Egyptian satirist leads choir in song
Bassem Youssef mocks Muslim Brotherhood for selling out country to oil rich Gulf state
Fresh out of the attorney general’s interrogation room, where he was held last week responding to charges of insulting Islam and President Mohammed Morsi, Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef was on the air Friday poking fun at his favorite target, the Muslim Brotherhood.
Youssef, known as Egypt’s Jon Stewart, could be seen on his “El-Bernameg,” or “The Program,” conducting a 20 person-strong choir in a song titled “My Qatar, my Qatar,” in which they ostensibly thank the oil-rich Gulf state for pouring money into the impoverished Egyptian economy.
The choir sang:
“My Qatar, your money has filled my land, my Qatar, give me more, and I will be pleased.
We will end up begging for alms abroad, after going bankrupt in the revolution.
How sweet of Qatar to fill up our pockets. How sweet of this disaster to pull down our flag.
How sweet is this revival that crushes our people, it is the sweetest impaling rod in our lives.
This is what we’ve got from the Muslim Brotherhood, they are selling Egypt wholesale as well as retail.”
Youssef’s questioning by the authorities drew criticism from Washington and rights advocates.
The president’s office said it was not involved in the investigation, and that it recognizes the “importance of freedom of expression.”
Responding to a member of Morsi’s Brotherhood party who said in a news clip that Youssef only focuses on the Islamist group and the president, he joked: “They are not two things. They are one.”
It was a way of mocking the president’s insistence that his policy decisions are made independent of the Brotherhood.
The clip aired on Egypt’s CBC TV on April 5 and was transcribed and translated this week by the Middle East Media Research Institute (MEMRI), which monitors Arab language broadcasts.
