Some of the truest words come in spoofs

When I wrote last week's column as a spoof on spooks spying on the PM, I was unaware of the drama unfolding around Fonterra as a result of a dirty pipe contaminating baby food.

In that piece, I parodied the paranoid spying profession's ability to find conspiracy hidden in everything by using the PM getting instructions to remember to get some milk on the way home as being a coded reference to Fonterra.

I write my column usually on a Thursday evening for publication on Saturday morning. The notion of including Fonterra was to find the most unlikely place for a spy agency misunderstanding. Then what happens: Fonterra and the PM are now embroiled in an ever-growing scandal and the damage done to our international trading reputation is linked to one of the country's biggest exporters.

I guess it shows parody can have truth hidden somewhere inside the satire. The way this unfolded led me to ponder the nature of satire and its power to puncture pomposity and inflated egos. I imagine that there are people throughout history who have dared to challenge their rulers by making fun of them. I also suspect that many of these satirists didn't live very long when kings, queens, bishops and knights took exception to having the proverbial taken out of them by some lowly wit.

In 1726, Jonathan Swift wrote Gulliver's Travels, a book that is often considered the modern emergence of satire in literature. Many will know the story of how Gulliver becomes shipwrecked on an island inhabited by the Lilliputs, tiny people who then struggle to maintain things as they always have been following the arrival of a giant.

Swift takes a dig at a whole range of social institutions, including power, politics and petty bureaucracy while telling a story that charms the reader. Since then the art of satire has spread beyond books into other branches of the arts; theatre, films, music and painting.

The line between satire and disingenuously taking the micky has become blurred. There was a wonderful story in a German newspaper about a cleaning lady ruining a piece of modern art worth about a million dollars when she mistook it for an eyesore that needed a brisk scrub. The artists considered it high art while the cleaner regarded it as a challenge to her standards of cleanliness.

The potential for satire is all over this. The icing on the cake was the work's title, "When It Starts Dripping from the Ceiling".

On a more important level, I think we should regard satire with glee. It not only provides an opportunity to undermine pompous posturing politicians but when done well it brings the reader to another view of an issue or idea outside the traditional frame.

Satire is the proverbial canary in the coalmine for functioning freedom. If a country has a vibrant satirical element tunnelling its way under the establishment and accompanying sense of entitlement, without the satirist being threatened with imprisonment, torture or execution, then it usually means that democracy is doing its job.

We should not only chuckle at effective parody from those who consider themselves satirists, we should be pleased we live in a country where taking the micky out of corporations, politicians, governments and narcissistic blowhards does not lead to persecution, intimidation, imprisonment or the firing squad.

Terry Sarten is a writer, musician and social worker and card-carrying satirist. Feedback to tgs@inspire, net.nz or via www.telsarten.com