What happens when nonviolent political activists use humour to challenge those they consider more powerful than themselves? What does it mean to the activists, and what types of responses does the use of humour generate from opponents, media, police, bystanders, and other activists? These questions first started to interest me in 2003 when a Serbian activist told me about his experience with using humour to oppose the rule of the Serbian dictator Slobodan Milošević some years before. According to the young man, who had been active in a group called Otpor, humour had been an effective way to make Otpor different from other opposition groups and attract new young activists. Humour also lowered levels of fear and created situations it was difficult for the regime to find an adequate response to. This was indeed intriguing news, which pointed me in the direction of investigating how subordinate and marginalised political groups use humour to expose, ridicule and influence those they consider more powerful than themselves, both in dictatorships and in democracies. It is explorative research that raises more questions than it answers. The guiding question throughout this book is:
What role can humour play in facilitating resistance to dominant discourses and powerful institutions and people?
When discussing this question, I have been met with two types of reactions. So-called “ordinary people” and political activists have generally reacted with enthusiasm and believed political humour to be a useful tool for political change. Most of these “ordinary people” share the view that is prevalent in many societies—that humour is something positive and valuable in human interaction. They have no doubt that humour can have an effect on politics and rarely question the more troublesome sides of humour. However, in the literature on humour, it has for decades been a persistent claim that humour cannot “really” have an impact on relations of power and that it is “just” a way of letting off steam. This discrepancy between an everyday understanding and part of the scholarly work on humour is to me an indication that here lies an interesting research question that deserves more attention. In addition, such different views not only are interesting from a theoretical point of view but can have implications for the decisions activists struggling for a better world make about which methods to use.
The data I have relied on indicate that the positions of unbridled optimism and strong scepticism are both inadequate and that the reality of real-world activism is complex. It is not straightforward to use humour in order to achieve political change, and it can be extremely difficult to convey the message that activists want to send to the intended audiences. However, the sceptic’s idea that humour cannot really change anything might look simple but raises a whole set of questions about what “real change” is and how one is to know when it has happened. The contrast between seeing political humour as a form of subversion versus perceiving it to be a vent for frustration which cannot pose any “real” threat sets the stage for Chapter 2. Here, the concept of “humorous political stunts” is defined and shows how some forms of publicly displayed humorous actions can indeed contribute to undermining the apparently powerful (for instance, when dominant ideas about what is true and right are ridiculed or turned upside down). Although such pockets of resistance might not have immediate effects, they can be attacks in the discursive guerrilla war which cannot easily be ignored.
In Chapter 3, humorous political stunts are divided into five different types, depending on the way they position themselves in relation to the dominant discourses’ claim to rationality and truth. Although humour is always bound by a certain context and can make sense only to audiences that are familiar with the points of reference, humorous political stunts have been used in a range of different political situations. Ten examples from around the world, performed between 1974 and the present, illustrate what is meant by supportive, corrective, naïve, absurd and provocative stunts.
Humorous political stunts can facilitate outreach and mobilisation and contribute to sustaining a culture of resistance. This is the theme of Chapter 4, in which examples of supportive, corrective and absurd stunts performed by the Swedish anti-militarist network Ofog serve as the starting point for examining these aspects. Although Ofog operates within a specific context, the conclusions regarding mobilisation and cultures of resistance are relevant for a much wider range of political situations. The Swedish activists’ experiences are compared with other studies about humour (in particular, Serbian Otpor mentioned above).
Chapter 5 investigates how humorous political stunts can confront the state. In Norway, the group Kampanjen Mot Verneplikt (KMV) combined humorous and non-humorous activities during the 1980s in its struggle for a change in the law on conscientious objection. The chapter explores how KMV and other groups have used humorous political stunts to create a spectacle that appeals to mass media and results in favourable coverage. Additionally, KMV sued the Norwegian state for violation of the constitution and their human rights and together these strategies resulted in the desired outcome in 1990, when the law was changed by parliament.
Activists experimenting with humour face dilemmas and potential risks linked to the use of humour, something which is explored in Chapter 6. First of all, there is a possibility that people who engage in humorous political stunts might not be perceived as serious about the issue. A second risk is that humour might be misunderstood and taken literally, especially when irony is used to say one thing but mean another. Third, some activists consider it unwise to mix the humorous with the non-humorous, but in a world where rational argumentation persists to be the norm, it is difficult to experiment with humour without combining it with non-humorous activities. Fourth, ridicule might be experienced as abuse, something which requires ethical considerations regarding when it might be acceptable to ridicule those who represent dominant discourses. The final dilemma to be discussed is the claim that satire might make people disillusioned rather than encourage them to take action.
Chapter 7 discusses the relationship between humorous political stunts and the theory of nonviolent action. Taking as its point of departure Stellan Vinthagen’s theory of nonviolent action, this chapter explores how humour interacts with each of the four dimensions of nonviolence identified by Vinthagen. The strength of humorous political stunts is their ability to temporarily or symbolically break power when pranksters for a moment take control of the political scene. Some types of humorous political stunts are also strong on the aspect of utopian enactment when they demonstrate a future with more room for spontaneity, generosity, love, carnival and fun. Many humorous political stunts, at least compared with a violent alternative, are also oriented towards facilitating dialogue. However, the communicative aspect is not aimed at the “opponent” as envisioned in Vinthagen’s theory but is directed towards other audiences. Like most other temporary nonviolent actions, humorous political stunts do show signs of normative regulation, but their shortness prevents them from reaching their full potential.
Introduction
Jennifer Louise Lopez lives in Harlem in New York. In 2014, she passed The ATLAH Worldwide Missionary Church, which is well known for its condemnation of homosexuals. Outside the church was a sign that said “Jesus would stone homos”, and since she is a lesbian, Jennifer decided to take action, but with an unusual twist to it. The next day, Jennifer knocked on the door, and with a video camera in hand, she told the man who opened the door that she had come for her stoning. After some initial confusion, it turned out that the man did not have any stones, so he asked her to come back the next day. Jennifer posted the video on her Facebook account and it soon went viral. 1
On Christmas day 2015, the Danish author Christian Mørk sent a letter to the Danish minister of integration together with his grandmother’s ring. The letter was a reaction to a law proposal from the government which would make it possible for Danish authorities to confiscate valuable belongings from asylum seekers. 2 Cash, jewellery or other items which could be sold to pay for the asylum seekers’ stay in Denmark while their cases were pending were part of the new law. The proposal was applauded by people who wanted to reduce the number of refugees seeking asylum in Denmark, but also created enormous outrage. 3 Some people drew parallels to the Nazi confiscation of Jewish property, and it was called a violation of international human rights law. In his letter, Mørk explained that his great-grandparents came to Denmark as refugees and as far as he knew they were never asked to deliver their belongings at the border. On the contrary, Mørk wrote that he is grateful for all the privileges he and his family have had in Denmark. He continued that he did not know what the ring was worth but wanted the minister to keep it as a retrospective pledge because “I have much to be Denmark grateful for. Not least its citizens’ ability to act with consideration and dignity instead of blindness”. 4
Lopez and Mørk are two individuals who got upset about a political issue and decided to take action. They both created a stunt with an ironic, humorous twist which they shared with others via social media like Facebook and YouTube. Actions like these raise questions about how political humour affects its audiences and what happens when public political humour is used as a form of resistance without necessarily having any immediate results. Lopez and Mørk’s stunts got considerable attention when the stories about them went viral and were picked up by mainstream media as well. However, as it seems from interviews they have given, neither of them was part of an organised group or campaign but acted completely on their own. In contrast, the other examples included in this book were carried out as collective efforts by groups of people, many of whom self-identify as “activists”. Some come together just to perform humorous political actions, but many are driven by concerns about a particular political issue and include humour in their activism as one method or tactic among many others. What meaning does humour have for activists when it comes to facilitating outreach to the general public, mobilisation of new activists or sustaining a culture of resistance within the group? Just as important is the question of what role humour can play in creating change when it is combined and intertwined with non-humorous forms of activism. Before dealing with these topics in later chapters, I start with clarifying my understanding of the term “humour” and its possibility for subverting existing relations of power. In order to discuss the latter, I introduce the notion of humorous political stunts and the analysis of them facilitated by a metaphor of play of politics and the concept of discursive guerrilla war.
What Is Humour?
Humour is a special way of communicating which is based on ambiguity and incongruity. In itself, humour is neither good nor bad. Like any other method or medium for communication, it can be used to hurt other people, just as it can serve to make them happy. This ability to both unite and divide has been c...
