Don’t be surprised if some one sitting next to you suddenly bursts out laughing because somebody has told him a joke on the telephone. Friends these days share jokes on their mobile phones. For the past few decades, Saudi society has imported jokes mainly from Egypt. These Egyptian jokes have been popular in the Kingdom and we Saudis did not encourage jokes from other places. When the Lebanese made an attempt to bring their jokes into the Kingdom, we initially told them we wanted only Lebanese apples, not Lebanese jokes. In time, however, Lebanese jokes have gained a certain amount of popularity and many people enjoy them.
Saudi society became familiar with Egyptian jokes through Egyptian radio and TV programs, movies and cartoons in addition to social intercourse. The flourishing of jokes in Egypt has now taken its place as an academic question. The Egyptians have never lost their sense of humor, even when endured all kinds of ordeals — including a British occupation and several wars. There is a substantial body of research and even books on the growth of jokes and humorous writing in Egypt.
Though Saudis have been consumers of jokes for a long time, we have now begun to produce our own. There is now an abundant supply of locally produced jokes. We have not, however, succeeded in capturing the attention of people in other Arab countries. The reason is that many of our jokes deal with local issues which are unfamiliar to those outside the Kingdom. Our local newspapers have failed to do justice to our jokes even though they find space for all sorts of stories which have no relevance to us, our country or our environment. To be fair to the newspapers, many of the jokes in circulation are not unfortunately of the printable kind.
Since we have discovered the ability to create jokes, we should now focus on developing and polishing that ability. We should also widen and diversify the jokes so that they can gain wider appeal. Jokes are very important as they are expressions of problems and aspirations of a people who cannot express them through normal channels of expression. A two-minute joke may well be more eloquent, more powerful and grab more attention than dozens of articles.
