Abie laughs but with serious intent

Meet Abie Philbin Bowman a.k.a. Jesus returned to earth in his controversial, provocatively titled one-man political satire 'Jesus:The Guantanamo Years'

By Beena Sarwar

It's a bit of an absurd sight. A bearded man in an orange jumpsuit (badge no. 727), with a circle of thorns on his head, sits on a stool at a low stage. By the end of the show, he promises, we will understand how Jesus, a brown-skinned Palestinian, ended up as a white guy with a middle-class Dublin accent (with a slight lisp). His delivery is low-key and deadpan, his comic timing impeccable. Even the brief introduction has the audience laughing.

Meet Abie Philbin Bowman a.k.a. Jesus returned to earth in his controversial, provocatively titled one-man political satire 'Jesus: The Guantanamo Years', which made its American debut recently at the Boston comedian Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway Theatre at Davis Square in Somerville, north Boston. The show is based on the simple premise that if Jesus were to return to earth, he wouldn't stand a chance. When He lands in New York, the immigration authorities are immediately suspicious -- after all, he's a bearded Palestinian with a penchant for being a martyr. He's sent off to Guantanamo. And Guantanamo, for Abie, is a "symbol of everything that's wrong with the 'war on terror', the one issue that the US could use to win over the world community, the first easy step, the slam dunk in winning hearts and minds."

On stage, the witty, the intelligent monologue takes the audience through an imaginary but plausible journey, rich with ironic possibilities. The naivete of the mostly teenage guards at Guantanamo is illustrated by their relief when Jesus accepts the (inedible) breakfast... hmm, perhaps this being Ramadan has something to do with the others refusing to eat.... But food is the least of the prisoners' worries. They face all kinds of interrogation, including the notorious 'water boarding' -- but the captors are so solicitous of religious freedoms that they allow prayer breaks. During one such break, Jesus falls to his knees, pushed beyond endurance, and for once finds it difficult to get 'Dad' to forgive them. But then, He reflects, when He asked his followers to "turn the other cheek", He did not mean putting up with abuse -- but turning around and 'mooning' the abuser. Those indulging in violence, on either side, are misguided youngsters. Instead of taking them seriously, "make them see the absurdity..."

At the end of the riveting 90-minute show, Abie, still in his orange jumpsuit, stands outside the hall, cradling a small video camera as people leave, to record responses that he often works into the evolving piece. An Israeli couple greets him in Hebrew, thinking he's Jewish (he's not, although "Abie" is derived from "Abraham"). There are no negative reactions.

When we meet for an interview a few days later outside the theatre, he is in baggy shorts, hair in a ponytail, reflector sunglasses warding off the bright sunshine. At a tree-dappled, brick-paved square where he can soak up the sun and I can sit in the shade, Abie's varied background emerges. Performing arts (drama at school and college, song-writing); prize-winning debater at school; an intellectual approach to political activism (History and English at Trinity College, Dublin with a thesis on Gandhi's 'Individual Satyagraha', 1940-41); journalism (a monthly column in the Dubliner magazine since 2001; participation in regular television and radio talk show discussions); writing (wrote comedy for his school newspaper at age 16); could have become a novelist ("but tragically, I had a happy childhood"); exposure to politics (growing up in Ireland in a political family). His mother Eimer Philbin Bowman is a psychiatrist, father John Bowman a well known historian and television journalist -- "they both talk rubbish for a living, where I got it from".

The humour, combined with a basic serious mindedness (underlined by his refusal to drink, smoke or do drugs) pulled him back from the Masters degree in international relations and peace studies he was heading towards. That's when he was sidetracked by Jesus.

It started in Paris three years ago. People on the streets constantly yelled out to this long-haired, bearded songwriter, "Hey Jesus!" With enough of a sense of history to retort that "Jesus wasn't white!" Abie wondered how it would be for Jesus today. The thought incorporated into his songs was lost in the music, so he worked it into a one-man stand-up act. Originally performed before an audience of seven at Trinity College, the show attracted twenty the next night; double that at the next. The Masters degree could wait: the world's largest performing arts festival, the Edinburgh Fringe, beckoned. JTGY was a runaway success, won an award, and has drawn packed houses and rave reviews since.

How was the American premier received, compared to Ireland and Britain? "One of the criticisms in Britain was using religion in comedy was old hat, they wanted more politics. Americans take religion far more seriously than the British. Mocking religion in Britain is not particularly edgy. But for Americans, it's still breaking a taboo, so they find it funnier." For Americans concerned about the 'war on terror', Abie has a simple solution: "Treat criminals like criminals; don't stoop to their level; don't elevate their violence to a 'war'."

With his Irish background, coupled with his interest in history, he notes interesting, perhaps superficial, parallels between Daniel O'Connell, the Irish rights activist in the 1820s and '30s and Gandhi a century later, both lawyers who led non-violent movements for independence from the British. The Irish rebellion of 1916, led by a group of idealists and rebels (like Subhas Chandra Bose later -- one of whose heroes was Michael Collins from the Irish uprising), saw England's crisis as Ireland's opportunity to strike. Seeing them as collaborators with the Germans, the British brutally suppressed the uprising. Executing the rebels turned them into martyrs and turned the fringe insurgency into a popular one. "The British soldiers sent in to suppress the rebels would open machine gun fire in football stadiums because, despite their shared language, culture, and ethnicity, they had no idea how to tell the difference between an insurgent and a civilian. If British soldiers can't recognise an Irish insurgent, what chance does a kid from Iowa have in Baghdad?"

The violence ended after the Irish Republican Army destroyed its weapons and renounced violence, and its political arm, Sinn Fein, entered mainstream politics. "The British treated the IRA like criminals and ten Irish prisoners died on hunger strike, demanding to be treated as political prisoners. In the 'war on terror', the US has given al-Qaeda this status without their even trying."

Abie's involvement in the issue leads him to people like Joshua Casteel of the Iraq Veterans Against War (http://www.ivaw.org/), who was honorably discharged from Active Duty as a conscientious objector. Casteel told Abie that he believes 90 per cent of the people he met in US custody were guilty of nothing more than being Arab in Iraq. Most Guantanamo prisoners would be found innocent of terrorism if put on trial, says Abie, which "would be very embarrassing for the US. So they're letting them out in dribs and drabs."

One such prisoner was the British citizen of Pakistani origin, Moazzam Begg, an educator and social worker who had moved to Afghanistan from England along with his family (pregnant wife and children), for humanitarian work which he had also done in Bosnia. Arrested in Pakistan in 2002, he endured over three years of solitary confinement and torture. After being released in 2005, he wrote "Enemy Combatant: My Imprisonment at Guantanamo, Bagram, and Kandahar" (The New Press, 2006). His experiences provide much material for Abie's show and the Irish comedian clearly admires him. During our discussion, Abie calls him "the most Christian man I ever met," fully conscious of the irony of himself, an avowed atheist, referring to this devout Muslim in such terms. "But he enshrines the Christian values of forgiveness and compassion more completely than anyone else I know. He is determined not to let the experience change his humanity, to forgive his captors and not allow himself to be used by al-Qaeda".

To undermine 'terrorism', Abie believes it is necessary to address the underlying political issues. But the US, governed by short term interests, continues to support dictators over elected leaders. "We'll never have peace in the Middle East until they stop supporting the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia and rulers like Musharraf... I have no problem with the US working for their interests but in the end, such policies end up working against them. Israel has been fighting a 'war on terror' for the past 60 years with America's help. It has won every battle but there are no prospects for peace because the underlying problems are not addressed."

At a radio talk show with Israeli press officer Daniel Seaman and a Palestinian diplomat, Abie confronted them with the BBC report survey according to which 75 per cent of Palestinian youth want to be suicide bombers. "Even if that figure is exaggerated, no Palestinian wants that for their kids. And guess what, nor do the Israelis. Most just want to get on with their lives. But when you talk to officials on either side, they start 'whataboutery' - what about this, what about that... These are two societies with siege mentalities. When people are trapped like that they both do cruel things to each other."

Talking about the home-grown suicide bombers in the UK, Abie is aware that Pakistanis in Britain tend to come from rural backgrounds and live in 'clumps', alienated from the mainstream. "The message to them should be, yes, you can be angry about Afghanistan or Iraq, your anger is valid. But blowing yourself up isn't going to help them or the Palestinians."

Beena Sarwar < beena.sarwar@gmail.com> is a freelance journalist, currently a Fellow at the Kennedy School of Government, Harvard University

Courtesy: The News Pakistan