Comedy and the War on Terror
This past weekend, I was watching Comedy Central and ran across a hilarious show called The Axis of Evil Comedy Tour.
The show is made up of four comedians, two Palestinian-Americans (Aron Kader and Dean Obeidallah), an Egyptian-American (Ahmed Ahmed) and an Iranian-American (Maz Jobrani). As the name of their show indicates, the focus is largely on the War on Terror. They focus on issues as varied as the domestic impact of the GWOT on Muslim-Americans to perceptions of America in the Muslim world. Watching the show, I could not help but think about the chapter in Freakonomics titled "How is the Ku Klux Klan Like a Group of Real-Estate Agents?" In that chapter, Steven Levitt and Stephen Dubner, talking about the power of information, present the story of Stetson Kennedy and the manner in which he was able to halt and reverse the gains the KKK had made following the end of WWII in Georgia.
At the time when Kennedy began his campaign, the Klan was so entrenched in Atlanta, that it was considered its main headquarters. In order to bring it down, Kennedy went undercover and joined the Klan thereby gaining access to all of its secrets. At first, he tried contacting Georgia's attorney general, a known Klan buster, and the governor in his efforts to move against the Klan, however due to the Klan's power, his efforts did not produce their desired effect. As they describe it, it was like "tossing pebbles at a giant."
Dubner and Levitt tell the story as follows:
Kennedy was supremely frustrated, and out of this frustration was born a stroke of brilliance. He had noticed one day a group of young boys playing some kind of spy game in which they exchanged silly secret passwords. It reminded him of the Klan. Wouldn't it be nice, he thought, to get the Klan's passwords and the rest of its secrets in the hands of kids all across the country? What better way to defang a secret society than to infantilize and make public-its most secret information?
Kennedy thought of the ideal outlet for this mission: the Adventures of Superman radio show, broadcast each night at dinnertime to millions of listeners nationwide. He contacted the show's producers and asked it they would like to write some episodes about the Ku Klux Klan . The producers were enthusiastic, Superman had spent years fighting Hitler and Mussolini and Hirohito, but with the war over, he was in need of fresh villains...
The episodes aired and had a profound effect on the Klan. As Dubner and Levitt note, the Grand Dragon complained that when he got home "there was my kid and a bunch of others, some with towels tied around their necks, like capes and some with pillowcases over their heads. The ones with the capes chasing the ones with the pillow heads all over the lot." When asked what they were doing, the kids replied that they were playing a new version of cops and robbers with Superman as the cop and the Klansman as the robbers. The spectacle made the Grand Dragon feel ridiculous, and fearful that his kid would some day find his Klan robe. Following the Superman v. KKK episodes, membership declined dramatically, with new membership dropping down to zero. Levitt and Dubner argue that in using the Klan's secrecy against it, it converted that secrecy into powerful ammunition for mockery, and irrelevance. (P. 63-65) As stated above, the authors' point here was to show how that information could be used to marginalize an ideology. In watching the comedy show, I began to feel that something similar could happen in the case of Islamic extremism.
Watch the videos, and and see if you get where I'm going with this.
Who knows the intricacies and idiosyncrasies of Muslim life better than other Muslims? of the religion? Imagine the impact of having comedians such as Kader, Jobrani, Ahmed and Obeidallah telling their jokes in Arabic, Farsi, Pashto and all the various languages of the Muslim world. If anything, the use of such information, like the contradictions within Islamic extremism, would make ready fodder for comedians.
The comics featured above are American-Muslims so their impact on the wider Muslim world is debatable. However, if we could find Muslim comedians in the region, that speak the languages and don't shy away from criticizing either the US, the region's regimes or fundamentalists, they could go a long way to defeating Jihadist propaganda (even as they criticize the US from a Muslim perspective). It wouldn't be Superman v. the KKK at the time when radio was one of the most important means of communication, as in Kennedy's case, but these comedians would have something far more powerful; the internet and Youtube (or its Muslim equivalent).
Imagine Muslim comedians actively ridiculing Jihadists for all the contradictions in their ideology, their living standards, ideas and practices be they with regard to women, other Muslims or as in the case of Ahmed Ahmed the whole "martyrdom gets you 72 virgins" line we hear so often about. In his skit, Ahmed wonders whether you get help in choosing the right terrorist group (there being so many of them) and ponders whether these try to recruit people to their side by promising more benefits than the others. Ahmed imagines the Muslim Brotherhood telling a kid that he should join them and not al Qaeda because unlike al Qaeda, they offer not only 72 virgins, but also 1 whore, and a goat.
Hearing the laughter the joke above elicited, from a primarily Muslim audience, it seems that comedians would become the most fear enemy of Jihadists, because nothing rattles a true believer more than to see his ideology mocked and made to seem ridiculous. Anyone remember the uproar on the right following Stephen Colbert's act at the Correspondents Dinner? The reason for it, was that in very direct terms he took what President Bush considered his strengths, and turned them into objects of ridicule; from "thinking from the gut" to his "stay the course" mentality. It upset many people, so much so that Colbert was not invited back the next year.
In a paper titled "What the Mainstream Media can learn from Jon Stewart," Rachel Smolking noted how the faux news show had no qualms about second guessing our nation's leaders, particularly with regard to Iraq, which in the run up to the war was all but impossible for the MSM. What it did was to cut through "the daily obfuscation" more effectively than those whose main mission it was to inform. The quote that best captures the point of the article is one by Prof. Martin Kaplan, who argues that the Daily Show is effective because "It's not afraid to have a bullshit meter and to call people spinners or liars when they deserve it." Comedy, in short, gives you license to "tell it like it is" while making people laugh or what is called the court jester effect. Something alluded to by Al Gore in this Daily Show interview. In like manner, such comedic license would allow Muslim comedians the ability to criticize the US, the region's autocrats and most importantly, the Islamic extremists in a manner that would inform the population.
The argument against this would likely be that if any comedian dared to come up with such an act, they would be either imprisoned by one of the governments in the region (as Jobrani acknowledges), or killed by an extremist in the same way as Theo Van Gogh, who was murdered for supposedly insulting Islam. Another argument against this is that in order to even allow such a thing to happen, the US would have to discover, promote and protect them, making them seem subservient to the infidel's interests and hence far less appealing to Muslims in general. That said, however, while it is true that comedic license may not stretch as far in the Muslim world (particularly regions where extremism is strong) the solution is to start at the edges and then move inward toward the more radical bastions. The US would obviously have to play a minimal and low-key role (if any) since any connection to the US is immediate grounds for suspicion of ulterior motives and treason. But we can still do it, and effectively, by financing not only news networks as we are doing, but also encouraging businesses (like Comedy Central) to invest in Muslim artists, preferably through local subsidiaries so as not to appear to be the puppeteer moving the strings. Following Tom Barnett's theory of using the American military to export security, and the SysAdmin to build networks that integrate the Gap to the Global economy, I would also add, bring Comedy to shrink the Gap. After all, far more than ending terrorism (the tactic will always continue to exist and to be employed by the weak against the strong) our ultimate mission (and the measure of our success) in the Muslim world will be to marginalize the extremists, to make them an object of ridicule and ultimately irrelevant to the region's future. Like the Klan, they may exist fifty years from now, but they would be powerless to effect any serious change to fit their aims.
Comedy, also has the added benefit of attacking the other aspect of this GWOT, the dictatorships, autocrats, and monarchs who are directly responsible for the stagnation of the Muslim world. Sure, the US will take many hits as well (in comedy no one is safe), but so long as we look less hypocritical and ridiculous than the rest, we'll win by default. That also means that many of our policies will have to change. For example, we can't continue to call for Democracy in Iran, when we say little to nothing about Saudi Arabia, or Egypt, or until recently Pakistan. In diplomacy you need tact, but in the case of Democracy (particularly as done by this administration) you either promote it equally or not at all.
While I'm not suggesting that comedy alone will win the GWOT, I do think that it has a place in our efforts to undermine Islamic extremism. It's one of the many tools we have at our disposal and we should not discount its power to effect change. After all, if we look back at the Cold War and how we ultimately defeated the "evil" empire, it was not only through the build-up of armaments, or proxy wars in the third world but also through the power of American pop culture, which had a profound effect on how people behind the Iron curtain perceived us and was a large source of our soft power.
3 comments:
The Onion is doing its part:
http://a517dogg.blogspot.com/2007/10/funny-videos.html
The chapter you cited in Freakonomics is referring to a different type of information, that is, information made advantageous due to its exclusiveness. The knowledge possessed by the KKK and Real Estate agents is of power because it is secret and exclusive to them, and thus loses power when others learn the ropes of such advantageous information. The information these Muslim comedians would be disseminating is nothing but satire, using humor and casualness to convey more serious atrocities. They do not have an edge in terms of powerful knowledge that they can use to manipulate others into serving their interests and incentives. They tell jokes though humorous twists on political and cultural realities.
I agree that these comedians possess the potential to have profound effects on the Middle East, but circumstances would never permit it. What makes you think Jihadi groups would tolerate such ridicule when they flip out over cartoons or the slightest inquiry into the validity of the religious beliefs? You end up getting a sword to the neck. Think of all the authors and film makers who have attempted to question radical Islamism, they're either dead or fearing for their lives. Furthermore, Jihadi groups are not the only obstacles. The regimes in the Middle East may be democracies, but they are not liberal democracies like we experience in the West. They do not grant the same freedoms of expression and speech that we do, nor do they practice secularism with the zeal that we do. Such comedians would be labeled dissenters and enemies of the government, only to be imprisoned or have fatwa's issued on them by state-affiliated religious clerics. Therefore, the emergence of comedians from and in the region, although more likely to be perceived as credible, is not realistic. American-Muslim comedians would be viewed as biased and corrupted Westerners, and would also come under threat by fanatics.
Yes Adrian, I saw...I thought the one on "Al Qaeda Also Fed Up With Ground Zero Construction Delays" was particularly hilarious.
Praj, I partially agree with you. I understand the difference between the exclusive information that was the currency of Real Estate Agents and the KKK and how its dissemination reduced its power. However, I think that the principle here is similar. That is, while some people may identify the contradictions within Jihadi ideology, not many can do so at first light. Couched in religious and anti-imperialist terms, the contradictions get muddled or over looked thanks to the manner in which they are presented. Comedians can help in this way, by broadcasting loudly these contradictions and exposing them to a general audience. In ridiculing them, they devalue them and allow for a questioning of the ideologies. Additionally, I’m sure al Qaeda has secret rites, and methods which a comedian can easily mock and ridicule to much effect. However, the most important aspect of this, at least with regard to my post is the belittling and trivializing of Jihadi propaganda and ideology. That’s part of the reason why, though I used the Freakonomics example as a starting point, I moved closer to the study of the Daily Show’s impact on American politics. In essence, I was trying to tie two distinct, yet from my point of view, complementary ideas together into a tool for use to combat extremism.
As for your questions, I agree. I said as much in my post on the subject, mentioned the fate that befell Theo Van Gogh and Maz Jobrani’s own admission that he could not perform his tradecraft within Iran, or the Muslim world for the reasons you identify. That’s a problem we can address, however, with greater connectivity to the region, and the reason why I also bring Thomas Barnett into the discussion. Taking his approach to shrinking the Gap, I argue that we need to begin such a move by focusing on the most, for lack of a better word, ‘western’ of countries in the region, and move inward. Bring entertainment ventures to the region, such as Comedy Central to invest in native talent; give them the loudspeaker that is mass media. I also argue that such ventures are likely better handled through subsidiaries or partners in the region, so as to reduce the American footprint, and allow them to develop their own voice, even when critical of American foreign policy. For one, we can remove barriers to engagement with satellite channels such as Al Jazeera, which has a reputation for engaging and angering every autocratic government in the region. So far, we’ve ceded the airwaves of the Middle East to the extremist, in this way, we can begin reengaging the region once again. Using a venue such as Al Jazeera, or similar outlets (perhaps less related to real news) these comedians can penetrate even countries like Saudi Arabia, through both the airwaves and the internet. To be sure, the U.S. would probably have to work hard, diplomatically with countries like Saudi Arabia and Egypt to ease some restrictions on criticism of their governments, but even without this, I think it’s fair to assume that notoriety with these already unpopular governments is likely to increase the power of comedians’ and their message.
I don’t speak the local languages, but I’m pretty sure that there are many comedians in the region, what they are missing is the loudspeaker of mass media that can carry their message across the regions borders. By focusing on fostering and nurturing such an environment, the US can go a long way toward delegitimizing Jihadist ideology and the various autocratic regimes in the region, including Saudi Arabia and Egypt. It will be a challenge, for all the reasons you and I both identified in post and response, but that is no reason not to try it or encourage it.
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