Professor David Peimer
The Brilliant Wit of Trevor Noah

Professor David Peimer - The Brilliant Wit of Trevor Noah

- We’re going to go straight into dive into Trevor Noah. As many people know, I’m sure, born in South Africa, worked in South Africa for many years, and then worked for Comedy Central on “The Daily Show” in New York City, taking up after John Stewart from 2014 onwards, and recently gone independent. I’m going to go into his life in a moment, and then show some clips from some of his, what I think of are some of the fantastic sequences in some of the shows which he’s done travelling the UK, America, Europe, Africa, the Middle East, and elsewhere. And so some of the shows, travelling, obviously some of the short clips from “The Daily Show” specifically, and a little bit about his book, “Born a Crime.” But before, I just want to say, why look at Trevor Noah now, and what, for me, does he really give us a reminder of, which I think is so important. And it’s partly because my daughter loves him and is inspired and watches, has watched many of his performances online or TV, wherever, and also, the most important thing for me is the question of satire today. And what is satire today? What do we mean when we talk about, not just comedy, but satire, which is ridiculing all, you know, people in power or people in positions of authority of some kind. It’s the question of ridicule, the question of making comic comedy out of not only political leaders, but it could be anybody who is a so-called, inverted commas, “a somebody,” anybody who is an icon, historically or alive.

Obviously political leaders are, you know, up for grabs, and many others. So what do we mean by ridiculing authority? What do we mean by challenging ideas of our society which are cherished by sections of society, challenging, or questioning, or subverting the status quo? And these are about ideas or values which individuals or groups, large or small, may like or not like. And especially challenging ideas, that’s a separate thing from, shall we say, ridiculing or mocking certain political and other leaders of our times. Satire does all of this. And the third real function, I think, of satire is to point out the absurdities of human society, the absurdities of our human foibles, which we know all too well. You know, the more we pump ourselves up to be X, Y, or Z, the more we can’t come down. You know, we see it in Laurel and Hardy, we see in Charlie Chaplin, Buster Keaton, so many of the classic comics going way back, Groucho Marx and the others, you know, how it’s this thing of, you know, going up the ladder and down, Snakes and Ladders all the time. And satirists are there to remind us that every ladder might have a snake, to put it right down in the game of life. But it’s not a game, it’s real, of course. So the role of satire, it becomes pretty crucial, not only comedy, but satire, in any society which regards itself as, shall we say, developed or advanced or evolved in some way. And I’m not only talking about whether it’s rich or poor, but evolved in terms of its entrenched and enshrined values, whether legally, or at least from a social moral point of view.

So this becomes crucial, and it goes way back thousands of years to ancient Greeks, excuse me, and way before. You know, there are so many, it’s always when dictators come about, one looks back over a couple of thousand years of human history, it’s always the satirists, the comedians who get attacked first, who get imprisoned first, possibly killed or, you know, many things happen to their family or others. It’s the satirists. Not easy for those, as Shakespeare said, who are dressed in a little bit of authority to take being ridiculed or, you know, pulled down to earth. So it’s these three areas that I think, and I think Trevor Noah hits them brilliantly. And I think his intelligence, his awareness of culture, society, what’s going on at the moment with identity politics and racial politics, what the meaning of colonial and all these things are, I think he walks the fine line. It’s a tightrope almost in our times, but I think he does it so smartly, and just, he walks that edge, which is a razor’s edge, but also is able to remind us of these other aspects of why we need satire and why society needs satire. It’s not essential. It’s not food, water, housing, you know, transport, but it’s essential in terms of another aspect of a society: to be able to contain the satirists. Fascinating, the ancient Greeks used to have the festival, I’m sure I’ve said this before, but in essence, Festival of Dionysus.

And for a couple of weeks, two, three weeks, you know, that’s when all the Greeks would go watch four plays in a day, obviously not at night, no electricity, drink as much as they could. Festival to celebrate Dionysus, the god of excess, and of wine and song, and, you know, fun. And in that time, the playwrights, Aristophanes being the most famous, who’s come down to us through two and a half thousand years of history, the playwrights could write anything in a comedy. They were called comedies in those days, of course, comedy and tragedy. You watch four or five a day at least, and then you vote at the end. You’re drunk, and you vote, you know, the best. And it goes forward to the end of the festival, couple of weeks. And you could say anything about anybody, far more than today if you go back to the records. And the political leaders sat in the front row, and they would love and laugh, you know, to have their reputations pulled to shreds by Aristophanes and the other playwrights. “Because better,” as Oscar Wilde said, “Better a bad reputation than no reputation.” So, you know, it was seen as a highest-cherished value in ancient Greek period of democracy in Greek history. So it comes down from that period, this idea of the satire, and through mainly the work of Aristophanes and others, all the way through the Romans, not quite so keen. So there are less, if you like, less evidence of as many satirists, but a hell of a lot, nevertheless, satirising everything, you know, the morals, the… Anyway, let’s not go into it, but it’s all there.

And the other thing is that the 20 richest families or men in ancient Greece had to fund this festival. The actors, the writers, the comedians, the singers, the musicians, everybody had to be funded by the 20 richest in Athens of the times. I share that for you 2,500 years ago, to show the sense of value of satire and comedy in an ancient society. Back to today, Trevor Noah, I think he fits the bill in so many brilliant ways, how he captures the comedy, the satire, the ridicule, the absurdity of the foibles of human life, you know, of leaders and those who aren’t leaders, and how he’s able to just remind us, hang on a second, all this is just made up stuff. Where is the human quality inside it all, perhaps? May be naive, but truth. So the main idea is about satire. The second main idea, which is a context for me today, comes from Goebbels’ diaries. And Goebbels obviously wrote a lot about propaganda, but he said one of the biggest tools of how to win in a democracy and turn it into a totalitarian state was to use the tools that democracy gives. And what’s one of the biggest tools of democracy? Free speech. And Goebbels writes about it in his diaries, how the Nazis, and this is obviously before they take power in 1933, he writes about how they’re going to harness the principles of democracy, use them, free speech, say anything we want about anybody, and use that to pump obviously their propaganda of their times.

So we have that on the other side of the spectrum. Where do we limit it? Where don’t we? Where is the offence out of context and it becomes defamatory or physically threatening? Where is that fine line? I don’t want to get into the legal aspects of it now. This is more conversation about cultural ideas. So Goebbels, yes, and they used it. If you look carefully at what Goebbels was doing, they used it to the extreme, you know, obviously the notion of free speech. But if you limit it, then what do you say about your society? If you limit it too much, or you don’t, or partly, what happens? So it’s this endless debate, and the ancient Greeks knew it. How far can you go with free speech or not? You know, Aristophanes, Sophocles, et al, they all knew this was part of, when do you put the individual’s need first and the group’s need first? It goes way back to these ancient human themes of human nature and ancient societies. But, so the second main idea is from that nightmare of an individual called Goebbels. Okay, back to Trevor Noah, that’s the context I really wanted to give. Because when we watch these pieces, I think we need to be aware of the context. I’m trying to present it here in an educational way for us to understand how and why the satire is working and what he’s really trying to do. He’s the most successful comedian to come out of South Africa and of the continent of Africa.

He’s an Emmy Award-winning, he basically was the main presenter, the main performer in “The Daily Show” for seven years. He joined it in 2014 after John Stewart stepped down, who was fantastic as well. He has hosted the Grammy Awards three times in over three years. He’s had world tours, including 28 cities across the US, internationally, all over, London, many countries. His book, which I’m going to talk about a little bit, the bestseller was regarded by New York Times Best Seller. It became a number one on “The New York Times,” “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood,” which is so brilliant, I think, and so intelligent, nuanced, subtle. There’s a comic flavour all the way through, but it’s a biting satire. And I think that’s what he gives: a subtle, biting, so intelligent satire that goes all the way in. You know, and it’s obviously about the horrors and evil of apartheid. And growing up, “Born a Crime,” it says it, born growing up mixed race. His mother was Xhosa, and his father was a German-speaking Swiss. “Born A Crime” has sold over 3 million copies across different formats, digital and paper. It’s a collection of personal stories about growing up in South Africa towards the end of apartheid. And the social political commentary that he gives through his personal experience is so sharp and accurate, as I say, with a comic lilt, but spot on.

And what’s interesting there, he turns his focus inward on his own life. It’s a more intimate look at the world that shaped him. There are two stories from his life. The pieces I’m going to show today are more about, you know, social cultural figures and events for shows and performances. Not as intimate as the book is. He is such a sharp and insightful observer of the absurdities of politics, the debates and reality of race and identity, and the questions around it. He draws from his experiences, and it is a biting satire. The book is more deeply personal and humorous. The performances, as I said, to show, are more a look at the world that shaped him, shapes him and all of us as well. He was born a crime, in his words, because he was the son of a white Swiss father and a Black Xhosa mother at a time, which obviously everyone knows, this was punishable up to five years in prison in the nightmare horror of apartheid. Trevor was kept mostly indoors during the first and early years of his life because his parents were scared what would happen go out, bound by this extreme and absurd society of South Africa. And his mother tried to hide him, keep him safe from these extremes.

So a collection of 18 personal stories, “Born A Crime,” it tells the story also of a very mischievous young boy, like any young boy, growing into a restless young man who struggles to find his place in a world where he’s denied the right to exist. That’s the key, just because of, in inverted commas, “being mixed race.” So it’s a true story also of his fearless, rebellious, very religious mother, remarkable lady, determined to save her son from the poverty, the violence, and the extreme terrors of apartheid. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please. So this is the book, and you can see linking it with, you know, he’s trying to make comedy, trying to figure out. You see the image there, “Born a Crime: Stories from a South African Childhood”. And it’s just so brilliantly, wittily, and intelligent, so nuanced, the writing. I sound like I’m a publicist or PR for Trevor Noah. I’m not at all, but I think it’s worth just reading a couple of times. Okay, so I’m going to interweave showing clips of his work together with some further ideas as we go along. The first film clip I’m going to show now is from a show of his, which he did in London and all over. He’s travelled a hell of a lot with it. And, well, you’ll see what it’s about. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please.

• When you think about colonisation. When you think about colonisation, it is the strangest thing you can think about. ‘Cause conquering is one thing. You go to another country, you take what’s theirs. You want more. You take the land, you know, you take the resources, you kill the people. That I understand. But colonisation, I don’t condone, I understand. But colonisation is strange because you go there, and you don’t just take over, you then force the people to become you. That is such a strange concept. When you think about where the British did it, I mean, you know, they did in Africa. you know, they did it in Asia. And think about in India. Those cultures could not be more diametrically opposed. And out of nowhere, the British just decided to roll up. Imagine what the Indians must have felt like on that day, minding your own business, walking through a field. Next thing you know, the British showed up on horseback. Hear ye, hear ye! By order of Her Majesty The Queen, we have arrived! You over there, what is the name of this land? This land over here, This is called India. Well, my good man, I am here to tell you that India is now under the British Empire. And I am glad that I can tell you that India is exactly where it was yesterday. No, no, I feel you’re not understanding what I’m saying. I’m letting you know that we are here to colonise you by order of the queen.

Who is the queen? The queen, the Queen of England, the ruler of Great Britain, she who was ordained by God. Which god? God, the one true God. There are many gods, my friend. What is the name of your god? There is only one god, and his name is God, and you too shall worship him. You want me to worship a god, but you don’t want to tell me his name? What are you talking about? There are many gods, okay? There is Shiva, there is Lakshmi, there is Ali, Krishna. There are many gods. What is the name of your god? His name is God! You don’t know the name of your god? It’s just God. Is it like Mommy or Daddy? You want me to worship your god, but you don’t want to tell me his name, huh? How am I going to pray to him? What do I do? Every morning I go to wake up, and I pray like, “Oh, dear God, dear God, I was hoping that maybe, God, you could help me. No, no, sorry, not you, other god. No, no, other god. No, no, wrong god. No, God, I was trying to talk to the other. No, no, no, you’re right, I should have asked for a first name. No, no, God. No, other god, please. No, god behind that god. No, not you today, God, other god. You’re right, he told me I would know who I was talking to, and I don’t. No, no, other god, please. That god. No, no, that god.” Then I wonder why my prayers are not getting answered, huh? How dare you speak to me like that? Do you know who I am? No, because you never introduced yourself.

I have come here representing Great Britain. And I have never heard of Great Britain. Who gave you that name? Well, well, well, we did. You called yourselves great? Isn’t that a little presumptuous? Shouldn’t you wait for other people to tell you how great you are? Huh? Shouldn’t you just go around the world and just do good things, good things, good things? Then people go, “Oh my god, Britain, look how great you are.” But I beg to differ. I believe we could do it because we knew instinctively. We are Great Britain. Well, in that case, welcome to Great India. No, it doesn’t work like that. It doesn’t work like that. How dare you speak to me like this? Look, you’re the one who dares to speak to me, okay? I was here, minding my own business in my land. You came over here, riding on your skinny cow, telling me that things are going to change. I don’t know who you are. All I know is you are really crazy, okay? You’re not feeling too right. And I didn’t want to say anything, but you look like you’re going to faint. In fact, it looks like you have died last week, okay?

Something is very wrong with your skin. You’re not looking good, my friend. Maybe you should come down, we have a curry, we talk about this. What are you talking about? I look quite normal. You do not look normal, my friend. I have never seen anybody with that complexion in my life, okay? You look like you’re playing hide-and-seek with the sun your entire life. I don’t know what is happening, but that is not how a person should look, huh? I can see your veins pumping through your skin right now. Do you know every that is pumping, pumping, pumping, pumping? If I was your doctor, I don’t need X-ray machine. I’d just go, “What is problem? It is your kidney.” How do I know? Because you’re translucent. That is how I know. Damn you, we are going to run this country whether you like it or not! We are not going to do anything you tell us. You’re a mad man. We are going to take it! You’re not taking. We’re going! She’s all yours. Take, take. You don’t play nice, take. Hey guys, thanks for watching. Make sure to subscribe to my channel.

• Thanks, thanks. If we can freeze it there. So just to give us an example of, for me, one of his really, really insightful approaches to understanding colonialism. I mean, what’s he doing? He’s taking obviously the British Empire, India, but he’s reducing it to a simple, you know, one individual coming on horseback, we can imagine it immediately, meeting another individual, just two individuals. So taking it away from the huge, big philosophical ideas, which are important, but for a satirist, individualise it in characters and stereotypes. Satire and much comedy has to use stereotype. It can’t, or it doesn’t usually, isn’t able to go into what we call three-dimensional character, psychologically nuanced, complex characters of tragedy. Comedy usually, and satire, uses much more of the stereotype. Why? Because we got to get to the big idea, or the ones I mentioned earlier.

Snakes and Ladders: You go up the ladder, got to pull them down. Up the ladder of power, authority, prejudice, whatever, pull them down just to the ordinary human foibles of life and ridicule, mock the basic ideas. But he does it in such a way of, he uses dialogue so cleverly, and he erects it around the idea of God, and he makes it around, you know, “Who are you, where you come from?” et cetera, as if we can imagine the very first beginning, the first footstep. Obviously he’s taking on colonisation as, you know, colonising for resources, for trade, for many, many other things. You know, in order to get really rich back at home was the whole point of colonising, from the Romans, going way back to the Persians, the Greeks, et cetera, et cetera. But aside from that, how to show it in an entertaining performance, theatrically, is what I think he does so smartly. And he’s able to take us with him because we’re playing, dramatically, the two characters all the time, but we get the canvas behind of the big philosophical questions, if you like. Okay, the next one I want to show is, I’m sure many people have heard of this one. It’s just a brief clip when he compared Trump to a dictator from Africa. Okay, if we can show the next clip, please.

• Once you realise that Trump is basically the perfect African president, you start to notice the similarities everywhere.

• I’m really rich. I have a great temperament. They love me anyway. I don’t have to do this. I’ve done an amazing job. I was born with a certain intellect. God helped me by giving me a certain brain.

• Idi Amin, former president and best president of Uganda.

• The people like me very much. I am very popular. I am very powerful. I am the one who has got the money. I have got a very good brain.

• It’s that grin at the end. He doesn’t have to overstate it, he doesn’t have to go into a whole big extra analysis. He just can put it up there. And again, it’s stereotyping, of course, and it’s stereotyping a lot of complex debates around racial identity, leadership, et cetera and not going into the history of America, or the history of Uganda in this case, but he’s able to do it. And that’s what I mean by, you have to use stereotype. If you’re going to really do satire, pull them down, show them, you know, show them off in the human way, as Aristophanes did two and a half thousand years ago. Okay, I’m going to show another one, which is also Trump, where Trevor Noah is on about Trump. The next clip, please. Thanks, Hannah.

• You know, if I hadn’t already lived through this before, I would be a little bit calmer or a little bit more shocked. But this is exactly what happens. I try and explain this to people. I go like, when I said Trump was an African dictator, it feels like people only focus on the joke, and they didn’t ask themselves what that comes with, right? Because in Africa, that’s what leaders do. This is how they go about dismantling the systems around them that they feel inhibit what they’re trying to do, which is control everything with no accountability. The parallels between my president, Jacob Zuma in South Africa, and Donald Trump are insane at this point. They both came in with charges of corruption against them and, you know, Trump University, and my president had like 780 charges of corruption against him. And you know, sexual assault allegations, the same thing on my president’s side. His family getting money from the business, you see it with the Kushners, you see it with Ivanka, you see it with Eric and Donald. Same thing on my president’s side. His children were getting money because of their ties to the presidency. The one thing that was different was, I was like, “Oh, well, I mean, your guy hasn’t fired the head of…” And then, that’s what happens. Yeah, the only thing, the only upside is like, at least Donald Trump fired Comey. My president, Jacob Zuma, president of South Africa, he dismantled our FBI completely. He was just like, “Yeah.” He’s just like, this is literally what he said: He said, “They’re always investigating, investigating, so much investigating. Like, let’s do something else.” And then we just shut the whole FBI down, and then it was just gone. It was just the craziest thing ever. It was just like, “Yeah, they’re gone.” Our FBI was called the Scorpions, that’s what they called them. They were called the Scorpions. And then they shut it down, and then people complained. And then, almost like he was patronising about it, he was like, “Alright, we’ll start a new one.” He’s like, “We’ll call it the Hawks.” I was like, we didn’t care about the animal side of it, we cared about what it does.

• Yeah, if we can freeze it there. If we can freeze it there. Thank you. Thanks. Okay, so I wanted to show you these clips because these are the clips which are walking that fine razor’s edge in our times, but would’ve been absolutely normal 2 ½ thousand years ago for the ancient Greeks, whether it’s Aristophanes or many of the other writers. In fact, when you read those plays, they are even, they are much more savagely attacking their leaders of their time, not only political leaders, but leaders in religious, and business, and other sense as well. So Shakespeare has one of his main characters, the king, saying, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” And that phrase has come down through the ages. “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” Stalin gets up, you know, all the dictators, the Hitlers, the Mussolinis, and go on, and on, and on throughout the world, Putin, whoever, “Who will rid me of this turbulent priest?” In other words, who will get rid of, for me, of the one who challenges and questions some of the main ideas of the status quo, the values, or the individuals, or the kind of morals or the morays of the times. And that question has never gone away. Shakespeare just puts it brilliantly in one phrase. As I said, it goes way back in human history and in our times. So we’re faced with this dilemma. We live on the horns of the dilemma in our times with satire. Societies need, and yet are threatened, by comedians who will question, challenge.

Well, not only comedians, anybody, writers, scientists, others who will, they need societies. We need it, and yet threatened by those who question, challenge long-held beliefs and values, or recently held ones. Yet, without these writers or performers, who will do it? And how will cultures develop and evolve if we shut down too much of free thought, free speech, free writing? If we shut it down, how on earth can a society evolve? It can’t. It’s going to operate on the principle of fear, terror, which we know only too well. And yet, it’s also, it’s part of human nature, isn’t it, to question even the most cherished assumptions, question them, debate them, you know, argue them, and, you know, put it in that context as opposed to just a shutdown. Are are all values just internalised propaganda from a particular era in history, or are they eternal values which should be held up and never questioned, but kept right up there? Or do values shift and change constantly as a society constantly evolves through history and time? Do we cherish or refuse the dissent of our turbulent priests? Do we cut them half? Should we shuck them three quarters, not more or less? Where is the cut-off line? What happens if, like Goebbels, you say, “Well, we’ll just use free speech, and we can say anything we want push it all the way, and establish a, you know, turn democracy into authoritarianism”?

Do we let these thinkers, writers, performers, whoever, do we let them inhabit a marginal space, a kind of permanent Hyde Park Corner, like maybe certain theatres or certain places, and you would tolerate them, but keep them on the edge? They can be imprisoned, or killed, or their families killed or whatever, or kick them into exile, whichever. Do we keep them on the edge all the time because they are marginal? These are the end of debates, which the Greeks had, the Romans, you know, many, many, and we’re living it so feverishly in our times, of course. If we rid ourselves of challenging ideas, should we ban them? How do we stop them? Maybe sometimes we need to ban them, sometimes not. Who chooses? The fault lines may be about power, assumes, like he’s showing in the India colonisation clip, they may be about power, may be about assumed cultural superiority, inferiority, may be about prejudice, may be about the end of the enlightenment, the rise of authoritarianism in our times. What are the ideas that we can circulate and permeate, and when do we stop them in the context of theatrical comedy and satire? And you know, Trevor Noah has been asked this question many times, and he gave one of the most intelligent answers I’ve ever heard. He said, “It all depends on the context.” Context that he’s doing is comedy and satire. He’s not marching down the streets and calling for death to this or death to that, or kill A or kill B, or destroy this or destroy. He’s doing it, and we know, it’s called Comedy Central, we know it’s a comedy show.

We go and watch. If it’s not on TV, it’s a live performance, like here. We know we’re going to watch a satirist. So there’s a context given, and that is absolutely crucial. Groucho Marx said something similar, but I think he understood for our own times, if we are aware of the educational or the performing theatrical context or film, it’s a different story maybe, and that’s crucial. And he’s so aware in how he chooses his words, his performances of that as well. In the end, as Heinrich Heine, I’m sure many people know the brilliant German poet going way back, Jewish, you know, and his great line, you know, “Where they burn books, they will, in time, burn people.” Why? Because they’re scared of the endless conflict between individual rights and values and those of the community, and when, one, it’s forced down the throat or forced down the throat of the other. And I use the word forced, not as an intellectual debate or an educational learning context, but it’s hammered and there is no option, there is no alternative. Stephen Hawking’s great line has always struck me as relevant to satire. He said, “The greatest enemy of knowledge is not ignorance. The greatest enemy of knowledge is the illusion of knowledge.” And I’ve never forgotten that. It’s the illusion of knowledge. Those who feel, “We have the ways, we know the answer,” that’s it, nothing else can come into the mind.

Thinking stops, feeling stops. The illusion of knowledge, which, what he meant was they have so much belief, that’s it, so, therefore, nothing can be questioned. Shoot, kill, imprison, whichever. So satirists must have that ridicule. It’s human to laugh. What do we laugh about? We tell jokes about ourselves, family and friends, wherever we are. We do satire on our own terms. We tell stories. “This happened, that happened,” you know? Charlie Chaplin, in his autobiography, he writes a lot, nearly half a chapter, on one example. It’s one thing if he and a friend, certain young age, are walking down the pavement, and the friend slips on a banana peel. It’s funny, we laugh. But if he’s walking down with his elderly grandmother, who’s not well, and she slips on the banana peel, it’s different. We don’t laugh. It’s a tragedy. And Charlie Chaplin was so aware of these nuances of comedy and satire, and when it’s tragedy and when it isn’t, when it’s true offence and when it isn’t, to give that tiny little, almost banal, cliched example of the banana peel. But that’s the level that these guys are working at. That’s the level Trevor Noah is working at. He’s so aware, for example, he would, you know, whether he’s really Charlie Chaplin, I don’t know, but, you know, he’s aware of that kind of specific of context, again, the grandmother or just a youthful friend walking down the street. We need these satirists not only to speak truth to power, but to tell us uncomfortable truths, to poke holes, to pull people down on the ladders, Snakes and Ladders again.

Shakespeare wrote, “There is nothing neither right nor wrong, but thinking makes it so,” in “Hamlet.” You know, it’s all about how, in Harari’s case, we make collective fictions. We make stories which capture values, morals, ideas, which are crucial. Otherwise, society could never collaborate in order to work together. Everyone would just kill each other nonstop. So it’s contextual. It’s also this idea of, you to go back to Goebbels, take free speech and do whatever you want with it. Well, there have to be certain limits when it becomes physically threatening or when it becomes totally intolerant of any other viewpoint, which is the same as killing the idea or kill the person almost, you know? And there is a fine line. I don’t want to get into legal niceties and nuances about that, but there’s a fine line. He’s not calling for the killing of the British or the killing of Indian in his colonial sketch, or Trump, or even Idi Amin. He’s just showing it, you know, what is actually happening in society. So we have many examples: “Lysistrata,” Aristophanes’ great play, we have “Animal Farm,” George Orwell, “Catch-22,” you know, Joseph Heller, the great brilliant novel. You know, it’s a satire on the madness, not only the violence, but the madness of war, people killing each other.

So it’s, you know, all of these are some of the great satires that have come down through our times, and I think he gets it. Because in the end, we can have a vision of reality, which is just a binary, “This is right, this is wrong.” But the key, contextually, is that I do not tolerate if you think I’m wrong. I can kill you, I can imprison you, or I can call for your end, annihilation, or imprisonment, or just get out. I don’t tolerate that anybody can have an opinion, whatever. You know, Goebbels, if it goes too far, well, we’ll take it all the way. We can have opinion, whatever we want to say, you know? So we have to find those lines. Okay, a couple of examples: In Australia, “Lady Chatterley’s Lover” was banned from 1929 to 1965. The British banned Gandhi’s poetry and other books for many, many years, even after Gandhi. In China, “Alice in Wonderland” was banned because the Chinese Cultural Authority said, “Well, children are going to believe that humans and animals are the same. They’re both using this language, so therefore they’re the same.” That was the reason the Chinese authorities gave for banning “Alice in Wonderland.” South Africa, we know the many examples, horrific, of anything written about or for, you know, the dignity and human rights, basic rights of Black people, but also, they banned in South Africa “Frankenstein.”

They said Mary Shelley was indecent, “Frankenstein” indecent. You get the extent of how far these tentacles go. Voltaire was burned, his books were burned by the Bourbon monarchy in France. Hemingway, of course, after the Spanish Civil War, you know, in the early 1930s, of course, “For Whom the Bell Tolls” is banned. “The Canterbury Tales,” Chaucer, going way back centuries, was banned in America until 1959. “The Grapes of Wrath,” questioned, challenged, 1939, whether it was a communist book or not. The astonishing, one, to show you how extreme this can go, this anti-satire thoughts or anti-challenging, challenging the dominant ideas, the very early books of braille for blind people were burnt. In 1842, officials at the School for the Blind in Paris, ordered by the new director, called Armand Dufau, burnt the books written in braille to help blind people. That’s the truth. You know, we can go from the most extreme absurd to the ones that, you know, the George Orwells, the many others that we know. In 2001, the Egyptian Ministry of Culture ordered the burning of 6,000 books of poetry, mainly of the eighth-century Persian poet Abu Nuwas, which are regarded as classics of Arab literature, 2001. We all know that during the War of 1812, the British burnt the Library of Congress. Why the library? Why? What military gain is that? It shows how far the thinking goes to stop the ideas, stop the thought. The New York Society for the Suppression of Vice, in the early part of the 20th century and late part of the 19th, advocated book burning. You know, it’s not only the books being banned, but burnt.

There’s something there, what Heine said, “Where they burn books, they will eventually burn people, in time.” You know, because you’re burning the idea. That’s really the key to what Heine means. “Monty Python’s Life of Brian,” satirising Christianity, was banned in Ireland until 1987. It was banned in Norway until 1980. Portugal, “Catch-22” was banned. Why? Because there was a scene of a man naked in a tree. Portugal. In Russia, “Gone with the Wind,” “The Godfather,” “Star Wars,” all banned until 1980. “Star Wars,” “Gone with the Wind” even, “The Godfather” even. You know, I give these as all examples to show such a variety in a range of countries, from the, you know, democratic to the dictatorships, all the way through. Arthur Miller’s play “The View from the Bridge,” initially had to be performed in clubs because plays, because they thought it implied that homosexuality might exist. Beckett’s “Endgame,” Samuel Beckett’s great, great masterpiece, Beckett, who wins the Nobel Prize for Literature, which very few playwrights do, in the play “Endgame,” he says, the two characters are talking dialogue, and the one says, “God, he doesn’t exist.” Banned. And the Lord Chamberlain wrote, and I’m quoting, “The Lord Chamberlain…” I’m tempted to put in the accent of Trevor Noah. “The Lord Chamberlain will not countenance doubt being cast on the legitimacy of the Almighty.” God, it’s beautifully put, and it’s set up to be satirised itself. Anne Frank’s diary was banned by the Alabama State Textbook Committee, going back quite a few decades, because they argued it was, quote, “a real downer.” Okay, I’ll leave that for you to get a sense of the absurdity and the range. I just wanted to give a tiny taste of the range of where these things can be banned and where not, and what to do about the ideas that they represent, and where they threaten, where they don’t, and how and why. Okay, I want to show the next piece from Trevor Noah. And this is about him going to America, on the aeroplane from South Africa to America, preparing himself to be American. Okay, if we can show the clip, please, the next one.

• You know, if I hadn’t already lived through this-

• It’s this one, yeah. Thank you.

• I’ll never forget, I met an American in South Africa, and he said to me, he said, “Well, you know, Trevor, it’s funny you say that ‘cause when you come out, they’ll label you as Black.” I said, “Really?” And he was like, “Hell, yeah. Oh yeah, everybody’s Black out there.” I was like, “Wow. Well, I want to be Black.” And I found out it’s true, mixed-race people are categorised as Black in America. Yeah, the only catch is, and nobody tells you this, you have to be liked and successful first. Before then, they say you’re mixed, you achieve success, and you get upgraded to Black. All the famous mixed people do it. Singers like Alicia Keys and Mariah Carey, yeah? Mixed. But then they say, “Black singers.” Sportsmen like Tiger Woods, mixed. But then they say, “Black golfer.” Most famous mixed person on the planet by far, Barack Obama, mixed, half and half straight down the middle. But then they say, “America’s first Black president,” which is interesting 'cause when he was running, they called him the mixed candidate. I see how it works. Everyone makes it obvious now. They’re like, “Yeah, yeah, Barack, of course he won, of course.” It wasn’t that obvious when he started, it wasn’t. I remember comedians coming out, they used to diss him. Guys would come out on stage and be like, “Man, how many of you all seen that crazy-ass mixed fool running for president? You all seen that mixed fool running for president? What you going to see? Ain’t no mixed fool going to be president of the United States of America. Ain’t no man.

Man, which white people going to be voting for a mixed fool? Even a Black man can’t wish it. Even a Black man can’t have some mixed fool think he going to do it all. Man, that mixed fool, that crazy-ass mixed fool. How’s some mixed fool, that mixed fool?” And then he won, and all of a sudden they were like, “My nigga!” So. So I see how it works, you know? I understand, in order for me to become Black, I have to work hard at it. And I’m willing to do the time. Yeah. I took the first opportunity I could, bought myself a plane ticket from South Africa, and I said, “I’m going out to America. I’m going there, and I’m going to be Black.” And I got on that plane, it was an 18-hour flight, 18 hours of nonstop flying. And I sat there in my chair, and I spent every moment practising being Black, just practising . I was like, “I am not going to mess up this Blackortunity.” I just sat there, just working through everything. I was watching every Black movie and TV show, just going through it. “Yeah, yeah, yeah, yeah. You naw mean? You naw mean? Yeah, yeah. King Kong ain’t got shit on me. Yeah. What you talking about, Willis?” I was just, I was grinding. You laugh, but 18 hours of flying, and I landed in JFK, and I was fluent in my Black American. For shizzle, my nizzle. I was just… I was walking around, I was so Black, I was even laughing Black. I was like, “Ha ha ha! Ha ha, yeah! My man! Ha ha!” Should have seen me, it was just like, “Oh, this you? This you?”

That has to be the personification of cool, in my opinion. There’s nothing cooler. Black Americans are so cool, they can make you feel good about yourself just by asking if you are you. You don’t believe me, get a Black American man to come up to you and just be like, “Aye yo, aye yo, this you? Nah, nah, this you, this you, this you?” And you’ll be like, “I think is!” It’s magic. I was that Black. Not just any Black, but the coolest Black in the world, and that’s American Black. I can say this with confidence, being from Africa. I know my Black. I’m well versed in the arts of Black. I’m from the Black factory. I mean it, I’ve seen every kind of Black, from light Black, all the way to like navy-blue Black. I know Black. And there’s no cooler Black than American Black. Nothing cooler, you know? 'Cause American Black people, I mean, you just look at how much they’ve done to influence modern-day pop culture, you know, small things and the bigger, like you look at the music. You’ve got, you know, jazz, hip hop, R&B, all Black Americans, style of clothing, you know, just this general swag that they’ve brought to everything, even small things, like walking. I mean, walking is such a mundane activity, isn’t it? It’s just a very, this is very… There’s nothing cool about this thing. You just move from one place to the next, and pretty much everybody can do it. This is it, there’s nothing. And then Black Americans came along, and then they just added in that bounce. And then, and all of a sudden, you look really cool. You just, you know, you look like you have a purpose.

You’ve just got that, “Yeah, look at this, he’s super cool.” And it must be hard for an assassin to kill you, just like… That’s why, if you look in American history, no Black man was ever assassinated whilst walking, ever. So it was when they stopped and said something, bang, that’s when they were, 'cause they got the walk. That’s why if you look, Obama, every time he comes out of the jets or makes a speech, he’s always just got that little bounce just before. 'Cause in his head, he’s like, “You never know, you never know. You never know, you never know. You never know.” He’s got the walk. It’s a cool walk. And by far, the coolest thing of all, coolest thing of all is the talk. I’ve listened to Black Americans, and it’s the most amazing use of the English language I’ve ever come across in my life because they pay no regard to punctuation whatsoever. They just cruise through sentences. It’s fantastic. First time I had a conversation with a Black American man was in Baltimore, Maryland. This guy walked up to me after the show. He didn’t even walk, he just floated in, just. Just came up to me, he was like, “Aye yo, B? Aye yo, aye yo. Aye yo, let me holla at you for a minute, man. Let me holla at you.” I said, “Okay.” He was like, “Man, I ain’t even going to front, man. I ain’t going to front. I came out here, dude, I ain’t even know who you was, man. I didn’t even know. I was out here to show I brought my girl, we was out there.

You came out there, and you were doing your thing. I was like, yo, man, I ain’t even know they got yellow bones out there in the Motherland, man. I was like, yo, this kid very funny, man. But I ain’t going to lie, you came out there, you was keeping it coming, keeping it moving, you was just beasting, I was like, 'Aight, man, maybe this kid is the truth, yeah?’ This kid was doing his thing, he was keeping it out there. I started laughing, my girl was killing herself. I was like, ‘Aight, this mofo got flow, fo sho.’ You naw mean?” And I was like, “No, I don’t. But I love it.” It’s the most amazing use of English I’ve ever come across in my life. Just that one word alone, just the strength of that, “Naw mean?” “Do you know what I mean?” “Ya naw mean?” It just, it sums it all up, doesn’t it? It’s just, you know, neither question nor statement. It’s just like, why have we been wasting our time with syllables for so long? I don’t understand. “It was a crazy day today, you know what I mean?” “Yo, that shit was cray, ya naw mean?” It just flows. It’s magical. It says it all. I feel like I’ve wasted years of my life without naw mean. I wish I could go back in time and relive my favourite moments, watch my favourite movies again, seeing them bring to life, “This is Sparta! Naw mean?” Power. Hey there, thanks for watching. Now all I need you to do is-

• Thanks. We can freeze it there. Thanks, Hannah. So just before I show the last clip, I think what he really is giving us here, again, he’s able to take these seemingly little moments of life, whether it’s walking or a phrase, and he contextualises it, of course, in racial identity, but he does it in a way which remains comic, and comedic, and satirical, you know, without calling for the end, the destruction, the annihilation, or, you know, all the other stuff that I mentioned before. He does it in a way which, in his words, remains contextual. It’s contextual to his experience of going from South Africa to America, and all the rest that comes with it. It’s so clever, and it’s so artfully done, you know, and crafted. I’m raving again, but I think he’s really one of the best, most intelligent performers to come from South Africa, or anywhere in the world for that matter. You know, his ability is ultimately, and it’s partly what he talks about in his book, “Born a Crime,” you know, because of his outsider status. He’s born in that way. Obviously the word is outsider.

And obviously Jewish people and many other people know it around the world. You know, once you have that outsider label, which society puts on you, you know, Sartre says it’s about the labels that society puts on individuals and groups of individuals. You know, then the outsider, whether you like it or not, how do you deal with it? What do you do? The outsider tries to disseminate, can’t quite, half, half not, you know, and so much humour and comedy comes out. And another point, I would do something on this kind of humour, and Jewish humour, you know, going into America in those early parts of the immigrant years, and then feeding through Hollywood and other of the great Jewish comics. But I don’t think there’s such a huge discrepancy. And if you look at the real brilliant comedians and satirists throughout centuries, you know, it’s that outsider equality again. Okay, I want to show the last clip, please. And I’m just going to show a little bit of, this is a speech by Rowan Atkinson, which I want to end with. Everyone knows Rowan Atkinson from “Mr. Bean,” and “Blackadder,” and all the rest of it. A speech he gave about satire and offending people. We can show the last, not the next one, but the last one, please. Yeah, thank you. Thanks, Hannah.

• My starting point when it comes to the consideration of any issue relating to free speech is my passionate belief that the second most precious thing in life is the right to express yourself freely. The most precious thing in life, I think, is food in your mouth, and the third most precious is a roof over your head. But a fixture for me in the number-two slot is free expression, just below the need to sustain life itself. That is because I have enjoyed free expression in this country all my professional life, and fully expect to continue to do so, personally, I suspect, highly unlikely to be arrested for whatever laws exist to contain free expression because of the undoubtedly privileged position that is afforded to those of a high public profile. So my concerns are less for myself and more for those more vulnerable because of their lower profile, like the man arrested in Oxford for calling a police horse gay, or the teenager arrested for calling the Church of Scientology a cult, or the cafe owner arrested for displaying passages from the Bible on a TV screen. When I heard of some of these more ludicrous offences and charges, I remember that I had been here before in a fictional context.

I once did a show called “Not the Nine O'Clock News,” some years ago, and we did a sketch where Griff Rhys Jones played Constable Savage, a manifestly racist police officer to whom I, as his station commander, is giving a dressing-down for arresting a Black man on a whole string of ridiculous, trumped-up, and ludicrous charges. The charges for which Constable Savage arrested Mr. Winston Kodogo of 55 Mercer Road were these: “walking on the cracks in the pavement,” “walking in a loud shirt in a built-up area during the hours of darkness,” and one of my favourites, “walking around all over the place.” He was also arrested for “urinating in a public convenience” and “looking at me in a funny way.” Who would’ve thought that we would end up with a law that would allow life to imitate art so exactly? I read somewhere, a defender of the status quo, claiming that the fact that the gay horse case was dropped after the arrested man refused to pay the fine, and that the Scientology case was also dropped at some point during the court process, was proof that the law was working well, ignoring the fact that the only reason these cases were dropped was because of the publicity that they had attracted. The police sensed that ridicule was just around the corner and withdrew their actions. But what about the thousands of other cases that did not enjoy the oxygen of publicity, that weren’t quite ludicrous enough to attract media attention? Even for those actions that were withdrawn, people were arrested, questioned, taken to court, and then released.

You know, that isn’t a law working properly, that is censoriousness of the most intimidating kind, guaranteed to have, as Lord Dear says, “a chilling effect on free expression and free protest.” Parliament’s Joint Committee on Human Rights summarised, as you may know, this whole issue very well by saying, “While arresting a protestor for using threatening or abusive speech may, depending on the circumstances, be a proportionate response, we do not think that language or behaviour that is merely insulting should ever be criminalised in this way.” The clear problem with the outlawing of insult is the too many things can be interpreted as such. Criticism is easily construed as insult by certain parties, ridicule easily construed as insult. Sarcasm, unfavourable comparison, merely stating an alternative point of view to the orthodoxy can be interpreted as insult. And because so many things can be interpreted as insult, it is hardly surprising that so many things have been, as the examples I’ve talked about earlier show. Although the law under discussion has been on the statute book for over 25 years, it is indicative of a culture that has taken hold of the programmes of successive governments, that with the reasonable and well-intentioned ambition to contain obnoxious elements in society, has created a society of an extraordinarily authoritarian and controlling nature.

• If you could hold it there please, Hannah.

• Intolerance, a new-

• Thanks. I wanted to bring this because I think Rowan Atkinson, you know, superbly puts these ideas that we’ve been looking at today. And of course, I’m applying it to the context of Trevor Noah. I think, in the end, he has to use stereotypes. It’s part of comedy. He’s doing it in the contextual way that he’s talking about, again, way back that I mentioned the Festival of Dionysus. It’s contextual in those three weeks. You know, Rowan Atkinson, which Trevor Noah also mentions in a different interview, but Rowan Atkinson talks about the difference between threatening and insult, intolerant of another point of view as opposed to accepting of another point of view in a debating context. This is maybe idealistic, and maybe this is naive, but these are the endless debates of societies and human nature going back thousands of years. And as we try to navigate through these, as I’ve said before, very feverish times, we have choices to make, you know, which side of the fence that we stand, and how far which and how far which not can go or should go. And I think it’s crucial that this debate is so kept alive.

And I think, if I may say, right at the end, without getting into that whole debate, ‘cause that would be a separate discussion, I think what Trevor no does is walk that razor’s edge, that, in the great tradition of Aristophanes two and a half millennia ago, of, Vaclav Havel, you know, in Prague, of so many, of Joseph Heller, of Kurt Vonnegut, of Oscar Wilde, of so many of the other great satirists, of going through ancient history to modern times, Juvenal the Roman satirist even, all over the world. And I think it’s in that spirit that everyone has to be really aware of allowing, and in fact, nurturing the role of ridicule and satire for the very reason I mentioned earlier. You know, back to Mr. Shakespeare, to show what it’s like to have a little bit of authority, the top of the ladder, and then you’re just pulled down to the bottom of the ladder with ordinary human foibles. Whether, it doesn’t matter, about Trump or what Rowan Atkinson’s talking about, or what Trevor Noah is dealing with, you know, and he does it in that way which pulls it down to the human level, which we can laugh at ourselves, put a mirror up to ourselves, our society, and laugh and enjoy, and see that it has a right to ridicule. Because it’s not trying to threaten, it’s not trying to annihilate or destroy. It’s portraying a mirror, if you like. And in that way, it’s just challenging. Okay, I’m going to hold it there, and we can go for questions.

Q&A and Comments:

Q: Okay, Barry. Hi. “Has Trevor ever been antisemitic?”

A: I don’t know. I did research that before today. I haven’t found anything, not a phrase. But that’s from my pretty lot of research I did on him and others, actually.

Ronald: “His mother converted to Judaism.” Ah, okay. I’m going to find out about that. Ronald, this is fascinating. I didn’t know. Okay, but thank you. I know he’s done a brilliant piece of satirising his Swiss German father, and going to Germany for the first time and satirising, you know, the stereotype, the Nazi image, you know, of movies and other things, and the accent, and the screeching voice, and all that. Fantastic skits that he’s got on that in the context of going to learn the German language to see his father.

Judith: “We can’t ignore Pieter-Dirk Uys.” I know, absolutely invaluable. He’s awesome. He’s playing with gender identities there. You know, he’s dressing up as a female in order to satirise, you know, all these ridiculous apartheid and horrific apartheid leaders of the times, you know, and beyond, afterwards.

Okay, Sheila. Yeah, unfortunately, we have to make choices. We can’t do everything, but it would be great. Sheila: “'Born a Crime, Young People’s Edition’ is outstanding when exploring issues.” Fantastic. Yeah, I mean, I saw my daughter’s response when she was a teenager, when it came out, and I saw, and what she told me of her friends, and he was able to speak to that teenage generation very powerfully. And just that alone has inspired me, together with reading his work and, you know, watching it.

Rita: “He’s so brilliantly,” yeah, “funny.” Absolutely.

And then from iPad, yeah. Oh, Judy, yeah, that’s great. Agreed.

Monty: “Two ideas for a lecture, Pieter-Dirk Uys.” Absolutely. German, Jewish, and Afrikaans heritage, absolutely. And there’s so much with Pieter-Dirk Uys. You know, during the horror of apartheid, and then afterwards, you know, there’s so much that he has captured and remained so funny. And so, because they get the trajectory of satire over millennia, they understand how it can work, you know, and brilliant at it.

This is iPad, Judy. “The piano is the Berlin Jewish Museum.” Ah, fantastic. Thank you. Okay, that’s great.

Rita. Oh, there’s the book. You can get the audio book on Amazon, you know, the paperback. It’s a fantastic read and done short. I really sound like I’m his publicist, but I’m not.

Orlene: “Trevor lost me as a fan when he said something disparaging about Jews.” Okay, I didn’t know about that, but if you can let me know, that’d be helpful, thank you.

Joan: “He lost me when he made something antisemitic. Somehow he lost his way. The last season seemed to be a bit of this.” It could well have been, I don’t know. I haven’t watched every, you know, I can’t. Yeah, I’ve watched some of the shows and some of the performances, and obviously the book and other things I’ve read about him.

Carol: “Stephen Hawking did not come to Israel because of BDS.” Yeah, I don’t know the reasons why, and it was, you know, at a certain time. And I agree with you, which, it’s terrible that he did that. I mean, it’s terrible, absolutely terrible. At the same time, there are some ideas and some things which, you know, he does capture me on, which I have to be honest about.

Monty: “In South Africa, the novel ‘Black Beauty’ was banned.” Yes, absolutely. Thanks for reminding me there, Monty. One of the most evil things they ever did, ban a book like “Black Beauty.” I mean, you know, it’s not ludicrous, it’s just evil.

Q: Gita: “What is the reason giving for the burning of the braille?”

A: Well, there are a lot. It could have just been that there was a new director taking over in the early 1800s in Paris of the main centre for the blind. It could have been that. We’re not quite sure what the actual reason was, but it was not that unknown to burn books. You know, there’s a whole history of burning books. So, you know, that’s a bit separate there to go into now.

Michael: “The phrase, ‘It depends on the context,’ has a very controversial meaning.” I known, and I’m very aware of that, and I thought hard before using that phrase today because of the brilliant pulling apart of those presidents of those universities in the congressional committee. It’s a complete cop-out. But when he used that phrase a long time before, you know, when we watched those of, I think, was it Harvard, MIT, and it’s slipped my mind, the other one, University of Pennsylvania, and how it was close to Columbia, you know, and they were so obviously, you know, horrific and evil, and I’m using those words thoughtfully in the way they could not answer that, in the way they use these words. But in Trevor Noah’s defence, he used this a long time before, and it is similar to what Groucho and others used. Because if it’s in the sense of comedy and the sense of satire, and we get it, we understand it, and it’s not calling for the alternative, “Do you believe in the genocide of the Jews?” “It depends on the context.” That isn’t the question Trevor Noah proposes, “Do you believe in the genocide of A, B, C,” and then that’s the reply. That’s what I mean also about context. If it was, I wouldn’t be doing this lecture on him at all, ever. If he was guilty of doing something like that, with a question and that as an answer.

Okay, Rita. Okay, yeah, “To get the references would be great. Thank you.”

Stewart: “It’s hard to imagine ‘The Daily Show.’ Trevor no would have a problem getting people to come to his party. That’s what happened to him as a 13-year-old when his Jewish mom insisted he have a bar mitzvah. In an interview, he spoke of his mom’s Jewish identity. She converted and struggled as a mixed-race person under apartheid,” yeah. “I lived my life part white, Black, but then sometimes Jewish kid.” I understand. “She made me convert, et cetera, and she’s celebrating and reads Hebrew to me.”

Okay, Stewart, thanks so much for that. I really appreciate it. It’s really brilliant. Lucy: “Pieter-Dirk Uys makes an important contribution, the film ‘Singing the Changes’ for Channel 4, as Evita Bezuidenhout teaches us to process his description of TV in South Africa in the late ‘80s,” absolutely. “Spreading of the News.” Okay.

Oh, that’s great. Lucy, perhaps if you could email me through the Lockdown email, that’d be great, and we can begin a conversation.

This is a lovely idea. “It’s got John Carney and Bill Gainey, Barney, Don Mattera.” Yeah, that’s wonderful. Okay, and Yaris Cacuro. Okay, great. Thank you. Lucy, okay.

Pumi: “Hi.” Hi, hope you’re well, Pumi, and thank you for everything, you know, for these couple of weeks on South Africa. “I would love to see this film. I’m working on the lecture the way TV has changed on its depiction in South Africa over the last 30 years.” Okay, if you share, Pumi, your email with, if you can email me through the Lockdown email itself, then colleagues in Lockdown will send it on to me, and we can be in touch. Fantastic. Thank you, Pumi.

Michael Britton: “Okay, thanks.” “Seinfeld,” yeah.

Okay, Gloria: “Banned 'To Kill a Mockingbird,’” yes. There’s so many more we can go on with, absolutely. Okay, so thank you very much everybody, and Happy Mother’s Day again to all the mothers everywhere in the world, you know, who are part of our remarkable Lockdown family, and have a great, well, hope your week goes well this coming week, to everybody. Thanks. Thanks, Hannah and Chuck.