Wither satire?
Satire died on 16th October 1973 when Henry Kissinger was awarded the Nobel peace prize. But is a thing really dead if it can die again , and again , and again ? Now, pretty obviously, Tom Lehrer’s remark about Kissinger was in itself a satirical one. And a pretty sophisticated one at that. But satire really is dying today, and Lehrer himself (unless he was being satirical again) struck a blow in 2008: ‘just tell the people I’m voting for [soon-to-be Nobel laureate] Obama’. For satire, when it is alive, is the tool of the weak against the strong; the powerless against the powerful. The nature of the powerless is that we have our ideas – justice, freedom, humanity, solidarity – and they have their power. When the powerful adopt our terms and our arguments, we should be automatically suspicious. Sceptical, rather than cynical: occasionally, a Lumumba, an MLK, a Morales manages to flourish for a little while before the fatal blow is struck. Sometimes, the people are unified and purp...