Seriously
Jokes for Survival
The greatest threat to freedom is the absence of criticism.
~ Wole Soyinka
Humor, tyrants know, is the last vestige of liberty. That’s why despots do all they can to suppress criticism. Nothing, dictators reason, could be funny about criticism directed at them, their allies, or their delusions. If some think it funny, they become treasonous.
Jokes often illuminate and explain reality much more honestly than reality itself, most certainly if state-approved. After Soviet leader Joseph Stalin died in 1952, the terror his regime inflicted on Russia since the late-1920s lifted very slowly, despite calls for a new openness from his ultimate successor Nikita Khrushchev. A joke, commonly shared among the people made the rounds:
Comrade Khruschev said it was important to understand how we had been lied to under Comrade Stalin. Soon after, the Central Committee learned about a recently deceased schoolteacher who taught math to all the residents in a small village in Siberia for more than 30 years. Everything he taught had been wrong!
For example, everyone in the village thought 2 + 2 = 10! The Committee decided, in the spirit of Comrade Khruschev’s reforms, that the village had to be told and reeducated. But slowly.
“From now on, 2 + 2 = 8,” the Committee members declared.
“We don’t want to upset the people too much. Once they used to that, then we can start to teach 2 + 2 = 6. It will take time until we get to 2 + 2 = 4.”
Private jokes about the state were abundant on the Soviet side of the Iron Curtain. Driving them underground is the best any regime can do. Not everyone can be shut up from deviating from the official line all the time.
A week ago today, I posted an essay about why the Trump regime is doing its best to silence comedians. They can’t, however, do anything about the jokes people tell each other in private, that travel along a social grapevine. Jokes were essential to cope with daily life.
Since then, I’ve been thinking a lot about jokes told in East Germany. In the summer of 1980, a common joke was,
In the States they choose between Carter and Reagan. Here we choose between doing some chore in the morning or the afternoon.
Searching the internet for other jokes, I came across a YouTube video of “The Ten Best East German Jokes.” As I listened and laughed, it occurred to me that five could easily be updated to our times. Two could preview an ominous future. Two were very specific to time, history, and place which, in my opinion, made them impossible to update. Another One was just untranslatable without a long lecture on German culture. So I left all three out.[1]
Variations of the following joke were told since the early 1970s, just changing the names of West German leaders as they spoke with East German leader Erich Honecker. The edited version below fits perfectly with a recent event:
At the state banquet of Trump’s recent state visit to England, Prince William spoke first, beginning with an innocent joke about his father.
King Charles then leaned over to Trump and whispered in his ear, “I collect jokes people make about me.”
Trump turned and whispered back, “I collect people who make jokes about me.”
The following joke was originally told about Honecker visiting Soviet leader Mikhail Gorbachev:
Back when Trump and Putin were buddies, Trump visited Moscow. Putin threw a big welcome dinner, the best chefs, the best room, the best of everything Russia had to offer. Trump was overwhelmed, especially by the solid gold cutlery, plates and utensils.
When Trump thought no one was looking, he put a small spoon in his pocket. But Putin was the only one in the room who noticed. When it came his time to welcome everyone, Putin rose to speak.
“Everyone thinks I’m so serious, but few know I love magic too! Take this golden spoon,” as he lifted his from the table to show everyone.
“I will now put it in my pocket and President Trump will take it out of his!”
Viktor Orban, the dictator of Hungary, has been a poster child for the American fascist Right:
On a state visit to Hungary, President Trump gives President Orban a brand new limousine. As a proud Orban walks around the car, he opens the hood and notices the engine is missing. He looks quizzically at Trump.
“Well,” said Trump, “that doesn’t matter in Hungary. Everything here goes downhill easily.”
“What if it starts going uphill?” asked Orban.
“Then you won’t be sitting behind the wheel anymore.”
I didn’t realize it until finishing, but the translated punch line to this joke has a few nuanced meanings when applied to present-day China:
Jaime Dimon, president of the largest bank in the United States, is invited to meet the top Chinese government treasury officials. After arriving, Dimon looks out into the courtyard of the building only to be stunned to see large gold nuggets laying around everywhere.
“In my country,” said Dimon, “gold is a very valuable commodity. We keep ours in Fort Knox, which is surrounded by tall concrete walls, watchtowers, mines, and barbed wire, and protected by soldiers.”
“You see,” said the top Chinese treasury official, “That’s the difference between our systems of government. Here, our people are our most valuable commodities.”
Younger readers may be confused by the next punch line. There was a day when people made long-distance very sparingly because they were so expensive. Local calls, however, were cheap.
God has a golden telephone that can be used to call him up anytime and decides to give it to a head of state on earth, but he’s not sure which one. Putin in Moscow, von der Leyen in Brussels, or Trump in Washington? God has one warning he delivers with the phone, “Never call 333!”
Von der Leyen gets it first. After two weeks, the temptation becomes too strong and she calls 333. The phone rings, it picks up and the voice on the other side thunders deeply, “This is hell!” She quickly hangs up, frightened.
The next day the telephone bill arrives in the mail, 100 million Euros. She pays it, passes the phone along to Putin, and warns him, “Don’t call 333!”
After a week, it’s too much for Putin. He calls 333, gets the same greeting, a bill for 100 billion Rubles, and the phone goes from Putin to Trump.
Trump waits ten minutes before calling 333. Same experience. The next day he gets a bill for 25 cents.
It was a local call.
Two jokes use now mostly obsolete references, but interestingly, infer what might well be in store for the United States:
A citizen of the United States loses all telephone privileges, including owing one or making a call. Puzzled they ask why.
“You are a state security risk!”
“Me? What did I do?”
“You claimed in a telephone conversation that your calls were being monitored.”
There once was a day when people actually walked somewhere to get a daily newspaper:
Every day a man gets up, goes to the corner newspaper stand to get his daily copy of The Washington Post, reads the front page, then throws the entire paper in the trash can before going back home.
One day the vender ask him, “I don’t understand. You throw away the paper every time before you get to the local news or sports, why do you get a paper every day?”
“Because of the obituaries,” the man replies. “But those,” said the vendor, “are on the last page.”
“The ones that interest me are on page one.”
If one word could sum up the Trump regime since Inauguration Day it would be “arbitrary.” There seems no rhyme, reason, or fairness inherent in any decision or proclamation it has made. To put it colloquially, “Yer either fer us or agin’ us!”
The more one is “fer ‘em,” the less arbitrary public life will be. And for those “agin’ ‘em,” strap on, hold tight and decide if going along and getting along might not be better than asserting independence. And the best way to do that is to keep ‘em unbalanced.
Stalin’s Soviet Union had a joke for that too. It was told quietly back there and then. Now it’s becoming just as unfunny and increasingly relatable for Americans, who may be telling their own version to soon:
Three prisoners were in Siberian exile, huddling one winter to keep warm. Each told of how they were arrested and ended up in Siberia. One said, “I’m here because I always arrived five minutes late to the factory – so I was charged with sabotage.”
“Odd,” said the second one, “I’m here because I always arrive five minutes early – so I was charged with spying. What about you?” he asked the third.
“I’m here because I always arrived on time – and soon they figured out I owned a Western watch.
Will humor help us to survive the horrors that may yet come?
Photo: Brezhnev-Honecker kiss, re-painted (2011), source: el legowo
Humor may be the ONLY thing that will help us survive
I thought this was great. We all need a break from the never ending lies!