There are great people in this world. People, who do great things, people who invent, who sing, who build bridges and then there are people who paint, cartoonists like Amin Amir. These people are so difficult to meet that you almost have to stalk them to get a look or even better a word out. Sheeko travelled all the way to Sweden to meet Amin and it wasn’t easy. We pushed and shoved his many supporters and admirers away to get a glimpse then stepped on a few more toes to get his attention. Our sheer luck and skill goes beyond compare. The interview was notoriously hard to secure, but persevere, we did, and eventually we had a confirmation. The popularity of Amin was evident during our meeting where he was inundated by fans requesting autographs or a mere chat from a man whom they clearly adore.

Amin Amir’s desperate, funny, observational presence, feels more like renewing an old acquaintance than encountering someone for the first time. So the cheerful, bespectacled figure in the battered leather jacket in the lobby of this exhibition hall in Sweden seems instantly familiar, we forget the insults we had to endure from fanatics to get an interview.

He is the embodiment of the saying; the pen is mightier than the sword, or more aptly in his case: the pencil is mightier than the AK47. As it is through his pencil, he champions the concepts of unity in Somalia, Human Rights and Press freedom. As with all good cartoonists, the images of humour he sketches underline a serious and thought provoking message that will leave a bitter taste about the state of Somalia.

Amin uses cartooning to report on some of the big issues of our time but his particular gift is that he is never pompous or polemical. He can illustrate the hooded interrogation of Somali and Somaliland or a throat-slitting slaughter of human rights and press freedoms, all events recounted by him in detail. He also adds his own wry thoughts about the loveliness of culture despite warring factions in the Horn of Africa. In reality, he is both more dashing and more relaxed than the anguished characters in the strips, and it is not difficult to see how he manages to persuade people to open up to him: The good, the bad and the outright ugly alike.

Amin Amir, the talented cartoonist, was born in 1969 in Mogadishu. His first painting, at the age of five, was of an old woman in the rain. His dad liked it so much he framed it. Later it was auctioned in Italy, “When my dad told me I couldn’t believe and he bought our family car with it. That’s when I knew I was an artist, then I started painting I didn’t sleep and didn’t want to study.”His dad, an artist in his own right, infl uenced his decision to engage in art. “I sought approval from my dad. My dad use to draw in coffee shops, I would steal the picture, go home and copy it and show it to him. He was always proud and he stuck them on the wall.”