With
Osama bin Laden unlikely to branch out into comedy, it's important to give
westerners a taste of Muslim humour.
December 2007
You could say that writing about humour is like
joking about quantum physics – unlikely to trigger even a subatomic ripple of
laughter from people. Nevertheless, I have decided to venture where comics
fears to tread, because I feel it is important, given the warped image of
Muslims in the west, to take a tour of the funny side of Muslim culture.
As MusabBoraobserved last week, “After the Prophet cartoons furore there was a general assumption that
Muslims are an uppity lot, reluctant to laugh at themselves.” He has gone some
way towards trying to dispel this myth with his spoof blog.
However, what Bora
overlooked is that, while the embattled Muslim communities in the west may
generally be focusing their attention on projecting a serious and earnest
public image of themselves, humour and laughter are indigenous to Muslim
societies – as much as it is possible to generalise about more than a billion
people living in more than 50 countries.
In fact, many Muslims I know would split their
sides laughing at the idea that people in the west regard them as mirthless. Part
of the problem is that the world’s most famous Arab and Muslim is not an actor,
singer or comedian, but a middle-aged man with a long beard in a cave whose
stand-up routine is dedicated entirely to calling for the downfall of western
civilisation.
While there is plenty of comedy potential in
the Bin Laden brand, I don’t think the al-Qaida
franchise will be taking advantage of it any time soon. In fact, the funniest
international face to come out of the Arab world in recent years is the former
Iraqi Information Minister Muhammad al-Sahaf (his surname means ‘the scribe’),
whose surreal, tongue-in-cheek press conferences during the early days of the
US invasion became legendary.
“I triple guarantee you, there are no American
soldiers in Baghdad,”
he told journalists on one occasion. “Lying is forbidden in Iraq. President
Saddam Hussein will tolerate nothing but truthfulness, as he is a man of great
honour and integrity. Everyone is encouraged to speak freely of the truths evidenced
in their eyes and hearts,” he assured them with a wry smile on another. Nevertheless,
some of his statements had a ring of truth about them: “I speak better English
than this villain Bush.” Who could question the veracity of that?
In the comedy stakes, nonetheless, al-Sahaf is a small fish. Under the west’s radar, there is a
vibrant comedy tradition which is well worth exploring. As I am Egyptian, I
will focus on Egypt.
In the Arab world, largely thanks to Egypt
being the ‘Hollywood’ of the Middle
East, Egyptians have a reputation for being laid-back, armed with
a ready smile and unable to resist joking about anything that moves.
In fact, Egyptians see humour as an essential
survival mechanism against the grind of daily life. Egypt may be poor in many ways, but
the country throws up rich pickings for the natives' irreverent wit and sharp
tongues. Egyptians are forever joking about politics, corruption, nepotism, sex
(there are even plenty of ‘knob’ jokes!), the gender wars, marriage, the class
struggle, social hypocrisy, prices, public transport, shortages, and more.
Funnily enough, just as many in the west think
Muslims have no sense of humour, Egyptians think the inverse. In Egypt, Brits
have a reputation, earned during colonial times, for being cold and mirthless
in stiff-upper-lip fashion. If an Egyptian asks another Egyptian, “Are you
English?”, what he means is stop being so serious and
lighten up!
Egyptian cinema and theatre is overrun by comedy: from mainstream
slapstick, to biting satires and black comedies. The versatile Ahmed Helmi currently is top of the comedy
pyramid, having ousted the ageing superstar Adel Imam.
Unsurprisingly, our dear, beloved president is
a common subject of popular derision. Here’s one popular joke which recently
did the rounds:
Mubarak,
Bush, and Queen Elizabeth are roasting in hell together. Queen Elizabeth
decides that she needs to reach her loyal subjects on earth to see how they are
doing. She asks the devil for a phone, talks for five minutes, and is then
shocked to learn that the bill is £5 million. Unable to argue with Satan, she
pays up.
Bush also calls his people, talks for 10 minutes and is shocked when
presented with a bill of £10 million. This God-fearing man decides that he has
no recourse but to settle.
Mubarak thinks to himself: “I know I should
call my people! I may not have been the best president, but I was a president,
and I want to call my people.” Satan hands him the phone and he talks for 20
hours and receives a bill for just £1.
Bush and Elizabeth are up in arms: “Why was his call so cheap?!” they
demand.
“It was a local phone call,” the devil
replies.
Another joke speaks volumes about the Egyptian
people’s frustration at their president’s longevity:
Some 75 million people
gathered outside the presidential palace to demand that Mubarak
step down.
When Mubarak hears the noise, he asks one
of his advisers what the racket is about. His aide, wishing to break the news to him
gently, says: “They’ve gathered to say goodbye to you.”
A bewilderedMubarak asks: “Why? Where are they going?”
Although the cinema cannot be as daring as
street-level humour, some films have taken surprisingly daring digs at the
Egyptian government. One of the biggest box office hits in the 1990s was al-IrhabwalKabab
(Terrorism and Kebab). In the film, a hard-pressed man who works at Cairo’s sewage treatment
plant visits the Kafkaesque main government building called al-Mugamaa in order to try to transfer his kids to a school
closer to home.
The man in charge of transfers is never there
and his colleagues refuse to help because one is busy talking to her friends
all day on the telephone and the other is constantly praying. When security try to eject him for attacking the bearded civil
servant, he manages to grab one of their rifles and triggers a panic that a
terrorist attack is in motion.
This accidental hostage-taker is joined by a
downtrodden shoeshine, a humiliated conscript, and a risqué prostitute. However,
the minister of interior and his aides outside assume it is Islamists who have
taken hold of the building. When it comes around to discussing their demands,
the hostage takers and their hostages can’t think what to ask for so decide to
order kebabs while they think.
One aide is against caving in to this demand “because
they might enjoy it so much up there, they won't want to come down”, he tells
the minister atop the minaret of a nearby mosque. When the hostages hear that
their demand has been rejected, they begin chanting in unison: “Give us kebab! Give
us kebab! Or we'll make your lives hell!!”
The minister orders kebab to be delivered. After
filling their stomachs, no one can decide what to demand next. Their personal
demands are too petty, they decide, and so they call for the resignation of the
entire government. This makes the minister snap and order the raiding of the
building at dawn. But they all make their escape by walking out as hostages
pretending that a group of Islamists are inside, ready for a shootout. Having
flirted with rebellion, they return to their normal, apathetic lives.
