing on the walls of our camp. During that period, the refugees had begun to develop some political awareness as a reaction to what had been taking place in the region: a revolution in Egypt, a war of independence in Algeria, things were brewing all around the Arab world. My job I felt was to speak up for those people, my people who are in the camps, in Egypt, in Algeria, the simple Arabs all over the region who have very few outlets to express their points of view. I felt my job was to incite them. The function of a political cartoonist, as I see it, is to provide a new vision.”
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-Alis philosophy can perhaps be best encapsulated in his explanation about Hanzala, the little boys who appears as a spectator in each of his cartoons:
"This child, as you can see is neither beautiful, spoilt, nor even well-fed. He is barefoot like manychildren in refugee camps. He is actually ugly and no woman would wish to have a child like him. However, those who came to know Hanzala, as I discovered and later adopted him because he is affectionate, honest, outspoken, and a bum. He is an icon that stands to watch me from slipping. And his hands behind his back are a symbol of rejection of all the present negative tides in our region."
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 Stephens and Charing Cross hospitals in London, he died at 1am on Saturday 30th August at the age of 51.
"When I was younger I thought I would actually be able to help achieve all our aspirations for independence, unity, justice. Many died for those aspirations and things are only getting worse. That, certainly, can make one; despair. But more than ever, I feel a sense of duty to go on doing what I have to and can do."
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-Alis son
ii) The quotes from Naji al-Ali are taken from an interview published in Index on Censorship in
1984, sub-titled From Lebanon to Kuwait, the cartoonist has so far survived attempts to stop his work.
iii) Details from reports in The Times newspaper 23/07/87, 24/07/87, 27/07/87 & 12/09/87.
iv) witty World International Cartoon Magazine, No 16, summer 1993

شكرا لك عمااد على طرح هذه الشخصية المميزة
واسمح لي بالمداخله بهذا الموضوع ان اقدم القليل من الكلمات بحق هذا الفدائي العظيم
وان اقتسم جزء من موضوعك بالدراسة عن الفدائي والرسام ناجي العلي

• اللي بدو يكتب لفلسطين, واللي بدو يرسم لفلسطين, بدو يعرف حالو : ميت.
  
• هكذا أفهم الصراع: أن نصلب قاماتنا كالرماح ولا نتعب.
  
• الطريق إلى فلسطين ليست بالبعيدة ولا بالقريبة, إنها بمسافة الثورة.
  
• كلما ذكروا لي الخطوط الحمراء طار صوابي, أنا أعرف خطا أحمرا واحدا: إنه ليس من حق أكبر رأس أن يوقع على اتفاقية استسلام وتنازل عن فلسطين.
  
• متهم بالإنحياز, وهي تهمة لاأنفيها, أنا منحاز لمن هم "تحت".
  
• أن نكون أو لا نكون, التحدي قائم والمسؤولية تاريخية.
  

وعن حنطلة يقول ناجي: ولد حنظلة في العاشرة في عمره وسيظل دائما في العاشرة من عمره، ففي تلك السن غادر فلسطين وحين يعود حنظلة إلى فلسطين سيكون بعد في العاشرة ثم يبدأ في الكبر ، فقوانين الطبيعة لا تنطبق عليه لأنه استثناء، كما هو فقدان الوطن استثناء.
واما عن سبب تكتيف يديه فيقول ناجي العلي: كتفته بعد حرب أكتوبر 1973 لأن المنطقة كانت تشهد عملية تطويع وتطبيع شاملة، وهنا كان تكتيف الطفل دلالة على رفضه المشاركة في حلول التسوية الأمريكية في المنطقة، فهو ثائر وليس مطبع.
وعندما سُئل ناجي العلي عن موعد رؤية وجه حنظلة أجاب : عندما تصبح الكرامة العربية غير مهددة، وعندما يسترد الانسان العربي شعوره بحريته وانسانيته.

لقد كنت قاسياً على الحمامة لأنها ترمز للسلام ..والمعروف لدى كل القوى ماذا تعنيهالحمامة ،

إني أراها أحيناً ضمن معناها أنها غراب البين الحائم فوق رؤوسنا ، فالعالم أحبالسلام وغصن الزيتون ، لكن هذا العالم تجاهل حقنا في فلسطين لقد كان ضمير العالم ميتاً والسلام الذي يطالبوننا به هوعلى حسابنا ، لذا وصلت بي القناعة إلى عدم شعوري ببراءة الحمامة"



بالصدفة أصبحت رسام كاريكاتير ، كان لدي توجه في بداية شبابي لأن أتعامل مع المسرح، كنت أريد أن أصرخ بالكلمة التي تنقل مشاعري واحساساتي .. دفعتني الظروف للعمل في المجال الصحفي واكتشفت أن الكاريكاتير هو الأداة المناسبة للتوصيل ...)










أن علينا أن نغلق ملف القضية الفلسطينية، وان نحلها كما يريدون لنا أن نحلها،وأقول لهم أنكنتم تعبتم ففارقونا!





" أريد أن أؤذن في آذانالناس واقول لهم أين قضيتهم ، وإلى أين وصلت ؟ أردي أن أرسم للناس البسطاء الذين يفكون والذين لا يقرأون ولا يكتبون "

احدى وعشرون سنة على اغتيال وموت ناجي العلي. الصعلوك الذي رسم بوصلة المأساة باتجاه فلسطين [/SIZE]

الأهالي للطباعة والنشر والتوزيع

My name is Hanzalah. In case you are wondering what Salam Alikom is; it is the Islamic way of saying halloo and it means "Peace be upon you!”. Well, as I told you my name is Hanzalah, which stands for a small bitter desert bush. I bet you are saying; what was my father thinking when he named me?
My father is Naji Al-Ali. I was born ages ago, to be exact since the beginning of strong and weak, rich and poor, and justice and injustice. Which is strange in a way since my father was born in 1937.
But actually he is not really my father he just adopted me. You see, my father is a Muslim Palestinian who was born in Palestine before the emergence of Israel. He was just a kid when he fled his house in 1948 fearing the Zionist massacres. His family was a middle class family, which was traumatized by the war and turned into refugees living in tents on the border of what used to be their home. Naji never forgot how his mother was full of hope in returning to her house again believing the radios promises; that they will be back in a fortnight. She kept her house key around her neck till her death like many
Palestinian women.

From that point on Naji had a cause. His cause was the quest for justice for his people. He had to work for a living, but his mother never allowed him to compromise his education which is considered since then till now by the Palestinian people as important as bread and water. Although he was raised in a tough refugee camp, he was not a violent person. Drawing was his obsession. The teachers in the UNRWA (United Nation Refugees Welfare Agency) noticed his talent and his ability to draw cartoons so they encouraged him to study Art and that he did. As he finished, the oil money was flowing in the gulf (1000 miles from home). Kuwait was building its infrastructure and needed everyone who could do just about anything. Naji packed his miserable bag and marched to Kuwait to work as an Arts teacher in a school. Kuwait was the best place for a Palestinian to be in back then. Short working hours (relatively), which left enough time to sharpen his political ideologies.
George Habash a doctor became the communist founder and leader of the PFLP. Yasser Arafat a civil engineer wore the kefyee – the scarf - and established Palestine Liberation Organization (PLO) with some other guys. Gassan Kanafani another Arts teacher went to be a spokesman for the PFLP (you can find some of his novels both in Arabic and English in the UCD library 956/KAN). Naji as I said was a peaceful man and took the road that he knew he will be best in. That was to be a cartoonist! Cartoons in Western newspapers are used to laugh without a real message generally. Cartoon was the magical word for Naji because it is short and powerful and even the illiterate (which is usually the victim) can get the message and understand it fully. Naji had a cause that he wanted to teach.
His cause was really about oppression and the weak. My turn came here. I Hanzalah was the hero of an old Arab myth. As I told you my name stands for a short bitter bush which grows nearly everywhere even in the desert. That was it, a bush that is weak but if you cut it, it will grow back again. Naji drew me like a child turning my back to all the people looking at me watching the scene, which was usually horrible with my hands behind my back. People wondered what I looked like. What am I thinking; am I angry? am I sad? , or just contemplating deeply? or just another coward who is watching without having the nerve to stand up for oppression. This was the trick because YOU ARE HANZALAH! The way you look at Hanzalah is the way you really are.
I became an icon of the ordinary man. Naji used me to show everything he considered wrong. That made people wonder about Najis political orientation: is he a communist, nationalist, Islamist following his own agenda. I will tell you what Naji was; Naji loved the people so much. He didnt believe that the politician should take the credit of peoples achievements. On the other hand he blamed the politicians for the failures. So no wonder Naji had loads of enemies. Yes his friends were in the millions but they were all weak.
Naji talked about the plight of his people their suffering.

Naji held Israel first and foremost as the one responsible for their catastrophe.
He attacked America for standing behind it and arming it with all kinds of weapons to destroy defenseless Arabs and Muslims. He attacked socialist states that were brutal in fighting the teaching of Islam to the degree of considering reading the Quran a crime.

He attacked the Arab governments without any exception for
blaming Israel for their failures. He attacked the
Gulf States, which he lived in for their submission to the west.

He even stood for the abuse of human rights in all Arab and Muslim countries and exposed directly countries and states. He talked about the rich and the poor where a gap was widening in booming Kuwait and the wider Arab and Muslim world.
He even attacked the PLO and PFLP for their corruption and use of honest fighters sacrifices for their own personal glory.

All of that and I was standing watching in creepy silence.
No wonder, governments were enraged and sent envoys one after the other to Kuwait which was embarrassed and seemed to be losing friends by every daily edition of Al-Qabas newspaper. After they had failed to buy my silence (which is ironic because I was silent already). Naji was deported with our family to war torn Beirut. I guess they wanted us to get killed there in the civil war. He worked for a Lebanese newspaper called Al-Safeer, which in it he had his most productive years even the threats on his life were getting serious. In the summer of 1982, Israel invaded Lebanon to destroy the PLO once and for all. The Lebanon invasion transformed Naji. He witnessed how the country was invaded by land, sea and air. And how 10 thousands honest Lebanese and Palestinian Muslims resisted 90 thousands Israeli soldiers with all of their modern weaponry for 88 days under siege in East Beirut being bombarded by what is equivalent to the two atomic bombs on Japan. All that happened while Muslim Iraq was fighting Muslim Iran. While most Arab countries were oppressing their own people. Arabs and Muslims just stood and watched the Arab capital of light invaded slowly and painfully, while the world was watching the world cup in Spain. But it even got worse. The PLO decided to leave Lebanon if Israel promised that the Palestinian civilian refugees would be safe. Israel agreed but in September 1982 the Israeli tanks surrounded the refugee camps of Sabra and Shatiela and stopped anyone getting in or out. The next two days were among the ugliest in history. 2800 Men, Women and children Palestinian and Lebanese Muslims were massacred in the streets of camps by guns, knives and axes. The Israeli and their Christian Lebanese allies took their revenge for their failure to control Lebanon. The tanks soldiers even used glowing lights at nighttime because time couldnt be wasted. After the discovery of what happened, the world was enraged but helpless. Israel reacted to this Nazi style massacre by admitting its “indirect” responsibility and “punished” Sharon the engineer of Lebanon occupation and invasion by stopping him for life from being a defense minister. After, he became the foreign an deputy prime Minster in the 1998, and now, the current prime Minster of Israel. America considered Israel admission of its responsibility as a great proof of its democracy that it should be congratulated for!

The shock was huge for us. Naji was changed and so was I. I started moving, turning my head towards the people looking at me. Sometimes I untied my hands. I raised them in anger against oppression. I waved the flag encouraging

change. I even dared to throw a stone.

At that point Najis enemies were terrified from what he made me do. Their security services put our names on top of the WANTED list.
They even considered the time when I turn to my old self again as someone conspiring against the regime, planning a demonstration even a revolution. My action scared them and my silence horrified them.
Naji moved this time to London to work for Al-Qabas paper. He published his cartoons again all over the Arab world. In 1987, while my father was walking to his work, he was stopped by a man who shot him in the head and ran away. After five weeks in the ICU. My father left me, his wife, his five kids and the people who were me and I was them.
Who killed my father? Of course no one dared to admit it. But whoever it was they were all in it and certainly all happy to never see me on paper again.
Yes, they killed my father; they could erase me by censorship. But can they kill every Hanzalah dreaming of the day when he will go free. Building his determination to untie his hands and ask for what is his right. They may kill Naji but they will never kill Hanzalah.
Written by: another Hanzalah who dared to speak.

موضوع مميز


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