Even with the boot of oppression on our necks and up our butts, we sometimes still manage to laugh in order to maintain our sanity. At tables in homes of freedom fighters and liberators in Mozambique, Tanzania, and the United States, I’ve witnessed the roar of laughter rattle the room. There are many hilarious stories and moments revolving around struggle and resistance, including wrong turns on the way to the revolution, diverting the opposition by staging a pretend wedding, or showing up to the wrong demonstration. While irreverent, the theatre of the absurd is not unique to any one culture or country. There are times when the jokes or stories have to be explained, for universal humour can sometimes stumble in translation across cultures. But some comedians really are quite adept in turning oppression into the axis of irony and humour and translating their jokes across cultural, racial, ethnic, gender, and class divides.

A new generation of Palestinian voices can be heard, both within Palestine and globally, at the intersection of media, art, activism, and comedy. Manal Awad and Imad Farjin know how to use the knife of humour to extricate the absurd with the precision of a skilled surgeon removing a gynormous tumour. Awad and Farjin co-hosted the wildly popular television show Watan ala Watar. Billed as the Saturday Night Live of the West Bank, Watan ala Watar brought words, images, and stories, which before had been censored by fear and reprisals, full blast out into the open. From Israeli leaders and the Palestinian Authority to Ramadan, they skewered heads of state, shook up long-held notions about gender, and created many infamous skits. So many barriers were broken by Awad’s heavy, acquired British accent and round after round of wickedly witty writing and comedic timing. First aired in 2009, Watan ala Watar was the first political satire aired on Palestinian TV. Its viewership rating of 60 percent was higher than that of either Fatah or Hamas. The cancellation of the show was not taken lightly, and television audiences fiercely roared their displeasure on Facebook, in markets, and in clubs.

Like Awad and Farjin, a new generation of African American comedians, including Wanda Sykes, Kevin Hart, and Kamau Bell, are bringing their stand-up and “get that oppression off my back” routines to audiences around the world. In the tradition of iconic twentieth century African American comedians Moms Mabley, Richard Pryor, and Dick Gregory who seamlessly combined activism and comedy, they have scored major media deals that bring their voices and routines to millions around the world.

Zahyr Lauren, a second year student at Northeastern University School of Law in Boston, Massachusetts says, “There is an incredible power in hysterical gut laughter. That power in the hands of those who feel powerless in their everyday lives is a gift. Comedians like Wanda Sykes and Kevin Hart use jokes to create a protective barrier. Things that would usually be cancerous become like water droplets rolling off your back, diffused by the recollection of a brilliant set. The laughter you experience with hundreds of other black folk who have different experiences but endure a common oppression is powerful.” She adds, “I relate to Wanda Sykes and Kevin Hart because they take the challenges of the day-to-day black experience, and create chain-link armour out of them. Their humour allows me, in certain ways, to remain dignified, and as Kevin Hart would say, ‘to laugh at my pain.’”

Wanda Sykes’ scathing tongue navigates terrain ranging from the racial profiling of black men to gay marriage and affordable healthcare. Her “If You Had to Come Out Black” routine still scores thousands of hits on YouTube. She also has a routine about “lady parts” that recommends women leave a particular part of their anatomy at home to keep them safe from the ever-growing pool of predators committed to stealing our sexual thunder. Sykes, who is also an award-winning television and voice-over actor, is married to a woman, with whom she is raising twins. Like Watan ala Watar, Sykes’ controversial late night talk show on the Fox Network was cancelled after one season.

Though not as politically topical, comedian and actor Kevin Hart easily makes fun of his short stature and in so doing begs questions related to men, machismo, and gender. Blisteringly witty, Kamau Bell is the engine of a fierce comedy machine tied to a wildly popular television show, and the founding member of stand-up comedy collective Laughter Against the Machine. As co-host of the Field Negro Guide to Arts & Culture, Bell is positioned as one of the savviest social commentators in America. I’d especially love to see a four-way with Sykes, Bell, Awad, and Fajin. I think it could make for a most memorable comedy of truths and errors.

In an interview with the BBC, comedian and actress Maysoon Zayid describes herself as a Palestinian Muslim virgin with cerebral palsy who hails from New Jersey. One of America’s first women Muslim comedians, she was the first person to perform stand-up in Palestine and Jordan. There are ways in which a person from a culture can tell certain jokes that, if told by someone outside of the culture, would be considered rude and racist. Maysoon turned her disability and ethnicity on its head and rose beyond the challenges that were constricting her. In her routine, she takes on the daunting and difficult, including terrorism and the Israeli-Palestinian conflict. As part of the Axis of Evil Comedy Tour, Maysoon also got to speak the heretofore unspeakable. The tour’s name comes from an infamous speech by US President George W. Bush, in which he designated Iraq, Iran, and North Korea as the “Axis of Evil.”

While stand-up comics bring a feast to the table, so too have artists, and I was especially intrigued by an exhibit I recently visited online. In May 2012, the remarkably cutting-edge and outrageously witty exhibit Subversion was mounted at England’s Manchester Cornerhouse Gallery. A series of young artists from the Arab world, including Palestinians Larissa Sansour from Bethlehem, Mohamed Abu Nasser and Ahmad Abu Nasser (twins from Gaza who work under the names Tarzan and Arab), and Sharif Waked from Nazareth were featured. They commented on the siege, invasion, and racism entrenched in Israeli society, which are part of their daily lives.

In one submission, a film called Gazawood is screened in a mock cinema. Created by Tarzan and Arab, the Abu Nasser brothers, the film juxtaposes close-ups of an artist painting in thick, blood red oils with a parody of action films. The blaring soundtrack could have easily come from some Tom Cruise, Arnold Schwarzenegger, or Sylvester Stallone mayhem on celluloid. At the back of the cinema, a series of action feature posters are hung. Each contains the names of Israeli military operations in Palestine, including Autumn Clouds, Cast Lead, and Spring of Youth. While there were no cinemas in Gaza when the Abu Nasser twins were growing up, their violent environment served as the script for their art and echoed the paradigm of violence that is all too pervasive in Hollywood films. This is the twisted irony of Gazawood.

In another wonderfully wicked and subversively clever twist, Palestinian artist Emily Jacir asked Palestinians to take out personal ads in New York’s Village Voice, seeking an Israeli partner as a way to facilitate an otherwise impossible journey home. Examples included, “You stole the land. May as well take the women. Redheaded Palestinian ready to be colonized by your army.” And “100% Semite and Palestinian. Total knockout. Seeking Jewish male, any race, to tour my homeland.” The ads were characterised as a terrorist threat by local media and a spokesperson for Israeli consulate in Washington described the work as “guerrilla warfare.”

Among the six decades of horrific stories I’ve read about Palestine and the ongoing removal of people from their own land, other dimensions of their lives, including their laughter and joy, remain mostly muted to us in the United States. As Palestinians, our children must hear us laugh and we must pass the laughter along to them, no matter how dire the conditions under which we live, or how daunting our struggles. Laughter replenishes our spirits, soothes tormented souls, and reminds us that we are, indeed, alive. In addition to asking guests to bring food to our next rite of passage, we could also ask guests for offerings of jokes and funny stories that recall our stumbles toward victory in our mutual quest for social justice. And with YouTube and other social media filled with clips from comedians, including Manal Awad, Imad Farjin, Wanda Sykes, and Kamau Bell, we can add to the feast. As African Americans, Palestinians, and others resisting oppression, I think organising the Global Social Forum on Comedy would be another step towards seizing joy and justice.

I so hope that the adolescent boy I recently saw in a photograph pleading with Israeli soldiers not to destroy his home in an alleyway in the al-Bustan quarter of Silwan will one day stand on the balcony of a home he built with his own hands and hear the sounds of laughter bounce off the walls. I also hope that, unlike one of the searing skits on Watan ala Watar, it won’t take 500 years for an agreement to be forged with Fatah leader and Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas the thirteenth at the helm.

Daphne Muse is an Oakland-based writer, social commentator, and poet. Her commentaries have aired on NPR, Radio One, and KALW. She grew up in Washington, DC listening to her father’s jokes and stories about how black Americans used their wits to navigate their way to freedom and challenge the masters who’d enslaved them. He also regaled her with the astoundingly outrageous comments made in his presence during his work as a butler in the homes of politicians, ambassadors, and military moguls. It tickles Muse that her mother and Aunt Peggy still have a decades-long crush on Yassar Arafat. For more information, see www.daphnemuse.blogspot.com, or contact her at msmusewriter@gmail.com.