This was the state the country was in. A fucking puppet taken in for interrogation. We tried to get the puppet on the show again, but when I invited the creators onto the show, they told me that they couldn’t. The lawyer had advised them not to make any public appearances. This shit was real.
Vodafone pulled its TV ad, which was only one ad out of many that were targeted, and it was one company out of many, like Pepsi and Lay’s chips and other telecommunications and car companies, who started to have their share of weird accusations. Every slogan was a code; every commercial sound bite became suspicious.
We did the episode anyway, without hosting the puppet. Instead we showed how every commercial was distorted to force people to live in constant fear. To show people the hilarity of targeting those companies, we made a fake commercial ourselves and started to strip away the commentary, the graphics, the music, the sound, until nothing was left. This was the Egypt they wanted: boring and predictable—like a group of brainwashed grandmas eating bowls of oatmeal.
You might think that this “conspiracy” stuff had no effect on regular people. Well, mostly it didn’t. Away from television screens people can see through the bullshit.
But there was one thing I saw that triggered us to talk about this nonsense. A military helicopter was gunned down by terrorists in Sinai, about five hours outside Cairo, and four officers were killed. At the funeral and in front of the cameras a wife of one of the officers screamed at the crowd, “They killed my husband, they want to destroy the country. Get them, arrest them, those traitors who help the terrorists. The likes of Auntie Fajita should be brought to justice.”
This sounds like what would be a hilarious scene from Trey Parker and Matt Stone's Team America, but here no one was laughing.
THE SUPER-CANDIDATE
Sissi finally decided to run for dictator-in-chief. The people who’d shied away from the word coup were now proudly telling us, “Yeah, it’s a coup and we like it; it’s a dictatorship but we need it.” But when people like us, who openly opposed Sissi, called it a military dictatorship, we in turn were called traitors. Many people lost their jobs in the media for merely suggesting what we all knew deep down to be true.
The religious authorities in the Coptic Church and Al-Azhar Mosque were already giving their official seal of holiness on Sissi.
High-ranking Muslim scholars in Al-Azhar made parallels between Sissi and some of the Prophet Muhammad’s disciples, and sometimes they elevated him to the same level as prophets.
“When Sissi visited the church, it was like Jesus himself came,” the head of the Coptic Church said.
“Sissi is mentioned in the Old Testament, the signs are clear,” another priest said.
The Grand Pope of the Coptic Church sent his priests to America when Sissi was visiting the UN to herd the Copts there to rally in solidarity with Sissi, to show America how much he was loved. Most of the Copts who came out had been living in America for decades after filing for political asylum due to religious persecution under the military regime. The same regime they were supporting now. The same military that crushed those twenty-six Christians in front of the TV building only a couple of years ago.
Stockholm syndrome much?
What is wrong with us Egyptians, seriously!
At that time Sissi’s pictures were plastered everywhere. On bridges, covering buildings, on cars. It is said that the number and size of a leader’s photo are inversely proportional to the freedom of a certain country.
One paper had his photo with the headline: CHRIST THE SAVIOR. Isn’t it cool to have a president who, if assassinated, can rise from the grave three days later?
You would think that any self-respecting media figure would criticize the fact that we were turning a blind eye to what was happening. Hell no. As a matter of fact, one of the most popular talk-show hosts admitted that he had no problem whatsoever with the deteriorating state of the country under Sissi. “Yes, I was on Morsi’s case when we had power cuts and economic meltdowns. But under Sissi I am willing to ignore this because we support him for a much higher cause. Morsi wanted to sell off the country, he was a traitor. But Sissi is a patriot. We are willing to withstand the harsh economic conditions under him.”
Out of nowhere, serious television anchors and talk shows were hosting mystical readers and fortune tellers to talk about the signs laid out by the Zodiac. According to these whack jobs, Sissi was going to be the next president. Considering everything that was happening in the country, you really didn’t need any special skills to tell you that he was the president already. Hours and hours of footage were spent on these fame seekers out there to tell us about the “signs.” One of them claimed that Sissi was mentioned in an old parchment that was three thousand years old.
The young people who were once at the front line of the revolution were now the black sheep of the pack. The same anchors who earlier had hosted those young people on their shows and glorified the “new young Egypt that was reborn in the hands of these young people” were now openly attacking the youth, asking for the old and senile to rule us because the young just fucked up. A particular journalist who’d been on the front line of the revolution and who pushed for young people to take over was now openly contemptuous of the youth, calling them stupid and in need of proper reform. The same journalist who’d criticized the military for adopting the conspiracy theory talk became one of the regime mouthpieces promoting the idea that the young people were used as tools in those conspiracies.
I couldn’t help but recall when the owner of my old channel told me that Egypt didn’t need me anymore. Following the media, it seemed that Egypt didn’t need its young people either. After all, the “Savior” was here. The regime announced that there would be elections and Sissi announced that he would be running an actual campaign. But it was a campaign that didn’t really campaign for anything. He didn’t need to. There was no program, no plan, and no fucks given.
“He doesn’t need to promise us anything, he is enough”—this was an actual statement from a talk-show host.
“How dare you ask the president for a program? He doesn’t need us, we need him,” another host said.
I was playing these videos on my show and people were laughing. But in the media I was accused of ridiculing Egypt’s only hope. Maybe I was harsh? Maybe I shouldn’t have associated Sissi with his groupies? Maybe I was wrong? I might have thought so if he himself hadn’t gone into an interview saying, “I didn’t want to run. The masses asked me to. They pressured me to do it. You can’t come now to ask me for any promises. I have none.”
The trickery of his language was absurd. Making it sound like he was some hapless man on the street whom the people just happened to propel through the ranks because he was such a martyr for them was insane. He bullied his way into this position of power and now he was acting like someone who forcefully fucked you in the ass and demanded that you be thankful. And somehow the people were fucking thankful! I was beside myself with disbelief.
Two years later I was at a Trump rally in a little town in Georgia. The mayor of the town was at the podium warming up the people for the arrival of the Donald. He was shouting and cheering, but he said one thing that brought back those painful memories of Sissi’s absurd campaign. He said, “If Donald Trump didn’t do anything but build this wall would you still vote for him?” And the people just roared.
With Sissi, he didn’t even promise us a fucking wall.
Sure, we still had our interim president, but he was like a ghost. Even for social events that were held under the auspice of the interim president, women came up to recite poetry calling Sissi the future “groom” of Egypt.
These women, who were supposed to be poised and respectful, were dancing outside polling stations chanting Sissi’s name and carrying his picture like he was Justin Bieber or some other teenage heartthrob. At the same time they were sticking their tongues out at their own children for “beating” them and proving them wrong. Many of those women turned in
to hateful, horny fifth-grade bullies.
It was a mystery to me how hate, fear, and absolute infatuation could coexist. Then I read this passage from 1984 that explained why members of the Party were allowed to get married only when the Party had proof that there was absolutely no sexual attraction between the couple involved:
When you make love you’re using up energy; and afterwards you feel happy and don’t give a damn about anything. They can’t bear you feel like that. They want you to be bursting with energy all the time. All that marching up and down and cheering and waving flags is simply sex gone sour. If you are happy inside yourself, why should you get excited about Big Brother and the Three-Year Plans and the Two Minutes Hate and the rest of their bloody rot?
So, as Orwell said, there is an intimate connection between chastity and political orthodoxy.
Could all those women have miserable sex lives?
If so, it seemed that all of their sexual frustration was being directed toward the biggest love of the country. It didn’t matter if what he said in the interviews didn’t make sense or some of his solutions were comical. His lovers saw a superhero, whom we were blessed to have. Faith trumps reason. After all, Sissi was the Savior.
Maybe my idea needed to be expanded. We needed male prostitutes wearing Sissi masks to come and secretly pleasure the women into a reason-inducing stupor. Then and only then would the country be ready for a true democracy.
But again, Jesus only walked on water and raised the dead. Our Savior did much more. He cured AIDS!
Don’t worry, I’ll explain.
WE’VE GOT AIDS!!!
Ultranationalism is a lovely state of mind. It makes you believe that you are the greatest nation on earth. It can drive poor and crushed masses into believing that they are the chosen ones out of billions of people. It can make millions believe that you have defeated the United States of America’s Sixth Fleet in the Mediterranean and captured their commander while Obama screamed uncle (yes, more of that still to come).
And it can also, magically, cure AIDS.
It was a cold February morning. Writers and producers were in the office discussing the backlash we faced from last week’s episode; the fact that we made fun of Sissi’s campaign tactics (which could be summarized as “we really don’t need a campaign”) caused numerous writers and talk shows to unleash their wrath on the show. I mean, how dare we take his pseudo-campaign lightly?
The team settled down and had the usual chat about our previous episode. Now we had a sensitive issue to tackle.
Sissi had just visited Russia. But it was hardly just a visit to share a vodka toast with Putin. The propaganda machine talked about that visit as if we were still in the Cold War. Our TV had 1960s propaganda all over it. If we had black-and-white TV sets we would expect Elvis to pop up. Except now we had an Egyptian Elvis, alive and kicking and wearing black Ray-Bans and posed with Putin for pictures to show Obama that we were moving on.
“Obama is having a nervous breakdown right now,” one TV host said.
“According to American newspapers, Obama will shoot himself in the head after Sissi’s visit to Russia.” That was a headline of a major Egyptian newspaper.
Such was the narrative of our media. According to them, Obama was hoisting a huge boom box outside of Sissi’s window blasting Peter Gabriel’s captivating, imploring “In Your Eyes.”
In America I saw Trump supporters adoring Putin and drawing parallels between him and Trump. I saw it in Egypt way before that.
The narrative of our episode was taking shape. We now knew the kinds of videos we would use. But this time we were really talking about sensitive issues: arms deals, international relations, and refuting the fact that Obama was having a crying fit in the West Wing restroom.
We were once again taking a risk by ridiculing Sissi and his image as conqueror of the world, which was considered by the authorities a national security issue. He was untouchable.
WE WERE STRUGGLING WITH THE SECOND SEGMENT. WE WERE trying to make a mundane education bit work, but there was a lack of decent material and we were really forcing it.
Hend, my producer, rushed into the office. “Bassem, you have to come and see this.”
We went out to the hall, where the TV screen was broadcasting a huge press conference. Every single person in that conference was in military attire.
Did we just declare war? No, it was a ceremony to launch a new military hospital.
Another achievement by the army. Interim President Adly Mansour and the de facto president and defense minister, Sissi, were there. It seemed they had just been notified of the discovery of the century and had left the ceremony for the people in charge to announce the amazing news.
An older man in military uniform with a general’s rank on his shoulders started to talk. Once he opened his mouth we all had a feeling that he had the air of a hustler or, at best, a con artist who made his way selling junkers at a shady used-car lot. He was introduced as General Dr. Abdel Atti.
He started by stating the fact that Egypt has one of the highest rates of hepatitis C infection in the world. But now we have the cure, he said.
“We have named it CCD. Complete Cure Device.”
The pun was quite obvious. CC invoked Sissi. How tacky could you get? But oh, it got even better. “This device will cure patients of hepatitis C in a mere few days,” Atti said.
Seriously? The most chronic disease known to our country would be cured just like that?
“By June thirtieth there will be no more patients of hepatitis C in Egypt,” he announced.
The promised date had no relation to the date denoting the anniversary of Morsi being ousted by the army. It was a mere coincidence . . . of course!
“I can also say confidently that this device cures AIDS,” Atti continued.
There was a most daunting silence in our hallway as we watched while army generals clapped at that marvelous announcement.
“You see, the AIDS virus is a much weaker virus than hepatitis C virus. If we can cure hepatitis, AIDS is just a piece of cake.”
I had to take a seat as I was watching this; it was too much.
“The DNA of hepatitis C is quite similar to HIV,” he continued. “That is why our device can work on both viruses. Our device destroys the virus completely in the patient’s bloodstream. Now we have free protein DNA floating into the patient’s blood. As you know, viruses are made of protein. This free protein nourishes the patient and brings his health back very quickly. It is as if we took the virus away from the patient and returned it to him in the form of a kabab sandwich.”
The entire hallway erupted in laughter. Was he trying to be funny or was he trying to give us a heart attack?
“Patients who undergo the treatment are forbidden from eating meat because we are afraid that they will be overloaded with protein. Instead we make them run around the track to burn the extra protein. That is why our patients who get treated with that machine are not emaciated and wasted like other hepatitis and AIDS patients. They are very healthy and gain some muscle mass during the treatment.”
Our segment of the week just wrote itself.
I started to assign tasks to the producers and writers and went into my office to recollect my thoughts. Minutes later, Hend came in.
“There is a sort of mutiny in the office,” she said with a big smile. “Some of the producers don’t want to go with the segment.”
I went into the editorial room right in the middle of a heated discussion. “What’s wrong, people?” I asked.
“We don’t think we should do this segment,” my team said.
“But why?” I asked.
Their answers showed me how effective propaganda can be even in the place that is fighting it.
“They are too confident,” one producer said. “I know the whole thing sounds stupid. But Bassem, this is . . . the army. They will never announce something like this without being a hundred percent sure.”
Many agreed with her.
/> “What if we made a big deal out of it and then it turned out to be true? We will look really bad then; plus, the army never lies,” another producer said.
The army never lies . . . just shows how deep this brainwashing can run.
“I just got off the phone with my parents,” a third producer offered. “One of our relatives is infected with hepatitis C. He is very happy with the army invention and can’t wait to begin the treatment in a few months. When I told them we are going to talk about it in the show, my parents were furious. They shouted at me, saying, ‘Don’t you even mention the army in your show. This is the army, they can’t be wrong.’”
We were not making fun of desperate Sissi lovers anymore. We were not satirizing the hysteria that made people believe that Sissi was as infallible as a medieval pope. If we did this segment we would be making fun of men in uniform. For Egyptians that was unforgivable.
I brought the discussion to a halt. “Okay guys, I don’t want you to think of me as Bassem the TV host. Now I am Bassem the doctor. Let me talk to you about viruses.”
For the following thirty minutes, I used a whiteboard to explain what a virus is, what its life cycle is, and why the army’s “achievement” was absolute nonsense. They seemed convinced and went back to work. But I knew that this would not be the end of it. My nineteen years of medical education didn’t go to waste, see.
The next two days we were pinned in front of our monitors collecting material about the new “invention.” It seemed there were actually two devices: a system for diagnosis and a system for treatment. The treatment device was, as I said, appropriately named CCD: Complete Cure Device. This looked like a miserable school project—a makeshift ATM that was executed quite badly. The “general” who made the announcement earlier posed proudly next to it with other members of the team. He explained how this device worked like a dialysis machine: the blood of the patient passed through the machine, and voilà!, it came out free of the viruses.
General Abdel Atti, now identified as the head of the research team, became the star of all the prime-time talk shows. He explained that this machine contained two “elements” with hidden secrets from the days of the pharaohs, which were able to purify the blood of the viruses.
Revolution for Dummies Page 18
