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.
BASSEM YOUSSEFWe 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.
More Bassem Youssef Quotes
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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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I was accused of insulting the president, insulting Islam, insulting – spreading rumors, disturbing the peace.
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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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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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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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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 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 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 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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People would believe propagate, spread rumors or conspiracy theories in order to protect their own system of denial.
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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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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’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.
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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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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.
BASSEM YOUSSEF