The Saudi Art of Caricature

Saudi Arabia’s Interior Ministry has launched a cartoon contest to counter terrorism, and the cash prizes are enticing.



Reading about the competition, I was reminded that Saudi cartoonist Abdullah Jaber has been barred from publishing in his country’s newspapers for the past four months.

Jaber, a talented practitioner of the one-frame gag who has found ways to criticize the status quo, was seen as having gone too far in a January cartoon. After his jab about budget deficit was published, the prolific tweeter disappeared from social media, spurring fear and outrage among his hundreds of thousands of followers. When he resurfaced two weeks later, he quelled the dark rumors and explained that he had simply been censored.

That offending cartoon itself is relatively tame when compared to critical illustrated commentary in Algeria, Egypt, or Lebanon. But in the context of the Saudi media, it’s a stinging critique of the state-dominated economy and thus of the regime:





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In spite of his bowdlerization, Jaber continues to post cartoons on social media. Except now he crosses out his own signature, no doubt a comment on his inability to publish in local outlets, as you can see in the cartoon below.

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Jaber recently published a Twitter essay with twelve points about “the art of caricature.” Directed at the initiated and unfamiliar, his tweets briefly outline his own approach and highlight the misconceptions facing cartoonists:

1. Everything raised by a cartoonist is his personal opinion. 2. The cartoonist chooses his subjects based on his outlook and concerns; as a result, do not expect him to be an expert on all the issues that matter to you. 3. The cartoonist is different from you, culturally and educationally. So it is natural that his opinion differs from yours now and then. 4. There are many schools of caricature, and there is not one school that is better than another. So if you like the wordless style [of cartooning] that does not mean that cartoons with text are bad, etc. 5. For many reasons, creative works are not always of same quality [over time]. Do not expect continuity from any cartoonist. 6. The daily cartoonist does not often get a vacation. Many of cartoonists’ bad drawings were painted in bad situations—while sick, traveling, or mourning, etc. 7. The cartoon is an opinion transmitted by the cartoonist to the readers. Do not ask him to laugh at himself or to express your own opinions. 8. Newspaper cartoonists work on their papers’ cycle. Their work published today is often drawn a day or two before, which is why you might think they’re late. 9. In the press, the number of red lines never seems to end, and the cartoonist is obliged to observe them all. 10. Most newspapers require the cartoonists to take a specific angle, such as politics, sports, or local, etc. They do not expect or demand a sports cartoonist to draw about local issues, etc. 11. The present generation has many tools available to them that past generations lacked. Comparing the work of different generations is not just. 12. The cartoonist is not a negative person, but the art he practices forces him to search for faults and to criticize them; he is not interested in the positive or in praise.

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In fact, some of these points might serve as guidelines for the Interior Ministry’s cartoon contest.

If only the government invited Jaber to chair the competition.

Until then, Jaber’s cartoon from International Press Freedom Day sums it up:

“Go ahead… Express your opinion.”

