I think we need to have a serious conversation about the importance of humour in opposition to authoritarian power.

Many are angry at Turkey’s opposition leaders for making jokes about the frankly absurd threat to ban social media.

Here’s why I think joking is a great strategy.

The best place to start is by asking why authoritarian systems throughout history have HATED humour and political comedy.

It’s because it undermines their power, pure and simple. Humour pokes holes in the serious façade and societal fear that holds up any oppressive regime.

Humour serves a few important functions in society. It brings us together – from childhood onwards, communities and bonds are formed through shared laughter. For an opposition movement that often can’t convene, humour serves a role in bringing people together in a united moment.

Let’s make that specific to Turkey. Some of the defining moments from recent opposition campaigns have come from adept use of sarcasm, satire or just light-hearted twists on serious topics by politicians like Selahattin Demirtaş, Ekrem İmamoğlu and Meral Akşener amongst others.

Their humour shows that they are resilient in the face of structural impedidents and acts as a comforting invitation for others to join them. It signals that they are simply human. Jokes are a socialising activity and they are winking to people that we are all in this together.

But where humour becomes vital is in upending the very discourse on which oppression depends. It shifts the debate from the plane of the rational to the plane of the absurd. That is important because systemic power can set the rules of rational debate but not of absurdity.

Take Netflix. If you respond to its threatened closure with serious rebuttal, you’ll lose. Systemic power can say, “Then you are on the side of foreigners and immoral actors.” What’s your next play? You're suddenly in a debate about cultural norms and populism is going to win.

And even if you “win” the debate on argument alone, a pliant media and non-independent institutions don’t allow you to formally win. You can't get the votes you need to stop it.

There is almost no serious political strategy that works that hasn't already failed before.

Responding to Netflix closure with jokes upends the power dynamic, something that’s been called political jiu-jitsu.

Authority is a serious business and tends not to have a sense of humour so you’re suddenly on different playing fields. And you’re on the side that’s laughing...

You can break up protest with police. You can outvote or ignore serious discourse. A classic move is to pull the serious debate to pure populism and win with culture or fear.

But responding to humour is almost impossible as long as the joke is an accurate reflection of reality.

If you jail cartoonists or censor jokes, you have responded to the absurd in such a tangibly unfair way that anyone watching can see the sheer assymetry.

At that moment, oppression is laid bare, nakedly powerless in the face of something as innocent as laughter.

Let me go back to the start: why has authority always feared humour? Because it is, when done well, something that takes truth about a system and upends it into something at once both funny and grotesque. And unlike other forms of political opposition, it is innocent and playful.

Authority will seek to be hyper-serious. Large statues of serious, frowning men. Intimidating palaces intended to make the beholder feel small and insignificant. Pomp and circumstance. The fearless leader applauded and revered.

The joke says simply that the Emperor is unclothed.

Of course, jokes can’t form an entire opposition strategy and they have their place. Punching down on the vulnerable will never work. You can’t joke about tragedy especially if it isn’t your tragedy. And the funny must give way to the serious if discourse is to become normalized.

But humour and satire and silliness and jokes and laughter are political.

In a context of oppression, where decisions are often absurd by their very nature, a simple joke has more political explanatory power, meaning and community-building capacity than a 120 minute speech.

So perhaps we should lighten up. If nothing else, Turkey needs laughter. We need to get out of this vicious circle where everything is always deadly serious.

Life is already difficult enough without political discourse being relentlessly monotone and dominated by scowls.

And trust me when I say humour does work. It brings people together, it shows resilience, it displays wit but most importantly, it takes the debate away from where power would prefer it to be.

Responding to absurdity with measured, forceful laughter has always been political.

And even if you don't believe me, ask yourself why it is that all oppressive or authoritarian or simply populist systems throughout history have abhorred jokes and the people that make them...

That will give you all the answer you need next time you see a politican joking.

I'll finish with a joke from the 80s:

Two Romanians are on a bus, one sitting, one standing. The former asks:
– Are you a member of the Communist party?
– No
– Are you in the military?
– No
– So you’re not an official of any kind?
– No, I’m not
– Then get the hell off my foot!