By Christine Sheller
The Principal Financial Group
Center for Global Citizenship and the Drake University Arabic Club sponsored a
presentation by Bassem Youssef, traveling from out of state, March 28, 2017. He has been dubbed “the Jon Stewart of the
Arab World.”
His presentation was informative,
inspiring, and entertaining. Essam
Bouray, Arabic instructor at Drake University, and faculty sponsor of the
Arabic Club, had known Youssef in Egypt where they had crossed paths working
for justice and revolution in their country.
For the presentation, Bouray led Youssef in conversation by asking him
several questions. Questions were also
then taken from the audience.
Youssef was the host and creator of
popular TV Show AlBernameg- the first political satire show in the Middle
East. Originally a 5 minute show on You
Tube, Albernameg grew to become the most watched television show across the
region, with 30 million viewers every week.
He has been awarded several awards- he was named one of the year’s most
influential people by Time Magazine in 2013, he received the International
Press Freedom Award by the CPJ, and he was also recognized as a global thinker
by Foreign Policy Magazine in 2013. He
majored in cardiothoracic surgery, passed the United States Medical License
Exam, and is a member of the Royal College of Surgeons.
Another thing Youssef and Bouray
have in common is they are both exiled to the U.S. They were accused of being spies and CIA
agents. Youssef was accused of being a
part of a conspiracy to separate Egypt into 5 regions. He explained how that was equivelant of
saying he was accused of separating the U.S. into 50 states. (The way voting
works and governing works!)
Yousseff commented on the U.S. present
government situation- saying that we are used to seeing our President as public
servant, but it’s not the same in Egypt.
Youseff had a book for sale that is
about his personal journey, including in the Arab Spring and being in the eyes
of the media. He commented how people
put ideology above facts and truth.
One of the questions asked was
whether when he first did the Youtube show, whether it was inspired by fears,
or was it a passion project. Youssef
said that March 8, 2011 their president stepped down, didn’t think it would be
a problem, by he had 5 million views on Youtube, which is huge. He was waiting for paperwork to study at
Duke. He said he’d been playing, but it
became serious.
Another question asked was about Al
Jazeera. Youssef commented on how it has
an interesting business model, and that they have really expanded, into having
5 Al Jazeera networks, inlcuding Al Jazeera English, Al Jazeera Egypt, Al
Jazeera Arabic, and Children and Sports.
They are subsidized by the government, that was the business model he
was referring to.
He offered the words of wisdom that
revolution is not an event, but a process.
He also spoke on Turkey, that in
the last 5 years their government has been more authoritarian; preceded by a
good democracy. They are currently
jailing journalists. He also offered
that satire by itself cannot do anything- it brings people to the table. If people don’t vote after satire, it doesn’t
matter. It happened in Egypt- people
didn’t go vote, but they laughed at satire.
Youssef did have a show on NBC for a small amount of time. NBC received a lot of pressure and had to end
the contract, saying “no network will hire.”
Youssef was
an inspiring speaker, and brought laughter to the room as well. It is good to be able to laugh in serious
times. We hope that he will come back to
Iowa sometime!
Christine Sheller is coordinator and editor at Iowa Peace Network. She is a graduate of Bethany Theological Seminary.
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