Comedy
Laughing in the face of danger: the state of satire in the Muslim world
Cartoons depicting Muhammad are unthinkable in Muslim countries. But
there are plenty of homegrown satirists poking fun at reactionaries,
autocrats and jihadis. Our writers in Egypt, Turkey, Syria, Pakistan,
Iran, Lebanon and Iraq explain where the line is drawn
Bassem Youssef
Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef gets some last-minute makeup done
before appearing on his TV show as an ultra-conservative politician.
Photograph: David Degner/David Degner/Getty Images
don’t have much to laugh about these days: mayhem and death, war and
repression, dictatorship and terrorism are daily fare across the
region. Yet satire and humour, much of it fairly black, are alive and
kicking, from Iraqis poking fun at the Islamic State (Isis) to Saudi
standup comics, and Palestinians grinning and bearing life under a
Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi, the self-proclaimed Caliph of Isis, is the object
of plain ridicule. Karl Sharro, the London-based Lebanese satirist,
brilliantly “re-created” a session between Baghdadi and his
psychiatrist. Having declared the caliphate, the jihadi chief is
Yekthar – tolerated by an autocratic Saudi regime that is currently
flogging a jailed liberal blogger and does not allow women to drive –
an issue that is brilliantly satirised in Butairi’s Bob Marley-inspired
“No Woman, No Drive” video. Surprisingly, the show has survived,
perhaps because it uses coded messages about social and economic issues
Yet Isis is, in a sense, an easy target in the grim aftermath of the
Arab spring – and the dichotomy between jihadis and dictators
fashionable but false. “A lot of this is at the expense of satire
against counter-revolutionary regimes we are not laughing at any more,”
says Sharro. “Now there is a sense of an existential battle so we are
internet’
In some respects, the state of Egyptian satire can be summarised by the
fact that Egypt’s most famous contemporary satirist no longer feels
safe to work. And that when he was in work, he came under pressure from
every government he lampooned. For a golden period, between 2011 and
2013, Bassem Youssef, a heart surgeon in a past life, was the poster
boy of Egypt’s revolution. His political satire show, which he first
broadcast on YouTube from his spare bedroom, and which later drew up to
30 million viewers on television, took aim at politicians from across
spawned, it was Youssef’s show that was the most visible emblem of the
enhanced public discourse of the post-revolution period. Within two
years, Youssef was the most-watched satirist in the Middle East, and
became known internationally as Egypt’s Jon Stewart. Like Stewart,
Youssef played humorous video clips of his targets, and then
But his experiences under the rule of first Morsi, an Islamist, and
Egypt’s first post-revolution president, and then the man who ousted
him, Abdel Fatah al-Sisi, highlight the limits for satirists in Egypt.
Under Morsi, prosecutors detained and questioned Youssef on charges of
insulting both the president and Islam in general. A devout Muslim,
Within weeks, his own channel had pulled the show. While the government
has locked up other journalists, in his case there was no direct
government order to end his satire. According to Youssef, he was the
victim of the environment the government had helped create in which
media moguls are only too happy to do the authorities’ work for them.
more, there was no direct order to do so – even from his new employers.
But he felt that the threat posed by either the government or its
supporters was too great to justify the continuation of his satire.
In Egypt’s mainstream media, Youssef’s departure has left a void. But
his satirical baton is still carried by a younger generation of
cartoonists and writers who push social and (sometimes) political
boundaries in a few daring websites, magazines – or to their own
substantial followings on Facebook. One such writer is 23-year-old
Wageeh Sabry, who started producing satirical sketches on Facebook last
summer – ironically around the time that Youssef finally wound down his
show. At first Sabry was just talking to his friends, posting
Sabry doesn’t take direct potshots at political figures or events. But
the surreal scenes he dreams up are a satire of the Egyptian moment.
Recently, he imagined a bizarre conversation with a ghost at an
“atheist cafe”, a riff on a recent raid on a cafe the authorities said
chants pro-regime slogans at their commander.
“In the mainstream media, there aren’t satirical journalists who talk
about religion, sex, politics. The only one who broke these boundaries
was Bassem Youssef,” says Sabry, who is mentored by Youssef. “If I was
Patrick Kingsley and Manu Abdo
Turkey: ‘Erdogan sued, but satire had the last laugh and the prime minister
lost’
The Turkish political satire magazine Penguen (Penguin) was founded in
2002 by four Turkish cartoonists, Metin Üstündag, Selçuk Erdem, Bahadır
Baruter and Erdil Yaşaroğlu. It has since become one of the country’s
While political caricatures in Turkey go back to Ottoman times, –
Sultan Abdülhamid II, who failed to see the humour in satire and the
depictions of his large nose, went on to ban them – they saw their
golden age in the 1970s and 80s when Oğuz Aral, often considered the
father of several generations of Turkish cartoonists, founded the
hugely popular magazine Gırgır (Chuckle). Penguen’s co-founders emerged
from Aral’s school of political satire.
The magazine has never shied away from controversy. After a Turkish
– a Turkish government leader known for his lack of a sense of humour
and his love of suing unruly cartoonists – and promptly found itself
facing a court case for defaming authority. This time satire had the
last laugh and Erdoğan lost. But the threats against political satire
and cartoon artists in Turkey, a country that currently ranks 154th out
of 175 on the RSF Press Freedom index, are not just of a legal nature.
His mosque cartoon again became the subject of heated debate – and
threats of violence – after the attack on French satirical magazine
Charlie Hebdo last Wednesday. Ibrahim Yörük, a writer for the newly
founded Islamic daily Vahdet, tweeted, using the hashtag #CharlieHebdo:
Syria: ‘Ali Farzat was dragged from his car and had his hands broken’
Satire is a popular, and dangerous, political weapon in Syria, where
its practitioners choose targets at their peril. Before the uprising
that has ravaged the country over the past three years, political
vocal chords removed.
Now Syrian satirists tend to restrict themselves to safer targets. It
is the terror group Isis, which controls part of Syria’s north and much
of its east, that has become the focus of pointed satirical attacks
from both the opposition and regime. State-run television has begun
regularly deriding the group through comedic sketches and cartoons.
Martin Chulov
Pakistan: ‘Only satire that has the sense to limit its targets is tolerated’
When I sent my collected satirical columns, The Diary of a Social
Butterfly – narrated by a ditzy, wealthy socialite in Lahore – to a
publisher in India, she snapped it up. Later she told me: “I expected
generates cannot imagine there is much scope there for humour. But in
fact Pakistanis have a long tradition of laughing at themselves. Urdu
literature is replete with first-rate satirists – Akbar Allah Abadi,
Ibne Insha, Mushtaq Yusufi. Bhaands, traditional performers who
entertain with fast and furious monologues of cutting political
impersonators have their own television shows.
There are three separate satirical programmes on Geo, the country’s
biggest and most watched independent television channel, where
politicians come in for a regular drubbing. It broadcasts Hum Sub Umeed
Say Hain (We Are All Expecting), known for its biting political
comment, as is Dunya’s satirical programme Hasb-e-Haal. The Friday
Times, a weekly from Lahore, has published a series of fictitious
satirical diaries over the years: Dear Diary by Benazir Bhutto;
Ittefaqnama by Nawaz Sharif (the current prime minister); Mush and
Bush, a telephone conversation between General Musharraf and President
publisher, Jugnu Mohsin. Subversive cartoonists, such as Sabir Nazar,
Feica, Zahoor and Javaid Iqbal, whose work is published in leading
national newspapers, are household names. So satire is alive and
kicking in Pakistan. But only satire that has the sense to limit itself
to permissible targets is tolerated.
Bush during General Musharraf’s regime, it escaped censure.
The one place that satirists can safely let rip against the military
and jihadists alike is cyberspace. One of the country’s foremost wits
is an anonymous character on Twitter called Majorly Profound.
Moni Mohsin
Moni Mohsin’s satirical novel, Duty Free, is published by Vintage
Mana Neyestani
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now lives in Paris. Photograph: PIERRE DUFFOUR/AFP/Getty Images
Iran: ‘Despite restrictions – and floggings – satire is present in everyday
life’
Satire in Iran starts with two familiar words: Gol Agha. That was the
title of a weekly publication founded in 1990 by one of Iran’s most
celebrated satirists, Kioumars Saberi Foumani, who also went by the pen
name Gol Agha. It was the first such publication in post-revolutionary
Iran, maintaining its dominance for more than two decades after its
debut, adding monthly and annual editions as well as producing a new
generation of satirists and cartoonists.
Throughout the reformist years under Mohammad Khatami in the late 90s
small publishing house today.
Iranian satirists and cartoonists face strict red lines in their work,
such as longstanding bans on depicting clerics, ridiculing religions or
satirising anything to do with the supreme leader, Ayatollah Ali
Khamenei. Many defy those bans online, publishing anonymously if they
reside inside the country.
complaint.
A number of satirists and cartoonists have been forced to flee Iran in
the past decades, including Mana Neyestani. He fell victim to the
state’s aggression in 2006 when he spent two months in jail for a
his life away with a bullet.”
Despite restrictions, satire is present in everyday life in Iran. State
censorship and strict rules imposed on satirical publications or TV and
radio programmes mean that mobile phones are perhaps the most popular
medium for reading jokes. Tech-savvy Iranians use texts and instant
messaging services on a daily basis to share satirical takes on
everything from politics to football.
Saeed Kamali Dehghan
Lebanon: ‘There is more tolerance for satire than elsewhere in the Arab
world’
Lebanon has perhaps more space and tolerance for satire in its
political discourse than any other country in the Arab world. Each
television channel has at least one show that regularly mocks
influence brokers and security chiefs are all derided with the aid of
Spitting Image-style rubber puppets, much to the enjoyment of citizens
who revel in using satire as a means to expose the powerful, when they
can’t be held to account in other ways. The feudal lords who run much
of Lebanon are all widely known by the caricatures that have appeared
which ridicules Isis. Photograph: Thaier Al-Sudani / Reuters/Reuters
Iraq: ‘Now the country faces the threat from Isis, satire is back with venom’
In the years following the fall of Saddam Hussein, political satire was
resurgent in Iraq. New money brought new channels and cable TV. A
long-dormant tradition of holding rulers to account through sketches
As the new ruling class squandered, and the Americans floundered, some
of the more penetrating, brusque satire ever seen in the Middle East
featured proudly in news stands, or on primetime.
and the biting tone of the cartoonists and commentators soon died down.
Now, though, with al-Maliki gone and Iraq facing its latest existential
crisis – a threat from Isis – satirical venom is back. Isis has been
lampooned on state television, which spent a reported $750,000 on a
series mocking the terror group. Another channel serialised a cartoon
followers are now trying to impose by the sword.
There is little self-censorship in satirical depictions of Isis, but
some artists and producers have refused to have their names associated
with the pieces, for fear of reprisals.
protections for those who subject prophets, or revered religious
figures, to ridicule and few – if anyone – willing to try it. Iraq’s
political satirists are testing other boundaries – political, societal
and sometimes cultural. For now, they have more room to move than at
most points since the fall of Saddam.