Iran held an international cartoon competition to mock President Donald Trump, reports Newsweek. There were 1,600 entries from 75 countries, including the United States, but unlike when Islam’s prophet Muhammad is drawn, no one was killed or had his or her life threatened.
The International Trumpism Cartoon and Caricature Contest was won by Hadi Asadi, an Iranian cartoonist who spent two weeks drawing Trump in a money suit, drooling on a stack of books with his hair on fire as the smoke forms a map of the world above his head. Here he is next to his winning entry:
“I wanted to show Trump while trampling symbols of culture,” Asadi said, adding that his cartoon focused on the American president’s “money-mindedness and war monger nature.”
Promotions for the “Trumpism” contest included making the “T” into a swastika which set the tone for the inevitable comparisons to Adolf Hitler. Newsweek reports that in one cartoon, Trump was giving the Nazi salute and in another, he drew the Hitler mustache on the Statue of Liberty. One of the U.S. contestants, Robert Jones Clayton, compared Trump to Hitler in his piece and another, Ed Wexler, drew a snowball emblazoned with a hammer and sickle rolling after the president to represent the Russia allegations.
Masuod Shojai Tabatabaei was the art contest’s organizer. He told the Associated Press:
“The ism in Trumpism is a reference to racism and Nazism. Many believe his remarks are similar to Hitler. He has had a bad attitude toward media [and] refugees.
“Trump’s behavior clearly sets out Iran’s reasons to distrust the U.S., consequently, we decided to use art’s capacity for displaying the behavior.
“Aside from his personal characteristics, Trump has also posed different challenges to the world and treats Iran and the Islamic world unconventionally in particular.”
Asadi was awarded $1,500 for his drawing. Previously, the organizer has held competitions with ISIS and Holocaust themes.
