Syria Today | Laughing in the Dark

In spite of and because of difficult times, Syrians are managing to laugh and to make others follow suit.

By Sarah Abu Assali
Cartoon Ala Rustom

With hundreds of men and women cheering and dancing in the street, loud live music and singing, the scene seems like a wedding. Indeed, there are actually two chairs set out on a high plateau, such as are usually designated for a bride and a groom. But as the camera zooms in, it becomes clear that there are no actual human beings sitting there, but rather a gas cylinder, dressed as a bride, and a diesel container as the groom. The video depicts the wedding of two precious – and recently scarce – resources. It also exemplifies how people in Homs, well-known for their sense of humour, are reacting to hardships.

Funny protest banners such as once enlivened the Egyptian revolution, sarcastic Facebook pages, cartoons and animated short films, as well as amateur videos depicting staged comic scenes, have all found their way to the Syrian masses, mostly via internet and social networks, and have even become the subjects of several media reports.

Making light of hardship
Sarcastic protest banners from Kafer Nubbul, a small town in Idleb, have made the town famous across the country for its people's humour and intelligence.

A Facebook page entitled "Kafer Nubbul's Great Banners" is now dedicated to publishing images of their most recent creations.

One of the banners declared that new school uniforms should firstly include a helmet, a gas mask, and bullet-proof vest, referring to the dangers that children may face while going to school in restive areas.

"A complete eclipse of the moon... and of the Arab League," announced another banner from a protest on December 11 that coincided with a lunar eclipse, as well as another extension of an Arab League deadline.

The townspeople's sarcastic skills are also displayed in a video shot in June in which ten men wrapped in white sheets for shrouds emerge from tombs holding banners. Some demands on the banners echo common popular sayings, such as "the dead want the fall of the regime" or even "the dead request the building of new cemeteries" in various Syrian cities. The banners in the video are signed "Kafer Nubbul's cemetery" instead of the usual name of the town.

Other artistic productions also aim at providing sharp critiques of the situation. Top Goon, or "Massit Matti" in Arabic, uses finger puppets in five-minute animated videos that criticise Syrian media propaganda and capture scenes from the daily political turmoil in a sarcastic way. The seven episodes that have been produced to date are made collaboratively by a group of Syrian artists working from inside the country and can be found on the group's official Facebook page and YouTube.

"Given the violence that is happening in Syria, it has become crucial to involve art and employ it to achieve the goals of the revolution and help build a new democratic Syria," one Top Goon videographer who wished to remain anonymous told Syria Today.

He explained that finger puppets are a "safe and peaceful tool" that can be used to convey ideas in a sarcastic way while breaking all political taboos, and that also show that "artists and intellectuals are playing their role."

"[Top Goon] is like a space to relieve people from the violence and pressure to which they are exposed every day," the anonymous videographer said.

Nonetheless, many people interviewed by Syria Today criticised Top Goon for being too extreme.

Social satire platforms
"Songa" is the Chinese pseudonym for the young Syrian mastermind of what is widely held to be the Syrian revolution's most famous Facebook page: "The Chinese Revolution Against the Chinese Tyrant". For Songa, the official state of denial triggered the idea to attribute the happenings here to China instead of Syria, and to Beijing instead of Damascus. The ironic criticism published hourly on his page is mainly provoked by media, and has attracted more than 50,000 fans.

In a special report in December, France24 TV channel interviewed Songa, who appeared with his face distorted for secrecy. "We [Songa and the co-administrator] do not have any political affiliations; we give our opinion and criticise everyone," Songa told the channel.

Other timely Facebook pages have been inspired by media gaffs such as one which occurred on Al-Jazeera's weekly debate programme "Al-Ittijah Al-Mou'akes" (The opposite direction). In this episode, two Syrians, one representing the government and the other the opposition, were pitted against each other in a heated discussion. At the close of the show, one of the guests fell off his chair. In less than two hours, a new page called "The Chair That Plotted Against the Man" had managed to gather more than 2000 admirers who exchanged comments and jokes about both the incident and the conspiracy theory the page had played on.

Likewise, during the Arab League fact finding mission's visit to Syria in December, anti-regime activists accused the Syrian authorities of hiding tanks in school yards and wedding reception halls. Immediately, pro-regime activists mocked these accusations in sarcastic videos and pictures. One Facebook poster shows a small tank inside a microwave and on top it says "Oh look at you, Mom, is this where you're hiding the tank?".

Negative takes
However, not everyone considers these sarcastic creations as funny or worth following. A young man from Damascus, who wished to remain anonymous, says he is not familiar with any of these pages, and that even the ones he had seen by coincidence did not grab his attention. "I just don't care about silly remarks and comments coming from people who obviously have a lot of free time," he argued.

Journalist Hasan Arfeh disagreed. "At this time, when media are showing all kinds of violent scenes without any controlling policies, I see irony and sarcasm as essential to releasing this pressure…[Sarcasm] is like attempting to draw a smile in a storm of tears."

However, Arfeh added, there should be limits to these emerging sarcasms, especially when it comes to offending "higher icons" of authority. "They can be disrespectful and discourteous, since people who are creating them are mostly unprofessional...I do not accept the use of insults under the umbrella of sarcasm and biting satire."

Nevertheless, the laughter caused by sharp and audacious critiques is mainly a response to an often harsh reality. In June, activist Ahmed Marwan appeared in an amateur video shot in Homs that shows him and other young men "firing" a stove pipe which they had fashioned into a mock-cannon by stuffing it with fireworks and setting them off. They were attempting to scare security forces that had surrounded the neighbourhood. Five months later, on November 11, Marwan was allegedly killed by security forces in Homs as he was trying to help an injured woman. No official comment was made on his death.

Omar Idlibi, spokesman of the Local Coordination Committees, commented on his Facebook page: "Ahmed, the hero who once made millions of people laugh, has become Ahmed, the martyr, making hearts and eyes cry."