When I was at the festival in St. Just, France I had the opportunity to interview Doaa el Adl. She is a rare female cartoonist in Egypt, and she has been persecuted by by the Morsi regime for drawing a cartoon that featured Adam and Eve, an opportunity for the Muslim Brotherhood to chill her speech. Editorial cartoonists are very important voices in Egypt, with their cartoons routinely running on the front pages of the many, vibrant newspapers in a culture that still reveres newspapers.
I think Doaa is a hero, for standing up to the regime, speaking truth to power, and putting herself at risk in doing so.
Interestingly, Doaa had some strong objections to my own cartoons. Here are a couple of my cartoons that she disliked the most …
Doaa says “Yes, Obama does that – but you draw him as an angel – he is no angel! He meddles in everything! He wants to control everything!”
To this one Doaa says, “Obama is not like that! He is in there fighting with everyone, making trouble, trying to run everything!”
Obama has managed to make all sides in the Middle East see him as the bad guy.
