The following article, written by Carla Power, was originally printed in Time magazine, on April 7th, 2008.

It's also available on the Time website at: http://www.time.com/time/magazine/ar...

Stand-up comics are the suicide bombers of the cultural world. They act alone, using stripped-down devices — a mike, and maybe a glass of water or a barstool. Their weapon, language, is decidedly low-tech, so they rely on the element of surprise to startle unsuspecting crowds. "If a joke is set up properly, and detonates properly," says Irish comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, the effect is revelatory: "If you and your audience see something in a new way, and the explosion is joy and laughter, that's the most rewarding thing in the world, apart from sex."

Bowman, 26, a rising star on the Irish stand-up scene, has been setting off comic explosions for 18 months now with Jesus: The Guantánamo Years. In the one-man routine, Bowman is Jesus, who, at the behest of his aging dad, returns to earth for a comeback tour. Since he's a bearded Palestinian willing to die as a martyr, the messiah is stopped at U.S. Immigration and shipped off to Guantánamo Bay. He finds himself trapped on an island that's become a maximum-security prison, designed by the people who brought the world Kentucky Fried Chicken: "Tiny battery-size cages, guarded by ignorant teenagers ... and characterized by a profound feeling of despair."

The show is an unsettling weave of smart-ass wit and surreal situations from the age of terror. A joke involving communion and oral sex shares a platform with the calculation that al-Qaeda would have to blow up 580 planes a year to compete with the tobacco industry for casualties. This month, an audio version of the show, which has shocked Christian conservatives and delighted fans from Edinburgh to Lahore, was launched on iTunes. E-audiences might miss the comedian's crown of thorns and Gitmo-orange jumpsuit, but that's not dire, as the show, he says, is "all ideas." He also has a new show, Eco-Friendly Jihad, premiering this month in Galway, Ireland, about an environmentalist who becomes so frustrated with the West's inability to cut carbon emissions that she joins al-Qaeda.

Bowman, who is working on a graduate degree in peace studies by day, sees comedy as akin to a Gandhian exercise in passive resistance. It's a kind of intellectual sit-in — "a nonviolent act that can cause a change in public awareness." An atheist whose skepticism of organized religion was honed growing up during Ireland's Troubles, Bowman nonetheless claims his Guantánamo show is deeply Christian. It stands up "for American values, and for Christian values," he says. "Guantánamo Bay is profoundly un-Christian. I'm simply doing what Jesus did during his life: going around from place to place, and speaking up for what he believed in."

Last November, Bowman played at a festival in Lahore during Pakistan's six-week state of emergency. He knew better than to tackle either President Pervez Musharraf or the Prophet Muhammad onstage, but found his show resonated with an audience used to seeing their countrymen locked up under antiterror laws. Back in Ireland, he's rankled a few Christian conservatives who have picketed his show, calling it blasphemous. One elected official of Northern Ireland's loyalist Democratic Unionist Party, angered by the comparison between Jesus' martyrdom and al-Qaeda suicide bombers, urged a boycott; and in a heated BBC radio debate, Bowman quipped how weird it was to have someone from the Orange Order — a Protestant fraternity — "criticizing [me] for dressing up in orange and talking about Jesus."

But Bowman also has a big Christian fan base. He's been invited to stage the show in various American churches; in Boston, seven Protestant ministers came backstage to congratulate him on its "profoundly Christian message." "A lot of Christians are so resentful that Bush is hijacking the language o

[The following article appeared in the February 2008 edition of 'The Dubliner' magazine.]

I think I can safely say that I'm the only Irish comedian stupid enough to perform a religious, political satire in a Muslim country under a state of emergency. And it all started at the Trinity Ball.

Eighteen months ago, I attended a performance-art piece in TCD by a visiting Pakistani academic, Fawzia Afzal-Khan. Perhaps not surprisingly, Bold and Beautiful: Speaking Out As a Muslim/Pakistani/American/Wo/Man Post 9/11 wasn't terribly well-attended. But it should have been. Fawzia came on stage in a burqa. As she started to dance, the folds opened to reveal that underneath she was wearing nothing but a bikini. It made quite an impression.

Afterwards, a discussion ensued about the performance, politics and post-colonialism. At the time, I was studying the history of South Asia so I didn't sound like a complete idiot. Unbeknownst to Fawzia, she had arrived on the day of the Trinity Ball, and the college had thoughtfully given her a room beside one of the main performance tents. As sleep was out of the question, I agreed to be her guide through the morass of drunken students, liggers and upcoming rock bands who apparently comprise the biggest private party in Western Europe.

During the evening, she told me about her theatre company. I said that I was working on a one-man show about Jesus Christ being detained at US immigration, because He's a bearded, Middle Eastern guy who wants to die as a martyr. She loved the idea, and offered to help me bring it to the US. We stayed in touch.

Then, last summer, while touring in Boston, I got an email asking if I would be interested in bringing Jesus: The Guantanamo Years to Fawzia's native Lahore. It would mean representing Ireland at the World Performing Arts Festival in Pakistan with a show about a Palestinian Jew, imprisoned in Cuba, by Americans. How could I refuse?

A month before I was due to travel, Benazir Bhutto returned from exile, and narrowly escaped death when her convoy was bombed. Two weeks later, President Musharraf declared a state of emergency. Citing the threat posed by Islamic terrorists, his government lost no time in arresting judges, lawyers and journalists. You may have seen the backlash on the evening news. There's something strangely compelling about a group of middle-aged lawyers, soberly dressed in suits and ties, throwing bricks at riot police.

"It's probably no different to visiting Cork or Galway during the Troubles," I told my parents. "If you watch the international news, the whole thing looks like a war zone. But everyday life is probably carrying on as normal."

I'm not sure who I was trying to reassure.

Pak1_3 As it turned out, travelling to Lahore was exactly like visiting Cork or Galway during the Troubles: poor infrastructure, economic stagnation, rumours of political corruption… and incredibly friendly, hospitable people. Perhaps most Irish of all, everybody I spoke to had their own personal analysis of how Pakistan should overcome the current crisis.

The festival itself was held in an impressive redbrick amphitheatre, exotically illuminated, with a dozen large performance tents in the surrounding fields. The entrance was guarded by uniformed men with carbines and machine guns who made everyone walk through a metal detector. (This seemed odd, if alarming. I couldn't imagine that a performing-arts festival showcasing Pakistani singers and Czech puppeteers was a priority target for Al Qaeda.)

The festival was organised by a nucleus of bright, resourceful young women who had no qualms about barking instructions at men twice their age. On arrival, I reported to the main office just as a minor staff dispute was heating up. The bulk of the exchanges were conducted in Urdu, but every time someone wanted to interrupt and assert their authority, they would speak in English. "Stop and listen to me. This is serious..." Then back into high-sp

The DUP has urged people to boycott a controversial play which depicts Jesus Christ as a prisoner at the US detention centre in Guantanamo Bay.

'Jesus: The Guantanamo Years', a one-man show by Dublin comedian Abie Philbin Bowman, is beginning an Autumn tour of Ireland with two performances in Belfast this week.

The show is based on the premise that if Jesus Christ returned to earth He would not get through US immigration, because “He's a bearded, Middle Eastern guy who wants to die as a martyr.”

The show is billed as a satirical attack on the Bush administration. So far this summer, it has toured London's West End, Jimmy Tingle's Off Broadway in Boston and the Edinburgh Fringe Festival. The publicity photo, depicting Jesus in an orange jumpsuit, has been reprinted in over 20 publications in the UK, the United States and Pakistan.

DUP Councillor Christopher Stalford said in a statement: "This is in fairly bad taste.”

"People being held there [in Guantanamo Bay] are terrorists or terrorist suspects and pose a danger to society. I don't believe that anyone could seriously say that could be the case with Jesus.

“I think it's unfortunate that once again a stand-up comic has deemed it acceptable to use Our Lord as a figure of fun.

"He claims the fact that Jesus was a man from the Middle East and had a beard makes him a suspect under the US Patriot Act - but why single out Jesus for this type of mockery?

"You could say the same of the Prophet Mohammed, he was also from the Middle East and had a beard but he didn't mock him.

"I think some people will take offence at it and I understand why they would do that.

"I would encourage people not to go and see it".

The play's writer/performer, Abie Philbin Bowman responded to this criticism earlier today.

"If people find my show offensive, I'm sorry - but I'm pretty sure that telling jokes is not as blasphemous as torturing people".



“Councillor Stalford clearly doesn’t understand the point I’m making. I have never suggested that Jesus was a terrorist – I'm saying that we have become so paranoid that we would treat Him as one, even though He's obviously innocent.

“My real target is not Jesus, but the hypocrisy of the Bush administration. Guantanamo Bay violates American values and Christian teaching. Jesus Himself said, 'what you do to the least of these, you do also to me'.

“If you look at how Jesus lived, He travelled from place to place, addressing large crowds of people and challenging injustice. I think that carrying on that tradition is more important than going to church every Sunday.

“The Councillor’s suggestion that I depict Mohammed in Guantanamo is a lazy, knee-jerk reaction which misses the point of the show. Firstly, Mohammed wasn't a martyr and he didn't walk out of a cave. Secondly, Guantanamo is not run by Muslims. So the fact that it violates Islamic principles isn't hypocritical or controversial. If the councillor, or anyone else, wants to write a play about Mohammed and his values, it should be set in a prison in Iran or Pakistan. I would be very happy to see that play. But I'm not Iranian or Pakistani. I am a Westerner. I wanted to address the problems of my own society first.

“This must be the first time in history that the DUP has attacked someone for dressing in orange and talking about Jesus.”

'Jesus: The Guantanamo Years' is touring Ireland throughout September and October. The show will travel to Belfast, Naas, Birr, Cork, Kilkenny, Tipperary and several Dublin suburbs. Full details on www.MySpace.com/AbieLaughs (reprinted below).




'Jesus: The Guantanamo Years' Autumn Tour 2007

DATES THEATRE
BOX OFFICE WEBSITE

Sept 6-7 Blackbox Theatre, Belfast`
028 9024 4400 www.BlackBoxBelfast.com

Sept 8 Moat Theatre, Naas, Kildare
045 883 030 www.MoatTheatre.com

Sept 12-13 Axis Centre, Ballymun (D9)
01 883 2100 www.Axis-Ballymun.ie

S