Satire: a dish best served cautiously

    According to wikipedia, the word “Satire” comes from the Latin: “satura lanx” and means: “medley, a dish of colorful fruits. It is hard to imagine that a colorful medley of fruits could bring the down the wrath of an entire group of people on one man, but it happened. When Salmon Rushdie wrote his novel “Satanic Verses” the satire in it was taken so seriously that there was a worldwide Islamic backlash. The problem with satire, as with any humor, is knowing where the proverbial “line” is. Rushdie crossed that line, and as a result, was forced to hide out for most of a decade. Did he learn his lesson? Apparently not so well, which is what we will examine in the collection of stories he published after his years in exile: “East, West”.

“The Prophet's Hair” is a story from the collection that follows the exploits of a strand of the prophet Mohammed's hair, encased in an ornate glass vial. First of all, a hair? Of all the things to be considered a holy relic, wouldn't a hair be last on the list? It's such an insignificant part of the body, which is what makes the satire all the more juicy. If Rushdie had written a story about Mohammed's finger, or something more substantial, it would make the story less a work of satire and more of a parable. In the story, the tiny hair “causes” all sorts of ruckus. The Hashim, the man who finds it, keeps it in his study with a myriad of other collectible items. After this, there is a sudden change in him; he forces his family into strict Islamic doctrine, burns books, and is in general, a jerk. I think Rushdie wanted us to ask ourselves several questions: Really? A hair caused all that commotion? or: Wow, that Mohammed must have been pretty powerful if just the presence of his hair can disrupt a family so thoroughly. The latter is not so much a question, more a statement which precedes the question: Did I really just think that?

    Another interesting irony, is that the hair, a piece of the prophet, causes such distress. One would think that such a holy relic could only bring good into the world. Some Christian relics, for example are thought to have magical restorative properties. Is Rushdie satirizing the entire Islamic faith (again) by giving their relics evil properties instead of good? I don't think so, after all the hair was stolen from its rightful place and kept hostage by Hashim. It seems only right that the hair do everything in its power to get back. Also, later in the book, we see the hair do some good. It heals the four crippled sons of Sheikh Sin, (who was hired to steal the hair, did, and was hunted down and killed). Unfortunately, this cut their earning power by 75 percent (they had lived as beggars on the street) so this “miracle” effectively ruined them. Perhaps the only truly “good” thing that the hair accomplished was the regaining of sight by the Sheikh's widow.

    In the end, satire exists only in the eye of the beholder. I think that the best satire exists at the edge of our awareness. A truly gifted satirist does not come straight out and say “humans are funny”. A truly gifted satirist says “one time, humans did this” It is then up to the reader to decide whether or not to find it funny. Humor is entirely subjective. What one person might find amusing, another person might find mortally offensive. It's funny the way humor works. (get it?)

(look at how smug he is, what a badass.)