Political Satire


Laugh As Long As It’s Allowed to Do So……. 


“Laugh before laughing gets expensive as well”, it’s an old Egyptian proverb to make fun of the high prices of pretty much everything. So, the only thing left without being so expensive is laughter. But is that really the case nowadays?!!!

 
It seems that laughter can get you in so much trouble. We are having a crisis when it comes to the freedom of speech & the freedom of expression.

 
It all started 3 years ago when people took to the streets to topple Hosni Mubarak in 2011. Many, many youths were hoping for a better Egypt - one where they could express their points of view freely without fear of discrimination. Many dreamed, and believed, that they could make that dream come true; but the many lies, and propaganda as usual, in the media made it difficult.  Simply, it was time for someone to start making fun of all that awkwardness & contradiction in the mainstream media. A satire show started on a YouTube channel by an Egyptian physician named Bassem Youssef. It was called the B+ show.

 
It was so lighthearted and hilarious, yet so profound and to the point. The whole idea behind it was that it represented the ‘jaw drop’, the state of confusion the ordinary Egyptian citizen goes through while watching the news on the corporate media channels. He gained so much prominence and ended up having a big audience.

 
Later that year, in August 2011, Youssef joined a private Egyptian TV station called On TV.
His new TV had a news name  ( El Bernameg ) simply meaning " The Show". The very first episode of the 1st season was on the first day of the month of Ramadan.

 




Youssef mocked local politicians and other prominent figures. He became both a voice and comedic outlet for the pro-democracy activists who felt marginalized by the country's increasingly authoritarian politics.

 
By the end of 2012, Youssef joined another private Egyptian TV station called CBC. In time, he started being pressured to cancel or delay broadcasts several times and, at one point, he was the subject of a criminal investigation as Egypt's public prosecutor had opened an investigation into Youssef for insulting Mursi, who was president at the time.

Last year when  Jon Stewart  was in Cairo and appeared on Bassem’s show, he said:


 “If your regime is not strong enough to handle a joke, then you don't have a regime” 


After the ouster of Mursi last year, on July 3rd, 2013, it was time for the first episode of the 3rd season of the show. The fear, stress, polarization, bigotry, and hate mongering were so extreme. Many youths were looking forward to see what Youssef would do in his show. It was a brilliant episode, which made fun of all the extremes in the media. Whether it’s pro-MB or anti-MB, pro-Regime or anti-Regime, he made fun of all of those enjoying their almost celebrity-worship of the Army Chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi. 
Here is a hilarious song from the first episode called “After The Revolution”.
 
  




In November 2013, after only one episode, CBC (which had broadcast the show for the 2nd season), stopped airing it.
 

The second episode of that season could still be seen on YouTube only, but not on television. The show had been suspended following complaints that Youssef had mocked supporters of former Army Chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, who won the country's presidential race last week by an overwhelming majority, and allegedly insulted Egypt's military.

Before the hiatus, several protests organized by supporters of the former Defense Minister Army Chief Abdel-Fattah el-Sisi, were held in front of Cinema Radio - the theater studio where the show was held.

CPJ honored Youssef with its International Press Freedom Award in 2013.

  
This is Bassem Youssef’s 2013 IPFA Acceptance Speech:
 

 The 3rd season of El-Bernameg resumed on February 7, on MBC Misr (MBC Egypt). Many of the interim government supporters heavily criticized it.

Bassem Youssef announced the sad news on Monday, June 2nd, 2014, at his Radio Theater studio: There will be   no more "El Bernameg " TV show

Bassem Youssef, known as the “Egyptian Jon Stewart”, told a news conference the Saudi-owned MBC Misr TV station had been put under more pressure “than it could handle”:


“In the name of God the Most Gracious, The Most Merciful. First of all, I thank MBC Misr for hosting us and I can't blame it for the pressures it had been put under. It was more than it could handle. The pressures have been made from the first episode, and MBC Misr had fought for us as much as possible,” said Youssef.

“We prepared today’s episode and we expected that it won’t be allowed to be aired, the decision of not letting the show to be aired came before those responsible for the censoring even seeing what was there in the episode! That tells us that the problem is not the content the problem is in the show itself, the show with its current shape and structure isn’t allowed to continue. Be it MBC or any other Egyptian or Arab channel.”
He added, “Of course I know that some people would ask, “Where is your proof? How can you be so sure about the one responsible for such ban? Those who think there has not been pressure to ban the show and that it was banned all by itself are delusional,”  he told reporters at downtown Cairo's historic Cinema Radio, where Youssef had previously recorded his show every Wednesday.

“The question now is this, what’s next? What are we going to do? Should we air from another channel? To be honest, we’re tired of changing the channels, being constantly under pressure and all of them promise that they will support us no matter what, but the end is always the same. Should we air from a foreign channel? We received so many tempting offers from many stations - European & American ones - but of course you know what would be the result of such a thing … accusations of treason & being double agents. Should we air it from outside Egypt?! As I said before, airing from a foreign channel would nullify the credibility of the show. This show belongs here and we would never air it from outside Egypt,” he added.

“Should we air from YouTube?!  Let's be honest here, you all can see the size of the theater studio, the size of the team, the audience. You can see how costly producing that show is. You can't fund such a huge show from the YouTube. And even if we could do so, that would put us under even much more pressure. I'm not a fighter or an opposition. I am a comic anchor, yet I have been subjected to a number of legal complaints, possibly more than anyone in history, both during and after Mursi's time, I'm so proud of how much effort & pressure many people exerted to stop our show. But despite all the pressure we kept on going to make people laugh,” he said.
 
“Many people used to come surrounding this theater every week (to protest against the show) and only God knows when they would get the orders to break in the place,” he added.
 “In a time of killings, terror, chaos, detentions, fear and polarization, we kept on airing every week despite all the surrounding circumstances. To be honest that's not a good environment for a satire show or any show but we kept on trying and working,” he said.
 
“I am tired of struggling and worrying and fearing for my personal safety and the safety of my family,” he added. “When we are censored and harmed,” he said, people will show solidarity only through “hashtags and retweets.”
 
“The shutting down of the show is a message in itself that is stronger, clearer, and much louder, than its continuation,” he said. “The message is delivered.”
At the end of his speech, Youssef said that the cancellation of the show is a victory and said that he & the team refuse to compromise or offend the show by altering content.
 
After thanking his team for their great work, Youssef asked them to join him on the stage.
 

 
 


MBC spokesman, Mazen Hayek, said that his group “had no hand” in the decision to suspend the show, saying the channel “did its best” to keep the show on air.

 
Youssef's predicament will raise new questions about freedom of expression in Egypt, the most populous Arab state.


This is Jon Stewart’s response to ending El Bernameg (The Show):
 
 
External links :
 Prominent show canceled as Egypt moves to monitor Internet use

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