BY E M ILY GREEN
STAFF WRITER
he mere sight of the cartoon sent a
shiver through Apala Barclay. He
hadn’t laid eyes on it in decades. It
was a black-and-white caricature of a
Liberian man sitting awkwardly on the
ground. His arms bound tightly behind his
back at the elbows - a form of torture
known as tabay (pronounced “tuh-bay”).
Victims of tabay often suffered severe
pain and nerve damage as assailants pulled
the ropes that bound them tighter and
tighter - when pulled too tight, the rib cage
would separate, according to a 1994 Human
Rights Watch report
Apala had witnessed it many times
growing up in Liberia.
“If someone accuse you of something,
first thing they want to do is tabay you,”
remembers Apala. “The government was
doing it, rebels, even citizen vigilante
groups.”
A hand-written caption on the right side
of the cartoon reads: “Tabay, an in-human
a c t”
Outlined with a standard-black ballpoint
pen, it was one of the first political cartoons
Apala ever created. He’d drawn it for “The
Concerned Women of Liberia” in the late
1980s for distribution at its rally in
Monrovia against tabay.
One of the fliers had traveled from
Liberia to North Carolina, where an old
friend of Apala’s spotted it in July when he
was helping a friend move. He recognized it
immediately and sent Apala a snapshot.
As Apala, now in his mid-40s and. living
comfortably in Portland, reflected on the
relic, he was reminded of a former life.
Thousands of miles away in Liberia, he
had worked as a political cartoonist during a
14-year-long civil war that resulted in the
death of more than 200,000 Liberians
between 1989 and 2003, including 21
members of his extended family.
His comics earned him popularity among
civilians, but also made him a target of
warlord Charles Taylor’s rebel forces and
the police.
9
Walking a
thin line
Before emigrating from Liberia, Apala
Barclay was targeted by authorities fo r
his work as a political cartoonist
Apala was born and raised with his older
brother and three sisters in Paynesville, a
suburb of Liberia’s coastal capital city,
Monrovia. Growing up in the 1970s and 80s,
the West African nation was relatively
stable, aside from a coup in 1980 after a riot
over food prices.
Apala’s mother was an indigenous woman
whose various enterprises included a
restaurant, taxi, bakery and convenience
store, and his father hailed from a long line
of influential politicians.
Many of Paynesville’s residents had
received Western educations and sought to
emulate a life they’d seen abroad upon their
return. They were vocal activists and
politicians, nurses and entrepreneurs.
“Later on people started to categorize
this area as rich Liberians,” says Apala. “I
heard it in the Western media, but these
were hard-working people who tried to build
a community that they have seen as a better
one for themselves and their children.”
Apala and his older brother, Zulo Barclay,
were artists at an early age. Apala would
copy his older brother’s drawings of DC and
Marvel comic superheroes, but eventually
Mad Magazine and its lesser known copycat,
Cracked Magazine, became his greatest
influences.
“I enjoy cartooning, because I think that’s
how I see things in my head, in my mind’s
eye,” he says.
Word of the Paynesville teen’s talent
spread, and taxi drivers began to hire him to
decorate their yehicles.
In Liberia, taxis often bear idioms known
as taxi wisdom. Apala remembers stenciling
phrases like “no die no rest” and “lazy man
does not eat” on the back bumpers and rear
windshields of cabs.
His brother, Zulo, spoke with Street
Roots from his home in Minneapolis, Minn.
Looking back, he says he is “very proud” of
the community he and Apala grew up in.
Both men reminisce about their childhood
fondly.
“We came from a home - mother and
father,” says Zulo. “We had each other from
day one, until we became boys, and from
boys into men.”
But as the boys approached manhood,
Liberia was ripped apart by war.
In 1989, a rebellion led by warlord
Charles Taylor overthrew the sitting
government and the country was cast into
turmoil. People living in Paynesville quickly
became targets, including the Barclays.
Apala’s father, Rufus Barclay, was the son
P la n e t
P o r tla n d
A periodic series on the p ersonal jo urneys
w ith in P ortla n d ’s im m ig ra n t com m unities. '
of the prominent senator of Bong County,
Botoe Barclay.
“Grandpa (Botoe) was a powerful man,”
says Zulo. “He had that jungle justice kind
of ruling. Some papers and stuff that he
signed, I look at it today and I am like, what
on God’s Earth was he thinking? But who
am I to judge him? That was his time.”
Like his grandfather, Apala says his
father, Rufus, was also very powerful before
the war. “He was the man that made the
decision you know - put them in jail or do
this.” This is why, he says, so many people
came looking for him once conflict broke
o u t “Some of the killing was not even
rebels, just people that joined the rebels and
had some grudge against your parents.
“Some of the politicians got killed, they
got beaten,” he says. “We were in the yard,
peeking in the neighbor’s house and seeing
the soldiers come, so all during the crisis
time I was able to see that.
“My parents suffered. I had to leave them
to look for food because they were hiding.”
As the civil war raged on, Apala continued
to find work as an artist. Liberia’s Minister
of Education’s School Health Division called
on him to illustrate educational materials,
and that led to contract work for the United
Nations and Save the Children’s United
Kingdom branch.
Only an estimated 40 percent of Liberians
in the mid-1990s were literate, so Apala had
to come up with creative ways of explaining
culturally sensitive topics, such as female
genital mutilation and contraception, in a
way the general Liberian public could
understand.
See THIN LINE, page 5