In your face
Danish comic Omar Marzouk’s business is making people laugh with his fast, irreverent stand-up routines. But beneath the jokes lies a serious message of religious and racial tolerance
words by Scott Berman
photography by Peter Sorensen
Danish comedian Omar Marzouk, 34, is still scratching his head over those cartoons of Mohammed that appeared in a Danish newspaper in October last year.
The drawings sparked controversy in Denmark and outrage and violence across the Muslim world, with at least one foreign news agency calling the matter Denmark’s greatest international crisis since World War II. At least 139 people died during protests around the globe.
Marzouk, a staunch defender of free speech and a free press, still can’t see the sense or motivation behind printing the cartoons. His view is that you can control whether to provoke, but you can’t control the response. Therefore, think before you act. The controversy really hit home with Marzouk, who’s both a native of Frederiksberg, Denmark, and a Muslim, born of Egyptian parents who emigrated from Cairo. The young Omar was a quiet child, preferring computers to comedy, but in his teens he began to hang out with comedians and, in 1997, started doing stand-up himself.
There have since been many gigs, a number of television programmes, including at least one shot in part in the Middle East, and a successful national one-man stand-up tour: War, Terror and Other Fun Things. He’s performed in Scandinavia, the UK, Germany, Belgium and the Middle East.
Marzouk’s stand-up recipe blends respect for secular society, tolerance and free speech with an equal respect for religion, while throwing in a generous amount of in-your-face political satire and blue humour.
His comedic soup isn’t to everyone’s taste in Denmark, where a hard-right, anti-immigrant party is a power broker for the government’s ruling coalition. There has even been the occasional death threat – mostly joking, some serious – on Marzouk’s website. Such vitriol has come from across the spectrum. But intolerance and extremism get no quarter with the comedian, wherever he finds it. He’s an equal-opportunity satirist.
Marzouk spent the height of the crisis appearing at peace rallies and answering enquiries from Danish and foreign journalists. He called for common sense from all sides embroiled in the controversy.
Because the stand-up “has made no effort to hide that he doesn’t approve of the cartoons”, he’s offended a lot of Danish people, explains Henrik Palle, a culture writer for leading Danish newspaper Politiken.
“The truth of the matter is that the crisis has given Marzouk more material to work with. It gives him more ammunition – and the more topics, the more possibilities for him,” says Peter Allen, manager of Funny Business Incorporated, a Danish comedy-booking agency that includes Marzouk on its roster.
Since the crisis, “Danes have a greater understanding for his dilemma and his courage,” according to Søren Anker Madsen’s article in Berlingske Tidende. Madsen believes that Marzouk represents the new generation of Danish Muslim immigrants, who must stand astride both cultures. “This is gasoline for his shows, where he’s making fun of both sides.”
Being part of the two cultures can make it tough to fit completely into either, a theme Marzouk has also explored. He’s squarely in both camps: proud of his religious and ethnic background – Marzouk calls himself a good Muslim, not a devout one – and of his Danish nationality, which he says has taught him many important things, including religious and sexual tolerance. “He’s a fine satirist who just happens to be a Muslim,” states Danish comedian Jan Gintberg, a friend and colleague. Gintberg points out that Marzouk has built his career making fun of touchy religious and political issues. But while his views haven’t changed, attitudes around him have.
“In some ways, the crisis hardened extreme positions on both sides of the divide,” says Marzouk. On the other hand, he believes that in the wake of the crisis, many people have become more conscious about how they’re influenced by their own religion, which well may prove a step towards understanding.
The funny man is enthusiastic about exporting his product. Last year, part of this process included a six-month sojourn to London with his significant other, Dane Dina Vestergård. Marzouk sought a break from the controversies in Denmark and an inspirational shot-in-thearm. He mapped out some future plans, appeared at the Edinburgh Comedy Festival, and plans to return there.
In the autumn Marzouk joined a pack of British and Canadian comedians for a six-day tour of clubs in the Middle East: Dubai and Doha. Given the controversy back in Scandinavia, the trip might have been akin to para-jumping into enemy territory for a comedian of Marzouk’s ilk: Egyptian and Muslim, yes; but devoutly irreverent and Danish too.
Nonetheless, Marzouk says that his act was essentially the same, and went over well with expatriates as well as locals. In fact, one Dubai local complained that he was treading too lightly on Muslims, and Danes living and working there said the cartoon matter was not an enormous event for them. “They said: ‘Sure, we couldn’t get Danish butter for a while, but we still were able to buy alcohol, ” Marzouk recalls.
The comedian has also put his stamp on that canon of Western civilization: the work of William Shakespeare. He recently appeared in Købmanden (The Merchant), a Danish stage production of the Bard’s The Merchant of Venice. The play took a contemporary, politically charged, rap-music filled take on the classic, which Marzouk calls “a pretty racist piece” for, among other things, the Jewish Shylock’s forced conversion to Christianity.
On the drawing boards for this coming autumn is a kick-off of World Comedy News, a streaming video online effort inspired by Jon Stewart’s The Daily Show, the satiric American cable phenomenon. The new video venture, backed financially by Denmark’s Nordisk Film, will feature Marzouk as host, with feeds from local comedic correspondents in the US, the Middle East, South-east Asia and possibly South Africa and Australia.
In Denmark, the issues underlying the cartoon controversy probably “won’t ever completely go away”, in the comedian’s opinion. But he’s cautiously optimistic because the current dialogue seems to be less about “us and them” than it is about “how do we learn to live together,” he adds with a shrug.
In the meantime, Marzouk, who will be performing in a second national stand-up tour next year, plans to keep prodding everyone concerned in that direction.
the world according to omar marzouk…
well, not the world, but:
On the Mohammed cartoon crisis in Denmark:
“I saw television coverage of people burning my flag – now I finally know what it’s like to be an American.”
“A Pakistani group put out a ¤1,000 bounty on the heads of the cartoonists. Clearly my Pakistani brothers don’t know about Denmark’s minimum-wage policy.”
On being an expert on cultural controversies:
“I always get these big questions. But what do I know? I’m just a regular guy. The question I hear most at home is: ‘Do you think those dishes are going to wash themselves?’”
On terrorists:
“If terrorists really hated freedom, they’d be standing outside Guantanamo, saying: ‘Let us in!’”
On his ethnicity:
“It was a confusing year to be Danish and a Muslim. I was never too sure what to burn and who to boycott.”
On his family:
“At least some good came out of the cartoon crisis: My relatives back in Egypt were suddenly really interested in where I lived. They even wanted to know train times.”
On his comedy:
“Apparently Muslims aren’t the only ones who get offended when you insult something sacred. In London, when I went into a pub and said that Wayne Rooney was an idiot, I was lucky to get out of there alive.”
“When my jokes die, they go to heaven and receive 72 virgin jokes.”
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