Paper short abstract:

The essay explores Eritrean political humor, suggesting that repression invites parodic sensibilities alert to the falsity by which people get by and through which the regime maintains power. Humor that states on the surface the opposite of what it means is suited to making sense of such conditions.

Paper long abstract:

The structure of comedy, how things are made funny, which involves copying with a twist, has a particular resonance with dictatorship which, like humor, involves insincere performances and distorted logics. This essay explores contemporary Eritrean political humor that circulates online in texts and videos and also by word of mouth inside Eritrea and among the diaspora. Under Isaias Afewerki, official claims about how people benefit from the regime contradict citizens' everyday experiences and informal knowledge. Rumors circulate, motives are called into question, and facts on the ground are hard to come by given the government's tight control over information. Repression does not simply produce opposition; it creates uncertainty, duplicity, and ambivalence. Such conditions invite a parodic sensibility alert to the artifice and falsity by which people get by and through which the regime sustains its power. Cynicism and conspiracy theories arise from the profound understanding that nothing and no one can be trusted at face value. The duplicitous form of humor that may state on the surface the opposite of what it means or combine contradictory narratives is well-suited as a means of representing and making sense of such conditions. Instead of seeking to offer closure with some definitive answer, humor opens up a conceptual space of imagination and interpretation, exposing the contradictions of dictatorship to a distinctive kind of scrutiny. As such humor is a form of knowledge production.