Shades of ethnic humour

Posted by Imaduddin on February 2nd, 2008 | Categorized as Articles, Blog, General Forum | 411 views and 12 Comments

Shades of ethnic humour

n American, an Englishman and an Israeli are captured by cannibals. They are each permitted one last wish before being thrown into an enormous boiling pot. The American takes off his wedding ring and gives it to the cannibal chief. “Please have this sent back to my wife.”
The Englishman asks permission to sing God save the Queen.
The Israeli says to the chief, “I want you to give me a very hard kick in the ass.”
The chief complies and sends the Israeli sprawling, but when he gets up, he whips out a gun and shoots the chief dead, then starts firing at the other cannibals until they flee.

It took this joke, a Pizza dance and acting as a rabbi for a mock Jewish wedding at the ‘Global Village’ with the TILS-Lahore team before a number of fellow delegates at the Lahore University of Management Sciences (LUMS) Model UN were willing to work with me - as a delegate of Israel.

The order was a tall one - there was a strong block of OIC members against Israel, lead by the delegate of Syria. Most of the delegates were Pakistani and so already had strong prejudices against Israel. The delegate for the Palestinian National Authority refused to even talk with me. By the end of the first day of debating, people came up to me and told me that I argued like a Jew. I wanted to take it as a compliment, but wasn’t sure if it was unreservedly meant as one. One asked if I was Christian.

By the end of the five-day conference, 85% of the delegates voted in favour of a resolution I had worked on to counter terrorism, which included the clause, ‘will not recognise the legitimacy of any organisation which threatens a UN Member’s right to exist in peace and security.’
Humour coupled with outward humility and inner confidence, I learnt, are essential to good diplomacy.

Erroneously, I had come to the opinion that ethnic humour could only be put to bad use. The following joke was told to me when I was in Year 5. Although I couldn’t stop laughing when I first heard it, it hurt a little and hurt every time I heard or told the joke myself. It, with other Paki jokes, is perhaps a reason why I said good-bye to the indignity of living in England.

An Englishman, a Welshman and a Pakistani are on a plane. It’s going along nicely till the pilot announces an engine failure, advising them to get rid of any excess baggage. The Pakistani throws out three buckets full of curry.

BBC’s Goodness Gracious Me had helped my classmate Vijay and I become popular at our school in Lincolnshire. The British Asian comedy series had given our gora classmates a few insights into the traditions and ways of thinking of desis. It also, they thought, had given them license to believe that they understood us and our culture and that everything in the series might relate to us. As the series dragged on, I saw Vijay becoming increasingly commodified. Some of the desi jokes should simply not have been shared with the wider community because they were readily abused. A friend recently pointed out that Goodness Gracious Me was well-to do desis making fun of lower class desis.

African American comedian Dave Chappelle’s letter to white fans summarises why he doesn’t want those outside the ethnic community to listen to his jokes:

‘I just don’t trust you [. . . ] You’re kind of like a creepy stepfather [ . . .] You may have seen me on Oprah talking about the time I felt that a white guy on my staff was laughing at me rather than with me during a sketch I was doing in blackface.’

When I arrived in the United States, I found I had an inexplicable contempt for the French. Jeremy Paxman solved the mystery for me in his book, The English - A Portrait of a People.

The humour I was exposed to on an almost daily basis in England had subliminally ingrained that hatred:

‘This is how [the English] thought of their continental neighbours. Obscene drawings were French postcards or French prints. [ . . . Prostitutes] could be wearing wide-legged underwear - French knickers. If a man used their services, he would take French lessons. If he caught syphilis as a result, he contracted ‘The French disease’ ‘French gout’, ‘French pox’ [ . . .] or was said to have been paid a ‘French compliment’ [ . . .] If particularly badly ‘Frenchified’ he might lose his nose through the disease [. . .] The way for a man to protect himself from these scourges was to wear a ‘French letter’ or ‘French safe’ or just a French (unless you were French, in which case, you used a capote anglaise.)’

The problem with the above jokes isn’t, however, that they are ethnic jokes per se. The problematic jokes are the ones which are told by a person about an ethnic community she does not belong to and are intended to offend or are designed without taking into consideration the sensitivities of the targeted ethnic community. Some jokes told by the ethnic community about itself feed into racism because they are accessible to stupid people.

I found a book last week in a friend’s office. Jewish Humor: What the Best Jewish Jokes Say About the Jews by Rabbi Joseph Telushkin. It might complement my research on Israel, I thought. Besides, it’ll be a light read. I found that used sensitively, humourists who write ethnic jokes about their community and then share it with others can use it as a tool for us to better understand each other’s problems. With that, I leave you with some Woody Allen:

Here’s a story you’re not going to believe. I shot a moose once. I was hunting in up-state New York and I shot a moose.

And I strap him on to the fender of my car, and I’m driving home along the West Side Highway. But what I didn’t realise was that the bullet did not penetrate the moose. It just creased the scalp, knocking him unconscious. And I’m driving through the Holland Tunnel and the moose wakes up. So I’m driving with a live moose on my fender and the moose is signalling for a turn. And there’s a law in New York state against driving with a conscious moose on your fender, Tuesdays, Thursdays and Saturdays. And I’m very panicky.

And then it hits me - some friends of mine are having a costume party. l go. l take the moose. l ditch him at the party. It won’t be my responsibility. So I drive up to the party and I knock on the door and the moose is next to me. My host comes to the door. I say, “Hello. You know the Solomons.” We enter. The moose mingles. Did very well. Scored. Two guys were trying to sell him insurance for an hour and a half.

The following morning the Berkowitzes wake up in the woods, in a moose suit. Mr Berkowitz is shot, stuffed and mounted at the New York Athletic Club. And the joke is on them, ’cause it’s restricted.’

Imaduddin Ahmed

Born in Lahore (Pakistan), my parents moved to England before I was one. Moved around quite a bit and schooled in eight institutions before flying off to California for university at UC Berkeley. Since then, have had three full time jobs in California and Pakistan in a campaign office, a women's rights NGO and with a newspaper and have had two temp jobs in England. Currently enrolled in a distance law programme with the University of London and am waiting for my visa to begin economic research in Bangalore (India).