Dubai: US elections are over and everybody knows who won. So in Canada, as a result, the borders will be closed till 2024. In Mexico people are figuring out how to raise money to build a wall, including a VAT-like charge on all consumers.
In the Arab world, some dramatic scenes from TV serials and love songs have been dubbed onto videos of both the US presidential candidates taken during the recent elections.
The jokes are plenty, after Donald Trump won the US presidential elections more than a week ago.
And while many around the world reacted humorously to the shock of Trump's victory — depending on what was said about their communities during the election campaign — others were just getting by circulating some flashes of wit, or jest.
Some also try to intellectualise the phenomenon. Explaining the huge number of jokes about Trump and the elections doing the rounds, Jordanian cartoonist Imad Hajaj told Gulf News: “People around the world feel impotent to change [the] reality [of Trump’s win]. So they reacted by venting their feelings through mockery and jokes”.
However, jokes on such a global scale were unprecedented, he added.
In Mexico, most of the jokes were about President-elect Trump’s statement about erecting a wall along the borders to stop illegal immigrants from coming to the US.
In Canada, jokes centred around Ottawa closing its borders with the US until 2024 — on the assumption that Trump will win two terms, as has been the trend in US elections in the past nearly 24 years.
Even as the election results were being announced in the US on November 9, the website of the Canadian immigration department crashed.
Other jokes in circulation in the West were about the Statue of Liberty taking a flight back to France, the home country of French sculptor Frederic Auguste Bartholdi who was commissioned to design the sculpture.
Another cartoon showed the Statue of Liberty hiding behind a skyscraper.
“People react with humour in difficult positions,” explained Dubai-based clinical psychologist Saliha Afridi. In communication, “everybody can respond with humour”, she told Gulf News.
However, Afridi explained that people should also realise that Trump, who she said she was not supporting, “has been already elected”.
While people are not expected to stand with him, they should respect the outcome of the democratic elections, she added.
However, Cairo-based sociologist Nabeel Abdul Fattah at Al Ahram Strategic Studies Center said the humorous reaction would continue for some time.
“Comedy and humour emerge when you compare and contrast,” Abdul Fattah told Gulf News, adding many felt the irony in the campaign slogans and the outcome of the elections.
Experts said one of the reasons for this sort of reaction was the very nature of the US and the hard-fought elections.
While people see the United States as a modern state, where human rights and freedom are respected and people are treated equally, it was surprising to see a man come along who made “exotic” statements, some of which were blatantly racist and sexist, experts said.
“The American media outlets bet on focusing on the personal behaviour of Trump, so when he won, many were shocked, said Abdul Fattah.
This year’s US elections and Arabs’ impression about it differ totally from previous elections, said Hajaj. “In the past, Arabs would say there were no major differences between the two parties’ [candidates]. This time, the scenario seems different. The candidate who used racist, hateful and evil statements gained high popularity and won.”
The situation obviously offered enough material for mockery and jokes, he sad.
— Jumana Al Tamimi, Associate Editor
