(Photo: en.namu.wiki)
By Habib Toumi
MANAMA: “Late-night television should be comedy so that people can fall asleep smiling. Late-night television should be comedy so that people can fall asleep smiling. We should have a Day of Laughter, and on that day, everyone must laugh no matter what happens,” the late South Korean master of current affairs comedy Kim Hyung-gon once said.
That is a simple thought by the outstanding Kim Hyung-gon, caring in its modesty and sweet in its significance by a man who passed 20 years ago on March 11.
Our dear friend Lee Sang-ki, the former President of Asia Journalist Association and the publisher of The AsiaN, kindly reminded us of the importance of this man in advancing humanity in its simplest form, and compassionate ideas in their affectionate way.
Kim Hyung-gon believes that at the end of a long day, people deserve a moment of lightness, a few jokes, a gentle laugh, and the quiet comfort of drifting into sleep with a smile.
Unfortunately, these days and nine days into an ugly and brutal war that has gripped the Middle East, such a wish is impossibly distant.
In the gentle times of peace, the night slowly settles into calm. The city lights soften, people gather around their televisions, and late-night programming drifts toward humor and harmless entertainment. The day closes with laughter and with a small sense of gratification that another ordinary day has passed.
But in the last few days, the script of our days, evenings and nights has been rewritten in an ugly way.
Instead of comedy, television screens are filled with images and videos of destruction, missiles and drones as messengers of death, shattered buildings, burning neighborhoods, and streets covered with debris. The brutal happenings appear in an endless stream of footage captured by cameras, phones, and drones. News anchors speak in grave tones while the same scenes are replayed again and again: Explosions, detonations, smoke rising into the sky, sirens cutting through the day or evening, warning of missiles or drones approaching from the darkness, people running through dust and panic, screaming for help that does not materialize.
The night becomes a gallery of devastation.
In those moments, sleep itself becomes uncertain, and the idea of smiling before closing one’s eyes feels almost absurd.
The war into which we have been catapulted does more than destroy buildings and infrastructure. It also destroys the quiet rituals that sustain normal life. The simple comforts that once marked the end of the day, a late television show, a shared laugh, a peaceful night’s rest, disappear under the heavy weight of fear and uncertainty.
Even humor, one of humanity’s oldest defenses against hardship, struggles to survive in such an atmosphere.
Instead of laughter, people scroll through breaking news alerts on their phones. Instead of comedy, television channels broadcast urgent updates, casualty numbers, and scenes from the latest strike. The television screen no longer carries the warmth of entertainment; it reflects the brutal reality of war.
Night after night, the same images return: destruction, death, devastation. Tears replace smiles. Screams replace laughter.
War dramatically reduces the distance between ordinary life and tragedy. It forces people to confront the fragile nature of the peace they once took for granted. The innocence that societies believe they possess and the belief that tomorrow will be better than yesterday or at least will resemble it slowly erode with each detonation that interrupts the darkness.
War steals lives and cities as well as the human hopes that define everyday existence. The hope of ending the day with laughter. The hope of closing one’s eyes without fear. The hope that the night will bring rest rather than anxiety.
The call by Kim Hyung-gon to make late-night television belong to comedy so that, after the weight of the day, people can drift into sleep with a smile, is genuinely kind and caring.
Unfortunately, these days, the night offers no such kindness or care. Instead of laughter, there are drones and missiles as mass murderers. Instead of smiles and happy faces, the screens show death, destruction.
And as the explosions echo through the darkness, humanity is reminded that innocence is far more fragile than ever imagined, that laughter is more elusive than ever thought.
