The cartoonist “Zad” (a pseudonym) sits behind his desk and writes with his pen a drawing of Tunisian President Kais Said, changing his features to resemble Hitler’s, in an attempt to be one of the voices fiercely criticizing the “dictatorship” in Tunisia.
The cartoonist “Zad” (a pseudonym) sits behind his desk and writes with his pen a drawing of Tunisian President Kais Said, changing his features to resemble Hitler’s, in an attempt to be one of the voices fiercely criticizing the “dictatorship” in Tunisia.
This 44-year-old painter asked, during an interview with Agence France-Presse in the Tunisian capital, not to reveal his face and only photograph his shadow to keep his identity a secret, and he has been keen to do so since 2007 when he was active under the regime of the late dictator Zine El Abidine Ben Ali.
He was then a student and created his own website Debatunisie.com to “discuss issues related to the environment and urban planning” in the framework of a huge real estate project that transformed the lake district of the capital from a sanctuary for migratory pink flamingos to a tourist area.
He later took this bird as a symbol to sign his works in blogs, short texts, and critical cartoons.
He tells AFP that under Ben Ali’s rule “anonymity was a necessity, and then came the revolution that gave me the possibility, even in theory, to reveal myself to the public, but there was a threatening Islamist trend… Whereas for the cartoonist, religion is a field.” Perfect for work.”
Today, after President Qais Saied monopolized the authorities in the country since July 2021, and imprisoned about twenty opponents of his regime since the beginning of last February, “concealment of identity has become inevitable, because some are arrested because of opinions they sometimes express even on Facebook. How about a cartoonist who criticizes the president day and night?
“coincidence”
This painter moves between France and Tunisia by virtue of his work as an architect and hopes to be able to move and express himself freely. His work is rarely published in Tunisia, but his personal accounts on social networking sites receive wide follow-up.
Zad “accidentally” found himself in the world of cartoons when his blog was censored by the Ben Ali regime in 2008 and “through cartoons, I was able to circumvent censorship and reach an audience that was not primarily interested in politics.”
He developed his style over the years, and his talent grew through his interest in comics such as “Asterix” or “Lucky Luke”, and his criticism became “more intense and fierce.”
He makes drawings in which Said appears with a bathroom straw on his head to “purify Tunisia” or shows him wearing slippers that Tunisians call “shalaka”.
This artist believes that the current power in Tunisia is a “dictatorship that has taken a fascist turn” thanks to the social networks in which activists circulate “Said’s discourse calling for hatred and discrimination.”
“a curse”
Through his works, he criticized all the presidents who passed through the Carthage Palace since the country’s independence, and singled them out for drawings that reflect his view of them, even the “great leader” Habib Bourguiba, who considers that “everything began with him, the nepotism and arrogance of the political class.”
“It’s a curse,” he says. “I wonder if there is a ghost that dwells in the cellars of the (presidential) palace in Carthage, which makes everyone who enters it lose their mind.”
The artist confirms that he “does not claim” that his cartoons can change the mentality and way of thinking of people, but he is pleased with the reactions raised by his latest works entitled in Arabic and not in French, despite the many threats and insults received as well.
He explains that by using Arabic, “I have the impression that I am multiplying the prominence of my drawings, and I am reaching people who are not primarily interested in the idea of caricatures, and I am also reaching a new audience such as teenagers who are not inclined to (the) French.”
His desire to embody his ideas through drawings increases with the frequency of events in the country, and he says, “When events multiply as they are at the present time, I sometimes wake up at night with an idea and rush to implement it.”
And he stresses that despite the risks, “finding yourself in a dictatorship gives you an adrenaline charge of fear. It reminds me of the era of Ben Ali when we were playing with fire, and that is a bit of fun.”
