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Following are excerpts from an address by Egyptian TV host and satirist Bassem Yousuf, which aired on Dream 2 TV on February 7, 2013.
Bassem Youssuf: We constantly hear about “heretic laïcité,” “licentious secularism,” and “democracy that can go to hell,” implemented by the infidel secular countries, but Islam is spreading in these secular countries more than in the Arab world. In the so-called “infidel” secular countries, mosques are being built, and Islam is the fastest growing religion there. They don’t care if there are bars, strip clubs, or porn around, because they follow the principle of “live and let live.”
Our problem here – and this saddens me greatly – is that the people who hold the reins of power, and who brought us the good tidings of an Islamic state, are chasing people away from Islam. This is a terrible thing that saddens me greatly.
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This is what happened in the Middle Ages when the Church misused the Christian faith. It led to a terrible wave of atheism and secularism. I am afraid that the same thing will happen in the Arab-Islamic world. If we continue on this path, I am afraid that this is what will happen. Currently, the [Islamists] push the people into a corner, and say to them: Either you choose our rule, or else you will go to the Hellfire… This entire system is problematic. It makes me run away from you and from what you represent.
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The sympathy that we felt towards the Muslim Brotherhood members and towards the Islamists who were released from unjustified imprisonment is diminishing day by day. In the 2005 and 2010 elections, my family voted for the Muslim Brotherhood, even though none of us is an Islamist or belongs to the Muslim Brotherhood. After the revolution, they all voted against them.
It is sad. People felt that injustice had been done to the [Islamists], and opened their hearts to them, but this sympathy is being eroded, and soon it will turn into hatred.
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In Norway, where Muslim immigrants constitute less than 2% of the population, the minister of culture is a Muslim woman. Here, the information minister, who is a Muslim Brotherhood member, says that a Bahai woman cannot work as a TV presenter, and others say that Bahais are not allowed in hospitals or schools. When your perspective is religious, you despise all other religions, regardless of all the nice words that are being said, and the bottom line is that you are superior to others, so you will rule and write the constitution the way you want.
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In the mosques and on talk shows, I hear people say: The Christians are good, pure people, but “they have certainly disbelieved who say that Allah is the third of three.” They say that the Bahai faith is not a religion to begin with. With regard to the Jews, they say that they are the descendants of apes and pigs.
These people are undermining the principle of common national identity. The average Egyptian will never elect a Christian, because [the Islamists] say the Christians are infidels.
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The principle of common national identity will not be realized as long as you use religious texts to demonize your political rivals and accuse them of heresy.
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