Africa's Year In Cartoons
Published December 28, 2004
Tayo Fatunla is a leading African cartoonist, designer, illustrator, caricaturist and cartoon tutor. I came across his take of African life during 2004 in Africa.
The first of the 10 '2004 Year In Review' sketches depicts how the world's concern for the African continent seems to have taken a backseat in world affairs. Africa is shown drifting off, away from the rest of the planet into space.
The second sketch shows a skeletal female holding a skeletal baby's body, leaning over as if to see if the child is still awake or rocking in grief over the child's death.
Sketches 4 - 8 cover various problems that plague most African countries, including the AIDS/HIV pandemic, political power struggles, gender violence, including honour killings, press freedom and crime.
Sketch 9 is a tribute to all African children who starved or suffered from malnutrition in 2004 and who will enjoy hunger for Christmas. It is Katanga's letter to Santa pleading for food as her Christmas gift because she doesn't want to be hungry anymore.
And number 10 is Tony Blair's promise that 2005 will be the year for Africa to be 'remembered' and put back on the international front burner.
The sketches are a pictorial reminder of the spiritual truth that what affects one human being or any other aspect of life on the planet, affects all Life on Earth. During the course of 2004 and increasingly in the next 2 -3 years, the obvious truth of this will become apparent to the biggest sceptics amongst us.
Fatunla's sketches are a haunting call to awaken more compassion within our individual and collective hearts, minds and souls and thus fund the energy necessary to manage the Earth's resources in such a way that all its inhabitants can live with the basics of food, clothing, shelter, health care, education and freedom from every form of oppression.
Have a look at Tayo Fatunla's 10 sketches at: http://news.bbc.co.uk/2/hi/in_depth/photo_gallery/4099481.stm
and his official homepage: http://www.tayofatunla.com/
A hilarious political cartoon site: http://www.cagle.com/politicalcartoons/
- Africa's Year In Cartoons
- Published: December 28, 2004
- Type:
- Section: Politics
- Writer: Angela Chen Shui
- Angela Chen Shui's BC Writer page
- Angela Chen Shui's personal site
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Comments on this articleComments
Hi Temple!
No, I haven't heard of Napier Dunn ... but I will look him up...
Tell me a little bit more, nuh? ;-)
Well, he has more of an artistic style than a sketch style. We met him (by we I mean my mom and I as a child) in Alaska doing caricature portraits at a mall.
He is South African by birth and now works at The Mercury. I've lost touch with him but he did a watercolor for our (meaning my parents) house in England in 1989 or so.
He also tried to teach me to play tennis one summer, but I was fairly undisciplined.
On alittle further research I foun dout he just left the mercury, for, partly, his work here
Tennis teacher and 'undisciplined' student shared a bit more than tennis, it seems!!! ;-) Napier is described as 'being a rather wild and unruly French horn player', whose father trundled him off to Britain to get some discipline instilled in him!!!
Seems he sailed up to Alaska, your meeting point, as part of a getting-to-know-the-US period.
Also found it interesting that he passed through parts of Asia way back then... linking with the current Tsunami tragedy unfolding now... and that after that journey, upon reaching Hong Kong, he started taking his cartooning seriously....
Sounds like a wonderful free spirit, Temple!!! Not much he hasn't tried or done!
Thanks for sharing...
fabulous... free spirit flying solo.... he will do WELL!!!
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(Or ping: http://blogcritics.org/mt/tb/23699)
Angela, hello.
Have you heard of Napier Dunn at the South African, Durban paper?
We've got some history (good).