The Emmy Awards for the television industry is like the Oscars for the film industry in the United States. What is important in the American film and television industries is important in the rest of the world.
When Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef hosts the Emmy Award ceremony it means Egyptians are recognized as light hearted people. It also means that the success of this educated man has surpassed the borders of his country and been discovered by the wider world.
In November, the same month he hosted the Emmys, Bassem Youssef hosted the Carthage Festival award ceremony for Arab and African films, which is now held every year instead of every second year.
Choosing Bassem Youssef was a great idea. Had it crossed my mind or had any of my team thought of it when I was president of the Cairo Film Festival last year, I would have not hesitated to choose him.
For personal reasons, I could not go to the festival, although I was invited to it. So I turned to the TV to watch it on the Nile Cinema channel, which I knew was going to broadcast it live. However, it did not. When I asked about the reason, I was told there were instructions at the last minute to not broadcast the festival.
It does not require any degree of intelligence or effort to realize that the reason those instructions were issued was that Bassem Youssef was the host. This means that those who issue such instructions consider him a “dangerous” person. This is probably why his popular program “Al-Bernameg” was also canceled.
I agree that Bassem Youssef can be “dangerous”, because his program was a catalyst for the outbreak of the June 30 Revolution and the toppling of the Muslim Brotherhood.
Satire has historically been known to be an effective means for the Egyptian people to tolerate harm and not lose hope for change. But how could Bassem Youssef be dangerous for the regime that the June 30 Revolution brought to power. Did he not partially contribute to this?
Edited translation from Al-Masry Al-Youm
