During the administration of Mohamed Morsi, Egypt’s deposed president, Muslim Brotherhood partisans sought unsuccessfully to try Bassem Youssef, an Egyptian satirist and late-night talk show host, on charges of “insulting the president.†After Mr. Morsi was overthrown in the summer, Egyptians tuned in eagerly to the season premiere of Mr. Youssef’s show in October to see if he would lampoon their new military rulers as harshly as he had the Islamists. His jokes clearly made an impact: One week later his show was abruptly suspended. Now he faces dozens of accusations of “insulting the military†â€" a potential crime.
In New York to accept an award for press freedom from the Committee to Project Journalists, Mr. Youssef, sometimes called the Jon Stewart of Egypt, spoke with The Lede about the future of his show, the turbulent political situation in Egypt and what it is like to be a comedian in a country plagued by violence, division and uncertainty.
Egypt’s military-backed government appears to enjoy widespread public support. General Sisi in particular seems to be the subject of strong affection from much of the public. Some observers said that the first, and only, episode of your show that aired this season tread carefully when it came to the military, and did not criticize them or General Sisi directly. Did the political environment influence the decisions you made on your show?
The show is just a mirror for what’s happening in Egypt. Some people want to consider the show as some sort of a weapon where they can hit or attack whoever they don’t like. This is not the case. It’s a political satire show. People always think that I did not do enough or I did not say enough or I did not criticize enough. This was the case during the Muslim Brotherhood and this is the case right now. On the other side, there are people who said that I have crossed over all the boundaries.
Egypt is beginning to see more active dissent against the new government, with non-Islamist activists staging two antigovernment protests in the last week. Why do you think this dissent is bubbling up now?
It is a very subjective way to measure things. People think they are having increased popularity every day and other people think they are losing popularity. You really can’t tell. There are people actually having an increasing affection for the government and an increasing affection for General Sisi and an increasing affection for the military. Other people are losing it. Some people are gaining compassion towards the Muslim Brotherhood and other people are hating them more. The mistake that people do is that they say, “People are doing so,†or “People are doing so.†“People†is a very generic term. Who can say that people have an increasing or decreasing sentiment towards something or against something? It’s a huge country and it’s very diverse. The government as it is right now, I think it is losing some popularity with many people because of the stupidity of some of the media outlets. They are provoking people and pushing them towards the other side. This I can say, but again it is ery hard to quantify.
One of the slogans of the revolution that overthrew former President Mubarak was “bread, freedom and social justice.†Do you think the demands of the revolution are still relevant today? Is Egypt moving in the right direction?
At the point of 30th of June, many people thought in the mentality of “it’s either us or them.†The Muslim Brotherhood thought this way and the anti-Muslim Brotherhood thought this way. Everybody suddenly is into survival mode, so some people would say, “Let’s delay the slogans of the revolution because now we are looking for security, which is more important.†Other people are still loyal to these three demands, and other people are just thinking of revenge.
You know here in the United States, you had I think the Declaration of Independence was like 1776. Right? 1776, right? The independence? What, that’s your history, you don’t know it? And it took 12 years to write the first Constitution. And during the 12 years it was full of turmoil and it was hard and it was violent and militias were killing each other in the streets. There is a pile-up of problems: social, economic, religious, sectarian, you name it, in Egypt, and they will not go away.
Under the Morsi administration you were investigated by the judiciary for insulting the president, and after the first episode of your show’s second season aired there were court cases filed against you for insulting the military. Can you tell us about those cases?
I am told that there are over 40 accusations against me. So far, I have not been summoned by the general prosecutor. I have not been requested to appear for an investigation.
You received a lot of public support when you were being investigated for insulting Morsi, from both inside and outside Egypt. Have people been supportive of you during these most recent cases?
Well, there has been some support from outside of Egypt and from inside Egypt. Some people are very happy that I am being taken to questioning. I mean, of course the M.B. have absolutely no compassion for me and some of the people who are ultra-military supporters think that this is the right thing to do, that I should go away.
You were a strong critic of President Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood. What do you make of the position they now find themselves in, having gone from the ruling party to a splintered and outcast group?
The Muslim Brotherhood did not listen to many of our warnings last year. We told them that you are actually bringing yourself down and you are bringing everybody else down. They did not listen. They were on a power trip. I mean, when I look back a few months ago, the last two big speeches with Morsi he totally allied himself with the extreme right, the extreme jihadist and Qaeda sympathizers, and it made it very difficult for many people to see their president being supported by those people.
Worst-case scenario, many people if they are faced with a choice between an extremist religious government or a dictatorship supported by the military, they will choose the military because at least the military will leave you the personal space. They will block you at the political space, but with an extreme religious government it will block both spaces for you. Again, there are two evils. [Morsi] just went too far and he alienated everybody. He alienated the media, the lawmakers, even the people who supported him in the beginning. And suddenly he was left alone only backed up by the extreme jihadists. And that was used as an excuse for exceptional measures afterwards. And now the Muslim Brotherhood again are thinking of themselves. I totally understand what they have gone through, but they did not see it happening, or they saw it and they ignored it, and now we are all paying for this, not just them.
Your show was abruptly pulled off the air on Nov. 1, just minutes before the second episode of the second season was supposed to be broadcast. There was a great deal of speculation that you might have angered the military with your season premiere, or that you might have angered the management of your former network, CBC. What happened?
The official story for that was that the channel pulled us off air because of financial reasons. That’s their side of the story. We don’t understand how this will be grounds because we already delivered the episode as we were supposed to. That would make sense if we did not continue shooting, but they just cut us off. They did not even give us a chance to abide by our side of the contract. Were they being pressured? They said they weren’t. Did the upper circles of power dictate that? There is no proof that this happened. Were the lower circles of power thinking they made favors for the upper circles of power, and they told them to do that and they responded? Maybe. But we don’t know.
So the official story stands that it’s a legal and financial issue, which really doesn’t make sense.
It seems counterintuitive if your show is the most popular in Egypt that there would be any kind of financial impediment to it being aired.
They say we did not honor our agreement, but they had an episode and they did not show it, and then they stopped the program. I don’t know what is their definition of financial issues.
What is the future of your show?
This show represents the hard work of so many people involved in it, and it’s a shame for it to be stopped, so I will do my absolute best to bring it back on air on any other channel. Again, legal-wise I’m not actually allowed to speak further because we are already having legal problems with CBC. So we will see. But hopefully we want to come back on air.
There have been reports that your show could move to the German broadcaster Deutsche Welle. Would you take your show to a non-Egyptian channel?
The news is not true. Deutsche Welle is just one channel who are interested. We have received numerous offers from inside Egypt, from Egyptian channels and Arabic channels based in Egypt, like MBC and Rotana, and we are considering all the offers. But having a German screen be our first run, not the second run, is a little bit iffy, and I don’t think I will go with that. Maybe as a second run. But your primary source has to be an Egyptian or an Arab screen broadcast from inside Media City in Egypt, and we will still have our theater in the middle of Egypt next to Tahrir Square. We cannot change that, even though we were offered much more money. We will not go with that.
What role has the Egyptian media played in the country’s political life since Morsi’s ouster in July?
Many of the Egyptian anchors went to the extreme. The narrative they have been using was quite provocative, inciting more violence and hate. Sometimes you can understand that because some of these people were on a hit list. I was one of those people on a hit list if Morsi would have continued. So maybe they took it on a more emotional level, because everybody went into survival mode. But some of them really took it too hard, and the one thing that really bothers me is the lack of professionalism of these people. I mean, you’re entitled to say whatever opinion you want even if it [angers] a lot of people, but a lot of them are using fake news from Facebook or Twitter, and using fake websites to prove a point. And that’s not honest. That’s my biggest problem with these news outlets.
When you say that you and others were on a hit list, do you mean that you were threatened with physical violence?
There was a list of the names of media people that would have been incarcerated, there actually were orders given by the Ministry of the Interior, but they did not execute the orders to actually round us up and put us in jail. I think there was a list of 21 or 25 names. So you might understand how they’re taking it too hard because again, it’s either us or them, and this is the name of the game right now in Egypt.
Do you ever feel intimidated by your opponents? Do you engage in self-censorship sometimes, or spend much time thinking about what you could and could not put on the air?
There is self-censorship everywhere. Everybody has his own self-censorship. Even during Morsi’s rule, we were very careful about what to put on air because at that time you were dealing with the red line of religion, and a lot of people are very sensitive about religion. Now you are dealing with the red line of the military. People are very sensitive about the red line of the military. It’s not more or less, it’s just different. And you have to understand that we have never been as polarized as now. The thing is, we are trying to make as much sense as possible for the most people. You won’t do it, you will fail most of the time, but you do your best.
It’s difficult times, and maybe it’s the worst time to have a political satire show. It’s not a relaxed, laid-back environment. That hasn’t been there for the past three years. It’s very difficult. You have sectarian violence, you have terrorism, you have street violence, how can you actually make fun of this? That is my greatest challenge. To make people laugh during this. It’s very hard.
You are being honored by the Committee to Protect Journalists tonight with a press freedom award. In a political environment as fraught of Egypt’s, what role do you think comedians play?
Comedy is an incredible secret weapon for people to express themselves in very unusual ways. Maybe it takes the tension out of really tense situations, and makes them rethink their positions through comedy. It’s a very tricky path.
The last three years have been very turbulent for Egypt, since the revolution that overthrew Mubarak. Looking back, what do you think have been the most important lessons from that time?
The most important lessons? That Egypt is totally unpredictable, and if you think you’ve got it figured out you’re wrong. And we are doing a very, very good job being the soap opera of the world. It’s too dramatic. We’re drama queens of the news right now. We’re always in the news.
You have been harshly criticized across the political spectrum since the start of the revolution, but does the criticism you have received since Morsi’s ouster feel different? Did you anticipate that you would find yourself in this position after Morsi fell?
We anticipated that many people would not continue to like us because we knew that we would [anger] a lot of people. But the thing is that we will [anger] extremists on both sides, and it is a very good way to filter out your audience and your fans. But you know what’s the good thing about it is that everybody will still watch you. My approval rating at the time of Morsi was 50/50 and my approval rating after Morsi is still 50/50. The viewership was increasing because everybody watched the program whether they love it or they hate it. It’s very weird. They watch it then to curse us later. It’s a controversial program, and we’re not there to make friends. And a lot of people have understood or thought that we are there to defend their feelings, as if we are their hit men to go and make fun of people they don’t like. We don’t operate this way. We have a product, it’s out there, if you like it you can buy it and if you don’t like it you can just walk away. The thing is they buy it and then hey complain about it later, so you know, it’s not our fault.
