Saturday
Jul252009
Response to review of A Child in Palestine
Issandr El Amrani
We recently featured a review of A Child in Palestine, an overview of the great Palestinian cartoonist Naji al-Ali's work. The book's editor, Abdulhadi W. Ayyad, has responded to the review. Below are Mr Ayyad 's letter and a response by Ethan Heitner, the writer of the review.
I read with interest your review of A Child in Palestine, which focused on the cartoons of Naji al-Ali, written by Ethan Heitner. Being the writer of the main body of the text, I feel it falls on me to correct a few misconceptions contained in Mr Heitner's review.
To begin with, the book never sought to be a biography of the late Naji al-Ali. The fact that contributors to the Wikipedia website have listed more exhaustive details of the artist's life is impressive, and says a lot about Wikipedia. What we did seek to accomplish was to make the works of Naji al-Ali accessible to a new audience.
There we find the reviewer's suggestion that my writing "overdetermined" the messages in what he felt were intentionally ambiguous drawings: I feel that this criticism is somewhat misplaced.
The fact is, Al-Ali consistently employed visual imagery to allude to well-known idioms which would be obvious to native Arabic speakers, for whom his cartoons were made. I had to assume that the typical reader of the book would not have been able to appreciate this fully, and wrote the text accordingly.
Finally, Mr Heitner suggested that my writing on Al-Ali tended towards the "hagiographic". I can fully concede this point, but I must point out that Naji al-Ali remains for Palestinians of every political hue a truly untainted national hero. While it might not suit the more cynical Western reader, the fact is that patriotism remains an important, vibrant force amongst Palestinians, and this will inevitably reflect itself on how any Palestinian will write about Naji al-Ali, at least for some time to come.
To adopt a well-known Arabic aphorism, judge people by what they attempt to do. If the book had been intended for those familiar with the Middle East, or had it been planned as a biography, Mr Heitner could have expected another text.
Yours,
Abdulhadi W. Ayyad
Ethan Heitner responds:
Dear Mr. Ayyad,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate that the book is an introduction for Western readers to the work of Naji al-Ali. As I expressed in my review, I can only hope that a future edition will contain more material (both cartoons and critical text). The importance of Naji al-Ali and his work should not preclude us, and in my opinion compels us, to attempt to look at his work and life critically and rigorously.
- Ethan Heitner
I read with interest your review of A Child in Palestine, which focused on the cartoons of Naji al-Ali, written by Ethan Heitner. Being the writer of the main body of the text, I feel it falls on me to correct a few misconceptions contained in Mr Heitner's review.
To begin with, the book never sought to be a biography of the late Naji al-Ali. The fact that contributors to the Wikipedia website have listed more exhaustive details of the artist's life is impressive, and says a lot about Wikipedia. What we did seek to accomplish was to make the works of Naji al-Ali accessible to a new audience.
There we find the reviewer's suggestion that my writing "overdetermined" the messages in what he felt were intentionally ambiguous drawings: I feel that this criticism is somewhat misplaced.
The fact is, Al-Ali consistently employed visual imagery to allude to well-known idioms which would be obvious to native Arabic speakers, for whom his cartoons were made. I had to assume that the typical reader of the book would not have been able to appreciate this fully, and wrote the text accordingly.
Finally, Mr Heitner suggested that my writing on Al-Ali tended towards the "hagiographic". I can fully concede this point, but I must point out that Naji al-Ali remains for Palestinians of every political hue a truly untainted national hero. While it might not suit the more cynical Western reader, the fact is that patriotism remains an important, vibrant force amongst Palestinians, and this will inevitably reflect itself on how any Palestinian will write about Naji al-Ali, at least for some time to come.
To adopt a well-known Arabic aphorism, judge people by what they attempt to do. If the book had been intended for those familiar with the Middle East, or had it been planned as a biography, Mr Heitner could have expected another text.
Yours,
Abdulhadi W. Ayyad
Ethan Heitner responds:
Dear Mr. Ayyad,
Thank you for taking the time to respond. I appreciate that the book is an introduction for Western readers to the work of Naji al-Ali. As I expressed in my review, I can only hope that a future edition will contain more material (both cartoons and critical text). The importance of Naji al-Ali and his work should not preclude us, and in my opinion compels us, to attempt to look at his work and life critically and rigorously.
- Ethan Heitner
Reader Comments (2)
Overdetermined is not the same thing as over-explained, and while Mr. Ayyad seems to be defending the text against the latter, the review mentioned the former.
Hagiographies do their subjects no favors, quite the opposite. It's not cynicism that brings the sainted down to the level of the rest of us, but the fact that they were human all along. And in the case of the sainted, it's not that landing that hurts, it's the fall.
Looking forward to seeing the book but I would like to mention that in May 2007, and in commemoration of the 20th anniversary of Naji al-Ali’s assassination, the Jerusalem Fund Gallery held and exhibit and published a booklet written by Dr. Fayeq Oweis that contains an analysis of the cartoons, symbols, and relevance to today's event... It can be read (without the cartoons) at http://knol.google.com/k/fayeq-oweis/handala-and-the-cartoons-of-naji-al-ali/12e7isujug54e/5#" target="_blank">http://knol.google.com/k/fayeq-oweis/handala-and-...