The Universality of Sarcasm

I was going to begin this post with a sarcastic comment about how I’m not a huge fan of sarcasm, but felt it was overly simple and entirely too obvious. Instead, I decided to explain what I was going to do to give the impression that I actually think before writing, which in turn points to my intelligence and wit. Remarkably clever? Hardly.

But where did this scathingly brilliant (or atrociously underhanded, as the case may be) form of humour come from? I was going to try and suggest that it was in fact me that developed sarcasm for the masses, but even the dullest of my readers (which I think totals about 5 now, woot!) would probably be able to see right through that. Instead, I chose the next best option: looking it up on Wikipedia. Because that’s what Wikipedia’s for. According to this wholly remarkable and uncannily accurate free online encyclopaedia, sarcasm was first recorded way back in England in 1579 in an annotation to The Shepheardes Calendar (October to be precise). The wiki page then goes on to explain the meaning of the word, which has something to do with the gnashing of teeth, possibly one of my favourite (and one of the most common) descriptors in the Bible.

The point to all of this delightful prose is this: I think sarcasm was one of the lesser known but more widely utilised effects of colonialism. Go ahead, collect your jaws from the floor, because yep, this just got deep. If Wikipedia is true (and why wouldn’t it be), the Brits clearly refined sarcasm to an art over the centuries before stacking the Endeavour’s holds with it and taking it across the world.

What does this have to do with Fiji? I’ll tell you. On the weekend our group of volunteers visited a village on the coast a couple of hours north of Suva in an effort to be enculturated. Despite near constant rain and black sand beaches, it was a great weekend away from the pollution-heavy air of Suva. We learnt to weave baskets in the rain. We learnt to grate coconut and gut fish in the rain. We learnt to prepare the meat for the lovo. In the rain. We learnt that it takes about an hour for a Fijian to badly tune a guitar missing a string, but still manage to sing in near-perfect four part harmonies at the drop of a kava bowl. That one we learnt undercover.

As can be expected, I sucked at basically all of the above activities. But it was heartening to hear my friend Donu say how smart I was as I struggled with the basket weaving, and after I took about 30 minutes to grate the flesh of half a coconut. That is, until I said ‘Really? I’m really doing this right?’ and the crowd that had gathered began to howl with laughter. No Stephen, no. You’re not doing it right. However, the most shameful experience of the weekend came from my lack of identifying the sarcasm for what it was. I blame the big friendly eyes and smiling faces that lulled me into a false sense of security. Who knew such a vindictive form of humour was simmering away underneath all the ‘bulas!’ and ‘vinakas!’ Still, great weekend. Seriously.

I would like to thank my new friends Donu and Jovi, who taught me a little about traditional village life. You guys are about as likely to read this as I am to weave a basket without strict supervision.