Hi Dominique,

The entire area of social theatre is a really interesting one. You mentioned that people would be afraid of the possible danger, and that is true. On the other hand, we have seen some examples of anti-irhabi theatre appearing already. Here's one of the funiest:

I wanna be like Osama

There are other examples as well, such as Little Mosque on the Prairie that played on CBC and is up on YouTube.

The trick with social theatre is to correctly identify a) the audience and b) the goal. For example, Little Mosque was aimed at reducing tensions in Canada, not at stopping the irhabis.

The trick in understanding the audience is in making sure that the humour fits the culture. This problem really showed up in the recent (2005) attempt to market The Simsons in the Arab world.

BTW, back in the early 40's Radcliffe-Brown published a couple of articles on "joking relationships" which led to an understanding that almost all humour is based on structural faults in a culture / society.

On Joking Relationships
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 13, No. 3 (Jul., 1940), pp. 195-210
doi:10.2307/1156093
This article consists of 16 page(s).
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A Further Note on Joking Relationships
A. R. Radcliffe-Brown
Africa: Journal of the International African Institute, Vol. 19, No. 2 (Apr., 1949), pp. 133-140
doi:10.2307/1156517
This article consists of 8 page(s).
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Probably the best work done in the area was by Victor Turner (e.g. the Anthropology of Performance and From Ritual to Theatre) and by him with Richard Scheckner (Between Theatre and Anthropology).

On a more pragmatic level, I think that the "danger" factor is more from the extreme PC crowd than from the irhabis. The reactions you noted about the cartoon affair being termed "racist" - which is semanticaly ridiculous; Islam is a religion not a "race" (whatever that may be!) - are quite likely to be brought up. "Racism" and "sexism" being the two current high cards in victim poker.

Honestly, if I was setting up a satire campaign, I would have two aim points in mind: the irhabis who slaughter people and the "race industry" who tell everyone that this is just an historical "correction of grievances against the imperialist West".

Marc