More Mood-Killing Political Humor!

In the June 2nd issue of The New Yorker, Lawrence Wright has a piece on the current fractious state of Al Qaeda, going back to its roots at Cairo University in 1968 with the group Al Jihad. It is absolutely worth a read, if only to humanize and make fallible the ideologues behind it all. The article focuses on the rift between two former cohorts, Ayman al-Zawahiri (Osama bin Laden's chief lieutenant) and Sayyid Imam al-Sharif (who goes by Dr. Fadl, and who authored two of the most influential books on modern jihad). It seems Fadl has come to believe that indiscriminate violence is not the most effective way to spread Islam, and has written a new book from prison in Egypt that renounces his old methods of jihad as ineffective and against the will of God.

Last May, Fadl sent a fax to the London branch of the Arabic newspaper Asharq Al Awsat briefly stating his new beliefs: "We are prohibited from committing aggression, even if the enemies of Islam do that...[t]here is a form of obedience that is greater than the obedience accorded to any leader, namely, obedience to God and His Messenger."

So why does this bit of news belong on my comedy blog? Because two months later, Zawahiri released a snarktastic video response, proving that even that even those with the most misanthropic view of life can somehow still be funny. "Do they now have fax machines in Egyptian jail cells?" he inquired. "I wonder if they're connected to the same line as the electric-shock machines."

How odd that Zawahiri, a man partly responsible for probably thousands of deaths, goes to sarcasm as his first line of defense. I guess unfettered, wild-eyed zealotism isn't something you can constantly sustain. And for me, it's particularly uncomfortable because that sounds like something Ben Karlin and his team would have come up with for Jon or Stephen. Comedy is a strange weapon, isn't it?