Amany Al-Ali was a girl who grew up in dark shadows, dreaming of the colours of summer at night. Thanks to a teacher, she embraced drawing as a place of escape from her fantasies and worries. The life of Amany Al-Ali (Syria, 40 years old) is crossed by several frustrations: on the one hand, family and on the other, social. She grew up in Saudi Arabia in a religious context in which women are relegated to the background and where the personal circumstances of her sister and mother were lived in silence and refusal to expose them in public. In 2011, the drift of the outbreak produced by the Arab Spring broke the fine thread of daily balance that they maintained: Aleppo, where she was born and had returned, disintegrated under bombs and bullets. From that event, Amany first entered the world of citizen journalism, but there she also ended up burned by the patriarchy, then in cartoons, as an intimate refuge for her reflections. Her drawings capture all those experiences lived in the first person, with the trauma of silence due to her sister’s illness in the background. Part of her work appears in the book Drawing to resist: Six female comic book authors against oppression (Godall edicions, 2024), coordinated by the Belgian sinologist, journalist and writer Catherine Vuylsteke.
“Amany had to fight against her father’s prejudices, who considered art to be shameful and sinful, in order to be able to do what she wanted, that is, to express herself artistically,” Vuylsteke says by email from Brussels, where she lives. In the introduction to the book, carefully edited and excellently translated by Alberto Chessa, the journalist and writer explains the connection between the six authors: “None of them chose an easy path and, as a result, they stumbled, hurt themselves and even thought of giving up. Loneliness, sadness, controversy and insecurity marked their journey, but they continued forward.” In addition to Amany Al-Ali, the illustrators Mar Maremoto (Mexico, 1994), Rachita Taneja (India, 1991), Doaa El-Adl (Egypt, 1979), Ann Telnaes (United States, 1960) and Victoria Lomasko (Russia, 1978) participated. In this context of shared difficulties, the book’s coordinator explains that there is also room for positive common ground: “Humour allows us to talk about issues that would otherwise be too painful or too taboo to be brought up on the table. And that is exactly what we have to do: discuss and negotiate. Because communication is truly our only weapon in the fight for a better world.”
It is precisely from this positivist perspective that Catherine Vuylsteke tells us about the lives and circumstances of six artists. The diversity of bodies, expressions and situations that appear in the drawings are connected by the empathy that the illustrators themselves show towards the women who are the protagonists of their cartoons. A feminist perspective, in these times of reactionary waves where some politicians deny patriarchal oppression and despise stories that question the role of men in power structures.
For Vuylsteke, this feminist perspective is the result of the “underlying conviction” of the six authors and she explains her point of view in the current context: “Feminism means that men and women are equal in all aspects of life. In some areas we believe that this equality has been achieved, but taking a look at the recent European elections we realise that many fundamental achievements are under threat, such as the rights of the LGBTI+ community.” Although violence against women is the common theme of most of the complaints made by the authors, the range of particularities is wide. From issues such as the use of the hijab in India, to the relationship with parents in Syria, fundamentalism in Egypt, sexual desire in Mexico, the use of weapons in the United States or freedom of expression in Russia.
![A cartoon by Amany Al-Ali, from the comic 'Draw to Resist', provided by the publisher Godall Edicions.](https://imagenes.elpais.com/resizer/v2/XTEALAPOIRAQRARFZJIZF2Y3HY.jpg?auth=c0baca75c52449d32295eeec8de4070800772c03866207e938047eccd4922981&width=414)
The six artists had been protagonists of Draw for Change!produced in 2022 by Hanne Phlypo with several directors, which won the award for best documentary series at the 2023 Cannes Film Festival. It was the producer who suggested to Catherine Vuylsteke that she tell the story of these six women in writing, while also using her graphic work as a complement to the documentary series. “I don’t know anything about comics,” admits the journalist and writer, “but I wanted this to be a book for everyone, not just comic book lovers. In the end, the medium is not so important, but what you want to say and how.” For Vuylsteke, a veteran journalist with experience as a foreign correspondent for the newspaper in the Flemish part of Belgium From Morgenwomen’s issues had indeed been “at the heart” of her professional career and she accepted the proposal: “And I must say that I do not regret it. All these women, from very different backgrounds, want to be free. Free to be who they are, to wear the clothes they want to wear without being harassed, free to say what they think, free to disagree and not fit in. In addition, they are all very brave, because they have had to fight hard to do what they do. And they are independent voices, not spokespersons for one or another ideology or belief. Unless we can consider human rights a religion.”
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