Eight comedians from four countries, six shows in four Palestinian cities, and hundreds of people and entertainment fans all coming together from different areas in Palestine but the only thing that connects them all is one simple universal language: laughter.
In Palestine, where the news mostly takes a tragic turn of events on a daily basis, Palestinians under occupation are still eager and thirsty for a little vacation from all the terror they go through, whether that be in the form of a music festival, a play, or simply, a stand-up comedy show performed by professional Palestinian, Arab-American, and American comedians, who came all the way to show that comedy is a way to represent life and reality but in a humorous way.
The ‘1001 Laughs Palestine Comedy Festival’ concluded all of its six sold-out shows last Thursday in Ramallah’s Municipality City Hall Theatre in the occupied West Bank city of Ramallah, where the festival offered three shows in the lively city. The festival went on a little tour around Palestine, offering one show in Nablus, another in Bethlehem, and one for the Palestinians in the occupied city of Jerusalem.
Amer Zahr, the man behind the ‘1001 Palestine Comedy Festival,’ a comedy mogul who is a well-known Palestinian-American author, writer, comedian, law professor and political activist, has been drawing smiles to Palestinian people’s faces since 2015, bringing both laughter and hope for the people of his homeland to keep fighting for survival through art, laughter and existence.
‘The festival has been a tradition in Palestine since 2015, and we feel honored to bring laughter here,’ said Zahr, who believes that ‘when you make someone laughs, they will listen to you.’
This year, the festival brought eight comedians, including Ahmed Ahmed, an Egyptian-American actor and comedian and founder of the ‘Axis of Evil’ Comedy Tour, and Dean Edwards, an American comedian, actor and musician who appeared regularly on NBC’s Saturday Night Live.
The list of the comedians also includes Palestinian comedians Fajer and Israa Abu Zayed, Diala Taneeb, Lebanese-Canadian social media personality Maya Hussein, Syrian-American stand-up comedian Zaid Fawzi, and Suhayl Issa, from South Africa. Additionally, Hani Qashou’, a Palestinian-American event organizer, co-produces the show with Zahr annually.
To Qashou’, the show is always a success. He said that comedians coming from an Arab-American background have a real message about the life of Palestinians.
‘Comedians always have a message to deliver to the people who attend their shows, especially since most of them are Arab-Americans, who live in the US or Canada. They deliver a message about their lives abroad. When they come, they deliver a real message about the life of Palestinians, not the one we see in the media,’ he said.
Palestinians who attended the shows always give great feedback and ask for more shows, according to Qashou’.
‘So far, we have done five sold-out shows. The feedback is amazing, everyone is enjoying the show. They have a great time and always ask us for more.’
To most comedians performing on stage, stand-up comedy is a tool to send out and convey messages, whether that be personal, social and political. The performers at the festival, mostly coming from Arab-American cultures, explain how comedy helped them maintain their Arab identity while living in the diaspora.
Fajer Abu Zayed, a Palestinian comedian, originally from Beersheba, who only recently started doing comedy, says that Palestinian history is mostly attached to tragedy, yet there are a lot of funny things to be said.
‘I think laughter is a language that breaks through cultures. As a Palestinian, our history is attached with a lot of the opposite of comedy, but if you think about it, there are a lot of funny things to be said,’ Abu Zayed said. ‘My entire routine is heavily Palestinian, so it gives you a good perspective when you’re living outside Palestine. To think about Palestine from a comedic angle always keeps me attached to it.’
His sister, Israa, who grew up in Canada, uses comedy to express herself and says she’s ‘happy to be able to do it in Palestine’, noting that the country is way nicer than anything she was ever told by her grandparents.
‘Coming to Palestine is a dream come true. It’s 1000 nicer than anything my grandparents have ever told us. When they talk about Palestine, they always talk about Nakba, how horrible the situation was,’ she said. ‘Nobody sits and talks about the nature, the food, the people, the mountains, the real beauty of Palestine.’
Maya Hussein, a Lebanese-Canadian comedian and content creator, who has over one million followers on TikTok and over 350,000 followers on Instagram, has just started doing stand-up shows, something she calls very different from the TikTok videos that she started doing after the COVID-19 outbreak.
‘People here have been recognizing me in Palestine, which is shocking. Performing stand-up is different than doing comedy. Nobody is perfect on stage, where all eyes are on you. At home, you can delete the video, re-record it and so on. I’m getting used to the stage,’ said Hussein, who says most of her videos are all about Arab culture.
‘My videos are culture-based about my dad, mom, grandmas, Lebanese people, all Arabs around the world. It’s relatable to so many people. I think that’s why I’m getting that attraction online. Keeping the culture alive is so important because we are losing our culture.’
A fan of comedy since childhood, Zaid Fouzi, a Syrian-American stand-up comedian based in Chicago, US, said that he uses comedy to make Arabs feel seen and heard all around the globe, especially Palestinians.
‘I use comedy more to celebrate my Arab identity and share it with the world to make Arabs feel seen and heard,’ he said. ‘I came here to perform in Palestine so that people here know that they’re not alone or forgotten. We’re here with you, we’re sharing your story and your message. I love sharing my comedy with non-Arabs, so they also know about our story and message.’
Ahmed Ahmed is an Egyptian-American actor and stand-up comedian based in LA, California, who performs regularly all across the US and Europe. He says that he’s been friends with Zahr for over 20 years and that while he was working in Hollywood, he was asked to change his name if he wanted to explore more main roles other than the ‘terrorist,’ something that he firmly rejected.
‘The phone stopped ringing because agents don’t want to cast people named Ahmed,’ he laughed. ‘I was out of work for so many years, ran out of money, slept on friends’ couches, and while I was working as a waiter, I discovered my love for stand-up comedy because I made customers laugh.’
Ahmed says that when he started out, there weren’t a lot of Arab comedians in the US, that’s why he made sure to have his comedic routine represent Arab culture.
‘I talk about my family, being an Arab, just what it’s like to be Egyptian with an Arab culture in America,’ he said.’
Diala Taneeb, a Palestinian-American comedian, who lived in several states in the US, said that she got her first shot at comedy in 2018, when she asked Zahr, to let her perform for four minutes at the very same festival she’s performing at this year as a main comedian.
Taneeb says that comedy gave her the chance to educate people about her identity as a Palestinian-American Muslim woman.
‘If anything, stand-up gave me a platform to tell people about my religion, Islam, country, my heritage being Palestinian, and Arab, and it totally helped me stay attached to my identity because I was finally having the opportunity to educate people,’ she said.
Even though he works as a qualified medical doctor, his love for comedy never stopped. Suhayl Issa, a South African comedian who identifies himself as a ‘qualified medical doctor with a funny bone,’ was born in the US, and started doing comedy nine years ago, touring South Africa and the world.
Issa says touring the world with his jokes made him realize that comedy is a universal language.
‘Everyone wants to know a little bit about you, and I do tell them that by talking about my heritage, where I’m from, what it means to be a South African, and I use the experience I have interacting with many different people to view other people’s cultures,’ he said.
Coming all the way from Brooklyn, New York City, Dean Edwards describes his first visit to Palestine as a wonderful experience, joking that he’s going home with four more pounds as he’s been enjoying the food, all while noting that ‘Palestinians have been wonderful.’
Edwards says that ‘it’s the job of every artist to reflect their reality,’ explaining how comedy informs people.
‘Comedy is a wonderful tool to inform people and educate them. Ignorance is what creates certain narratives and keeps people in the dark. I’m a black American, and I own it, come with my hair in full afro and all, and you’re seeing what you’re getting, and I convey that,’ he said. ‘I reflect current events the way I can even though I’m not a political person, but I think any comedian of color, you being on stage is a political statement.’
Source: Palestine News & Information Agency