14 - 20 June 2001
Issue No.538
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Al-Ahram Weekly Online 14 - 20 June 2001 Issue No.538 |
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theworld@MickeyMouse.com
100 Rasm wa Akthar (100 Drawings and More), Mohieddin El-Labbad, Cairo: Dar Al-Mustaqbal Al-Arabi, 2001. pp128This remarkable compendium of images collected mostly from the Arabic edition of Le Monde Diplomatique reflects not only Mohieddin El-Labbad's concern with the Third World, the New World Order and the unjust reality of current world affairs but his ability to employ the symbols of globalisation to express that concern. Wry, clever (sometimes a little too clever), spirited and sincere: these cartoons reveal the fine line separating frivolity from fun.
An illustrator and graphics artist best known for the books and magazines he designed and laid out, and a politically aware member of the literary and artistic Generation of the Sixties, El-Labbad turns neo-Imperialist aspects of contemporary American culture in on themselves: in a cartoon entitled Oil for Food, for example, a slick McDonald's delivery man seated on his motorbike hands a scruffy, ravenous, Third World petrol station attendant a sandwich while the latter, standing, pumps petrol into the tank of the motorbike; in a traditional Japanese tea ceremony, tea is substituted for Coca Cola; the jilbab of an Arab sheikh turns into a T-shirt with "I love Mickey Mouse" inscribed in symbols across its front. Here as elsewhere there is neither angst nor superficial anger, but a level-headed and keen sense of irony, an understanding of the dynamics of world (American) politics and a deeply rooted commitment to the interests of the dispossessed. And there is no mistaking the message: in one image the large figure of an American president opens his mouth to produced empty comic-strip bubbles that he feeds into a giant Xerox machine while the smaller figures of world leaders, on the other side of the machine, eagerly catch the copies it is spewing out, placing them in position at their lips and setting off on their way.
Among El-Labbad's many references to traditional Arab and pop culture, the computer and the Internet occupy a large portion of this book, frequently in the course of making a statement against the culture that produced them. A computer window is entitled KILLING, the unshaven face of a man in a galabeya (whose body extends beneath the border of the window) is juxtaposed with an exclamation mark and a skull; the cursor is about to press "OK."
In his introduction to the book Samir Qusier points out that the first of these drawings were published three years ago, underlining El-Labbad's ability to embrace modern communications technology in his work without compromising its unmistakably oppositional focus -- a paradoxical vindication. "I don't think I would be exaggerating," Qusier testifies repeatedly, "if I said that the collection of Labbad drawings published here illuminate globalisation ten times more adequately than the dozens of 'opposition' conferences held in Arab capitals."
Reviewed by Youssef Rakha
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