Rania Khallaf interviews , satirical caricaturist of The Guardian, during his visit to Cairo to open a cartoon exhibition exhibition of cartoons, Lighting Lamps, is currently showing at the Press Syndicate. The launch on 21 March was followed by a seminar with The Guardian caricaturist , who talked about the power and impact of caricature. The seminar's coordinator was Egyptian cartoonist Gomaa Farahat of Al-Ahram. The exhibition was previously shown at the Guardian newsroom in London last summer and toured Syria, Lebanon, Palestine and Jordan before landing in Egypt. It represents the talents of some of the leading cartoonists in the Arab world, who through their creative drawings are moving the stagnant waters in their respective societies, dealing with the major social issues of the day in different cultural and societal situations. The colourful drawings in the exhibition reflect the most common social issues in the Arab world, such as the lack of equal job opportunities, lack of freedom of speech, and the way men regard and appreciate women's role in society. Along with Bell's witty caricatures, the exhibition features the work of prominent cartoonists from the Arab world including Mustafa Hussein from Egypt, Emad Hajjaj and Jalal Rifai from Jordan, Armando Homsi from Lebanon, Amer Shomali from Palestine, Yazeed Al-Harthi from Saudi Arabia, and most importantly Ali Ferzat from Syria. Ferzat's caricatures are some of the most interesting. He was born in 1951, and his caricatures appeared in the most widely distributed Arab newspapers, as well as in Le Monde and Newsweek. "The exhibition is a great opportunity for me to get to know brilliant Arab caricaturists such as Ferzat," Bell commented during the seminar. "I believe that what divides us caricaturists is the ignorance, nothing more," he added, referring to the education he has gained from touring the Middle East with the exhibition. He also expressed his willingness to participate in a properly designed workshop with distinguished Arab caricaturists from the Middle East, such as Ferzat and Mustafa Hussein. The participation of Amer Shomali and Basel Nasr from Palestine, representing Zan Studio, came as a unique representation. Established in 2005, Zan Studio is an open court for young artists; a platform for joint projects dealing with creative ideas in the field of new media and visual arts. The studio attempts to interact with the surrounding social environment and to add new media as tools to bring about social change, creating an independent forum that can finance both commercial and non-commercial projects. Bell's work has been published all over the world and he has won numerous awards, including the What the Papers Say Cartoonist of the Year in 1993 and the Political Cartoon Society Cartoon of the Year Award in 2001. He has also received honorary degrees from the universities of Sussex, Teesside, Loughborough and Leeds. Together with filmmaker Bob Godfrey he has made a number of animated cartoons for television, including a cartoon biography of Margaret Thatcher, a cartoon autobiography of George Bush and a Tony Blair self-help guide, published by Methuen. During the seminar, prominent Egyptian caricaturist Mohamed Effat raised the question of a possible mutual marketing policy between caricaturists from Egypt, the United Kingdom and France, as they presumably had some similar or "common problems", as he put it. He added: "Egyptian intellectuals are in dire need of understanding and have common grounds with British and French communities. Caricatures could play an excellent role in this context." "Draw as much as you can, and enjoy it, because if you don't enjoy what you are drawing, nobody will enjoy seeing it," Bell told a young female caricaturist who asked for some advice. Born in 1951 in London, Bell seems a little perplexed at meeting all the new faces on his short visit to Cairo, a visit which marks the last stop in his tour of the Middle East. Al-Ahram Weekly met him at the Cairo Sheraton Hotel two hours before he was due to fly back to London. "I like it here, but it is a bit too dusty, isn't it?" he said. "Cairo is a fascinating city, but it's also busy with too many cars. It looks like a powerhouse," he chuckles. "My cartoons have usually opposed Israeli policy in the Palestinian territories. Sometimes, it was a bit difficult for a cartoonist to pass his cartoons because of the political pressure on the media. But, generally speaking, it did not affect me that much because the Guardian is an independent newspaper," he told the Weekly. "The irony of the split between Fatah and Hamas is equally sad, but the whole situation is very brutal; the Israeli settlers have got all the benefits and the dilemma of check points, etc. "Another irony in the Arab world is the lack of democracy," he went on. "However, democracy should be cultivated, not thrown from a plane like a bomb, as George Bush's theory suggests, and consequently failed in the Middle East. Like governments everywhere, they are just stupid. And I believe that people are much wiser than that." Asked about his stance on the cartoons published in Denmark in 2006 that tarnished the image of the Prophet Mohamed, he commented: "At that time, as a cartoonist, I thought the wrong thing was that it was directed against the Muslim minorities, the powerless, while cartoons should be directed against those who have power, not otherwise. But, I do believe that religion should be one of the subjects to deal with in cartoons." Asked to mention one of his best caricatures ever, Bell laughed and nodded his head for two long minutes. "It was quite enjoyable to draw Bush as a monkey, because he actually looks like a monkey," he said with amusement. Before the seminar Bell conducted a small workshop to demonstrate to Egyptian caricaturists how he portrayed the character of George Bush as a monkey. He also demonstrated the way in which he approached his political caricatures from different psychological and social perspectives. Bell is also proud of his cartoons featuring the fall of Margaret Thatcher in 1990 in the New Statesman. "She believed that she was right about everything, but actually she wasn't," he said. The Lighting Lamps exhibition is part of the British Council's regional Media in Society project, which aims at bringing together writers, journalists and editors from all areas of the media to highlight the different ways of tackling social issues. It runs until 10 April at the Al-Sawy Cultural Wheel in Zamalek, after which it will be taken to the British Council, in Agouza from 15 to 30 April.
