By Faris Al Rifai; Translation by Yusra Ahmed
Few days ago The young Syrian-Palestinian cartoonist Hani Abbas was fannounced the winner of the “Press Cartoonist Award”, the highest award for Caricature in the world, organized by the Cartoonists for Peace Organization, established by “Plantu” the French cartoonist.
The Award is announced every two years to a cartoonist who are found to have the courage, talent and responsibility toward Peace, forgiving, struggling for freedom of Speech and other humanitarian issues. The Award was given to Doa’a al-Adl, the Egyptian female cartoonist as well.
“A soldier smelling the freedom flower” poster was assigned to be the theme of the event this year at the 100th Anniversary of the First World War.
The cartoonist said that the prize was a great happy surprise for him.
He explained the idea of the winning poster saying: “it's a call to leave aggression and aggressiveness and to inhale the smell of peace and freedom, because soldiers’ duties are to protect people not killing them and to be with them, not against”
Hani Abbas lived the war in Syria and all its difficult time, he considers that difficult time the most important period in his life as he has to make hard decisions but he did not stop drawing to show the suffering of people and to confront death he had to witness every day.
Abbas confessed that he had had some fears from being punished by the Syrian regime because of his cartoons like what happened to Ali Farzat and Akram Raslan, as he received direct and indirect threats. However he confronted his fears and published his drawing. He was proud that his attitude kept the same and not affected when he left Syria because of the danger on his life.
He revealed that has no reason or strategy for not including comments within his cartoons, and he just likes to present the influential deep ideas those anyone can understand.
The artist does not feel that the scope of freedom of speech and expressing opinions has improved significantly after the Arab Spring revolutions, because the conflict between freedom and dictation has turned into conflicts and allies. “We has not yet reach to a situation where a person can say his opinion whatever it was without fears of detention or killing, the revolution in Arab countries still has not provided a healthy relationship between educated people the power.
In the end the cartoonist expressed his big sadness for what happened in Homs, as he felt it as a live picture of pain because of destruction, displacement, killing and hunger. He was sad for the fate Homs has to face it because he felt it was let down like other cities. He regrets that people have paid heavy price to get that results. “Homs revolutionary songs and its martyrs’ photos, will stay in our hearts and no one can take it off whatever pressure put on us” he ended.
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Abbas pulls no punches. His work, as The Daily Beast said, is harshly critical of the Syrian and Israeli governments, but he also relentlessly mocks those who use terrorism against them. “There is a big difference between revolution against oppression and terrorist activity. Revolution is among the most honorable things to sacrifice for. It doesn’t thrive on oppression and the murders of innocents. Whoever does this is preventing progress in their community.” Abbas work is groundbreaking, not only as a timely satire of the online world, but also for the candid humor he uses to denounce atrocities in Syria.
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