Courting controversy … Bassem Youssef, centre, prepares to poke fun at an ultra-conservative presidential candidate on al-Bernameg. Photograph: David Degner/Getty Images
He belongs to no party and has never stood for election, yet 39-year-old satirist
Bassem Youssef has
immeasurable political influence. He presents
Egypt's most popular TV programme, al-Bernameg (
"the programme"), which scrutinises the failings of the Islamists and has made him a leading opponent of President
Mohamed Morsi and
an enemy of the Muslim Brotherhood.
None of Morsi's political adversaries –
Amr Moussa, former secretary-general of the Arab League, or
Mohamed ElBaradei, the former head of the International Atomic Energy Agency, or the Nassir-style leftist,
Hamdeen Sabahi – can rival Youssef. In this internet era
his videos spread like wildfire, and his parodies of the Egyptian president and lampooning of the Islamists' edicts have made him the champion of the liberals and, more broadly, of
an Arab world badly in need of political, social and cultural emancipation.
"Buy Ikhwanosol, the insecticide that will rid you of everything that is not Ikhwan [the Muslim Brotherhood]," Youssef joked in reply to a Muslim Brotherhood leader who asserted that
members could not marry women outside the movement.....
But by breaking taboos and constantly provoking
does he not fear for his life? He is evasive about the precautions he takes, but admits that the central Cairo theatre in which his show is recorded every Wednesday is under special surveillance.
But he will not be silenced.
By over-exaggerating – to the point of comparing the Islamists to the Nazis – is he not afraid of exacerbating the showdown between Islamists and liberals and paralysing the transition under way?
"I attack those in power," he replied. "They have put themselves in that position. We are not trying to exclude them from the political field.
We just want them to change and not think they are above us mortals."........"
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