Cairo: Set to launch a new season of his popular show, Egypt’s top TV satirist Bassem Yousuf faces a daunting challenge and he knows this.
Yousuf, dubbed Egypt’s John Stewart, is due to appear on Friday night on a private TV station to host his show “Al Bernameg” (The Programme) after a hiatus of more than four months.
His return comes more than three months after the army deposed president Mohammad Mursi of the Muslim Brotherhood. Yousuf has built much of his fame on mocking Mursi’s policy and public behaviour much to the chagrin of Islamists, who filed dozens of legal complaints against the satirist.
Earlier this year, Yousuf, a former heart surgeon, was questioned for allegedly defaming Islam and showing disrespect to Mursi, Egypt’s first democratically elected president. He was released on bail.
The case was closed after Mursi’s ouster. But Yousuf is aware that the road ahead is full of pitfalls.
“Supporters of Al Sisi meet me and in a pre-emptive strike tell me warningly, ‘Don’t talk about Al Sisi [on the show]’,” Yousuf says, referring to the widely popular army chief Abdel Fattah Al Sisi, who led Mursi’s toppling.
“Those people were the same ones, who eagerly awaited Al Bernameg to flay Mursi. They used to meet me after the episodes to tell me, ‘You were too soft on him’,”Yousuf wrote this week in the independent newspaper Al Shorouk.
“When I remind them of this, they would make the same argument made by the Brotherhood that it is inept to hurl sarcastic remarks or this will hurt ‘our image in the world’s eyes’...The truth is that there is no tolerance either from the Brotherhood or those who call themselves liberals. Everyone is looking for a tailor-made pharaoh,” adds Yousuf.
Several petition campaigns are under way in Egypt to coax Al Sisi into running for president. The 59-year-old general has kept open the possibility of contesting the next year’s presidential elections by saying in a recent press interview that “God’s will is to prevail”.
Hundreds of leading Islamists, including Mursi himself, have been detained in the past three months allegedly for inciting violence against opponents. More than 1,000 people have been killed in Egypt since Mursi’s overthrow in street clashes involving his backers, opponents and security forces.
Yousuf admits that the frequent bloodletting in the country will cast a pall on his show. “How can we produce a satirical and comic show when bloodshed dominates the talk of the morning and the evening? How can we make the people laugh when their daily life is overshadowed by talk about terrorism, fear and killing?”
During Mursi’s one-year-old presidency, Yousuf’s show survived several bids by Islamists to take it off air. “Al Sisi’s lovers use the same terminology, which Mursi’s lovers previously used. They will not tolerate a word on Al Sisi. Their advocacy of freedom and democracy will stop the minute they are irked by the joke that drew their applause when it was cracked against the Brotherhood,” Yousuf says. “In the past, Islamists took me to the prosecutor-general. I may see him again soon, but this time at the hands of the people who claim to love freedom a lot!”
Yousuf rose to renown through YouTube videos during a 2011 revolt that deposed Mursi’s predecessor, Hosni Mubarak.
His popularity widened after he started presenting his show on the private ONTV and later on CBC.
Earlier this year, The Time magazine picked Yousuf, 39, among the world’s most influential 100 people.
