GOD GAVE US A GOBSHITE
Jan 3rd, 2009 by Sean Baite
[Dieudonné on a French advertising pillar in a characteristically tasteful advert for a previous one-man-show]
In bringing in the new year (that thus far doesn’t look like being much of an improvement on the fetid worm-ridden stool we just left in the toilet bowl of time) I get to use for the first time a tag created by either Conor or Donagh. It took until now for me to find someone fully deserving of this particular term - but Mr. Dieudonné M’bala M’bala, you most certainly appear to me to be a fully paid-up ‘fuckwit’.
For those of you, I assume the majority, not up to speed with the world of French ‘comedy’ - Dieudonné * (literally ‘Godgiven’) is a ‘humourist’ whose career stretches back about 15 years. Like most of his generation of (half-decent) French comics, he first came to prominence on the Canal+ pay channel - performing sketches during their primetime slot with, among others, the very irritating (but not quite ‘fuckwit’) Elie Semoun. This is not necessarily a bad place to start out from (take Antoine De Caunes, for one). However, around about the time of the 9-11 attacks, the French media began to have slight worries about the wiring in Dieudonné’s head. By now, I myself am convinced that it was done by the same dodgy spark that wired my Peugeot 306. He (Dieudonné, je veux dire) has rarely been out of the news since due to a never-ending series of ‘dérapages’ (literally ’slips’) in his media pronouncements and in his shows. Much of his little act appears to me to be the age-old (and tiresome) Parisian urge to be more ‘provocateur’ than the next man but there is a most unhealthy undercurrent to it all smacking of the festering anti-semitism that never seems to go away in certain quarters in France.
What makes this undercurrent of anti-semitism doubly surprising chez Dieudonné (apart entirely from one of his early collaborators ((forgive me for the choice of noun) - Semoun - being of Jewish origin) is that Dieudonné himself comes from a métissage of Brittany (his mother) and Cameroon (his father). His maternal line would possibly explain why he recently had proud Breton Jean-Marie Le Pen as the godfather of his youngest daughter (otherwise go figure ? I fucking can’t…). Le Pen and most of his family were also present in the audience to witness Dieudonné’s latest and certainly most tasteless ‘dérapage’. On Stephen’s Day - when you and I were probably still in the drunktank with Shane and that fella singing the ‘Rare Auld Mountain Dew’ - Dieudonné gave a performance of his latest one-man show in the Zenith in Paris. The venue, incidentally, also depresses me - for the fact he still manages to sell out somewhere that holds around 5,000** Towards the end of the performance, Holocaust denial ‘thinker’ Robert Faurisson was invited on stage to healthy applause encouraged by Dieudonné. Said ‘humourist’ then proceeded to have an ‘Award for Being an Untouchable (my translation for ‘Infréquentabilité’) and Insolent With It’ conferred on Faurisson by an extra dressed in the uniform forced on Jewish deportees to the camps by the Nazis. If you don’t believe me, I can fully understand - as regards plumbing depths - we’re talking plumber of the decade - here are a few links to the French press’s take on events : Libération report ; Nouvel Observateur - Dieudonné slip to be investigated At least the Nouvel Obs piece reassures us that the incident is to be investigated by that feared acronym (France has more acronyms per square kilometer than it has inhabitants) the BRDP (’Brigade de répression de la délinquence contre la Personne’).
A pity it is that the remit of that latter fearsome acronym does not extend as far as Jonathan Ross and that other effin’ eejit (Jo Brand’s longlost son). Although their dumb prank appears very schoolboy indeed pitched against Dieudonné’s utter taste black hole.
I don’t quite know how to approach his ‘dérapage’ - a whole McCain’s Cold Storage plant of chips on his shoulder, I suspect. I sense some sort of pathetic ‘my ancestors suffered abominably more than yours’ mickey-waving contest (pitching slavery against the Holocaust). I also see some of the tendancy of ‘banlieu’ Muslim France to be unwilling or unable to tell the difference between Zionism and Judaism (I know it’s a bad week to dwell on this particular distinction) visiting the sins of the current Israeli state on those deported to the camps before that state even existed.
As to understanding how what is related in those newspaper articles constitutes ‘humour’ or ‘comedy’ - ye can fuck me with an award for untouchability and insolence if ye want - I don’t think I ever will.
Godgiven Gobshite has also trotted out the old ‘Free Speech’ chestnut - which might cause me nasty burns if it turns out to be a roasted one… That’s if I choose to swallow it - something I don’t particularly intend to do.
In reacting in this irate and longwinded way, I’m unfortunately proving Dieudonné right on one point : “Your applause will resound far far away…”
Apart from the fact that 100% of you switched off from the moment you read ‘French’ - and the rest when you saw ‘comedy’ stuck onto it….
* As ever with Wikipedia - the article I link to is to be taken with a wee pinch of salt. It seems somewhat suspicious to me that an article should exist at all in English about a French comic - and it appears to focus a good deal on the man’s (alleged) anti-semitic bent.
** Eerily similar to the capacity of the Velodrome d’Hiver (’Vel d’hiv’) - a Paris indoor cycling venue in which the collaborationist French police detained around 10,000 Jews picked up in dawn raids around Paris one morning in 1942. All would subsequently die in the Death Camps.
Fuckwit is an appropriate tag indeed. Conor added it I think. Glad you made good use of it though.
Fuckwit : one that can’t make the difference between anti-semitism and anti-zisonism.
There’s probably no God. Now stop worrying and enjoy your life
I think I said that in my post somewhere Imanuel - though I haven’t quite yet figured out what in Judaism Dieudonné is ‘anti’ from his muddled manifestations.
As to God - I only mentioned said entity due to the root of Dieudonné’s name (’given by God’) Bizarrely enough not a million miles away from the origin of your own first name (in Hebrew, I think).
Despite nearly a decade of mild brainwashing in the holy brothers’ school, I am no more convinced of his existence than you are.
As to your last entreaty to me, apologies for the awful pun arising from your name, but I just Kant….
You Shin Bet, call that a pun!
As per your reply, you admit you haven’t figured out the basis of Dieudonné’s humour. Yet you manage to insult him.
You are obviously misinformed (a wee pinch of salt, lol!!!) and a slow-wit (a decade of mild brainwashing in the holy brothers’ school).
Choke on your chestnut, please!
Why thanks for the compliments and the good wishes, Mr. Imanuel.
A pity I amn’t possessed of your towering intellect so that I can see that Dieudonné is really the funniest thing in French since they buried poor Raymond DEVOS….
You wouldn’t consider for a minute that someone who pisses all over the memory of 6 million dead in public has kind of left himself a tad open to insult ??
Now, careful with that chestnut, Julie B…
She sends her regards, Mr. I..
“The anti-Semites will assist us thereby in that they will strengthen the persecution and oppression of Jews. The anti-Semites shall be our best friends”
Theodor Herzl, founder of Zionism
Zionism, called herersy by orthodox Jews, has caused many more than 6 million dead, whatever their race or faith.
This is what Dieudonné understands, and communicates through humour.
You just don’t get it, do you?
Zionism, called herersy by orthodox Jews, has caused many more than 6 million dead, whatever their race or faith.
If I say ‘no it hasn’t’ will I be killing the buildup to a mighty punchline?
I don’t get it, no, Imanuel. But I do get that stressing this purported flirtation between Zionism and Nazism is a staple diet of a multitude of Revisionist/Negationist cranks.
I also get that the state that is the fruit of Zionism has recently demonstrated to us that they have learned absolutely sweet F.A. from, say, the Warsaw Ghetto. They’ve created their very own re-run of it in Gaza. I don’t, however, choose to visit these sins on the victims of the Holocaust.
Can we not abhor the actions of the current state of Israel without having to resort to the like of Dieudonné’s tawdry masquerade ?
I could also manage to link the English to the Holocaust :
1/ they invented concentration camps (during the Boer War)
2/ they were the force of occupation in Palestine in the run up to and during the Holocaust - with a slightly ambiguous approach to Zionism -
any crank can link his pet hate to it, see…
but I’m not gonna say it was their fault, am I ?
As to Hugh - yep - I think you’ve put Dieudonné off his comic stride with that one…
If you want to understand the Dieudonne story fully, I suggest you start relating it from its beginning, which I believe drives us back to his being banned from mainstream medias following a live TV performance in 2003. He was then denouncing far-right israeli settlers in palestine while making a parallel between them and other terrorists. It may not meet everybody’s sense of humour but it isn’t a crime (I believe french justice had to state on this one a couple of times). Subsequently the media machine went a bit mad and he faced the worst accusation there is, the one of being a nazi, an alleged representative of a new form of anti-semitism…
Just this is already funny, as he is obviously not at all anti-semitic, he only happens to be pro-palestine (which is not yet forbidden, at least off-camera), thus the confusion between religion and politics wasn’t his creation. He disappeared from the media as a result of the controversy and got physically assaulted a few times by organized groups. It is as a result, being trapped by those accusations and in order to highlight the stupidity of him being called a nazi or an anti-semite, that he chose the angle of portraying himself as a dangerous nazi fetish, as you can see on the poster of his show. It is of course what he would call “second degree” sense of humour, as I don’t believe he actually was a general in the “wehrmacht” in WWII, I’ve got the feeling he wouldn’t have met the basic requirements…
I think it is too easy to pick at an easy target like him, and to base your judgment on only a small part of the story. Altogether the guy got beaten up, is ostracized everywhere, the worst accusations are made from people who don’t have the beginning of an information on him. Do you really have to add insult to injury? As I sense you don’t get his humour let me reassure and assure you that he is neither a negationist nor a nazi nor a dangerous terrorist, he’s just a guy who’s trying to survive and do his job in a world that’s got crazy with political correctness…he’s quite rough around the edges at doing so, I admit, but once you understand his point you must recognize the guy’s got talent…and a pair of balls.
Cheers!
>I could also manage to link the English to the Holocaust :
>1/ they invented concentration camps (during the Boer War)
That’s enough Goebbels, thanks. Concentration camps were used in
Cuba, by Imperial Spain, in 1896, some four years before their use
in the Second Anglo Boer War. About 200,000 Cuban civilians died
in these camps; about four times as many (black and white) who
died in the Boer War camps. The Spanish called their camps
“reconcentrados” or “reconcentrating places” - this was translated
into English by two British MPs to give “concentration camps”,
so we didn’t even invent the name. See Clara Barton’s THE RED
CROSS which contains an account of the Spanish camps by an
American Senator Redfield Procoter.
>2/ they were the force of occupation in Palestine in the run
>up to and during the Holocaust
Irrelevant. The obstacle to reaching Palestine, which you
implicity offer as a place of safety for Jews in WW2 - a
highly doubtful proposition given our reverses in North Africa -
was not our limits on Jewish immigration to Palestine, but
the occupation of Europe by the Nazis. Even outside their
control, the war made travel very dangerous, e.g., the Struma
was sunk by a Soviet submarine; on other occasions, refugee
ships were escorted to Palestine by British warships (see
THE HOLOCAUST by Martin Gilbert), further, the British
tried to ensure trains carrying Jewish refugees reached Palestine.
Britain accepted about 100,000 refugees, of whom about 70,000
were Jews, with about 1000,000 throughout the whole Empire.
Churchill personally interceded to ensure Jews were allowed
to escape across the border into Spain. Further, Captain Foley
in the Berlin passport office did all he could to enable
Jews to emigrate to Palestine. In contrast, Ireland would
accept only 63 Jewish refugees.