Revolution for Dummies

by Bassem Youssef

  Many of my “liberal” friends turned fascist overnight and actually believed the bullshit the military was pushing. There is something very interesting about becoming a fascist. It turns you instantly into a dumbass. The same educated people who’d traveled the world and called for freedom and liberalism and opposed the fascist agenda of the Islamists had now turned into what they were attacking for the past couple of years.

  Egyptians who’d lived for decades in the United States believed that America was conspiring against Egypt because they had initially objected to the removal of Morsi by the military. Don’t worry, though, they still honorably paid taxes to the federal government that was conspiring against their motherland in a classic example of “double think.”

  Egypt was now living out a George Orwellian reality; it was as if we were living inside the pages of a poorly written 1984.

  After four months of enforced curfew, we came back to the theater to prepare for our return.

  The first meeting with my team was different from anything we’d had before. It revealed how schizophrenic our society had become. All of the members of my team came from homes where their parents had turned into pro-military fascists. Anything less than absolute support for the army, absolute love of Sissi, and absolute hate against anyone else was unacceptable. Some of my young producers and researchers were having trouble coming back to the show because their parents were forbidding them to speak against Sissi. There was clearly a generation gap. Their parents were the ones who’d lived under the persecution of Nasser and knew firsthand what living under a military dictatorship looked like. Now the same people were supporting the same model of the benevolent military dictator. One would think that they would have learned something from their life experience.

  I retold Stewart’s advice about just writing what we felt. If we felt that we were afraid or had nothing to say, we should talk about that. We should all expect that we would lose a lot of our popularity but at least we would be true to ourselves. They understood my message and were on board.

  With only four days left till our comeback, I received a call from a number I didn’t recognize. I didn’t reply at first but then checked the number against a caller ID service. It gave me the name “Muhamed Mukhabarat.” For the record Mukhabarat in Arabic means “intelligence.” This was like seeing “Mike Laundry” or “John Electrician” or “Paul FBI” or, for those who can’t remember who they took home last night, “Mark Sexy Bartender” on your caller ID.

  The number called again and this time I answered.

  “Hello, am I speaking to Dr. Bassem Youssef?”

  “Yes, sir, who is it?”

  “It’s Mohamed—from the General Intelligence Agency,” he replied.

  “Are you guys arresting me?”

  He giggled on the other side. “No, no, no, we are big fans. I just want to meet you and have some coffee with you.”

  “It would be an honor, sir, would next week be okay?”

  “Oh no, we really need to meet as soon as possible, before your comeback episode. You are coming back onscreen in two days, right?”

  “You are not asking, are you? It would be a shame if you didn’t know,” I added jokingly.

  “Oh my god, you are hilarious! Exactly like you are on TV. So tomorrow at two?”

  “Of course, I will be waiting for you at the theater,” I said. As if I had a choice.

  At two o’clock sharp he was there. It was nice to know that these people were at least punctual. He gave me his ID card, which read GENERAL INTELLIGENCE AGENCY, HEAD OF THE COMMITTEE OF DIRECTING MEDIA. Now that’s a title!

  But was that actually his job? To “direct” media? There’s no way he could be a true director; he wasn’t even wearing a baseball cap and tennis shoes!

  He knew what I was thinking because he said, “Please ignore the title. We believe in free press. We never tell people what to do or say.”

  “Of course you don’t,” I replied.

  For the first half hour we talked about general things. He knew (of course) that I played a lot of sports, so he shared stories of his sports days too. Then I just had to cut to the chase. “Not to be rude, sir, but what do you guys want from me?”

  “We are here just to get to know each other. We wanted you to know that we like your work and we will be supporting you in anything you need.”

  I didn’t quite understand, so he continued.

  “As you know, Dr. Bassem, Egypt is going through very critical times. We wanted to make sure that we would be on the same page when it comes to national security.” (“Critical times” and “national security” were always used by authorities in Egypt as a polite way to tell people to shut the fuck up.)

  “Errrr, I don’t know what you mean, exactly?” I said.

  “Well, we just want you to include us whenever you are going to speak about something sensitive so we would give you the best advice.”

  “Do you mean that you want to interfere with my content?”

  “Oh, god no.” He paused and then added in a low, firm voice, “But just to let you know, Sissi is very popular. I am not telling you not to make fun of him, but the masses wouldn’t like that. That’s all.”

  I understood the message. This visit had opened my eyes to how media were “directed” in Egypt. There were different levels of media faces. There were the lowlife scum who received direct orders about what to say onscreen, but for the more “prestigious” and “respected” anchors, it was different.

  There was an ongoing urban legend that said that each anchor had his own liaison officer either from the army, the intelligence service, or our own version of the NSA. This officer would basically be the “close confidant” of that anchor. The two would simply have occasional “casual” conversations about what was happening in the country and the world. For the anchor, this was a great relationship to maintain, because he now had an inside scoop. For the officer, he could slowly brainwash the anchor into believing whatever he wanted him to believe.

  Even if the anchor was not totally sold on the officer’s stories, he would prefer to play it safe and stay on the good side of the authorities while justifying to himself that he was “serving his country.”

  So I wanted to test this theory with that guy. I asked him about all the bullshit conspiracies I had been hearing on television. He enthusiastically confirmed every shitty piece of “intel,” and then added even more crazy stuff. So this was my liaison officer. I was supposed to repeat that shit on my show. It was no surprise that he stopped calling after the episode aired.

  PISS THE NATION

  OCTOBER 25, 2013

  I can’t remember a time when I was more terrified, and we had been living in terrifying times. I was in my dressing room making small talk with the hairdresser and the makeup lady, but I wasn’t really aware of what the hell I was saying. My mouth and tongue were making the movements while I was totally disconnected from reality.

  It had been four months since I was last onstage. I didn’t know what was waiting for me out there. What kind of a crowd would it be? Would there be angry people willing to boo me if I made jokes about the current regime? What were they expecting from me? Crew members passed by me all day and patted me on the back and said, “Good luck, Bassem,” which, to me, sounded like Dude, you are doomed.

  I took a few strides to the backstage area and waited. I was contemplating calling the whole thing off. Maybe I could come down with a bad case of diarrhea. Wouldn’t that be a way to escape? I stood there thinking about how people would look back at my time on television: Well, he was this hilarious guy, really good at hosting his show—but then he had one epic shit and his career was all over . . . Thankfully it was too late for me to rewrite my destiny: I heard the credits, the opening music, and then the countdown in my earpiece. In slow motion, I took the stage and the people cheered. Then for a moment that felt like eternity, I was silent. I went with Jon’s advice and decided to tell them what I felt, and by doing that I tapped into w
hat everyone was feeling in that moment.

  I went into a monologue that echoed everything that was going on in the country. Every single phrase that was running across people’s lips, every fear and doubt, every suspicion and frustration that entered into our minds. I put into words the torn reality we were all living—a mishmash of conflicting emotions and opposing thoughts. It’s like how you in America on any given day will throw out phrases like minimum wage, police brutality, Black Lives Matter, Obamacare, iPhone’s wireless headphones, and Trump is an asshole. But my rant was the rant of a scared, terrified man. A man who was broken and not sure what to do next. That was the state of the country and people connected with it.

  At that time no one was allowed to show confusion or have second thoughts. There was a set of rules you needed to follow in the media, and if you didn’t you would be crushed. How could you show confusion in this time of war? The only accepted narrative was: it was a revolution—don’t even think the word coup—and everyone is conspiring against us.

  Yet I went on to joke about whether what had happened was a coup or a revolution. Questioning that at that time proved later to be very costly. The word coup was considered blasphemous.

  For the first time we didn’t make fun of the Islamists. I directed my sarcasm at the “liberal” media now. I always felt it was my job to keep whoever was in power in check—and even though these people used to root for me and against the Islamists back in the day, they were now the ones fueling hate and racism. On that night whatever friends or supporters I had in the media were lost.

  The popularity of Sissi was soaring. Criticizing him was considered career suicide. People celebrated the fact that Sissi’s photo was on everything: gold chains, wedding gifts, and even pants sold in the flea market. Shit, they even had his face on cupcakes and chocolates so you could bite his head off. We came up with the slogan: “A taste that is irresistible, you can’t resist it, even if you wanted to, resistance is futile!” So instead of criticizing his new, god-like status, we embraced it and even asked for more. Sarcasm is a blessing in disguise.

  The episode finally came to an end. This was one of the most intense days I had ever been through. When I went home and collapsed in my bed and tried to fall asleep, I received a very disturbing call. It was Tarek.

  “They arrested my dad,” he said.

  One hour after we finished taping, the police had gone to his house and arrested his father on charges of “hate incitement” and “funding terrorist activities.”

  His father was sixty-seven with a heart condition and diabetes and he seldom left the house. Although an Islamist, he’d instructed all his family members that no one was to go to the Islamists’ sit-in.

  Of course the charges were a bunch of bullshit but he was detained anyway.

  His lawyer told Tarek that someone in the prosecutor’s office had told him that these were bullshit charges but they came from high above to pressure me.

  Tarek had been living this ongoing Greek tragedy since my show started. It was not just that his dad was angry at him because of my show during the Morsi era. Tarek’s brother, who joined Morsi’s staff, was arrested the day they arrested Morsi. Tarek’s father kicked Tarek out of the house, blaming him for what happened.

  For the next year and a half, Tarek’s brother and father remained in jail for no apparent reason, under no logical charge, until they were released because of health problems.

  Tarek was lucky enough to be in Dubai when his father was arrested. He never came home to Egypt because he was afraid that he would be arrested just because of the association with his family. A year later I would be escaping from Egypt to join him.

  THE MORNING AFTER

  It was the Saturday morning after the comeback episode was aired. I went for my morning run at the Gezira Club, the upper-class venue full of army supporters I told you about. I didn’t know what to expect. Twitter and social media were buzzing all night with reactions to the episode. There was a general sense of confusion. It was the first time in four months that someone in mainstream media had been anything other than a total asswipe for Sissi. Ultra-pro-Sissi people on social media didn’t lash out at me yet. They were more disappointed because I hadn’t just come out and made fun of the Islamists as they were used to me doing previously. They wanted me to be “more supportive of the nation as we were fighting terrorism.”

  On the other extreme, Islamists were attacking me because I hadn’t made enough fun of Sissi.

  But a good majority of the Internet comments were actually celebrating the episode. Many people were waiting to see if I would have the balls to say anything about the current regime. The hidden jokes, the insinuations, and the innuendos I’d made might be much more subtle than my “in your face” remarks during the Morsi era, but given the mass hysteria, many of those silenced by the new regime considered that episode a lifeline.

  Going to the club the next day was my first encounter with the real world after the episode. People began to notice me, and many waved and flashed a thumbs-up sign. Okay, this is going well! People actually came over and approached me as I was warming up. “We are proud of you,” they said. “We didn’t expect any less of you.”

  I was pleasantly surprised. There were people of all ages—young, middle aged, and even a handful of older people—who came to tell me how delighted they were with the episode. However, I couldn’t please everyone. Some older people in their fifties and sixties weren’t very happy, and they wanted to make sure I knew it. They were still cordial, but expressed their disappointment in how “out of line” I was.

  In general it was a good morning, but things were about to change.

  That night, the talk-show cycle in which I was the main topic of conversation began. Many of the hosts viciously attacked me, saying that I was “insulting the army” and “insulting Egypt.” The phone lines were open on many of these shows so people could freely curse me.

  Over the next two days it got worse, much worse. There was nothing else in the media but people attacking me. A week later one of the programs that specialized in reviewing the press discovered an interesting statistic. In just one week there were more than 740 articles written about me and that “rogue” episode.

  One article suggested that I was a “mole” planted in Egypt a long time ago. The author of the article, who was a parliament member with known ties to the army, said that I was chosen by the CIA to be trained by Jon Stewart to use satire to destroy the country! To make the story look credible, the author stated that the CIA officers were training me in a certain apartment in one of Cairo’s districts, and he even gave the address of the place. That was the address of our production company! If Jon was the CIA’s pick as a recruiter, America would’ve been in deep shit a long time ago.

  It was insane. There was an elaborate spread in the pages of one popular newspaper with more than twelve articles focused just on me. Half of them ripped me apart and the rest were either mild in their defense or reminded people that I was the same guy they carried on their shoulders a few weeks ago, when my jokes were appropriate enough.

  Suddenly, my jokes became a threat to the values of the “Egyptian Family.” My bleeped “profanity” under the Islamist regime was celebrated as a form of resistance, but now everyone was a fucking prude. The shift in public opinion led by the obviously biased media was now becoming apparent. I went back to the club just a few days later; the same people who’d politely disagreed with me one day after the episode were more aggressive when they spoke to me now. The episode they had watched seemed to have morphed in their minds into some sick exorcism. The media were succeeding in making me out to be a monster. “You can’t insult the army,” they would say. I would ask them how I had insulted the army but no one could answer. It was the same thing that had happened months earlier, when pious Muslims accused me of insulting Islam but when I asked them what exactly I had said to insult Islam, they couldn’t answer.

  My network issued a statement distancing it
self from the content of the episode. The statement said that the network couldn’t be part of something that would “insult and degrade the foundations of the nation and the general manners of the public.” Motherfuckers!

  They basically threw me under the bus. Despite the fact that the network’s owner had, during our last episode, been sitting right there in the front row, giggling, clapping, and howling at every joke.

  Now the owner sent the manager of the network and one of his prominent anchors to talk with me.

  “The owner wants to know if you thought the thirtieth of June a revolution or a coup,” they said.

  I felt that I had traveled back in time to the Spanish Inquisition. “Why is this important?” I asked.

  “This is the most important issue here,” they answered. “If you think it was a revolution, many of our differences could be resolved easily, but if you think it is a coup, that would be a fundamental difference.”

  Of course I had to say it was a revolution; at least part of me was still believing that it was at that time. But I really didn’t like the fact that it had to be pressured out of me like this.

  I told them that what they did issuing that statement was totally out of line. It was a stab in the back.

  “Oh yes, about that, the owner doesn’t want you to speak about this statement,” they said.

  “Hell no, you fucked me in front of the whole nation, I will be opening the next episode with that,” I answered angrily.

  “He will not be very happy,” they said.

  “Well, he knew what he was getting into when he signed me a year ago,” I answered.

  So . . . that didn’t go very well, but things were getting even worse right outside my theater.

  Protestors gathered there for the next three days. They were burning my photos; they were cursing me and my family; they were accusing me of the usual shit of being an operative and a spy.