Jon Stewart Appears in Cairo With Bassem Youssef, Egypt's 'Jon Stewart' (Video)
By Reuters & Wrap Staff | The Wrap – 11 hours ago- The Wrap - Jon Stewart Appears in Cairo With Bassem Youssef, Egypt's 'Jon Stewart' (Video)
CAIRO - Jon Stewart
on hiatus? Not entirely. The comedian appeared in Cairo on Friday on a
show hosted by the man known as "Egypt's Jon Stewart", who has faced
investigation for insulting the president and Islam. (And who has been
on "The Daily Show" recently.)
Stewart set the tone by being
brought on stage with a black hood over his head, guided by two burly
henchmen (see full video below), a reminder that political satire is a
much more dangerous game in Egypt than it is in the United States. Host
Bassem Youssef removed the hood wiht a flourish. Stewart greeted the
audience with "Shukran," thank you in Arabic, and said he was "honored"
to be there.
Among barbs aimed at Egypt's ruling Islamists and others, Stewart
praised Youssef for taking risks to poke fun. "If your regime is not
strong enough to handle a joke," he said, "then you don't have a
regime."Also Watch: Jon Stewart Interviews 'Egyptian Jon Stewart' Bassem Youssef - After a Frisking
Youssef is a cardiologist whose online comedy clips inspired by Stewart's "Daily Show" won him wild popularity and a prime-time TV show after the 2011 revolution that ended military rule. He paid tribute to his guest as a personal inspiration as the pair traded gags over Stewart's impressions of a visit to Cairo.
With Egypt still in ferment and elected Islamist President Mohamed Mursi
facing off against liberals who fear he plans to smother personal
freedoms, Youssef was released on bail after being questioned in March
over alleged insults to Mursi and the channel he appears on was threatened with losing its licence.
Criticising such moves, which have
also drawn reproaches for Egypt from the U.S. government, Stewart said:
"A joke has never shot teargas at a group of people in a park. It's
just talk.
"What Bassem
is doing ... is showing that satire can still be relevant, that it can
carve out space in a country for people to express themselves. Because
that's all democracy is."
He took aim at Mursi's controversial decision this week to name a
member of a hardline Islamist movement blamed for a massacre of tourists
at Luxor in the 1990s as governor of that city. Having been brought
into the studio hooded and presented as a "spy", he spoke a few words in
Arabic before saying Egypt's president had honoured him: "I am now the
mayor of Luxor."
Stewart also appeared to take a
gentle dig at the opposition, who hope demonstrations planned for June
30 can force Mursi from power after just a year in office. It took
Americans 100 years before a president was impeached for the first time,
Stewart said, "For you guys to do it in one year, it's very
impressive."
Perhaps the biggest laugh in the
studio, though, was for a simple crack at Egypt's perennial traffic
chaos: "I know this is an ancient civilization," he said. "Have you
thought about traffic lights?"
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Jon Stewart Appears in Cairo With Bassem Youssef, Egypt's 'Jon Stewart' (Video)
CAIRO - Jon Stewart on hiatus? Not entirely. The comedian appeared in Cairo on Friday on a show hosted by the man known as "Egypt's Jon Stewart", who has faced investigation for insulting the president and Islam. (And who has been on "The Daily Show" recently.)The Wrap
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