"I want to ask questions and start conversations," said Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Albaih. Albaih said he decided that the best way to do this, and to reach a global audience, was to put his work online. He explained that this decision was an easy choice for him to make as he had "grown up online." Albaih made his remarks during a panel discussion that was organized as part of the School of Public Policy's annual conference, the view from here: artists // public policy.
Albaih explained that he had always liked comics growing up, and had grown up in a very political family. He credited his father with introducing him to two Egyptian magazines, Sabah el Kheir and Rose Al Youssef, which had a profound impact on him. "I was amazed to discover that there existed a way to combine my interest in cartoons and my desire to talk about politics," he remembered. "Cartoons gave me a chance to ask questions I could not otherwise ask." Another reason that Khalid likes political cartoons is that they are approachable. "A ten-year-old can understand and be interested in what I'm doing," he said.
Albaih tried in 2009-10 to get his cartoons published in "traditional media," but was unsuccessful. Albaih said that it was this rejection that prompted him to go online and publish his work on a Facebook page. Coincidentally, he made this decision at just about the same time as the Arab Spring was breaking out. Albaih used his cartoons as a way to document what was happening. Many of these cartoons were used during political demonstrations, put on posters, and painted on walls in countries throughout the Arab world. They also attracted attention far beyond the Arab world from people who were interested in "knowing the news directly from us," said Albaih.
In addition to enabling him to reach a global audience, Albaih said that the internet had also created a public space in the Arab world, a part of the world that lacks public spaces. Asked about the impact that censorship has on his work, Albaih said, "Censorship makes you more creative." He noted that he was criticized from all sides, and had been called an Islamist and also a communist. Albaih said he did not draw his cartoons for a specific audience, or to convince people of a particular point of view, but wanted to start conversations. "This is what I think. What do you think?"