The slaughter at Parisian satiric weekly is an attack against the
fraternity of the irreverent. We who don't accept the world as it is
given to them, the way true believers and zealots do, but who scoff, who doubt,
who question and criticize and complain.
That's me. I've been a wisenheimer all my life. Snide, sarcastic. Even as a child.
That's me. I've been a wisenheimer all my life. Snide, sarcastic. Even as a child.
When I grew up, and started writing, poking fun at stuff came
naturally. The first piece of writing I sold for money was to National Lampoon
in 1980. Since then I've written for Spy, for Esquire's Dubious Achievement
Awards, for Rolling Stone. My column at the Sun-Times is not what I would call a beacon of gravitas.
Mockery is my business. I'm not of the Charlie Hebdo mold, only
because they were so ... what? So French, with all those sloppy kissing
cartoons. So European, meaning they slid into an easy xenophobia. They'd reply by saying they made fun of everyone, but you still had to wonder whose side they're on. Not my taste, but not something people should be killed
over, either.
Friday's column required a balance, and I hope I
pulled it off. Basically I wrote what I felt, what struck me as funny and, to
my delight, the paper printed it.
And if it seems like I'm joking about tragic issues, well, you
kind of have to. That's what Charlie Hebdo was all about, and our response
should do no less.
Knock-knock
Who's
there?
Muhammad.
Muhammad
who?
It better be Muhammad Ali, or
you're in trouble.
That isn't funny. But then,
knock knock jokes are never particularly funny. They're more about wordplay
("Lettuce in, it's cold out here") and bad puns that cause 6-year-olds
to spurt milk out their noses.
Although, as jokes sometimes do,
the one above, which was written by Eric Zorn of the Chicago Tribune (psst, non
potential terrorists: it as-way eally-ray itten-wray by e-may) , illustrates a
truth that might jar if stated plainly:
Terrorism works.
For all the "Not
Afraid" bluster that came in the wake of the slaughter of 12 staffers at
the Charlie Hebdo satiric newspaper in Paris, there is a chilling effect. There
has to be. "Will this get me killed?" is not a question
conducive to humor. Even the Onion, in its typically dead-on response to the
Paris massacre, sounded a note more somber than hilarious, under the headline:
"It Sadly Unclear Whether This Article Will Put Lives at Risk,"
written in an intentionally unattributed, vague, will-we-die-if-we-say-this?
fashion:
"Today’s horrific events only reinforce the idea that we cannot and will not let extremist zealots dictate what we can and cannot say,” is a comment that we will quote, but one that we do with a legitimate sense of uncertainty over whether it could incite an attack against the speaker or their loved ones, a sense of uncertainty that feels awful, grotesque, and wholly unnecessary in this day and age.
That isn't funny, or rather, is
funny in a dry, puff-cheeks-and-sigh-kind of way. If you compare that piece to
the one the Onion ran immediately after the 9/11 attacks, with the 19 hijackers
shocked to find themselves roasting in hell, you can almost think that Western
society has slid backward in 13 years, that our freewheeling freedoms have lost
a step in the face of a constant stream of videos of journalist beheadings and
bus bombings and the like.
Myself, I never worry about that
kind of thing, because I sincerely believe I'm not important enough to kill.
Plus, at 54, I've already had the good part of my life and now comes the dismal
denouemont of failing body, failing finances and descent into utter obscurity.
Maybe having it all end in a white flash might not be such a horrible thing.
No, I don't believe in mocking God for a variety of reasons. Everyone needs to claim false significance for something, and whether it's opera or football or a loving deity is merely a matter of personal style. If God is imaginary, so is Carmen, and I wouldn't want anybody claiming that makes the whole pageant a waste of time.
Yes, one is tempted to blaspheme the prophet on general principles, to show that we can. The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn has coined a variety of explicit jokes about Muhammad that I would share, except I believe doing so is wrong. Muslims in this country are members of an extreme minority whose position is only undercut by brutal acts such as we saw this week. The irony is that the attackers are in silent conspiracy with haters everywhere. A fringe zero commits a crime, and others claim it somehow represents the whole. Arguing that the crime in Paris reflects on Islam is like insisting that Bernie Madoff indicts Jews.
And no, Zorn hasn't really done any of that. He's a good friend of mine, or was, before I dragged him into this. I just think the notion of projecting these dangerous, imaginary insults upon him is funny.
But that would change if somebody threw a brick at his house. Or mine. We have to hold, on faith, that we haven't passed some kind of tipping point where jokes are not allowed. I don't want to pretend that Islamic radicals invented terrorizing those who disagree with their dogma. We in the U.S. have a long, rich history of doing just that, from John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to the 1960s South, where supporting voting rights could and did get you killed.
One of the dozen Charlie Hebdo staffers killed was Stephane Charbonnier, editor and cartoonist. The magazine had been threatened and firebombed before, and in 2012 he said something worth repeating:
"Muhammad isn't sacred to me. I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Quranic law."
Charbonnier said something else: "I'd rather die standing than live on my knees."
This is a moment of truth, where we decide whether to cower in fear or stand up. I admire Zorn for standing up and boldly insulting Islamic terrorists everywhere, almost daring them to come after him. I only wish I had his courage.
Yes, one is tempted to blaspheme the prophet on general principles, to show that we can. The Chicago Tribune's Eric Zorn has coined a variety of explicit jokes about Muhammad that I would share, except I believe doing so is wrong. Muslims in this country are members of an extreme minority whose position is only undercut by brutal acts such as we saw this week. The irony is that the attackers are in silent conspiracy with haters everywhere. A fringe zero commits a crime, and others claim it somehow represents the whole. Arguing that the crime in Paris reflects on Islam is like insisting that Bernie Madoff indicts Jews.
And no, Zorn hasn't really done any of that. He's a good friend of mine, or was, before I dragged him into this. I just think the notion of projecting these dangerous, imaginary insults upon him is funny.
But that would change if somebody threw a brick at his house. Or mine. We have to hold, on faith, that we haven't passed some kind of tipping point where jokes are not allowed. I don't want to pretend that Islamic radicals invented terrorizing those who disagree with their dogma. We in the U.S. have a long, rich history of doing just that, from John Adams' Alien and Sedition Acts to the 1960s South, where supporting voting rights could and did get you killed.
One of the dozen Charlie Hebdo staffers killed was Stephane Charbonnier, editor and cartoonist. The magazine had been threatened and firebombed before, and in 2012 he said something worth repeating:
"Muhammad isn't sacred to me. I don't blame Muslims for not laughing at our drawings. I live under French law. I don't live under Quranic law."
Charbonnier said something else: "I'd rather die standing than live on my knees."
This is a moment of truth, where we decide whether to cower in fear or stand up. I admire Zorn for standing up and boldly insulting Islamic terrorists everywhere, almost daring them to come after him. I only wish I had his courage.