HS Column 1.8.2000 - Bad news - politics are back on the joke landscape

By Jukka Luoma

According to the words of an old Chinese pearl of wisdom, happy, fortunate nations do not have a history. Life seems to teach us that happy peoples also do not cultivate political jokes.

Not so very long ago in Eastern Europe and the Soviet Union people would smile a slightly twisted and bitter smile at the observation that jokes are fun to listen to but not particularly comfortable to live in.

The political joke was a succinct social comment. If the conflict between the reality and that which was offered as a reality is the seed of humour, and if tears are the water to nurture it, then those peoples had the materials to hand for their humour to flourish.

No further explanation was necessary if one was able to answer the question of what were the four phases of socialism by saying "utopian, scientific, realist, martial law". If life got too much to bear, there was consolation to be had in the story of the two Romanians who were shivering in their darkened apartment. One said to the other: "Now if we only had some bread, it would bring back memories of wartime".

What gave the jibes a sharp edge was the fact that the absurdities of the system in its own right were hard to surpass. What was the difference between a revelation and a miracle? Well, if the Archangel Gabriel were to come down to a meeting of the Party Central Committee and resolve the problems of the economy, that would be a revelation. If the Central Committee itself were to do something about the matter, that would be a miracle.

The political humour of Eastern Europe

looked to have been struck a mortal blow when the system collapsed and the Soviet Union ceased to exist. "Communism is dead", said one man to another. "You what?" "Communism is dead!" "What's that you say?" "Communism is dead, are you deaf or something?" "Nope, I just like hearing you say it."

The Czech newspaper Lidove Noviny observed that there was no demand for socialist gags in the early 1990s, because "everyone believed firmly in a better tomorrow".

History, however, did not stop in its tracks. The passage to the market economy and democracy has been a more tricky exercise than was foreseen in the initial rush of enthusiasm, and the jokes have made their return. Jan Hartl, Czech sociologist and director of the Centre for Empirical Research in Prague (STEM), says that the need for humour is much the same as ever - to stave off tension and anger.

The difference from the past

is naturally that there is no longer a fear of being carted off to the Gulags, where Leonid Brezhnev - or so the story goes - used to collect those who passed on jokes about his person. The only places left where cracking a political joke might involve more serious repercussions today are countries like Belarus and Turkmenistan.

To a degree the new jokes display the same (unfavourable) analysis of those holding on to power as found in stories in the West. The Czech opposition leader Vaclav Klaus came home unexpectedly. "Oh God, is that you back already?" called his wife. "Oh, come on dear, you know you can call me Vaclav when we're alone at home."

Many jokes nevertheless have their own local colour. "Look, I specifically asked for a fifteen-minute speech and this one took all of an hour", growled Russian President Boris Yeltsin to one of his aides. "It was a fifteen-minute speech, Mr President, but you read all four copies, Sir."

The local colour can slip back into the old, sepia-tone hues of yore. In Russia, how do you tell between an optimist, a pessimist, and a realist? The optimist takes courses in German, the pessimist in Chinese, and the realist in how to strip and assemble a Kalashnikov.

I asked a Russian acquaintance

if there were already jokes about Vladimir Putin. "Nah, not really any new ones, but some old ones come to mind", was his reply. For instance this one: an American salesman at a telecoms fair is boasting about the quality of his hardware. "Anywhere in the States, when you pick up the phone and dial the emergency services on 911, the call is put through to the police and goes down on tape!" His Russian listener is underwhelmed: "Hmph. Over here, we don't need to dial any emergency number for that".

The author is a Helsingin Sanomat journalist.

Helsingin Sanomat / First published in print 24.7.2000