Photo: Babel/CSIS
Jon Alterman: Bassem Youssef remains one of the most recognized figures in the Middle East. His television show, Al Bernameg, captured the imagination of millions in the Arab Spring, and at its height enjoyed 30 million weekly viewers as he spoofed political life in Egypt. He ended the show in 2014 and left Egypt. He’s the focus of the documentary Tickling Giants and the author of Revolution for Dummies. Bassem, welcome to Babel.
Bassem Youssef: Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Jon Alterman: You became a viral video sensation in the midst of the Arab Spring. What started as a series of YouTube videos quickly became a television show and for a time was the most popular show in the Arab world. When you were thinking about creating this, what were you drawing on and what did you think you were doing that was really new?
Bassem Youssef: Well, I was always mesmerized by Jon Stewart. I loved The Daily Show, and I had this fantasy that maybe we would have a show like that in Egypt one day. Of course, the political climate before the revolution did not permit that. When the revolution happened, there was a fluidity, a hope, and a space for the unexpected and the unpredictable. I did the show on YouTube, and I didn't even think it would go anywhere. At that time, I was about to travel to the United States because I got accepted to a fellowship in Cleveland, so I thought, "Maybe I'll put it on YouTube, and after a year or two when I come back, a producer will see it, and maybe there’s hope there.” I didn't expect that it would explode in a matter of weeks or that I would be offered a show on television. I never could have predicted how big the show would become or how far the show would go. Even when I was on the show, I was expecting it to fail at anytime because there was too much success and it was a little bit overwhelming.
Jon Alterman: You had lived in the United States before?
Bassem Youssef: I had for just a couple of years. I was there for a short fellowship for a couple of years—2007 and 2008— but that's the only time where I actually lived outside my country.
Jon Alterman: Is that where you got exposed to Jon Stewart?
Bassem Youssef: No. I knew Jon Stewart from Egypt. At that time—from 2005 to 2006— The Daily Show was being placed on YouTube, but I remember the first time I actually saw The Daily Show was not on YouTube. I was at the gym in Cairo, and CNN was on. At that time, there was The Daily Show: Global Edition. CNN would compile a collection of the best clips from The Daily Show that week. This is how I first saw him, and I was like, "Who is this guy?" So, that got me intrigued.
Jon Alterman: Egypt has a terrific comic tradition. You have people like Adel Imam. It goes back for a long time. Egypt also has this tremendous critical tradition—poets like Ahmed Fouad Negm. Were you thinking about those things and blending it with Jon Stewart? Or was this really, in your head, translating Jon Stewart into an Arab context?
Bassem Youssef: The comedy in Egypt for a very long time was a kind of social comedy. The political comedy was never strong. It was never allowed by governments. Comedy was used more as a form of escapism—or okay as long as you were away from the things that mattered. I didn't think of Ahmed Fouad Negm. I just thought of how we might have our own Egyptian version of The Daily Show and make it our own. I know that a lot of people want to burden this experience with a lot of stuff that wasn't there. We really wanted to do a high-quality show. Many people just wanted to project their own ideas about what the show was or what kind of messages and direction were intended. We just wanted to do a really good comedy show.
Jon Alterman: You had a whole team—people like Tarek El Kazzazz. What was the composition of the team, and what did you guys disagree about as you were thinking about what you were going to make?
Bassem Youssef: Well, the composition of the team was basically amateurs, like me—which was the best thing. They were a bunch of amateurs who hadn’t ever worked in television before—except maybe one or two of them. Most of all, our disagreement was over how to do good comedy without being preachy. It was at that level. Do we just do silly comedy, or do we just do straight-up preaching? So, we had different ages, different ideas, and different brains. And maybe what made the show great is that it was a pool for different innovations from different people, and that's how we got the show running.
Jon Alterman: How many folks were in the writers’ room?
Bassem Youssef: Four.
Jon Alterman: Four, which is relatively small for a show like that, isn’t it?
Bassem Youssef: Yes. We relied heavily on manpower in getting the material, so we had a lot of producers or researchers. That was the bulk of the staff. There were about 30 people, and each one of them was assigned to have a show to follow and transcribe. That was the largest manual work. Then, it would go to the writing team, which was comprised of me and three or four others.
Jon Alterman: When you think back to the experience, was there a sketch or a moment that you recall as being the most fun? As you think back, did something capture the craziness of the success at that time?
Bassem Youssef: I would say that it was the episode that I did right after the military took over. Coming back from the hiatus after what had happened, that was the most difficult episode ever. And I would say that it's the one that I'm most proud of because, I didn’t know how we could even do comedy within that time period, but I think we pulled it off. Of course, a lot of people hated it because people just wanted me to take sides and be straightforward, and many people didn't get the satire—but that's the price that you pay.
Jon Alterman: Did you think that you had a role in turning the public against President Morsi?
Bassem Youssef: I know that this is what a lot of people say, but people deal with the show as if we were the only players. The Islamists had five channels and they had shows going on 24/7 about everybody—wishing death to anybody who was against them, including me. And the fact that they lost to a show that aired once a week for an hour says more about them than about the show. It's not my problem that their hatred failed and that they failed to turn the public to their side. It's not my fault. The same thing happened to the other side. Even the pro-military shows hated me afterwards because I'm an equal opportunity offender. I satirize whoever is in power. I did that with the Islamists. I did that with the military. It's not my fault that one of them is stronger than the other. At the end of the day, politics is a game, and people use whatever tools they want to use to play the game. That is not my problem, right? I'm a political satirist, and what I did on the show followed current events, and I could not ignore the stuff happening. I made fun of the Islamists, and I made fun of the military when they claimed that they had come up with a cure for AIDS. So, why didn't they use that, right?
Jon Alterman: You fled Egypt in November 2014. When was the first time that you thought you might need to flee Egypt? Under the Morsi government, you were brought up on charges and taken to court. Did you think at that time that maybe you wouldn’t be able to keep doing the show?
Bassem Youssef: The first time I thought of fleeing Egypt was on that day that I fled Egypt. I didn't think of fleeing Egypt before. It was that day because there was a verdict, and the military was very popular and could do whatever they want and the people would not object. Under the Islamists—we need to be very honest —the government was not very popular. So, I felt relatively safe—although I received a lot of death threats and other threats. But realistically, the military owned that country. The military was always part of the country, and it was 10 times more popular than any of the Islamist regimes—for better or worse. I'm just being very honest and being very straightforward. The military can do whatever they want and people will hail them because they've been ruling the country for 70 years. The Islamists came in and suddenly, flashes of the Islamic State Group (ISG), Iran, and Hamas came in too because they had very extremist speech, and people got scared. Even in Tickling Giants, there was a scene when there was conflict, and I said, "People are willing to live under the veneer of military dictatorship for a whole life, and not under the Islamist dictatorship for a day." It's just a matter of fact.
Jon Alterman: Was there a moment when you came to that conclusion?
Bassem Youssef: No. Right after the military took over, it was quite hard. People were cheering it. And as a matter of fact, I was happy that the Islamists were removed, at the beginning. But then, when I saw what was happening, I saw how even my parents—who were watching my show— were pro-military. So it's a very complex thing, and it's just a matter of fact. It's not about right or wrong. That is the fact.
Jon Alterman: You’re now working on breaking into the entertainment business in the United States, and your big Arab project seems to be “Plant B,” which is about introducing a vegan diet to an Arab audience. As somebody who’s been a vegetarian in the Arab world myself, I know how hard that can be to explain to people. Is moving toward talking to people about diet and veganism a turn to personal self-improvement—and away from ideas about systemic change? Or is something else going on as you think about this.
Bassem Youssef: No. It's only part of it. As you just said, I am trying to get into the entertainment business in the United States—which is true. I would say that comedy is a reflection of your truth. When I was in Egypt, I was concerned about what was happening in Egypt, so my show—my content—reflected that in Al Bernameg. In the United States, I'm doing stand-up comedy, and my stand-up comedy is very political, and it's also reflecting about my truth as an immigrant coming into America under Trump. I talk about racism, Islamophobia, and xenophobia, so I am still doing the same thing. It's still about systemic change, but the content is now about what I have to go through here and the vehicle is different. It’s not a TV show. I'm doing stand-up comedy because I'm not big enough in America to have my own TV show, yet. I’m still working in comedy, and I tour around the United States, so that's how my comedy has shifted. It’s still in the same direction, but it’s now in a different context.
Jon Alterman: You were able to forge an amazing connection with Arab youth as a media personality. Are you fundamentally optimistic about where the region is headed, with opportunities for young people and freedom of expression and social media and all those kinds of things? Or has your exile from Egypt and the collapse of the region’s democratic experiments of a decade ago pushed you to think that everybody just needs to take care of their own happiness, wherever they are?
Bassem Youssef: Well, it's not one thing or the other. I think you should take care of your personal happiness and safety no matter what. So that's one thing. The other thing is I don't know what will happen in the Arab world, but given that most of these regimes came about in the 1950s and 1960s, I think that with the internet and open skies, the newer generation will have a different approach to issues than their parents. I think there's going to be a generation of change. I think it's just going to take much longer. I think it's going to be a very “slowly but surely” kind of change though, because at the end of the day, it's the people that they need to change.
Jon Alterman: You have kids in the United States. How much do they pay attention to the Arab world? How much do you want them to pay attention to the Arab world?
Bassem Youssef: Well, one of them is 9 years old and the other one is 4 years old, so I don't know if they have the bandwidth to care about that right now. I just worry about Adam getting out of diapers and Adia getting through elementary school. They still go to Egypt in the summer to visit family. I don't go, but they go and visit their family. It’s important for them to know that they are the product of two different cultures—which is great. I want them to be American and Egyptian. They are the product of two cultures, and they need to embrace both of them.
Jon Alterman: Bassem Youssef, thank you very much for joining us on Babel.
Bassem Youssef: Thank you so much.