Make Jokes Not War

in 1998

otpor serbia’s non-violent pro-democracy

movement

while they were just a tiny group of

broke college students

but they decided to play a prank they

took an oil barrel

taped a picture of the serbian dictator

milcevich to it

and put it in the middle of serbia’s

capital city’s

largest shopping district next to it

otpor

placed a baseball bat then they went to

a local coffee shop

grabbed a coffee and watched

before long dozens of shoppers lined the

streets of belgrade for a chance to take

a swing

at milcivic milsivic was despised by

many at the time

but serbians were too afraid to

criticize him

for fear of imprisonment 30 minutes in

the police arrived

but what were they to do they really had

no grounds to arrest the shoppers

and the police had no clue who the

culprits were because remember

is just relaxing in a nearby coffee shop

but the police didn’t know that

so what did the police do they arrested

the barrel

the image of the two policemen quite

literally dragging the barrel to their

police car

went viral for months on end in the

words of one member of atpur

milosevic and his cronies became the

laughing stock of the nation

and antarpur became a household name

atapur called their version of

non-violent struggle against depression

lactivism in 2012 we saw a similar

event in serbia where a protest brewed

under putin’s russia

i put protest in question marks because

the siberian

pro-democracy protest featured no humans

only teddy bears lego characters and

south park figurines to name a few

when authorities arrived they didn’t see

any culprits

because there were no humans there so

what were they to do

you guessed it they arrested the toys

the toys were hauled off in official

police cars

to be detained for their illegal

behavior

better yet the government imposed an

official ban on all future toy protests

which then went viral almost immediately

reminding dictators that

laughter and humor is a dangerous

opposition force

we are convinced that the only ways to

combat oppression are with serious means

we protest we debate we go to war

but because of what i call the political

humor paradox

humor is an essential tool for combating

oppression

now the political humor paradox is

relatively simple

in general dictators and oppressors

can’t do much to prevent political humor

against them

there’s simply no defense against it if

dictators try and fight back

they only appear more ridiculous thus

causing

more political humor to manifest within

the oppressed

it’s the goal of an oppressor to

dehumanize their victims

and give them no hope of change after

all humor

illustrates their victims capabilities

for free

thought and there’s absolutely nothing a

dictator fears more

than free thought put simply the very

existence of

laughter and jokes means that a dictator

has

failed to dehumanize and demoralize

their victims

this is humor for a definite purpose

that is to ridicule the oppressors and

keep the oppressed hopeful

additionally it’s a surprisingly

reliable index of the morale of the

oppressed

where there is humor there is hope

where there is humor resistance is

likely

moreover the reactions to humor by the

oppressors give a really interesting

insight

into their own perceived strength when

oppressors can afford to ignore this

humor

they believe they’re strong but when

oppressors react violently

they’re not and as multitudes of

researchers before me have found

dictators are never really confident in

their in their success

by the very nature of a dictatorship we

know that authoritarian rulers

repression creates fear

which then breeds uncertainty about how

much support the ruler has

in response the ruler is forced to

repress further

and in a similar manner the political

humor paradox

tells us that if a ruler aims to be more

repressive

the shutting down of humor only breeds

more humor

moreover as long as the oppressor knows

that their

victims ridicule them they can never

really be sure of their victory

oppressors thrive on knowing that the

oppressed are afraid of them

and humor dispels this very fear

surprisingly perhaps the greatest

example of the political humor paradox

comes from 1930s germany where my jewish

ancestors were in concentration camps

they were trying to survive to the next

day

now when i was younger it seemed like

every week i learned more

and more about the atrocities of the

holocaust day

after day my ancestors never

saw their families again they watched

their friends disappear

and they feared for their lives in ways

we can only imagine

as a young jew myself i kept wondering

how my ancestors made it through

but then i found the story of antonin

obrador

now antonin remembers what it was like

living under nazi occupation

he recalls the anger that the germans in

czech slovakia washed away inscriptions

making fun of their fear

most vividly only for these

graffiti mocking hitler

to reappear again the next morning to

those under occupation the nazi’s anger

was hilarious

but moreover humor served as a no-cost

anonymous way of fighting back now two

jokes in particular were extremely

effective against the nazi invaders of

czechoslovakia

the first involves a calendar and a

pamphlet

now for a little bit of history soon

after the war broke out

german soldiers received and distributed

a calendar of events

that they believed would take place on

future dates

according to the schedule england was

expected to

be on our knees no later than august

15th

1940 but then august 15th came

and august 15th passed and england was

far from underneath

soon after the czechs who were being

oppressed by the nazis

distributed leaflets reading do you know

why hitler has not invaded

england yet because the german officers

could not manage to learn in time

all the english irregular verbs another

pamphlet distributed

at roughly the same time read do you

know why the daylight savings time has

been

exceptionally prolonged this year well

because hitler promised that before the

summer is over

he and his army will be in england the

pamphlet made the nazis

furious waves of mass arrests

actually followed the spread of this

pamphlet apparently

the nazis even though they were the ones

in power

didn’t enjoy being the butt of the jokes

and better yet

even the nazis people in control of

a government who was at the time going

to war

with the world well they couldn’t fight

back against

it because when they imprisoned the

people who made the pamphlets

more pamphlets were made and these

were much more anonymous but after these

pamphlets were spread

it was near impossible to find a check

truly loyal to the germans

according to one legend there was one

person loyal to the germans

who was found in an old man who

proclaimed on the street that adolf

hitler is the greatest leader

the germans are a noble nation and that

he would rather work for ten germans

than for one check

well the germans went up and they asked

him what he did for a living

and the czech nazi supporter reluctantly

amid

admitted to being a gravedigger

in fact waves of humor often followed

waves of restriction

or orders from germany herself when

foreign broadcasts were declared a form

of high treason

treason the following story allegedly

occurred

a czech guest is leaving the restaurant

one evening and says to his friend

good night now i’m going to listen to

the london and paris broadcast

now he’s overheard by a nazi soldier and

is followed to his home

but when the nazi soldier investigates

this man’s home

no radio can be found do you listen to

foreign broadcasts

ask the germans german man suspiciously

the check replies oh yes

i just can’t help then he kneels puts

his ear to the ground

and says that’s london there after that

he puts his ear to the wall of the

neighboring apartment

and whispers ah that’s paris there so

the nazi soldier

he hurries around to the adjacent flats

and in the below flat there’s a high

official of the german ss administration

and then the other one there’s the

german officer in uniform

moreover in the example of the jews

during the holocaust

jokes really mocked the torture that the

nazis inflicted on them

how take the example of survivor lily

rickman

she upon arriving at the camps like

every other jew was forced to shave her

head

she laughed at her free haircut

the laughter was rebellious if not a

little crazy to everyone around her

but it definitely caught the guards off

guard moreover she made the nazi guards

think that they were doing her a favor

not dehumanizing her moreover if the

nazi guards

chose to joke about the prisoners

themselves the jews would join in and

laugh at the same jokes

the ability to destabilize an oppressive

situation

by laughing at the expense of oneself

was extraordinarily common for the jews

during the holocaust

and by laughing at these jokes they

subverted the very power

the jokes may have had over them while

jokes were

at one point used as a weapon to oppress

jews made the same joke and laughed at

themselves thus getting rid of any power

that the jokes may have had

holocaust survivor ellie wiesel explores

this concept as novel

gates of the forest where gregor the

main character

is orphaned like so many others during

the holocaust

gregor is hiding in a cave when he meets

gabriel who teaches gregor how to employ

laughter to catch his oppressors off

guard gabriel’s humor allowed him to

rise

above the anti-semitism because to laugh

in the face of fear allows that fear to

dissipate

laughter becomes a concealed dagger

against oppressors one holocaust

survivor remembers how one day

the nazis guards were hitting them black

and blue and they were laughing while we

made fun of them

the guards ended up laughing as well

thus stopping the assault

now the nazis may have gotten the last

shot and the last punch

but the jews got the last laugh

now the political humor paradox gives us

insight into the power of humor as a

resistance tool as well

we’ve seen how comedy has been used in

the face of totalitarianism

and in the face of oppression but

this much is clear we must use comedy as

a tool of resistance

it’s not to be used all the time but

when we want to seriously

combat oppression paradoxically

we must joke about it now this is

counterintuitive

but history tells us that those who made

fun of their oppressors

had one of two things happen either

first the oppressor

ignored it thus elevating the spirits of

the oppressed through laughter

or second the oppressor tries to stifle

the laughter in some ridiculous way

which only spawns more jokes and that’s

the beauty of the political humor

paradox

it works sometimes we must

laugh in the face of oppression and by

making the oppressor the butt of the

joke

the oppressed gain power over the issues

that challenge them

now we see other examples manifesting

themselves today

the most prominent example are the

dozens of comedians

such as dave chappelle or chris rock who

are using humor to critique the systemic

oppression

painfully apparent in the united states

and the us government can do

nothing to stop them from doing so any

action that the government takes to

prevent

these comedians from joking will only be

met with more humor

from some of the funniest people alive

right now

in an age of social media where these

jokes can be

spread i shall leave you

with the story of my sister who was the

subject of an

anti-semitic attack when she was called

a rich

jew at elementary school she proceeded

to pull out her wallet pull out a 10

bill give it to her bowling and she said

buy some better insults

thank you