The Danger of Satire?

"My name a Borat. I come from Kazakhstan. Can I say first, we support your war of terror! May we show our support to our boys in Iraq. May U.S. and A. kill every single terrorist. May George Bush drink the blood of every single man, woman and child of Iraq! May you destroy their country so that for the next thousand years not even a single lizard will survive in their desert."

This is a quote from Sacha Baron Cohen’s movie, Borat.  He began in support of the Iraq war, then quickly turned it around 180 degrees.  On the surface, he may be making fun of the war on Iraq, but his message was not taken politely.  He had to be escorted out of the venue after making such comments in front of the wrong crowd.  He may be playful on the surface, but his intention of confronting the issues on the war in Iraq is quite real and serious.  In front of the wrong crowd, this can be very offensive.  Is this kind of sarcasm crossing the thin line into dangerous territory that can put your life in danger?  

Salman Rushdie, author of the book, East, West, is also a satirist.  He is famously or infamously known for his highly publicized novel, The Satanic Verses.  Famous or infamous enough to earn him a $5 million bounty on his head.  His short story, The Prophet’s Hair, in East, West, the author was satiring about how a religious relic such as the hair of the Prophet Muhammad is  “elevated into a sacred object of great importance” (Burton 115) that divided a household.  Hashim, married and father of Atta and Huma, found the sacred relic on the lake where he lived after it was stolen from its original shrine.  As a normal citizen, his duty would be to return the stolen relic to its rightful place.  Coincidentally, he happened to be a collector of rare objects.  His justification for adding the Prophet’s hair to his collection was that was this.  “I see it purely as a secular object of great rarity and blinding beauty”. (44)  Removed from its authentic home, his family was handled down a curse.  Suddenly, he wanted to put an end to all hypocrisy.  He revealed how he really felt about his marriage.  He openly professed about his visits to paid women.  He called his son, Atta, a dope and accused his daughter, Huma, of lasciviousness.  The relic must be stolen from their father as agreed by Atta and Huma.  A professional thief was hired, and that night, mistaking his daughter the thief, took her life and his own afterward.  The son also died.  The family fell apart because of this great scared object that was taken from its authentic home.

The thief, Sin, and his family was also punished from being under the same roof as the sacred relic.  He was shot to death by the police.  His four sons suffered the irony of miraculously recovering from permanent leg damages that were caused by him right after birth.  His insane reasoning was that they would earn excellent money by dragging themselves around the city in the begging industry.  The irony was that they all recovered by now they earned 75 percent less than when they were crippled.

Like Sacha Cohen, Salman Rushdie may claim that his satires are not meant as an attack on any religious belief.  Whether Cohen and Rushdie think their satires are directly attacking certain religious beliefs or not, the consequence is, you will religiously offend people when you speak out against their religions.  The defense that it’s just a joke doesn’t protect any satirists.  They should be well-aware of the danger they put themselves into when they satire about the principles and beliefs that millions of people live by day to day.