CAIRO: Egyptians packed cafes on Friday to watch the return of TV satirist Bassem Youssef, wondering if he would dare to mock the army that toppled Islamist president Mohammed Mursi.
After four months off the air, Youssef — known as ‘Egypt’s Jon Stewart’ after modelling his show on the US comedian’s popular fake news programme — returned after a summer break to an Egypt fiercely split between supporters of the military and Islamist backers of the ousted Mursi.
A tide of resurgent nationalism has swept the country, with military chief General Abdel Fattah Al Sisi hailed by supporters as the nation’s saviour for driving Mursi from power and launching a deadly crackdown on his Muslim Brotherhood movement.
Youssef, who had regularly mocked Mursi and was even prosecuted for insulting the then-president, might have been expected to cheer the military coup, which came amid massive protests against the year-long rule of Egypt’s first freely elected president.
But in the 90-minute return of his show Al Bernameg (“The Programme”), Youssef did not spare the military his barbs, provoking fury from some spectators.
Youssef mocked the Egyptian media’s coverage of Mursi’s overthrow, particularly the exaggerated claims about the number of demonstrators who took to the streets on June 30 — local television stations said as many as 70 million — to call for the Islamist government’s resignation.
He also touched on a highly sensitive question for Egyptians: was Mursi’s fall a popular revolution, as backers of the military claim, or was it a coup, as the ousted president’s supporters say?
Referring to the Muslim Brotherhood, he said that “when you have been dreaming of power for 80 years and all of a sudden you lose it, then it’s a coup.”
But looking at the other side, he mocked the idea of a gentle coup.
AFP
