By Bernd Debusmann JrBBC News, Washington1 hour agoImage source, Getty ImagesImage caption, Some people on social media made fun of Mr. Biden by saying that he mixed up Egypt’s Pyramids with Mexico’s. Egypt and Mexico are thousands of miles apart, with different languages, food, politics, and cultures. But when people in both countries read the news on Friday morning, some found common humor and confusion in US President Joe Biden’s gaffe. At a tense news conference on Thursday night to defend his mental abilities, Mr. Biden mistakenly called Egyptian leader Abdel Fattah Al-Sisi the “president of Mexico”. This slip happened shortly after a report on Mr. Biden’s handling of declassified documents was released, and it quickly went viral on social media in both countries. On X, some Mexicans took a lighthearted approach to the mistake, sharing pictures of the Mexican flag with the Egyptian eagle of Saladin from the country’s coat of arms. Similarly, some Egyptians shared images of a Mexican eagle on an Egyptian flag, with one including the caption “Long Live the Arab Republic of Mexico”.”I mean come on. The Mexico and Egypt flag combination just looks really cool,” one user from Mexico City commented. Other X users took it a step further, posting AI-generated images of Mayan temples in the sand dunes near the Pyramids, or images of President Al-Sisi in traditional Mexican clothing and playing a guitar. “They’ve both got pyramids,” one X user wrote. “Anyone can get confused. I’m 65 and almost daily I get my car confused with others of the same colour.” In Egypt, some locals have long called Mr. Al Sisi “El Miksiki” – the Mexican – to avoid government censorship. This nickname originated from an old meme that was popular in Egypt, leading one user to comment that its citizens “memed this into reality”. Another explained that Egyptians who oppose the government sometimes refer to it as being under “Mexican occupation”. “You can’t criticize the president openly, so Egyptians started calling him ‘El Miksiki’ (‘the Mexican’ in Arabic) because it sounds like ‘al-Sisi’ so they can criticize him freely,” one user explained on X. However, not all Egyptians found humor in the Biden gaffe. Many users expressed shock at the mistake and anger towards the president, with some using the moment to criticize US support for Israel during the war in Gaza.
