The political cartoon can evoke tremendous emotion. It does not matter if you are illiterate, a cartoon can be seen and understood by many. Khalid Albaih has mastered this art form. Very recently his cartoon of a Syrian refugee could be seen all over social media. It spread like wildfire depicting a very young boy sitting in ruble saying if he stays in Syria along with another young boy dead in a river saying if he goes. It illustrates the tragedy that is currently happening half way around the world. Beyond being able to illustrate tragedies, the political cartoon does more. In many countries that do not censor their media it is much harder to criticize.
Khalid Albaih spoke very adamantly how growing up any propaganda that was against the president in his home country would cause the paper to get shut down. He explained how posting in the paper was essentially impossible for long term success. Because of this he turned to social media. Currently it could easily be argued that social media, over newspapers is a much better platform to spread thoughts and pieces of art. In the US we are lucky enough that newspapers will not be confiscated for a cartoon, even if it disagrees with the majority of Americans’ ideals. Even with this social media maintains one of the driving forces of the spread of ideas. The amazing thing about the cartoon is how it is not as easily targeted by people who are against it.
In the US right now there are many major movements. The movement that comes to my mind first is the current protest by Colin Kaepernick and other NFL players. Colin decided to kneel during the national anthem because of his thoughts on the treatments of blacks in the US. Many critics of movements for blacks’ prior was they caused problems, like riots in Ferguson, or they caused inconveniences for people beyond the protest, at Colby we experienced this. Colin has been shunned by many because they believe being an American citizen he must love America and everything about it. Anti-protesters think he has no choice, but to love the country. Personally, I think critics of protests will always find a way to say the protest is wrong because of their lack of support for the cause.
The cartoon is unlike any protest though. How can one say a photo on social media or in a newspaper is truly causing harm? While a riot obviously is a negative outcome of a protest the silence that Colin portrays is exactly what people who were against the riots wanted. A protest that doesn’t bother or inconvenience anyone, however once he did that it was said that wasn’t allowed either. The cartoon unlike these two prior kinds if protests is much harder if not impossible to say it is truly bothering. It can easily read over if it truly bothers someone. For many though they will stop and look at the cartoon. The cartoon is nearly impossible to critique and is easily viewed with modern social media.