I was accused of insulting the president, insulting Islam, insulting – spreading rumors, disturbing the peace.
BASSEM YOUSSEFSatire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist’s role ends at the screen.
More Bassem Youssef Quotes
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People 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.
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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.
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By 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.
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I 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.
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People went out there and they wrote articles and went on television shows saying that I am an operative that the CIA who used Jon Stewart to recruit me. So Jon Stewart, who actually – a guy from America was used by the CIA in order to recruit me for the CIA and be.
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The 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.
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The 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.
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There are people who believe in Egypt that I – I’m actually – I’m getting paid by external powers and external intelligence entities in order to use satire to bring down the government.
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We have Internet now and people are not stupid. But it seems that some people are trying to push the same agenda of the Cold War of conspiracy theories and amazing achievements that are very easily traced and validated.
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Everybody grows up with comedy. I mean, Egyptian comedy has a very, very old tradition. Our theater and our movies are just, like, amazing.
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I 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.
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Satire has its limits. It is really up to the people to make the change. The satirist’s role ends at the screen.
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This 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.
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Donald 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.
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I always tell people that a revolution is not an event, it’s a process. It is a struggle. And it doesn’t usually go smoothly.
BASSEM YOUSSEF