The crocodile and the clown.

In the face of Bassem Youssef's biting satire, Piers Morgan's helium balloon of faux-gravitas quickly deflated.

This edition relates to the events in Israel and Gaza. If you can, please read the previous edition first.

Previously: Ohwellism
The pages of the British press are full of glib answers and opportunistic digs in response to abject horror.

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If a lachrymose crocodile were able to present a nightly news opinion show, it might not be too different to the experience of Piers Morgan Uncensored, the TalkTV show that stubbornly continues despite the cancellation campaign undertaken by viewers who simply refuse to do their culture war duty and watch. Since his earliest days as a purveyor of entertainment news on The Sun’s Bizarre! column, Morgan has been a native speaker of tabloidese, a dialect that can swing at a moment’s notice from venom to soggy emotionalism.

On television, as host of Life Stories and a range of documentaries (generally about serial killers), Morgan added a windy kind of ersatz gravitas; you can spot him deploying it when his face contorts into the grimace of a man trying to hold his flatulence while riding in a lift with his boss’s boss (although for Morgan, who reports directly to Rupert Murdoch, that would be Satan).

Morgan’s toolbox of windy moral cant; ‘outrage’ on behalf of a public that — on the whole — finds him about as appealing as a bed bug; wet-eyed pseudo-sorrow; and bully boy shouting generally allows him to steamroller guests. But, on occasion, he encounters someone who isn’t willing to play within the framework that suits him. That was the case when OnlyFans performer Elle Brooke dismissed Morgan’s query about what her theoretical future children would think of her career (“They can cry in a Ferrari.”) in June, but most strikingly so yesterday when he attempted — and ‘attempted’ is the key word — to interview the Egyptian satirist Bassem Youssef.

Youssef is a heart surgeon turned satirist. He switched to comedy — having been a surgeon for 19 years and treating the wounded in Tahrir Square — after the 2011 Egyptian revolution. The catalyst was a realisation that the fall of Hosni Mubarak had done little to change the media environment in the country Youssef described in the documentary Tickling Giants as “total shit” from people “with complete freedom to say absolute nonsense” who were “getting away with murder with no one to stop them”. He wanted to the someone who did.

In March 2011, along with his friend, Tarekr ElKazzaz, Youssef created The B+ Show, 5-minute clips mocking authority, politicians, and the media, filmed in his laundry room. They reached 5 million views in two months and by September 2011, the pair had secured a deal with ONTV — owned by the Egyptian billionaire Naguib Sawiris — to produce Al Bernameg (The Show).

When Al Bernameg moved to another Egyptian network, the Capital Broadcasting Center (owned by United Media Services, which is controlled by the Mukhabarat, the Egyptian intelligence service), it only became more successful, becoming the first Egyptian show to be broadcast with a live studio audience. Youssef’s jokes about President Mohamed Morsi and the Muslim Brotherhood were popular with the public and provoked a furious response from the country’s elite.

In the first episode of Al Bernameg’s second season, Youssef told the audience…

What is happening to the people on the streets, and the deaths from both sides, are the responsibility of the person who says he is a president for the whole country…

… and mocked CBC, the very channel he was appearing on for being aligned with the remnants of the former Mubarak regime. A cash machine graphic then appeared on the screen and Youssef, ‘reminded’ that the channel was paying his wage, put his tongue firmly in his cheek and praised CBC for “inciting the revolution”.

The season’s second episode wasn’t broadcast and after the third, lawsuits were filed against Youssef accusing him of insulting Islam, Morsi (whose penchant for big hats he had memorably lampooned), and disrupting public order and peace.

A third season of Al Bernameg went on air after a four-month break and the 2013 coup d’état which saw Morsi deposed by then Defense Minister, Abdul Fatah al-Sisi, who became President after a brief interim (and, frankly, puppet) administration under Adly Mansour and has been in office at the head of an increasingly authoritarian administration ever since. In the very first show, Youssef took on all sides:

I definitely do not support the people who attacked us, accused us of heresy, had the gallows ready for us, and publicly demanded our arrest. At the same time, I don’t support the hypocrisy, deification, phaoroahisation, and the repetition of the mistakes of the past 30 or even 60 years. What we fear is that fascism in the name of religion will be replaced by fascism in the name of patriotism and national security. 

CBC ‘distanced’ itself from Youssef — a combination of anger and cowardice — then dropped the show entirely as 30 complaints about the host and show were filed with the General Prosecutor’s office. Al Bernameg was quickly picked up by the Middle East Broadcasting Center — a Saudi-owned media conglomerate — and broadcast on its MBC MASR satellite channel for 11 weeks. Then, in June 2014, after a six-week break during the 2014 Egyptian presidential election, Al Bernameg production team held a press conference and Youssef announced that the show was over, terminated due to pressure on the programme and the channel.

As brave as Youssef was, is, and continues to be, he no longer felt safe enough to produce satire in and about Egypt. He told reporters:

I'm tired of struggling and worrying about my safety and that of my family. 

In an interview with The Observer, he explained that there was no direct order from the military-backed government, but that there was an environment in which it was clear that dissent would lead to reprisals:

You can always implement some sort of mood, without actually giving direct orders. It is about creating a certain atmosphere that would make this acceptable or doable, and I think it reflects badly on everybody. Even if the people in authority do not do it, it reflects badly on the freedom of speech in Egypt. 

Youssef left Egypt for Dubai in November 2014, fearing arrest, and has lived in the US since January 2015, having settled in San Francisco with his Egyptian-Palestinian wife, Hala — whose family live in Gaza — and their two children.

I’m recounting all that for this reason: Bassem Youssef has faced censorship and experienced the consequences of fighting it. Piers Morgan is a man who screamed censorship after stomping off the set of Good Morning Britain, a show that paid him handsomely to grind every axe in his well-stocked arsenal, notably the one with Meghan Markle’s name carved into the handle.

Morgan’s interview with Youssef begins with an unintentional joke: The delicate types at Piers Morgan Uncensored placing a message in hazard-warning yellow and stark white at the start of the clip: “Warning: This video contains swearing.” Don’t worry about the discussion of death, destruction, terrorist massacres, and potential genocide, a man is also going to say “fuck”.

It quickly becomes clear that Youssef will not allow this interview to follow the well-worn pattern of a performatively grim-faced host extracting answers by rote:

Youssef: … those Palestinians are very dramatic, ‘Ah, Israel is killing us.’ But they never die, they always come back. They’re very difficult people to kill. I know because I’m married to one. I tried many times, couldn’t kill her. 

Morgan: There’s a dark humour there, and I understand why… / 

Youssef: Oh, it’s not dark humour: I try to get to her every time but she uses our kids as human shields. I can never take her out. 

Morgan: Again, I understand the humour, but to be serious, Bassam, about this… 

Youssef: Okay, I will be serious. I was watching your interview with Ben Shapiro, and I will tell you one thing: I think Ben Shapiro is one of the smartest people who ever walked this earth. He’s very, very smart. I follow him and I believe everything he says. And… his solution was, the solution for this is for “Israel to annex Gaza and to kill as many sons of bitches as possible to make sure this will never happen again”. And anyone who called for a cease-fire will be a terrorist sympathiser, so god forbid, I don’t want to be labelled as a terrorist sympathiser, so I agree with Ben Shapiro: I think we should kill as many sons of bitches as possible. So far, 3,500 people were killed… One-third of those 3,500 were children. So my question to Ben Shapiro is: How many more sons of bitches do we need to kill so Ben Shapiro is happy? 

Because it changes from year to year… the question is: What is a proportionate response? Because it has been different from one year to another. [Brings out a graph of deaths by year] So if you look to this graph for example, this is the death of Israelis and Palestinians, it changes from one year to two year, it’s like fluctuating like crypto. What is the going rate today for human lives? I mean, 2014 was a great year for Ben Shapiro. 88 Israelis died and there were 2329 Palestinians killed on the other side. That is one Israeli for 27 Palestinians. That’s a very good exchange rate. What I’m saying is, what is the exchange rate for today? 

Watching the full interview is like witnessing Jonathan Swift compose his Modest Proposal — a satirical suggestion that the Irish should solve poverty by selling their children to be eaten — in real-time, while interrupted by an idiot.

Later in the segment, when Morgan brought in Jeremy Boreing, CEO of the Daily Wire and business partner / self-described best friend of Ben Shapiro, the discussion returned to familiar stock lines (“The purpose of war is to defeat your enemy… [in World War II, the Allies] brought their enemies to heel…”).

After a short further response from Youssef, Morgan cut him off, with some pat concern for his in-laws in Gaza:

Youssef: By the way, my wife’s family’s alright and they sent us [picture of] a house, it’s bombed, it’s beautiful, it’s going to be a good Halloween theme.

… 

Morgan: Bassem, I wish your family all the very best, thank you for joining me. I appreciate it.

Youssef: I don’t thank you.

Morgan opened the show with a monologue where he talked about “moral cowardice” and managed, as usual, to make it about him — “I’ve called out people… I’ve done all this as a journalist and a human being…” — and throughout the programme cross-promoted his Sun column on the horrors, which is illustrated with a picture of his giant head next to the ruins of Palestinian homes and an Israeli tank commander.

The Hamas attack on Israel was a grotesque terrorist attack; the Israeli response is a litany of horrors that expands by the day. And Piers Morgan? He’s just there to emote and exploit. Bassem Youssef is a satirist and last night he showed up Morgan for what he really is: not the newsman he cosplays but a clown.

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