Humour and Politics in Africa: Beyond Resistance 9781529219739

Table of contents :
Front Cover
Humour and Politics in Africa: Beyond Resistance
Copyright information
Table of Contents
List of Figures
About the Authors
Acknowledgements
Preamble: Have You Heard the One about the Three Academics?
ONE Humour and Politics in Africa
A history of humour in Africa
Humorous contexts: identity and space
Humour and politics: a brief overview
TWO Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance
Mbembe and resistance
Something funny happened on the way to resistance and power
Why the em-farce-is on resistance?
States, hierarchies and agency at play
Humour as coping and (political) self-reflexivity
Humour as meaning-making and social commentary
Humour in taboo-breaking and awareness-raising roles
THREE Beyond the Symbolic
No laughing matter: humour and/as violence
Ambiguities in the power of humour
Stripping power?
Peaceful laughter
Pacifying humour
Knock, knock: who’s there?
The emperor’s old clothes?
The punchline …
FOUR Between Jokes
Defining silence
Silence as action
Jokes and silences at play in African politics
Have you heard the one about … *silence*?
FIVE The Last Laugh?
Changing targets?
Notes
two Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance: Humour, Agency and Power
three Beyond the Symbolic: Humour in Action
four Between Jokes: Silence and Ambiguities within Humour
References
Index

Citation preview

HUMOUR AND POLITICS IN AFRICA Beyond Resistance

DANIEL HAMMETT, LAURA S. MARTIN AND IZUU NWANKWỌ

DANIEL HAMMETT LAURA S. MARTIN IZUU NWANKWỌ

HUMOUR AND POLITICS IN AFRICA Beyond Resistance

First published in Great Britain in 2023 by Bristol University Press University of Bristol 1–​9 Old Park Hill Bristol BS2 8BB UK t: +​44 (0)117 374 6645 e: bup-​[email protected] Details of international sales and distribution partners are available at bristoluniversitypress.co.uk © Bristol University Press 2023 British Library Cataloguing in Publication Data A catalogue record for this book is available from the British Library ISBN 978-1-5292-1971-5 hardcover ISBN 978-1-5292-1972-2 ePub ISBN 978-1-5292-1973-9 ePdf The right of Daniel Hammett, Laura S. Martin and Izuu Nwankwọ to be identified as authors of this work has been asserted by them in accordance with the Copyright, Designs and Patents Act 1988. All rights reserved: no part of this publication may be reproduced, stored in a retrieval system, or transmitted in any form or by any means, electronic, mechanical, photocopying, recording, or otherwise without the prior permission of Bristol University Press. Every reasonable effort has been made to obtain permission to reproduce copyrighted material. If, however, anyone knows of an oversight, please contact the publisher. The statements and opinions contained within this publication are solely those of the authors and not of the University of Bristol or Bristol University Press. The University of Bristol and Bristol University Press disclaim responsibility for any injury to persons or property resulting from any material published in this publication. Bristol University Press works to counter discrimination on grounds of gender, race, disability, age and sexuality. Cover design: Dave Worth / Sophie Vickers Front cover image: CanStockPhoto /​Krisdog (microphone) and iStock /​hibrida13 (Map of Africa) Bristol University Press uses environmentally responsible print partners. Printed in Great Britain by CPI Group (UK) Ltd, Croydon, CR0 4YY

Contents List of Figures About the Authors Acknowledgements Preamble: Have You Heard the One about the Three Academics?

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one two

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Humour and Politics in Africa: An Overview Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance: Humour, Agency and Power three Beyond the Symbolic: Humour in Action four Between Jokes: Silence and Ambiguities within Humour five The Last Laugh? Notes References Index

65 100 125 135 137 163

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List of Figures 2.1 2.2

2.3 5.1

Zapiro’s infamous ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon, published in 2008 Gado’s commentary on the stifling of dissent and critical questions asked of China’s growing role in African politics and development Stand-​up comedian Desmond Benya in action In the face of ongoing load-​shedding by Eskom, Zapiro’s wry commentary ‘Powerless’ illustrates how humour can function as a coping strategy in times of adversity

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55 128

About the Authors Daniel Hammett is Senior Lecturer in the Department of Geography at the University of Sheffield, UK, and Senior Research Fellow at the Department of Geography, Environmental Management and Energy Studies, University of Johannesburg, South Africa. Laura S. Martin is Assistant Professor in Politics and International Relations in the School of Politics and International Relations at the University of Nottingham,  and a research affiliate and advisor at the University of Makeni (UNIMAK), Makeni, Sierra Leone. Izuu Nwankwọ is Research Fellow at the Department of Anthropology and African Studies, Johannes Gutenberg University, Mainz, Germany.

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Acknowledgements The authors would like to thank the reviewers for their useful feedback on an earlier version of this manuscript, as well as the support of the staff at Bristol University Press –​in particular Emma Cook, Philippa Grand, Rebecca Tomlinson, Freya Trand, Zoe Forbes and Stephen Wenham –​for corralling this recalcitrant group of academics through the journey of finishing this book. Thanks are also due to Jan Shelley for sundry support to the realization of this book. This book builds on various projects and discussions with so many generous people –​our thanks to all of those collaborators, discussants, jokesters and comedians (some less intentionally comedic than others). We also would like to thank our respective universities for providing financial support to facilitate various writing retreats at which much of this book was written. Dan would like to thank Lucy and Euan for their love and support (and continued tolerance of his terrible sense of humour), as well as his parents (from whom he learnt his terrible sense of humour). Laura would like to thank her parents and brother for instilling a love of laughter, and for endless support. She would also like to thank Susan Fitzmaurice, Stephen Forcer and the many Sierra Leoneans who have indulged her in many discussions about humour in Africa. Izuu would also like to thank Nenye, Daniel and Dubem for their understanding and love, as well as the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and Matthias Krings, for their support throughout the long period spent in the conception, planning and actualization of this book. We acknowledge the assistance of Gado and Zapiro in providing permissions for us to use their works within this text. We are also very grateful for the work of Sophie Vickers in the design of the front cover of this work.

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Zapiro’s Rape of Lady Justice cartoon was previously published in the Sunday Times (7 September 2008), and ‘Powerless’ was previously published on Daily Maverick (2 July 2022).

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Preamble Have You Heard the One about the Three Academics?

A Brit, an American and a Nigerian walk into a bar in Sheffield in April 2022. No, wait, that would have required the UK Home Office to process the Nigerian’s visa application in time. If you picked up this book hoping for entertaining jokes and witty remarks, your expectations may be rapidly dashed. It is clearly not a book of anecdotes but one that describes the relationships between humour and politics in Africa. As much as we (the authors) like to think we are funny, you –​the reader –​may disagree. This is because even though we find each other hilarious and often laughed over the course of writing this manuscript, the jokes we enjoyed during meetings (Izuu and Dan often told dry dad-​jokes, while Laura regaled them with tales from dating app encounters) may not elicit mirth in other circumstances. We did enjoy these gatherings and saw our discussions as a nice reprieve from ‘that lockdown life’, and at times used humour to deal with set-​backs and logistical challenges –​one of which is alluded to in the earlier ‘joke’. Through the latter parts of 2021, we had worked remotely on sections of this book, emailing draft content to each other and meeting on Zoom and GoogleMeet. By early 2022, we felt it was important to meet for an in-​person writing retreat to work through and finalize the content collectively. To do this, Izuu –​travelling on a Nigerian passport –​needed to come to the UK from Germany. After completing seemingly more

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paperwork than would be needed for an intergalactic trade agreement, Izuu applied for the necessary visa. The planned date for the writing retreat approached and passed, the seasons changed, the ice caps melted, stars were born and died, and eventually the much-​delayed visa was issued and the writing retreat rearranged. Needless to say, our use of humour through this journey was a mix of coping, stress release and commentary on the state of British politics and society. Nevertheless, this book is not about us, nor is it an attempt to subject the audience to our lame (and at times wildly inappropriate) senses of humour. It is a book about the interactions concerning how humour is produced, considered, and consumed, and about how these processes also have political consequences and do various forms of political ‘work’. As a fundamental part of socialization and a highly valued element of everyday life across all societies, humour is, at its core, (quite literally!) human. In both ordinary and uncertain times, humour facilitates interpersonal exchanges and fosters communal wellbeing, while also being a therapeutic space or a coping mechanism in times of stress and anxiety. These features of humour have become remarkably acute and pronounced in the past couple of years in the face of a global pandemic that made socialization particularly difficult (unless you were in the inner-​circles of the British government). Laughter in the face of danger and adversity has proved vital for many –​well clearly not actually laughing in the face, but more a socially distanced chuckle (authors’ note –​we warned you about the dry dad jokes). Amidst the disruptions of the period, various forms of humour kept many of us sane and brought joy to an otherwise bleak period (for one co-​author, it was Love Is Blind and Tiger King memes, for another it was the general craziness of his cats, political satire on Twitter and a daily diet of editorial/​ political cartoons, for the third it was a complete recourse to African stand-​up videos, especially those of comedians who satirized the craziness of some of the political leaderships in

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Africa). Regardless of what we find amusing, the need to laugh is ultimately such a significant aspect of what it is to be and feel human. While its format, forum and content can vary across identity and cultural categories, humour has a universal application and appeal. However, the processes through which it is evoked differ hugely, owing to the various ways people read offensiveness and amusement, especially given that there is a thin line between the two –​offence and risibility (Nwankwọ, 2019; Odenbring & Johansson, 2021). Put simply, even though we like to laugh and laughter carries us through the best and the worst of times, what makes people laugh varies to the point that what is considered funny in one environment can be outrightly insulting in another. Even within the same context or environment, the divergence between intent and reception –​ between the jokers’ intention and the various readings of the joke by different members of the audience –​can be substantial. Hence, while we recognize certain common characteristics across societies, our discussions focus upon more culturally specific elements and expressions in our discussions around the politics and agency of humour within and between African countries and contexts. While we attempted to engage with a range of different empirical examples across the continent, our book largely takes its examples from English-​speaking countries in Africa (and relies on secondary literature for other languages) due to the limits of our own linguistic expertise. As we explore the intended and unintended interconnections and interactivity of politics and humour within this book (and we will try to provide the odd moment of levity or the occasional chuckle along the way) we aim to provide a double movement. The first is to move beyond the dominant focus on humour in the Global North and further extend the work of scholars, such as Ebenezer Obadare and Peter Limb, by building upon some of their insights and providing further nuances and contextually rooted considerations of humour. The second movement is a conceptual one. The political power of humour is well-​recognized (Obadare, 2009) –​but

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is often reduced to or conflated with a focus on resistance. Humour thus is commonly studied as a space or moment of opposition, a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott, 1985), with a recurring reference to both traditions of court jesters and the importance of political cartoons and satire as ‘key indicators of the democratic health of a polity’ (Hammett, 2010a, p 2). While we acknowledge the validity and centrality of these discussions, we do so with the aim of exploring why these conversations have evolved in the ways they have over time. In recent years, these debates have expanded to various fields of study –​from politics to literature, from area studies to political geography –​ to think in more diverse ways about the everyday political life of humour (Clark, 2019; Eriksen, 2019; Fluri, 2019; Fluri & Clark, 2019; Routledge, 2019). These engagements have offered insights into the role of late-​night political satire in shaping and challenging political agendas and participation (Baumgartner & Lockerbie, 2018), the creative use of online spaces to circumvent censors and share skits, memes and other humour products in efforts to rework and challenge political hegemony (Mukhongo, 2020; Gukurume, 2022), in critiquing race-​thinking in everyday life (Nkoala, 2021), and as simultaneously a space of distraction and disciplinary power during COVID-​19 lockdowns (Ndlovu, 2021). Crucially, in each of these situations the authors have pointed to humour as a serious business, a mode of communication which may (inadvertently) reproduce and replicate discriminatory tropes and stereotypes but which can also disrupt and challenge these, and which may seek to strip power away from or contest the legitimacy and ubiquity of hegemonic political power. Thus, when Peter Limb (2018, p xiii) argues that there is no contradiction in taking cartooning (and humour) seriously, he contends that humour is a tool used not only to elicit laughter but also to highlight ‘the daily events and crises in our societies as well as the idiocies or significance of politics’. For Limb, this political work is aligned to ‘bolstering the resilience of grassroots people in the face of the exercise of power’ (2018,

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p xiii). Ultimately, it is our objective to push the boundaries of these debates by exploring humour and politics in African contexts on its own terms by illustrating that the jokes embedded within this amusement and political work have their own agency, which can then inform and result in a range of both positive and negative consequences. In thinking of humour as having agency, we focus on the potential capacity for transformation (progressive, conservative or regressive) that resides within joking and laughter. This potential is powerful –​ and, importantly, may be both intended and unintended. The humourist may expect to evoke laughter or make a particular point with their intervention –​however, the joke can take on a life of its own as different audiences may receive, respond and react to it in different, perhaps unexpected, ways. It is within these micro-​dynamics that much of the power and potential for political work of humour resides. As scholars in and of Africa, we share a profound love for humour, and particularly how it entrenches itself in (and beyond) politics on the continent. We also acknowledge the interdisciplinarity of studies around Africa and humour itself, and how they both deal with intersecting issues related to a wide range of disciplines (including anthropology, history, sociology, political science, human geography, among myriad others in the humanities). As mentioned earlier, the bulk of existing literature (and particularly literature on Africa) focuses on the role of humour as a tool of resistance (or at a minimum, often feels the need to make reference to these debates). Our aim is to broaden the scope of this analysis to look at the dynamic and multifaceted nature of humour in relation to African politics specifically. Broadly, humour and politics are inevitably intertwined in a variety of ways –​humour can, of course, be of a political nature, often poking fun at political figures or events, and also used by politicians to undermine opponents and highlight their shortcomings, as well as being a strategy of deception because it makes them appear approachable and in-​touch with the ‘common people’.

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Humour can also be a lens for analysing people’s perspectives in and of society (which inevitably have a political element to them). In addition, it is a coping strategy in times of struggle and hardship (as many of us have recently experienced) and of course has inherent entertainment value endemic with laughter. While not always directly, all of these uses and characteristics inevitably intersect with politics in some form. Humour itself can also become politicized or part of more overt political processes, deployed to either resist, maintain and/​or entrench the social and political status-​quo. Thus, there are infinite possibilities for analysing the complex and ambiguous nature of humour and politics in relation to what we will refer to in this book as ‘political work’. Such work can be progressive or regressive, or both and can intersect with other dimensions and modes of the social world. The political work humour does can and does have real world consequences, perhaps in mundane and fleeting ways or through more cumulative processes, but nonetheless, we aim to more explicitly magnify the ways in which these processes work, underlining the power and agency of humour itself. The intersections of humour and politics, and the potential for humour to do extensive amounts of political work, are the focus of the following chapters. Albeit a short book, we still aim to make it action (and theory!) packed as we argue that jokes themselves have agency, which travel far and wide and result in the political work we analyse in the book. Chapter 1 offers a brief summary overview of key literature and debates on the role –​and intersections of –​humour and politics in Africa. These debates foreground the critical contributions that follow, acknowledging the importance of historical, political and socio-​economic contexts in framing the evolution and use of humour in different settings. Chapter 2 explores the literature on humour and politics in Africa in more detail, analysing why precisely the discourses on resistance have become so prevalent (something that has not been extensively analysed up to this point). Chapter 3 goes beyond the theoretical and explores the

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real-​world consequences of humour and joking in different contexts across Africa, illustrating how humour does actual political work. Finally, Chapter 4 examines the relationship between silence and unlaughter –​what happens when people do not laugh and the political significance of what is also not said (or done) as well. All of these everyday subtleties –​in Africa and beyond –​are doing political work.

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ONE

Humour and Politics in Africa: An Overview

A history of humour in Africa In the past few decades, there has been a significant increase in published works exploring the multiple and shifting roles of humour in various African contexts. Gathara (2004) and Mason (2010a), for instance, provide book-​length sociological and historical overviews of cartoons in South African and Kenya, respectively, while Donian (2019) and Nwankwọ (2021) study the different periods of stand-​up comedy development in Nigeria and South Africa, respectively. Alongside these nationally focused works, key collections by Lent (2009) and Limb and Olaniyan (2018) offer continental-​level reviews of the evolution and political power of cartooning across Africa. Nwankwọ’s edited volume (2022a) also contains chapters on various stand-​up comedy practices in different parts of the continent. There are also more specialized works that have engaged with specific examples of cartoons and comic strips across the continent (Mbembe, 2001; Eko, 2007, 2010; Hammett, 2010a; Mason, 2010a; Willems, 2011); live performances such as everyday jokes and joking patterns/​ relationships (Obadare, 2010; Hernann, 2016; Chukwumah, 2018); storytelling and stand-​up comedy (Seirlis, 2011; Musila, 2014; Källstig & Death, 2021; Nwankwọ, 2022c), comedic theatre (Povey, 1969; Haynes, 1994; Michieka & Muaka, 2016), oral performances (Scheub, 1985; Dowling, 1996; Johns,

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2009); comedy films (Crigler, 2018; Ebrahim, 2018); and funny music/​song renditions (Olaniyan, 2004). Additionally, there is an immense amount of literature that explores humour within traditional print media under which we also find cartoons, as well as billboards, drama, sitcoms, and jocular magazine/​ newspaper publications and talk shows (Limb & Olaniyan, 2018; Rabe, 2018). Further, with the ever-​growing expansion of digital technology and, in some areas, satellite television, African humour now circulates via electronic and social media formats, as well as in the form of reality television and game shows (Neuendorf et al, 2014; Ngwira & Lipenga, 2018; Zirugo, 2021). Online presence, virtual self-​performance, and the creation of social media content and participation have also proliferated across the continent in the past decade (Cheruiyot & Uppal, 2019; Vanyoro & Vanyoro, 2019; Lomotey, 2020; Mukhongo, 2020; Matsilele & Mututwa, 2021). While not all of these studies have humour-​centred perspectives, they contribute to the expansion of the corpus and scope of literature on African comedy. Studies on the social and political roles of humour have largely relied upon case studies from the Global North, especially examining its various dimensions –​ the intention versus reception of humour (Bonello et al, 2018; Tesnohlidkova, 2021; Nieuwenhuis & Zijp, 2022), its politicization (Ridanpää, 2009; Holm, 2017; Young, 2017), and its role to simultaneously offend and coalesce societies (Paletz, 1990; Tsakona & Popa, 2011; Takovski, 2020). The limited engagement with examples from Africa is due to a range of factors: challenges and exclusionary practices posed by academic publishing processes; an increasing reduction of interest in humanities and languages, which in turn hampers academic research on the continent; and the historical (and pervasive) tendency for work on and from spaces outside the Anglo-​American ‘core’ to be viewed as exotic and atheoretical. Invariably, the predominance of focus on works from and about the Anglo-​American ‘core’ in many academic disciplines, both in relation to research and

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teaching, has led to a continued coloniality of knowledge (Thiong’o, 1981). As such, without African perspectives and local (particularly linguistic) knowledge, there is a significant gap in understanding humour and its role in political work on the continent. While some of the theoretical aspects of existing literature on humour and politics in the Global North have implications across different societies, they cannot account for, nor engage with the intricacies of understanding humour, which frequently derive from local and contextual awareness of language and culture. Consequently, the African angle, which until very recently has been relatively scarce, or explored as a by-​product of other ‘more scientific’ research, is a necessary component for a more holistic understanding and appreciation of the different dimensions of contemporary humour, particularly given that it is such a critical part of everyday life in Africa. It almost sounds ridiculous to trace the history of humour in any society given the universality of laughter and its many variants across such a range of cultures. To complete a detailed historical review of humour across Africa would be a vast undertaking. Rather than try to produce this detailed overview here, we offer an initial introduction to the field and encourage readers who want to deepen their understanding to engage with other pieces such as Lent’s (2009) collection on the historical evolution of African cartooning, or Nwankwọ’s (2022a) collection on stand-​up comedy in Africa. A general history does not intend to homogenize humour elicitation practices on the continent but rather recognizes the peculiarities of the evolution of various comedic forms within individual communities. Each of the humour-​generation formats –​from court jesting and storytelling traditions to cartoons and stand-​ up comedy –​developed differently within particular historical and political settings. In other words, a substantial part of contemporary African popular cultures has been indelibly framed and influenced by various forms and encounters with colonization and other cultures. However, the continent’s

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humour production and consumption are still, in large part, shaped by indigenous, precolonial traditions, as well as evolving technological, legal and social conditions. The implication is that African humour today comes from a combination of old and new cultural forms. African oral traditions, which range from storytelling and personal narratives to ensemble performances like masquerades, puppets, and dance, all variously exhibit elements of humour. Opportunities for laughter underpin relations across different social circles, while more ensemble enactments, such as dance, were reserved for festivities. Hence, as part of leisure and work environments and engagements, people exchanged playful opportunities for humour in interpersonal, group and family relations, among friends as well as within individual communities (Finnegan, 1970 [2012]; Ebewo, 2001; Chima, 2017). The use of subversive humour within folklore and story-​telling was, for communities such as the Khoi in South Africa, a vital ‘cultural strategy in dealing with the powerful, and [deployed] to adapt them to the challenges of living with and under the colonial intruder’ (Wittenberg, 2014, p 607). Kerr (1995) gives a comparative discourse of satirical masks in several precolonial African societies, detailing how they were used as part of ‘goofy’ chants and songs to ridicule people. Other academic works explore the specificities of masquerading and humour within different communities, describing the several formalistic and functional uses of masking during both pre-​and postcolonial periods (Ottenberg, 1982; Enekwe, 2017; Okagbue & Kasule, 2021). Jimoh (2019) takes the notion of masking further, arguing that other forms of satire often use ‘masks’ to conceal the main subject of ridicule, thereby circumventing censorship and facilitating the possibility to oppose and lampoon oppressive political regimes. Colonization inevitably altered the nature and content of humorous enactments and presentations given its imposition of language and genre delineation patterns. The adoption of European languages such as English, French and Portuguese

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in different African countries minimized expressions in indigenous languages upon which pre-​existing humour traditions were erected. Thus, proficiency and fluency in European, rather than local language have become the yardstick for measuring intelligence, literacy and sometimes social status, which in turn, also reshaped how laughter is produced and consumed within the continent (Okolo, 2005; Iwata, 2020). Further, the arbitrary balkanization of Africa (for the convenience of European conquest and subsequent administration) damaged longstanding relationships between neighbours and, in some places, separated communities that spoke the same language. In some situations, these imposed divisions were largely ignored or circumvented in continued everyday movements, interactions and relationships (Nugent, 2019). However, in other contexts these arbitrary boundaries proved far more divisive and continue to contribute to political and social tensions as well as differences. Consequently, splitting Africa into Anglo-​, Franco-​and Lusophone nations meant separating nations of the continent into linguistic blocs that often restrict exchanges between those with common borders. For instance, in West and Central Africa, there are now just five English-​speaking countries, with some of them, such as Ghana and Nigeria, completely surrounded by others where French is the official language. In southern Africa where most of the countries are English-​speaking, Mozambique and Angola stand out as Portuguese-​speaking territories, yet they do not share a common boundary. The implication of these divisions, apart from the obvious usurpation of precolonial contacts between the constituent communities and their neighbours across the European-​imposed boundaries, is that intra-​continental exchanges are now built along language blocs (Nwankwọ, 2021). Specifically, linguistic commonalities and divergences based on colonial languages create connections between nations even when they do not share common borders and separate those who are neighbours. As a result, colonization and its innumerable effects is at the base of our considerations of

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how people interrelate and interact with humour and politics in Africa. Additionally, within the context of colonial influences, newer humour forms were introduced to the continent, either as entirely original formats or altering pre-​existing traditional ones. The most significant western influence to come into Africa is art categorization, wherein what used to be composite performances with inherent varieties were disaggregated into various self-​standing genres. This is best exemplified in looking at how indigenous languages mostly had one or a couple of alternate terms for ‘play’, to represent every strand of arts we now know to be music, song, dance, theatre, poetry (Okagbue, 2007). Nwankwọ (2021) specifically pinpoints ways in which the remaking of African arts into diverse genres affected stand-​ up comedy, in that what qualified as pre-​colonial equivalents, were more likely categorized as oral poetry and storytelling, thereby denying the continent’s own history of jesting. It is notable, therefore, that much of the literature focusing on humour and politics in Africa fails to recognize how various comedic formats are themselves very much part of historical and political processes, colonialism notwithstanding. For instance, cartoons and stand-​up may be imported comedic formats but they have ultimately become prevalent across contemporary Africa, employing their own unique linguistic and performance styles. There has also been little attention paid to the commercialization and commodification of comedy and humour in Africa –​although there is growing interest in the use of (often political) satire and humour in marketing and advertising by various companies including Nando’s (South Africa) and Mambo’s Chicken (Zimbabwe) (Tshuma et al, 2022). Possibly due to their altered nature, it is often difficult to trace a direct link between these received joking forms and their indigenous equivalents, particularly in the context of emerging capitalist economies. Take the case of stand-​up comedy, and the oft-​overlooked role of pre-​colonial public

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joking traditions such as the wawan sarki (court jester) and ‘yan kama (burlesque artists) in Hausa communities (Furniss, 1996; Kofoworola, 2007). Some scholars have argued that the first court jesters originated in Dynastic Egypt (sometime between 2000 and 2300 BC) and that the role of jesters and fools –​including griots and imbongi have been central to societies across the African continent for centuries (Otto, 2001; Limb & Olaniyan, 2018). Yet, humour scholars have only been able to trace the roots of today’s stand-​up art to the west, thereby excluding forms of jesting that have been in practice on the continent for millennia. Also, even though graphic art forms like mbari (Cole, 1982; Nwachukwu-​Agbada, 1991) and various body arts and design (King & Durbridge, 1999; Utoh-​Ezeajuh, 2008) existed in pre-​colonial Africa for decorative and communicative purposes, the rise of political cartoons during colonialism is often privileged. As a result, the dominant focus of western influences via imported styles and forms of cartooning overlooks pre-​existing forms of visual satire, alongside the implications of commodification of these art forms. Given how cartoons have featured prominently in humour and politics on the continent (Hammett, 2010a; Limb & Olaniyan, 2018), it is evident that western artistic influence on Africa has been prolific. Mason’s (2010a) history of cartooning in South Africa provides a succinct summary of these influences and process within the national context –​from the racism and ideology of London-​based cartoonist George Cruikshank’s 1819 cartoon ‘Blessing of the emigration to the Cape’ and the early pro-​Afrikaner satirical cartoons of William Schroeder which featured in the weekly publication The Knobkerrie (1884–​6) onwards. Lent (2009) argues that humour –​including cartoons –​is often used as a bridge between literate and illiterate sections of a population, often as a ‘survival mechanism’ in times of oppression and crisis. Reflecting on cartooning in Nigeria, Olaniyan (2002) notes the rise of political cartoons as a graphic form of satire in

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the 1940s and, more specifically, as a tool against British imperialism –​in particular the role of Akinola Lasekan as the first indigenous Nigerian cartoonist, whose drawings were published in the West African Pilot newspaper. These works, Jimoh contends, were ‘weapons of propaganda for African nationalism’, and more importantly, that the ‘strategies of satire employed in cartoons were embedded in some traditional Nigerian societies long before the advent of colonialism’ (2019, p 32). It is thus safe to say that ‘what is understood as funny’ is reflective of a particular type of ‘civilizing socialization’ emblematic of the colonial project. Therefore, unlike in the past where understanding humour was reflected within class structures, when the stereotype was that more educated people prefer ‘more sophisticated humour’ with jokes and punchlines while those in the village or city slums favour more circus-​ like, farcical performances, these condition are different now because people, irrespective of their social status, have access to similar forms of humorous enactments within increasingly urbanizing and more mixed-​culture abodes (Chukwuma, 2011; Tulibaleka et al, 2021). This does not mean that there are no differences in what people find funny, and that social characteristics –​such as class, ethnicity and gender –​do not play critical roles in determining people’s response(s) to humour. In some places, such as Sierra Leone, there are divisions along urban and rural as well as class lines regarding what constitute funniness or offence. However, it is important to demonstrate the subtle yet critical ways that colonial legacies, globalization, and technological advancements in worldwide connectivity have become part of mainstream discourse in society, and further begs questions about what it might mean to ‘de-​colonize humour and politics in Africa’. At the heart of these practices is language –​whether in the form of commonly understood visual symbols and figures, or in spoken or written content. Given the vast number of languages spoken across the continent –​both indigenous and colonial –​it is unsurprising that language is an important factor

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when exploring humour in Africa. Given the continent’s cross-​cultural influences and experiences, its manifestations of humour are rooted in a range of languages in which jokes and comedic representations are expressed and ultimately the means through which politics play out. European languages have frequently intersected with indigenous ones over time to create new variants that have become prevalent in popular everyday exchanges, including humour. In East Africa, for example, while there is a dominance in the use of Swahili and English, there is increase in expressions in a more popular linguistic variant known as Sheng (Githiora, 2018). In West Africa, pidginized and creolized versions of English and French have become prevalent in daily exchanges, becoming the lingua franca in places like Sierra Leone, and in Nigeria, employed in stand-​up comedy, cartoons and other humorous performances (Balogun, 2013; Adetuyi et al, 2018; Inyabri & Mensah, 2021). Aside from the appropriation of these emergent languages, African comedy is ‘riddled with’ code-​switching and code-​ mixing, where performances alternate between expressions in European, derivative and indigenous languages. Some comedians are bi-​or multilingual, as seen in South Africa where they speak English, Afrikaans and other indigenous languages in their performances (Wood et al, 2018). The country has also seen an increase in what is known as ‘vernac comedy’ (and, more specifically, female vernac comedy) (Pakade, 2020; Donian, 2022b), where performers regal audiences with anecdotes mainly in indigenous languages like Xhosa, Zulu and Pedi. Rwanda has several jokesters who can speak English, French and Kinyarwanda fluently, who can tell jokes in these languages, sometimes switching between all three in one performance. In Cameroon, certain cartoonists and humourists express themselves in both English and French, thus producing their content in either one or a combination of both languages alongside code-​mixes with local modes of expression. Suffice it to say that based on the ‘language

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Humour and Politics in Africa

question’ of the mid-​and late 20th century, which was a debate on what languages African literature should be expressed (Thiong’o, 1981), we understand that language use is political in and of itself. In humour expressions, that is, the language which cartoonists, comedians and other humourists use in the creation of their works has direct links to the intended audience, the targets of the satire, as well as how the product is accessed and understood. It is also a demonstration of how comedians have not necessarily ‘stuck to’ the rules of one particular language but rather have played and intermingled them to create new contextually specific formats and contents which in and of itself is an important political statement. The language employed for humour mirrors both its historical roots and the originality of its material. Therefore, in its intermix of local dialects with colonial languages, African comedic exchanges create a unique language of humour that possesses utilitarian political objectives. With the multiplicity of modes of expression and the capacity to weave into and out of several languages and cultural representations, African comedians are imbued with the capacity to embody and evoke wide-​ranging humorous content and forms. Interestingly, humour has played, and continues to play, myriad roles in African societies. While we see it as both a tool of power and resistance during the colonial period, humour has a longer history and deeper set of social meanings. It has been –​and is –​used to support social relations, mitigate conflict, cope with challenges, offer moments of escapism, and many other functions; often playing more than one role at any given moment. Ultimately, humour is deeply embedded in societies and often doing a lot of unnoticed political work; and the political work it does cannot be understood without contextual consideration –​be this in terms of languages, pre-​and colonial histories, the arbitrary construction of national borders and local social relations, among many other factors.

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Humour and Politics in Africa

Humorous contexts: identity and space Humour is profoundly particular and culture-​centric (Jiang et al, 2019), often drawing upon in-​jokes, self-​deprecation, local social and political heritages and experiences. This contextual specificity is important, as identity and cultural affiliations have a major bearing on what makes people laugh or feel incensed. In Africa, considerations of the funniness or otherwise of joke material could be dependent on ethnic, as well as religious, gender and class proclivities. In line with intersectional thinking, the combination of these varied and multiple components influence the ways people both tell and receive jokes, which in turn, have been found to both inflame and tame everyday interactions and conflicts across the continent (McCauley, 2018). As noted previously, jokes, direct insults and verbal teases are employed as a way of establishing familiarity and fostering friendliness between participants, whether from one social grouping or many. These typify forms of traditional communication patterns between individuals, groups and communities that underpin ways in which ridicule is not only permitted but also expected, if not required. With these forms of exchanges, there is a prevalence of offence-​suspension and laughter is guaranteed, since the participating parties are aware of the limits of their disparagements and transgressions. It is not only space that matters in terms of context but also time: social and cultural norms and tolerances shift and change. What may have been considered ‘acceptably funny’ by one generation may be seen as entirely inappropriate by another. On a broader scale, these changes over time are evident in the decreasing tolerance for misogynistic, ableist or racist humour. Donian (2022a) takes a historical view of racial colouration in South African comedy from the apartheid to post-​apartheid eras, to underscore how identity differences determine what people could or could not laugh about. Think, for instance, of the reception of Leon Schuster’s slap-​stick comedies. While

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Humour and Politics in Africa

some have suggested that films such as Panic Mechanic allow ‘(white) South Africans to laugh at themselves to relieve the stress of their profound panic about black majority rule’, others have critiqued Schuster’s use of black-​face and a tendency to demean blackness (Ebrahim, 2018, p 200; see also Crigler, 2018). Parallel to these shifting social mores, we see various Afrikaans-​language comedy films such as Tromif/​Triumph and Skoonheid/​Beauty beginning to explore social and political issues including sexual conservativism, homosexuality and Afrikaner conservativism (Ebrahim, 2018). Such (humorous) critical engagements with traditionally ‘taboo’ topics reflect both the importance of understanding the temporal dynamics of context –​that context is continually evolving –​and the pluralism inherent in society. Obadare (2011) states that societies, especially African ones, have always been and continue to be fundamentally culturally pluralistic and complex. As a result, laughter production is dependent upon appropriate and successful social navigation of the constituent vagaries of difference within each locality and performance milieus. While this works successfully within specific nations where audiences are better informed about certain stereotyped forms of difference, it is not the same for exchanges between different nations. Take national identities, for instance, there is always a tendency to homogenize, like in situations where a Kenyan stand-​up artist like Oga Obinna or Eric Omondi speaks about Nigerians or a Nigerian jokester such as Basketmouth or I Go Dye talks about Kenyans or South Africans, as if those countries are made up of a monolithic culture where everyone believes in the same thing, speaks the same language and behaves in the same way. These representations, though prevalent, are inherently faulty but permissible within the context of joke renditions where the knowledge of audiences about the constituent parts of a country they do not belong to is equally as scanty as what can be found in anecdotes. Nevertheless, humour elicitation in Africa, like everywhere else, is primarily based

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Humour and Politics in Africa

on local knowledge. It is therefore pertinent that humourists become mindful of the cultural dynamics, such as deep ethno-​ religious distinctions at play within and between societies that are often not immediately obvious to non-​natives. Where politics is concerned, individual proclivities regarding how people identify, affect how they react to specific humorous representations. While these conditions apply to almost every other human society, what is peculiar about Africa is that affiliations to ethnicity, in some cases, run deeper than national, ideological, and other identities, and for that reason, is often politically charged. Hence, these complexities inherent to heterogenous identities, alongside the history of personal and/​ or group experiences, determine where the line between what is funny and what is considered taboo lie. The space and place in which jokes (and other comedic materials) are told or disseminated are equally critical to which subjects can be broached, how individuals and groups interact with what is being discussed, and ultimately to what extent ‘political work’ is enacted. Humour is aptly described as functioning ‘as a space (literally and figuratively) and as an act’, and that it creates ‘a threshold that the audience is invited to cross, beyond which humour provides a space for what is otherwise difficult to discuss’ (Martin et al, 2021, p 365). Thus, the humour space is often a safe zone within which offence is mitigated by an almost innumerable range of techniques. Yet, irritation is always close by because what we consider humorous often comes from some sort of denigration, absurdity, incongruity and abnormality, which can be accidental or momentarily created by the humourist as a form of permitted transgression. Regardless of the ever-​present possibility for offence, humour provides an avenue –​quite literally a space –​ for deliberations on potentially difficult subject matter. In small groups, among close friends, people may be more willing to make jokes that a comedian may otherwise be reluctant to make with a bigger or more diverse audience. Ultimately, jokes and jokesters, comedy and comedians, cartoons and

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Humour and Politics in Africa

cartoonists are all contingent and require contextualized and nuanced discussions as a means of navigating the boobytraps of creating laughter through sensitive topics and for a diverse audience. As such, individual backgrounds and experiences, as well as identity affiliations influence the reception and in what ways ‘political work’ is done. The spaces and places of joking and humour are important. The editorial or cartoon strip in a newspaper is often seen as a space which is given more leeway to poke fun at political leaders and daily life. In reality, this may be true in some contexts, but in others, cartoonists argue that surveillance and censorship of cartoons is tighter than that of the written content (Limb, 2018). Much of the concern here comes down to whether or not there is tolerance for a ‘profane public sphere’ –​or, put more simply, whether elites and leaders are willing for the public to be invited to laugh at them in open and communal ways. As we explore later, if this public sphere is closed down, humour does not vanish –​it is employed in more hidden ways, shared in more private and intimate spaces and among trusted friends and family, as well as moving to online spaces. Thus, in the face of draconian public order, clamp-​ downs in Zimbabwe in the early 2000s jokes and cartoons did not cease or vanish –​they may have been curtailed in the public sphere but continued to circulate both as paper-​based ephemera (Hammett, 2011) and as memes, jokes and satirical content via emails and social media among Zimbabweans both in-country and in the diaspora. With the proliferation of social media and other internet-​ enabled information dissemination outlets, humour-​making has become an increasing minefield in Africa. The opening-​ up of online spaces has allowed humourists to circumvent the restrictions of censors and create alternative (profane) public spheres in which humour is used to critique and challenge political and social elites, or simply as release-​valves for day-​ to-​day tensions and stresses. For some, these online spaces offer a new form of radio trattoir (pavement radio) in which

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Humour and Politics in Africa

memes, jokes and other content circulate and provide spaces of (fleeting) solidarity, escapism and laughter. However, techno-​ pessimists continue to warn of the perils of online spaces (for instance, in terms of continued government surveillance and the spread of misinformation). Humourists face risks in relation to the ‘after life’ of materials that are released on the internet. In such situations, humourists no longer control who gets to see their content and the spaces in which they can be viewed. The ensuing decontextualization afforded by internet dissemination of humour productions, is a condition described as ‘shifting cognitions of offence’ in contemporary African stand-​up renditions on the internet (Nwankwọ, 2022b). Through such processes, the contexts within which humour is produced, especially for live performances, wherein the specific spatial and temporal context enabled and framed the narrative or action as funny, is often lost or ignored. For this reason, there has been a rise in offence-​taking, which substantially compromises the potential political work that comedy can do. This returns us to the importance of context –​the context not only of the production or performance of the joke, but also that of the reception. When disconnect occurs between the two, the risks of a divergence between intent and reception increase, resulting in a likelihood of offence being taken. However, contextual understandings are not only important in the communication journey from intent to reception but also in the boundaries of where (and when) joking may be tolerated, welcomed or even demanded. While some performances are about eliciting humour for entertainment purposes, anthropologists have long taken note of joking relationships, identifying how social relations are mediated and negotiated through the agency of jokes within precolonial societies (Radcliffe-B ​ rown, 1940; Reynolds, 1958). Studies around these patterns of humour-​making describe traditional jocular interactions that characterize how social relations, including familial and more extended ones between individuals and groups are negotiated. For example, in the

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Humour and Politics in Africa

senankuya variant practised in the Mande society in West Africa, there are historical relationships between families and certain individuals, which are allowed to insult each other upon their meeting and recognition of their ancestry. Launay discusses examples of senankuya exchanges between families and clans across West Africa, stating that within joking relationships, joking is ‘hardly incidental’, but ‘constantly … instantiated’ because the behaviour has to be variously initiated ‘and others have to construe it as appropriate’ (2006, p 795). These forms of permitted ridicule have indubitably been used to mitigate tensions and foster peaceful co-​existence between pastoralists, hunter-​gatherers, and farmers since time immemorial in the societies where they were practised (see Ndiaye, 1993; Wegru, 2000; Smith, 2004; Hagberg, 2006; Tamari, 2006; Sall, 2014). Southern Africa, especially around present-​day Tanzania, also experienced a similar form of joking relationship known as utani, where relations between different communities are moderated with anecdotes and specific kinds of permitted ridicule (Moreau, 1941; Moreau, 1944; Christensen, 1963; Rigby, 1968; Ndagala, 2016). Other more intra-​tribal relations have been identified among the Bachama in north-​eastern Nigeria (Stevens Jr, 1978), to highlight more common examples where humour elicitation is the bedrock moderating conflict in interpersonal relationships within various communities. Among the Igbo in Nigeria, Limb and Olaniyan (2018) argue the combining of sarcasm, jibes, abuse and humour in a form of verbal jousting called njakịrị exemplifies the use of ridicule as a means of maintaining and criticizing social order. Humour contexts thus include the physical environment, audience constitution, the material, and the identity of the performer. In their own ways, the specificities of each of these elements determine how a comedic piece is considered. Even with static examples such as cartoons, the medium through which it is disseminated –​newspaper, social media post and the likes –​as well as whether the reader sees it alone or in a group, and the subject of the piece contributes to how

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Humour and Politics in Africa

humorous or offensive the material may be. Where private or public viewing of comedic materials are concerned, the latter is a shared experience which implies that individual opinions are often moderated by a consensus view of the material. In recent times, owing to increased access to the internet, online posts contribute a lot in shaping what people think about comedic pieces they have read or seen in private. Banjo et al (2015) study co-​viewing, describing how racial differences determine reactions of participating individuals, while Davies (1982) highlights how in-​g roup and out-​group responses to ethnically-​biased comedic content and depictions are formed. The general consensus is that the localized ways in which comedy is produced, exchanged and appreciated often leave ‘outsiders’ wondering what the joke is about or possibly offended by it. This does not mean that there is no ‘bad humour’, since we are aware of the existence of negative labels, especially those that further entrench divisiveness, repress alternative and minority peoples and opinions, and reinforce historically inaccurate stereotypes. All of these statements demonstrate how humour can be both benign and far from benign, and underscore how it also has agency and can result in a range of different actions and reactions. As discussed earlier, humour is best expressed in languages people in particular areas understand, speak and use frequently. Therefore, in addition to the peculiarities of in-​ group comprehension of the immediate and remote cultural references and subjects in a comedic piece, the language used (especially when it is an indigenous or derivative language) further restricts access to the discourse. In addition, comedians’ use of local knowledge, manner of speaking and localized modes of expression restricts access to those who do not know them, further heightening the exclusivity of comedic pieces, often keeping ‘outsiders’ out and enhancing risibility for ‘insiders’ on the account of the ‘other’. Hence, in western spaces where the ‘other(s)’ have gained access, the use of local African languages (both original and derivative variants) is

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Humour and Politics in Africa

minimal. Localized expressions and specialized use of language are kept outside the sphere of joke comprehension. Within this setting, it is possible to ‘mock’ or ‘mimic’ outsiders in ways that could be offensive if more people from the outside gain more access to these joking sites, thereby reinforcing social strata. Furthermore, the diversity of accents within different languages can delineate key identity components, such as nationality, ethnicity, identity, and especially social class. Language is thus central to the analysis of the social and political work of humour. Consequently, there is a multitude of elements that need to be considered and explored surrounding humour research in Africa, but are also reflective of broader discourses around humour, space, language and identity as well. In conclusion, people have always been involved in the production and consumption of humour, both at individual and group levels and for a range of purposes, even if the means and modes have transformed across time and space. Humorous modes have always been understood as part of entertainment but they also have utilitarian uses as well, namely holding people accountable by expressing dissent and using humour to subvert social and political status quos. While these may have been on smaller communal scales historically and among particular groups, the scope and implications of engaging with humour are certainly similar to how we think about humour and politics today in Africa, as well as globally. In other words, there are universalist implications for the means and modes of humour across African societies, but there are also contextually specific elements to pay attention to as well, particularly in exploring what sort of political work humour does (not) accomplish. Humour and politics: a brief overview Ultimately, as this book explicates, humour plays multiples roles –​roles which change and shift across time and space –​ and is expressed and encountered through multiple modes or

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Humour and Politics in Africa

formats, from stand-​up comedy to internet memes to editorial cartoons. Humour is thus not only an everyday presence but is both integral to and has its own everyday life: in other words, humour is not only a lens through which power relations can be addressed and challenged, but has its own agency and is itself a form of power. By agency, we mean a kind of social action that has a capacity for transformation of some kind (whether good or bad) (Giddens, 1984) and ‘is therefore to some degree powerful’ (Apter, 2007, p 3). By engaging more directly with agency in relation to humour and power, it allows for us to see how the micro-​dynamics of the jokesters and the jokes themselves unfold. Political work should also be understood as a subtle and cumulative process. As a form of power humour can be used for or experienced as both progressive and regressive, as a means of stripping power away from and empowering the marginalized, but also as a means of retaining and asserting power over the subaltern. This is not to assume that all humour is overtly or intentionally about politics or those in power. The relationships between humour and politics are complex and by its very nature, often subtle. Therefore, just as it is incorrect to assume that humour is always linked to resistance, so too would it be false to assume all humour is political, sometimes it is merely just fun. But as we go on to explore through the remainder of this book, humour can do a lot of political work but it can also simply be apolitical and escapist, and this can vary across individuals and groups as well. With its plethora of mediums, spaces and fora for its production and consumption on the continent, it is evident that humour has the ability to adapt to and utilize different mediums of communication. This flexibility further underscores the insinuation of humour into daily encounters with power and politics (Purcell et al, 2010). Indeed, there has been extensive literature globally examining the relationship between humour and politics (Davies, 2007; Baumgartner & Morris, 2008; Ridanpää, 2014; Rehak & Trnka, 2019; Bhungalia, 2020), with some focusing particularly on humour’s role as a tool

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Humour and Politics in Africa

of resistance, thus highlighting instances where the subaltern speaks truth to power (Plumb, 2004). Eko, for example, argues that cartoons provide ‘counter-​narratives [and] are instruments of resistance that undermine, demythologize and demystify governmental political mythologies and narratives’ (2007, p 235). Nwankwọ (2022d) also identifies the role of stand-​up comedy in punching up against the excesses of those in power and the overall economic empowerment of youths across Africa. Elsewhere, he notes how stand-​up art provides people with opportunities for laughter and poking fun at power, helping people to keep ‘their sanity and assuring themselves that despite the deceptions and lies from politicians, they still have their wits’ (Nwankwọ, 2021, pp 113–​114). However, cartoons –​and humour more broadly –​have the potential to do political work in not only resisting, but also supporting popular understandings of socio-​economic and political conditions; and even if these moments are unable to change what people think, they may help refocus how they think about political issues (Ridanpää, 2009; Limb & Olaniyan, 2018). More broadly, those studying humour have increasingly emphasized the importance of not only understanding the power relations and socio-​political zeitgeist in which jokes are made and cartoons drawn, but also the communication steps involved (Hammett, 2010a). At the heart of unravelling the political engagement of humour are efforts to understand both the intent and reception of humour (how the joker encodes the ideas to be conveyed and how these are then decoded by different audiences), and the potential discrepancies that may arise when specific subjects and motifs are discussed. More than this, increasing attention is being paid to the ways in which the performance, drama of power and ‘the political’ are entwined with the production of popular culture (Ogola, 2011) and, as a result, creates the spaces and potential for humour to do various forms of political work. Political concerns within humour evocation sit against a broader backdrop in which we see how popular

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Humour and Politics in Africa

culture –​including comic books, cartoons and other forms –​ are used as to promote (and challenge) nation-​building and territorialization projects (Kashani-​Sabet, 1998; Tju, 2004; Musila, 2014; Crigler, 2018). These wider engagements with popular geopolitics and role of popular culture in politics have highlighted the potential for comics and cartoons to be used not only by the subaltern as spaces of resistance (Obadare, 2009) but also as tools of governmentality and control (Hammett, 2022). While these activities are expanding rapidly, there remains a tendency to focus on the production and performance of humour –​and its potential for political work. As a result, there remains very limited enquiries about audiences in relation to humour and joking, despite a wealth of powerful material addressing audience studies more broadly for popular culture (see, for instance, Modisane, 2013). Where efforts have been made to focus more upon the reception and audience reaction to humour, these have remained partial but indicate the potential power of humour to prompt contestation and deliberation of ‘truths’ as part of a heterogenous landscape of political work (Hammett, 2014). These perspectives explore how humour is both progressive and regressive, not only challenging but also potentially reinforcing power, and that it is not always about politics but can also be focused on or concerned with aesthetics, pleasure and entertainment. As Mason (2010a) outlines, four distinct genres of cartoons in South Africa could be distinguished during the latter half of the 20th century: the political/​editorial cartoons of key print media outlets, recreational humour, educational cartoons and underground cartoons. Across each of these genres, however, humour can be understood as doing political work –​from the politically motivated educational comics and cartoons of the 1980s to the longstanding role of editorial cartoons in offering satirical takes on politics and power. The importance of recognizing these multiple roles and functions of humour is to understand that humour can –​ and does –​do a range of political work, and that this work

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Humour and Politics in Africa

is framed by pressures and efforts not only to marginalize criticisms but also by elites (be these political, media or others) to co-​opt humourists to their own agendas. At the core of these concerns are competing claims about rights –​the right to freedom of expression contrasted with the right not to be offended/​responsibility not to cause offence: concerns that we explore in further detail later in this book. As we have sought to indicate in the brief historical precis outlined earlier, humour is not de facto political but at the same time, often is. Our primary aim in this book is to highlight how humour can do various forms of political work while simultaneously recognizing that humour can also be both apolitical, and an escape from politics. Consequently, in the following chapters we set out a critique of mainstream work on humour and satire in political science and human geography for being western-​centric and draw on materials and examples from African political contexts to explore the role of humour in contexts marked by a range of political conditions. As alluded to previously, the western-​centrism of much work to date reflects historical and colonial dynamics of knowledge production which typically has centred theory-​production as from and on the Global North, thereby relegating the Global South to providing ‘interesting’ empirical case studies and examples. While we cannot hope to survey all of the literature from (and on) Africa in relation to both humour and politics, by synthesizing ideas from multiple disciplinary perspectives we hope to provide a more nuanced, contextually sensitive examination of the complex relations of humour and politics as more than simply about resistance and highlight the power and agency of humour.

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TWO

Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance: Humour, Agency and Power

Humour is a primary means through which members of civil society, regardless of social or economic status, education or networks, can actively participate –​both critically and uncritically –​ in political discourse. Hence, humour is frequently analysed in the context of resistance, particularly in Africa. This predilection is driven, in part at least, by widespread interest in the everyday-​ness of politics and the ways in which populations experience and encounter political power. For their ubiquity in society, humour and laughter become obvious locations for those seeking to understand how resistance manifests in everyday life, whether this is linked to jokes as a ‘weapon of the weak’ (Scott, 1985) or in thinking through the unintended consequences of laughter and its potential to re-​inscribe the very power it is aimed at (Mbembe, 2001). Consequently, in many ways, humour is important for politics: on an everyday level, it is an accessible arena for social and political participation, one that does not necessarily require high levels of literacy or social or economic capital to access. Thus, in societies with significant wealth disparities and limited ability to access central power (and the powerful), joking is one way in which many people are feasibly able to speak truth to power and stake a claim to civic participation. Such participation may occur on a whole range of levels, from the private to the public, from the shared, whispered joke with a close friend to performing a full stand-​up routine to a public

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Humour and Politics in Africa

audience to the production and dissemination of skits, memes or cartoons to (potentially) millions via online platforms. While there are certainly limits to the impacts humour by itself can effect change, its engagement can be a critical tool to starting bigger conversations that can act as a bridge and lead to prominent political work. These differing forms and forums are, therefore, part of the ecosystem that inherently links politics and humour. The pervasiveness of each aspect of this ecosystem reflects the elites’ tolerance or suppression of dissent and laughter towards them. In conditions where public spaces for opposition and criticism are closed down, the underground circulation of cartoons and comics, and private retelling of jokes (either verbally or increasingly shared via emails, text or WhatsApp messages, Snapchat and other digital platforms) become inevitable, thus providing vital spaces of political mobilization, catharsis, mutual support and solidarity. Comparatively, in sites where greater permissiveness of satire and humour –​particularly those directed at political or other elites –​thrive, public spaces are liberated for multifarious humour engagements in stand-​up comedy, editorial cartoons, satirical skits and sundry performance forms on mainstream TV, radio and online sites. Put differently, the more tolerant the elites are of criticism, the more liberated the environment becomes for unrestricted, uncensored discourses. But when the reverse is the case, namely when spaces and political dissent are hampered, humour becomes almost inevitably a tool for mimicking and satirizing the government, as seen in the Arab Spring in Egypt in 2011, when comedians rallied against the dictatorship of Hosni Mubarak, among many other sites in Africa. Therefore, it is evident that humour does not depend upon the existence of a democratic, free and open public sphere. Certainly a more open and profane public sphere does allow greater public expressions of satire against elites, but even in conditions where these freedoms of expression are curtailed or denied, humour remains and

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Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance

continues to do various forms of political work. Ultimately, jokes have a particular agency that does not always take social or political contexts into account; they take on lives of their own, navigating their way through public forums and private spaces via various media and serving multiple purposes. While it is difficult to ‘measure the overall effectiveness’ of humour and its longer-​term impacts in different spaces, opportunities for dissent create a more overt and accepted atmosphere of joking but because it is ‘more accepted’, it may, perhaps ironically, have less political and resistant potency, whereas closed spaces may mean the jokes are ‘more dangerous’ and somehow more powerful. Whatever the case may be though, the circulation of humour is always doing political work because it is always shining a light on particular issues. In African contexts, humour has most often been affiliated with power and resistance. We find this tendency in two sets of available literatures on humour and politics on the continent. While we do not wholly refute that humour certainly has its place in discussions about resistance and subversion, we argue that the overemphasis may provide a slightly skewed view of humour as a positive force doing good or transformative political work by fighting against authority and powerful structures. Humour can also have distinctly negative consequences, both for those telling the joke and those on the receiving end of one. Different jokes and humour more generally travel far and wide, acting as particular modes of representation and ultimately does a range of different types of political work. As a result, while humour is often political or doing political work in some form or another, some instances are more overt than others. Sometimes we see mass –​at times violent –​reactions from communities, either directly in response to or indirectly mobilized in relation to cartoons, jokes and other moments of humour –​as witnessed in responses to depictions or caricatures of the Prophet Mohammed (Peace Be Upon Him) in various African countries, the upset caused to South African Hindus by the depiction of Lord Ganesha holding bundles of dollars

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Humour and Politics in Africa

and a cricket bat as Haroon Lorgat (the chief executive of Cricket South Africa) is sacrificed, or by Zuma’s supporters in South Africa in response to Zapiro’s infamous ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon. Fundamentally, humour and jokes remain powerful tools of both entertainment and communication, and from this power derives the potential for political work. The circulation of jokes and satire, whether in spoken form and pavement radio (Ellis, 1989), as memes or other digital forms, or as printed materials, can not only capture a zeitgeist but can ‘get under the skin’ and do various kinds of political work. Take for instance, the ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon published in 2008, which commented on prominent South African politician (and later President, now ex-​President) Jacob Zuma’s upcoming corruption trial in connection with a $5 billion arms deal (see Figure 2.1). The cartoon depicted Zuma preparing to rape the allegorical figure of Lady Justice (who was being restrained by Zuma’s political allies) and triggered a barrage of complaints in relation to race,

Figure 2.1:  Zapiro’s infamous ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon, published in 2008 (cartoon previously published in Sunday Times)

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Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance

racism, gender violence and freedom of speech (Hammett, 2010a). Amidst this tumult, the Deputy Secretary of the MK (Umkhonto we Sizwe) Military Veterans’ Association claimed that 1,000 MK ‘soldiers’ would be mobilized to challenge the system and ensure Zuma was not destroyed. While this threatened mobilization focused on the legal system and case against Zuma, this moment also marked a shift in attitude towards Zapiro (the cartoonist) and increasing legal and other threats against him. Furthermore, politicians sometimes respond to jokes in oppositional ways, particularly when the subject is someone in government. This may sometimes lead to anger prompting political figures (through agents of the state) to take action against the comedians involved, as was the case in 2019 with popular comedian Samantha Kureya in Zimbabwe, who was abducted, stripped naked and forced to drink sewage by an unknown group (explored in more detail in the next chapter) (see also Källstig, 2021). Another example was when Tanzanian comedian, Idris Sultan, was arrested in 2020 for ‘cyber-​bullying’ the now, late-​President John Magufuli (Samanga, 2020). The Egyptian and Ugandan governments are also known to have taken actions either against specific humourists or to censor artists critical of them, often with their own absurd dimensions. At other times, jokes, although political in nature, may remain somewhat banal or go unnoticed by social and political actors. It is noteworthy though that it is not predictable how and in what ways jokes, or humour more broadly, will be enacted or received by different audiences, but what is clear is that they do have agency across African contexts, having impact on a range of individuals in difference ways across time and space. Humour is equally enacted in everyday spaces where it works as a release valve from the tensions and stresses of daily life. It can affirm, overturn, harm and help all at once, but it can also illustrate or even enact power relations between different groups. To discuss how the agency of the joke extends well beyond resistance and into other (less obviously political)

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Humour and Politics in Africa

realms, we first explore Mbembe and the centrality of his thinking on ‘affect’ to humour studies in Africa, as well as how humour has, more broadly, come to be affiliated with resistance in order to establish the development in the literature of the links between humour, politics and power. Mbembe and resistance Achille Mbembe (2001) is one of the most notable scholars to engage with resistance through humour in relation to the post-​colony, focusing primarily on discourse and cartoons from Cameroon. Cartoons have possibly offered the most commentary on humour and politics in Africa over the past 20 years, in part because of Mbembe’s central role in advancing the notion of ‘affect’, which was mobilized though discussions of the political nature and impacts of political cartoons. While he frequently gets cited in discussions surrounding humour and resistance, Mbembe’s position is often glossed over or taken-​for-​g ranted (as is often the case with well-​known theorists). Mbembe takes a nuanced and ambivalent view of the relationship between humour and resistance. He begins with a discussion of power, which comes in many forms and with varying levels of authority, before addressing the ways in which reactions to power vary not only in intensity but also along a continuum running from support to resistance. Humour, Mbembe advances, can thus be understood as a part of the postcolonial relationship –​one that is not simply framed as resistance or collaboration but as a ‘promiscuous relationship: a convivial tension between the commandement and its “targets” ’ (Mbembe, 1992, p 5). The term commandement in Mbembe’s usage refers to a version of authoritarianism par excellence which invokes not only the structures and agents of state power but a relationship between these agents and those subject to state power in the everyday that fosters acceptance and adherence to state power. This results, Mbembe argues, in a ‘zombification’ of the populace –​whose actions are not

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then fuelled by resistance or compliance, but as an ongoing charade. Consequently, Mbembe’s view of cartoons and other forms of mockery and ridicule are simply ‘potholes of indiscipline’ (2001, p 109) that do little –​if anything –​to derail or successfully resist power. In other words, we understand Mbembe to be arguing that the various institutions and functionaries of the state are able to ubiquitously influence and inform the internalization of ideas of conduct and the expected dispositions and behaviours of citizens. Borrowing from Foucault (1991), this suggests that in the post-​colony the state’s ability to mobilize the arts and practices of governmentality with great efficiency and fundamentally embed an expected ‘conduct of conduct’ –​ways of being and behaving –​among the population. The convivial tension then becomes a part of the hegemonic political project (Gramsci, 1971), wherein the state continually responds to and renegotiates with its citizens in order to maintain political hegemony (see also Siziba & Ncube, 2015). These negotiations reflect not only the direct exercise of power over a population by a political elite, but rather the complex and networked forms and expressions of power which operate between institutions and populations, through which we see the production of knowledges and idea(l)s of citizens who will act in the interest of the ‘common good’ (Foucault, 1991). This process can be understood as occurring through both coercive measures of state control and power, as well as the non-​coercive aspects of hegemony as consent is realized through the creation and (re) narration of social meaning and a collective or ‘common’ set of values (Adebanwi, 2004; Adebanwi, 2007). However, Mbembe (1992) takes us beyond these concerns and suggests that the upshot of the inherent tension and renegotiation (which is at the heart of the hegemonic political project) results in the ‘zombification’ of the population. His point here is that while citizens may manipulate and rework state narratives of nationhood –​and may invoke (obscene) humour in doing so –​these practices may not be acts of

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resistance. Such a question –​of whether parody and laughter are acts of resistance –​is, for Mbembe (1992), a secondary question and ultimately cautions against overstating the extent to which humour is in fact a form of resistance: [T]‌hose who laugh, whether in the public arena or in the private domain, are not necessarily bringing about the collapse of power or even resisting it … they are simply bearing witness, often unconsciously, that the grotesque is no more foreign to officialdom than the common man is impervious to the charms of majesty. (Mbembe, 2001, p 110) In other words, humour and ridicule do not necessarily create distance or do harm to autocrats in power but rather actually creates an intimacy between the ruling class and its subjects. To poke fun at the rulers is to make them human and part of their worlds, ultimately creating ‘an intimate tyranny link[ing] the ruler and the ruled’ (Mbembe, 2001, p 128). Subjects thus take part in what he refers to as a ‘double act of distancing and domesticating’ (Mbembe, 2001, p 109) whereby a contradiction in terms comes to intertwine and magnify the irony of ridicule. These actions are an integral part of the everyday negotiation of the plurality and the negotiating of life in the post-​colony. Thus, while writing about a different context –​of British satire –​Brassett’s argument that ‘opposing the state performs the state; ameliorating power legitimates power. Resistance is thus fleeting’ (2016, p 186), remains relevant. In other words, the political work of humour may initially be intended as a form or moment of opposition, a carving out of a space of resistance and connection with others opposed to the (excesses of) state power. But this moment itself is not only short-​lived but self-​defeating –​in seeking to challenge or resist power, the jokers simply remind themselves and their audience of the pervasive and ubiquitous nature of power. In this thinking, the very momentary humorous act which

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is intended to strip or take power away from the powerful instead reinforces and reifies this power. It is, if a Gramscian (1971) approach were adopted, a process through which the state’s power is maintained and the hegemonic project perpetuated. However, whereas Gramscian thinking would suggest the entrenching of state power is completed through the continual negotiation of dissent, Mbembe’s argument takes a different turn that is less concerned with (re)negotiation than with the internalization of an acquiescence to the ubiquity of state power. A good example is Bozzini’s (2013) work on joking practices among military conscripts in Eritrea, where, in a national context demarcated by a highly constrained public sphere –​to the extent that authoritarian rule precludes collective protest and confines dissent and expressions of discontent to the private sphere –​Bozzini notes the importance of the secretive joke sharing: the murmuring of these to trusted friends as widespread, everyday and concealed. These practices, Bozzini argues, represent an ‘infrapolitics composed of daily insubordinations performed behind the scenes’ (2013, p 41), but the potential for and success of these murmurings to form spaces of resistance is limited because rather than challenging the power and legitimacy of political elites, these whispered exchanges are seen as reifying and entrenching state power. Building upon these ideas, Perego (2018, p 191) argues that the use of humour during the decade-​long civil war in Algeria was not a means of resistance to excesses of power and violence but more commonly as a self-​deprecating coping strategy that stripped civilians of agency and ‘attributed a strength to the belligerents that often exceeded their actual prowess’. The upshot, according to Perego (2018), was that these joking practices were far from the expectation of the subaltern ‘speaking back’ but instead functioned not only to entrench but to exacerbate dynamics of power and powerlessness. While Mbembe is certainly an established voice, his arguments are not without their critics. Francis Nyamnjoh, for example, disagrees with him on this particular point, stating

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that just because humour does not bring about immediate violent revolution, it does not mean it is not resisting nor doing other sorts of political work. He thus encourages people to think about ‘effects that may be gradual, cumulative, and in the long term, than on effectiveness that stresses immediate outcomes’ (Nyamnjoh, 2009, p 97). Meanwhile Dodds (2010) and Abrahamsen (2003) work with Scott’s (1985) ideas on ‘weapons of the weak’ to argue that cartoons and humour have multiplicities of meanings and potential, providing everyday opportunities to ‘speak back’ to power and potentially acting as catalysts for longer-​term changes and establishing more cumulative processes of political transformation. Elsewhere, Siziba and Ncube contend that the spread of satirical memes around Zimbabwe’s then-​President Mugabe’s failing health helped to crack: ‘the armour of Mugabe’s invincibility in Zimbabwean political and social discourses’ (2015, p 516). In this context, satire provided a space of silent resistance and contestation in which ‘a different “truth” about Zimbabwe’ could be offered, one that positioned ‘Mugabe as the architect of Zimbabwe’s fall, but also dispel[led] and deconstruct[ed] the myth of him as a god who is immune from human weaknesses’ (Siziba & Ncube, 2015, pp 516–​17; see also Tivenga, 2022). Eko (2010) is also critical of Mbembe’s thinking, and argues that political cartoons are powerful, vital spaces of resistance and collective insubordination in utilizing comic truths to make calls to political action –​or at least recognition of the political dynamics of the time. Obadare also disagrees with Mbembe on this point, stating that: To insist, as Mbembe does, that humour is ultimately ineffectual for radical change is to forget that subaltern humour is sometimes its own end. The very process of ‘letting off steam’ is deeply symbolic and counter-​ discursive, and in identifying and causing power to face up to its own grossness, the subaltern attains an

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incomputable but nevertheless tangible moral victory. (Obadare, 2009, pp 248–​9) Thus, while Mbembe’s discussion has centralized the discussion of humour, politics and power in Africa, others have refuted his stance. We adopt something of a middle-​ground in these debates. We recognize that while jokes can be, as Mbembe purports, a double-​edged sword that resist and reify structures and agents simultaneously, it is not necessarily so ‘clear cut’ (pun intended). Anything from minor, relatively meaningless quips to fleeting rebellious moments may, as Nyamnjoh (2009) argues, accumulate and create a self-​reflectiveness in some form (discussed in greater detail later) that has the capacity to lead to social and/​or political transformation. Moreover, the multiple planes upon which cartoons operate and the differences between intent and receptions of jokes and humour, blur the processes of meaning-​making (Mason, 2010a). As a result, humour aimed at ridiculing (political) elites may unintentionally result ‘in a simultaneous reification of elite power and critique thereof through which this power(ful position) is challenged and undermined’ (Hammett, 2010a, p 4). If one doubts the depth of concern among political elites of such potential, we need only look as far as the attempts by various governments to censure and close the spaces in which humourists operate. This can be done by pressuring newspaper publishers and editors to discontinue the contracts of prominent cartoonists (as experienced by Gado and Patrick Gathara in Kenya, Zapiro in South Africa among others), arresting, intimidating and even exiling satirists and cartoonists in Uganda, Zimbabwe and Egypt, or the use of censorship and control over media outlets in general, such as in Rwanda and Egypt. In more extreme situations, we have also witnessed attempts by political leaders to use legislation to stifle everyday criticism and jokes as seen in the early 2000s when Robert Mugabe’s government in Zimbabwe responded to growing criticisms and jokes about the quality of Chinese-​made

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imports. Faced with rising living costs, a worsening national economic situation and increasing political intolerance, citizens voiced frustrations with inferior zhingzhong imports through jokes and humour. The Zimbabwean government viewed these humorous moments as concerning critiques and a potential threat to a key geo-​political and geo-​economic strategy in their ‘Look East’ policy. The Mugabe government thus enacted legislations to restrain such expressions and by seeking to close these spaces, alongside other efforts to curtail the critical public sphere, we see a ‘constant remaking of “stateness” on the margins’ (Fontein, 2009, pp 392–​3) that evidences both the power and insecurity of the state (Chenoweth et al, 2017), and the political work often inherent in humour. Ultimately, this is illustrative of how joking agency can facilitate political work, as illustrated also in Gado’s critical commentary on both China’s relationship with African states and the dangers faced by those asking difficult questions of political leaders (see Figure 2.2). Figure 2.2:  Gado’s commentary on the stifling of dissent and critical questions asked of China’s growing role in African politics and development

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Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance

Something funny happened on the way to resistance and power There is a plethora of literature that explores humour as resistance in a range of contexts (see, for example, Scott, 1985; Sorensen, 2009; Wedeen, 2013; Bhungalia, 2020; Damir-​Geilsdorf & Milich, 2020), and resistance has long been explored in politics and studies on civil society (see, for example, Certeau, 1984; Chenoweth et al, 2017). Understandably, humour, and satire in particular, are power-​laden and result in a range of both real and symbolic consequences. Jokes may embody or enable power, asserting the power to define who does and does not belong and reinforce power relations. They may also challenge or oppose power –​we often hear political cartoonists, stand-​ up comics and other satirists described as modern-​day court jesters, who are expected to speak truth to power, or resist the excess manifestations and expressions of political power (Hammett, 2010a; Limb & Olaniyan, 2018). At the same time, however, jokes and humour may be deployed to entrench and protect power, such as when particular individuals or groups make jokes at the expense of other, more marginalized groups. Commonly, such practices can be seen in sexist or misogynistic jokes against women (Verwoerd & Verwoerd, 1994) or in the use and mainstreaming of stereotypes and prejudices against ethnic or other population groups within jokes and other humour products. In simple terms, our point here is that jokes and humour may do political work not only by seeking to take power away (for instance, via the deterritorializing of political and other leaders and stripping their legitimacy to speak on specific issues) but also by acting as continued expressions of power over other (marginalized) groups. The common emphasis is the potential for humour to strip power and/​or to give power to more marginalized groups. However, such an approach runs the risk of assuming power as being monolithical and unidirectional. Rather, power imbues relationships within and between society and the state –​it is present in multiple,

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intersectional forms in everyday life (Loomba, 2005; Hammett, 2010a). Power is suffused within humour –​in the practices of (self)representation, in creating and curtailing the spaces for joking and humour, and of laughter itself. This complex nexus of power relations means humour cannot be reduced to (acts of) resistance, but rather must be understood as (having the potential to) doing an array of political work –​be this linked to assent, dissent, reification or resistance (Hammett, 2010a). Advocates for the potential of humour to do progressive political work and effect changes which benefit marginalized groups –​or, more broadly, argue that humour is effective as a form of resistance –​often think of the potential for humour to give ‘power to’ the subaltern. As Davies (2007) outlines, this power can be as much in giving expression to criticisms of authoritarian regimes as it is in creating a sense of solidarity among those who are marginalized. As highlighted in Nigeria, humour is: one of the most important means by which the majority define, ‘get even with’, and ‘resist’ the power elite and the dominant power relations … [it] is an important weapon in the armoury of civil society against perceived state handedness. (Obadare, 2009, p 244) This is not solely in democratic states because humour at times offers a hidden resistance, a space in which critiques of political leaders, living conditions and daily life can be shared overtly or covertly, publicly or privately. As Victoria Bernal explores in Eritrea: ‘[T]‌he power of humor under dictatorship, furthermore, lies in the fact that humor is one of the few spheres of expression that officials do not dominate … Humor, then, is a language of the people, offering a genre of expression that is not already scripted by authorities’ (2013, p 307), while simultaneously used by states and those in power, which can be both scripted and unscripted. As a result, the creation of

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Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance

these spaces of humour can be understood as the carving out of invented areas of political engagement and participation. These places of participation, distinct from the ‘invited’ spaces of political participation such as elections and referenda, are created or leveraged by citizens, civil society and others to provide opportunities for deliberative engagement with politics (Cornwall, 2002). While the creation and utilization of these popular spaces for political participation are often associated with struggles and resistance (Cornwall, 2002), they are not requirements or expectations since the spaces, forms and expressions of popular political participation can be conservative as well as regressive. Mason (2010b) exemplifies these concerns in his discussion on the history of cartooning in South Africa which is replete with political power –​satirical cartoons challenged the British Empire. Afrikaner cartoonists such as William Schroeder and Daniel Boonzaier, alongside Eric Thamm and Victor Ivanhoff, promoted and reproduced the National Party’s apartheid ideology. Thus, broadly speaking, within the colonial endeavour, cartoonists were often prominent within white settler regimes –​and while they may have critiqued local politics at times, they ‘more often than not were hostile to African liberation’ (Limb, 2018, p xix). The role of humour here is important when we consider not only the political work it can do –​and can elicit –​but how its spaces (from the editorial cartoon frame in a newspaper, to the satirical skit on a television programme, to the joke told in the corner of a bar, to the meme circulating online) comprise a series of overlapping and interlinked unofficial areas of politics in everyday life. The carving out of these invented sites of (humorous) participation are integral to the processes and practices of governmentality. A complex interplay is evident in these dynamics: on the one hand, the sanctioning of locations of political satire –​be this in terms of stand-​up comedy, satirical televisions shows, newspaper editorial cartoons or the sharing of jokes on the (physical

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Humour and Politics in Africa

or virtual) pavement –​can be understood as one technique of power (which, by allowing space for a degree of satire and dissent ensures a release or safety valve through which citizens can ‘blow off steam’). Alternatively, the closing down of spaces for parody and satire are more obvious and overt practices of governmentality. In such situations, the ‘exercise of power … [is used] to reinforce, strengthen and protect the principality’ (Foucault, 1991, p 90). Indeed, such closing down of the critical public sphere can be understood as a form of disciplinary power and governmentality to protect, maintain and reinforce the relationship of the ruler(s) over their territory and subjects (see also Elden, 2006; Adebanwi, 2017). The ‘official’ spaces for humour may thus be discursively bounded and infused with existing power relations in order to delimit not only what can be said and what level (if any) of dissent is tolerated, but also who can speak and be heard in these spaces (see Cornwall, 2002). The point here, then, is that spaces of and for humour may be officially tolerated and sanctioned –​ although subject to limits and surveillance –​but also may be unofficial, invented everyday spaces which elude state power and surveillance. Crucially, these expressions of and encounters with power are not solely about the assertion of power of humourists, and the delineation of out-​of-​bounds topics, but the broader (re)production of knowledges and dispositions permitted by the state in the name of the ‘common good’. In contexts where authoritarian rulers have increased repression and closed spaces of public protest (such as sit-​ins, marches, strikes), individuals and communities often develop hidden forms of protest. Interestingly, these forms of protest are not always about opposition to power –​they may be forms of resistance to the everyday tolls of encountering the outcomes of power, but may not seek to resist hegemonic power directly. As such, humour acts as a subversive means of speaking truth to power in everyday conversation and contains plausible deniability of those engaging with it. It is also used to negotiate and navigate encounters with power in such contexts, and can

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be one of the hidden ways of protesting authoritarian power –​ mocking practices exaggerating common acts of the subaltern, which include non-​payments of bills and taxes, falsification of bills and invoices, practices of foot-​dragging and other ‘weapons of the weak’ (Mbembe, 2001; Scott, 2009). As Mason (2002) points out in South Africa, while cartoons certainly cannot be considered responsible for ending apartheid, their role in speaking truth to power should not necessarily be downplayed either. This is because the kind of humour they produce, albeit subtle and fleeting, can play important roles in getting people to reflect on political allegiances and introduce new ideas relating to allegiances and allied matters. This is not particularly ‘hidden’ but is rather a form of resistance in public arenas. If we take stand-​up comedy, for instance, it can be potentially risky in countries where critiquing those in power attracts reprisals from the government. However, it is surprising that stage humourists have been generally spared the kind of harassment other humour merchants have been experiencing at the hands of oppressive dictatorships across the continent. This is evidenced in Zimbabwe, where in spite of the repressions of both the regimes of Mugabe and Ernest Mnangagwa, stand-​up comedy has not only thrived but expanded. Amanda Källstig, following her encounters with practising comedians harassed by the Zimbabwean government, argues that they feel emboldened, ultimately concluding that ‘stand-​up has become a space in an oppressive environment for people to express their opinions, challenge power and question the normalcy of a situation that is anything but’ (2021, pp 57–​8). In relation to why stand-​up comedians are more likely to evade censure from autocratic governments, especially in Africa, Nwankwọ contends that in Nigeria, ‘ “offence” is not on the part of the comedian who tells a joke but on that of the member of the audience who fails to take what has been said good humoredly’ (2022e, p 12), which is an indication that sometimes, stage humourists are actually seen as jesters

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who must not be taken seriously. The reverse is the case for cartoonists and comedians in other fields, wherein there has been substantial harassment and censorship. In general though, whether officially restricted or not, humour provides a space for discussing socio-​political issues in a more relaxed environment and in less threatening ways. Further, social media has provided a new public platform for both resistance to state power and used by states as well. With increased internet penetration and affordable mobile telephone connectivity, information now circulates widely and quickly across Africa and the rest of the world. Social media platforms, such as Twitter and WhatsApp, have promoted civic engagement and have been marked by both serious and amusing engagements (Tully & Ekdale, 2014). Since 2020, following the COVID-​19 pandemic, Instagram and TikTok have become preferred sites for ‘fictional and humorous narratives … as cultural netizens globally turned to the social web for inventive storytelling’ (Yékú, 2022, p 80). In Nigeria, numerous ‘TikTok short video genres to skits and cartoons’, were created, marking ‘the conditions under which performances may start out as playful social interactions among people not initially seeking audiences’ (Yékú, 2022, p 83) and end up being about confronting the government during the 2020 #EndSARS protests (Yékú, 2022, p 2). The social media space has thus become highly politicized, where information and jokes are spread quicker than autocratic regimes arrest political opponents. It is for this reason that some states sometimes respond by ‘turning off the internet’, as seen during elections in Uganda, Egypt and Ethiopia. Yet, social media dissent has not been halted; if anything it has arguably become more powerful, as illustrated by the proliferation and ‘transnationalization’ of memes against and about Zimbabwe’s former leader, Robert Mugabe (Onanuga, 2020) as well as the increase in online protests in Kenya and the ‘appropriation’ of defiant messages in humorous memes (Mukhongo, 2020; Agbese & Agbese, 2021). In every instance, social media

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platforms ‘use humour as a direct challenge to the state to demonstrate ordinary people’s ability to establish their own public spaces whenever such freedoms are denied by the state’ (Ogola, 2019, p 131). Advances in technology and communications are thus opening up and supplementing pre-​existing sites and spaces of humour, extending the reach of humourists to new (global) audiences, and supporting the spread of jokes, parody and memes both within and across national borders. For techno-​ optimists, the realms of online space –​and the internet as a ‘liberation technology’ –​provide relatively unfettered arenas for critical discussion –​including satire –​which may allow (marginalized) groups to speak truth to power, challenge the political status-​quo, build support networks and solidarity movements and facilitate open political discussion (Diamond, 2010; Dahlgren & Alvares, 2013). Thus, as mentioned in Chapter 1, online spaces provide further opportunities for joke sharing at the expense of political leaders, often in ways which can reach both domestic and international audiences. They can also provide new spaces of the public sphere through which humourists seek to circumvent restrictive government/​ state control. Nevertheless, the possibilities of online spaces as a new form of radio trattoir must not be overstated. The techno-​optimist view of the internet as a utopia for freedom of expression, dissent and resistance overlooks both the grounded-​ness of these spaces (in terms of national legislation governing content posted and viewed, the physical location of servers, as well as the ability of governments to ‘turn off the internet’) and the increased focus upon online spaces as sites of surveillance (Shirky, 2011). Thus while the posting and sharing of jokes, memes and satire online may at first seem to be a utopian possibility for humourists, the reality can be very different. Reflecting the grounded-​ness of the internet and those using it, there can be very ‘real’ consequences for the jokers of the virtual realm. For example, as mentioned previously, Tanzanian comedian Idris Sultan, was arrested in

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May 2020 after a video clip of him laughing at then President John Magufuli in a large suit went viral. He was charged with ‘cyberbullying’ but, in a bizarre twist, the comedian was also charged with SIM card-​related offences under the repressive Electronic and Postal Communications Act, in essence for failing to register a previously owned SIM card (Amnesty International, 2020). This illustrates how, even in online spaces, comedians are not immune from state interference, even when the reactions and responses themselves are somewhat absurd. Layered on to these concerns, as always, are questions of access –​of who can (and does) access these online spaces in which humour is shared, and therefore which audiences are targeted. In other words, who gets to laugh at what, and why? While we may assume that internet access is ubiquitous, this is far from reality, due to barriers linked to costs of handsets, data plans, access to electricity and charging handsets, as well as issues of language and literacy (including technological literacy). Furthermore, as discussed more in subsequent chapters, there are also comedians who speak to and on behalf of those in power as well, using their humour to promote particular politics as well (although this is an area that could be strengthened with further research). In short, online joking spaces are an important component of the landscape of humour but, as with any space of laughter, is fraught with questions of access, power and engagement. Ultimately, humour circulating on social media is, in many ways, a new platform for a very old tradition –​resistance. Therefore, humour across a range of contexts and across different mediums is identified as among the tools used in response to (excesses of) state power –​and is commonly identified as a form of resistance to that power. But why has there been such a significance placed on resistance in the context of humour in Africa in lieu of other analyses? Why is this often the first point of reference when it comes to humour?

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Why the em-​farce-​is on resistance? While there is an extensive discussion that explores to what extent humour is or is not a mode of resistance, there has been less focus on why resistance has been so commonly employed in the context of discussions on humour in Africa. In the vast majority of literature examining humour, laughter and jokes in Africa, resistance is mentioned in some shape or form (either as a primary focus or as a point of departure to discuss other modes). To us, the centralization of humour in relation to resistance arises due to two reasons: first, the ways in which related literature has developed over time and the influence of seminal works by Mbembe and others which have provided a key departure point for many. Second, a tendency in much of the work to ‘cheer for the underdog’ or side with the struggle –​this may arise from an innate commitment to social justice by researchers or is reflective of the relative ease of access to humour and humourists compared to political elites (and, let us be totally honest, working on farcical content can be very fun(ny) and enjoyable at times). Aggregately, there is a propensity to valorize the struggles of the subaltern, which in turn translates to privileging humour as a tool in the weapons of the weak arsenal (Scott, 1985). By placing such a significant focus on the relationship between humour and resistance then, these discussions overlook the nuanced characteristics endemic to humour and, in turn, the flows and forces of agency and power. As explored earlier, Mbembe (2001) is one of the most important voices in the context of this debate and is mentioned in the majority of academic literature on humour and politics in Africa, as well as much on the African post-​colony. Mbembe was not, however, the first scholar to analyse humour in African contexts. Anthropologists working on and in Africa have long explored joking relationships, particularly in relation to kinship ties (Radcliffe-​Brown, 1940; Moreau, 1944; Rigby, 1968). In

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the past 20 years though, Mbembe’s text has become central to scholarship on Africa and African political thought, making his work on cartoons and their political role within the context of the post-​colony central to discussions on humour, power, politics and resistance on the continent. Scholars engaging with humour and politics in Africa have had a tendency to start with to what extent humour is or is not resistant in relation to the political sphere or at least give a nod to the ‘resistance debate’, and Mbembe specifically. This discussion has seemingly become self-​perpetuating in that even if the article is not necessarily about resistance, there is still often a gesture towards the prevalence of this discussion. Increasingly though, there is a tendency to nuance these discussions to explore the multiple roles that humour can play on a global stage (Brassett et al, 2020) and particularly in an African context (Obadare, 2016). There is, however, still scope for delineating these different humorous devices and mediums, particularly in relation to African politics and how humour does in fact have real world consequences. Furthermore, there is frequently a desire to see the less fortunate or people with limited access to power speaking up and ‘talking back’ to it. Generally speaking, people enjoy stories of those who defy expectations and odds, particularly in relation to overcoming social and political struggles. We have a natural inclination to see these people –​whether we call them the subaltern, the working class, the proletariat, the underdogs, grassroots, less privileged –​succeed and valorize their ability to collectively overcome the powerful, particularly those who do not stand for equality. This can, for example, be seen with people cheering in the streets when dictators like Robert Mugabe and Hosni Mubarak were overthrown. There is a sense of solidarity, victory and empathy watching these moments unfold, when the grassroots take power into their own hands. Therefore, this often translates into many scholars taking a particular enjoyment in highlighting how individuals creatively engage their agency as subtle and subversive tools, like humour, gets used in the face of power.

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States, hierarchies and agency at play While humour has been seen as a form of power enacted by the powerless (namely by victims of excesses of state power), it can also be used to maintain or gain power over groups as well. In this sense, power can be reinforced through the deployment of humour in order to ridicule and demean individuals or groups who are unable to respond, and who may already be disempowered and marginalized. As Obadare notes, ‘humour is not just about resistance, however defined; it is also about control, that is, it is usable by elements within both civil society1 and the state’ (2009, p 245). Therefore, humour can also be understood as a tool for the expression and consolidation of state power as well. Power is contextual and relational (Abrahamsen, 2003) meaning that depictions and caricatures within humour are forms of social control and correction (Swart, 2009). These are characteristically utilized to create, perform and bound notions of identity and belonging, which can and is harnessed by states, as ‘holders of political power can and often do use humour to ingratiate themselves’ (Obadare, 2009, p 260). This is evidenced by the use of comedians at campaign rallies or at political events, who are there to entertain voters. Some bold examples include Kenya’s former president from 2002 to 2013, Mwai Kibaki, who failed to really deliver any strong governmental policies but was popular because of his beloved one-​liners. He was reportedly referred to as the comedian-​in-​chief (Ramoka, 2018; Mboga, 2022). South Africa’s Jacob Zuma was also a controversially comedic leader, reputed for hilarious jokes and gaffes to the point that one sign language interpreter was caught laughing as the president joked about Nkandla (Fick, 2016). There is also Nigeria’s Obasanjo who used a ‘folksy’ façade to gain initial support (Obadare, 2009, p 255), and more recently, Liberia’s president, former footballer, George Weah, setting the social media sphere agog with his ‘Buga dance’ challenge (Kosiso, 2022).2 In each of these samples, we see leaders who deliberately evoke humour

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with the aim of gaining mass appeal. Additionally, in various contexts we see comedians endorsing candidates through their performances either during campaigns or in their regular shows, and thus become political interlocutors who reinforce power and the powerful. Further, humour can also differentiate particular groups due to its characteristic nature of creating in-​and out-​groups because ‘the topics and themes people joke about are generally central to the social, cultural and moral order of a society or a social group’ (Kuipers, 2008, p 361). As such, humour can be a tool for asserting social superiority, which enables one group to claim dominance over another (Zelizer, 2010). For example, in post-​Ebola Sierra Leone, the ability to make jokes about the epidemic was only afforded to those who survived the disease as those who had not contracted the virus were not able to participate for fear of being fined for ‘stigmatization’. This communal delineation creates a subtle, yet distinct division in some communities (Martin, 2022), where specific humour types are reserved for certain parts of the population and not others. This phenomenon extends well beyond communal settings as it is also used by politicians as a means of creating divisions between groups and does ‘regressive’ political work, due to how some engage with or ‘laugh back at’ particular people. As such, satire can also be used to further marginalize or exclude, to reinforce and reify power, as well as maintain discriminatory social systems and hierarchies (Mbembe, 2001; Ridanpää, 2019). Verwoerd and Verwoerd (1994) identify these trends more broadly, particularly around sexist jokes (but also applicable to racist and other discriminatory variants) and the laughter they elicit as forms of passive injustice that can create divides and perpetuate negative discourses. Elsewhere, the use of racist and ethnic stereotypes is recognized as perpetuating social divisions and expressing –​in not-​so-​subtle-​ways –​ ideas of superiority, demonization and ‘othering’ (Ebrahim, 2018; Donian, 2022a). All these point to humour being ‘part of reactionary, prejudicial and cruel political projects’

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(Wedderburn, 2021, p 5). The potential outcomes of these practices are, unfortunately, often far from amusing and can ultimately lead to very real negative outcomes, including physical violence. Thus, the power of humour is not monolithic or unidirectional, nor is it always positive and transformative. Different forms, expressions and manifestations of power run in multiple directions. Humour and comedy oscillate between or even simultaneously challenge and reinforce power, as comedic performances continually occur within frameworks of power. As such, while some stand-​u p comedians in Zimbabwe (such as the Magamba Network) may overtly challenge the excesses of state power, other stand-​u p comedians occupy a more liminal, twilight position between resistance and support (Källstig, 2021). As Wedderburn (2021) argues, the practices and performance of humour may bind people together or may divide communities, it may serve to solidify social orders and norms or may challenge and rework these relations. While these scholars have made valuable contributions to examining the various roles of power at play within humour, we would further argue that there is a need for more nuance, particularly in Africa, to better understand how humour can have both positive and negative consequences. Specifically, there is a lot of emphasis on the powerful and powerless in a lot of these narratives that requires further delineation, namely that the capacity to be powerful (or not) is frequently contextual. Moreover, where some scholars have explored humour in more situational and nuanced ways, there is still a broader dichotomy of ‘us’ and ‘them’ that needs to be addressed. In many ways, this is reflected in the humour debate of ‘it is or is not resistant’. As is further expanded over the rest of this book, there is nuance in how these devices are deployed, in what contexts and with which audiences. This relates to the correlation between how power and agency manifest. Even the small micro interactions of political jokes have the capacity to

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plant seeds of doubt and discussion, which may or may not lead to larger, more active modes of resistance. By zeroing in on the agency of the joke itself, it allows us to see how exactly these jokes navigate their ways through society –​both in overtly political spheres, as well as how jokes manifest in other forums and spaces. It enables us to trace nuances and impacts of jokes and jokesters in different settings and across time and space to illustrate the nuance, versatility, power and peril that jokes can ultimately enact. This chapter will now turn to some of the alternative modes in which humour is employed, to illustrate the extent to which it is employed and much of which inevitably has agential and political qualities and characteristics. Humour as coping and (political) self-​reflexivity As well as being commonly identified as a tool or space of resistance, humour has also frequently been cited as a coping mechanism in the face of hardships and social challenges. From a physiological perspective, laughter stimulates ‘endogenous opioid release’ (Manninen et al, 2017) –​which basically means that when we laugh our bodies are stimulated to release the hormones that facilitate feelings of happiness. Unsurprisingly, this ‘natural high’ (as it is sometimes called) can help people coping with particularly challenging circumstances, from serious illnesses to living under conditions of conflict or authoritarian regimes. This is not to say that laughter and humour can only be either resistive or a surviving mechanism. As Obadare argues in relation to humour in Nigeria, these moments of joking and laughter can function as both a coping strategy and a ‘symbolic instrument of social transgression’ (2010, p 92). This social transgression may take the form of critiquing or challenging political elites and excesses of state power but may also focus on tackling social taboos and destigmatizing specific issues.

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In many contexts, such socially transgressive humour may also be understood as a form of ‘dark’ or ‘gallows’ humour –​of laughing in the face of structural and seemingly insurmountable adversity or one’s own (impending) mortality. As noted by Julia Seirlis: ‘[g]‌iven the enormous and numerous social problems facing South Africa, perhaps … gallows humor is carving out a place of momentary and much needed reprieve, a moment of much needed sheer enjoyment’ (2011, p 523). Since the end of apartheid in 1994, stand-​up comedy afforded people a public political platform that had previously not been available to certain groups. For example, regarding the stand-​up comedy explosion in the country, she writes that ‘[y]oung men … who were throwing rocks at the police are now deploying wit from the stage’ (Seirlis, 2011, p 517). In other words, humour offers (even if temporarily) escape from the numerous issues and challenges encountered by South Africans, as well as a way of facing the traumatic history and events they endured. Andrew Hernann also explores jokes in the context of displaced people in Northern Mali where he argues that humour offers a means of coping with challenging and particularly uncertain circumstances and contends that it has the capacity to ‘nurture cohesion’ and ‘knit’ society together to create a sense of solidarity and community among disparate communities (2016, p 66). Jokes and the jokester then have a particular agency that enables them to cope with particular and challenging circumstances often outside of their control. Humour, however, is within their control and acts as an agent and symbol of change. Humour is also often used as a self-​reflexive tool in relation to the state, a mirror held up to reflect on one’s own position and lack of power. In this sense then, humour’s agential quality also functions as a coping mechanism in the face of an immutable type of power, particularly in authoritarian settings. Addressing the Chikwama comic strip from the Zimbabwean daily newspaper The Daily Nation in the early 2000s, Willems

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(2011) argues that there was a lack of direct critique of political leaders for fear of repercussions even though the newspaper itself was critical in general. To Willems, the inability of Chikwama to become overtly critical is reflective of broader public speech, which avoided ‘hard politics’ as these became too overwhelming given the suffering of daily life. As she states: humor does not always address those in power and therefore cannot always be treated as a form of resistance. Instead, humor [operated as] … a self-​ reflexive mode through which those subject to power mock their own powerlessness and lack of agency in the face of a system that they perceive as immutable. (Willems, 2011, p 141) Thus, humour is a mode of handling social and political circumstances. It is also through humour that a lack of control and agency, particularly in the face of uncertain political circumstances, can be addressed and dealt with on both individual and societal levels. Therefore, the agential work humour does is inevitably political, but manifests in different spaces and with different –​sometimes minimal and sometimes more substantial –​consequences. We can also see how humour is used to mediate social relations and can become integral to identity. As Devlieger (2018) outlines, humour, irony and joking are central to community making and maintenance. In the context of Rome (the ferry port in Kinshasa, not the capital of Italy), Devlieger contends that humour and laughter are used on a daily basis to simultaneously ‘excuse irresponsible behaviour’ while providing pointed political commentary on the uncertain and precarious context of life there (2018, p 162). This laughter then is not simply laughing into the void or a form of communitarian practice and identity but as moments of reflection and collective belonging.

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Humour as meaning-​making and social commentary As we start to understand how the agency of humour does political work, it becomes clear how humour is a primary means of communication, allowing people to break taboos, raise issues and ultimately create meaning. In African settings specifically, many people have little security, and humour can be a means of negotiating how they understand and negotiate their general circumstances. There are often absurdities to be found in everyday rituals and routines, with jokes frequently ‘deriv[ing] their potency from their relation to the absurdities of social life’ (Tavory, 2014, p 278). In African everyday life, people often humorously improvise within the context of their circumstances largely because ‘humour must be seen as integral to a reality in which the postcolonial subject is condemned to endless improvising’ (Obadare, 2010, p 92). As Mike Degani also points out in Dar es Saleem, this improvisation is both a necessity of survival but is also accompanied by a strong comedic force, arguing that the ‘comedy of improvisation lies in this unexpected burst of indestructible life where we expect suffocating’ (2018, p 494). As such, humour is a longstanding form of social commentary (Crigler, 2018), and even allows for people to make meaning out of their sometimes-​bizarre everyday situations. Devlieger further illustrates this in the Congo, where people also improvised jokes as a marker of social commentary and as a result: ‘[r]‌idicule is often a means through which ordinary people make meaning out of a reality that has become surreal or absurd’ (2018, p 166). This meaning-​making may be seen as direct political resistance –​or even of insubordination or indiscipline –​but they are symbolically powerful. They allow the jokers and laughers to identify power (or lack thereof), to name the grotesque excesses of power, as well as comment on their distance from it and claim ‘an incomputable but nevertheless tangible moral victory’ (Obadare, 2009, p 249). In its own sense, enacting humour is subtly powerful and a

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way of making sense of the often-​absurd everyday setting enmeshed in postcolonial Africa. The role of humour as both social commentary and coping mechanism can be seen in the following joke which circulated by email among Zimbabwean expatriates in the 2010s: Queen Elizabeth, Bill Clinton and Robert Mugabe died and went to hell. The devil had only one phone there. Queen Elizabeth says, ‘I miss my England can I use your phone and hear how my people are doing there?’ She calls and talks for about 5 minutes. Then she asks, ‘Well devil how much do I owe you for the call?’ The devil replies, ‘Five million dollars.’ She writes him a cheque and goes back to her chair. Clinton wants to make a call too. He says ‘I wanna call the US.’ He talks about ten minutes, he asks ‘How much do I owe you devil?’ The devil says ‘Ten million dollars.’ He also writes a cheque and goes back to his seat. Mugabe is jealous, He says ‘I want to call Zim,’ He calls and talks for about an hour … then he asks the devil, ‘How much do I owe you?’ The devil replies, ‘Only one dollar.’ Mugabe is shocked and asks, ‘Why so little?’ The devil says ‘If you make a call from one hell to another, it’s a local call.’ This joke reflects upon the declining economic situation in Zimbabwe during the 2000s and 2010s under Robert Mugabe’s leadership. On the one hand, this can be read as a form of dark humour, of laughing at the dire and declining living conditions –​ referenced here by Zimbabwe being categorized as a ‘hell’. The same joke has been replicated in several countries with the names of the African countries and their leaders changed to comment on the difficult living conditions within these nations. The meaning making in this kind of joke not only shifts over time and location but can act as a record through which to chart and reflect upon the changing political landscape and zeitgeist, and the possibilities for both

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invited and invented, public and private, spaces for humour and associated political work. Thus, while an individual cartoon or joke may provide a moment at which a nation’s political temperature may be taken and –​both through the jocular object and the reactions to it –​insights into a cross-​section of public opinion on an issue (Hammett, 2010a; Hammett, 2011) this only offers a fleeting snapshot. Rather, as Mason (2010a) argues, a diachronic account and a reading over time of jokes and cartoons on a topic can offer insights into the shifting social, cultural and political landscape of a country. This may be through reviewing the changing representations and narratives contained in editorial cartoons –​as Mason (2010b) offers. It may also be through the shifting tone and focus of jokes based upon changes to everyday social challenges –​how issues, companies or individuals are inserted into jokes and how ‘dark’ the humour is. Even when humour is used to target forms of systematic violence and inequality –​such as entrenched racial inequalities and structural violence in South Africa –​these efforts may continue to offend or unintentionally reify divisions and hierarchies. Not only this, but they may inadvertently depoliticize issues or re-​scale responsibility (both in terms of responsibility for the causes of structural violence, and responsibility to tackle this violence) in ways that fail to tackle power hierarchies. Bradfield (2012) states this can be seen in the South African cartoon strip-​cum-​TV show, Madam and Eve. First published in the Mail and Guardian newspaper in 1992, and then brought to television as a sit-​com on e-​tv in 2000 (running for four seasons), Madam and Eve uses situational comedy and dynamics between a white family and their black maid to explore racial and class inequalities in the late-​and post-​ apartheid periods. While the political commentary and use of mimicry to highlight continued power hierarchies and racism to critique continued inequalities, it did so by reducing the resolution of racial and class inequalities to the scale of the individual (Bradfield, 2012). Without discounting the

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importance of the power the individual holds in tackling issues of inequalities and racism in everyday life and inter-​personal interactions, Bradfield’s concern is that by effectively restricting the resolution of inequalities to the individual, Madam and Eve ‘effectively suppress[ed] interrogation of racialized institutions, policies, and attitudes that are the legacy of apartheid’ (2012, p 531). It is also possible to think about this shifting role in terms of individual humourists and the role they see themselves as playing in political and social terms, as well as the positions they adopt on different issues. Charting the evolving focus and content of stand-​up comedians such as Basketmouth, Anne Kansiime, Desmond Benya (Figure 2.3), Trevor Noah, among others can offer insights both into evolving news stories, contemporary social, economic and political issues, as well as their changing political stance. On occasion, humourists will openly discuss their shifting positionality and approach to the political agenda of their work (if they have one). Thus, Mason’s discussion of South African cartoonist Zapiro’s shifting position from ‘political activist in the service of the liberation struggle’ to being a ‘patriotic sceptic’ (2010b, p 279) is further explained by Zapiro himself, who outlines that in terms of his own positionality and role as a cartoonist, ‘[t]‌here’s been the role of being a cartoonist in the struggle, then there was the transition, but beyond that there seems to have been another shift, the most complex of all’ (qtd Hammett, 2010b). At the core of Zapiro’s story here is an evolution in his political engagement and focus based upon the changing political and social zeitgeist in which he is working. Thus, he began cartooning as a form of anti-​apartheid activism and in service to the non-​racial movement (drawing images for the United Democratic Front (UDF) and others) –​a movement that initially he refused to critique. However, with the transition from apartheid to democracy receding into the past and the African National Congress government repeatedly mired in controversy, Zapiro talks about a further shift in his role: from an unwavering supporter of the anti-​apartheid movement to

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Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance

Figure 2.3:  Stand-​up comedian Desmond Benya in action

an increasingly ‘patriotic sceptic’, using editorial cartoons to ask critical questions of the state of South African society and politics. This role, Zapiro argues, is not about resistance but about adopting the role of being a ‘watchdog’ of governmental excess and using this to call out and tackle issues of corruption and nepotism –​not as a means of resisting political leadership, but an effort to hold leaders accountable (Hammett, 2010b). Two key aspects are relevant here. The first returns us to Mason’s call for more attention to the diachronic –​to understanding how changes in the focus and subject matter of

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Humour and Politics in Africa

cartoons (and humour) over time provide detailed insights into the evolving socio-​political landscape. The changing content and tone of Zapiro’s cartoons thus reflect both the shifting positionality of the humourist and the shifting socio-​political zeitgeist. The second returns us to the focus on humour as a realm of meaning-​making and social commentary: taking Zapiro as an example, the intent behind editorial cartoons may not be resistance but about consent or approval, or simply as a space of critical commentary and reflection. In the evolution of Zapiro’s work we can see this in his self-​identified shift from supporter of the anti-​apartheid movement during and immediately after the democratic transition, through to the increasingly sceptical and critical images that followed later. Zapiro’s argument that these are not intended to be about resistance is important –​being critical or acting as a watchdog is not per se about resistance, but as a means of raising consciousness through social commentary and making meaning from the shifting economic and socio-​political forces. Zapiro’s position echoes Gado’s reflections on his role as an editorial cartoonist in Kenya. While his cartoons are frequently ‘politically charged’ (Angelini, 2020), Gado talks of his role –​ as an editorial cartoonist –​as being to ‘inform, educate, and entertain, act as a mirror of society, to say things that other mediums would be afraid to say. It is the craft which truly allows, has the license to offend, as an editorial cartoonist, you talk truth to power, incorporating a bit of humor in it’ (qtd Angelini, 2020, p 20). In other words, our concern here is to avoid the assumption of resistance, but rather to think in more nuanced terms of the ever-​evolving role of humour as an active part of the political landscape. While both Gado and Zapiro’s works (as well as those by many other cartoonists and satirists) may sometimes be intentionally politically charged –​and on other occasions have political dimensions imposed upon them by audience reception –​their work is not solely or always about resistance. Rather, their works cover a spectrum or continuum from apolitical to overtly political and may be heavily critical

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of particular political leaders but also may be supportive of them, or at a minimum, someone else’s political stance. Moreover, we see that even when editorial cartoons are not overly political they can still do a great deal of ‘political work’ through informing, education, making meaning and offering social commentaries on the evolving political landscape. The stand-​up jokes of South Africa’s Trevor Noah stand out in this respect. If one takes his jokes about how the British took India and South Africa as their colonies, he retells the conquest narratives from the perspectives of the locals –​showing how the Indian man going about his business on the beach is accosted by a British officer on horseback and local South Africans were doing their own things and the British arrived on their boats (Janzzen, 2015; Meyer, 2017). These hilarious tales are not resisting especially in the context of today’s existence. What these jokes do are not fixed, rather they work on a spectrum of meaning-​making that spans a wide range of socio-​cultural and experiential realities of audiences. Such shifting positionalities and contextual constraints and pressures also feed into the political work of humour. The introduction of increasingly restrictive legislation often produces a ‘whack-​a-​mole’ situation as the circulation of jokes and satire moves underground and into the hidden and invented spaces of political engagement. Thus, while the introduction of The Public Order and Security Act in Zimbabwe, for instance, may have forbidden criticism of the president and restricted the publication of cartoons or commentaries in newspapers and curtailed the repertoire of stand-​up comedians, satirical and humorous criticism of President Mugabe continued to circulate. Whether in the form of printed political ephemera (such as The Guide to the Dangerous Snakes of Zimbabwe or the pack of playing cards with critical and satirical images of ZANU-​PF leaders and acolytes, both of which circulated in the 2000s), online (in the form of viral and emailed jokes, memes and doctored film posters) or in spoken form the political work of humour is contingent and ongoing. Even in Rwanda, where

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the state comes down hard on its critics, El-​Shokrofy (2022) finds that comedians still have workarounds that take aim at the government, even if somewhat mild. Humour in taboo-​breaking and awareness-​raising roles Humour also allows for sensitive issues, both social and political, to be discussed openly. Specifically, it is a way of breaching sensitive subjects and making sense of them, and as such can be a means of ‘productive incongruity’ that can ‘provide a framework for the discussion of issues that are ordinarily taboo’ (Martin et al, 2021, pp 359, 369). In the same vein, in Sierra Leone and surrounding nations ravaged by the Ebola epidemic, humour allowed for people to broach the topic in which they were unsure about, both in relation to its severity and to addressing all the new and uncertain circumstances in which they found themselves (Martin, 2022). In South Africa, Steven Black explores the use of humour in HIV-​positive gospel choir, positing that humour confronts topics commonly avoided and ‘effectively expanded rather than constrained the possibility for talking about HIV’ (2012, p 88). He contends that humour allows people to challenge dominant ideas and social norms, while providing spaces of personal connection, solidarity and support to releasing emotions and frustrations in the face of everyday frustrations. Similarly, joking about AIDS in Malawi provides a psychological coping strategy, a means to talk about the disease without necessarily confronting it directly because ‘AIDS constantly hovers over social life, it becomes both a constant resource-​for and the butt-​of humor’ (Tavory, 2014, p 285). In other words, the fact that AIDS is a very real part of everyday life makes it easier to discuss through the medium of humour. Moreover, even cartoons are not just about resistance to power –​but also about raising awareness, recording political and social trends, and questioning both political and popular issues. Frequently such engagements deploy practices of un-​ laughter (Billig, 2005) and their power lies in the discomfort

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and (sometimes) silence they generate –​asking the viewer or listener to reflect not only on the roles and decisions of elites but at times their own role in relation to a particular issue. For years, South Africa has struggled with undercurrents of xenophobia, with periodic eruptions of violence against migrants from Nigeria, Zimbabwe and elsewhere. Rather than directly addressing this issue, South African cartoonist Zapiro used different forms of irony to provoke moments of unlaughter and critical reflection on political and popular discourse around immigration and African-​ness during the 2010 FIFA World Cup (Conradie et al, 2012). In presenting contrasting images of South African football fans uniting behind the Ghanaian team in the later stages of the tournament with depictions of xenophobic violence or the illustration of a looming crowd (representing xenophobia) shown behind a migrant family outside an informal dwelling with a world cup football stadium in the background, Zapiro was not seeking amusement. Rather, such images used irony to question how South Africans could unite behind a banner of pan-​African-​ness while continuing to hold xenophobic views (Conradie et al, 2012). In every sample listed in the preceding paragraph, humour is deployed to address difficult subjects, break taboos, and raise awareness about specific issues. Grace Musila points out how stand-​up in South Africa can bring sensitive issues to the fore, arguing that it ‘remains a robust podium for breaking taboos and silences that continue to shroud the race question in post-​apartheid South Africa … It is in this taboo-​breaking that stand-​up comedy enacts its resistance, albeit haunted by contradictions’ (2014, p 165). Thus, while humour is indeed a coping mechanism, it helps individuals re-​think or re-​frame events (even if temporarily) both in the current period and in the past. Its ambivalent character allows it to ‘test the waters’ on issues that may be delicate to discuss in certain settings. Subsequently, humour can be used not only to ‘mock or ridicule but to conscientize people, and to raise attention for and awareness’ (Kuhlmann, 2012, p 295), whether this is

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among domestic or diaspora populations, or national or global audiences, and relates to everyday political, economic and social realities within a particular national context (see also Chonka, 2017). As explored in the previous chapter, social media has become a primary platform through which political humour has thrived because within it, humour ‘has a spreadable attribute that can spur creativity, interactivity and participation on social networks’ (Cheruiyot & Uppal, 2019, p 261). This kind of social commentary is seen through humorous hashtag conversations on pan-​African identity (specifically the 2015 #IfAfricaWasABar), as well as others like #Bringbackourgirls and #EndSARS campaigns. Sharing traits with previous expressions of pavement radio, these online spaces are identified as multi-​directional, networked exchanges of information outside of formal media spaces which can be, colloquially, understood as ‘media of the masses’ (Lent, 1987). Functioning without the same surveillance and censorship constraints as mainstream print or broadcast media, we see social media and other online spaces emerging as key spaces in which contentious, controversial and scandalous issues and rumours –​ as well as everyday concerns and complaints –​are given airtime. Whether through emails, WhatsApp messages, Snapchat or other formats the online environment provides a key extension to the public sphere –​a space that can be used for political work, for entertainment and, indeed, a mix of the two. The merging of politics and entertaining –​ or, more specifically, satire and humour –​has frequently been evident in the circulation and sharing of political jokes and memes through online media. For instance, in the early 2010s a slew of mocked-​up movie posters that featured then-​president Robert Mugabe circulated among Zimbabwean expats. Wordplay and changes in titles of popular films suggested Mugabe as the key protagonist in various blockbuster Hollywood films, including Men of Dishonor (a riff on the Robert de Niro and Cuba Golding Jr film Men of Honor), now subtitled ‘Disasters

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are caused by those who are greedy’ (originally ‘History is made by those who break the rules’). The adapted film poster replaced Cuba Golding Jr with Robert Mugabe, bedecked in the regalia of his office. Other reworked film posters included The Slum of All Fears, subtitled ‘20 million braincells. Most are missing’ –​a reworking of the Ben Affleck and Morgan Freeman film The Sum of All Fears (subtitled ‘27,000 nuclear weapons. One is missing’), and Resident Evil becoming President Evil –​ now subtitled ‘A secretive President. A demented party. A fatal mistake’. These spoof movie posters, circulating online, offered a moment of levity in the face of an increasingly authoritarian political regime. While undoubtedly critical of Mugabe’s regime and perhaps widely understood as an expression of dissent and resistance to the excesses of the ZANU-​PF government, these posters did other forms of political work. The images themselves, as well as the sending and receiving of them by individuals, expressed and created moments and spaces of (even if fleeting) solidarity, reminding viewers that they were not alone in their opposition to Mugabe. The reworking of titles, subtitles and images also provided moments to highlight issues of corruption and greed, undermine the legitimacy and credibility of a political leader (The Slum of All Fears subtitle is particularly important here, as Mugabe played upon being the ‘most intelligent President in Africa’ due to the number of degrees he held), and comment on the declining standard of living in the country (Onanuga, 2020). While these images could be dismissed as slacktivism, or ‘lazy activism’, and questions raised as to whether the circulation of such satire had any significant political effect, they still did political work. Whether providing an outlet for frustrations with an increasingly authoritarian political leader, a means of maintaining networks of solidarity, or a moment of levity –​ these humorous political ephemera remain important and form part of a broader landscape of humour and politics. At the same time as these various spoof posters were circulating, other jokes aimed at ridiculing President Mugabe and commenting on the

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growing economic problems were also being shared, creating a self-​perpetuating joking atmosphere. More recently, the rise of internet memes as politico-​cultural artefacts that utilize imitations, repetition, simplicity, humour and social, political and cultural specificity have proven invaluable in engagements with humour and politics. For some, these new media products may replace or supersede political cartoons and other visual political humour. For others, they are identified as effective tool of (often humorous) political critique –​particularly in countries with tight restrictions on parody in the public sphere (Ogola, 2011; Braun & Buse, 2020) or in contexts where distrust in politicians and political institutions is rife. Under such conditions, Mabweazara and Stelitz (2009) argue, a ‘sceptical laughter’ emerges through the carving out of (online) spaces of solidarity and humour. Therefore, satire in Africa, as Msimang (2016) notes, is also a means of expressing anger –​anger at both colonial histories and colonial presents, and the continued economic exploitation and political marginalization of the continent. The Twitter meme, #HumanitarianStarWars, interposed Star Wars movie stills with references to the development industry offered critiques of (and sometimes from within) the aid industry. By addressing continued neo-​colonial attitudes and white saviour mentalities, these memes sought to contest not only official histories but their continued (political) presence (Chonka, 2019). Regardless of whether or not such humour is understood as ‘hopeless laughter’ in the face of continued neo-​c olonialism and racism (and again recognizing the limits of it), these playful expressions of political and civic engagement indicate not only the political work that humour can do but that this work can and does transcend the local and national scales. This type of humour is speaking truth to power on a more global scale, and as a result is creating communities and a sense of solidarity among particular groups while simultaneously dispelling taboos and raising awareness about particular issues more broadly. This could certainly be

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interpreted as a form of resistance, but such online interactions are doing so much more as well. This again emphasizes how it is not just the agency of the jokester, but the joke itself that has the capacity to spread far and wide, ultimately creating groups, raising awareness which then plant seeds for ongoing discussions that are inevitably political. While there is now a general acceptance within the literature that humour can be both a lens for analysing and understanding social and political dynamics, there is still a significant lack of acknowledgement in ‘taking humour seriously’ as an actual tool that does (both positive and negative) political work. This is in part attributed to, as Obadare points out, how we think about civil society and its relationship to agency. Civil society is often thought of largely in terms of putting ‘organizations of a civic disposition at the centre of [this] idea’ in tandem with the fact that ‘[t]‌here is clearly no room in this conceptualization for social action that may not be “organized”, or that happens outside organizations’ (Obadare, 2009, p 252). This can be similarly conceptualized in relation to how we think about humour. While there is of course overt political humour, other types of humour can also be political, as well as how this can change and transform across different spaces and with different audiences and what this can mean for politics in particular settings. Humour performs important political works in social bonding, supporting new subjectivities, social commentary, taboo-​breaking and ultimately helping people cope and engage with challenging circumstances as much as offering moments of indiscipline which may or may not be overlooked by governments (Obadare, 2009; Bernal, 2013). While Obadare argues that in being small, micro-​moments of indiscipline (a useful term in lieu of resistance), humour may not wholly disrupt the commandement all at once, and as a result, the work it does often goes unnoticed by government. However, the continued and increasing efforts by governments to curtail the critical public sphere suggests governments are very conscious of the political potency of humour in Africa.

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This acknowledgement does not mean it will go away; on the contrary, social media has made it even easier to engage. However, by engaging with a conceptual discussion around agency, we can see the multiple and dynamic ways humour has the capacity to instigate and mitigate a range of different social and political consequences in these contexts, from those within and without power.

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THREE

Beyond the Symbolic: Humour in Action

Humour offers an accessible mode through which such sentiments are represented, as it favours the agency of the less powerful and highlights their capabilities in the face of adversity and extremely powerful political forces, even if it does not always lead to substantive change in the precise moment it takes place. The ways in which humour can aid people to re-​frame and re-​think their own roles and agency within society is in and of itself its own form of power. This is exemplified in the forms of jokes designed to ridicule power like the following which circulated in Nigeria about former president, Olusegun Obasanjo, in which he received information that the United Nations wanted to honour him by commissioning a statue to be erected in his honour at the nation’s capital, Abuja. He was elated when he heard the information and he quickly agreed to pose for a photograph from which his sculpted image would be made. As the people were getting the instruments ready, he heard someone mention that the United Nations had made a budget of five hundred million dollars for the project, and he immediately halted all discussions in order to get clarifications: Obasanjo:

How much is this project going to cost? Project supervisor: Five hundred million, your excellency.

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Obasanjo:

What? Why are they wasting that kind of money? (determinedly) Let them give me the money, I will go and stand there during the commissioning.

This is an example of some of the political jokes that Nigerian comedians performed during Obasanjo’s time in office to humorously characterize some of the criticisms surrounding his persona and government. The changes and transformation humour can bring does not simply ‘happen’, but rather reflect a culmination of mundane, yet often significant encounters with those in power. This is reflected in political humour –​and any resistance it may or may not demonstrate. Such fleeting moments of humour, however, still constitute political work and the accrual of these moments are important. Ultimately, narratives transmitted through humour and satire over time are ‘dynamic, continual and shifting negotiation of ideas of power, resistance and dissent … the narrative through which leaders are mocked or ridiculed may be viewed as resulting in a simultaneous reification of elite power and critique thereof ’ (Hammett, 2010a, p 15). Humour (like time) is fleeting: ‘offer[ing] their tellers and listeners a brief respite from the realities of everyday life, a moment when they feel that they (rather than the authorities) are in control … In each of these jokes, a space is created (however small) that the regime cannot penetrate’ (Swart, 2009, p 898), but they offer more than transitory sanctuary. Put differently, it must be recognized that humour ‘serves both personal and political purposes. On the personal level, it helps the marginalized to cope with everyday pain. Politically, it serves a dual use as a tool of engagement and subversion’ (Obadare, 2010, pp 94–​5) and thus an ambiguous and often changing role in everyday life. Have political leaders heard the maxim that ‘sticks and stones may break my bones, but words will never hurt me’?

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It does seem like some African leaders are not familiar with this dictum, especially seeing the way some of them respond to satirical depictions of their foibles and weaknesses by introducing new or (re)interpreting existing legislation to criminalize such actions, by attempting to sue cartoonists for liable and defamation of character, or through the use of (extra) judicial intimidation. For instance, the Egyptian government of Hosni Mubarak used the powers contained in the 1995 Press Law to arrest and prosecute journalists and cartoonists for defamation of the government and officials (Lent, 2009). These experiences serve to reinforce Eko’s postulation that the space for humour in many post-​colonial African states is increasingly limited as both legislative and political landscapes provide ‘no right to offend, disrespect, or ridicule the rich and powerful’ (2015, p 249). However, while these limits were realized through the revival of colonial-​era legislation, the use of laws ostensibly aimed at promoting national cohesion or directly limiting the space for media and civil society (as in Uganda and Rwanda) varies greatly across the continent. Thus, while Tomaselli (2009, p 13) cautioned that declining press freedoms and growing state interventions in the media were often linked to ‘misplaced concepts of “respect” for senior (male) politicians, irrespective of their behaviour’, it is important not to homogenize this experience across the continent. The varied landscape of press and other political and social freedoms reflects the different colonial and post-​independence journeys of African countries. In the immediate aftermath of colonial withdrawal [that is, 1960s for many African states, but later for others including Mozambique, Angola, Djibouti and Zimbabwe], it was hoped the move towards democratization would open spaces for cartoons, satire and other critical engagements in popular and performative media. Within nascent critical public spheres, humour was seen by many as a key tool and space used to ‘hold the newly installed governments to account and [media] emerged as vigorous critiques of the actions of political elites’ during the 1960s

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and 1970s (Willems, 2011, p 126). However, the realization of such freedoms was highly variable and fluctuated over time as a number of newly independent states experienced movements between democratic and authoritarian governments. In Cameroon, figurative expressions including (political) cartoons emerged as a regular feature in newspapers in the post-​1991 period as restrictions were relaxed by the authoritarian government in the aftermath of the Operation Ghost City protests (Mbembe, 2001). Thus, while comic art and oral traditions abounded in pre-​colonial and colonial African societies (often providing a vital space of resilience and resistance to colonial power), various postcolonial regimes sought to silence or marginalize dissent and opposition –​ particularly in the media –​by requiring journalists to promote social tranquillity (Dorman, 2006; Eko, 2007). Over time, different states have witnessed the waxing and waning of freedoms and tolerance of a critical public sphere –​including shifting levels of tolerance for satire and humour aimed at governments and officials. During the early post-​independence years in Kenya, state censorship and monopoly over broadcast media meant there was little space for critical satire. While a few pioneering Kenya satirists managed to circumvent censors from the 1960s to the 1980s, the relaxing of legislation and media control in the 1990s triggered a rapid rise in satire and comedy. Core to this new wave of humour were popular shows on national television, including Redykyulass, which aired from late 1990s until 2002 and the puppet satire of the XYZ Show during the early 2000s (Kiruga, 2016). Alongside the growth of satire on broadcast media, this opening of space for a critical public sphere also saw the emergence of political cartoonists, including Godfrey Mwampembwa –​penname Gado. Gado’s firing as the editorial cartoonist after 24 years of employment by the Daily Nation in 2016 signalled a deteriorating political situation and a curtailing of the critical public sphere by the Kenyan government. Gado’s work is outstanding because his cartoons cover the whole of the

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East African region, frequently focusing on Uganda’s sit-​tight leader, Yoweri Museveni. His work had earlier been proscribed in his native Tanzania even before his dismissal at Kenya’s Daily Nation. Nevertheless, while the Kenyan government may have surreptitiously taken control of editorial decisions in the country’s newspapers, Gado has turned to social media for publishing his drawings where they have been receiving massive following and admiration (Vergès, 2022). Even in the run-​up to Kenya’s general elections in August 2022, Gado’s pen was capturing the oddities and absurdities of the principal characters who are angling to replace the incumbent, Uhuru Kenyatta. Government reactions to humourists can also be seen in examples from South Africa and Tanzania. In the first instance, there were court cases brought by then-​President Jacob Zuma against the cartoonist Zapiro in South Africa in 2012, as well as discussion in 2007 by the ANC government to censor Zapiro’s depiction of Zuma with a shower faucet attached to his head.1 In the second, as mentioned in the previous chapter, Idris Sultan was also taken to Court by Magufuli under the auspices of an unregistered sim-​card related offence, but in reality it was because of his mocking of the President (Amnesty International, 2020). Often these cases are brought by –​or on behalf of –​leaders who feel they have been insulted or who have fostered the development of legal (and at times extra-​legal) landscapes in which dissent, ridicule and satire are far-​from-​welcome. Such legal cases –​as well as other legal and extra-​legal efforts to muzzle satirists and cartoonists –​suggest a regression in the space for dissent and discussion in various countries. In reality, the picture of media, political and civil freedoms across the African continent is highly varied and reflects a mixture of progress and regression in tolerance for a critical public sphere. In recent years, Reporters without Borders and Cartooning for Peace have reported arrests, prosecutions and deaths of cartoonists across many countries including Algeria (from where cartoonist Nime has left for exile in France having

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previously been convicted and imprisoned for publishing cartoons that insulted the president), Egypt (where Ashraf Hamdi, the figure behind Egyptoon animated satire was arrested in January 2021 shortly after reposting a satirical animation, and both web cartoonist Islam Gawish and the satirical musical group Street Children were imprisoned in 2016), Equatorial Guinea (where cartoonist Ramón Esono Ebalé was imprisoned for nearly six months in 2017/​8 on false charges), and Tanzania (where cartoonist Optatus Fwema was arrested in September 2021 and charged with publishing false information after publishing a cartoon of the country’s president on Instagram).2 While such experiences are not universal –​nor uncontested –​ the shrinking space for press freedoms and freedom of critical expression in many contexts is not only concerning but suggests humour is more than simply symbolic. It is clear that not only do drawings, words and gestures vex and illicit anger among political leaders (George & Liew, 2021), but such practices (can) do huge amounts of political work –​and can elicit visceral, physical and both legal and extra-​legal responses. These responses, and the humour towards which they are targeted, embody various expressions of and responses to power, agency and –​ultimately –​violence. No laughing matter: humour and/​as violence Humour is rarely expressed through physical violence –​slapstick comedy notwithstanding –​but it is inherently entwined with violence –​both in the content of jokes, cartoons and satire, and in the responses that may be generated (intentionally or otherwise). Concerns over the (threat of) physical violence as a particular expression of legal and extra-​legal power towards satirists, stand-​up comedians and cartoonists remain prominent. In recent years, the beating and torture of Samantha Kureya (stage name Gonyeti), who was abducted one evening and tortured in cruel and unusual ways by unknown people in Zimbabwe (Burke, 2019) illustrate the potential for

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(state-​sanctioned) physical violence in response to ridicule and mockery. But this is not the only form of violence perpetuated in response to humour. A broader approach to violence allows us to capture more of the diverse ways in which humour both (directly and indirectly) enacts political work and stimulates (violent) responses. In writing about violence, Galtung (1969, p 168) defines violence as being ‘present when human beings are being influenced so that their actual somatic and mental realizations are below their potential realizations’. The expression or realization of this violence may, Galtung (1969) argues, be experienced as direct violence (including physical attacks) and indirect violence (the channelling of resources away from constructive efforts at realizing individual potential, thereby keeping groups and populations as subordinate). Humour thus has the potential for both forms of violence –​direct in the sense of demeaning, dehumanizing or stigmatizing particular groups or individuals, and indirect in the perpetuation of stereotypes and social hierarchies that disseminate inequalities and marginalization. Galtung (1969) outlines the possibilities for violence to be manifested in multiple ways, including physical and psychological violence. While physical violence is rarely exerted within humour per se, it is seen on occasion in response to humour, satire and caricature. In some instances, physical violence follows from the dehumanization of communities or groups in support of a campaign of popular violent mobilization –​as witnessed in the mobilization of the 2007–​2008 election violence in Kenya and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. We also witness (the threat of) physical violence occurring in response to humorous expressions –​ either towards individual humourists and/​or their families (as with the abduction and beating of Zimbabwean stand-​up comic Gonyeti; the harassment, beatings and death threats between 1991 and the early 2000s against Cameroonian cartoonist Paul-​ Louis Nyemb Ntoogueé, aka Popoli [whose magazine Popoli is now available online] and Bassem Youssef ’s arrest by Egyptian

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authorities in 2013 and subsequent flight in 2014 from Egypt to Dubai and then the US) or more broadly against media owners and editors whose products carry such humour. Psychological violence –​the effort to indoctrinate individuals and collectives into particular ways of thinking –​has also been used, or held as a threat, against humourists in various contexts, such as the Ingando re-​education camps in Rwanda (Purdeková, 2015). Such negative approaches towards humourists also include (threats of) imprisonment, intimidation as well as governmental pressures on employers and broadcasters to cancel contracts and/​or face fines and other penalties. Such pressures have been experienced by humourists in Egypt (Bassem Youssef), Kenya (Gado), South Africa (Zapiro) and beyond. They are used by state actors to delimit and police the ‘red lines’ of acceptability in terms of who may be subjected to ridicule, what topics or issues are deemed taboo and/​or as breaching imposed limits of ‘civility’ in critical public discourse (Hammett and Jackson, 2018). The manifestation of these approaches may include physical violence against an object or a person (such as the offices of a newspaper, as in the case of the South African Mail and Guardian in 2010 after Zapiro published a cartoon of the Prophet Mohamed, or the beatings experienced by Gonyeti), as well as the project of the potential for violence to ensue. This projection of power –​the power to commit violence –​may be sanctioned via legal systems and official state agents, but may also be extra-​legal (as in the threats from Islamist groups towards Algerian cartoonist Ali Dilem, who has been issued jail sentences in Algeria and countless fatwas [Bennoune, 2016]). In addition to these individualized forms of personal violence, we see the prominence of structural violence as embedded within the (potential) political work of humour. On the one hand, humour may be used in response to structural violence and inequalities –​as a space to build and express solidarity, as well as a means through which to critique and comment upon (encounters with) structural violence. Simultaneously, structural violence may be deployed to curtail humour through

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the exclusion and marginalization of groups and individuals from joking and laughing. On the other hand, humour itself can be integral to structural violence –​an everyday expression of power which results in harm (be this psychological, emotional or even physical) and the continued marginalization and maligning of social groups. Clear examples of such practices are evident, from the use of racial and gender stereotypes and racist and sexist jokes, through to the de-​humanization of population groups through repeated representations within humour of their being animalistic, inferior and subordinate. Taking the understanding of violence further, Galtung (1990) argues that aspects of culture are deployed to legitimize direct or structural violence –​coining the term ‘cultural violence’. Galtung argues that this results in both direct and structural violence against survival needs, well-​being, identity and meaning, and freedoms. Taking these in turn, we can see how humour can be –​and is –​used not only to resist, entrench and express these forms of violence but also how states respond to humour through these different forms of violence and how humour itself can be understood as a form of violence. For Mbembe (2001, p 142), cartoons are not simply a figure of speech but ‘a particular strategy of persuasion, even violence’. In arguing that cartoons may be a strategy of violence, Mbembe does not suggest cartoons are directly violent, although they may depict physical violence, but rather that they can contest power and structural violence, and may be thus a symbolic form of violence. Expanding from this, while cartoons themselves may offer a challenge to structural violence, they can also elicit or trigger responses which may be understood as both direct and indirect or structural forms of violence, which may, in extremis, be violence against survival needs (Galtung, 1990) –​ or, in other words, the (attempted) killings of humourists and cartoonists. More commonly we see both direct threats and violence as well as indirect pressures and violence against the well-​being, identity and freedoms of the jokers. These encounters with violence range from the (extra)legal detention

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of comedians and cartoonists from some of the examples given previously Gonyeti, Idris Sultan, and cartoonists in several countries, as well as the pressures placed on publishers and editors to cancel contracts with satirists, commentators and cartoonists who are deemed as disruptive by political leaders as in the case of Gado with Daily Nation. There are instances of indirect pressure, especially mounted on humourists by the public as in the case of a Ugandan comedian, Patrick ‘Salvador’ Idringi, who joked about the Rwandan genocide and was roundly criticized online (Kagire, 2019). Thus, the agency of the joke itself manifests in real world consequences for individuals and groups alike. Ambiguities in the power of humour Putting humour into practice –​through stand-​up comedy, cartoons, online memes, sharing of jokes and so on –​typically involves a relationship with or expression of power. As the previous chapter explored, humour and satire are power-​ laden and can be an expression of power over, taking power away from, giving power to, or contesting or rejecting power asserted over, or as a practice of self-​empowerment. More than this, the ability to (freely) exercise humour (and, no, we do not mean taking it out for a walk each day and ensure it gets its 10,000 steps –​we did warn you about the dad jokes!) is also framed by expressions of power that delimit the possibilities and spaces for joking and humour. As we explore later, these limits to the agency of humourists –​and everyday citizens –​in (re)telling jokes include both the legal and extra-​legal expressions and excesses of state power. This, however, does not mean the jokes themselves do not have agency, on the contrary. Layered onto state power, we also need to think through the additional ways in which power and humour intersect. In so doing, we have to consider whom has the power to represent themselves and others in humour. Whose representations

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matter? By whom –​ and how and why –​ are these (self)representations offered? At the heart of these questions are issues of power and, often, experiences of everyday politics in action –​be this in encounters with various forms of social hierarchies, the everyday impacts of political policies and practices, from food and fuel prices to service delivery and corruption. Within these encounters we see the importance of agency –​of who permits or restricts the spaces of humour, who can and chooses to joke, decisions as to the intended purpose of their humour and joking, and ways in which humour is received and understood. This inherent entwining of power, agency and humour is crucial. The power that frames the spaces and opportunities for humour, as well as the power of humour itself, is far from monolithic and unidirectional. Humour is not only a moment of resistance. It can also be an assertion of power over another group by making jokes at their expense or denying their space to ridicule and mock the powerful. But more than this, the complexities of humour –​and the political work that humour can do –​resides in the different forms, expressions, relations manifestations of power that run in multiple directions within and between society, state, and everyday life (Abrahamsen, 2003; Loomba, 2005; Hammett, 2010a). The complex, multidirectional and contextual power relations not only frame the possibilities for humour, but also create spaces and possibilities for the divergence between intent and reception –​between the joker’s intended message, and the audience’s understanding and reaction. Power and agency are thus held not only by those with the means to police the joking realm nor by the jokers themselves, but also by their audiences. The interplay of these power dynamics can be seen in the divergence between intent, reception and both popular and politico-​legal responses to South African cartoonist Zapiro’s infamous ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon (explored in detail later, see also Hammett, 2010b). Thus, while jokes and humour may be effective in uniting and

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creating a sense of solidarity, humour can also be divisive and exclusionary (Hart, 2007). The popular (and political) mobilization in response to Zapiro’s cartoon –​which included threats from veterans of the ANC’s armed faction, uMkhonto we Sizwe (MK), against Zapiro and to destabilize the country –​highlight the divisive potential of humour. Such potential for division is heightened in instances where humour is used as a tool of social superiority and a means of asserting dominance over others (Zelizer, 2010). These practices can take different guises, from re-​asserting difference between groups to demeaning, stigmatizing and laughing at particular (often powerless) groups through the use of depictions and caricatures within humour as a form of social control and correction (Swart, 2009; Brassett, 2016). Whether this takes the form of sexist joking within South Africa’s parliament (Verwoerd & Verwoerd, 1994) or the directing of joking and laughter towards living with HIV in South Africa during the 1990s and 2000s (Black, 2012), humour can be used to entrench difference, division and marginalization (Hart, 2007). These practices simultaneously create a sense of superiority for those who are ‘allowed’ to joke –​and the symbolic power of having the agency to do this –​over those who are being joked about (and, often, who are denied the possibility to respond). For example, as noted in the previous chapter, in post-​Ebola Sierra Leone, local laws prohibited the stigmatization of Ebola survivors, which meant that if someone who had not had Ebola made fun of someone who had, they could be accused of stigmatizing and be fined by local authorities (Martin, 2022). This has, therefore, created a situation where those who had not had Ebola are afraid to make jokes about it, for fear of being accused of stigmatization, thereby creating divisions within particular communities. These dynamics were also evident in the ways in which joking towards those living with HIV/​AIDS in South Africa demeaned and marginalized the targets of these joking practices (Black, 2012). Not only did these practices

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‘implicit[ly] assum[e]‌that the joke-​teller neither had HIV/​ AIDS nor accepted those who did’ (Black, 2012, p 88), but they resulted in various forms of exclusion and experiences of psychological violence –​in addition to encounters of physical violence and marginalization also faced by those living with HIV/​AIDS. These practices highlight how humour is not always progressive or about resisting excesses of power, rather it can be used for more regressive and conservative forms of political work, to resist change or progressive ideals, or to marginalize and exclude. These more conservative –​or, at times, regressive –​ uses of humour can reinforce and reify dominance and power, maintain social systems and hierarchies and create, perform and bound notions of identity and belonging and may be used as ‘part of reactionary, prejudicial and cruel political projects’ (Wedderburn, 2021, p 5; see also Merziger, 2007; Ridanpää, 2019). These practices are both performative –​meaning we cannot separate humour from those who use it, nor those who receive or are subject to it (Wedderburn, 2021) –​and inherently violent, whether symbolic, psychological or physical. The potential outcomes of these practices are, unfortunately, often far from amusing –​with derogatory jokes featuring in the mobilization of violence in the 2007 Kenyan election violence and the 1994 Rwandan genocide. The dehumanization of the Tutsi in cartoons published by the extremist Hutu periodical Kangura feeds into broader tropes that incited violence against Tutsi minority and Hutu moderates (George & Liew, 2021). In apartheid South Africa, comedy was not only used as a tool of resistance or opposition but also as ‘an integral medium for indoctrination and pacification’ (Donian, 2021, p 1). Pro-​ National Party Afrikaans editorial cartoonists in the mainstream press advocated in favour of apartheid and promoted racial division and white supremacy (Mason, 2010b). Such practices illustrate the potential (political) power of ‘humour as an instrument of social control’ (Donian, 2021, p 1). The 1963 Publications and Entertainments Act, 1974 Publications

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Act and the 1985 ‘state of emergency’ ensured extensive National Party government control over and censorship of media considered to be disrespectful of the government or a threat to social relations in apartheid South Africa. This, Donian (2021, p 2) argues, meant ‘humour primarily served a propaganda machine’–​promoting Afrikaner nationalism and racial stereotypes, whether through cartoons, television, film or nascent stand-​up comedy. Such examples of humour illustrate the simultaneous construction of in-​and out-​g roup identities: by mocking and demeaning specific characteristics of ‘others’, the joker is also performing the dialectic by implicitly defining who ‘we’ are in contrast to the ‘other’. Such processes can have the impact of developing and strengthening a sense of solidarity, belonging and identity through representational practices that ‘can lead to the dehumanization of others and justify the belief in the righteousness of one’s own group or cause’ (Zelizer, 2010, p 4). In this way, humour is a manifestation of social superiority (Zelizer, 2010) –​an expression of the power to ridicule, an ‘other’ while reinforcing one’s own position of dominance –​a performative process that reminds us of the childhood game of ‘I’m the king of the castle, and you’re the dirty rascal’. Consequently, humour and political satire must be understood not simply as a form of resistance and response to the –​sometimes grotesque –​excesses of post-​colonial state power (Mbembe, 2001; Abrahamsen, 2003), but also as a tool and expression of power. Yes, satire can be understood as ‘a form of revolt that serves to publicly express feelings and challenge the course of action’ (Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017, p 2806) as ordinary people mock and ridicule ostentatious displays of power, wealth and status (Abrahamsen, 2003) –​but this is not always the case. The political work that humour does is complex, partial and potentially self-​contradictory. Thus, while humour can be used to identify and address weaknesses, foibles and excesses of political leaders and state institutions, and create a ‘profane public sphere’ –​an invented space for

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citizens to challenge state power, it is important to remember that humour ‘can be used by and against both the “strong” and the “weak”. In fact, holders of political power can and often do use humour to ingratiate themselves’ (Obadare, 2009, p 260), as exemplified by Nigeria’s Obasanjo during his time in office and the image of the dancing president exemplified by Liberia’s George Weah with the viral videos of his ‘Buga dance’. The use of humour by the holders of political power to ingratiate themselves can be seen on a number of levels. Southall (2020) has argued that much of Jacob Zuma’s popularity and power as then-​President of South Africa derived from his willingness to strategically act as a buffoon, including in Parliamentary debates (RDM News Wire, 2015). Zuma’s use of humour and his willingness to appear (and act) as the fool –​the ‘charismatic buffoon’ (Southall, 2020) –​were political tools used to entrench power and mobilize popular sentiment and rhetoric –​often against political opponents and prominent critics (including, ironically, cartoonists). Crucially, here, the political use of humour as a tool for the gaining and retaining of power reminds us that humour is not simply a space of resistance. Instead, humour and buffoonery can, as Southall (2020) cautions, be combined with authoritarianism to silence opposition and dissent, and present a threat to democracy. Elsewhere, we see comedians being employed directly by political candidates to perform at political rallies –​as in Nigerian election campaigning in 2015 (Anazia, 2015; Itiri, 2015) and also giving out endorsements for the election, expected in February 2023 (Stephen, 2022). Martin also spoke with some comedians in Sierra Leone who would commonly either campaign on behalf of political candidates, perform for presidents and their guests or perhaps support causes of the State House. Simultaneously though, comedians cautioned against being too overtly political because as one comedian stated: “Tomorrow they can take you in and then take you out” (personal interview with Sugarcane, 2019). In other words, you may gain access through politics or politicians, but in the

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same vein, this can come back to bite you, especially if there is a change of government. This particular comedian had also campaigned for the incumbent political party (Sierra Leone People’s Party) in his constituency in the second round of the 2018 election (the run-​off), as they had promised to bring scholarships for kids. After his efforts, however, Sugarcane said the party members did not return to provide what they had promised, and he felt used by them. Thus, as Brassett (2016) reminds us, while humour and satire can be –​but do not have to be –​vernacular forms of resistance which may (or may not) contest hierarchies and power, they can also be used to reinforce existing power relations. This recognition is important in reminding us of assuming that satire is universally used as a tool to ‘provide a voice to the subaltern while subverting power relations, exploitation and repression’ (Hammett, 2010a, p 15).3 Humour is, as Crigler acknowledges, ‘inherently ambiguous’ (2018, p 168). It can be used to challenge and/​or reinforce power, ‘to mock and ridicule the weak, as well as to challenge the strong’ (Källstig & Death, 2021, p 342), and it can simply be a moment of levity, escapism and connection in everyday social interactions (Wedderburn, 2021). As a result, the political work of humour can be mundane and everyday –​a space and means of coping and surviving in the face of daily challenges. Life is, as Mbembe (2001, p 157) reminds us, a permanent struggle and that when people meet in a corner bar it is not just to drink but also to laugh. Laughter in the face of adversity, particularly in non-​public contexts and shared with a few trusted friends or family members, is less a ‘weapon of the weak’ or a moment of resistance (Scott, 1985) than a space and means of coping and survival. Writing about Egypt, Lent suggests that humour is often a ‘survival mechanism … to intolerable conditions’ (2009, p 20). Some may view the very act of survival as a means of resistance, but we maintain that these humorous exchanges and moments often do a range of other, perhaps more hidden, political work. This political work

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may relate to the binding of people together and codifying of (opposition to) social orders, the magnifying of social tensions, the mutual reassurance and comradery from laughing together in the face of adversity or at excesses or failings of state power (Wedderburn, 2021). Thus, we can understand the use of horseplay, ridicule and humour among defeated Boer commandos in the South African War was less about resistance, and more about coping and survival, of defiance in adversity and as a means of promoting belonging, cohesion and social control (Swart, 2009). This survival mechanism was, Swart (2009) argues, key in the aftermath of the South African War as defeated Boer commandos used ‘hopeless laughter’ as a means of bonding and of escapism from the realities of defeat. In other contexts, the practice of joke telling at funerals (funerary jokers) has emerged as a key cultural practice in Africa, one that is not about resistance or rebellion but as part of a socio-​cultural process (Launay, 2006; Pype, 2015). While such moments may not be successful, sustained forms of resistance they do political work. In some instances they provide minor, fleeting rebellious moments, while at other times such jokes offer the illusion of rebellion. Further, in releasing humour tension may ‘actually maintain the status quo’ because laughter can become ‘a substitute for the political action that could otherwise effect change … Thus the jokes are not an instrument of revolution but, quite the reverse, an index of resignation’ (Swart, 2009, p 899). This approach resonates with Mbembe’s (2001) arguments on the ‘politics of affect’, such that these jokes and humorous moments serve more to reify and reinforce dominant power structures and positions. A contrasting argument here would be that even in defeat, laughter is a moment of agency, rebellion and usurpation. The laughter of the weak or the defeated instead offering (even if only fleetingly) a space of comradery and solidarity, an expression of a shared knowledge of the weaknesses and eccentricities of the powerful, and potentially a challenge to the prowess of the victor. Thus, it still does a great deal of political

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work, even if (as Swart [2009] characterizes the humour of the defeated Boer commandos) humour is primarily used to salve consciences and provide a façade of rebellion. These, albeit fleeting, moments can still open up the political (Brassett, 2016, p 186) and do political work –​ whether this is as resistance, consolidation, resilience, coping, peace-​ building –​which accrues and accretes. The deposit of such moments of political work can be read over time, recognizing the ‘dynamic, continual and shifting negotiation of ideas of power, resistance and dissent … the narrative through which leaders are mocked or ridiculed may be viewed as resulting in a simultaneous reification of elite power and critique thereof ’ (Hammett, 2010a, p 15). In its fleetingness, humour provides ‘tellers and listeners a brief respite from the realities of everyday life, a moment when they feel that they (rather than the authorities) are in control’ (Swart, 2009, p 898). Such moments are more than a transitory sanctuary. They perform political work through social bonding, building self-​esteem, supporting new subjectivities as much as offering moments of indiscipline that may or may not disrupt the commandement and thus go unnoticed by government (Obadare, 2009; Bernal, 2013). The continued –​and increasing –​efforts by some African governments to curtail the critical public sphere suggests these leaders are very conscious of the political work and potential of such moments of indiscipline,4 signifying an inverted politics of affect: that the state, in further strengthening efforts to close down a critical public sphere and the political work of humour, simply serves to reinforce and reify the potential and power of humour as a space of political work. Stripping power? The processes of de-​territorializing political leaders, ‘whereby they are symbolically taken out of their natural “territories” in order to denounce the excesses of authoritarianism’ (Eko, 2007, p 219), may be tolerated, and even effective, in

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challenging excesses of state power and stripping leaders of their authority on specific issues: but it remains a potentially dangerous process. By repeatedly depicting a leader, an individual, a community –​an ‘other’ –​in certain ways, this can contribute to the dehumanization of not only an individual but an entire community. Speaking on the 2007 Kenyan election violence, the Chief Human Rights Officer of the Kenyan National Commission on Human Rights, Ms Linda Ochiel, identified derogatory jokes as a form of hate speech, ‘making People look like they were not human beings so that the killings … People killing their neighbours because they have been dehumanized. So it’s become very easy for them to kill people that they know’ (cited in Zelizer, 2010, p 4). Humour, therefore, can go beyond the stripping of power from the powerful: the political work of humour is not only about what it can –​and does –​do to elites but the potential for humour to be used in very regressive, exploitative or violent political work. While the depictions of political leaders as dangerous snakes or of rural leaders as pigs with snouts in the troughs on political ephemera in Zimbabwe may have been understood as a strategy to use humour and deterritorialization to invent a space for a political dissent and debate (Hammett, 2011), such practices would have different meanings in other contexts. As such, the history of genocide in Rwanda, and the dehumanizing discourses (including in cartoons) used in the build-​up to the genocide, means that practices of deterritorializing in comedy here would be viewed very negatively. In other Afr ican countr ies, however, practices of deterritorialization and transilience (which we understand using Eko’s [2007, p 219] framing and understanding as an ‘African narrative device whereby human beings are given animal attributes for purposes of satire’ but which also has much wider usage and meaning) are longstanding satirical devices. As Eko (2007) notes, such satirical practices have long histories and connections to folkloric practices in Cameroon, Burkina

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Faso, Senegal and Kenya with cartoonists and others using the transformation of political (and other) leaders into plants or animals ‘to pass ethical or moral judgement on individuals, groups and institutions’ (Eko, 2007, p 224). These practices are used to ‘demythologize and demystify[y]‌ideologically constructed images and “legendary” political leaders who embody the abuse of power’ (Eko, 2007, p 225), and can be seen in examples from Gabon, Zimbabwe, Burkina Faso, South Africa and beyond. Efforts to strip power from political leaders and skewer their excesses and pomposity do not always rely upon transilience but may also utilize other motifs. In the satirical Kenyan television programme, the XYZ Show, depictions of leaders were intended to remind audiences of their failures and foibles. Thus, as Kiruga recounts: The puppet caricature of Deputy President William Ruto on XYZ often appears with a roasted maize cob in his breast pocket, a snide call-​back to the maize scandal that happened when he was minister of agriculture. At other times, he is depicted against the backdrop of a private jet, which refers to a travel scandal christened ‘Hustler Jet’. Members of parliament are often depicted as pigs, as a testament of their avarice. In Kenyan social spaces, ‘MPigs’ is a derisive reference to legislators. (2016, p 30) In South Africa, Zapiro’s (in)famous depiction of Jacob Zuma with a shower faucet attached to or, very briefly, suspended above his head sought to remind viewers of Zuma’s testimony during his trial for rape that after having unprotected sex with a HIV-​positive family friend, he took a shower to reduce his risk of contracting the virus (Hammett, 2010b). At the time, Zuma was the head of South Africa’s National AIDS Council. Having said this, we also need to recognize the reality that while spaces of satire may be effective in mobilizing and rallying

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opposition and resistance, they also act to mobilize those who are subject to ridicule (Braun & Buse, 2020). Indeed, Eko (2015) argues that the authoritarian and oppressive responses to cartoonists for ridiculing political leaders in Africa –​often via deterritorializing the leaders –​are efforts intended to reterritorialize and rehabilitate the reputation and image of leaders. Peaceful laughter The (potential) political work of humour is evident not only in the potential for jokes and humour to elicit violent reactions but also the importance of humour and joking relationships in maintaining and building peace. Humour is often used as a tool to prevent or break cycles of violence. Whether through traditional joking relationships or as a technique to break tensions and reframe discussions in peace negotiations, humour can provide a space to address social conflicts or creating common ground (Zelizer, 2010). In such situations, the political work of humour is to healing, releasing emotions and frustrations, and coping. Recognizing the power of humour to support communities in crisis or conflict regions, the 14 national chapters of Clowns Without Borders International have run projects in recent years in countries including Burkina Faso, Ethiopia, Rwanda, Senegal, South Africa and Tanzania, to ‘offer laughter to relieve the suffering of all persons, especially children, who live in areas of crisis’ (CWB, 2022). Such practices not only offer fleeting moments of levity but also support and facilitate processes peace building and resilience (Zelizer, 2010; CWB, 2022). Elsewhere, humour has become embedded as a particular form of social relationship and institution as well as an integral part of peace-​keeping or conflict management between communities. The historical embeddedness of the use of jokes and laughter as tools of mediation in times of crisis is well documented in various regions, including the Niger-​Delta

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area of Nigeria. Here, the city of Warri is a major oil hub and seat of local government, and since the 15th century has been home to major population groups from the Urhobo, Itsekiri and Ijaws, as well as growing numbers of in-​migrants from other groups, including the Igbo. Nwankwọ (2021) argues not only that jokes and laughter have been vital to maintaining peace and facilitating mediation, but also that the centrality of these practices in everyday life has contributed to the region producing more stand-​up comedians than any other area in Nigeria. Furthermore, with Nigeria’s volatile ethno-​ religious relations, it may seem surprising that ‘derogatory’ ethnic jokes and gags are integral to many stand-​up comedians’ repertoires. That these jokes have not stirred up conflict nor invited government censorship is, Nwankwọ (2021) suggests, a further reflection of the depth of pre-​existing joke forms and joking relations. These longstanding humour practices mean that expressions of offence-​taking in joking situations is socially frowned upon, and that there is an expectation of a culture of permissiveness around these practices (Nwankwọ, 2021). These practices are one embodiment of wider forms of joking alliances or sanankuya –​also termed cousinage –​in various African countries (Canut & Smith, 2006). Encompassing banter and teasing between specific ‘joking partners’ who play an integral role in maintaining harmony between groups, such practices exist in different forms, with varying levels of seriousness and obligations, but all requiring the joking partners to observe the boundaries of acceptable joking and not to offend or harm each other (Davidheiser, 2006; Launay, 2006). In Burkina Faso, such joking relationships are integral to ensuring and maintaining social peace between Fulbe agro-​pastoralists and farmers, emphasizing stability in social and political relations between communities as a means of preventing and resolving conflict (Hagberg, 2006). The centrality of senankuya to social relations in Mande society in West Africa requires or expects the use of designated insults and terms when specific groups are

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addressing each other, and that the failure to deploy these terms of abuse when they are expected is considered an insult (Miller, 1990). Therefore, the agency of a joke, or humour more broadly, can simultaneously instigate violence, as well as facilitate peaceful relations. Pacifying humour While the use of humour for mediating and preventing conflict is undoubtedly important, a prioritizing of peace-​building and national reconciliation may also result in the closing of spaces for dissenting laughter and humour. In this sense, peace and peace-​building can function as potential arenas of governmentality –​with knock-​on outcomes for spaces for humour. While peace is often viewed as an uncritical ‘good’, it is in reality ‘a contested and complex concept, imbued with and deployed to exert power’ (Hammett & Marshall, 2017, p 130). This power can, in turn, be ‘used to stifle dissent and criticism through exhortations to patriotism, unity, civility, and nation-​building: in other words, peace and peace-​building may be deployed as tools of governmentality’ (Hammett & Marshall, 2017, p 130). Rather than being used as a tool for peace, humour may thus become a victim of peace(building), particularly in contexts where efforts to forge a new national identity and unity utilize the language and politics of peace-​ building to close down spaces for dissent and satire. In some instances, initial legal or social prohibition of certain forms and targets of jokes and humour may be mobilized as part of broader efforts to overcome histories of trauma in divided societies. Such restriction may be presented as integral to nation-​ building, reconciliation and national harmony –​but may evolve into more authoritarian practices whereby governments mobilize laws and language on ‘protecting national unity’ and ‘preventing social division’ in order to close down the space for the critical public sphere –​and thus close down spaces for dissenting (un)laughter.

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The point we are making here is that while humour may be used to promote peace, it may also be silenced by the demands of peace-​(building institutions). As Mbembe (1992, p 2) discusses, the post-​colony comprises institutions that ‘constitute a distinctive regime of violence’, integral to which is the regime of state power that is deployed to create a world of meanings but also to govern the creation of meaning and conduct. Thus, while humour may neutralize conflict and may provide hope, it is often confined within specific (imposed) boundaries of acceptability and may be politicized (Ridanpää, 2019). This understanding returns us to the notion of governmentality and the myriad efforts deployed to promote the governance of mentality and determine the conduct of conduct (Gordon, 1991; Ettlinger, 2011). In this sense, we can see the strategic use of, permission for and bounding of acceptable topics for joking and satire, and the closing of spaces for humour as integral to efforts to determine the conduct of conduct. The use of public order ordinances, discourses of the national good or national unity, and red lines of un/​acceptable joking topics are all everyday disciplinary techniques that are intended to ‘monitor, shape and control the behaviour of individuals’ (Gordon, 1991, p 3). In asserting power over the appropriate forms, forums and focus of humour, political leaders are exercising power in an effort ‘to reinforce, strengthen and protect the principality’ (Foucault, 1991, p 90). In this instance, the principality is not the nation or state, but is the political leader themselves. By disciplining the unruly space of humour, the principle can be understood as seeking to protect and maintain their dominant relationship with/​over the territory and subjects. These efforts incorporate both the grand, legal efforts to curtail the public sphere as well as defining and shaping general conditions of everyday life (Barnett, 1999) through tactics of (extra)legal surveillance, control and discipline. However, such efforts to govern and control humour can be risky and can lead to a boom in satire and joking in response to increasingly repressive

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efforts to criminalize and outlaw jokes against key political figures (Obadare, 2010). Illustrating this concern, we see how South Africa’s Constitutional Court ruled that ‘although freedom of expression is fundamental to our democratic society, it is not a paramount value. It must be construed in the context of the other values enshrined in our Constitution. In particular, the values of human dignity, freedom and equality’ (cited in Eko, 2017, p 35) As a result, Eko (2017) argues, the rights of the listener or viewer surpassed those of the writer, illustrator or speaker. While the original intention of the ruling may have been to promote national unity and harmony as part of the post-​apartheid nation-​building project, this also provided a powerful precedent for political leaders to stifle criticism from cartoonists, satirists and others. This interpretation and legal ruling has been utilized by political leaders in efforts to suppress the jester’s space of editorial cartoonists and (re)define the limits of conduct. The tensions at play here are vividly apparent in Zapiro’s letter to South Africa’s Human Rights Commission amidst the controversy surrounding the ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon in 2008. In this letter, Zapiro offers his agreement with the Human Rights Commission Chairperson’s response to questions on where to draw the line between hate speech and freedom of expression, and what constitutes hate speech. Zapiro continues to note that: By convention, cartoonists have been given what is often referred to as the ‘jester’s space’ in newspapers to portray events and public personalities in iconoclastic, irreverent and often controversial fashion. Yet there is no special mention of cartoonists in the Constitution, and so we cannot claim special protection. What we can claim is the same right to freedom of expression that is accorded to every citizen, which includes the right (as already stated) to say things that may cause offence to some. (Zapiro, 2010, p 1)

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However, he continues to reflect on whether cartoonists should be required to explain to the Human Rights Commission matters of subjective interpretation –​and the risk of setting a precedent by doing so. Despite these concerns, Zapiro does offer an extended commentary and justification for the cartoon. He notes the use of a clearly allegorical and symbolic figure (Lady Justice) as representative of the abstract concept of the justice system, outlines the political background to the image and threats made to the independence of the judiciary, and the importance of making ‘robust interventions’ through the metaphor of rape. While acknowledging that the readings of the cartoon would be highly subjective and divisive, Zapiro asserted the right to make powerful, provocative interventions as these contribute to public debate. These broader moves to limit press freedoms (noted by organizations such as Freedom House and Reporters Without Borders) may be justified by governments as linked to efforts to maintain and promote national unity and peace. The rallying cry of ‘the greater good’ in this situation is a strategically political one based upon the existing elite’s efforts to maintain the status quo. As Tomaselli cautions, the censuring of cartoonists and humourists in the name of ‘national unity’ is often in reality linked to ‘misplaced concepts of “respect” for senior (male) politicians, irrespective of their behaviour’ (2009, p 13) and an instrumentalist approach to nation-​building which curtails and co-​opts the public sphere (including the media) to uncritically support the political elite and government (Hammett, 2010a). Efforts to circumscribe the public sphere have at times had very clear connections to the sensitivity of governments to humour and satire. In Algeria, not only has the cartoonist Ali Dilem been targeted and threatened by the legal system and Islamist groups, but in 2001 his name was attached to a number of legal changes providing the state with greater powers to prosecute and imprison journalists (RSF, 2015).

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More recently, in September 2021 the Tanzanian cartoonist Optatus Fwema was detained without formal charge for posting a cartoon of Tanzania’s president, Samia Suluhu, on his Instagram page. The cartoon depicted President Suluhu as a young girl, playing with a bucket of water (the bucket emblazoned in the Tanzanian flag) with Jakaya Kikwete –​a former president of Tanzania –​shown behind her, reassuring citizens (RSF, 2021). Justifications and explanations for Fwema’s detention by government ministers drew upon narratives that journalists should not publish materials that might harm the national image, create tensions or insult the president –​and should, instead, be guided by national patriotism (Daily News Reporter, 2021). This example also further demonstrates how social media spaces are not immune from prosecution and that, if anything, they have created more concern for governments. In Rwanda, critics have argued that while the media landscape has evolved over the past 20 years, with a proliferation of independent media agencies, the broader political context and reliance upon government advertising revenue has limited space for critique and dissent (McIntyre & Sobel, 2018; Sobel & McIntyre, 2019). These practices are informed by the divisive role of media in the genocide of 1994, which included the dehumanizing of individuals and ethnic groups through cartoons and other formats in order to justify the genocide. As a consequence, the space for cartoons and satire remains restricted –​in part from self-​censorship and a popular rejection of common humour practices including de-​territorialization, in part from journalists’ viewing their primary role as being to promote unity and reconciliation, and in part from concerns of potential legal sanctions. While the constitution guarantees press freedom, legal clauses prohibiting the promotion or incitement of division within the population are commonly used to restrict journalists (McIntyre & Sobel, 2018, pp 2132–​3 ). More broadly, African humourists acknowledge the continued practice of

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self-​censorship in many regions. Whether this is in the form of using coded language and oblique references in efforts to evade censors, to deliberately toning down or moderating the content and style of jokes and cartoons –​as people such as Tanzanian cartoonist Samuel Mwamkinga and the Sierra Leonean comedians mentioned earlier both acknowledge doing (see Limb, 2018). In many ways, self-​censorship is critical for ‘staying in the game’. Through these processes and practices we see not only the potential for humour to be used to build, entrench, oppose or disrupt peace, but the political work inherent in these practices. Humour may be an effective (even essential) component of peace-​building and –​maintaining strategies, but the non-​progressive (that is, regressive) potential remains for humour to derail peace and promote division. Navigating the boundaries of acceptable joking, avoiding the ‘red lines’ of out-​of-​bounds topics, as well as ensuring jokes and satire are used when socially demanded, is a complex and continually negotiated process. Furthermore, the potential exists for the concept and language (and politics) of peace to be used to stifle humour and satire if these are seen as potentially exposing or narrating division. Perhaps more cynically, we could say that this narrative and argument is one that can be –​and indeed is –​strategically deployed by governments to silence critics. Thus, we see respective governments seeking to silence and prosecute cartoonists and comedians for inciting division or jeopardizing security and unity when they critique political leaders. In such situations, humour becomes a victim of governmentality, and –​depending on the ways in which this is then implemented, may lead to a humourist receiving an unwelcome visit. Knock, knock: who’s there? Too often, who’s there are the censors, police and other agents of the state whose role it is to monitor and control

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the public sphere. In short, who’s there is often no laughing matter –​ as those humourists such as Samantha Kureya, Prosper Ngomashi and other comedians in Zimbabwe who have suffered beatings, kidnappings and false imprisonment can attest. Over the past decade or more, organizations (including Freedom House, MISA, and others) have expressed increasing concerns over the curbing of press freedoms and private media across the African continent. Increasing constraints on press freedoms can be understood as a proxy for the curtailing of the critical public sphere –​including the space for humour and satire. These differing levels of surveillance and oppression mean that cartoons and humour circulate in difference ways –​from underground and exile through to openly available in mainstream media, and that differing histories in treatment of/​experiences of politico-​ legal and extra-​legal environments have strong influence over the presence –​and profile –​of cartoonists, satirists and so on (Lent, 2009). Framing these practices is the deployment of both legal and extra-​legal powers against humourists. In Egypt, against a backdrop of tight censorship and political restraints over press freedoms, the success of Bassem Youssef ’s satirical YouTube channel led to the commissioning of Bassem Youssef ’s Al-​ Bernameg television show in 2011. Viewed as Egypt’s version of Jon Stewart (the presenter of the satirical American programme The Daily Show), Youssef ’s show mocked politicians and parodied mainstream news. While gaining millions of viewers, Youssef also ‘became the target of many legal complaints, and the authorities investigated him several times on charges of disrupting public order and insulting Egypt’s political figures’ (Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017, p 2807). In a context of entrenched power relations and inequalities, in which deference and respect to elites are expected, Youssef ’s actions challenged not only political messages but also long-​standing cultural values and practices. The ability to ‘criticize power and question authorities has made political satire one of the

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first targets in press crackdowns and attempts to limit political freedom’ (Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017, p 2818). The deployment of legal complaints against critical cartoonists and humourists is also evident in South Africa, where then-​President Jacob Zuma launched a string of (ultimately unsuccessful and abandoned) legal cases against Zapiro –​and various media outlets. These cases, brought between 2006 and 2012, mobilized more than just the legal system. Parallel to the legal challenge ran a series of popular mobilizations that have previously been argued as posing a potential threat to South Africa’s democratic consolidation (Hammett, 2010b). Mass mobilization of Zuma’s supporters (at the time including then ANC Youth League Leader Julius Malema as well as MK veterans) rallied around accusations of racism, not only against Zapiro but also members of the judicial system in South Africa, threatening mass insurrection and violence. While specific flashpoints –​such as the ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon –​grabbed the headlines, George and Liew (2021, pp 207–​9) identify how opponents of Zapiro have indulged in continued campaigns of misinformation against him, including photoshopping and rewording cartoons, and creating fake websites that are presented as hosting white nationalists and racists who support Zapiro. These endeavours reflect popular and political concern with the political work that Zapiro’s cartoons succeed in achieving, but also themselves embody violent responses to these works. George and Liew suggest that ‘Zapiro’s story encapsulates the experience of most liberal democracies. Once upon a time, cartoonists feared rulers accusing them of sedition. Now, they dread citizens crying racism; or antisemitism; or blasphemy. Crossing these red lines could trigger dismissals, violent reprisal, reputational ruin, and costly advertiser and customer boycotts of media organizations’ (2021, p 300). Similar concerns are evident in other contexts. In Zimbabwe, the performers involved in the Zambezi News comedy series talk of their efforts to use satire to mobilize and inspire young

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Zimbabweans to challenge power and seek change, setting this against their concerns with their ‘freedom after expression’ as Tongai Makwa calls it (Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2016, p 14). One of the other performers, Samm Faral Monro, describes their encounters with state agents: We get much more heat when we’re doing stuff back home. It is the rural areas of Zimbabwe where they worry about us taking it. So we have our DVDs confiscated and raided from different community radio stations that we work with. After we launched Season 3, police were on the phone with us, the Central Intelligence Organization, the censorship board, you name it. Michael was threatened recently by suspected state security agents. So the threats are real, especially when you’re doing the outreach within Zimbabwe. (Heinrich Böll Foundation, 2016, p 15) More widely, and without wanting to get into the detailed techno-​optimist/​techno-​pessimist debates about the role of the internet as a promoter of democracy (see Diamond, 2010), we have witnessed many cartoonists, satirists and others turning to digital spaces. As Braun and Buse note, ‘In the face of a severely restricted political sphere in which open dissent is often met with harsh punishment, viral content has become a way in which people can anonymously express their political convictions’ (2020, p 107). Here, there are parallels to Radio Trattoir historically and the use of gossip, jokes and other satire to mock and challenge excesses of power. We see this happening, both in the circulation of jokes, memes and satirical images of political leaders as well as between those residing within a country and expatriates and exiles alike. Manganga (2012) notes how crucial mobile phones have been for ordinary Zimbabweans, allowing them to share jokes and maintain an oral public sphere in the face of state power and censorship, while Kuhlmann (2012) identifies use of internet

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as key means of communicating dissent and political humour among Zimbabwean diaspora. The emperor’s old clothes? Since satire uses humour for a mask, it can dodge censors more easily than blatant calls for revolution. It takes a different form of bravery to laugh at the emperor’s nakedness, let alone to tell him that he is naked in the first place. (Kiruga, 2016) The political work that humour can do is not only about the intention of the satirist, cartoonist or comic –​it is also about the reception and response, and the condition of the public sphere in which this occurs. The spaces in which humourists operate are bounded by both official and commonly accepted boundaries, policed and enforced in legal and extra-​legal ways. A common official and legal starting point for delimiting the space of tolerated satire are legal statutes and their operation in practice –​specifically criminal defamation laws and their use by political leaders to silence critics. Again, the shadow of colonialism lies heavy. Colonial powers introduced defamation laws across their African colonies to ‘silence criticism of European colonialism and exploitation’, laws that were given a new lease of life in the 1960s as many newly independent African states ‘dusted off European colonial defamation laws and imposed them on their fledgling countries’ (Eko, 2017, p 19). The specificities of different colonial powers’ definitions of defamation and slander have enduring legacies. In British colonies, defamation included insulting pictures, effigies and statements which may lower a person’s reputation, while slander included spoken, gestural or other expressions of dissent or resistance (Eko, 2017). Such legislative freedoms meant minor acts of resistance, gestures or spoken dissent could be prosecuted as slander. And if you wanted to draw a cartoon of an authority figure in the colonial administration? Best forget

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that, unless you wanted to risk a criminal prosecution (Eko, 2017). Meanwhile, in French colonies the implementation of an 1881 French Law on defamation –​which specifically covered ‘offences against the President of the Republic, publication of false information’ allowed for ‘[a]‌ny opposition to colonialism and any implicit or explicit sign of insubordination toward the colonial authorities or the Catholic church [to be] censored and severely penalized’ (Eko, 2017, p 25). Across time and space, the interpretation and implementation of such laws have varied, not least with the diffusion of key rulings in US courts on freedom of speech and protection for journalists from government officials in defamation cases. As Eko (2017) outlines, the African Court on Human and People’s Rights’ citing of US Supreme Court rulings (Rosenblatt v Baer [1966] and New York Times v Sullivan [1964]) have been key. These US Supreme Court rulings placed criticism of government and public officials at the core of free speech protection –​arguing that to rule otherwise would be to penalize criticism of the government itself.5 This precedent was vital to an African Court ruling in a media law case, Konaté v Burkina Faso (2014), which heard a challenge (based on grounds of freedom of speech) to a national court ruling that found the editor of the l’Ouragan newspaper guilty of defamation and public insult for a number of articles published within the paper. In their ruling, the Court ‘cited an African Commission on Human and Peoples’ Rights policy that states: ‘People who assume highly visible public roles must necessarily face a higher degree of criticism than private citizens; otherwise public debate may be stifled altogether’ (Eko, 2017, p 31). These efforts came on the back of the Africa Commission’s 2012 ‘Decriminalization of Expression (DOX) Campaign’, a campaign that sought ‘to rid Africa of criminal defamation, insult, false news, and sedition laws that are vestiges of European colonialism’ (Eko, 2017, p 33). Certainly the success of these moves can be seen in the failed litigation brought by political leaders against satirists and a rebalancing of legal interpretations

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towards freedom of expression in light of ‘the reality that powerful South African leaders like Jacob Zuma have used the human dignity clause of the South African constitution to intimidate the media and their political opponents’ (Eko, 2017, p 37). However, such positive stories can be contrasted with more regressive implementations of legal and extra-​legal repression of the freedom of expression of journalists, humourists and political opponents in other contexts. While the Sudanese interim constitution guarantees press freedom and a draft law was developed to reform media laws and provide greater protections for freedom of expression, these have not been translated into practice (Freedom House, 2022a). Instead, critics of the government, activists and journalists have been arrested and assaulted, accused of ‘crimes against the state’ or defaming public officials (Freedom House, 2022a). Similar processes are evident in Egypt, where the 2018 Media Regulation Law and 2018 Anti-​Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law have been used to prevent access to independent news sources, prosecute journalists and activists and stifle freedom of expression (Freedom House, 2022b). These differing trajectories of freedom of expression illustrate the heterogenous politico-​legal landscapes in which African humourists operate and the varying potential for the political work of humour. The punchline … Our point in this chapter is that we cannot think through the political work of humour without first understanding the complex relations between humour, power, violence and peace. By understanding the power and violence that is (often implicitly) embedded within humour, then we begin to understand how joking is not merely a passing moment but rather the agency within the joke can and does have real world consequences, many of which are far more complex than simply being framed as resistance. Rather, we begin to see

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how humour can be –​and is –​used by multiple practitioners/​ groups for differing aims and agendas which may be progressive or regressive, about maintaining the status quo or challenging for change. Crucially then, the political work of humour, accompanied by the agency of these jokes, comes in many forms and enacts many (competing) agendas. But more than this, the political work associated with humour is not only about the content of the material but also the reception and response that is generated. This can, for some, return us to Mbembe’s concern with political affect and the role of humour in perpetuating the presence and disciplining power of the state. However, state reactions to humorous discourse can also have consequences, thereby creating fractious circumstances of agents ultimately begging the question –​who really has the power?

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FOUR

Between Jokes: Silence and Ambiguities within Humour

Silence entails a gap within conversations or joke-​telling in which no one says anything or gives any response. It is also a moment of profound political work, wherein issues that cut to the bone, often uncomfortable, are broached, ultimately forcing reflection on the part of audiences and performers. Silence also signals the diversity of an audience because not every member of the audience finds every joke laughable (Harvey, 1989, pp 347–​8). In joking situations, silence can either be the bridge-​gap between the moment between a punchline and a laugh or can indicate an undesirable absence of laughter ascribed to failed humour (Bell, 2015, p 101), due to the understanding that the joke may be lost on the audience or subject to unintended readings and reception. In this sense, silence is the antithesis of laughter because when the punchline comes from the comedian, especially in situations where the joke has been delivered appropriately, laughter implies that it is funny and that the comedian has done his job well, whereas silence means the very opposite; the audience does not think that what has been said is funny. Consequently, silence becomes the audience’s way of countering the (re-​)definitions of its boundaries of risibility. With this in mind, consider the following story: Theophilus is a comedian. One of his favourite jokes is how he shortened his name to Theo and then to T because people were saying it in ridiculous ways. In one

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of his career-​changing performances, he ridicules an important politician in the audience, saying that he is so tight-​fisted that when he was to be honoured with a statue, he was more interested in knowing what it would cost to erect it at the city centre. When he is told the price, he exclaims in dismay: ‘What!? We could build a new city with that amount. Please give me the money, let me go and stand there during the commissioning!’ The audience laughed and clapped, but not the mayor and those with him. They all maintained straight faces throughout the entire rendition of this comedian, taking their cue from their principal. When it was his turn to speak at the event, this politician simply stood up, walked to the dais and stared the comedian down. There was silence. Then he said, ‘You are not funny!’ Dead silence. He turns to his lieutenants, who, as if on cue, begin to laugh and applaud. On the part of the audience, there was complete silence. This opening anecdote is an account based on an actual stand-​up comedy performance in Nigeria. In this instance, the comedian has just succeeded in putting on a sterling performance to the laughter and applause of the audience –​with one notable exception, the most high-​profile and politically powerful individual in the auditorium, the town’s mayor. The mayor’s failure –​or refusal –​to laugh is a moment of power in which we see humour and politics entwined. In this moment we see the ambiguities of humour emerge and the crucial role not only of the producer or performer but also of the audiences, of the role of both intent and reception, and the reactions that then follow. Crucial to these reactions, but also to the performance of comedy, is the role of silence. It can be equally, if not in some cases, more powerful. In the previous excerpt, the comedian first extols the virtues of this unnamed politician, praising him for transforming the area. Everyone is quiet at that point because there is always a

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twist. It is almost a given that such praise-​singing is out-​of-​place in joke renditions and is often never taken at face value. Then, the turn comes. It is almost like jokesters speak from both sides of their mouths. These neither-​here-​nor-​there pretexts, the prevalence of in-​betweenness often makes audiences unsure whether they are to be incensed or amused, except when there is a controlling power, like the politician in the earlier story. Characteristically, amusement comes through the audiences’ permission, a tacit endorsement that allows comedians to transgress or engage with sensitive issues that are often best expressed through laughter. However, there are two antithetical responses evident earlier. The tenor of political jokes in Africa is a two-​way street, where political actors make up stories that are supposed to be funny, which their cronies and enablers support. Nevertheless, their actions and inactions create abundant jokes that the rest of their people find truly laughable and support. Based on who and what an individual or a group supports, the responses are divided not just between silences and laughter but also through rebuttals and rejection by the people, as well as withdrawal of patronage and censorship of certain people by the government. The identity of the jokester often plays a significant part in how the joke is received due to inherent power positionalities relating to who is qualified to joke, on the one hand, and who is permitted to (in)laugh at what joke(s), on the other. The inherent permissibility in the evocation and reception of jokes is intricately entwined in tenuous culturally constructed permissibilities and prohibitions. The joke object often feels unable to take offence –​ they are only permitted to either laugh like others in order to not appear awkward or hold their peace while others laugh. Conversely though, there is also power in this kind of silence. The audience is supposed to laugh and this is the expectation of the comedian and so when they do not, silence takes on its own form of agency and, in turn, its own means of power. In this opening story we see silence being used in different ways by those immersed in the web of power relations

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surrounding the performance. The performer has used silence at various points in the show to build anticipation for the punchlines of jokes. The politician has used silence to convey displeasure –​perhaps anger –​towards the comedian, with his followers deferring to his lead and thus, also remaining silent. Meanwhile the audience supported the comedian and laughed at his jokes. Yet when the mayor takes the stage and proclaims “You are not funny!”, with the ensuing laughter of only his entourage highlighting the silence of the rest of the audience. This broader silence may initially have signified unease and concern over the mayor’s power and the consequences that could follow, before potentially then indicating a rejection of the mayor’s assertion that the comedian was not funny. Herein we witness the multiple positionalities of power and agency that surround and infuse transgressive jokes, the producer’s intent and audiences’ responses, with this power evident in the ambiguities, doublespeak and silences of these moments of laughter and unlaughter. In discussing these variegated meanings of silence, this chapter focuses on what is not said, both in joking formats, as well as in response to jokes (in artistic performances and in everyday conversations). It emphasizes individuality within humour –​who is allowed to joke, with whom, and what their social capital allows and disallows. For example, as discussed in the previous chapter, in the Sierra Leonean context, where political dissent has not been as heavily silenced as it has in many other African contexts, comedians continue to self-​censure particular types of political jokes because there is an ambiguity surrounding the consequences of such gags, which sometimes can result in the withdrawal of the patronage of high-​profile (political) figures. Individual political affiliations play a significant role in this self-​censorship, but these are overlain with social and political norms, including the (unspoken) rules and/​or structures and hierarchies of respect towards particular positions or individuals as being ‘out-​of-​bounds’ for satire. This argument develops ideas discussed in Chapter 2 regarding

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how silences can help maintain the status quo and how not speaking or joking can be just as powerful because silence and unwillingness to dissent hold their own power. Suffice it to say that silence is ambivalent because it simultaneously contains weakness and strength. Although silence infers the absence of sound, it does not necessarily mean a lack of agency or assertive action. In fact, silence can and does speak volumes. Defining silence Silence often denotes the absence of sound or noise, reaction or response. It is mostly framed in ambiguity due to its capacity for conveying multitudinous, sometimes contradictory significations. Even in its noiselessness, silence does speak volumes (Kostelanetz, 1987 [2003]), appropriately in everyday interactions and encounters in politics, religion, music, language, law, and in art (Jaworski, 1997). Silence is accessible to just one of the five human senses, that of hearing because it ‘has no loudness, timbre, or pitch’ (Sorensen, 2009, p 129), but it does have duration (Deutsch, 1996, p 53) and is located ‘where the sound would have been’ (Sorensen, 2009, p 129). Reflective of the ambiguous spaces in which humour lies, silence is both being and not-​being, conveyance of absence and potential, it is ‘invested with complex meanings’ and how people implement it has varying consequences for their lives (Chisale, 2021, p 130). For this purpose, it has been described as ‘both balm and irritant’, given that it ‘shatters a person in solitary confinement, but to a harried young mother, silence soothes’ (Jensen, 1973, p 252). As the ‘polysemic notion’ that it is (Meyer, 2016, p 322) or the paradoxes its aesthetics engender (Anderson, 2020), silence has been utilized and valued for a diverse range of purposes –​in religion, to designate devotion and connection to the divine (Wichroski, 1996; Belanoff, 2001). In politics also, silence is used in a variety of ways, such as at commemoration ceremonies, but it can also be imposed to muzzle opposing views to dictatorial regimes.

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In communication, the interaction between speech and silence has been at the centre of discourse analysis, showing how silence works in the everyday to emphasize exchange of messages (Johannesen, 1974; Stephenson, 1980; Ephratt, 2016). More so, in music, each ‘composition incorporates a surrounding silence into itself ’ and possesses ‘a nearness to silence, an ever-​presentness that is its dwelling place’ (Deutsch, 1996, p 53). Culturally also, silence within ‘dominant Western tradition’ is considered ‘as a total blank, while in many African cultures [it] can be as powerful and as empowering as speech’ (Tamale, 2011, p 13). While we do not subscribe to this kind of overgeneralization, we do admit that within certain non-​ western societies, both now and in the past, silence carries contextual significations. Silence can result as a breakdown in communication between speakers and audiences (what, in other writings, has been referred to as a divergence between intent and reception –​see Kahn, 1997; Kramer, 2003), the inability of people who are not familiar with each other to interact meaningfully or as a manifestation of culture (Medubi, 2010, pp 28–​9). Mosha examines what silence could mean in varying situations, especially among different African societies. The work identifies six significances of silence in African worldviews ranging from the ability to hold one’s tongue to being able to choose one’s words carefully; including the ability to speak little, to listen more and therefore learn, to reflect more and to be able to process one’s thoughts, and not to reveal information that should be kept secret (Mosha 2000, pp 111–​17). Despite its various utilitarian values, some of the causes and expressions of silence can be undesirable, risking division, hostility and rancour as explicated later about how silence denotes protest or repression. In relation to humour, which is layered in its own uncertainties, silence’s profundity quadruples, rendering it, at once, potent and probing as well as ambivalent and latent. Essentially, silence can be taken to signify subversion and protest, on the one hand, and acceptance or acquiescence, on

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the other. Like humour, it is both liberating and oppressive (Motsemme, 2004; Fivush, 2010), and it can also be creative or murderous, given that it can only be ‘liberative if one’s life is not under threat’ (Chisale, 2021, p 130). Where it is easily identifiable in performance situations, silence for cartoonists can be enacted with the concept of space versus lack of space accorded to their drawings. Furthermore, regardless of how it is created, silence can specifically convey ‘scorn, hostility, coldness, defiance, sternness, and hate’, and can also instantiate ‘respect, kindness, and acceptance’ (Jensen, 1973, p 252). Silence thus has many potential meanings and uses, while the intent and reception of its strategic use can differ –​ working sometimes as a form of and resistance to different types of violence like silencing of the subaltern, of history, of femininity, of certain kinds of sexuality, of dissent, among others. In the UK, the Quakers have a long history of silence as protest (Calvert, 2006, p 615), and in South Africa, the 1956 Anti-​Pass March organized by women in Pretoria was done in orderly and silent fashion (Walker, 1982/​1991) as well as the very many subsequent silent Black Sash protests against the Nationalist Party from the 1950s to the 1990s. Silence also materializes as submissiveness, owing to one’s faith or as a result of suppression either by coercion or voluntarily. Specifically, whether in religious or in secular settings, a sum of the ways silence impact individuals have been identified to include being a linkage that connects or severs relationships; being deeply affective due to its power to make us or those around emote for either good or ill; and revealing due to its capacity to facilitate making something known or unknown (Jensen, 1973). Jensen identifies other functions of silence to include being judgmental implicated in its catalysation of dissent or assent, favour or disfavour; and its ability to activate communication by privileging thoughtfulness, because ‘the person who is silent is thinking and the one talking is not’, meaning that silence is indicative of a speaker’s thoughtfulness about the listeners.

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Sara Maitland posits that silence is ‘a real, separate, actual thing, an ontological category of its own: not a lack of language but other than that, different from language; not an absence of sound but the presence of something which is not sound’ (2009, p 28). Maitland’s stance corresponds to Samuel Beckett’s overabundant use of silence in his theatre and his famed statement, ‘every word is like an unnecessary stain on silence and nothingness’ (Gruen, 1969, p 210); meaning that silence has meanings that speak for themselves. In African cosmogony, silence carries manifold implications and is ‘the mother of wisdom … the gateway to wise speech … the home of confidentiality and reserve’ (Mosha, 2013, p 112). The Igbo of south-​eastern Nigeria aver that a good blend of oratorial skills, volubility and silence makes for a wise public speaker. In the words of Gregory Nwoye, with ‘values attached to loquacity in Igbo culture, silence becomes all the more marked in its expressiveness’ (1995, p 191). Specifically, the Igbo say that that ‘when elders speak without clearing their throat, they reveal the secrets of spirits’. This statement references the characteristic small coughs used by older people when speaking, which are more of pauses and well-​positioned breaks that allow speakers to clear their thoughts to ensure that emotions and misrepresentations do not cloud their words. On the other hand, they also say that ‘a person who goes silent is in agreement with what has been discussed’ is the Igbo way of countering the idea of ‘silence being golden’, as the English would say. Conflating these two statements shows that total silence is not encouraged, but constructively functional ones are extolled and often practised. Consequently, Nwoye further states that, for the Igbo: silence serves as a means of managing highly-​charged situations and relationships. It serves both as a medium of communication in itself and as a context for communication through nonverbal channels. Importantly, it may provide social and psychic protection for one or

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both communicants in an interaction. The potential power of silence among the Igbo thus achieves a significance not always found –​or not found to the same degree –​​in other societies. For, just as elaborate speech plays such a prominent part in both public and private life, so it is possible for silence in such a setting to become truly eloquent. (1995, p 191) Defining silence in this manner runs contrary to the ruling trope of postcolonial discourse, wherein it is implicated in the reinforcement of ‘the violence of slavery, colonization and apartheid’ (Harris, 2012, p 37). This statement implies that the silence of oppressed peoples encouraged and emboldened their oppressors. Silence may also be erroneously or insufficiently defined as the inability to speak in the face of western dominance, wherein the subaltern is rendered voiceless, hidden or incapacitated. In actuality, what is silenced is the ancient civilization, history and realities of African everyday life in deference to their colonization, which is just a speck in their millennia of world views, experiments and experiences. Hence, just like Maitland notes, that silence ‘does not seem to be a loss or lack of language [it] does not even seem to be the opposite of language’ (2009, p 279), it is, in the anti-​colonial sense, a potent communication replete with defiance, rejection, countering, and neglect of western claims and misrepresentations of African realities. In this sense then, silence is also doing political work. Silence as action As the opening anecdote highlights, silences within and resulting from jokes both embody and express power: the power of the humourist to make audiences laugh –​or not, and the power of audiences in deciding whether to laugh –​or not. As we explore later, humourists may use silence to build towards a punchline and laughter or to deny audiences the expected

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moment of levity. Moreover, their decisions about content, such as the topics addressed and targets of their jokes and satire can be oppressive through the silencing, marginalizing and persecution of certain groups. Simultaneously, audiences have the power to convey their displeasure or disagreement with the joker –​a refusal to laugh may indicate opposition to the idea being presented, signal that a red line has been crossed into a taboo topic or may be a form of rebuke and discipline should this silence come from a political power-​holder. Nevertheless, it is pertinent to state that audiences are varied, with multifarious cultural, political and class affiliations. They come to comedy shows for entertainment, expecting the performers to tell funny jokes without which the event is considered unsuccessful. For political rallies, it is a different objective altogether because the aim is not to be stirred up to laughter but to express support or, sometimes, disdain for those in power or others aspiring to be in such positions. In each of these situations, audiences exert significant influence in what humourists and/​or politicians say as well as how those things are said. Suffice it to say that where stand-​up situations are encased in humour elicitation, political rallies (even when humour occurs) are geared towards marketing political actors and aspirants. Questions about the constitution of individual audiences for political rallies and stand-​up events are varied and oftentimes arbitrary. Every situation dictates which individuals are allowed to be part of specific political rallies, while there are unquantifiable class, gender and political dimensions regarding who pays to watch a particular stand-​up show and not others. What is significant in terms of the discourse around silence is that at stand-​up events and political rallies, silence frames and enables the permitted space for potential or fleeting offence without which laughter is most unlikely to emerge. Each of these spaces are themselves policed and negotiated by socio-​cultural specificities of taboo and permission depending on the circumstances of the enactment. Given that humour elicitation in joke-​telling comes from enabling social contexts

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that permit and/​or expect the postponing or refusal of offence by participants within the joking encounter, that of political rallies could depend on the weight of support or dislike each speaker evokes in the audience. The presence or absence of silence is dependent on the understanding that the suspension of offence does not suppose absence of it. It is simply a wilful, often time-​based decision not to be offended by sometime that would ordinarily be offensive. This implies that audiences are compelled by existing strictures of socio-​cultural permissibility to downplay dissent so that the joke-​work can successfully arouse mirth other than irritation within the time frame and locale of the enactment. Thus, an audience may heckle, throw things on stage, boo the performer or choose not to laugh thereby greeting the punchline with silence. A failed punchline –​a situation where a statement that is aimed at evoking laughter falls flat and is received with dead silence –​is one of the most embarrassing experiences a comedian could encounter in stand-​up art (Hennessy, 2018). It is also the case for political rallies since the same structure of suspension of offence and socio-​cultural permissibility operate within environments of humour enactment. Consequently, the power of silence, within stand-​up and other situations, resides in the capacity of audiences to coerce, demand and influence what jokes are told and how performers and political actors characterize them. This is just as true in everyday exchanges as it is in professional performances because silence can signal a disapproval, a misunderstanding or nothing at all. It is the power of audiences to hold those who use humour for any purpose in public to account for what they say or how they say them in their quest to gain laughter or other forms of validation. Whenever the audience decides not to laugh, the jokester or any other actor behind the microphone becomes uncomfortable and unsure about how to proceed. A comedian that repeatedly ‘bombs’, ends up with a disastrous set, since the success or otherwise of stand-​up art is dependent on the among of laughter elicited in the audience. For this purpose, a rowdy

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audience constitutes its own problems for joke performers, but a non-​responsive one is far worse. More broadly, even though cartoonists are not always humourists and their drawings are not required to be funny, silence is evidently actioned in how they are tolerated, promoted or even co-​opted by political figures, on the one hand, or censored through (extra)legal means. Put differently, a liberal environment gives cartoonists free rein to express themselves through their work, but under a repressive regime, they are either silenced on some matters or they use surreptitious means of evading censorship. Suffice it to say that every comic and/​or cartoonist is not subject to the same treatment either from those who wield political power or from audiences. It then follows that as action, silence can be an expression of power either as a form of protest or that of repression, which can also be thought of as passive and active deployment of silence. When the audience at a stand-​up or political event refuses to laugh at certain characterizations, the resultant silence is a form of protest aimed at keeping the joke-​teller in check. But when those who wield political power decide to repress certain forms of expression, the silence that follows is imposed and is a product of repression. Hence, the fact that silence emanates in different ways and for various purposes means it can be applied to a range of political ends. To Pfister, silence is ‘the most radical protest against the horrors of existence and the failure of language to express them discursively’ (2002, p 185). Conversely, Rico affirms that repression induces silence, and that both are ‘the most distinguishable psychological traits of trauma’ (2019, p 54). In more specific words, silence has its own agency. In the first instance, it can either be mobilized as protest or violence, which can be experienced both directly and indirectly as a means of controlling and disparaging suppression, marginalization and exclusionary practices. On the other hand, it can be wielded by those in power as a medium of repression, an unwholesome and dangerous module which emboldens and perpetuates tyranny.

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Within these different ways that silence is deployed dwells the intricate entwining of politics, power and humour –​be this as linked to modes of protest and defiance, wherein individuals assert their disapproval by not saying anything or use silence to prompt (political) reflection on an issue. Thus, silence potentially becomes a political tool, implicated in multiple layers of power differential. Further, silence does not mean an absence of agency, quite the contrary in fact. People actively choose to remain silent for a variety of (social and political) reasons and as a result, this silence holds power. As noted by Nicole George and Lia Kent, ‘silence might be understood –​ at least in some instances –​as an exercise in choice. Although this choice may not be made freely or autonomously, agency is nonetheless present’ (2017, p 520). Silence therefore, is also its own form of agency, and can be experienced in three forms –​ imposed, complicated and agitative. The first is enforced by a higher authority and is therefore obligatory, a form of censorship. The second comes out of a communication breakdown either out of misunderstanding or that the parties do not know each other well. The third is the deployment of silence by the less powerful as a form of displeasure, dissent, and correctional agitation. These three variants are not mutually exclusive since they interact in different contexts. They rather present themselves at various social levels, such as politics, where national histories may render common satirical practices inappropriate or offensive or within joking situations where the parties exchange acceptance and repulsion for the themes and modes in which gags are communicated. Scholarly and political emphases have mostly been on ‘breaking’ or ‘shattering’ silence or the more familiar suppressive tactics often deployed to silence opposition to power. In these situations silence itself may be adopted (and simultaneously imposed or enforced) as a subversive attitude against tyranny and discrimination. The agency of silence in such contexts is well established. On the one hand, silent protests have been used for hundreds of years. Sometimes dubbed as the

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ultimate form of nonviolent action, these can be symbolically and emotionally powerful moments of bearing witness to injustices and emphasizing a point, even without words. On the other hand, imposed silence becomes a mode of protest and subversion –​and humour. In each case, silence itself becomes a mode of humour deployed to assert defiance and mockery of the specific situations that elicited the protests in the first place. Thus, rebellious and feminist engagements with and challenges to patriarchal hegemony (Fernandez, 2018) have placed emphasis on breaking patriarchy-​imposed silences and taboos, refusing and overcoming discourse of shame and stigma surrounding victimhood to sexual harassment and violence (MacKinnon, 1979; Wittig, 1992; Davis, 1994; Sasson-​Levy et al, 2011; Radulescu, 2012). In such situations, humour has emerged as a key mechanism for countering unjust practices and norms of silencing (Cixous et al, 1976; Irigaray, 1985). It is noteworthy that where silence can instigate humour, it is not per se humour. Therefore, while humour can be used to resist and reject imposed practices of silencing, it can also provoke and be met with silence. In theory, stand-​up and other joking-​telling situations work towards the elicitation of laughter, not silence, and laughter itself has been described as ‘an incursion on silence’ (Anderton, 2016, p 155). The art of joke-​telling affords comedians the opportunity to ‘devise a painless way of … making [people] laugh at [their] own absurdity and defusing [their] pain, at least temporarily by the creation of an alternative reality’ (Grainger, 2010, p 23). Due to the need to work against undesirable silence, joke performers deliberately cultivate special relationships with the audience in every performance and build on such interactions throughout the duration of the enactment. However, the audience has agency in choosing to laugh or not, the performer also retains the power to deliberately seek silence in response to their material. The idea that a humourist would deliberately seek to stimulate a silent response may initially seem counter-​intuitive. This is,

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however, a key strategy used in moments where humourists are seeking to draw attention to an issue or highlight a concern. Within joking, silence is both beneficial and unfavourable for comedians. To understand this better, we need to identify the different kinds of silence present in joke-​telling situations. First, silence is a salient aspect of joke rendition specifically in three significant ways: (1) it is required when the performer is erecting the joke setup, because the audience needs to be attentive for it to understand the narrative from the beginning; (2) it is also important at the pause, the short gap between the joke setup and the punchline;1 (3) it is necessary for enhancing non-​speaking actions such as gestures, facial expressions, body and spatial movement, as well as other embodied actions the comedian needs to draw attention to. These are all desirable because they are fundamental for comedians to be in control of determining where and when the audience can react to their renditions as well as using the opportunity (especially at the pause stage) to study the reaction of the audience and determine when and how best to deliver the punchline. Second, the most undesirable of silences in stand-​up renditions is the one that follows a punchline. This is every comedian’s worst nightmare. In Tim Boyle’s (2013) words, ‘[s]‌ilence is said to be golden. When it comes to comedy though, silence is deadly’. The deadly silence that follows a failed or rejected punchline means one of two things: either the audience did not get the joke or it is incensed/​irritated by it. To explain this further, we acknowledge that within joke-​telling, laughter means that the audience finds what has been funny (Limon, 2000). As such, laughter is an endorsement for jokesters to continue. However, there are times when the humourist goes off-​track, and the audience finds what has been said offensive or simply unfunny. The resultant –​uncomfortable –​ silence signifies this reaction when the audience chooses to withhold its laughter as a show of dissatisfaction with the performer. Integral here is the audience’s power to censure ‘errant’ comedians, expressed through silence and bland

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faces, sometimes it also comes in scattered laughter which immediately peters out into complete silence. The pause that comes after the punchline is designed for the audience to laugh and for performers to evaluate the response they are getting, their delivery patterns, and how best to proceed. When silence comes instead, not only has the preceding joke failed, the possibility of the next joke narrative succeeding becomes slimmer, and from there, the entire performance could start to crumble. This form of ‘unlaughter’ (Billig, 2005) embodies a powerful moment at which audiences are able to challenge and question the power and ideas expressed –​in this instance, as a rejection or opposition to the object, subject or form of humour or caricature. Nevertheless, whereas the unintended silence that follows a misjudged joke may signify the overstepping of boundaries of acceptability, the generation or elicitation of an intended silence can be another form of political work. Thus, while the audience holds agency over the powerful potential of ‘unlaughter’ –​‘a display of not laughing when laughter might otherwise be expected, hoped for or demanded’ (Billig, 2005, p 192) –​as a rejection of the mores and content of the humour, this can also be a response deliberately sought by a comic, cartoonist or satirist, and may be an expression of agreement from the audience with the critique mobilized in the joke. As Hammett has argued, unlaughter ‘is a powerful moment in which social expectations and power relations may be questioned and challenged’ (2010a, p 9). But, it can also be a moment in which hegemony and power are reinforced –​when silence or unlaughter are the expected or demanded response by an elite, this may prevent others in the audience laughing. Furthermore, silence conveyed deliberately is often linked to unlaughter but also to the silences of (previous) oppressors, a lack of apology or accountability, or the silence of selective amnesia. For instance, Zapiro’s empty cartoon frame, published in The Sowetan on 5 September 2000, carries the simple title of ‘whites who never benefitted from apartheid’ –​the visual

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silence, the emptiness of the frame –​offering a dual use of silence, to highlight historical and contemporary benefits/​ beneficiaries of apartheid, as well as a reminder of the silence of white South Africans on this. Penned in response to a growing vocalism among white South Africans in opposition to Affirmative Action and Black Economic Empowerment policies, which they claimed were unfair and discriminatory, the simplicity of this image is in the reminder of the inequitable outcomes of apartheid. As a result, where audiences can wield silence as a protest tool and elites can impose it through the use of various mediums of repression, it is evident that the third part concerns how humourists themselves elicit silence as an artistic and performance tool. The implication is that unlike its serene, no-​disturbance appearance, silence (within humour enactments) is usually functional, imbued with agency and overtly political. It has to be clearly stated that humour performances are aimed at the elicitation of laughter, not silence regardless of the functionalities of silence in the hands of audiences and performers. It is for this reason that laughter has been described as ‘an incursion on silence’ (Anderton, 2016, p 155), with the implication that when the audience is stirred to laughter, silence is broken. There is no argument in what the primary purpose of joke-​telling, for instance, is. It is medium through which comedians ‘devise a painless way of  …  making [people] laugh at [their] own absurdity and defusing [their] pain, at least temporarily by the creation of an alternative reality’ (Grainger, 2010, p 23). Primarily, humour and joke-​telling is predicated on an unwritten contract between performers and audiences, permitting the former to offend/​transgress (within certain parameters or limits) social norms, and the latter expected to suspend their right to offence within the liminal moment of the enactment. This suspension of offence is the basic socio-​ cultural strategy that disarms jokes, making them innocuous and creating situations for laughter other than irritation. Some of these social contracts have been discussed as joking

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relationships (Radcliffe-​Brown, 1940; Moreau, 1944; Wegru, 2000; Sogoba, 2018) that have existed across the continent for decades, particularly between different ethnic groups, social classes and individuals. While these and other works have discussed forms of jocular exchanges, the act of silencing that is inherent in such deferment of offence is overlooked. Permitting –​or even requiring –​someone to joke and offend equally requires the subject of those jokes to tolerate and remain silent, even as the joker upends and challenges social structures and ridicules a community, a society or a nation. These practices are evident in one of joking traditions of the Yoruba, in south-​western Nigeria. This particular joking tradition, known as ‘efe’, is a performance in which ‘the traditional artist gets a day off from seriousness and rationality and is empowered by the community to ridicule all forms of rules, individuals high and low, gods and systems’ (Obafemi, 1996, p 56). Despite this latitude –​and social endorsement –​to offend, the subject matter for joking-​about remains limited by certain red lines that still place certain subjects off-​limits as the targets of jokes and satire. Jokesters are not only aware of these, but expected to respect these limits –​a process in which certain realms or foci of humour are silenced. At the same time, however, within the limits of permitted subjects, jokes can still be offensive and, as a result, silence-​inducing. Put differently, where the aim is to confront humanity with its eccentricities and underside, these enactments must be presented in a funny way. To do this, joke performers deliberately cultivate special relationships with audiences and build on such interactions throughout the duration of their performance because it is easier to evoke laughter in a friendly audience than a hostile one. Jokes and humour can, and do, affect audiences in multiple and different ways –​what one person finds amusing, another may not. More than this, jokes –​particularly on political, cultural or sensitive topics –​can simultaneously stir up laughter and offence. This is because jokes often straddle amusement and abuse, and as such are riddled with ambiguities which leaves

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them open to multiple (often unintended) readings and receptions (Limon, 2000; Nyamnjoh, 2009; Jarmon, 2020). Key to this process is the recognition that while a comedian or cartoonist may intend their material to make a certain point or be understood in a particular way, audiences may read or hear the content in very different ways. A good example in recent times is the controversies surrounding depictions made by Dave Chappelle and Ricky Gervais, US and UK stand-​up comedians, which are considered transphobic in many quarters. Jokes and silences at play in African politics African leaders’ positions have always been engaged with humour, either consciously or unconsciously, and as established previously, the elements of silence endemic to humour is as critical as the joke itself. Consequently, one identifies two forms of government censorship on ridicule –​outright bans and criminalization, and the use of monetary inducements to condition humourists into being more benevolent with their characterizations of politicians. During Nigeria’s military government in the 1970s and mid-​1980s, there was a zero-​ tolerance policy for ridiculing the government, as evidenced by Fela Anikulapo-​Kuti’s numerous arrests and incarcerations. As illustrated during Obasanjo’s military regime between 1976 and 1979, Obasanjo started harassing Fela for his transgressive songs, ultimately sending a battalion of soldiers to ransack and raze Kuti’s Kalakuta Republic in 1977, which resulted in the death of Fela’s mother. Kuti discussed these incidents, often in his subsequent songs, detailing the transgressions of Obasanjo and Muhammadu Buhari, Nigeria’s current president since 2015 and military head of state between 1983 and 1984. Olaniyan explores the relationship between Kuti and Obasanjo and Buhari during their stint as military leaders and how they became part of his music (2004, 64–​6). Fela is said to have been arrested 200 hundred times and was kept in jail for the longest time by Buhari, charged for a trumped-​up currency

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violation (once again illustrating the often-​absurd responses of governments). He was sentenced to five years in prison but got released after a year and a half due to the overthrowing of Buhari’s government (Denselow, 2015). Suffice it to say that all attempts to silence him resulted in somewhat humorous encounters because of the many ways he emerges from the multiple distresses to become triumphant and more committed to disparaging the government. During his return to democratic rule between 1999 and 2007, Obasanjo seemingly had a more tolerant posture for ridicule and, this time, decided to host and promote comedians, bringing them to perform at state events, especially Ali Baba, who became a presidential jester during this period (Nwankwọ, 2021). Nevertheless, Obadare (2010, p 102) posits that his seemingly jocular ‘folksy’ disposition is a façade with which he hides a more sinister aspect of his government and personality that reeks of corruption and dictatorial tendencies.2 Like Obadare observes, Obasanjo simply learnt how to make fun of himself and support the funnier side of politics, in an effort to redefine his image and skirt some of the less unsavoury aspects of his regime. However, Ali Baba had to let Obasanjo know his jokes before they were taken on stage (Nwankwọ, 2021). Albeit slightly less explicit, this is still a form of self-​ censorship/​silencing as it restrains the performer’s content. Of all Nigerian comedians though, Ali Baba has made the fewest antagonistic jokes about Obasanjo. For instance, he has a skit where he craftily referenced the president’s much-​ publicized stinginess by jokingly saying that Obasanjo asks for his cut for every gig recommendation he makes for Ali Baba. This tacit reference is not comparable to Basketmouth (Bright Okpocha) characterizing the president as corrupt or Klint da Drunk (Ahamefula Igwemba), stating explicitly that Obasanjo resembles the ‘monkey’ in King Kong –​even though it was really an ape, the comedian’s use of ‘monkey’ has more humorous connotations in local folklore and was used strategically to elicit laughter in the local context. Suffice it to

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say that despite his ‘romance’ with comedians, Obasanjo and his wife, Stella (before her demise in October 2005), were butts of most comedians’ jokes. Interestingly, there is a long history of comedic representations of Nigeria’s politicians, but Obasanjo, first lady Patience Jonathan, Nigeria’s first lady (2010–​2015), and the incumbent, Muhammadu Buhari, have catalysed the most jocular expression, the last two mostly for their gaffes in ways they articulate English language expressions. Comedians ridicule them on stage, in print media (especially cartoons) and more recently in social media memes, using mimicry. While this is perhaps somewhat reflective of the rise of stand-​up comedy during their stint in power, it simultaneously illustrates the staying power of comedy itself in politics. Specifically, Dame Patience Jonathan was eviscerated in comedy for her gaffes and un-​English Englishes, while her husband was denounced for incompetence and ‘cluelessness’, until recently when the colossal failure of the succeeding administration began to emerge. The idea of ‘cluelessness’ plastered on the then-​president’s personality as the campaigns leading up to the 2015 presidential elections picked up, came from Jonathan’s re-​telling of his struggling days as a young man, where he said, ‘I had no shoes’, and this was immediately translated into, ‘I had no clue’ by his political opponents. Satire derived from these forms of deliberate misrepresentations of people in power form a significant part of political humour across the continent. Nevertheless, the kind of caricature Jonathan received is lesser when compared to his wife’s, both in frequency and in critical attention. Obadare describes her as a godsend to Nigerian comedy much in the same way as President George W. Bush was in the US (2016, pp 65–​6). The zenith of Dame Jonathan’s characterization in jokes, internet memes and cartoons came after the video of her outburst over the abduction of 270 Chibok girls in 2014 went viral. To date, different frames from that video are used as reaction or exclamation shots in montage comedic skits across the continent. Yet, despite the wide-​ranging (mis)characterizations

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of Goodluck Jonathan and his wife, Dame Jonathan, there was ‘silence’, no official response from the presidential office. On the political front though, he claimed he was referred to as the most abused president in the world (Ochayi, 2013), as if it was a badge of honour. There were more problems for this president, who faced stiff opposition and a very insulting political campaign to remove him at the 2015 presidential elections, which he eventually lost to Muhammadu Buhari. As a military head of state between 1984 and 1985, Buhari was completely intolerant of criticism, but since 2015, he has also taken a different approach. Obasanjo’s tolerance and support for comedians, as the first civilian president of the Fourth Republic in 1999, appears to have set the tone for his successors and their handling of ridicule, even if this response is largely silent dissent from politicians or forcing comedians into a form of self-​censorship. Two forms of silence are at play here. The first is Obasanjo’s reverse muteness, seen in how he changes to a more subtle form of suppression of comedic dissent by making it financially beneficial for performers to remain in his good books. In this way, the president is seemingly silent in the face of satirical characterizations of his government and personality, but in actuality, he dangled carrots of patronage with which he kept performers in check. The second form is that comedians who get sucked into this attractive maze of presidential patronage became court jesters at the beck and call of the political elite and creativity is hampered by their desire to maintain privilege. Nevertheless, among mainstream stand-​u p comedians, Nigeria’s Ali Baba and Uganda’s Teacher Mpamire are known to have benefitted immensely from their closeness to people in power. It is noteworthy that they have individually also made disparaging remarks and satiric jibes at their principals despite the generosities they have received from these political figures as noted by Nwankwọ (2021, p 25) concerning Ali Baba, and Kahyana (2022, p 186) regarding Teacher Mpamire. For those who are less well known, as seen in Sierra Leone,

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one comedian (whom we do not wish to name) inferred, in a personal communication, that it is necessary to delicately navigate issues pertaining to politicians. According to him, there is need for establishing a delicate balance between ingratiating yourself with whomever is in power (regardless of personal political preferences) but also keeping a certain distance so that the public does not necessarily associate the individual with one party, so as to not lose favour with fans. This is an art form unto itself. Therefore, while Sierra Leone is not necessarily known to be a country of censorship, there are still informal ‘rules of the game’ to which humourists adhere as a way of creating a balance between the different loyalties they have to the people and those in power. Comedy can thus be a powerful form of political commentary, but this has become lost as people have been bought off, ultimately demonstrating how such self-​censorship feeds into maintaining a political status quo, where comedians keep within what is politically deemed the ‘appropriate bounds’. Such politically induced silences derive from the commercialization of ridicule, where social, political or economic capital determines what is to be said and how it is to be said. Unlike Nigeria and Sierra Leone, where the government is more permissive regarding political satire, Rwanda has constitutional censorship, wherein it is normal to use threats and compulsion to repress caricatures of the country’s leader. The law restricts certain characterizations, especially ethnicity, not just for comedy but all public expressions. Paul Kagame has instituted wide-​ranging measures to curtail divisiveness, but these laws are somewhat open-​ended and have transitioned into muzzling all forms of political dissent, including ridiculing the president and his government. There has, for instance, been ‘much skepticism toward humor’ in the regime’s pursuit for the eradication of what it views as ‘divisionism’, ‘genocide negationism’ and ‘historical revisionism’ (Hron, 2016, p 220). The comedian Arthur Nkusi and many other practising humourists in the country have been constrained and have

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been increasingly tasked with finding more and more subtle techniques for passing their messages without falling foul of the law (El-​Shokrofy, 2022), thereby illustrating a more direct and explicit means of silencing. Egypt has also had interesting encounters with humour. The 2011 Arab Spring was buoyed up by comedy performers who entertained protesters online and at Tahrir Square. Just two years after, the government of Mohammed Morsi that replaced Mubarak was overthrown by its army chief, General Abdel Fatah al-​Sisi, who immediately presented a less tolerant view of criticism against his government and has since tightened its censorship and freedom of expression laws (Ibrahim & Eltantawy, 2017; Amin, 2020). Since then, Al-Bernameg (a news-​format satirical television programme), which thrived during and after the revolution, went off air while its presenter, Bassem Youssef, went into exile outside the country (Kingsley, 2014). The present repression is further aggravated by what is identified as pre-​existing ‘unofficial/​ societal censorship’, which is characterized as a condition ‘when oppressive official censorship imposed by a totalitarian political regime overlaps with conservative and bigoted societal censorship equally totalitarian in ideology’ (Selaiha, 2013, pp 20, 34). To suppress and intimidate journalists, cartoonists, and humourists, oppressive governments characterize them as political dissenters. They deploy various legal and extra-​legal instruments to marginalize and silence such critical voices. Have you heard the one about … *silence*? From the preceding discussions, it is evident that although silence may seem antithetical to humour, the two are in fact very intertwined. From the ambiguous use at stand-​up shows to the quivering and uncertain silences of political actors, silence plays a central role in humour production and appreciation. Despite its ambivalence, silence in joke-​making is also agential and symbolic. At one level, it signals the audience’s rightful choice to not find something funny, which may result in

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unlaughter, and as such discomfiting to the comic. At another, it plays a critical part in emphasizing the punchline itself and, as such, is a critical component of the comedian’s tool for laughter elicitation. In yet a third instance where is imposed or enforced by those who wield power, the moment of non-​ speaking speaks volumes in that it can transform from wordless resistance to tyranny. The ambivalent relationship between joking and silence supposes a complicated relationship between the two. Silence simultaneously denotes power and weakness. It is power when it is wielded by satirists, for instance, to enhance meaning-​making and allow for audience participation in the exchange. It is a form of weakness when it gags audiences and compels people not to respond and react even when they are being actively suppressed. In every case, silence is central and is often significant due to how it speaks a language of its own within the context of humorous engagement. Silence weaves itself into the public sphere of comedy, dispensing opposition and accomplishing several objectives albeit incrementally. Humour’s omnipresence and its ever-​expanding networks in everyday life mean that both politicians and comedians have had to become more stealthy and creative in how they respond to each other, often through unspoken understandings, or even looks and gestures. Therefore, silence does not denote absence but in fact has agency. Silence can mean ensuring the survival of comedians, as well as politicians maintaining the status quo. Either way, the silence in and of jokes, is also doing political work.

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Throughout this book, we have set out to explore the potential for political work and political consequences that humour can have in various African contexts. The process of corralling our thoughts and ideas together has been a challenging but also entertaining one –​made all the more enjoyable by having the licence to legitimately argue that reading jokes and memes on social media, watching stand-​up comedy and comedy skits, and looking at cartoons has been for work purposes. (If anyone ever asks why we do research on humour, the answer –​in all honesty –​is that it is fun. There is also much humour that goes along with the research process itself, but that is indeed another book). As we have demonstrated across the chapters, the landscape of and for humour –​and specifically humour which does political work –​is diverse, varied and continually being contested. The long history of visual and verbal humour in Africa is complex and multifaceted, and these histories entwine with the experiences of colonialism to inform the current backdrop to the freedoms and constraints facing different types of humourists in different national contexts. We are far from the first authors to make this argument –​we stand on the shoulders of the many scholars who have provided detailed discussions of these histories and conditions. However, we have expanded and built upon these works with a comprehensive assortment of examples and discussion from across the continent and from vastly different political contexts.

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Among these scholarly giants, the work of Achille Mbembe on cartoons in Cameroon and the politics of affect continues to frame much of the ensuing discussion on humour and politics in Africa (and beyond). At the heart of his reasoning is the claim that cartoons –​and humour more generally –​may seek to resist or disrupt dominant or hegemonic power but in so doing actually serves to reinforce the omnipotence of this power. Linked, in part, to Mbembe’s work and allied to a common tendency for scholars to seek examples of oppositional practices and instances where the underdog or subaltern is able to effectively speak truth to power and upend dominant power relations, it has become de rigour to link humour and resistance. However, as we have argued, while this focus has been a productive space of interrogation on the relationship between humour and politics, nor do we wholly deny that this can be the case, the ‘humour and resistance paradigm’ offers only a partial consideration of the range of ways in which humour can do political work. In thinking this through, we have explored the multiple and networked power relations that infuse the production, communication and reception of humour and what this can mean in political terms. Namely, we have aimed to illustrate how the agency of a joke is not necessarily benign or that humour is simply a lens for understanding power relations, as so often assumed. Rather the actions and implications within a joke have actual real-​world consequences. It is these power relations and the experiences and expressions of these that create the myriad opportunities for humour to be used for and/​or understood as being political or doing political work. In making this argument, we do not confine our thinking as to what is or is not political to the formal political sphere, nor to thinking on hegemony and resistance. Rather, we conceive of the political in much more amorphous terms, encompassing both formal and informal spaces of political participation –​as well as the more nebulous and less overtly active forms of politics and political work, everything from

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everyday encounters at a stand-​up event, to reading a cartoon in a satirical magazine to memes in online platforms, all of these have their place in politics. In adopting this stance, we recognize –​as others have done before us –​that joking and laughter are not always or solely political. Nor are they exclusively used as a means or space of resistance and opposition to the excesses of state power. Nor do we accept that the act of speaking truth to power or laughing in the face of adversity and political hegemony or authoritarianism simply serves to reinforce the very hegemonic power being mocked. All of these things have various agents and actors at play and it is how this ‘plays out’ that is of particular interest to us here. Rather, as we have continually returned to in this book, the intersection of humour and politics is more complex –​opaque even –​and continually shifting and evolving as dynamics are (re)negotiated and both agency and meanings disputed. From the use of humour as a release valve or coping mechanism, to the sharing of jokes and laughter as a (potentially) fleeting moment of collective solidarity, to the overtly political content or political focus and (in some instances) use of comedians, jokes and cartoons to support nation-​building or election campaigns, humour enacts political work. Caustic satirical responses to and reflections on recurring load-​shedding and rolling black-​outs in South Africa over recent years, as the national power supplier (Eskom) struggles to meet demands, illustrate these diverse functions and political work of humour. Whether in the form of cartoons such as Rico’s 2019 depiction of South African President Cyril Ramaphosa addressing the nation by candlelight to say ‘Welcome to South Africa’s fourth industrial revolution’, or the suggestion from ventriloquist puppet political analyst Chester Missing that South Africa’s President ‘Ramaphosa owes it to the nation to admit that the reason he is at the G7 summit is actually so he can charge his phone’, or everyday South Africans contributing to Twitter with responses to the theme of ‘Stage 6 load-​shedding is …’ and ‘Stage 10 load-​shedding is …’,

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Figure 5.1:  In the face of ongoing load-​shedding by Eskom, Zapiro’s wry commentary ‘Powerless’ illustrates how humour can function as a coping strategy in times of adversity (cartoon previously published on Daily Maverick)

humour is being used in multiple ways. On the one hand, these interventions offered moments of solidarity as well as outlets for frustrations with (and at times, opposition to) the South African government and Eskom, as also seen in Zapiro’s ‘Powerless’ editorial cartoon (Figure 5.1). However, at times, certain responses revert to racist tropes –​reminding us again of the complex and contested space of and role for humour in relation to politics, and that the intention of a joke does not always mirror the reception. This is why tracing agency becomes so important, because it aims to look at the multiple (both positive and nefarious) ways and means a joke or cartoon travels. Whether intentional or unintentional, overt or covert, such work occurs in many contexts and guises. From the use of humour for consciousness-​raising or education (as seen earlier in relation to COVID-​19, for instance) to the use of jokes to make meaning and understanding from everyday life, to the expected

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or demanded use of humour in maintaining (peaceful) relations between communities, humour is its own form of agency. Linked to this though is that it is crucial to recognize that humour can be both progressive or resistive, as well as regressive or conservative. Laughter has huge power –​in particular for the one(s) making jokes and those choosing to laugh, or not, at them. Our point here is this –​humour is not only a space for resistance, for taking power away (even if only symbolically or fleetingly) from elites, it is also a space in which power over others is projected and maintained. Whether this is through in-​ group jokes at the expense of ‘others’ –​be the targets of these jokes a racialized or ethnic other, women, those with certain illnesses or diseases, and so on –​or through the co-​opting of comedians and comics to support politicians during election rallies, these practices are inherently an entwining of power, politics and humour. Similarly, the decision as to whether to laugh or not (as in the anecdote at the start of Chapter 4) is another moment in which power is exercised. At times this may be a deliberate ploy by cartoonists or comics to make a (political) point, but it can also be used by audiences to show dissent and disagreement. At times this may be seen as progressive –​a refusal to laugh at a discriminatory joke for instance –​but it may also be a deeply conservative moment of hegemonic power (as with the refusal of the mayor to laugh in Chapter 4). Interestingly though, as illustrated later on in Chapter 4, some leaders learned from their previous political errors and began to embrace or address these humorous quips with other strategies, with censorship becoming more self-​referential. However, in other instances, this silencing –​or unlaughter –​ demonstrates that while some politicians and leaders understand and tolerate being the target of jokes and laughter, many others are far more thin-​skinned and do not necessarily ‘learn their lesson’. The efforts by elites in Zimbabwe, Tanzania, Rwanda, Egypt and elsewhere to censor laughter and curtail the profane public sphere are testament to this: ultimately the

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use of colonial and contemporary legislation as well as extra-​ judicial forms of harassment and persecution towards comics and cartoonists exemplify efforts at silencing –​an extreme manifestation of unlaughter almost. In such situations, leaders are not simply using their own silence or unlaughter to indicate disagreement, but they are seeking to impose their unlaughter on their citizens. There is also some element of irony in these actions as well –​as leaders from these countries frequently use the Global North as a scapegoat or cite colonial legacies as part of present-​day challenges (which of course they are). Simultaneously though, they often continue to refer to these laws (or laws reflective or deriving from this era) as part of their strategy to hamper dissent. Finally, the responses of politicians to comedians are often themselves absurd –​often citing small offences in an effort to arrest or imprison someone. This illustrates how politicians mobilize their own humorous modes (whether they see it in this way or not) by (often overreacting) to particular quips and in so doing, become part of the joke itself and the political work at play. This imposition –​both on individual humourists and the general population –​highlights how humour is also inherently connected with violence –​physical, historical and structural. Efforts to curtail the space for (dissenting) humour often involve differing forms of violence –​including both threats of and aggression by state agents against jokers. In other situations, a misjudged joke, an intentionally offensive joke or one which is seen by the audience as abusive even if this was not intended by the producer, can provoke visceral and violent reactions, with episodes like the Rwanda genocide being primary examples. At the same time, however, humour is seen as a vital tool in maintaining and promoting peace –​ or, humour as a solution to violence. Be this in the form of joking relationships between communities or the use of humour as a tool within peace-​building projects, laughter is at times viewed as the best palliative for forestalling interpersonal conflicts.

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But caution is needed, again, to avoid reifying this potential. Demands made in the name of peacebuilding –​which can often include claims of nation-​building and the ‘common good’ –​ may end up pacifying humour. Exhortations to peace-​building can be, and are, mobilized through calls to avoid certain taboo subjects and to prioritize national-​unity in ways which may silence not only overtly political or oppositional humour but humour more widely. Thus we often see humour used as tool to prevent or reconcile particular forms of violence within processes, which critics might argue are intended to realize a particular type of peace (that is, to ensure the absence of immediate, physical violence). However, when humourists take aim at structural violence it seems that the tolerance for humour as a strategy to actualize longer-​term sustainable peace rapidly reduces, particularly when these forms and manifestations of structural violence perpetuate the hegemony, power and self-​aggrandizement of political and other elites. It is in such situations where we tend to see greater efforts to pacify humour, rather than supporting and facilitating the use of humour to make peaceful futures happen. As this brief summary reminds us, the relationship between humour and violence –​and peace –​is thus complex and contested and humour can be argued as having the potential to contribute to both peace and violence, and itself can be subject to and silenced by the (politicized) demands of peace-​building. These entangled debates illustrate how humour can –​and does –​do an array of political work: humour is not merely about resistance. Rather, we see how humour can be used for subversion of and resistance to hegemonic political power and excesses of state power, but it can also be used to support and maintain power relations, to cope with everyday crises and pressures, to offer moments of connection and solidarity, to make meaning and to educate. Across these different forms of political work it is vital to remember that humour is not just symbolic, but that is has very real and active consequences –​not only as a space for ‘permitted transgressions’ which can act as a

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safety valve for dissent and disquiet but also having economic, legal, physical and political ramifications at multiple scales as we have illustrated in the previous chapters. Changing targets? Throughout this book we have focused on humour within African countries, focusing on the political work done in relation to domestic politics and everyday life. In so doing, we have neglected the longstanding –​and growing –​trend for African comics and cartoonists to direct their ridicule and mockery to targets overseas (see, for instance, Dodds, 2010). At times, this has been in relation to other peoples, places and leaders elsewhere on the continent. At others, the focus and laughter has been turned upon the Global North –​whether in the form of critiques of imperialism and empire during the late 19th and early-​to-​mid 20th century or as more contemporary critiques of the foibles, hypocrisy and ineptitude of western leaders. For example, as COVID-​19 began to spread across the globe, African airports began restricting flights and requiring tests from Global North countries. In most countries, the initial COVID-​19 case was the result of someone who had arrived from a western country. In the age of strict immigration policies between the Global South and Global North, this irony was not lost of African humourists, and the memes and cartoons ran rampant (Mwambari & Martin, 2020). This aspect of humour and politics in Africa is ignored at our peril. The increasing focus on international politics and scandals demonstrates a powerful rejection of colonial-​era power dynamics and a questioning and challenging of assumed hierarchies of power and privilege. As with endeavours focused on domestic politics, we see humourists seeking to strip power and legitimacy from Global North elites, highlighting issues of corruption, nepotism and self-​interest: in essence, turning the stereotyping of Africa back upon the person/​people who create those labels. In fact, one author was on the continent as

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the Boris Johnson leadership fiasco unfolded in mid-​2022, and most of her (African) colleagues were laughing at the situation, pointing to the ironic ways that Africans get portrayed when in fact the UK is equally as scandal ridden. In this process of inverting the gaze or switching the direction of sight –​placing the morality of society and politics in the Global North in the comedian’s cross-​hairs –​we see more than just a politics of resistance at work. Certainly many of these jokes can be understood as a form of resistance to global power dynamics and hierarchies, but they also do other, more global, forms of political work. Again, such images may be used to prompt moments of reflection on domestic politics and issues, offer cathartic moments of release and solidarity about the continued influence of (neo)colonialism on everyday lives, and so on. In recent years, African comics and cartoonists have challenged dominant Global North narratives and representations of the continent, lamented vaccine nationalism and global political machinations in response to COVID-​19, critically addressed the conflict in Ukraine, and the failure of the west to agree on effective responses to the threat and cost of climate change and global warming. The list continues, with critical interventions querying racism in EU and UK immigration policies, challenging the recent agreement between the UK and Rwanda to offshore asylum seekers, racism in the US, and the shortcomings of western political leaders. While a fuller exploration of this growing confidence and prevalence of African humour directed towards the Global North –​but also China, India and other countries beyond the continent –​ lies beyond the scope of this book, it does underline the need to think critically about the political work that humour can do across multiple scales and what this could mean for decolonizing knowledge. Linked to this, these trends underscore the importance of decentring the dominant western gaze on humour in the Global North. In so doing, care is needed to avoid the fate of the ‘case study’ approach. In other words, a more holistic and

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nuanced engagement with theorizing and thinking through the intersections of humour, power, silence, politics and everyday life cannot be based upon the importation of theory from the Global North and relegation of African humour to being an interesting empirical anomaly or case study. As we have sought to begin in this book, future work in this field needs to engage in detailed understandings of the historical and contemporary landscapes of politics, performativity and complexities that frame humour in any and every context. Crucially, these efforts must not seek to homogenize or generalize –​as we have intimated in this book, the experiences of different types of humour(ists) working in different (national) contexts and using different for(u)ms of expression can be drastically different.

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Notes two  Multiple For(u)ms of Resistance: Humour, Agency and Power 1

2

In reference to understanding civil society, we follow on from Obadare in that, while it can refer to groups or associations this is ‘by no means exhaustive of the totality of the forms, dimensions, and practices of civil society’ (2016, p 10). Rather, civil society goes beyond organizations and associations and ‘stokes interest in the whole of the space in which both visible and not so visible political action originates. The everyday thrust and parry among ordinary citizens that takes place in this space is important in itself as an illustration of how political agency is exercise, and not just in relation to the state’ (2016, p 11). ‘Buga’ is a viral song by Nigeria’s Kizz Daniel, with a specific dance movement, which lots of celebrities have been dancing to on social media, known as the ‘Buga Dance Challenge’. Liberia’s George Weah is the only African president to have followed suit and is now also doing the dance on request during public engagements in his country, earning him the title of the most entertaining president in Africa.

three  Beyond the Symbolic: Humour in Action 1

2

3

4

This depiction of a faucet alludes to infamous comments made by Zuma during his rape trial (of which he was acquitted) in 2006 and is used repeatedly by Zapiro to remind viewers of these comments and question the legitimacy and power of President Zuma. Such practices are not the sole preserve of recent years, with satirists and cartoonists escaping kidnapping, murder and other threats in countries including Gabon and Cameroon in the 1990s and early 2000s (Eko, 2007). It should be noted that experiences of repression and oppression are not solely the domain of humourists, nor of African states. Rather these experiences are part of a much broader –​and shifting –​landscape of tolerance for freedom of expression across the globe, and affecting not only humourists but also journalists, bloggers, activists and others. The increasingly polarized and vitriolic nature of political debate and ‘war on woke’/​’culture wars’ rhetoric in the UK and US illustrates the broader backdrop within which this book is situated. This is not to say that it is only in these contexts that power –​including governmental power –​is wielded to monitor and restrain the critical

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5

public sphere. Across the globe we witness the role of civil society and media institutions, as well as government, in delineating ‘accepted’ boundaries of critique –​ be this in the ‘out of bounds markers’ implemented by Singaporean government officials to limit critical media coverage, or the role of think tanks and media companies in moulding public opinion and social norms around specific issues and events –​as witnessed in the UK following the death of Queen Elizabeth II. This is not to place US Supreme Court rulings on a pedestal nor to assume the rulings of this court are always socially progressive. Rather, we mention specific rulings of the Supreme Court here because they have as Eko (2017) argues, had direct bearing on certain rulings by courts on the African continent. The potential clearly remains for other, more conservative, rulings from the US Supreme Court to be similarly invoked in future decisions by the African Country of Human and People’s Rights and other judicial entities.

four  Between Jokes: Silence and Ambiguities within Humour 1

2

Joke-​telling takes five major stages –​setup, pause, punchline, tagline, and follow-​through (Nwankwọ, 2021); the first three are present in every single joke, and the last two are used to transit from one joke to another in stand-​up performances. As seen in the Odi and the Zakibiam massacres in November 1999 and October 2021, as well as the extra-​judicial actions Obasanjo took as a civilian president in removing elected officials who disagreed with him.

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162

Index References to figures appear in italic type. References to endnotes show both the page number and the note number (135n3).

A

B

Abrahamsen, R.  32 accents, and humour  18 affect  28, 81, 82, 99, 126 agency  x, xii, xiii, 19, 22, 65, 74–​5, 87, 98–​9, 126–​9 and resistance  27, 34, 43, 44, 47–​51, 63 and silence  102–​4, 111–​13, 115, 116, 124 Algeria  31, 69, 72, 90 Ali Baba (Atunyota Alleluya Akpobome)  119, 121 ambiguities  74–​82, 101, 103–​4, 117–​18 Angola  5, 67 Anikulapo-​Kuti, Fela  118–​19 Anti-​Cyber and Information Technology Crimes Law (2018)  98 Anti-​Pass March (1956)  106 apolitical humour  19, 22, 56 Arab Spring (2011)  24, 123 art categorization  6 audience  10, 39, 42, 63, 75, 123, 124, 129, 130 diverse  13–​14, 27 global/​international  41 knowledge of  12 and meaning-​making  57 power of  114–​15 reception and response  21, 56, 75, 96, 99 and silence  101–​2, 103, 105, 108–​11, 113–​18 awareness-​raising  58, 59–​60, 62–​3

Bachama  16 balkanization of Africa  5 Banjo, O.O.  17 Basketmouth  12, 54, 119 Beckett, Samuel  107 belongingness  45, 50, 77, 78, 81 Benya, Desmond  54, 55 Bernal, Victoria  36 Al-​Bernameg  93, 123 Black, Steven  58 Black Sash protests  106 ‘Blessing of the emigration to the Cape’  7 body arts and design  7 Boer commandos, defeated  81–​2 Boonzaier, Daniel  37 Boyle, Tim  114 Bozzini, D.  31 Bradfield, S.J.  53–​4 Brassett, J.  30, 80 Braun, L.N.  95 buffoonery  79 ‘Buga dance’ challenge’  45, 135n2 (Ch 2) Buhari, Muhammadu  118–​19, 120–​1 Burkina Faso  83–​4, 85, 86, 97 Buse, R.N.  95 Bush, George W.  120

C Cameroon  7, 9, 28, 68, 83, 126 caricatures  25, 45 Cartooning for Peace  69

163

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cartoons and cartoonists  1, 2, 6, 7–​8, 32, 39, 68–​70, 94, 129–​30, 132–​3 and ambiguities  77 challenge to structural violence  73 editorial  14, 19, 21, 24, 37, 53, 55, 56–​7, 68–​9, 77, 89, 128 educational  21 empty cartoon frame  115–​16 genres of  21 and pacification  89–​90 and power  84–​5 ‘Powerless’  128, 128 ‘Rape of Lady Justice’  26, 26, 75, 89, 94 and resistance  20–​1, 33, 54, 56 and silence  111 surveillance and censorship of  14, 92–​6 as tools of governmentality and control  21 underground  21 and violence  73–​4, 135 see also specific cartoonists censorship and control  4, 14, 27, 33, 40, 92–​6, 111, 112, 123, 129 forms of  118 of media  60, 68–​9, 78 over media outlets  33 Rwandan constitutional censorship  122–​3 self-​censorship/​silencing  91–​2, 103, 119, 121, 122 Chappelle, Dave  118 Chikwama comic strip  49–​50 civic participation  23–​4 civil society  23, 37, 67, 135n1 (Ch 2) and its relationship to agency  63 and resistance  35 class structures, and humour  8 Clowns Without Borders International  85 cluelessness  120 code-​mixing  9 code-​switching  9 colonialism, impact of  4–​5, 6, 96–​7, 125

comedic leaders  45 comedy films  2, 12 comic strips  1, 49–​50 comics  1, 21, 24, 32, 35, 49, 68, 96, 111, 115, 124, 129–​30, 132, 133 commandement  28, 63, 82 commercialization  6, 122 commodification  6, 7 common good  29, 38, 131 communication  breakdown, and silence  105 mediums, adaptation and utilization of  19 patterns  11 speech–​silence interaction in  105 communities  making and maintenance of  50, 62 peaceful relations between  129 conduct of conduct  29, 88 contextual specificity  11–​18 coping mechanism  xiii, 31, 45–​50, 52, 58, 59, 63, 80–​1, 82, 85, 127, 128 COVID-​19 pandemic  xi, 40, 128, 132–​3 Crigler, R.K.  80 criminalization  67, 89 critical expression, freedom of  70 critical public sphere  56 closing down the space for  34, 38, 63–​4, 82, 87, 93, 129 freedoms and tolerance of  68–​9 Cruikshank, George  7 cultural violence  73 cyberbullying  42

D Daily Nation, The  49, 68–​9, 74 Daniel, Kizz  135n2 (Ch 2) dark humour  49, 52, 53 Davies, C.  17 ‘Decriminalization of Expression (DOX) Campaign,’  97 defamation laws  67, 96–​7, 98 Degani, Mike  51

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INDEX

dehumanization  71, 73, 77, 78, 83, 91 deliberate misrepresentations  120 demonization  46 deterritorialization  35, 82–​3, 83–​4, 85, 91 Devlieger, C.  50 Dilem, Ali  90 direct violence  71, 73, 111 divisive and exclusionary function, of humour  76 Dodds, K.  32 Donian, J.  1, 11, 78 drama  2

Ethiopia  40, 85 European Union  133 extra-​judicial actions  130, 136n2

F folklore and story-​telling, subversive humour within  4 Foucault, M.  29 freedom of expression  22, 24–​5, 41, 89, 98, 123, 135n3 French Law on defamation (1881)  97 funniness, considerations of  11 funny and taboo, line between  13 Fwema, Optatus  70, 91

E

G

East Africa  9, 69 Ebalé, Ramón Esono  70 Ebola survivors, stigmatization of  46, 58, 76 editorial cartoons  14, 19, 21, 24, 37, 53, 55, 56–​7, 68–​9, 77, 89, 128 ‘efe’  117 Egypt  7, 24, 27, 33, 40, 70, 72, 80, 93, 98, 123, 129 Egyptoon  70 Eko, L.  20, 32, 67, 83–​5, 89, 97, 136n5 election campaigns  45–​6, 79–​80, 120–​1, 127, 129 election violence (2007), Kenya  69, 71, 77, 83 elites  14, 22, 59, 83, 93, 129–​30, 131, 132 political  14, 31, 33–​4, 43, 48, 67–​8, 131 and silencing  116 social  14 and tolerance  24 El-​Shokrofy, E.M.  58 #EndSARS protests  40, 60 Equatorial Guinea  70 Eritrea  31, 36 escapism  10, 15, 19, 22, 49, 80–​1 Eskom  127–​8

Gabon  84 Gado (Godfrey Mwampembwa)  33, 34, 34, 56, 68–​9, 72, 74 Galtung, J.  71, 73 Gathara, P.  1 Gawish, Islam  70 George, C.  94 George, Nicole  112 Gervais, Ricky  118 Ghana  5, 59 Global North  2, 3, 22, 130, 132–​4 goofy chants and songs  4 governmentality  21, 29, 33, 37–​8, 87, 88, 92 Gramsci, A.  31 griots  7 groups, creating  63

H Hamdi, Ashraf  70 Hammett, Daniel  115 harassment  39–​40, 71, 113, 130 hashtag conversations  40, 60, 62 hate speech  83 hate speech and freedom of expression, line between  89–​90 Hausa communities  7 hegemony  29, 31, 131 Hernann, Andrew  49

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HUMOUR AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

hidden resistance  36, 38 #HumanitarianStarWars  62

meaning of laughter within  114 military conscripts  31 politicians’ oppositional ways of response to  27–​8 and power  35 to ridicule power  65 secretive joke sharing  31 and silences  114, 118, 124 stages of  136n1 joking partners  86 joking relationships  15–​16, 130 Jonathan, Goodluck  120–​1 Jonathan, Patience  120–​1

I I Go Dye  12 identity  50, 78 heterogenous  13 in-​group and out-​group  17, 46, 78 of the jokester  102 national  12 and space  11–​18 Idringi, Patrick ‘Salvador’  74 Igbo  16, 86, 107–​8 imbongi  7 improvisation, comedy of  51 in-​betweenness  102 indirect violence  71, 73, 111 indiscipline moments  29, 51, 63, 82 individual political affiliations  103 inequality  53 Instagram  40, 70, 91 insults  11, 16, 69–​70, 86–​7, 91, 93, 96–​7, 121 internet  40, 41, 95–​6 access to  17, 40, 42 dissemination of humour productions  14–​15 memes  62, 120 intimidation, judicial  67, 72 Ivanhoff, Victor  37

Kagame, Paul  122 Källstig, Amanda  39 Kangura  77 Kansiime, Anne  54 Kent, Lia  112 Kenya  1, 12, 33, 40, 45, 68–​9, 71–​2, 77, 83–​4 Kenyatta, Uhuru  69 Kerr, D.  4 Khoi  4 Kibaki, Mwai  45 Kinyarwanda  9 Kiruga, M.  84 Knobkerrie, The  7 Kuhlmann, J.  95–​6 Kureya, Samantha (Gonyeti)  27, 70, 71–​2, 74, 93

J

L

Jensen, V.  106 Jimoh, G.A.  4, 8 Johnson, Boris  133 jokers, funerary  81 jokes and joke-​telling  11, 20 to access central power  23 agency of  25 and audiences  see audience circulation of  26 derogatory  83 HIV/​AIDS related  76 at marginalized groups  35

language(s)  8–​10, 42 awareness of  3 English  9, 120 European  4–​5, 9 French  9 local African  17–​18 Lasekan, Akinola  8 laughter  15, 50, 80–​1, 100, 114–​17, 119, 132 censor  129 in the face of danger and adversity  ix, 80

K

166

INDEX

hopeless  62, 81 as an incursion on silence  116 and interpersonal conflicts  130 meaning within joke-​telling  114 peaceful  85–​7 physiological perspective  48 power of  129 production of  5, 11, 12, 14, 110–​11 and resistance  23, 30 sceptical  62 and silence  100, 103, 110–​11, 113, 116 spaces of  36, 42 Launay, R.  16 legal and extra-​legal responses  69, 70, 72, 74, 93, 96, 98, 123 legislation  criminalization of actions  67 restrictive  57 to stifle everyday criticism and jokes  33 Lent, J.A.  1, 3, 7, 80 Liberia  45, 79 Liew, S.  94 Limb, Peter  xi, 1, 16 live performances  1, 15 local knowledge  12–​13, 17, 119 Lord Ganesha, depiction of  25–​6 Lorgat, Haroon  26

Mason, A.  7, 21, 37, 39, 53–​5 mbari  7 Mbembe, Achille  43–​4, 80, 88, 99 on cartoons  29, 73, 126 critics of arguments of  31–​2 on parody and laughter as resistance  30 on the politics of affect  81 on power  28 and resistance  28–​34 meaning-​making  33, 51, 52, 56–​7, 124 media  censorship and control of  60, 68–​9, 78 independent agencies  91 online  60–​1, 63 private  93 state interventions in  67 see also social media Media Regulation Law (2018)  98 memes  xi, 14, 15, 24, 26, 40, 41, 60, 95, 132 internet  62, 74, 120, 125, 127 satirical  32 misogynistic jokes  11, 35 misrepresentations  107, 108, 120 Missing, Chester  127 Mnangagwa, Ernest  39 mobilizations  24, 25, 27, 28, 29, 71, 76, 77, 79, 84–​5, 87, 94–​5, 111, 115, 130–​1 mockery  18, 29, 39, 50, 59–​60, 66, 69, 71, 75, 78, 80, 82, 93, 95, 113, 127, 132 Mohammed, Prophet (Peace Be Upon Him), caricatures of  25 Monro, Samm Faral  95 Morsi, Mohammed  123 Mosha, R.S.  105 Mozambique  5, 67 Mpamire, Teacher  121 Msimang, S.  62 Mubarak, Hosni  24, 44, 67, 123 Mugabe, Robert  32, 33–​4, 39, 40, 44, 52, 57, 60–​2 Museveni, Yoweri  69

M Mabweazara, H.M.  62 Madam and Eve  53–​4 Magufuli, John  27, 42, 69 Mail and Guardian  53, 72 Maitland, Sara  107, 108 Makwa, Tongai  95 Malawi  58 Mande society  16, 86–​7 Manganga, K.  95 marginalized groups and marginalization  19, 22, 35–​6, 41, 45–​6, 66, 68, 73, 76–​7, 109, 111, 123 Martin, L.S.  79 masking  4, 96

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HUMOUR AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

Musila, Grace  59 Mwamkinga, Samuel  92

P pacifying humour  87–​92, 131 Panic Mechanic  12 peace-​building  82, 85–​8, 90, 92, 98, 129, 130–​1 Pedi  9 Perego, E.  31 permissibility  11, 12, 13, 16, 24, 38, 86, 88, 102, 109–​10, 116, 117, 122, 131–​2 persecutions  109, 130 Pfister, M.  111 physical violence  47, 70–​2, 73, 77, 130, 131 policing the red lines  72, 75, 92, 96 political  allegiances  39 cartoons  see cartoons commentary  50, 53, 122 critique  62 dissenters  123 effect  61–​2 participation  37, 126–​7 rallies  79, 109–​10 politics  and entertainment, merging of  60–​1 and humour, overview  18–​22 popular cultures  3, 20, 21 power  25, 28–​9, 35–​6, 43, 75, 129 and agency  47–​8 of audience  114–​15 excesses of  31, 51, 77, 95 and humour  19, 45 humour as means of speaking truth to  38–​9 people with limited access to  44 of silence  102, 110 of state  see state(s) stripping  xi, 35, 82–​5, 132 power relations  19–​20, 27, 36, 75, 80, 126 press freedoms  67, 70, 90, 91, 93, 98 Press Law (1995)  67 pressures, placed on publishers and editors  74 principality  38, 88

N nation-​building  21, 87, 89–​90, 127, 131 Ncube, G.  32 negative consequences, of humour  25, 46, 53, 76 new subjectivities, supporting  63, 82 Ngomashi, Prosper  93 Nigeria  5, 7–​8, 9, 16, 36, 40, 45, 48, 79, 86, 118, 120, 122 njakịrị  16 Nkusi, Arthur  122 Noah, Trevor  54, 57 Ntoogueé, Paul-​Louis Nyemb (Popoli)  71 Nwankwọ, Izuu  1, 3, 6, 20, 39, 86 Nwoye, Gregory  107–​8 Nyamnjoh, Francis  31–​2, 33

O Obadare, Ebenezer  12, 32–​3, 45, 48, 63, 119, 135n1 (Ch 2) Obasanjo, Olusegun  45, 65–​6, 79, 118–​21, 136n2 Obasanjo, Stella  120 Obinna, Oga  12 Ochiel, Linda  83 Odi massacre  136n1 offence, suspension of  116–​17 Olaniyan, T.  1, 7–​8, 16, 118 Omondi, Eric  12 online platforms  17, 24, 127 online protests  40 online spaces  xi, 2, 14–​15, 41–​2, 60–​3 Operation Ghost City protests  68 oral traditions  4, 68 ‘othering’  46 l’Ouragan  97

168

INDEX

private spaces  25, 53 promiscuous relationships  28 Pro-​National Party Afrikaans  77 propaganda machine, humour as  78 protests  Black Sash protests  106 #EndSARS  40, 60 hidden forms of  38 modes of  112 online protests in Kenya  40 Operation Ghost City protests  68 silence as  106, 111 silent  112–​13 psychological violence  71–​2, 77 public forums  25 Public Order and Security Act  57 public sphere  24–​5, 34, 60, 90, 96 see also critical public sphere Publications Act (1974)  77–​8 Publications and Entertainments Act (1963)  77 punchlines  8, 98–​9, 100, 103, 108–​10, 114–​15, 124

and Mbembe  28–​34 and meaning-​making  51 and power  35–​42 and silence  106, 124 and social media  42 and stand-​up comedy/​events  20 and state power  45–​8, 77 vernacular forms of  80 reverse muteness  121 Rico, P.S.  111, 127 ridicules  4, 29, 61, 69, 72, 81, 82, 119, 120, 121, 132 and elites  33, 66 expectation of  11 government censorship on  118 and mobilization  85 permitted  11, 16, 117 and power  30, 45, 65, 66, 75, 78 and silence  122 and violence  71 Rwanda  9, 33, 57–​8, 72, 85, 91, 122, 129 constitutional censorship  122–​3 genocide of 1994  71, 74, 77, 83, 91, 130 Ingando re-​education camps  72

Q Quakers  106

S

R

satire  32, 35, 78, 96 animation  70 circulation of  26 expression of anger  62 and marginalization  46 masks  4 puppet  68 Schroeder, William  7, 37 Schuster, Leon  11 Scott, J.C.  32 Seirlis, Julia  49 self-​censorship/​silencing  91–​2, 103, 119, 121, 122 self-​deprecation  11, 31 self-​reflectiveness  33 self-​reflexivity  48–​50 senankuya  16, 86–​7 Senegal  84, 85

racist humour  11, 46, 73 Radio Trattoir  95 Ramaphosa, Cyril  127 ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon  26, 26, 75, 89, 94 recreational humour  21 Redykyulass  68 Reporters without Borders  69 representational practices  9, 10, 12–​13, 25, 53, 74–​5, 78, 102 resistance  19–​21, 25, 55–​9, 61, 63, 81, 96, 113, 126–​7, 129 and cartoons  20–​1 and civil society  35 farce  43–​4 hidden  36, 38 and laughter  23, 30

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HUMOUR AND POLITICS IN AFRICA

sexist jokes  35, 46, 73, 76 Sheng  9 shifting positionalities  54–​7 Sierra Leone  8–​9, 46, 58, 76, 79, 92, 103, 121–​2 silence  100, 123–​4, 131 as action  108–​18 in African cosmogony  107 in African worldviews  105 agency of  111–​12 as antithesis of laughter  100 and audience  101–​2, 103, 105, 108–​11, 113–​18 for cartoonists  106 contextual significations  105 and culture  105 definition of  104–​8 forms of  112 functions of  105–​6 and humour  113 imposed  111 and joking, relationship between  124 meanings of  106, 107 of oppressed peoples  108 and power relations  102–​3 as product of repression  111 as protest  106, 111 repression induces  111 and status quo maintenance  104 and submissiveness  106 utilizing and valuing  104–​5, 106 weakness and strength  104, 124 silencing  106, 109, 113, 117, 119, 129–​30 al-​Sisi, Abdel Fatah  123 Siziba, G.  32 Skoonheid/​Beauty  12 slacktivism  61 social bonding  63, 82 social commentary  51–​2, 56, 60, 63 social justice  43 social media  40–​1, 64, 69 formats  2 and resistance  42 significance of  60 spaces  40, 91 social superiority  46, 76, 78

solidarity  36, 44, 61–​2, 76, 78, 127–​8, 131 South Africa  21, 39, 49, 53, 58–​9, 69, 72, 76, 78, 84–​5, 94 Southall, R.  79 Sowetan, The  115 spaces  13–​14, 37, 38, 53, 63, 75, 96 closing of  25, 88 ‘official’  38 and political dissent  24 spoof movie posters  57, 60–​1 stand-​up comedy/​events  1, 3, 6–​7, 49, 54, 86, 109, 120, 125, 127 and contexts  15 and language  9 and power  39, 47 and resistance  20, 57, 59 and silences  101, 109, 110–​11, 113, 114, 118, 121, 123 spaces and places  24, 37 and violence  70, 71 state of emergency (1985), South Africa  78 state(s)  censorship and monopoly over broadcast media  68–​9 disciplining power of  38, 99 excesses of power  74, 83, 131 expression and consolidation of power  45 limiting the space for media and civil society  67 monitoring and controlling of public sphere  92–​3 response to humour through violence  73 response to their critics  58 restriction on journalists  91–​2 see also specific countries Stelitz, L.N.  62 Street Children  70 structural violence  72–​3, 130 Sugarcane  80 Sultan, Idris  27, 41–​2, 69, 74 Suluhu, Samia  91 survival mechanism  7, 51, 73, 80–​1, 124

170

INDEX

Swahili  9 Swart, S.  81, 82

states response to humour through  73 structural  72–​3, 130 symbolic  77 systematic  53

T taboo-​breaking  58–​64 Tanzania  16, 27, 69–​70, 85, 91–​2, 129 Thamm, Eric  37 TikTok  40 time  11, 18, 27, 32, 48, 52, 97, 110 tolerance  11, 14, 24, 34, 68, 69, 119, 121, 131, 135n3 Tomaselli, K.  67, 90 transgressions, permitted  131–​2 Tromif/​Triumph  12 Tutsi  77 Twitter  40, 62

W Warri  86 watchdogs  55, 56 wawan sarki (court jester)  7 Weah, George  45, 79, 135n2 (Ch 2) weapon of the weak, humour as  xi, 23, 32, 39, 43, 80 Wedderburn, A.  47 West Africa  9, 16, 86–​7 West African Pilot  8 WhatsApp  40 Willems, W.  49–​50

U

X

Uganda  27, 33, 40, 69, 74, 121 United Kingdom  106, 108, 133, 135n3, 136n4 United States  97, 118, 120, 133, 135n3, 136n5 unlaughter  58–​9, 87, 103, 115, 124, 129–​30 utani  16

Xhosa  9 XYZ Show  68, 84

Y ‘yan kama (burlesque artists)  7 Yoruba  117 Youssef, Bassem  71–​2, 93, 123

Z

V

Zakibiam massacre  136n1 Zambezi News  94–​5 Zapiro  27, 54–​6, 59, 69, 72, 75–​6, 84, 89–​90, 94, 135n1 (Ch 3) empty cartoon frame  115–​16 ‘Powerless’ cartoon  128, 128 ‘Rape of Lady Justice’ cartoon  26, 26, 75, 89, 94 Zimbabwe  14, 27, 32–​3, 34, 39, 47, 52, 70, 83–​4, 93–​6, 129 ‘zombification’ of the population  29–​30 Zulu  9 Zuma, Jacob  26–​7, 45, 69, 79, 84, 94, 98, 135n1 (Ch 3)

verbal teases  11 vernac comedy  9 Verwoerd, M.  46 Verwoerd, W.  46 violence  87, 130–​1 cultural  73 direct  71, 73, 111 excess of  31 humour and/​as  70, 73 indirect  71, 73, 111 against jokers  73–​4 physical  47, 70–​2, 73, 77, 130, 131 psychological  71–​2, 77

171