Heroism and Humor: What resistance can look like

Part 1

I’ve been thinking a lot about what resistance looks like, and it’s easy to think about heroic characters.

“The Hiding Place” by Corrie Ten Boom tells the story of her Dutch family who hid Jews during the Nazi occupation of The Netherlands. When someone ratted them out, the family was arrested. Eventually the family, except for Corrie, her sister, Betsie, and their father were released. Of those three, only Corrie survived the concentration camp.

 A couple of years ago, Disney+ produced “A Small Light” about Miep Gies, another heroic Dutch woman who helped smuggle food and supplies to Anne Frank’s family and four others hiding in a warehouse. Gies was able to evade capture by a stroke of luck, and with this luck, she was able to hide Anne’s diary until Anne’s father, Otto Frank, returned after the war.

Of course, there was Oskar Schindler and Raoul Wallenburg and many others who put their lives at risk and helped others in an especially dark time in the 20th century. We aren’t there, and I hope we have enough steely-spined lawyers and judges who will stave off a complete collapse of our democracy. Mr. Franklin, we are desperately trying to keep the republic.

All is not lost, not yet anyway, and resistance can take many forms, and lately, I have also been finding a lot of relief in the ways that people are resisting with humor. Humor pulls back the curtain and says, “You think you are the Great and Powerful Oz, but you are nothing but a humbug.” If you look up the definition for “humbug,” you will see that it is apt.

Here’s one example. 45/47 wants to rename bodies of water and mountain peaks, so Illinois governor, J. B. Pritzker issued a proclamation to change “Lake Michigan” to “Lake Illinois.” And if the re-president is intent on purchasing Greenland, then Illinois will annex Green Bay. That little speech made me smile for days, but for others, they were outraged over the stupidity of spending time and money on such needless ventures, and these folks missed the point entirely.

Another act of nose-thumbing humorous resistance occurred when the South African shadow president threatened peoples’ jobs at the General Services Administration, directing an underling to tell them on a videocall to take the “fork in the road” and resign their jobs. The employees said, in effect, “fork you” and rained down spoon emojis on the call. If only Raygun (“The Greatest Store in the Universe”) had capitalized on that somehow. I would have gladly bought a t-shirt.

Another well-placed bit of humor came from an administrative judge at the Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The judge sent an email to the acting head of that department after employees were asked to target private citizens and colleagues through the recent illegal executive orders.

The subject line said: “A spoon is better than a fork” and all employees were copied in on the email. Part of the body of the email read: “[T]he tactics you are employing and the actions you have taken in lockstep with this new administration are illegal and unconstitutional. . .” The administrative judge then added, “If, upon reflection, you feel like now would be a good time to take a vacation and resign from your position, please ‘reply all’ to this email and put ‘I’d like to Occupy [sic] Mars!’ in the subject line.”

Heroism and humor are two resistance tactics, but so is ornery refusal. When USDA Inspector General Phyllis Fong, a George Bush appointee, was illegally fired along with 17 other Inspectors General, she refused to acknowledge the action. She came to work the next day anyway. Yes, she was escorted off the premises, but she was not about to go down without a fight.

I love all these contemporary profiles in courage. May each of us be so brave.

Our assignment, should we choose to accept it, is to be as wise as serpents and as harmless as doves against illegal acts and evil deeds. And to cultivate a sense of humor. We’re going to need it.

Joan Zwagerman draws inspiration from people who can keep a calm head and a sense of humor in dire straits.