Comedy in Afghanistan? Yes!

by Brian McKim & Traci Skene on February 25th, 2005

From a Christian Science Monitor article:

KHOST, AFGHANISTAN– Mubariz Bidar would give Robin Williams a run for his money. He’s an Afghan comic who has this city– once ruled by severe Taliban– howling at their former oppressors.

Shortly before 9/11, days before, probably on the first or second of September, we put up an item about how the Taliban were bulldozing discos in Afghanistan on our Like We Care page. (The title, as we recall, was something like, “Hey, Mr. Taliban, Tally me bananas…”) After the attacks, we took it down immediately, lest anyone think that it was SHECKYmagazine that provoked the wrath of the al Quaeda. (Not really, but we still took it down.)

Even when in power, the Taliban were the butt of jokes – behind closed doors– that targeted everything from their spot checks for shaved armpits (a rule in Islam) to the radio call-in show where people dedicated songs by mullahs (minus the music, of course). Like others, Afghans have used humor to channel dissent, avoid aggression, and let people separate themselves from the ruling group, experts say.

From youth using humor to cope with– and eventually bring down– Serbian leader Slobodan Milosevic, to comedian Jay Leno’s post 9/11 monologues of Osama bin Laden jokes, comedy is gaining legitimacy as a post-conflict healer.

Fascinating story, worth the whole ten minutes or so it might take to go and read it. And it certainly puts things in perspective.

But after the Soviet invasion of 1979, actors slipped out of the country and comedy declined. During the factional fighting in the early 1990s, mujahideen literally blew the roof off the once-stately theater that used to show Molière and Chekhov adaptations. And when the Taliban arrived in 1996, comedy came to a standstill.

Now, with more than $8 billion worth of reconstruction aid estimated to flow into the country during the next 3 years, comedy is finding its footing once again.

Funny… comedy came to a standstill here in America at roughly the same time. Of course, it was for radically different reasons.

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