The Middle East is no laughing matter

TO understand the American psyche — their state of mind three months after September 11 — one should look no further than the jokes making rounds on American television. Many of the jokes are aimed at Saudi fugitive Osama bin Laden.Last Friday, for example, Osama bin Laden was the focus of the season opener of a popular cartoon show called South Park, featuring four swearing and cursing 9-year old American kids — Stan, Kyle, Kenny and Eric. The episode titled “Osama bin Laden Has Farty Pants” (whatever that means) begins with the four nasty children raising a grand total of $4 dollars for starving Afghani children. To return the kindness, Afghani kids mailed back to America a huge package at first mistaken for anthrax, but which turned out to be a smelly old goat. The four kids decide to return the goat back to Afghanistan, something they do by hiding on a military transport plane to Kabul. Upon landing, they are shocked when their Afghani counterparts tell them bluntly, “We hate Americans”. Disappointed, the little ones begin to wander through the streets of Kabul and are seized by remnants of Taliban troops who take them to Osama bin Laden’s hideaway cave. Things get serious when Osama bin Laden (whose cartoon image is depicted as a large-eared, shaggy-bearded Moslem with an oversized white turban on his head) decides to hold the children for ransom. In the end, Bin Laden is shot dead by a Marine who happened upon the Saudi as he sat stunned by a grenade explosion. All ends well as the kids return home as heroes. The show is funny because it uses racial stereotype — the untrustworthy, evil-eyed Osama is a Moslem fanatic with no brains. To boot, the kids discover that bin Laden’s male member is so tiny that magnifying glasses are needed to locate it. And when a voluptuous woman riding a camel falls in love with Osama, the alleged terrorist ignores her and, instead begins kissing and making passes at the camel. On the surface of it, the depiction of Osama bin Laden as a wacky cartoon character is nothing to worry about. But, at a deeper level, the cartoon creators are doing their best to soothe jangled American nerves. The message is, “Don’t worry about Osama bin Laden, he is just a bad joke.” Call it mass therapy for a people isolated from the real world by living in a comfortable cocoon. Of course, that bubble was busted by the September 11 terror attacks, and America rudely awoke from its sweet dreams. Now, unable to face the real world, Americans have found refuge in gutter jokes about bin Laden and his followers.The only problem is that as the jokes escalate into tasteless racial slurs, Americans are further isolated from reality. Like a replay of a bad movie, these jokes now tar all people of Arab and Islamic heritage including fourth and fifth generation Arab-Americans. The same type of racial isolation occurred during the Second World War when Japanese were regarded as “evil slit-eyed Japs”, and innocent Japanese-American were incarcerated in the US and Canada. Already, the effects of this racist policy is being felt —- last week, the Secret Service whose job it is to protect the US president admitted that one of its agent on his way to guard George Bush in Texas was twice denied a flight on American Airlines because he was armed. What they did not say, but which later came out was that the agent is an Arab-American. It took the combined effort of the White House and Secret Agent Office to convince the Airline that the man was indeed legitimate. Though it may be a moot question, one is forced to ask what the situation is like for ordinary Arab-Americans who do not have the weight of the White House behind them.Furthermore, the jokes are designed to reduce complex issues into simplified Disney-like explanations — Osama Bin Laden has short penis and lusts after a camel, and unlike us Americans, he is a weirdo who blows up things. While this makes the average American laugh out aloud because it sounds funny, it does not help him or her make sense of serious world issues including the explosive situation in the Middle East. Moreover, that limited thought process extends toward other world issues. African children are naked and starving because they are poor. They are poor because African tribes are always trying to kill each other. Islamic fundamentalists hate American way of life so they foolishly try to destroy it. Citizens of the Third World are lazy and could never work hard enough to pay off public debts. And so forth.The bottom line is that it’s one thing to laugh at Osama bin Laden as a clueless terrorist, it’s another to ignore serious issues of international injustices such as what is happening in Palestine. That’s no laughing matter.