The U.S. Election: Views From the Arab World

Cartoons from Egypt, Jordan, and Sudan

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“It’s something I’ve always said: The world needs to vote in American politics,” the Sudanese cartoonist Khalid Albaih told me recently. He had been pinging me all week of the election, asking when the result would come. The winner would have a huge impact on him. Trump, from his perspective, has nursed bigotry and violence worldwide, and he wants “Americans to realize how much their political system and who they choose affects the lives of millions outside.”

Millions were closely following every nuance of the election, as the cartoonist Anwar noted in a Cairo newspaper. The “stars of the red carpet”—the stories Egyptians couldn’t put down—featured the coronavirus and the American ballot box.

But caricature can be risky in the Arab world. Jordanian authorities arrested veteran cartoonist Emad Hajjaj for mocking an Emirati leader in August. The United Arab Emirates had just signed an accord with Israel, brokered by Trump, which the cartoonist saw as an arms deal. “It’s not a big deal to say this, it’s my right as a cartoonist,” Hajjaj told me when he was released days later. He quickly returned to lampooning the powerful.

Anwar (Egypt)

Emad Hajjaj (Jordan)

Khaled Albaih (Sudan)

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