CAIRO - A few days before the Egyptian revolution, a cartoon had spread like wildfire on Facebook. It depicted Khaled Saeed, the young Alexandrian man who died more than a year ago because of police brutality, looking like a giant and holding a tiny former president, Hosni Mubarak, in his hand. This cartoon was created by Brazilian cartoonist Carlos Latuff, who has become popular in the Arab region since the Arab Spring started. Almost every day, Latuff comes up with a new cartoon about the Arab Spring. They're so vivid that it's hard to imagine that he's actually living in Brazil. "I'm more famous in Egypt than Brazil. I have more than 50,000 followers on Twitter and most of them are Egyptians. I follow everything that's happening in Egypt via Twitter. "I've never visited Egypt before and I can't visit it right now because I don't think that I will be allowed," he added in an interview with the Egyptian Mail via Skype. Carlos Latuff, born on November 30, 1968, is a Brazilian freelance political cartoonist. His works deal with an array of themes, including anti-globalisation, anti-capitalism and anti-US military intervention. But he is best known for his images depicting the Israeli-Palestinian conflict and, more recently, the Arab Spring events. Latuff himself has described his work as ‘controversial'. Born in São Cristóvão (Rio de Janeiro), Brazil, Latuff is of Lebanese ancestry; as he himself says, he has ‘Arab roots'. "When I was a child I used to watch cartoons on TV. In 1990, I decide to work in this field and I got a job with a leftist union newspaper, although I didn't have any ideology. I started to support political cases in 1996, influenced by the Batista Movement,” he said. Latuff's works have been posted mostly by himself on Indy media websites and private blogs. However, some of them have been picked up and featured in magazines such as the Brazilian edition of Mad, Le Monde Diplomatique and The Toronto Star. In addition, a few of his works have been published on Arab websites and in publications such as the Islamic Front for the Iraqi Resistance (JAMI) magazine, the Saudi magazine Character and the Lebanese newspaper Al-Akhbar, among others. A vast number of Latuff's cartoons are related to the Israeli-Palestinian conflict, which "became important for me after I visited the area in the late 1990s". These cartoons are heavily critical of Israel and have drawn criticism and allegations of uninhibited use of "judeophobic stereotypes in the service of the anti-globalisation movement". "I've never had any problems visiting Palestine as a tourist, but now I think that I'll face a lot of troubles from the Israelis if I go there again," he said. In his ‘We are all Palestinians' cartoon series, various well-known oppressed groups, including the Jews in the Warsaw Ghetto, Black South Africans during Apartheid, Native Americans and Tibetans in China, are all shown stating, "I am Palestinian.” Latuff has also made a series of cartoons that portray former Israeli Prime Minister Ariel Sharon, former United States President George W. Bush, former Brazilian President Luiz Inácio Lula da Silva and former British PM Tony Blair, among other politicians, as monsters and as Nazis. He is also critical of US military action in Iraq and Afghanistan, having made promotional cartoons for anti-US militancy, as well as cartoons alleging US actions have been motivated by the chance of making money out of oil. Among the cartoons, there are also some that portray US soldiers as severely wounded, dead or paraplegic, or as harming Iraqi civilians. In his comic series ‘Tales of Iraq War', he portrays ‘Juba, the Baghdad sniper', an Iraqi insurgency character, claimed to have shot dead several dozen GIs, as a ‘superhero'. He has also made a caricature of George W. Bush laughing at the US casualties. Since the end of last year, he's been consistently engaged in producing cartoons about the Arab Spring, in which he openly sides with the revolutionaries. After the success of the revolutions in Tunisia, Egypt and Libya, his cartoons about these countries have focused on the menace of counterrevolution or Western interference. Some of his cartoons have been displayed in mass demonstrations in Arab countries. "I believe that what has happened in Egypt is not a revolution; the power must be given to the people," he said. "What happened in Libya is different from Tunisia and Egypt. In Libya, the popular movement was hijacked by NATO and the UN, but in Egypt and Tunisia the people's pressure is the main reason for the president resigning. “But, although Mubarak has gone, this does not mean that the whole regime has changed," he added in his comments to this newspaper. Latuff believes that the Supreme Council of Armed Forces (SCAF) must promote independent parliamentary and presidential elections as soon as possible. “They died to create a free, democratic country where the people choose their own ruler. I think that Egypt still has a long way to go. Latuff advises Egyptian citizens to form popular committees to monitor the elections and ensure their transparency. But the satirical Brazilian is just as critical about what is going in his own country. "Here in Brazil we don't have real democracy. Police arrest undergraduates when they protest for university principals to be given the sack. Around 70 of them were recently arrested by 400 cops, but unfortunately the public support the police. "Some Brazilian policemen are corrupt. Even if the country's president is elected by the people, this doesn't mean that the police and the army are elected too.” Latuff has been arrested three times, in 1999, 2000 and 2007, because of his controversial artworks about police brutality and corruption. "The Arab Spring has affected the entire world. Before January 25, it was hard for people to take to the streets to demand the removal of the regime. “Egyptians and revolutionaries in other countries must be aware that some foreign countries don't want the Middle East to be democratic, as this is not in their best interests," he stressed.
