About Zunar
Zunar
An Intellectual and Courageous Cartoonist
Zunar, whose full name is Zulkiflee Anwar Ulhaque, is a Malaysian political cartoonist renowned for his courage, unwavering principles, and steadfast commitment to truth. His approach to creating cartoons is highly distinctive. For Zunar, “Talent is not a gift; talent is a responsibility.” To produce sharp and impactful cartoons, knowledge, intellectual depth, and discipline are essential.
Zunar often spends hours — sometimes up to 12 hours — conducting research and preparation before a single cartoon is drawn. As he famously states, “A drawing made with the hand reaches the eyes, but a drawing made with the heart reaches the heart.” With the slogan “How Can I Be Neutral, Even My Pen Has a Stand”, Zunar pours his entire talent and intellectual insight into his sketches.
Through sharp, satirical, and fearless cartoons, Zunar uses art as a medium to expose corruption, abuse of power, injustice, and the oppression of ordinary people. However, such courage comes at a heavy price. Throughout his career, Zunar has been repeatedly arrested, investigated, and brought to court. He has published 19 cartoon books, all of which were banned by the previous government. In addition, Zunar has been detained seven times and charged with nine counts under the Sedition Act.
Several of his books, including Cartoon-o-phobia, Pirates of the Carry-BN, and Sapuman, were banned, and their book launches were raided by the police. His office was also raided multiple times by the authorities. Despite continuous pressure and attempts to silence him, Zunar never gave up. His principle is clear and often repeated: “Cartoons are weapons against oppression.”
This steadfastness has propelled Zunar onto the international stage.
Abroad, he has received numerous awards, including the Courage in Editorial Cartooning Award in Washington and the Cartooning for Peace Award in Geneva, presented by former United Nations Secretary-General Kofi Annan. He has also been invited to exhibit his work and deliver lectures at leading universities, including University College London (UCL), Oxford, Harvard, University of Louisville, New York University (Florence), University of California, Los Angeles (UCLA), and Curtin University, Perth. Additionally, he has been invited to speak at cartoonists’ forums and events in Washington, Paris, Bilbao, London, Amsterdam, and Berlin. His most significant achievement came when he was invited to speak at the United Nations in Geneva.
In 2016, Zunar was subjected to a two-year travel ban aimed at preventing him from receiving awards, holding exhibitions, and expressing his views abroad. Nevertheless, this restriction did not stop him from continuing to produce political cartoons. His works continued to be exhibited and discussed in international forums as symbols of freedom of expression through art.
Zunar is not merely a cartoonist. He is a symbol of intellectual courage and proof that art can become the voice of the people when other channels are restricted. In the history of Malaysian art and democracy, Zunar’s name stands recorded as that of an artist willing to pay a personal price for principles and freedom.