Humour humanises

re: "Never forget Holocaust horrors" (BP, Opinion, January 27, 2022)

Dear editor,

Orna Sagiv, Israel's Ambassador-Designate to Thailand, rightly reminds us of the importance of not forgetting such horrors as the Nazi Holocaust, whereby a popular government acted in perfect accord with the law it had made up for that purpose to murder six million people, mainly Jews, but also gays, gypsies and others dehumanized as "social filth" to be cleansed from society.

It is, however, not enough to merely remember such evils committed according to law and popular social mores. It is at least as important to understand how a society of people, who presumably thought themselves basically good, decent men and women who loved their nation, could passively enable such evil to prosper.

Ms Sagiv suggests only the regulation of social media to counter misinformation and hate speech. This is indeed helpful, but if countering misinformation and hate speech means banning peaceful speech that is merely false or vile, it is seriously wrong, and plays easily into the hands of haters and deniers of truth, who will use that very excuse to ban what they deem hateful or false. It is morally safer, and practically more effective, to ensure that social mores and lawful government cannot ban what they deem hateful, fake, otherwise threatening to their own precious security, which is rarely the national security they falsely claim it.

A more positive antidote to the social conditions that lead to dehumanization of groups in society to further ugly agendas in the name of sacred nationalism is readily available: laughter. This is why healthy democracies ensure solid legal protection for the mocking of every sacred cow, from revered institutions to national leaders, and every bit of sacredness in between. Humour is a great way to humanize nationalist myths that can so easily turn toxic. Ridicule is an effective tool to remind us that pretentious figures are, after all, merely human and subject to the exactly the same silliness, pettiness, and general humanity of ourselves and every socially maligned group. Their foibles should be publicly shown so that they can be laughed at as they deserve, however offended zealous loyalists might be.

Could Hitler and his jackbooted thugs taking themselves ever so seriously and dictating that everyone else take them ever so seriously under pain of draconian prison sentences have gotten away with such legalized murder were they regularly presented as comical figures on a daily basis? Could the absurd claims made against the Jews, the gays, and the others have been taken so seriously if heartily mocked on a daily basis? Might some healthy ridicule of the social mores that enabled the Holocaust have prompted the genuinely good people in society to have had second thoughts about their blind faith in social norms that fuelled the holocaust?

 Felix Qui

 

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The above letter to the editor is the text as submitted by Felix Qui to the Bangkok Post.

The text as edited was published in PostBag on January 29, 2022, under the title "Humour humanises" at https://www.bangkokpost.com/opinion/postbag/2255431/humour-humanises