So now that you have a very simple, inaccurate, and totally subjective idea about the different sects of political Islam in Egypt, let’s continue.
Right after the revolution we were all on a high note celebrating the unity of the Egyptian people. Many imagined a secular country that contained us all. We could not have been further from the truth.
The army, now in charge of the country, had just announced that we would have a referendum concerning the constitution. It was a simple yes-or-no vote: if you wanted the old constitution but with a few amendments, you voted yes; if you wanted the constitution to be totally scraped and exchanged for a new constitution, you voted no.
A simple yes-or-no vote turned ugly. Most of the so-called liberal or civil figures called for a new constitution, for a no vote. Many of us changed our profile photos on Facebook to No images.
On the other side, the Islamists (both Salafis and Muslim Brotherhood) were endorsing the yes vote, employing one major strategy: they started to send their sheikhs and imams to the poorer places in Egypt to tell everyone that a no vote means a no against Islamic Sharia. You see, the old constitution had Islamic Sharia as one of the sources of legislation (remember Sadat and how one single word fucked us over?). Hysterical sheikhs started to tell everyone that liberals and seculars were plotting to strip Egypt of its Islamic identity and that a no vote was a vote against God.
We were just curious why those Salafi sheikhs who had basically been created by the regime to deter people from political activity were suddenly preaching to push people into a certain political direction.
Nevertheless, we had no doubt that the outcome would be an overwhelming no vote. How did we know? Well, because all my friends on Facebook had changed their profile photos to a big No. How could we lose? Also, we had all those liberal famous figures appearing in black-and-white videos on social media urging people to vote no. How can you lose when you have celebrities on your side? Same as when Trump won despite all of those celebrities, like Robert De Niro, actively campaigning against him. If you guys lose with the Godfather himself on your side . . . Well, the world does belong to assholes.
We discovered that not everyone in Egypt lives on Facebook. It turned out that a sheikh giving Friday prayer sermons in remote villages was more effective than all of social media and the liberal media combined.
When the results came in, nearly 80 percent of the vote was yes, which gave enough steam to Islamists to flex their muscles. Soon after the wonderful portrait of our revolution for unity, equality, and coexistence, we were split into two camps. The Islamists (the Muslim Brotherhood and their new buddies, the Salafis) now thought that an overwhelming yes vote on the referendum was an overwhelming yes to totalitarian Islam.
The army could not have been happier. The result of the referendum was a repeated slap to the faces of those liberal powers who thought they could change the country. The army never wanted change, not with so many interests, businesses, and powerful people involved. It was a system sixty years in the making. Removing Mubarak didn’t even touch the deep state that he was a disposable face of. The Muslim Brotherhood were never serious about the revolution either. They used it simply to come into power. They had no problem with the old regime as long as they were on top of it.
One of their most famous Salafi sheikhs, who pushed the narrative of “this is our country, not yours anymore,” was Hussein Yacoub. He was an elderly man with bright blue eyes and a white beard like Santa Claus. One of his favorite pastimes was to marry four teenage girls at a time. Prior to the 1990s, when sheikhs like this guy rose to fame, the Salafis told their followers that television was haram. Most modern technology was haram—such as taking a photograph of yourself or owning a satellite dish, a “portal for Satan” to enter our houses. The idea was that if it didn’t exist in the time of the Prophet Muhammad, then it was a novelty that we should not accept.
In the 2000s religious television was a huge business, and large sums of money were pushed into these channels. Not surprisingly, Salafi sheikhs were invited to host religious programs on television, which was supposed to be haram. But who cares when the money comes flowing in?
Yacoub was a perfect example of those scumbag sheikhs. He shifted from “TV is haram” to being the highest-paid Islamic televangelist. He was one of the people who pushed for a yes vote everywhere, and when he got it he said, “If you don’t like the result, you should just leave the country and emigrate to Canada.”
Canada had always been a destination for Egyptian Christians, or Copts, as they are called. He and many others insinuated that this vote was a victory over the Coptic Church and over the sinful liberals. Canada seems to be a refuge destination for everyone who gets screwed in elections, aka losers. I don’t know how long Canada can keep taking people in. Whether from our part of the world or from you, America.
My seventh YouTube episode about the referendum was a no-brainer; it was, after all, the talk of the whole nation. I just had one problem. I wanted to make fun of one of the sheikhs, but how? Those people were essentially considered saints. Over the centuries, Muslims had raised these sheikhs to a level that if you dared talk against them or ridicule their opinion, you would be considered an Islam hater or, even worse, an “apostate.”
Until then, many people suspected I was secretly Christian. Probably because I don’t have three Mohameds in my name. And yes, in a country infested with radical Islamic views, being Christian could be considered very wrong by the general public. People who doubted my Muslim identity had their suspicions confirmed when I continued going after fanatic religious idiots.
Then, one day, a Christian church was burned down because word got out that a Muslim girl had converted to Christianity and went into hiding there. A lesser-known sheikh instigated hate against the “dirty Christians” who “take our daughters and fool them into Christianity.”
I made fun of and ridiculed this asshole who was behind burning the church. I also made fun of some other sheikhs who were instigating hate.
According to them, I was clearly taking the side of the Christians, which means I had sinned. As my fans grew in number so did the number of people who hated me. But all of these YouTube videos were essentially the little leagues. There was nothing that would have prepared me for my next step: network television.
That’s where the real hate begins.