Arab comic: Take my four wives, please!

By Ron Wiggins, Palm Beach Post Staff Columnist
Wednesday, June 25, 2003

Ray Hanania, 50, a stand-up comic and columnist for Creators Syndicate, is an Arab-American, no laughing matter until he wraps his mind around Middle-Eastern issues.

A moderate voice on the tinderbox issues dividing Arabs and Jews, Hanania is the first to concede that there is another name for Arab moderates.

Deceased.

"I play off the stereotypes of Arab-Americans so I can say to Arabs, 'If I can make fun of my stereotype, why do you take it so seriously?' My comedy club act shows other Americans a moderate voice that they too rarely hear."

I met Hanania last week at the National Society of Newspaper Columnists meeting in Tucson, where he spoke about diversity issues and gave us a sample of his comedy.

He killed.

"I'm writing a book on my Arab marriage, Take My Four Wives, Please. ... I remember how beautiful my fourth wife looked at the altar -- when we were introduced, the twinkle in her eye through the screen of the burka."

In real life, Hanania is married to a Jew, an improbability that is not safe from his routine.

"We sent out 24 invitations. Eight hundred guests showed up, 400 Arabs and 400 Jews. A U.N. peace-keeping force patrolled the aisle. During the service, they flicked pita and matzoh. There were 38 casualties. Thirty-seven Arabs and one Jew."

Hanania, a Christian born of Christian Palestinian parents in Chicago, knows something about Islamic culture and erroneous misconceptions that abound.

"Everybody has this Islam paradise thing backward. It's not 72 virgins. When you die you get one 72-year-old virgin. Nobody wants her -- she's returned and the next guy gets her."

His sister played with ethnic dolls.

"Fatima Barbie came with two accessories: the mandatory burka and the brother doll who kills Fatima if she looks at another male doll. My sister went through 62 Fatima Barbies."

Going to movies is tough for Arab-Americans, Hanania reminisces. Arabs are almost always the heavies.

"I saw this movie Death Without Dishonor, where Fred Dryer breaks into a terrorist camp with a machine gun and it looks like he's wiping out one of my family reunions. All the bad guys look like my uncles."

Hanania looks like his uncles, too. This is troubling but understandable when you get lots of serious attention from airport security people. It can be even more disturbing when you are passed through without a second glance.

"One time they wave me by and they've got this 60-year-old lady spread-eagle. I wanted to say, 'Hey, leave her alone. It's me that should be getting the body cavity search.' "

The comic stays busy around Chicago and is hoping for a White House invitation -- with misgivings. "If an American plays the White House, his career takes off like a shot. If I'm invited, I get shot."

So far it's been rim shots.

Behind the humor and after the shtick, Hanania is a passionate but calm Palestinian voice. The people he speaks for drive him nuts.

He says they're shrill. They don't vote. Journalists for Middle East news organizations are shills and propagandists.

His mother wanted him to become a doctor, a dentist, an accountant, anything but a journalist or politician. His is the most moderate of Arab voices, and it is rarely heard.

In Hanania's opinion, his people continue to stew in their own juices because they let Jewish writers and commentators outnumber them 100 to 1.

The Arab voices that are heard become emotional and launch bitter diatribes.

"Part of the problem is that Arabic is a musical language -- you almost sing it. It carries emotion; logical debate is not in our tradition."

And yet Hanania soldiers on, by turns expressing his dream of a Palestinian state living in peace with Israel, and railing against the wrongs of fundamentalist Islam.

"I don't hide behind the facts. These honor killings happen and must end. It is disgusting. The burka is the most inhumane piece of clothing invented. It makes a woman a prisoner. I can't look through my screen door without thinking of that mesh and shuddering.

Hanania says in his stand-up routine -- and he is not kidding -- that he is trying to sell a pilot for Everybody Loves Abdullah.

"It's an Arab sitcom. Abdullah is married to four wives and he has eight in-laws living next door who are always in his house telling him what a loser he is."

You can learn more about Ray Hanania on the Web at www.hanania.com, where you can order his biography, I'm Glad I Look Like a Terrorist: Growing Up Arab in America.

ron_wiggins@pbpost.com

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