By Mark Allen Peterson

That Egyptians are funny is a well-known Arab stereotype. Egyptians are said to be “khafeefit al-damm” (light of blood) – able to turn things that would make anyone else’s blood boil into a joke. Before the revolution, this reality was often expressed in everyday life in Egypt through political satire – jokes about politicians, the police and the president himself challenged the status quo and poked fun at the pretensions of the powerful. However, because these jokes were told privately, among friends and family, they had little effect upon the former regime’s grip on power.
 
During last year’s Egyptian revolution, satire directed against the powerful went public, and it offered Egyptians a way to resist power in creative ways. Public laughter helped break the grip of fear that President Hosni Mubarak had relied on for so long, and that continues to affect Egypt’s politics today.
 
Importantly, the use of social media during the revolution allowed political humor to reach a much broader public. This movement built on the model of websites such as El-Koshary Today, a comic news site, and Ezba Abu Gamal (The Village of Gamal’s Father), a blog featuring stories of life in a small village that is run by a dictatorial mayor and that parodied people and events in Egypt.
 
And when hundreds of thousands of Egyptians gathered in Cairo’s Tahrir Square, public political humor exploded. The demand that the president step down was expressed through witty songs, funny chants and protest signs with jokes like, “Leave so I can get a haircut” or “I just got married – leave so I can go home to my wife.”
 
Through these protest methods, Egyptians became part of a larger global trend. “Laughtivism” – using humor to create political change – has been employed by activists as diverse as anti-corporate protesters Andy Bichlbaum and Mike Bonanno in the United States and the Serbian group Otpor, which helped overthrow the government of Slobodan Milosevic in Serbia in 2000.
 
And in June, American television audiences of the popular Jon Stewart comedy program “The Daily Show” heard from Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian heart surgeon turned comedian. Youssef spoke about the role that humor is playing in Egypt’s politics today. When it comes to post-revolutionary Egypt, Youssef is perhaps the most successful political satirist that the country has. Soon after the revolution, Youssef and several of his friends created a YouTube program called “B” that has been compared to “The Daily Show.”
 
Weaving together news clips with ironic commentary to create a critique of both Egypt’s politics and its media outlets, episodes of “B” received over 1 million hits. Last summer, the show made an unprecedented jump from social media to TV when Youssef’s “El-Bernameg” (The Show), which grew out of “B,” premiered on the independent channel ONTV. In one memorable episode, Youssef did imitations, using wigs and full makeup, of several key presidential hopefuls – poking fun not only at them but at Egypt’s controversial and chaotic presidential election process.
 
Alongside “El-Bernameg” are other comedy shows such as “Rob’e Meshakel” (Mixed Quarter) and the “Lamp Show.” Before the revolution, these comedy sketches used to avoid political humor, out of fear that they would bring punishment from the regime. Now they feature such humor, indicating a new openness in the country.
 
Humor and people’s responses to it “have changed as the revolution has changed,” says Hebatallah Salem, an instructor at the Arabic Language Institute in Cairo. Salem, who teaches students how to translate humor, is compiling a history of the Egyptian revolution through the jokes that the event spawned.
 
Public humor, Salem says, continues to empower people, and reminds them that they can resist power through jokes. Whatever form the new Egypt finally takes, laughter has gone public, and political figures will have to learn to deal with it. The revolution will continue, as long as it keeps its sense of humor.
 
Mark Allen Peterson is a professor of anthropology and international studies at Miami University in Oxford, Ohio, and the author of “Connected in Cairo” (Indiana University Press, 2011). He blogs at www.connectedincairo.com. THE DAILY STAR publishes this commentary in collaboration with the Common Ground News Service (www.commongroundnews.org).