“Cairo, 60 years from now. Nothing has changed.”
From the Harvard Crimson:
On Sept. 13, Radcliffe Institute Fellow Jonathan Guyer gave a lecture on the “Mad Cartoonists of Cairo.” A journalist and contributing editor of the Cairo Review of Global Affairs, Guyer has lived in Cairo for the past five years, exploring and researching the new wave of comic art in the Middle East and North Africa for a book he is currently writing. Guyer presented a survey of comic art mainly from the turbulent city of Cairo, analyzing the medium’s ability both to critique and influence Middle Eastern society and culture.
Guyer began his lecture with the question that guided him through his studies: “What is the importance of this Arab comic movement?” He argued that comics are windows to the current social and political situation of the Middle East. He began to substantiate this thesis with a stylized cartoon drawing of Cairo by cartoonist Shennawy from the Cairo publication “Tok Tok.” The text in the corner of the image, translated from Arabic, reads “Cairo, 60 years from now, and nothing has changed,” a derisive statement that, as a recurring theme in the lecture, pervaded through each series of politically-charged cartoon he presented. For example, one of the cartoons— a hyperrealistic depiction of Cairo—comments on the city’s increasing urbanization while a sardonic drawing of a smiling Egyptian family, splattered in blood, criticises the violent rise of Abdel Fattah el-Sisi, the incumbent president of Egypt who came to power through a 2013 military coup. For Guyer, art and politics work in tandem, constantly fueling both creativity and policy.
...
Keep reading: ‘The Mad Cartoonists of Cairo’ Reflect a Changing Middle East.
***
Top image: Shennawy, Tok Tok #9 (Cairo: NP, May 2013).
More of his work here here and here.
