By Élena-S. Eilmes
COLOGNE, Germany - When Kurdish cartoonist Yahia Selo met his son for the first time, the boy had just turned three. Selo, who studied art in Aleppo, had fallen in disgrace and forced to flee Syria to save his life, leaving behind his pregnant wife and young daughter.
His son was born two weeks after he left the country in 2008; it would take Selo three years to get his papers in order and reunite with his family in Germany, where he now lives and works in the city of Dusseldorf.
On a mellow fall day, as he went about his studio photographing his artwork together with visiting fellow artist Rodi Khalil, who was in town for an exhibition, 49-year-old Selo recalled the events that pushed him into a new life in Germany.
“In Syria, I had worked for some time as an artist, avoiding political topics. But even so, I was under criticism, as were many intellectuals, artists, authors and politicians. My colors were too Kurdish, my style of painting was too Kurdish,” he explained, recalling one time being interrogated for a painting he had done of his mother in a traditional Kurdish outfit.
“In Syria, there was just one way to survive: pretend to be Arab,“ he explained. It was the one compromise he was unwilling to make.
Conditions for Kurds who refused to hide their ethnicity worsened after the 2004 Kurdish uprisings against the regime of Bashar al-Assad.
When a friend of his was shot in broad daylight – and Selo himself barely escaped -- he knew it was time to leave.
“I stayed with relatives in the countryside for a while, sleeping at a different person’s house each night. When I had to go out, heavily armed family members would accompany me,“ he recounted.
After seven months of preparation, arrangements were made to get him to Turkey, and later to Germany. Because the border area with Turkey is heavily mined, he needed a local guide to get him across.
While Selo is best known for his cartoons in Germany, in Syria he had mainly focused on large oil and acrylic paintings.
“There was just no real market for critical cartoons. I sometimes published something in Kurdish magazines under a pseudonym, but those were officially forbidden in Syria,” he remembered.
“When the Internet grew bigger was when I finally found a place for myself,” he said. “It was so much easier to publish anything.“
When he first came to Germany, he had difficulties buying the materials needed for his art.
“Canvas and paints were expensive. I sometimes ate with friends and would buy materials from the money I had saved.“
That was another reason he began focusing more on political cartoons: they did require much more than paper and pencil.
His works are published on German, Kurdish, Arab and Turkish websites and he has had several exhibitions locally.
He said he would like to work with more German newspapers, but also prefers to concentrate on Kurdish subjects.
“Why not focus on our culture, our issues? There are plenty of Turkish and Arab cartoons,“ he explained.
Selo said he finds peace in his art, which are bold paintings with Kurdish themes, landscapes and abstract motives.
“When I had to leave behind my wife and children I threw myself into my work. Where the cartoons are a little bit stressful – both because of the depicted problems as well as the reactions they generate – my paintings calm me down. I can forget everything else when painting.“
Even in Germany, his cartoons have brought him trouble: he has received countless threats, some of them so violent that he had to keep his address a secret for years and was under police protection for a while.
“We Kurds do have a problem with portraying politicians, persons commanding respect or religious topics the way I do. It is considered an honor-less act,“ he explained.
But this does not stop him from doing what he feels is his calling.
“We Kurds are a mountain people. We are loudmouthed and stubborn,” he said. “One just needs to speak up against injustice.”
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