Punching back

I WENT looking for the comment that got the American late-night TV host Jimmy Kimmel suspended a fortnight ago, apparently for inappropriate comments made following conservative activist Charlie Kirk’s death. By then he had gone from suspension, to reinstatement to returning on TV, to a standing ovation no less. But let me recap how I came to my opinion on this matter.

I saw the news of Kimmel’s suspension and the mass hysteria around it before reading what actually got him suspended because everything was packaged in hysterical language. The commentary comes as fast as the news event. President Donald Trump was welcoming his suspension while everyone on the other side was condemning it as the death knell for free speech.

My eyes now roll back to my head whenever I hear anyone in the West defend free speech. I didn’t really care about the suspension of a man who earns $16 million a year but hasn’t said anything about the genocide in Palestine. However, the issue piqued my interest when Kimmel was reinstated five days later and social media was ablaze with congratulations to the public for their campaigning that got him reinstated.

That’s when I went looking to understand what made Americans angry enough to petition, be outraged and cry about Kimmel but not about people talking about babies dying of hunger in Gaza.

Kimmel’s inappropriate comments were in the form of the monologue he delivered on Sept 15 following Kirk’s murder where he said the “MAGA gang” was “desperately trying to characterise this kid who murdered Charlie Kirk as anything other than one of them”. He said they were trying “to score political points from [the murder.]” He criticised as “complete bull****” Vice President J.D. Vance’s claim that “most of the lunatics in American politics today are proud members of the far left”. It is American to silence voices on Palestine.

As a side note, Vance was only riffing off what Trump had said the night of Kirk’s murder when he blasted “the radical left” for comparing “wonderful Americans like Charlie to Nazis and the world’s worst mass murderers and criminals”.

In his monologue, Kimmel ridiculed Trump’s response to a reporter’s question asking how he was doing following Kirk’s murder to which the president replied “very good” and then quickly switched to talking about building a new ballroom at the White House. Kimmel said “this is not how an adult grieves the murder of someone he calls a friend. This is how a four-year-old mourns a goldfish.”

The backlash to Kimmel prompted the federal TV regulator (Amreekan Pemra) to threaten to revoke ABC’s broadcast licence. Last week, Trump suggested that those who oppose him in the media should have their licences revoked.

Kimmel returned to his talk show last Tuesday and explained that his intent was never to make light of Kirk’s murder — and he choked up as he talked about the incident and how we can learn about forgiveness from Kirk’s widow. He thanked people from across the political spectrum — which includes his vocal critics — for supporting him and speaking out against the censorship Trump was trying to enforce.

“Our leader celebrates Americans losing their livelihoods because he can’t take a joke,” Kimmel said.

Social media users described this monologue as an “evisceration of Trump”. Incoming eye roll.

So to recap, it is un-American to take folks off air for ‘a bad joke’ and we must fear a government that wants to regulate what is said on air. How­ever, it is Ame­rican to silence voices on Palestine, on air, in jobs, on campuses etc. This hypocrisy is obvious to all of us but still bears repeating for anyone who thinks otherwise. I don’t expect any change in the media’s reporting on Palestine because big money controls the media.

Why should we care about Kimmel, especially when I myself said I didn’t and don’t? Because there are lessons here for us about solidarity. That requires getting behind people that cause us discomfort — the vloggers, the activists, the families of the disappeared, whoever you don’t like — because their freedom is not at stake here; all of ours is.

Pakistan dropped six places on the World Press Freedom Index this year ranking 158 out of 180 countries, according to Reporters Without Borders in May.

What can we do to improve our lot, without endangering our lives?

Here’s what was at stake for Disney, parent company of ABC which airs Kimmel’s show — money. When people got behind Kimmel and threatened not to work with Disney, cancelled subscriptions and built pressure, Disney had to rethink its kowtowing to Trump. Let’s see how Trump now responds.

I am sure journalist unions here can consider putting their differences aside for the sake of the bigger issue, which is the right to do their job freely. There is power in organising and banding together, even with people with whom we don’t agree.