And of course there were clashes there because people, they tried to remove those protesters from Tahrir. And I was, like, doing my job as a doctor treating them.
BASSEM YOUSSEFAnd of course there were clashes there because people, they tried to remove those protesters from Tahrir. And I was, like, doing my job as a doctor treating them.
BASSEM YOUSSEFPeople would believe propagate, spread rumors or conspiracy theories in order to protect their own system of denial.
BASSEM YOUSSEFWhat I saw day-to-day is like people who are actually asking for freedom, calling for freedom – protesting, singing, chanting, calling for the removal of the regime – plain and simple.
BASSEM YOUSSEFSatire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist’s role ends at the screen.
BASSEM YOUSSEFI don’t care about Donald Trump himself. I care and I worry about the very big base that supports him because this kind of language would have been absolutely nonexistent maybe 15, 20.
BASSEM YOUSSEFThe worst thing ever that you have to explain your joke because I was very disappointed trying to explain why the joke is funny for the interrogator.
BASSEM YOUSSEFEverybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.
BASSEM YOUSSEFThe only the way that you can live and function without seeing the facts in front of you is to put yourself in a constant state of denial.
BASSEM YOUSSEFIt is very difficult to imagine that you can actually get rid of a dictatorship that has been there for 60 years only in 18 days.
BASSEM YOUSSEFDonald Trump is not stupid. He knows exactly what he’s saying. And he’s just saying out there – I mean, forget about Muslims. He said I could go down on Fifth Avenue in New York and shoot someone in the face and people – and the voters will have no problem with it.
BASSEM YOUSSEFEgypt is kind of like the Hollywood of the Middle East. I mean, we had cinema maybe decades before the other Arab countries ever got independence.
BASSEM YOUSSEFI think by the time I left Egypt, there was about like 400 accusations against me in the drawer of the public persecutor office. It’s a way for them to exhaust you, to push you, to put you under pressure, to distract you.
BASSEM YOUSSEFThis transcends any kind of religion and any kind of belief. This is actually an offense and attack on human values. He’s just saying out there I will shoot people in the face and people wouldn’t care.
BASSEM YOUSSEFPeople say, ‘Are you afraid? Are you scared for your life?’ and I tell them: If I choose today to tone it down, if I choose today to shut up, tomorrow me, you, and all of us will be forced to.
BASSEM YOUSSEFI think that the religious and the military right wings are just two sides of the same coin if somebody uses God and religion and somebody uses country and security.
BASSEM YOUSSEFBy the way, I follow the American elections, and I have never seen someone who is that offensive. I have seen people who are stupid. But stupid and offensive, that’s new.
BASSEM YOUSSEF