Muslims Who Feel Under Siege Show They Can Joke
穆斯林以搞笑克服敵意
By Elise Czajkowski

Comedy has long been used by outsiders to ease the worries of a distrustful society, and Muslim stand-up comedians are using humor to counter Islamophobia.
非主流一向愛用喜劇來消減社會的猜疑，穆斯林單口相聲演員正在用幽默對抗恐伊斯蘭症。

A group of comedians participated in the Muslim Funny Fest, which run July 21 in New York. Organizers said it was the first Muslim comedy festival in the United States.
7月21至23日紐約的穆斯林搞笑大會有一群諧星參與。主辦單位表示這是美國第一個穆斯林喜劇節。

Dean Obeidallah, who hosts a weekly radio show on Sirius XM and writes a column for The Daily Beast, organized the three-day event with the stand-up comic Maysoon Zayid, known for her popular TED Talk “I Got 99 Problems ... Palsy Is Just One.”
為期三天的喜劇節由狄恩．歐貝達拉和單口相聲演員梅蓀．柴伊德籌劃，前者在天狼星XM電台主持的節目每周播出一次，並在「野獸日報」（譯註：美國綜合性新聞網站）撰寫專欄；後者以大受歡迎的TED演講「我有99個毛病……腦性麻痺只是其中之一」聞名。

The two became friends in the early 2000s. “She was the only other Arab-American Muslim comic I knew,” he said.
兩人在本世紀初成為朋友。「她是我唯一認識的其他阿拉伯裔美籍穆斯林諧星，」歐貝達拉說。

In 2003, they started the New York Arab-American Comedy Festival to showcase Arab comedians and to counter hostility after the Sept. 11 terror attacks. It will return for its 12th year this November.
2003年，他們開創紐約阿拉伯美國喜劇節，介紹阿拉伯諧星並對抗911恐攻後的敵意，今年11月是第12屆。

In recent years, they said, they began to feel it was their faith as much as their ethnicity that set them apart, so they decided to host a separate event featuring professional Muslim comedians from various ethnic backgrounds.
他們說，近年他們開始感覺到自己的信仰和族裔一樣，使他們格格不入，所以決定單獨辦一個活動，以來自不同種族背景的專業穆斯林諧星為號召。

“We didn’t start doing the ethnic comedy and Muslim comedy until we felt our community was under siege and that we could no longer just step onstage and be treated as an equal,” Ms. Zayid said.
柴伊德說：「直到我們感到社群受困，我們無法單純上台，被同等對待後，才開始演出民族喜劇和穆斯林喜劇。」

The festival was alcohol free. “I thought it’d be nice to do a night where alcohol isn’t served, so that people who are far more conservative than I am still feel comfortable coming out,” she said.
喜劇節禁酒。她說：「我想晚上不供應酒比較好，這讓遠比我保守的人現身仍感到自在。」

Religion has been a favorite topic in stand-up for decades, and organizers say the festival was to be no different. “We’re not censoring any of the comics,” Ms. Zayid said. “They can talk about whatever they want. We’re not telling anyone, ‘Oh, this is a Muslim comedy festival, so you can’t talk about the fact that you love bacon sandwiches.’ ”
數十年來宗教信仰一直是單口相聲最愛的話題，籌辦人表示喜劇節也一樣。「我們不審檢任何喜劇，」柴伊德。「他們想說甚麼就說甚麼。我們不會告訴任何人，『哦，這是穆斯林喜劇節，所以你不能談論你愛培根三明治的事實。』」

Muslim comics say they still struggle for mainstream acceptance. The comedians Negin Farsad and her studio are fighting the New York subway system’s refusal to post ads last year about a Muslim comedy festival. They sued, alleging free-speech violations. “I just know that we should be able to tell our own story, and our story is that Muslims are hilarious,” Ms. Farsad said.
穆斯林諧星表示仍然難獲主流社會接受。諧星聶金．法賽德和她的工作室槓上紐約地鐵當局，因為當局去年拒絕她們張貼穆斯林喜劇節的廣告。她們以妨害言論自由提告。她說：「我只知道我們應該可以說自己的故事，我們的故事是說穆斯林是很歡鬧好笑的。」

It was this feeling, she said, that inspired her and Mr. Obeidallah’s 2013docu-comedy, “The Muslims Are Coming!” which followed them and other Muslim comedians on tour in the United States. It is an upbeat film about integration and tolerance that mixes stunts – like a “Hug a Muslim” campaign – with efforts to dispute oft-repeated narratives, such as the idea that Muslims want to bring Sharia law to the United States.
她說，正是這種感受激發了她和歐貝達拉2013年的紀錄片喜劇「穆斯林來也！」，記錄他倆和其他穆斯林諧星在美國巡演的過程。這是一部關於融合和容忍的歡樂影片，裡面有「給穆斯林抱抱」活動之類的噱頭，並反駁一些常見的論調，像是穆斯林想把伊斯蘭律法引進美國。

Mr. Obeidallah said hostility toward Islam is stoked when terrorist organizations like Al Qaeda and the Islamic State, also known as ISIS, dominate the news, while most Americans don’t know Muslims who could offer a different image. He begins his radio show by telling his audience, “I want to be your Muslim friend.”
歐貝達拉說，凱達和伊斯蘭國之流的恐怖組織占據新聞時段與版面，對伊斯蘭的敵意火上加油，但大多數美國人不知道穆斯林其實有不同的形象。他的廣播節目開場白是「我想當各位的穆斯林朋友」。

“The reality is that myself and people like Maysoon and Negin, no one will ever accuse us of being bad,” he said. “They’ll say, ‘You’re one of the good ones,’ but they say it like we’re the exception, and that ISIS is the actual norm. But they’re the exception. They’re not the mainstream Islam. We are.”
「事實是我和梅蓀與聶金這樣的人，沒有人會指責我們是壞人，」他說。「他們會說：『你們是好人之一，』但他們像是在說我們是例外，伊斯蘭國才是常態。但伊斯蘭國才是例外，他們不是伊斯蘭主流，我們才是。」

原文參照：
http://www.nytimes.com/2015/07/09/arts/countering-anti-muslim-hostility-with-jokes-via-ads-film-and-a-festival.html

2015-07-28聯合報/G5版/UNITED DAILY NEWS 張佑生譯 原文參見紐時週報十二版下