African humour: A golden age?

By Dan Hammett

My colleagues and I have lost count of the number of times we have each been asked, ‘Why do you research humour?’

The honest and obvious answer is that it’s fun. Who doesn’t want to enjoy their work?

At the same time, we ‘seriously’ understand the power of laughter, jokes and comedy.

Humour is everywhere and always powerful – whether as an expression of resistance or opposition - as a means of maintaining power over marginalised groups, or as a means of coping with everyday life and hardship.

Across the continent, we have seen how humour is produced, consumed and contested in multiple ways – how jokes and joking relationships can be used to maintain peace between communities, provide individuals a means of coping with everyday hardships, and how different understandings of a joke can inflame tensions (particularly between states and societies) and ultimately on occasion lead to violence.

The power of humour

Yet, debates on humour and politics in Africa often reduced humour to simply being a space of resistance – or, more often, a moment of resistance that achieved little other than to remind citizens of the state’s power.

We think about African humour in multiple and simultaneous ways, and make efforts to recognise how humour itself is powerful. This is not to say that African humour is either homogenous or distinct.

Rather, humour in Africa has a long history and multiple expressions – from the work of imbongi or Wawan Sarki (meaning - palace's chief comedian in the Hausa language) in a traditional Chief’s court to the joking relations between communities, to the emergence of stand-up comedy and political cartoons.

As elsewhere, humour and politics are intertwined – in poking fun at political figures or events, as a tool for politicians to undermine their opponents, as a strategy for leaders to appear approachable and in-touch with communities, as a means for citizens to reflect on and cope in times of struggle, but also simply as a means of entertainment.

In other words, humour itself can and does a lot of ‘political work’ in ways that can be both progressive and regressive, often through the accrual of small but significant moments.

On an everyday level, it is an accessible arena for social and political participation that can overcome disparities in economic or political power to provide people with an opportunity to speak truth to power and stake claim to civic participation.

This may be through the (sharing of) portrayals of political leaders in unflattering ways or joking about their shortcomings and mistakes.

Humour changing trend

At the same time, however, political leaders may co-opt comedians to perform as part of maintaining power such as through election rallies to drum-up support for their cause or may joke about and use humour against marginal communities as a means of maintaining social division.

Certainly, while jokesters and comedians may enjoy relative freedom to poke fun at political leaders in some African countries, elsewhere joking can be a matter of life and death.

In recent years we have seen reports of cartoonists, comedians and other jokesters being kidnapped, beaten, imprisoned, killed, and forced into exile.

This shows the ultimate power of humour and its ability to have real world consequences.

Once upon a time, colonial powers used legislation to suppress jokes and satire at the expense of elites.

The ending of the colonial era was expected to allow much greater political freedom – and thus for satire to flourish.

However, in many contexts this proved a false dawn as various leaders in newly-independent nations continued to suppress satire and joking at the expense of political leaders.

More recently though, the picture continues to shift. While there is increasing tolerance for some forms of political humour (stand-up comedy in particular) in various countries, continued legal and extra-legal persecution of cartoonists, satirists and others persists.

Amidst the ongoing ebbs-and-flows of political change across the continent, has there been a golden age for African humour?

Arguably it is happening now with comedians flourishing and arguably as famous as musicians and charismatic preachers. But to try and say this is unique right now would be inaccurate.

Humour has always existed in a range of forms in every corner of the continent. A book I and my colleagues Laura Martin and Izuu Nwankwo wrote aims to build upon and recognize what existed and persists by way of humour’s political work, regardless of state-backed efforts to support, tolerate or suppress dissent.

The author, Dan Hammett, is a Senior Lecturer at the Department of Geography, University of Sheffield, UK and Senior Research Fellow, Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa.

Disclaimer: The views expressed by the author do not necessarily reflect the opinions, viewpoints and editorial policies of TRT Afrika.

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