27 minute read
An Interview with Yazan al-Saadi
Yazan al-Saadi by Audra McNamee
Yazan al-Saadi
Yazan al-Saadi is a Syrian-Canadian writer, researcher, critic, and comic zealot. His work and research focuses on the West Asian region, covering an array of topics from pop-culture to politics to economic theories and sociological issues. Yazan holds a bachelor’s (Honors) degree in Economics and Development Studies from Queen’s University, Canada, and a Master of Arts in Law, Development, and Globalization from the School of Oriental and African Studies in London, UK. His work has been published and/or cited in various platforms such as The Nib, Jadaliyya, Jumhuriya, LA Times, BBC, AlAraby Al-Jadeed, Al-Hudood, Al-Akhbar English, Middle East Eye, The Public Source, and more. He is currently based in the alluring (yet callous) city of Beirut; he has seen too many airports and often dreams of electronic sheep.
Interview with Yazan al-Saadi
By Debarghya Sanyal and Katherine Kelp-Stebbins
https://jsma.uoregon.edu/YazanAl-Saadi
Yazan al-Saadi: Thank you so much for having me. I’m really excited for our conversation. I survived Beirut for another day, so that’s always a great day! Debarghya Sanyal: To get things started, let’s begin with a question I think you get asked all the time: what brought you to journalism, and how did you become involved with comics journalism? YAS: Let’s answer the first question. What brought me to journalism actually was the British financial crisis of 2008. When the world’s financial systems collapsed and had a meltdown, I was doing my Master’s. I had completed my Master’s and so I was in London. And I was looking for work. And so when the world capitalism stopped working, as we know it would, it was hard to find a job, so I have to go back. I have to leave the UK because they wouldn’t renew my visa. So I ended up going back to Kuwait where my family is. I was looking for work there and in the midst of looking for work I had a friend who worked at the English print daily newspaper. He was one of the editors. So he brought me on board and that’s how I fell into journalism, thanks to the world financial collapse of 2008. I just kept on doing it since then. I was working in that newspaper as a journalist and editor. Then I started writing for Al-Akhbar English, which is a Lebanese-based news site and offshoot of a quasi-leftist newspaper in Lebanon. So I was writing from Kuwait to them, and then I decided to move to Lebanon ten years ago and I’ve been dabbling in journalism ever since. Now how did I bring comics into this? I mean, I’m a comics fanatic. I was raised on comics. My mom actually gave me a couple of comics when I was younger. It was Asterix, I don’t know if it was reading because when you’re young you’re just looking at pictures. Let’s call it reading. I was reading Asterix and Obelix, Tintin and Superman comics. But we’re talking about the Superman comics that were translated into Arabic. So it’s like from 1960s, 1970s. Friends of mine as I was growing up in Kuwait gave me manga. So I actually had a Fist of the Northstar in Japanese. So I grew up around comics and I was very interested in this medium and I continue to be. Doing my career in journalism and research and other things in 2017, I’m friends with comic creators in Lebanon. So one of them is like, here’s an opportunity, we have a friend that works at The Nib. Why don’t you pitch him something. We can retool something into a comic. So I took that opportunity. I was like, “Hell yeah! I’d like to try that.” And that was how we got the first comic published for The Nib in 2017 with the idea of someone who is an artist, with Ghadi Ghosn, a phenomenal artist that I continue to work with from time to time. And that one is called “The Rebel Is Universal,” about when I went to Yemen, when I was working with M[édecins] S[ans] F[rontières]. I was in Yemen for about three weeks in 2016. This was during the American elections, which I have to say, being in a country like Yemen, when the 2016 American elections happened is really a unique experience. It was a brilliant experience. But anyways, that’s how I got into comics journalism. Ever since 2017 I kept on working and publishing stuff, mainly with The Nib, and tried other things as well, because I love the medium, and I think the medium is a phenomenal tool to convey information. It’s a great weapon of storytelling and combines a lot of my guilty pleasures. To make a long story short, you can blame the 2008 financial crisis and just loving comics as a child. Katherine Kelp-Stebbins: Can you tell us a little bit about your methods and your working practices, both as a journalist and reporting, then also as a comics journalist, collaborating with Omar Khouri, Tracy Chahwan, or Ghadi Ghosn? YAS: The type of journalism I got into because I come from a weird background, I fell into journalism. I didn’t go into journalism school where they teach you these basic rules and protocols. So the type of journalism that I was already doing was longform narrative, odd stories. I would look for stories that are just different. So a lot of stuff I would write about for example, was outing Scientologists in Lebanon, and letting them know how they functioned. Looking at the history of science fiction in the Arab world, looking at horror in Arabic cinema, then writing about Palestine, writing about Syria and politics and elections. So I keep on switching. I don’t follow the rules, and I know this is a terrible thing to say, but I don’t follow the rules in terms of ....it’s not about the daily news to me. It’s something in the story that’s odd or niche, and I just want to go into that. It’s something that I try to highlight. I try to mix in a lot of my different backgrounds because I was never a journalist student. I did study economics and
international law, and obviously because of who I am, my identity, I have to know politics. So I bring everything into what I write. A lot of my journalism isn’t just simple news; it’s trying to bring in so many feelings and ideas and mixing it together. When it comes to comics journalism I try to continue that tradition of bringing so many different sources and ideas where I try to talk about a certain story, but I also try to universalize it. I don’t know if you noticed in a lot of the comics I use, I did it with The Nib, I would talk about certain things, but I also try to remind the reader this isn’t just over there, this is over here. There are shades here because of who I am and my identity and my experience as an Arab who has a Canadian passport, who lives in the region and obviously the experiences of the medium, or discourses on the region, its people, its history today is problematic as everyone knows. From Orientalism to ideology to all that. A lot of my writings is to push back, not just in terms of a kind of reactionary way, but a provocative kind of way, to use the certain ideas and tools and upend them, to create unity, to point out that there is an “us vs. them,” but it’s us the lay people versus the rich, the elite, those in power. Because I don’t think it’s just defined by a border. This is a universal problem we’re all facing in different ways. That’s what I try to really bring to the table when I write anything, so I try to mix it and match it. And that’s what I do with comics journalism. You know, use so many sources and try and build unity or build universalism and bridges from particular stories that I come across. I hope that makes sense. DS: Why do you think that comics is an effective medium for the kind of reportage you are doing, for the kind of documenting the sort of studies that you report? YAS: Anyone that works or sees that medium gets it. Alan Moore talks about the power of this medium, Grant Morrison, Joe Sacco. So many people have pointed out, and it’s true because the medium by using visual and text is activating so many parts of a person’s brain. The reader is very active in the process and the information is absorbed. So I understand comics as a weapon and I use that term very seriously. It is a weapon and it’s a weapon being used by states and corporations, so we should be using it. I know that after the American invasion, occupation of Iraq, there was a lot of push by the U.S. military to invest in comics to the Arab people winning hearts and minds, which is a perversion of this amazing medium for let’s call it “ill good” or evil, whatever you want to call it. We should be using this weapon, we should be using it to make statements, to push narratives, to push ideologies because, and I think we can all agree, the current situation throughout the world is dire, not only in terms of economics, but climate change, warfare, increased exploitation, livelihoods. The patriarchy is going quite nuts. Just the growth of fascism, the growth of right wings, so there is something urgent here. There is something very urgent for all of us, and I think comics are a weapon to push our discourse. One of the things I like to talk about or I joke around is that in 2011 when the Arab uprisings began, a lot of the battle happened in the material world, the realm of the material. It’s about bread, butter, politics, elections. But we really are forgetting about the battle in the material world, the thoughts, ideas. This is a battle that for too long is in the hands of people with power, like governments or corporations that push a certain type of ideology that is about the status quo, or it really undermines our potentiality as human beings. So I think all these strands really push it, and the more I work with the medium, the more I’m a believer and I consume it. I consume the medium very well. I love reading comics from every type. And I see its power. The thoughts that I have, a lot of my personal political development does. It’s really that sometimes the dumb stories that have profound messages, and the way that it’s conveyed just is interesting. More so than I would say a text alone or an art piece alone. I think there’s an opportunity for us, and by the sheer fact that I’m dabbling in this medium and you’re asking me these questions. It just shows you the power of the medium. KKS: To get even more into specifics of what you’re describing as this weapon, in writing about Charlie Hebdo you made this point that “the argument for freedom of speech and freedom of the press should not and must not place aside the question and understanding of privileges and different power dynamics that are at work.” So what are some of the specific ways in your own work that you try to foreground and engage with these power dynamics and differentials? YAS: In my own work, I recognize the privileges and power dynamics I have, as a witness and as a person who has a Canadian passport that gives me access, that gives me certain protections, more than other people. And I come from an economic class that is a middle class, upper middle class, so everyone has privileges. And you can add more to it. My male gender in a world that is the way it is plays a part. I try to recognize that. I try to listen more in terms of the subject or what I’m doing. I also try not to mince words and I try not to be diplomatic. But I’m trying to make a point because I’m not objective, and I don’t think I should be objective. There is this constant philosophical discussion especially in the American educational system about the primacy of objectivity. But objectivity is a privilege and it is the position of power. It is very easy to be objective when you’re not being affected, and I think objectivity allows for a lot of problems. Edward Said once said and I agree with it, “Facts do not speak for themselves. They need to be coated in a socially acceptable narrative.” The narrative that I want to pursue, and I’m not objective, is the narrative that I pursued where I talked about people versus power. I’m not diplomatic in terms of the wrongs that I see. I try to think about my privileges also. I really try to center that, not centered within the narrative, but center within myself. To be like, wait, is this correct? Going back to the previous question about the process of working with an artist, I try to have a collaborative process. I’m flexible in the script. I write the script. I write the idea of the layout of the panel that I have in my head. But if the artist comes with complete revision, I’m sold. You know what I mean? I’m not very sacred about the text I write. I’m willing to throw it away or rework it if it’s not making sense. That collaborative system which I think is also part of what makes comics so cool, it’s that collaborative process where you really need to work together, whether it’s you and the
artist, you and the editor, and whoever else is involved. And if you don’t work together, it’s a disaster. That process really creates nice idealism because you’re working together as a team to produce something. It all really plays into just how I’m trying to work in this medium and trying to account for my privileges and my forms of power, and try to use it against those that are much more powerful and are getting away with what they’re doing. Now you brought up this example of Charlie Hebdo and I wrote against Charlie Hebdo after the attack, and obviously the attack is horrendous. But Charlie Hebdo is a problem because it is part of power. It is not from a community of vulnerability punching up, it was punching down and it constantly does punch down. Regardless if it’s a Muslim or the Queer community or it’s something that isn’t part of what they view as the normal French society, which is white, and secular, and a certain type of secular, liberal. But that’s the power. That’s really where they’re coming from, so I think Charlie Hebdo isn’t a good example, at least to me of using their power and punching up. I try to remind myself with my work that I’m punching up, that if I ever punch down then I should get called for it to be punched. I should get a nice wallop in my face and I would deserve it.
DS: As you’re talking about power differentials and you mentioned Edward Said, as a journalist what are some of the biggest and most recurring challenges you face in engaging with and countering the prevalent misperceptions or misunderstandings about West Asian nations, communities and people. Especially in the American and Canadian media? YAS: I think one of my favorite types of tools is using a cliché and upending the cliché they have, or the trope. And I try to play with that. But I also try to just speak my voice as clearly as possible, and the voices around me, and say, “This is what’s going on.” To see the very clear direct words rather than taming it or being diplomatic, to call a spade a spade. It’s racism; it’s settler colonialism. It’s genocide. Using these terms because that has to be that shock, that sense of uncomfortableness. That particularly readers in the United States should feel because of the role of their state in my region for centuries. This history is a long history. The first time I believe that the Americans had a foreign naval expedition Barbary Wars, and that was in North Africa. So there’s a history there. It’s not something new. And there’s an onus. I argue for the long game. I argue for accountability and reparations because there is still to date an active role of the U.S. state in my region, and they’re not the only one, and this is something I try to point out because the problem with the American audience in particular is this sort of moralization and a lot of discussions. One end you have the typical Orientalism and neo-conservative style of, “Oh look, the savages need to be civilized.” On the other end is the campus leftist position, that any sort of movement is all a conspiracy led by U.S. and Western imperialism alone, and there is no such thing as a dictatorship or Russian imperialism. Which, from my position, that’s not true. Clearly there are imperialisms. So that’s how I try to engage, trying to just be direct. But is it working? I don’t know. It’s a conversation I continually try to have, and it’s something I try to think about. Is it worth doing? I don’t know. And I know when I say, “Is it worth doing?” the question is should I just be writing for Arab audiences and ignore everyone else? But it’s an ongoing conversation I have. But I’m also idealistic and I think I should have this conversation with whoever. And just talk. This is basically what I know. These are things and these are the topics, and bully to you the way your media present it. But this is what’s going on from our perspective. KKS: As a follow-up I’m going to ask, because you write for many different outlets and your work has been featured on a number of programs around the world, who is your intended audience? Who are you most hoping to reach with your writing and with your work, and why? YAS: I’m going to answer by saying the worst answer possible: I want to reach anyone. It’s like screaming in the dark because of how dire the situation is. I just want anyone, anyone that’s interested, that can hear, that most importantly my favorite audience member is the one that reads what I wrote and then reads more, it starts opening up doors, asks questions and does their research and reads the plethora of other works on the topic, whether it’s on Palestine, or Yemen, or Bahrain or Syria. The buck doesn’t stop with me and it never should stop with me.
That’s the type of audience I want. It doesn’t matter if they live in Minsk, or Mumbai or Johannesburg. It’s anyone that can read if it’s in the language that they can read. If it’s in English, if they read English, and it just gets them to think, to open up, or look into it more, or has a connection. Because, like I said earlier, it’s not only when I write for example about Bahrain, it’s not only about Bahrain, it’s about Bahrain and the region and the world. Because I truly have the perspective that as human beings we’re connected, and the systems of repression are super-connected and they’re coordinating like crazy. So that’s the type of audience I want: anyone that just wants to read and wants to know, and it doesn’t matter. Any age group, it doesn’t matter. DS: Tell us a little bit about your major inspirations and/or artistic influence. Are there any particular graphic journalists or artists whose work pushed you towards bringing journalism and comics together? Any particular bodies of work which you want to respond to? YAS: I’m a comics scripter. I’m a comics writer through and through. I can’t draw at all, to my utter shame. So a rare breed of being, I joke, the only comics scripter in the Middle East, because everyone else draws and writes. For me, my sources that really got me into the medium or thinking about it, if we’re looking at comics, obviously Joe Sacco. Joe Sacco is the groundbreaker, the person that really developed this idea of comics journalism. And I had the utmost pleasure of actually meeting him in person back in 2014 when he visited, and it was an awesome experience. You know how they say, “You never meet your heroes”? But I say sometimes it’s great to meet your heroes and get them drunk, because
that’s amazing. It’s amazing seeing Joe Sacco just having a good time...and just the way he comes about it. He is not objective. He is biased. He really presents it as dark as possible and I love that clarity. That definitely shaped the way that I wanted to be very clear and direct. And the other writer that I am fascinated by, and I am fascinated by the work, is Grant Morrison, who is just an oddball, like a complete different spectrum. What Grant Morrison brings to me is this idea of not being afraid to add the spice, to use different sources, to bring it into a larger message, the universality of it. So trying to balance between the dizziness or madness that Grant Morrison brings on the table, and the really rough grounded realities that Joe Sacco brings to the table, I’m just trying to figure out how to balance between both. Those are the two that really come to mind. There’re a lot of bodies of work that are worth responding to in terms of what has been written about: the West AsianNorth African region whether in the news or in fiction, so I try to think about that. Obviously the type of journalism I do is a natural response to the reportage that comes out of Fox News and CNN and those in between. And I’m also trying to think at least in terms of fiction, so the types of work I’m currently trying to do is really rehabilitate certain Arabic figures that were vilified in Western fiction. I’ll give you two examples that I have been thinking about. One is [HP] Lovecraft’s Mad Arab, the author of the fictional book Necronomicon. Lovecraft, as we all know, is a crackhead racist, but he has also done some interesting things on horror. So his little spiel about the Mad Arab, the author of the Book of the Dead, is this crazy Orientalized Arab. I was thinking of reimagining that character as a tragic hero. Why not, you know? That history is not understood and it’s enshrined, and the magic and the spirituality that was in the region, that isn’t about nothing. So playing with that and the other character that I was trying to rehabilitate, as the Americans like to say, is Jafar from [Disney’s] Aladdin, because Ja’far is actually a very interesting historical character. I don’t know if people are aware, he was a wazir to Haroun Al-Rashid. He comes from a family who are Buddhists that converted to Islam, and he was very wise. And he had a tragic history because he ended up being beheaded by Al-Rashid supposedly over a romance with Haroun’s own sister. I mean, it’s a beautiful, tragic character who is just presented as an Orientalized villain, and just needs Aladdin. So it’s playing with that, not only in the war that’s happening in the distortions of factual discourse, but the war that is ongoing with fiction, because fiction is a very powerful tool and it’s trying to take back what has been written about us. KKS: To bring it back ever so slightly, to thinking about journalism and reportage in your own career, what are the sorts of changes in practices or approaches that you’ve seen and then what do you imagine as the future or some of the trends going forward. What would you like to see as the new journalism as it takes shape in the future? YAS: The trends in journalism are twofold. There’s the horrendous side, the clickbait, the listicles. I started journalism in 2009, and you got your certain stuff. But these days there’s an assumption that readers have a short attention span. I don’t believe that! I think it’s the content that’s the problem. If it’s a very interesting content, they will read it. They will stop if it’s too long, and they will read it at the toilet later. It doesn’t matter you know. Obviously that trend of infantilizing journalism, making it shorter, “more digestible,” and meme worthy is a trend that I’ve noticed and seen. You’re going to see more because of urgency and demand, and this question of misinformation, which is huge and it’s very dangerous, and I clearly have seen that in real cases, the biggest one these days is the chemical attacks in Syria, which people are going to argue is a false flag regardless of any facts that are available. And there’s the attack on Capitol Hill. Regardless of the fact that we all saw it, we all saw what was going on, you have people saying completely different things. It just shows you the power of misinformation. And I think there has to be a fine line here. Let’s be honest, there are true conspiracy theories; and then there are stupid conspiracy theories. A true conspiracy theory is something like the Manhattan Project—a group of scientists, working with military folk split the goddamn atom and created a bomb that can destroy the Earth. True! Very true, and it’s a conspiracy. Stupid conspiracies is lizard men. So it’s trying to understand and unpack, it’s not discounting that there are conspiracies which exist and we know them.
Lately there is Pegasus, which is the Israeli company that hacked so many journalists. Israeli company funded by different states and regimes that were hacking journalists. That’s a conspiracy, true. And then you have other things that you need to push back which is misinformation, untrue conspiracies. The trend is trying to figure that out, and what that needs is investigative journalism. What you’re going to see more and more of is refunding and bringing back the investigative journalist that was wiped out in the last 20 years because a lot of investigative journalism was downsized; foreign correspondents or investigative journalists were eliminated. Because of urgencies, because facts do not speak for themselves, you need to have excellent investigative journalists. With what we’re facing in the 21st century, which I think is a disaster of a century, you’re going to need hardcore investigative journalists. I think that’s the trend, and I think it’s a necessary trend: less about everyday listicles and more work on something...You know how they say that history is cyclical? In a way it kind of is. You have those robber barons back in the day, and you have muckrakers. Well, we have our robber barons today, they just happen to go up into space. And so we need our muckrakers: the journalists who hit them, and hit them, and hit them with scandal, and report, and infiltration, and investigation, and outing. That’s what has to happen. We’re in that cycle, but I think it’s worse now because of technology and how the resources are just so pooled into these robber barons, so much more than what was in the 19th century. It’s worse. DS: We find that a lot of young people who are trying to enter the field of journalism, even comics journalism, find it difficult to get into right away. What advice would you give to aspiring journalists?
YAS: I think they should just do. If you’re interested in a story just do it. Because I didn’t go into courses for the type of journalism I did. I was just doing it. I just went to the person’s office, or I just went and found myself in really silly situations because that’s the way. You just have to do it: It’s a trial by fire. It’s something that you just need to go do it, and whether your editor accepts it or not, you just do it, and then you see what happens, right? I mean there also has to be a pushback. And editors need to wake up as well, because they’re at fault; they’re complicit. Because they’re always worried about their ad spaces and the person above. But editors, if they care about actual journalism, they should be, encouraging the journalist to go: Go find the story and figure it out. For me, I would say two things: one, just do it; and two, don’t write the headline first. Let the story speak for itself, because I think it’s much more interesting as you go through this unexpectedness. And just hearing it, the story unfurls, and you’ll find things more than if you come with “here’s the answer.” Let the story speak for itself, and then stick to that position. Don’t be objective and disconnected. You’re part of it, you know. I think those are the two quick thoughts and, thirdly, I would say is be wary of Yazan al-Saadi’s giving advice on anything about life because he hasn’t figured out anything. He’s still lost.
I have to say I’m, what, 38? I think I’m 38...I actually don’t remember anymore; I have to share the story, because I think it was actually a very nice thing that Joe Sacco told. And I think it’s worth sharing: So when I met Joe Sacco, he was telling me how, when he was 40—this is after Palestine, this is after The Fixer—when he was 40 he didn’t know if he could pay the rent the next month. That’s the reality of this work. Imagine, Joe Sacco, whom we all know, I’m like a Syrian guy living in Beirut, and you guys are over there and we know this name, and he was going hungry. And he was going to quit, but he didn’t; he just persevered. So I think the lesson there, at least, is that this is hard. This is hard work, and you’re rarely going to make money, so there has to be something more in this because if you’re just in it to make bank, good luck...good luck.
But there has to be something more driving you. You have to have a politics. You have to have ideology of some sort. There has to be a bigger question that you’re trying to find because it’s not just a day to day job. Which I think is true, because I get, Sacco. I’m wondering if I should go into banking or maybe apply to McDonald’s. KKS: On that note, is there anything else that you would like to share after that uplifting conclusion? YAS: Oh sorry, yeah, I need to uplift. I’ll add another thing because it shouldn’t be dour. Regardless of all the hardships and all that stuff, it’s comics journalism right? And it’s fun. It’s amazing when you see the work come out in ways, especially when you’re working with an artist, and what they can just do on the page: It’s worth it. That’s what drives me, it’s just having fun with this medium, seeing the work come out, being like “Oh, someone read it and liked it.” That’s a cool experience. That’s worth more than a million dollars. That tiny thing for me is, it’s quite profound. Don’t let my parents hear that because they’ll be like, “You’re crazy! You should take that million.” But I think that’s part of it, and again, it’s all about the bigger question: Why else are we all here? We’re all on this Earth; there’s nowhere else. We don’t know if there’s an afterlife, so we got to do something. The more of us that does something, there’s a chance. There’s a chance here for survival, which we need to think about.
KKS: That’s a much better ending. YAS: I can get very dour. It’s the dark humor in us Syrians.
