Revolution for Dummies

by Bassem Youssef

  We filed a complaint to the Egyptian media authority, which said they would investigate the incident. Of course they never got back to us.

  The pro-military shows started to host “experts” who hinted that all the dissidents would “disappear” soon, including my show.

  “The people don’t want him anymore,” they would say. By the “people” they meant the regime.

  So far we had been following a conservative strategy. We couldn’t ridicule Sissi directly since he was not president yet. We were careful not to even get him onscreen and make fun of what he was saying while he was in his military uniform. He needed to be out of uniform, and above all he needed to be sworn in for the gloves to come off.

  We were approaching our first break in weeks, a scheduled and much-needed two-week holiday around Easter, away from a very stressful job. As the break swiftly approached, we had a team meeting to decide what to do next.

  Then we got a call. The network asked us to “delay” our return. It seems that they were under a lot of pressure from the authorities. “We need to show goodwill,” they told me. “We want you to come back after the elections are over. We would announce that we did that because we didn’t want to influence the outcome.”

  Of course that was bullshit. Everyone knew the outcome of the elections. There was no way anyone could affect them. Sissi was running “virtually” unopposed. And by unopposed I meant that he was running against a ghost of a candidate. One of the candidates in the previous elections had agreed to run against him, perhaps to give some legitimacy to the whole process. Remember, appearances are all that matter (Jesus—it sounds like we are a heartless pageant mom). If Sissi ran alone it wouldn’t look good in front of the global community. Still, the outcome was a joke: Sissi won by 98 percent of the vote. The “challenger” came in third. Yup, in a two-man race the other candidate came in third when the ballots were counted. There were more disqualified ballots than the ones he got. It was a fucking joke.

  So now we were back and we wrote an incredible episode. I can say that because you will never see it. Actually, no one will. But in my opinion it was one of the most daring and funniest ones we ever wrote. We were breaking so many taboos that I was sure I would end up in jail for it. This time we didn’t hold back. We got Sissi right there with all the pageantry and empty promises. We were in satire heaven.

  Then another phone call came. “Bassem, we are sorry, we have to shut you down.”

  A FAREWELL TO ARMS

  I couldn’t decide how that phone call made me feel. Was it a sense of deep sadness because they were taking away the thing I loved doing, the thing that I succeeded in, and the legacy that I created? Or was I relieved from the horrible stress I was under all the time?

  I couldn’t really decide. I still can’t.

  The show was gone. I was told that the owner of the network received the call from an army general who was running Sissi’s office. He asked if I was coming back to mock Sissi, and the owner told him he didn’t know but it would be very hard to avoid the topic. The general told the network owner that they “don’t prefer” my return. When the owner told him that if the network shut us down, other channels would jump on the opportunity to sign up the most watched show on television. His answer was, “Well, believe me, no other channel will dare to do that.”

  Funny, Americans ended up with a president who bitches and whines about unflattering pictures, mean jokes, and SNL sketches where he’s played by Alec Baldwin; whereas in Egypt it takes a phone call from the president’s secretary to shut down political satire in the whole country.

  Dictators are so thin skinned, aren’t they?

  Now, I could be lying. As a matter of fact, I am making all that up. I am victimizing myself and covering for my failures because I am an attention whore. This is what the Sissi-blind lovers would tell you: “Do you have proof for what you are saying?” Well, I am not in the habit of recording and broadcasting phone calls and private meetings like their beloved authority would do . . . so no. Even if I had gone public with this information at the time, the network would say that I was lying because they would have faced a lot of trouble exposing this story.

  The denial machine was ready: “He was shut down because no one was watching him anymore.”

  “It is a Saudi channel; Egypt had no control over it.”

  “He was paid five million dollars to shut up. He has no principles.”

  Well, Allah knows I wouldn’t be writing this book for the shitty advance HarperCollins gave me if that were the case!

  I was not the only one shut down. I was the last of a long chain of TV hosts who were knocked off the air because they didn’t follow the crowd. But there was always a justification for each one: bad ratings, a false sense of victimization, financial problems with their respective networks. You name it.

  We held a press conference to announce the end of the show. Out of respect for our network we agreed that we wouldn’t talk about what happened between us behind closed doors. It would just get them into too much trouble.

  I went out into that press conference saying that ending the show was a defeat. But it wasn’t a defeat for us, it was a defeat for a regime that was supposed to be more powerful than us. I said that ending the show was a louder message than anything that could have been said. “Message delivered,” I declared.

  We had invited everyone from local and international media. The international media put the story in their headlines while it was ignored locally. One of my researchers who worked closely with a state-run newspaper told me that there were clear orders to ignore that press conference. If it wasn’t reported, it didn’t happen.

  As I took the stage for the last time to speak to the reporters I tried to retain my composure (and smile!). I was quick with my jokes and even threw a couple of indirect punches at Sissi, which everyone applauded. I asked my crew to come onstage for a final photo together.

  After the reporters left I spent over two hours comforting my team. They couldn’t believe the show was over. I tried to joke around with them. We took group photos and selfies. We hugged, giggled, and joked around to make it easier.

  Then everyone left. I was alone in the theater. The security guards told me my car was outside, waiting to take me home. I asked for a couple of minutes. “I need to get something from my dressing room,” I told them. I went backstage for the last time and looked around at those walls that would soon no longer host the show. I went into my dressing room and switched off the lights. And for the next ten minutes I let myself go, and cried.

  A TOXIC BRAND

  Initially, unemployment doesn’t feel that bad. There are no deadlines and no real commitments. I welcomed the stress-free life at first but soon found out that it wasn’t a viable option for somebody who needed to make fun of things.

  Only a few days after I stopped doing the show offers came pouring in from Arabic-speaking channels based in Europe and the United States. There were even serious offers from Muslim Brotherhood–funded channels that were now broadcasting from Turkey to bring back the show on their screens for any figure I asked. These were the same Brotherhood channels that had cursed me day and night and accused me of having blood on my hands. They accused anyone who had criticized Morsi of being an accomplice to the coup and had selective amnesia in terms of their army ass-licking days.

  I couldn’t take this show outside of Egypt. Despite all the craziness that was happening there, I would’ve been looked at as a dissenting fugitive had I gone elsewhere. It didn’t matter how stupid and ridiculous those accusations were. Egypt had proven time and time again that this madness eventually takes its toll on people. For a regime like Sissi’s, it was in their best interest to prop up imaginary enemies all the time to keep people distracted. A satirist fleeing from the country and getting funding from abroad to attack them would be the perfect gift.

  Those were not speculations. The regime actually issued laws that could basically put anyone in jail. One of those laws was t
argeted at anyone who received funding from abroad to get involved in activities that might result in tarnishing the image of the country through spreading false news, incitement of hate, disturbance of the peace, or anything else. “Anything else” was an actual phrase in the law.

  You could be sentenced to life in prison or even executed if it was “proven” that those activities qualified as an act of treason. I could be invited to dinner by a foreign human rights group and that could qualify as my receiving foreign funding, or I could make a joke that could be considered an “embarrassment” to the regime.

  I decided I would not do the show outside the country. After all, was it worth it? I’d had the most popular show in the Arab world. Had it made a difference to the cause? Did it protect me when I was censored? Did it stop the madness? I was just sick and tired of sticking my neck out for no reason. I was a satirist, not a freedom fighter. I know this might not sound very inspiring, but when your own parents still buy into the propaganda no matter what you do, and even some of your extended family members share posts on Facebook accusing you of treason, well, that can make you question a lot of things.

  My fears were confirmed only a few weeks later. I was invited to give the keynote speech at two important conferences in Europe: the Global Media Forum in Bonn and the Oslo Freedom Forum in Norway. I decided that I should have a conservative strategy when I spoke abroad. In no way was I in the mood to confront the regime.

  In Germany I avoided mentioning any specific names and speaking openly about what had happened to me or what was happening in Egypt. I told my interviewers beforehand to avoid asking any confrontational questions and that I would give them what they wanted by speaking indirectly about my situation. It worked. The interviews and the speeches were well executed, and anyone with half a brain would understand exactly what I was talking about.

  Back in Egypt, people with half a brain were pissed enough to make a move. The production company that used to produce the show was raided the next day after my appearance in Germany. The raid occurred under the pretense of someone “using a non-original version of Microsoft Windows software.” A couple of people were arrested and the computers and other equipment confiscated. It should be a crime to use Microsoft Windows in today’s day and age, but not enough to arrest innocent employees!

  Amr, my executive producer, was summoned to the police station. The officer there openly told him that they did what they did because of me. “Let Germany get you out of that trouble,” the officer said. “It’s a warning this time, but if Bassem doesn’t shut up, we will be more severe next time.”

  Amr begged me to let it go. “Every time you speak, it hurts us,” he said.

  I was blackmailed through my friends and family in Egypt. Maybe it was too much trouble to arrest me, but it was easy for the authorities to pressure me through my loved ones. They’d done this before when they arrested Tarek’s family members in order to get to me, so why wouldn’t they do it again?

  A month later, I went on my scheduled trip to Oslo. I didn’t once mention the word Egypt and I actually gave a good speech that served my message without saying anything specific.

  Apparently, I was mistaken. On the way back to Cairo I didn’t realize that this would be the last time I would see my country.

  TO FLEE OR NOT TO FLEE

  All the time while I was doing my show on a different channel and fighting all those fuckers that sucked up to the regime and facing public rage, I had forgotten that I was in the middle of a legal battle.

  When the first channel, CBC, banned my show a year earlier, we went to court to settle that dispute through an arbitration case. Meanwhile, I went to host my final season on MBC until I was banned again, but this time under friendlier conditions, in which the network and the show had mutually consented to end things peacefully. All that time the arbitration case with CBC was going on. This was a commercial arbitration case, so basically it was a game of numbers and figures to decide who breached the contract and who hurt the other party financially. With my limited understanding of the law that was what I thought.

  Well, I thought wrong.

  The final verdict was overdue. Since I had started traveling to Europe and the States to do speaking engagements, the verdict had been delayed and rescheduled more than three times. After my speech in Oslo I was invited to speak in the United States for a number of events. My return to Egypt was to be on the tenth of November. The verdict was delayed further, to be announced on the eleventh. I landed in Cairo on the tenth around midnight and slept. The next day I woke to Tarek’s phone call (he was still a fugitive in Dubai) asking me to be on a conference Skype call in our company’s headquarters in Cairo in an hour. “Bassem, it is important, we need you there. I can’t speak on the phone.”

  So I went to the company with absolutely no clue what was going on.

  I walked into a room full of long faces: the members of the board, the CFO, the media representative, the operational manager, and Tarek on the other side of the call.

  “Bassem, we lost the arbitration,” they told me as I went in. “They slammed us with a one-hundred-million-pound fine and you are obligated to pay half.” The verdict was so skewed that it held me accountable to pay the whole lot if the company defaulted.

  “How could we lose?” I asked.

  “Bassem, it was out of our hands. This verdict was manipulated. It was totally politicized,” the lawyer told me.

  They handed me a page of the verdict that discussed the importance of “national pride” and “how the country should get together to face the imminent dangers,” and how “satirical shows are only fit for advanced countries but in countries like ours such shows are counterproductive and may cause public unrest and disrupt the peace.”

  This was no legal verdict. This was no arbitration decision. This was a page of cheap propaganda. Not only was the verdict unprofessional, but it was an insult to Egyptians in suggesting that we are not mature enough to take a joke.

  “Bassem, you need to leave the country right now,” Sherif, our CFO, told me. “We have taken the liberty to book you a flight to Dubai to be with Tarek. I don’t think it is safe for you here.”

  “But could they arrest me?” I asked.

  “Listen,” the lawyer told me, “under the law and under normal conditions they cannot arrest you or put you on a no-fly list. They can confiscate your assets and that’s it. However, with all the craziness happening here they can arrest you or at least prevent you from traveling under a heavy cover of propaganda. No one will ask complex legal questions. For the masses you are now a convict and the ‘law should be respected.’”

  “Your flight is in four hours. I suggest you pack,” Sherif said abruptly.

  For the next four hours I was in a state of shock. I can’t even remember what I did and how I did it. I stopped by my dad’s to tell him I was fleeing the country. He also was in shock, but I only had a few minutes for a final good-bye. There was no time to see my brother, so I told Dad to fill him in. Just like that, the time with my father was over.

  I went back home and asked my wife to help me pack whatever I could get into two suitcases. I had to explain to her what was happening while I frantically threw stuff in my suitcases. It was a terrible feeling. Why should I be the one escaping in the middle of the night like a drug dealer or a corrupt politician? All I did was make jokes.

  My wife was unusually calm. She was just too cool for all of what was happening. When I asked her about this she said, “Well, at least you are not being arrested or shot. Many of the people we know now are in prison or even shot in the middle of a demonstration. Traveling is temporary, I can deal with that.”

  Sometimes you remember all the awesome reasons that made you fall in love with your wife. That was one of those moments.

  “Are you sure you didn’t forget anything?” she asked me as I was rushing out the door.

  “With that frantic packing? I am dead sure I forgot a lot,” I answered jokingly.

>   Thank god my three-year-old daughter was too young to understand all of this.

  Abbas, my old friend, came with me to the airport. He wanted to be there to ask for assistance in case I was arrested.

  Was my name already on the list? Would they let me fly? I didn’t know what to expect. The verdict had come out only a few hours earlier.

  Remember how I started this story, this book? Me in a car wondering if I would be able to get on that plane? Well, by the grace of some benevolent being, I got on it.

  I headed to Dubai. When I landed there, social media was already buzzing about the verdict. The usual propaganda websites and state-run networks were describing me as a fugitive who had escaped a legal verdict. A regular comic on the run.

  WATCHING THE CRAZINESS FROM A DISTANCE

  In the two years since I left Egypt, things haven’t gotten better. Thousands of people have been incarcerated for the most trivial reasons. Hundreds have been tortured on a daily basis in police stations. Others have been killed.

  You would think that there would be some sort of stability on the surface at least. You know, the kind of fake stability military dictatorships have. But even economically the army was running the country into the ground. They were basically milking the shit out of it, changing laws, basking in the corruption that is protected by their military status. Every day, people woke up to a new business taken by the army.

  The regime was telling us that no matter what happens, we are still better than Syria and Iraq. They were the new boogeymen now.

  But we were actually turning into Syria or Iraq, without any outside military interference or an inside civil war. The military supporters still lack any thoughts resembling logic. They are part of the same echo chamber you’d find yourself in if you attended a Trump rally: “Everyone is conspiring against us. They are out to get us, they hate us for our freedoms.” Even when Sissi visited Germany and the media there grilled him for all the human rights violations, Egyptian media accused the German media of being funded by Islamists!