Elements for reflexion. Proposal 5

Image :

Humour is a resource that is used daily in our lives, some of which, more gracefully than others, can be used for multiple purposes, various types of humor are catalogued such as satirical, black, white... On several occasions, humor and conflict coincide. The benefits or barriers that follow it will depend on the purposes. They say that laughter is the shortest distance.

HUMOR IN TIMES OF CONFLICT

A positive and pro-social humor can become a great strength for conflict management. Humor can be a way to overcome situations of oppression and discrimination. It can act as a catalyst for social cohesion. It can become a tool to socialize collective emotions and feelings such as fear, anxiety, uncertainty or anger. If used destructively, it can fuel tension in conflict and polarize the image of the enemy by fostering confrontation between the parties. You have to be very careful, because when you mix humor with violent images you can contribute to trivializing the same violence, normalizing it and strengthening your learning.

On a symbolic level, surely the clown nose is the image that best sets the potentialities of humor. On the one hand, because "the nose" allows us to accept our own weaknesses and on the other because the goal is to make people laugh. We all want to laugh, and laughter has multiple benefits both physically and mentally.

A great example that would be difficult not to mention is the experience of Clowns without borders, an NGO that acts nationally and internationally using laughter to support and transform the pain caused by a war or a vulnerable context. Interview to Tortell Poltrona, founder of Clowns without borders.

THE CONSTRUCTION OF THE ENEMY IMAGE

When we use humour as an expressive strategy, it is important to become aware of what image we show of the conflicting parties. Pay attention to whether we mix the person with the problem, as well as whether we are feeding the construction of the image of the enemy, since the construction of the image of the enemy can weaken the ability to transform conflicts.

The process of constructing the image of the enemy is closely linked to the feeling of threat to our identity, where perceptions, emotions and feeling of belonging to a group play a key role.

Some notes on the concept of identity:

We all have a unique identity.
Identity is flexible, changing over time and relative to context.
We have multiple belongings conditioned by the groups to which we belong at the time.

Having this look at identity will help us to respect other identities more. Faced with the different and unknown person we have a feeling of threat, the mechanisms of construction of the image of the enemy are activated (Barbeito i Caireta, 2008)

Emotions: anger and fear appear.
Perceptions are distorted: We value the enemy as greater and with more power than it really has, we overvalue the actions of the other, since we give it excessive attention. We dehumanise it, we do not perceive it as a human being, that is how it is easy to use violence without contradictions.
Group membership: we perceive our own group with a much more positive view, and we transfer the weaknesses to the other group (the enemy). We systematically blame the other. We are falsely believing that all the people in the group think, feel and act the same. We highlight the differences and ignore the similarities and what we share, increasing the distance and adopting rigid positions that make dialogue very difficult.

Graphic humor is a language rich in genres and performers, it is manifested mainly through jokes, comic cartoons, cartoons or personal cartoons.

At the time of the Franco regime, there were several humorists who fulfilled these functions, such as Angel Palomino, a Francoist humorist, or the anti-militarist Gila, In addition to humorous magazines such as La Codorniz (published in Spain between 1941 and 1978) inspiring of later humorous magazines like the Papus or El Jueves, which began to be published in the 1970s, amid the repression and censorship of the last years of the Franco dictatorship.

In many parts of the world, however, the humorist, the comic, the historicist continue to be quite persecuted professions. Villalba (2017) explains:

“Palestinian cartoonist Mohammad Sabaaneh, from Cartooning for Peace, was imprisoned in Israel for a few months, incommunicado (in 2013). Syrian cartoonist Ali Farzat became famous because he was kidnapped and his fingers broke (in 2011). There are cartoonists who have suffered physical reprisals and whose integrity is at risk. It's hard for you to get out of the house and get four fucks. The most that can happen to you is that they don’t call you anymore.”

EXAMPLE JE SUIS CHARLIE

The phrase "Je suis Charlie" became a social media trending topic in January 2015 after the attack on the satirical weekly Charlie Hebdo in Paris. The attack in which twelve workers of this magazine died was claimed by Daesh, where among other reasons the amount of return of fighters to France, the Yihadist objective of the country were interpreted... This weekly newspaper received threats since 2006 to caricature the prophet Muhammad, because according to Islam the divinities cannot be represented.

The attack provoked great displays of support from the communities of humorists, cartoonists, and in general the liberal citizens in defense of freedom of expression and of the press, but it also put on the table the question of the limits of humor.

After two years of the attack, the weekly reopened to continue to satire the current affairs of political and religious figures, without intending to give in to what they consider their fundamental rights.

However, these attacks are not only carried out against artists but also communicators and journalists. After all, these attacks are even more frequent among artists and journalists from countries such as Syria or Iraq, kidnapped by extremist groups and in some cases murdered simply by exercising freedom of expression. In other countries, such as Mexico, the murder of journalists due to their investigations into political corruption or organised crime is a social scourge that is unfortunately commonplace.

Here we offer two news stories that expand information about the murder of journalists and media members around the world:

Other terrorist attacks on media and journalists (20 minutos)
In Mexico they have murdered 6 journalists during 2018

(France 24)

Graphic art is another component of the media, which is one of the latent conflicts in today's societies, in which intransigence even at a government level continues to increase. It is very important that students become aware of this problem as something complex and global, and that occurs in all types of societies.

RAMÓN PUYOL (Algeciras, 1907-1981)

He was a painter and set designer who stood out as a graphic artist and artist. Social and political involvement led him to be imprisoned and sentenced to death when the war ended, although he was spared from this sentence.

He devoted himself to graphic design, once the civil war began, he stood out for his political posters and was also known for his lithographs of characters (1936), where through caricature and irony he faced the enemy, making political satire. He Ridiculed reality by reducing and distorting it in order to confront the harsh reality of a war:

"Precision and sobriety achieved through the game of distortion and illusionism. Distortion and illusionism as instruments of work to operate in the reality of a war that at all times is trotting and endangering fear, discouragement, moral sabotage, etc." (Grimau, Carmen. Homage to Ramón Puyol, 1981 a Dossier Puyol, p. 84)

In this series of posters that refer to public order and security both at the front and at the rear, Puyol resorts to the deformed and morbid vision of reality. His imagination turns El Espía into a huge eye that sees everything, or a huge ear that hears everything, each character is a synthesis of ideas to represent an archetype, that is, a model, an example of those types of behavior.