Bassem Youssef, a new voice in the great family of US political satire shows

The first episode of Bassem Youssef's 10-episode series called "Democracy handbook"

As many of you probably know already, I am a big fan of Jon Stewart, and the whole family of satirical news that has come out of his series of correspondents: John Oliver, Stephen Colbert, etc etc. Now, I just discovered a new addition to this family: Bassem Yousef. Bassim has often been described as the Jon Stewart of Egypt, where he ran a similar comedy show as a response to the media malfunctioning in the wake of the Arab Spring. Originally, Bassem was a heart surgeon, and just like Stewart he has an uncanny combination of being highly intelligent, really quick at providing comebacks in conversations (an ability I have always admired with comedians), a good eye for important issues that are key problems in a society, and just like all of the correspondents in the Daily Show, Bassem has a wonderful way of using satire and irony to say what he wants to say, without actually saying it. 

Although most people presumably know of Bassem from his appearences on the Daily show, he did in fact not come to the US to become a correspondent in the Jon Stewart team, but only much more recently. He came as a consequence of his highly popular show in Egypt being cancelled (by the third rulers in Egypt in recent years, the military, who have turned out to be the most authoritarian of them all...). Because of this cancellation of his show in Egypt, he got an offer to do a new show on the online channel Fusion. I watched a few episodes of this already, and an interview with him and Larry King, and I am already convinced that he has brought an important new voice into the existing satirical arena: one that has first-hand experience of living in a true dictotorship, and of being an arab (and thus a muslim-looking guy) in the West. 

In other words, yet another comedian focusing on politics and current events has entered into the big family of American satire. This is great – but it also makes me long even more for a first such top-notch comedian to enter the Swedish (or European) arena.

The interview with Larry King.