【By JOHN TAGLIABUE／張佑生譯】
COPENHAGEN — Osama is a businessman who sees terrorism as a profit center, selling terrorism- themed T-shirts, caps and ballpoint pens. Abdul, a convert to Islam, acts as if he cannot kill enough people, or make bombs big enough. Ali, a Pakistani, has won a competition for the honor of avenging the cartoons published in Denmark that disparaged Islam and the Prophet Muhammad. 
Despite the threat they seem to present, the four men have so far eluded the Danish police — not because they run such a sophisticated operation, but because they are the principal characters in a television comedy, “The Terror Cell.”
The show, about a bunch of losers in a gang that can’t do anything right, is scheduled to make its debut on Danish television next year. Its creator, principal writer and star is Omar Marzouk, a Muslim and one of Denmark’s best-known performing comics.
“There’s a lot of interest, but at the same time it’s Danish, there are the cartoons,” said Mr. Marzouk, 35. “It’s not about being blasphemous, though; it’s about things that make both sides have a laugh. That’s more difficult than being provocative.’’
The terrorists lurk in an apartment in downtown Copenhagen. Their closest neighbor, a polite and elderly lady, will not betray them. She believes that World War II has not yet ended, that the boys are hiding from the Germans.
Mr. Marzouk’s show, which will be broadcast on Kanal 5, the Danish channel of a German network, is not the only recent entry in the developing category of disarming prejudice about Islam with a laugh. “The Little Mosque on the Prairie,” following the antics of a Muslim community in Saskatchewan, was taken to Canadian television in 2006.
But what gives “The Terror Cell” its edginess is the cartoons that first appeared in a Danish newspaper in 2005, provoking violent protests across the Middle East and Asia. The cartoons were published again in January, and in June eight people were killed in a suicide car bomb attack on the Danish Embassy in Pakistan.Mr. Marzouk, who was born in Copenhagen in 1973, is much the self-made man. In addition to Danish, he speaks fluent English and Arabic, yet he was dismissed from a private school for supposedly being dyslexic, so he skipped college and opened a business importing computer parts.
Like Mr. Marzouk’s first foray into comedy, “The Terror Cell’’ was in part the result of a competition, organized by the European Union to promote public service programming. “We didn’t want to make a political manifesto, we wanted to make good entertainment,” said Jesper Jurgensen, spokesman for Kanal 5.
It was Mr. Marzouk’s evenhandedness that impressed the judges, Mr. Jurgensen said. “The funny thing is, he’s able to make fun of Muslims and Danes, priests and imams, and others,” he said.
In Tel Aviv, Mr. Marzouk performed at the Camel Candy Club, a comedy venue, where within five minutes he connected with the audience, he said, despite “me being prejudiced, and they being prejudiced.’’
He chides the Danes for avoiding hard questions about immigration — Denmark has some of Europe’s toughest anti-immigration laws — and the country’s role in the Middle East, where it has troops in Iraq and Afghanistan and where the cartoons make the Danes targets.
“We are in Iraq and Afghanistan, and we had the cartoons, yet we haven’t discussed it,” he said. “Nobody asks, what if there is an explosion, what if there is a bomb in Copenhagen?”
Mr. Marzouk answers his own question: the far-right Danish People’s Party “will rocket in the polls.’’
He gives the People’s Party credit at least for asking the right questions. “They started with legitimate questions,’’ he said. “Can we integrate the immigrants? How many can we absorb? They actually had a legitimate goal when they started out. Now they have turned to ignorance and prejudice.”
Does he ever feel threatened? Mr. Marzouk is stoic. Anticipating attacks, he had a special death threat feature on his Web site, until he updated the site, by which visitors could choose among eight ways of having him assassinated, like by firing squad, by blowing up his car or by beheading. “A majority chose beheading,” he said.
關鍵字句
丹麥2005年刊出被穆斯林（Muslim）視為詆毀（disparage）伊斯蘭教（Islam）與先知穆罕默德的諷刺漫畫（cartoon），至今餘波盪漾，今年六月丹麥駐巴基斯坦大使館還遭到自殺汽車炸彈攻擊（suicide car bomb attack），八人喪命。
本文介紹的喜劇演員，嘗試用博君一粲的方式化解對伊斯蘭的成見（disarming prejudice about Islam with a laugh）。Disarm常見的意思是繳械、解除武裝，如：disarm captured troops；也有消除敵意，降低心防的意思。如：His frankness completely disarmed her.
喜劇與丹麥有關，又有諷刺漫畫為背景，因此有很多有趣的成因，並賦予該劇話中帶刺（edginess）的特質。Edge可指言語的尖銳，edgy是鋒利的、嘲諷的，an edgy film可能是一部作風大膽、挑釁意味十足的電影；edginess指譏諷的特質。儘管他強調喜劇無關褻瀆宗教（blasphemous），但他發現讓兩邊發笑比讓兩邊發怒（provocative）要困難得多。
喜劇演員到以色列表演，儘管他自己和觀眾都有成見（prejudiced），他卻能在五分鐘內和台下打成一片（he connected with the audience）。Connect是連結，引申為融洽地溝通、相互理解；試圖和年輕人打成一片可以說：tried to connect with the younger generation。
喜劇名稱The Terror Cell當中的cell可指這票遜咖（a bunch of losers）潛伏（lurk）的小公寓，因為他們是terrorists，故譯為「恐怖小組」。
【2008-09-02/聯合報/G9版/UNITED DAILY NEWS】
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