#jonathan guyer

“The coolest thing for cartoonists,” Andeel argues, “is to make fun of the strongest man in the country.”

Wherever one stands on the military’s entrenched authority, the past year has been painful for Egypt, violence crippling journalists’ ability to document the changing landscape. Regime forces raided ten media outlets and television stations in the aftermath of Morsi’s removal, and more than sixty-five journalists have been detained since July, according to the Committee to Protect Journalists, which ranked Egypt the third-deadliest country for the press in 2013. Seventeen members of the media remain in prison, and a trio of Al Jazeera journalists is on trial on trumped-up charges related to the government’s “war on terror,” which Cairo-based independent correspondent Sharif Abdel Kouddous describes as a premise “primarily being used to re-empower the security state and silence opposition voices.” Among these voices are Egypt’s political cartoonists, satire long a chief ombudsman for the country. While they don’t report from violent protest zones, criticizing the security state is still perilous. Illustrators capture the everyday challenges Egyptians face, and produce work that is far-reaching: legible to the illiterate and capable of transcending cultural, class-based, and generational barriers. Plus, while illustrations may be creations of the imagination, their imagery goes straight to the gut. It shows the blunders of the ruling class in a moment’s glance. Protesters in Tahrir Square carried cartoons on placards, not opposition op-eds.