Is that racist now? Anyway, it's been a long time since I discovered a more unsympathetic Muslim in a book or comic than Abdel. And this is not a coincidence, because this Muslim is not Muslim only because some writer found that the role still needs meat: In Abdel, the negative qualities and his background, even his faith are directly related. Abdel is one of the main characters from the excellent fourth part of the series "The Arab of Tomorrow".

Riad Sattouf draws his own childhood between the worlds, between France and various Arab cultures. Abdel is his father. It has been possible to assume that Sattouf was a certain distance from him in the first three volumes, but it was not as intense as it was now.

As a reminder: Abdel, a Syrian, studies in France, gets to know Riad's Breton mother there and moves after the doctorate with his family first to Libya, then to Syria to work as a lecturer. Because Abdel is not only dependent on his family, he also dreams of a future for the Islamic, the Arab world, he wants to build this future of his homeland.

Unfortunately, this home is not very buildable. In the first volumes, the little riad repeatedly observes that large parts of society are archaic, especially in the countryside. Abdel would have to oppose the traditions, but he is not so modern. He wants to make a career, but the goal of this career is a "palace" and recognition as a great scientist - within the barely read village community.

The fact that Abdel is unable to recognize this irresolvable contradiction is the root of many conflicts. But while that might have seemed naive, bizarre or idealistic in the first volumes, Sattouf now describes his father as unsympathetic, reactionary, incompetent and even devious.

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8 pictures

Comic "The Arab of Tomorrow": So Isser, the Arab

It is irritating that all this is told in Sattoufs friendly, cute-childish drawing style. Riad is now twelve, it seems strange to play with his toys. Girls are suddenly not just girls anymore. In addition, he now sees his father less often: The family lives in France, Abdel lectures in Saudi Arabia and comes only during the holidays. He tries to catch up with his family, but his wife does not want to. Abdel raves about the wealth of Arabia, tells of his fairytale career.

But the reality is that the vacation in the rundown house in the Syrian village must be spent, and that the golden, diamond-studded watch that the sheikhs paid him respects turns out to be a cheap glass-filled silver variant at the jeweler's. He used the stay in Saudi Arabia for a pilgrimage to Mecca - which earned him more recognition in the home village than any education. Abdel enjoys that and now stages himself more as a faith expert. That in turn alienates him from the western part of his family.

Abdel's French is getting worse, but he is railing against Jews on television, the constant discrimination of the Arabs. He experiences Saddam Hussein as a strong man, who at last straightens out all injustices, brings Kuwait back and is stopped by other Western injustices. On top of that, his mockery of the US-friendly Saudis cost him his job.

So Isser, the Arab

Abdel is now sitting at home and has nothing to do. Because Riad fights with girls and pimples, in France does not want to be considered gay by the classmates and in Syria from the Arab children not for a Jew, he gets as little with how the reader that Abdel radicalized.

It is not entirely incomprehensible that the corks are sometimes popping in the "right-wing Arabs" of the right-wing circles. According to the motto: So Isser, the Arab, and there we have it first-hand, because the Sattouf, who must know it, is all autobiographical. However, one has to keep the right eye with two hands to overlook embarrassing parallels: the thought patterns are surprisingly similar.

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DISPLAY

Riad Sattouf
The Arab of Tomorrow, Volume 4: A Childhood in the Middle East (1987-1992) Graphic Novel (A Childhood Between Arab and Western World, Volume 4)

Publishing company:

Penguin publishing house

Pages:

288

Price:

EUR 26,00

Translated by:

Andreas Platthaus

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It is always the others who are to blame. Jews. American. Liberal. The EU. Women. New-fangled genders with their extra toilet. Brilliantly observed is Abdel's repeated, prayer-like enumeration of all injustices. There is also something pleasant, comforting, that free and detached talk of all guilt and responsibility for one's own situation. That's what makes the process so attractive, not just for Abdel. Because exactly this model, this calculating and pigheaded wallowing in the sacrificial pose, all this offer - with other culprits - cries clubs like Fidesz, "IS", FPÖ or AFD.

However, it is not just Abdel's surprising finale that shows that at first it's all about spells and thoughtless rituals: the emphasis on victimhood is always a prelude to what can not be justified otherwise; it serves to steadily reduce inhibitions, especially in the professional world Vorjammer rags like Orbán, Salvini, Strache, Höcke.

Whether Christchurch or Berlin Christmas market, the mental ammunition is always the same. What makes the "Arab of tomorrow" so entertaining and elegantly plausible: Riad Sattouf knows that it is sufficient to describe this mechanism unilaterally in order to appear universal.