(Transcript) Ep 1: Vanished

Ep 1: Vanished

Noor Tagouri (00:10):

This is a story about the stories we tell. My name is Noor Tagouri and I've been telling stories my entire life. I've spent the last few years examining a more personal one. One about how the misrepresentation of Muslims in American media has impacted our culture and society. And I thought I knew the story because, well, I thought I knew my story. Yes, the common narrative has been getting it wrong about Muslims since America's conception. But also, like any rigorous investigation, the more I looked for singular clear answers, the more questions I had.

Noor Tagouri (00:59):

During this journey, something extraordinary happened. The stories I thought I knew intimately were still alive, breathing, yearning to be heard and told. And whenever I would forget that they were still evolving, this experience put me right back in my place. The place of a witness. I had to surrender to the stories over and over again. I learned there's a difference between controlling a narrative and being curious about it. So like Alice, I followed the white rabbit into Wonderland and I decided to take an unexpected path that led me into a broader exploration of the ever evolving story of America, of what it represents. Of what we, as a culture, a society, as individuals really represent. This is Rep.

Doc (02:08):

Oh my God. They found me. I don't know how, but they found me. Run for it, Marty!

Marty (02:15):

Who? Who?

Doc (02:15):

Who do you think? The Libyans!

Noor Tagouri (02:26):

Back to The Future.

Yaseen Tagouri (02:28):

It showed Libyan terrorists with a van and guns shooting at the people or the white men.

Noor Tagouri (02:39):

Doc and Marty?

Yaseen Tagouri (02:40):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (02:43):

Meet [Yaseen 00:02:45], my 11 year old brother. He's the kind of kid who understands his emotions better than most adults. He'll let you know if something makes him uncomfortable. And if he senses that something is off with you, he'll check in. On my hardest days, he's the person I FaceTime first. I care a lot about what he has to say.

Yaseen Tagouri (03:07):

Doc just yelled, "Quick, the Libyans are coming. Take cover." And I thought that's a bad representation about Muslims and who Muslims and Libyans really are. It just really hurt me how they put that. But I can understand why they put that because they were afraid and at that time it was with Bush, I think. Was it?

Noor Tagouri (03:34):

It was way before.

Yaseen Tagouri (03:36):

Way before?

Noor Tagouri (03:37):

Ronald Reagan.

Yaseen Tagouri (03:38):

Yeah. And there was something about Libyans and terrorists and all that.

Noor Tagouri (03:45):

Did you think about that after you watched the movie?

Yaseen Tagouri (03:47):

Yes and no. Because I was thinking about the later parts in the movie because it was funny.

Noor Tagouri (03:52):

Yeah.

Yaseen Tagouri (03:53):

So I forget stuff quickly in the movie. So I would remember the funny part instead of the hard part.

Noor Tagouri (04:05):

I had to sit with that, remembering the funny part instead of the hard part. When I had first watched the movie, my own thoughts were more inconclusive. I was so surprised to hear the word Libyans in a blockbuster film, that it wouldn't register to me until years later that one of my favorite childhood movies which came out in the summer of '85, contributed to a bigger narrative. One that would make it harder for Americans to figure out their own feelings about a bombing raid President Reagan would order on Libya less than one year later.

President Raegan (04:43):

We, Americans are slow to anger. We always seek peaceful avenues before resorting to the use of force. And we did. Gaddafi continued his reckless policy of intimidation, his relentless pursuit of terror. He counted on America to be passive. He counted wrong. I said that we would act with others if possible and alone if necessary, to ensure that terrorists have no sanctuary anywhere. Tonight we have.

Khalu Mohy (05:17):

35 years later. Well, it brings back the whole memory.

Casper Weinberger (05:23):

The attack was carried out precisely as planned. It was as the president said, evidence of very great skill. All of the targets were terrorist related and the criteria for selecting the targets was that they had a full terrorist connection. That we would minimize any collateral damage from civilian or other facilities nearby.

Noor Tagouri (05:46):

That's the voice of Casper Weinberger, then secretary of defense.

Khalu Mohy (05:50):

I remember when Casper Weinberger and the Minister Shultz 00:05:56 had their interview with journalists.

Noor Tagouri (06:04):

This is my Khalu Mohy [00:06:07], my grandmother's eldest brother. He once told me a story about how easy air travel used to be before 9/11. That he had even been able to fly with his nine millimeter revolver he bought from the Big D fair in Dallas. I picture him and his cowboy hat and blue Levis, with cheekbones that sit extra high, just like my grandmother's. An all American Libyan cowboy. That story felt like fiction.

Noor Tagouri (06:37):

Khalu Mohy also never misses the evening news. He often recorded and archived the news. In fact, all of the archival audio you'll hear in this story is a result of him pressing the record button. In 1986, he was living in Tulsa, Oklahoma. And on April 15th, ever committed to his evening news routine this time on a two inch portable TV during his son's baseball game, my great-uncle witnessed the breaking news that he would have to break to his family. News that would change everyone's lives forever, the US airstrike on Libya.

Khalu Mohy (07:17):

As soon as they mentioned the French embassy was hit. So I immediately picked up the phone to call my uncles and I kept calling and calling and calling. Both uncles I have their phone and they no answer. So then I called my sister, which she lives about half a mile from them. I said, "Send your husband please to go and check on them because I think they demolished their villa and I'll stay on the line with you until he goes and come back to tell us." So she was wondering how come... I mean, I'm telling her this-

Noor Tagouri (08:00):

From Oklahoma.

Khalu Mohy (08:02):

From Oklahoma. And she's in Tripoli. I said, "What happened? Did you hear anything?" She said, "Yeah, we heard the big explosion and all the glass, the windows in the building shattered." So I said, "Then your uncles are completely vanished." She said, "Why are you saying that?" I said, "Just send your husband and let him check." So he went and came back and he told her that the building is not there anymore.

Noor Tagouri (08:44):

My mama was 15 living with her family in Annadale, Virginia.

Salwa Tagouri (08:49):

I think when we were watching CNN and saw the body of one of my uncles right there laying in the morgue of the hospital, I think it solidified what happened and we realized that everybody was gone. And I just remember my mom crying. I remember phone calls and the other people in Oklahoma are crying, which is my uncle's family. I just remember a lot of panic and crying.

Khalu Mohy (09:24):

Of course, CNN, NBC, CBS, all the channels brought live pictures from Libya. And of course, we saw our family's property completely demolished. They didn't even find any intact body. All they found is scattered pieces of meat and bones.

Salwa Tagouri (09:47):

And I remember I just wanted to kind of run away from all that. So I actually asked my mom that I wanted to go to school. So can you imagine all this is happening and I don't want to skip school. I wanted to go to school because I thought if I just go to school, then everything will be all right and I'll just act like nothing happened and it would go away. So I actually ended up taking the bus and going to school with all this panic and pandemonium happening at my a house.

Salwa Tagouri (10:16):

And I thought I was going to be fine. The minute I get there, I don't recall exactly what happened, but I just broke down and cried in school. And so my teacher sent me immediately to the counselor's office and the counselor was like, "What's going on? Why are you crying?" And then I told her we a bunch of family members. Because I mean, obviously everybody knew the bombing happened.

Noor Tagouri (10:42):

Did this incident change your perspective on America at all? Or the family's perspective on America?

Khalu Mohy (10:55):

No. I have always admired the American people. I have my ideas about the different American governments, but the American people are always great.

Dr. Tagouri (11:26):

You're going to be calling me Baba or are you going to call me Dr. Tagouri?

Noor Tagouri (11:31):

What would you prefer?

Dr. Tagouri (11:33):

If you are going to be publishing it, Dr. Tagouri.

Noor Tagouri (11:35):

Okay. All right, Dr. Tagouri. This is my dad. He was born and raised in Benghazi where he went to school.

Dr. Tagouri (11:46):

Okay. So in 1986, I just graduated from medical school and I started my internship on March 1st. I remember that day very well. And I had to do rotations at Al-Joumhourya hospital, which is one of the oldest hospital in Benghazi. Was built during the Turkish Ottoman Empire. Anyway, we were doing good until April. I still remember the explosions of the Berlin bar killing two soldiers.

Noor Tagouri (12:22):

Two American soldiers.

Dr. Tagouri (12:23):

Two American soldiers. Yes. Gaddafi used to recruit students to be his bodyguards. And those students used to be in the university carrying the kalashnikov, which is RK 47. And they would brag about it. One day in March I remember there is a guy came with a suitcase full of money and he was telling me that he's going to East [inaudible 00:12:55] Germany in a mission trip. And he left and he came back and I know that he was doing a lot of missions for Gaddafi's. Not long after that, we heard about the Berlin Bar and the two American soldiers were killed.

Noor Tagouri (13:16):

Becoming a doctor wasn't exactly his first choice. He was more interested in nuclear engineering, but knowing he didn't want to go anywhere near Gaddafi's regime, his parents advised him to pursue medicine instead thinking that might lower the probability of him being forced to join the military. School and work were his keys to getting out and getting out of Libya was on his mind for most of his life. He had witnessed horrifying scenes like public hangings of men, including some of his own friends. I've heard stories about this since I was young. One of the times that I had traveled to Libya I remember every establishment I had walked into had this huge portrait of Muammar Gaddafi.

Noor Tagouri (14:00):

And I remember asking, is this because everybody loves him so much or is there something else going on here? And people told me that it was a requirement. Some of the reasons for public execution were for voicing your opinions about Gaddafi or even something as simple as attending the mosque for morning prayers. When I asked my dad for confirmation on these reasons, he did a very Arab dad thing. He had me call one of his friends, [Amu Hussein 00:14:31]. Amu is the Arabic word for uncle. He's not my real uncle. We've never even met. The world is small and we're all universally related anyway. Right?

Amu Hussein (14:43):

I stood up during that lecture and they said, "Who has any comments?" So I raised my hands like, "Me." I stood up. I talked for almost maybe 40 minutes. And I said, "Gaddafi is number one enemy to Islam. Gaddafi number one enemy to his people, to his country in 1988." So I said, Gaddafi, you need to open the country, open libraries, open [inaudible 00:15:09], media. You need to stop." So I talk to his people. I finish and I call Gaddafi crazy. I call he is not Muslim. He's against Islam. At night, they took me to jail for 12 years.

Noor Tagouri (15:25):

During his time as a political prisoner of Gaddafi's regime, Amu Hussein was to witness the Abu Salim prison massacre that is estimated to have killed over 1200 people. A massacre that Amnesty International, Human Rights Watch and the US State Department would all press for justice for its victims.

Amu Hussein (15:45):

I was watching everything because I was one of those service members in the kitchen. We cook, we clean, we do everything. We do maintenance in the jail. So I was hiding there when the clash started between the prisoners and the Gaddafi security group. And next day, after they went back to their cells, they don't have any weapons. He killed them all in a few hours.

Noor Tagouri (16:13):

After he was released from prison in 2000, Amu Hussein would go on to become an activist for justice. Speaking out for awareness of the prison massacre and against the Gaddafi regime. Back to 1986. So of course, when America comes in with the mission to take their dictator out, Baba is ready as a doctor. Knowing he may have to attend to what governments referred to as collateral damage. And for him and his friends would lost all hope for the future of their homeland.

Dr. Tagouri (16:49):

We as a group of educated young Libyan at that time, all we wanted to do is to leave Libya. We lost a lot of hope that there will be any changes that help a building Libya.

Noor Tagouri (17:05):

America brought the bombs, which to Dr. Tagouri offered a false hope.

Dr. Tagouri (17:12):

I remember that a lot of my friends and colleagues, we were cheering for the American because we thought this attack might bring Gaddafi down and liberate Libya.

Noor Tagouri (17:24):

Were you a part of that group that was cheering?

Dr. Tagouri (17:28):

Yes. Yes, I was. We were joking. We were saying that is his house.

Noor Tagouri (17:38):

This is when the world starts to feel really small. My dad is in Benghazi. My mom is watching this all go down in Virginia. They're worlds apart. And it isn't until years later that my dad finds out that the collateral damage we've been talking about was actually my mom's family.

Noor Tagouri (17:58):

And how many family members total?

Salwa Tagouri (17:59):

Five. It was my uncle and his wife, my other uncle, their son, and their granddaughter.

Noor Tagouri (18:11):

Who was just sleeping over?

Salwa Tagouri (18:12):

Yeah, sleeping over. Because she was doing her homework and then her mom just thought, okay, I'll just let her stay the night with her grandparents. And their son, my cousin, he was engaged actually to be married. A young man I believe in his twenties at that time. I thought by just going to school, I'm going to put it away and it's just going to be fine. It's like you want to run away from what happened.

Noor Tagouri (18:36):

Yeah. So you try to do your normal routine.

Salwa Tagouri (18:39):

Yeah. Yeah. I just wanted to keep it going, keep the routine. I don't want to see my mom break down and have this whole thing be a reality. So I wanted to run away, but I thought I could... My young teen self thought I could run away but I-

Noor Tagouri (18:52):

Yeah. You were protecting yourself.

Salwa Tagouri (18:53):

Yeah, but it followed me to school obviously and I just broke down there.

Noor Tagouri (18:57):

Khalu Mohy, our favorite Libyan American cowboy was also worlds away in Tulsa. He had moved there in 1979.

Noor Tagouri (19:08):

And you were just telling us you had the choice between Australia and Tulsa, Oklahoma. And you went with Tulsa. Why did you want to come? What were you leaving?

Khalu Mohy (19:20):

Well, I was leaving Gaddafi's regime. And at the beginning, his first few years, everybody thought he's young and he is very down to earth and he wants to rule Libya with the people of Libya. But then as years goes on, we discovered that he was just a tyrant creeping.

Noor Tagouri (19:49):

And what did you see in America that you felt would be a better place for you?

Khalu Mohy (19:57):

I came to the United States because of the constitution of the United States. I went to school in 1966 in Tulsa, Oklahoma. I felt the warmth of the people of Oklahoma and democracy in this country and the good people.

Noor Tagouri (20:19):

What about the constitution stuck with you?

Khalu Mohy (20:21):

What stuck with me? The constitution that everybody is equal. Everybody is under the law, nobody is above the law. And I felt it and I witnessed it in my daily life here. The kindness of the people of Oklahoma, the warmth of the neighbors and the rights of everybody. Nobody is different from anybody.

Noor Tagouri (20:55):

When was the first time you personally felt represented in media?

Khalu Mohy (21:03):

Well, when they covered the America raid. I don't know how many TV station came to our house. In fact, we lived in a cul-de-sac and there was at least seven or eight trucks with the old towers and dishes and-

Noor Tagouri (21:21):

The broadcast towers?

Khalu Mohy (21:22):

Yeah. And they were there for maybe half a day or so.

Noor Tagouri (21:30):

Would you say that coverage was the first time when you watched television you saw something you could relate to?

Khalu Mohy (21:37):

Yes. I mean, even the people here, most of the people in the States... I mean, when you say Libya they say Lebanon or Bolivia.

Noor Tagouri (21:50):

That's even when I was in school. When I would say Libya, that's what people would say.

Khalu Mohy (21:54):

Yeah. Nobody knows about Libya.

Noor Tagouri (21:57):

Do you remember the film, Back to The Future?

Khalu Mohy (22:00):

Yeah, I think they mentioned Libya in there.

Noor Tagouri (22:07):

TV, film, any pop culture is a powerful pen. One that documents the way the stories of our societies are currently being written. There are moments, scenes, even specific news broadcasts that commit to memory as touch points for the narratives of our lives. For mama, who's been watching CNN for decades now, her relationship with the cable news network actually starts the day the network confirms what actually happened to her family.

Noor Tagouri (22:42):

What do you remember feeling or seeing with that CNN footage? Because I remember you saying that's how you really found out.

Salwa Tagouri (22:52):

It's so funny because I don't remember a lot of things about my childhood, but that I still... The image of the TV screen with the bodies and they weren't even really covered. And so-

Noor Tagouri (23:02):

On CNN.

Salwa Tagouri (23:02):

Yeah. And so we saw my uncle. Actually, he is an uncle that never got married and so he would come to my grandmother's house all the time to eat dinner. He would bring me Mintos every single time he came to my grandmother's. And so he was the cool uncle that wore a suit when he came. We loved him.

Noor Tagouri (23:24):

That's so beautiful.

Salwa Tagouri (23:25):

Yeah.

Noor Tagouri (23:27):

So what was your relationship or the household's relationship with the television with what was happening on the news when this was going on?

Salwa Tagouri (23:35):

I don't really remember us really watching TV. I mean, at that time cable TV or anything was literally two, three channels. And if anybody watched the news, it was my dad. I never watched the news. I just remember we watched Family Feud as a family and that's it. I just remember of course my family being glued to the news when this happened.

Noor Tagouri (23:56):

It's 1986. Gaddafi is still alive. My mother is a teenager glued to the TV in Virginia. And my dad is plotting his escape.

Dr. Tagouri (24:23):

America for us was a superpower, similar to Russia. At that time it was a USSR Soviet Union. But it was a Western world, an open country and a country of opportunities that people liked and they get connected with American dreams through the movies. Hollywood movies played a major role with the youth.

Noor Tagouri (24:51):

I call my dad a walking encyclopedia. He'll never tell you a story without history and context, including his own.

Dr. Tagouri (25:01):

Was I looking forward to come to it? I said, "No, I was not looking forward because all I need is to get out." And if you know that when I left Libya I wanted to migrate to Australia. There was opportunity for me to go there. However, it didn't work out. With the will of God, I ended by coming to the United States.

Noor Tagouri (25:25):

Baba settled in Huntington, West Virginia, where I was born. And while my family is full of storytellers, Baba is one of the main reasons I am where I am today. He kept a camera in my face since the day I was born. It became tradition for me to ask him...

Noor Tagouri (25:40):

When is it news time, Baba?

Noor Tagouri (25:45):

News time was when I would turn my hand into a fist as a mock microphone and report live from wherever we were at the moment. A few years later, he would tell me the thing I loved doing so much, that was called journalism. And knowing firsthand the importance of a free press, Baba takes journalism very seriously. It wasn't until this conversation that I realized where my father's deep value of objectivity comes from. You see, like Khalu Mohy, Baba also consistently consumes the news. You have to read. You have to know your history. Those are two lines I can still hear echoing in my head from childhood. Objectivity is fundamental in the work he does as a doctor. He believes that objectivity is also vital to the work I do as a journalist. I kind of disagree.

Dr. Tagouri (26:41):

For me, journalism is a very important job. A journalist should say and limit themself to the fact and they cannot be biased to one side or another. Let the listener make the decision of the truth. There is three side of the truth, side A, side B and the real thing. Okay. And a journalist should say exactly what side A says and exactly what side B said and walk away and let the listener or the watcher or whoever make a decision. Who's right? Who's wrong? Was it correct or not? Make me decide which evidence is the truth. Like a jury. We are missing this today. Totally. Totally. We're missing it.

Noor Tagouri (27:47):

So I think in the course of my work, and even when I was trying to pitch you to join this conversation, your concern was around objectivity and remaining unbiased. And essentially, if we put ourselves in the story, then there is going to be a very specific point of view. And I think what I'm finding in this journey is that if we want to seek out truth and understanding of people we are not familiar with or people who we do not understand or people we may be afraid of, then it's important for us to know our personal stories and understand where we came from so that we can understand how we adopted our own points of view.

Dr. Tagouri (28:34):

Well, yes, that is where you become activist, but not generalist. When you know your life and your story and you understand it and you preach it, but someone else will not going to agree with your point of view. Okay? So that makes you an activist from my point of view.

Noor Tagouri (29:09):

That used to be a trigger point for me, calling me an activist instead of a journalist. For the last 13 years of my journalism career, people and the press have consistently referred to me as an activist simply because I choose to wear a headscarf but I was just trying to do my job; to ask questions and tell stories. I'd even shadow journalists who worked at big networks and some would tell me that my hijab immediately created a bias. There was one CNN writer who would later become my professor and he said to me casually over dinner, "Can't you just take it off for the broadcast and then put it back on after?" And I get where he was coming from.

Noor Tagouri (29:51):

Traditionally, to be impartial meant that your identity has to take a backseat. But for this to be totally true, requires there to be a default and the default storyteller has traditionally been white men. While I believe it is critical to be fair, report facts and give space to an audience to come to their own conclusions, I also believe it's important that as a storyteller I consider who is telling the story. What makes them them? Because sometimes that context is actually important to consider when receiving a story.

Noor Tagouri (30:30):

The landscape of news and media is changing by the second. There are less limitations around who gets to tell stories than ever before, because of things like access, information and the spaces to build an audience. But the challenge for representation, proper representation, isn't over. And it's been a long road to even get here. So what was the landscape like in '86, the week of the raid? Let's go back in time and consider the handful of voices creating space for that story. There's one name many of you will remember, Phil Donahue. And Donahue would bring together experts and his audience to share perspectives on different topics.

Speaker 12 (31:15):

And continues now with Donahue.

Noor Tagouri (31:20):

And in this episode, they specifically spoke about the attack.

Christopher Hitchens (31:24):

I put this question to you. First imagine how it feels to live in a country that could be destroyed in seconds by an American nuclear decision, in a quarrel that perhaps it wasn't a party to. Every other country in the world lives daily with that reality and our view is that we should have no annihilation without representation.

Christopher Hitchens (31:43):

If your president is going to posture as the leader of the free world, he has to listen to non-Americans if he claims to speak for them. Let me use that Mr. Donahue's role for a second and ask you a question. It's a big risk one takes asking you a rhetorical question, but how many of you feel safer than you did four days ago?

Speaker 13 (31:58):

What's the matter?

Christopher Hitchens (31:59):

It's morning in Colonel Gaddafi's Libya.

Audience (32:00):

I think that-

Christopher Hitchens (32:00):

Colonel Gaddafi is still there. His little daughter is dead, but he's still there. The Libyan people are still there.

Noor Tagouri (32:07):

Donahue was a predecessor of Oprah, who I grew up watching. And like her, Donahue was known for holding conversations between his guests and his audience. Lively debates, high and low culture mixing. It was one of those shows on in the afternoon when kids were coming home from school.

Speaker 13 (32:25):

But yeah.

Audience (32:26):

I personally don't agree with the bombing and I feel that we just added fuel to the furnace. But I have a question. Why does Gaddafi hate us so much? I really don't understand that part.

Christopher Hitchens (32:38):

Well [crosstalk 00:32:38] you have Palestinian Arabs who have been living in camps for half a century and who are saying, "Hey, wait a minute. What about us?" And you also have males who have lost wives and children. And they look up and they see the hardware and they believe that it's us, that the bomb says made in America. And alarming numbers of them are saying, "I will make you pay for this. I will, till I die, make you pay." Now what do you do with that attitude?

Audience (33:22):

I just don't like the attitude of my two sons who, after hearing all this on the news, came home and said, "Yeah, we kicked their hmm. And so gungho..." We're opening up a whole kettle of-

Sanford Unger (33:34):

What do you say to your son when they say that you?

Audience (33:36):

I really didn't know what to say for a minute to be very honest. I had to think about it.

Sanford Unger (33:40):

It's very tough.

Audience (33:42):

Because I... Yes, it is.

Noor Tagouri (33:43):

Those voices you're hearing come from Donahue's audience members and his panel of three experts. The experts include Michael Binyon, a British journalist and prominent Moscow correspondent. There's Sanford Unger, author and professor. He was the last to speak. The first voice we heard may be familiar to some, the aggressive British man who asked if the audience felt safer after Reagan bombed Libya. That's the Journalist Christopher Hitchens.

Noor Tagouri (34:11):

In 15 years time, he would become a major voice for the war cheerleaders after 9/11. Quite the opposite of how he comes across in his younger days of this Donahue appearance. Later in the show, there occurred something we would never see or hear today. At least not with this sort of candor. One of the panelists, Sanford Unger calls out his own presence on the stage. He asks Donahue why he was given the mic. And specifically why in that moment.

Phil Donahue (34:42):

Make your point about a media, Mr. Unger. You're the only Native American here. Let's let's hear your objective now.

Sanford Unger (34:49):

No, I think the great problem in all of this film is we only look at it through our own eyes. You want to talk about foreign policy? You get three white men here to talk about foreign policy. What about that vast majority of the world who are not white males? We're all delighted to be here today, I understand the constructive purpose, but we don't look at the world. We don't look at what's happening through the eyes, the hearts, the feelings of others.

Noor Tagouri (35:13):

We only look at it through our own eyes. That's what Sanford Unger said. And he meant it. He was wasn't selling anything. He had no agenda other than an intrinsic call to dignity, but it wasn't heard. Not then and it's still not being heard now to look at what's happening through the eyes, the hearts, the feelings of others. This episode of Donahue represents the meeting of public opinion and pop culture. The audience is voicing public opinion, literally handed the mic by Donahue. The experts shared their opinions of the politics of the day and that evolved into the pop culture of the moment.

Speaker 17 (36:13):

Rep.

Speaker 18 (36:16):

Yes, please. [inaudible 00:36:23].

Noor Tagouri (36:32):

Discovering the Donahue episode my great uncle taped on his VHS brought me to tears. Witnessing the nuances in each audience member's perspective on this attack. I find myself nostalgic for these kinds of discussions. American attacks in other countries today don't get this kind of concentrated major network platform for public opinion. So this felt like a big deal. Do you ever remember hearing about Libya in the media before that?

Salwa Tagouri (37:07):

Oh yeah. Yeah. Gaddafi, Gaddafi, Gaddafi, Gaddafi. Like, oh-

Noor Tagouri (37:11):

So not Libya but Gaddafi.

Salwa Tagouri (37:12):

Yeah. Yeah, totally Gaddafi. Because anytime anybody asks like, "Oh where are you guys from?" Whatever. And if we say Libya it would be like, "Oh, Gaddafi. Oh, Gaddafi." And then you had people asking questions and it's like, "I don't know anything about him. I didn't grow up under his regime." Or whatever. So I'm uncomfortable actually. And when a lot of people thought I was a Latina anyways, I just went with it.

Noor Tagouri (37:41):

What about when Libya started being mentioned in pop culture? I mean, there's the reference in the Back to The Future film that came out a year before the bombing happened. Do you remember ever having any feelings towards that?

Salwa Tagouri (37:55):

I mean you just let it roll off your back, I think. But at the same time, deep down it bothers everyone. But I don't think I even understood what that discomfort was when I was so young. Now I look back and I understand why we felt that way. But at that time you don't realize what you're feeling.

Noor Tagouri (38:16):

Well, when was the first time you ever felt properly represented in media?

Salwa Tagouri (38:20):

Properly represented? I still don't feel properly represented. What are you talking about?

Noor Tagouri (38:26):

Really?

Salwa Tagouri (38:27):

Yeah. How are we properly... I mean, I don't see it.

Noor Tagouri (38:30):

Khalu Mohy doesn't just consume news. He dissects it. Actually the reason he knew he wanted to leave Libya as early as he did was because he would listen to Gaddafi's broadcasts over and over, noticing patterns and promises he was making. His media literacy is what gave him the tools to make some of the biggest decisions of his life. And I want to get specific about some of these tools.

Khalu Mohy (39:07):

Pop culture of course influences the people and some naive people will not dig for the truth. Some naive people will listen to their presidents what they tell them, thinking that presidents won't lie to them.

Noor Tagouri (39:25):

So do you think politics influences popular opinion or popular opinion influences politics? What do you think the relationship is with the three?

Khalu Mohy (39:34):

I think the three are intertwined, but they affect each other. And what I'm afraid of is the new media, the Facebook and the other new media, which is full of lies, most of the people are naive and they don't don't think... I mean they think what they read is the truth of what they see is the truth. When that's not a fact.

Noor Tagouri (40:08):

You've always just looked for truth.

Khalu Mohy (40:11):

Exactly.

Noor Tagouri (40:12):

Are you still looking for truth?

Khalu Mohy (40:16):

I think since we are born, we're looking for the truth. We grow up looking for the truth and we die without reaching the real truth. A lot of people think when they read something or they see something, they think, "Oh, that's true." I have learned a good lesson when I was maybe 15 or 16 years old. I have read a story about four people who are sitting in a little cabin in a train traveling in Europe. And in that cabin there was an old lady, a young woman, 20, 25 years old woman and a Nazi soldier and a French farmer. That train went into a tunnel so everything was pitch dark. At that moment, they heard a kiss, then a slap, then the train came out to light again.

Khalu Mohy (41:38):

So the old lady, she said, "Good for her. They tried to kiss her and she revenged for her honor." The 25 years old girl said, "What stupid guys. They kiss the old woman and they leave me." The Nazi soldier said, "Goddammit. This farmer kisses the girl and I get the slap on my face." So then the farmer said to himself, "Good. I kissed my hand and I slapped the Nazi." So from that time when I heard that story, I have never judged anything that I see or I hear a hundred percent. I'm amazed to see people accusing other people with things that they thought they saw or they thought they heard. So that's why I said we live and die without knowing the real truth.

Noor Tagouri (42:59):

I've been saying something for years that I didn't entirely understand until I reported the story. In order to know each other, we need to know ourselves. We need to know who and where we come from. Like my Baba says, know your history. Like many multicultural kids, a couple of times I had the privilege of visiting my family's motherland. I loved it so much. The hospitality, culture, getting context of my own roots. I also didn't entirely feel like I fit in.

Noor Tagouri (43:36):

My cousins made fun of my broken Arabic and I still often think about how I am not yet able to fully clearly communicate with my family members whose mother tongue isn't the same as mine. Here in America, there have been many times I've felt the same sense of strangeness. Like what does it mean to actually be American? And what is the role of America's own story around the globe?

Noor Tagouri (44:03):

An American history professor once told me casually over dinner, that he believes story is America's greatest export. What if this is true? Would that explain how it wasn't until I rewatched Back to The Future as an adult that I realized our favorite stories can also help produce the scripts for unexpected nightmares. The stories we tell each other are alive and breathing, ever evolving and waiting to be shared. While working on this episode, I dreamt about my ancestors who were killed in the US air raid 36 years ago.

Noor Tagouri (44:40):

I saw and felt them viscerally and intimately. It was like they knew that this part of their story was finally being told and they visited me as evidence of our connection. Now that you've gotten to know me and my family a little better, I'd like to reintroduce myself to you. My parents named me Noor Al-Huda Tagouri. It means the guiding light. For this series REP, stories will guide us together to challenge the concept of the value of representation. And I invite you to witness and experience them and of course, yourselves. As always, at your service.

Noor Tagouri (45:35):

REP is a production of At Your Service, School of Humans and iHeart podcasts. The show is written and produced by me, Noor Tagouri and Zerin Burnett. Editing, sound design and scoring by Josh Fisher. Original theme song written and composed by Maimouna Youssef, also known as Mumu Fresh. Our senior producer is Amelia Brock. Our associate producers are Tyler Donahue and Betsy Cardenas. Mix and master by Beheed Fraser. Audio assembly by Mary Do. Our executive producers are Adam Keffe, Zerin Burnett, Jason English and me, Noor Tagouri.

Noor Tagouri (46:16):

Audio from the Phil Donahue Show courtesy of NBC Universal. Special thanks to Virginia Prescott from School of Humans and Will Pearson from iHeart podcasts. I'd also like to thank Mahid de Iliasi, Salwa Tagouri, Yahya Tagouri, Yaseen Tagouri for trusting me with these stories. And thank you Sosen Iliasi who helped process Khalu Mohy's archives so we could use it in this podcast. If REP resonated with you and you'd like to support our show, please rate and review and share it with someone else you think may enjoy it. We'll see you next week. I'm Noor Tagouri, as always, at your service.