I often read the Entertainment sections of the mainstream media in order to monitor the steady politicization of culture e.g. the anti-American and pro-Arab escape “thrillers,” the more serious films in which ever-innocent dark-skinned immigrants are falsely accused of Islamist crimes by heartless American or Canadian immigration bureaucracies. Most American comics, with the exception of Dennis Miller, are left-liberal politicals. Think Bill Maher, John Stewart, Steve Colbert, etc. and they use humor to skewer politicians and policies they despise. My God, the comic Al Franken became a politician—and may one day even represent the state of Minnesota in the Senate.
I was recently in Canada and thus read the Globe and Mail, the Toronto Star, the National Post, the Sunday Independent, etc. for three days
According to Susan Sachs in The Globe and Mail, France is home to a very popular French comic named Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who views himself as a champion of free speech, denies the Holocaust, has never met a Jew or an Israeli whom he likes, (and he makes money and gets laughs for saying so). Dieudonne just ran for a seat in the EU Parliament on his own political party which he has named: “The anti-Zionist List.” His comrades-in-arms include a one-time aide to Jean-Marie Le Pen, the author of a book which argues that 9/11 was an American military plot, and the head of a Muslim group who claims he is being backed by Hamas and Hezbollah.
Dieudonne has quite a multi-racial, young, left, following in France. (He is a French-Cameroonian; 20% of the population in Cameroon are Muslims), and he is obsessed with race, bi-raciality, and with his own both black and white roots. (His long gone father is from Cameroon, his mother is Breton). Dieudonne is known for insulting “prominent French Jews” and for his extreme “antagonism to Israel (which) amounts to anti-Semitism.” According to the Sunday Independent:
“Since 2002, and intensively since 2004, Dieudonné has become a kind of French Louis Farrakhan, the anti-Semitic leader of the Nation of Islam in the United States. His critics, (including former friends), say he is no longer a comedian interested in politics but a politician, who uses comedy to further extremist political ambitions. Sometimes directly, sometimes by coded, or scarcely coded references, he presents the Jews as the main source of black misery; or he suggests that the obsession with the suffering of the Jews soaks up too much of the fund of guilt and shame which would be better spent on black people. ”
The Sunday Independent gives us two examples of Dieudonne’s jokes:
“In one skit, Bernard-Henri Lévy, the Jewish-French philosopher, haggles with a street potato seller. Dieudonné/Lévy says: “How can you ask me to pay so much when 6 million of us died in the Holocaust?” Roars of delight from the audience.
There is also a Hitler-in-his-bunker sketch that is moderately funny until the closing line: “You will see, in the future, people will come to realise that I, Adolf Hitler, was really a moderate.”
This is no laughing matter. I am not laughing nor is the French League Against Racism and Anti-Semitism which views Dieudonne’s “public statements as (recalling) the worst moments of the 1930s and 1940s.”
Today, “cultural workers” like Dieudonne wield enormous influence over their young audiences. Political comics, one-actor showmen/impersonators, rap artists, poetry slammers, movie stars, visual artists–uncannily, many of them often share the same anti-American, anti-Zionist, and pro-Palestinian politics. (Now why is that? Did they all go to the same schools?) Many are also charming, clever, passionate, and talented–and for this reason, are potentially quite dangerous. No, I will not go as far as Plato did; I would not ban artists from The Republic but I fear that they are our major popularizers of the New Fascism–and all in the guise of Free Speech or better yet, Righteous Speech, on behalf of The Resistance Imaginary.
Laughter is a very powerful weapon; we dare not underestimate it. Last month, comic Bill Maher, (with whom I do not usually agree but whose book I really enjoyed), presented a very funny Burka Fashion Show which featured fundamentalist fashions. He had a model, probably the same one, come out and do a few star turns in her black Saudi style face-and-body-shroud in which only her eyes were showing. His banter and patter is quite funny. His comments ranged from: “Sleek and stylish…look out world! I am a woman of the twelfth century;” “Be the wife he calls for tonight and every night;” “This comes in black and dark black and leaves everything to the imagination.” This kind of critique reaches a mass audience—perhaps one that does not read my blog at Pajamas! You may see the segment for yourself HERE.
Why am I focusing on Dieudonne? How important can he really be? How much harm can his hatred of Jews and Israel ever truly cause? He is only a mini-minor political novice…and yet: According to David Nicholls in his book about Adolph Hitler, in 1924, while Hitler was in jail, the Nazi Party won barely 3 % of the votes in the Reichstag election. In 1928, they won 2.6% of the vote. Thereafter, things improved and, in 1930, Hitler and his Nazi Party won 18% of the vote. By 1932, he’d won 31% of the vote. And Hitler wasn’t even funny.
Dieudonne did not win his seat in the EU Parliament—at least, not this time. But he did win 1.3% of the votes in the Paris region where he had concentrated his efforts. Dieudonne is relatively young and, as we shall see, has friends in Hezbollah, Hamas—and in jail! He also won more votes than twenty three other French parties who also ran candidates including the Parti Breton, Europe-Democratie-Esperanto, Maison de la Vie et des Libertes, Alternative Liberale and Resistances.
According to the BBC, the French government is now investigating how Carlos the Jackal, (remember him?) who was finally captured in 1994, and who is serving a life sentence for committing a series of terrorist murders in the 1970s and 1980s, “managed to phone controversial comedian Dieudonne M’Bala M’Bala to voice his support during a campaign rally. Mr. Dieudonne, who stands accused of anti-Semitism, heads the Anti-Zionist List in the election. Carlos – real name Ilich Ramirez Sanchez – earned international notoriety for assassinations and kidnappings.”
Now, what kind of “funny business” are these two men plotting?
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11 Comments
1. George Jochnowitz:Humor can easily be used to oppose prejudice. I would expect that now that Dieudonne has broken a taboo, a comedian will appear who can mock bigotry.
Jun 9, 2009 - 9:25 am 2. MiamaMan:Hitler was never funny, but his “weltanschauung” was that of the German people. He represented the Teutonic Shadow.
Of all the Western countries occupied by the Nazis, France excelled in collaborationism and anti-Semitism.
No, there is nothing funny about this, or in Monsieur Dieudonne’s jokes and diatribes. The first step before striking an enemy, is to dehumanize it. Goebbels understood this well, the concept that culminated in the re-make of “Jud Suss”, and the final travesty of “Der Ewige Jude”.
It is not coincidence that Jews are leaving France in growing numbers.
Can history repeat itself? Most definitely. Humanity has barely moved up in thousands of years. Its movements resemble a widening circle. Gadgets give us the illusion of advancement, but thousands of years ago other advanced cultures had similar or better gadgets, and no one remembers them.
The 20th century was the bloodiest in recent memory. Not since the Siege of Troy, and the battle of Kurukshetra described in the Mahabharata and the Baghavad Gita, we have experienced such a bloody mess (World War I and II, and many genocides).
Make no mistake, the Earth is in gestation, the problem is whether we will witness a new birth, or an abortion.
Jun 9, 2009 - 10:24 am 3. Norman Simms:O God, Phyllis, when will all this end?
The stand-up comedians for years and years have feasted off one-line insults and cynical cracks against anyone who believes anything at all. Now they have a new tack. The God-Given (Dieudonne)right to sign their own death warrants for the destruction of western civilization in which they prosper–for a time. We have to think up better jokes than they have, or are: because, in the long run they will be seen as the butt of their own false wit; but in the short run, let us call on our thousands of years in the business and mock them into oblivion!
Norman
Jun 9, 2009 - 1:08 pm 4. HBendor:Dieudonne M’bala M’bala better known as “BLAGH ZEBALA” is a Moron with defective chromosomes… “BLAGH ZEBALA” in Arabic is “smelly garbage” and represents the worst of the worst… only those on the same mental affliction would find humor in his Anti Semitic diatribe, if any one Frenchman or other would respond in a funny fashion against blacks he would be called a racist.
Jun 9, 2009 - 1:44 pm 5. Monsieur Z:Dieudonne M’bala M’bala never denied the Holocaust,it’s a lie.
He talks only about the obessional way to commemorate the shoah, like Idith sertal, an israelien historian, do in her book ‘the nation and the death’.
Dieudonné means that it’s a critic about how sionists use the shoah as a tool to control history et to denie or to reduce the importance of other holocaust.
there’s several jews who presents themselves with Dieudonné like Ginette skandrani.
Dieudonne’s Fight is against the phénophème of community inside the nation and against the international zionism
Many Information controled by the state or important news and magazine tryed to tarnish dieudonne and his group by saying that behind antizionism , antisemitism is hidden without trying to debate.
Jun 9, 2009 - 2:13 pm 6. MiamaMan:Pourquoi Mister Z?
1) Votre déclaration: “Dieudonné means that it’s a critic about how sionists use the shoah as a tool to control history et to denie or to reduce the importance of other holocaust.”
Hummm….Arsenio Hall habitude de dire: Les choses qui me font aller huuuummmmm!
2) Votre déclaration: “Dieudonne’s Fight is against the phénophème of community inside the nation and against the international zionism”.
Communauté à l’intérieur de la nation? S’il vous plaît expliquez-vous. Zionism?
Vous êtes ici référence à Groucho et Chico Marx?
Dieudonné M’Bala M’Bala pour le président de la France, avec Jean-Marie Le Pen.
Jun 9, 2009 - 4:52 pm 7. Ester:Isn’t it time for all the low-life, racist, jealous people in the world to crawl back under their dark boulders and sleep forever?
Jun 9, 2009 - 5:01 pm 8. Marie Claude:Don’t use any of the incredible, innovative medical and tchnical breakthroughs of the Jews, you bigoted, feeble-brained anti-semites. Who do youthink you all are? Why don’t you contribute something valuable to humanity instead of the usual filth and rhetoric. We’re all sick of it!
“Dieudonne M’bala M’bala, who views himself as a champion of free speech, denies the Holocaust, has never met a Jew or an Israeli whom he likes, (and he makes money and gets laughs for saying so).”
erroned, he was the partner of Elie Semoun at the beginnings of his career, they had a succesful duo
for quite a while before that dieudonné turned weird and antisionnist/antisemit
Apparently his “audience” didn’t follow him for the european elections, he made a poor score in the surburbs too
http://www.20minutes.fr/article/331105/Elections-europeennes-L-echec-politique-de-la-liste-Dieudonne.php
Monsieur Z, I just revisited a few videos where he is supposed to make humor, but he is really focusing on the Jews, so no error possible, he is cultivating the antisemitism
Jun 9, 2009 - 5:49 pm 9. BL:Dr. Chesler,
Once again, I’m amazed at the information or inflamation that you dig up out there where the MSM never treads! I had no idea such non-sense was going on (it’s so easy to ignore the French). You make a very good point though! I bet a lot of people thought that the Nazis and A. Hitler were jokes with little chance of ever seeing the poltical light of day. Not again, thanks to you.
The cult of personality/celebrity is even more potent today than ever before, right down to our president. We, ignore it at our own peril. Jokes can easily turn into bullying, belicose, and then out and out violence.
Your insights make me a better, and more vigilante person.
Keep up the good work!
Jun 9, 2009 - 8:14 pm 10. Judy, NYC:i guess the people who think this guy is funny find a crippled mind hilarious. this does not speak well for his audience. clearly, the world has gone mad. every manner of rabid dog is loose in the neighborhood. perhaps its some sort of medieval time warp. i wouldn’t be surprised if witches made a comeback.
Jun 10, 2009 - 1:03 am 11. joeblough:The French have taken a viper to their bosom … again.
They will die of their own perversity.
The only part of this that still concerns me is that when France is altogether taken over by the jihaddis, America will be faced with a hostile nuclear power right across the Atlantic.
We will, needless to say, have to train some of our missiles on Paris and France.
The worst part of it is that we will still probably have one or two real allies in the neighborhood, and we know that the mohammedans like nothing better than a good hostage.
It’s going to get tense.
Hopefully we won’t be too sentimental about having to take out the French nuclear facilities.
Jun 13, 2009 - 8:11 pm