Paying Fear with Humor

During an interview made for the world of Spain, Javier Espinosa asks Fahd Qarni - one of Yemen’s best-known comedians – why he always carries a blanket and a black scarf. Mr. Qarni responded that with the blanket he doesn’t have to sleep on the floors of the prisons where he is taken on a regular basis by the Yemeni regime. “And the black scarf?” “It is to gain time,” he says laughingly. Since he is usually blindfolded when he is interrogated, he blindfolds himself and tells his interrogators “hurry up, have some functions later.” Yemen strongman Ali Abdullah Saleh has been in power for over 33 years. During that time, his regime has both ignored and intimidated the opposition, increased corruption, stymied the media, and of persecuted anyone who dared to think different – The same can be said of other regimes led by strongmen, but I am speaking about Yemen here - Already in 1998 alongside Al Qarni, most comedians were barred from official premises, a sign of government intolerance for humor. But what was most upsetting to the President what the parodying of his speech in 2005, where Mr. Qarni repeated, the presidential mantra “I'm going to do; I will do; I'm about to do,” until someone comes up and says that the best thing for him to do is to leave.

It is precisely human rights defenders who for years have unveiled before the international community the precariousness of a regime that seeks to maintain indefinitely its grips on power through oppression and coercion. The brutality of the repressive tactics have increased with the attacks on strikers at Change Square, attacks that the head of government claims to be a matter of national sovereignty - please do not compare - But pressure from organized society, and the work of a journalist and activist as Tawakul Karman, has removed the blindfold so that the Yemeni people and the world at large can appreciate what is happening in Yemen. Ms. Karman was awarded the Nobel peace prize.

President Ali Abdullah said that he will step down – thus heeding the comedians advise- but not the political opposition’s, because "the project of the opposition is only sabotage." How not to laugh when someone lies and oppresses so openly at the same time?

The Venezuelan government’s position regarding human rights is also laughable since they believe it is OK to go to Stockholm saying that the judiciary is autonomous while holding prisoner judge Afiuni despite repeated calls from international organisms to release her. It is comic the effort undertaken by “friends of the Venezuelan government” to be in the front row and applaud Chavez’s government, despite the fact that it doesn't comply with rulings of the Inter-American Court of Human Rights. And now we have "Comedians of the revolution" who have even published books but who seem to ignore the seriousness of an authoritarian regime, where the only allowable laugh if the leader’s. Any other laugh runs the risk of being labeled counter-revolutionary and be persecuted.

My grandmother said an inescapable truth: Not everything can be bought, but everything must be paid. Applied to our case, humor can’t be bought, but fear can be paid with humor.

Translated by Carlos Elio Mora @carloselio