Sudanese Satirist Uses “Khartoons” to Illuminate Arab World
Khalid Albaih's art is inspiring a frustrated generation.
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"Stages" - As convoluted as the Arab Spring conflicts and revolutions may be, a Romanian-born Sudanese cartoonist has managed to simplify these sociopolitical happenings with several strokes of a pen. Khalid Albaih attributes his satirical work to being raised by outspoken activist parents who introduced cartooning to the fledgling artist. Keep reading to see which cartoons Albaih chose to share with BET.com. — Patrice Peck“Reforms sometimes mean we go back to who we were before we revolted,” Albaih said about the above image.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Egyptian Revolution Life" - In his Twitter bio, Khalid Albaih describes himself as a “self-proclaimed artist, political cartoonist, illustrator, designer and a dislcsic [sic] writer from the two countries of The Sudan.” His Facebook page, Khartoon!, where he originally posted his images after being refused by publications, has more than 52,000 likes.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Turkey" - In “Turkey,” Albaih refers to the instance when Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan blamed Twitter for the country’s unrest in June 2013, calling the social media “the worst menace to society.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Freedom of Press" - “In the Middle East, we suffer a lot from censorship,” said Albaih. “There's a person from the government in each newspaper, censoring the articles before they get printed.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Khartoon" - “As a Sudanese, I think we need to make love bullets for our guns,” said Albaih about his homeland. One of the least developed nations on the continent, Sudan split into two countries in July 2011, as was agreed upon in a 2005 peace deal that finished Africa’s longest-running civil war.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Free Revolutionzone" - “The Arab Spring was born from a Facebook page,” said Albaih. “The Internet was our only escape.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Flagless" - Albaih’s mother country is the subject for much of the cartoonist’s work. “In Sudan, soldiers are killing their own people,” said Albaih. “Who are they fighting for? Not our flag, for sure.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Guantanamo" - In this image, the artist refers to the highly controversial U.S. detention camp in Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. The prison holds 164 prisoners as of August 2013.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"I’m Bored" - “We have everything, but we are still not happy,” said Albaih.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Peace in the Middle East" - Having inspired an entire generation of discontented youth, Albaih learned that his cartoons were being reproduced on walls in Cairo, Beirut and other cities deeply embroiled in conflict.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"School Kids Shot by Government Forces in Sudan" - “The recent protests in Sudan — check out #SudanRevolts on social media — have more than 200 dead and 600 detained in a week; most are children,” said Albaih. “[Yet,] the world still needs to see more blood for more attention.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Mismatch" - In this image, Albaih comments on the incompatibility of certain nations, using an electrical power plug and outlet to illustrate his point. “Some things just don’t work,” he told BET.com.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Modern @las" - “Atlas used to carry the world on his shoulders,” said Albaih, referring to the Titan character in Greek mythology. “The modern day '@las' carries the Internet on his shoulders.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Selfish World" - In “Selfish World,” Albaih illustrates what he believes to be an isolation of Africa from the rest of the world. When asked how he would describe this image, he told BET.com, “Africa is left to die.”(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Man 2 Facebook" - “We are all becoming one with social media, but not social in the real world,” said Albaih.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)
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"Media Help" - Albaih questions the role of the media in this image. “Media Help” seems to refer to the conflicts of a photojournalist, namely Kevin Carter. The South African photojournalist took the divisive, Pulitzer Prize-winning photograph of a severely malnourished Sudanese child being stalked by a vulture. He committed suicide at age 33 in 1994.(Photo: Courtesy of Khalid Albaih)