I’m sure even in America, where you have, like, free speech people self-censor themself. And it’s not – it happens because of different reasons. Because maybe it’s politically incorrect, it doesn’t have to really to be put in jail.
BASSEM YOUSSEFThere 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.
More Bassem Youssef Quotes
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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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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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Make me a CIA agent to use sarcasm to bring down the government and bring down the country because this was all, of course, part of a worldwide conspiracy against the country.
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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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It doesn’t matter if the truth is right there out in front of your eyes. You will find a way, a mechanism, in order to keep your own system of denial. So as I always say it, denial is a river that runs in the – in Egypt. So we became very good in that.
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Egypt 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.
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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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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.
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It is very depressing to see that in the 21st century people are still using the same 1950s and ’60s style of propaganda.
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I 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.
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It 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.
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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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What 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.
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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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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.
BASSEM YOUSSEF






