“I wish it, I command it. Let my will take the place of reason.” (Juvenal)
“Impiety: your irreverence towards my deity.” (Ambrose Bierce)
“Were I (who to my cost already am/One of those strange prodigious creatures, man)/A spirit free to choose for my own share/What case of flesh and blood I pleased to wear,/I’d be a dog, a monkey, or a bear;/Or anything but that vain animal/Who is so proud of being rational” (John Wilmot, Earl of Rochester)
“What is more insulting to the Prophet than satirical cartoons, are those who murder innocent people in his name” (anonymous online comment)
The horrific attack by so-called Islamic militants on the French satirical magazine Charlie Hebdo’s Paris office is a sanguinary reminder of satire’s capacity to unsettle, subvert, deflate and sometimes destroy human folly, vice, oppression and the abuse of power in individual or societal contexts. The impulse to mock and ridicule others and even, or especially ourselves, is a mark of our humanity and as old as our species.
While irony is often misread or simply missed in T&T, we’re all familiar with the mockery of Ol’ Mas, the ridicule of their former masters employed by ex-slaves during the period of the Jamette carnival, picong, parody, exaggeration; Kaiso’s double entrendre, smut and bawdiness, social and political commentary—all manifestations of creolised satire.
In local journalism both BC Pires and Kevin Baldeosingh frequently adopt satirical stances.
We may never have read or even heard of Sir Thomas More’s Utopia, Swift’s Modest Proposal or Rabelais’ Gargantua and Pantagruel, but if we’ve viewed I Am Santana, The Simpsons, South Park, The Big Bang Theory, Spitting Image, Mr Bean, Woody Allen or Sprangalang, we’ve been exposed to satire.
From oral poetry, folklore and ritual in preliterate cultures to the sophisticated literary versions of Greek comic playwright Aristophanes, the Romans (who claimed the genre as their own “satura”) Juvenal and Horace, the medieval Arabic hija genre, Persian poet Ubayd Zakani’s political satire disguised as a kids’ story The Mice and the Cat, to the sparkling, trenchant and sometimes obscene wit of Chaucer, Boccacio, Rabelais, Shakespeare, Cervantes, Pope, Voltaire, Swift, Oscar Wilde and more recently the darker dystopian takes of Ambrose Bierce and George Orwell, satire has always flourished, and will continue to do so, as long as that “vain animal man” does. While the Romans claimed “satura” as their own genre, their debt to the Greek comic playwright Aristophanes is uncontested.
Some theorise that etymologically satire derives from the actors in “satyr” costumes whose function was to mock the audience during the intermission at classical Greek dramas.
The Romans also borrowed from Greek comics Cratinus and Eupolus, from the Cynic and Sceptic preachers’ diatribes and embellished irony and mockery with anecdotes, character sketches, obscene jokes as well as parodies of serious poetry.
The earliest form of Roman satire—a blend of verse and prose is attributed to the Syrian cynic philosopher Menippus of Gadara (circa 290BC) and the only extant example of Menippean satire is Seneca’s Apocolocyntosis (the pumpkinification of Claudius, a parody of the drooling emperor).
Another early example of this social criticism style is Petronius’ Epicurean novel Satyricon, revived in the 20th century film version by Fellini.
Formal verse satire in dactylic hexameters, was introduced by Lucilius, Horace, Persius and Juvenal.
Horace tended towards a gentle and playful criticism of folly rather than evil, like his admirer Alexander Pope, whose intention was to heal “with morals what it hurts with wit.”
Juvenal represents the militant aspect of satire, employing invective and abrasive ridicule, in the attempt to change evil and harm or to mock societal structure, power and civilisation.
This is the kind of satire directed to shift perception, which we encounter in texts like Swift’s Modest Proposal (where his solution to the Irish famine is eating infants and children) or Voltaire’s Candide and Orwell’s Animal Farm and 1984.
The impulse to satire finds expression in many genres, not only prose, poetry and drama, but film, music, painting, cartoons, lampoons and caricatures. Parody, pastiche, exaggeration and the reduction ad absurdum, are only some of the devices employed.
The visceral savagery of some of the best satire has often been produced visually, from early social commentary by painters like Luis Cranach and Holbein, to Hogarth’s denunciation of poverty, Goya’s chilling reflections on war, Toulouse-Lautrec’s depictions of decadence, George Groz’s grotesque portraits of the Weimar Republic and Andy Warhol’s indictments of show-biz, advertising and consumerism.
The satirical cartoon itself has a long tradition, stretching back to ancient Egypt and taken to giddy heights and the hysterical depths of irreverence by such 18th century English cartoonists/lampoonists as James Gilray, Thomas Rowlandson and George Cruikshank.
Charlie Hebdo, like the English magazine Private Eye, is not an aberration, but rather an organ of liberation. In the context of the French secular state, Charlie has directed his satire at the Pope as well as the Prophet.
Charlie Hebdo specifically, and satire in general both challenge monolithic narratives and fixed positions.
By enabling comparison, understanding and insight, satire carries us closer to the truth than any blinkered didacticism can. And the truth is: how laughable we humans are.
To lose sight of this, to take ourselves and our different truths too seriously is to deny both our complexity and our human fallibility. We’re all right Charlies when we’re ready.