(Transcript) Ep 11: Alive
Noor Tagouri:
3, 2, 1. Our first chapter of Rep: Vanished is a great story to share and a very difficult one to feel. The story goes like this. On April 15th, 1986, the US carried out operation El Dorado Canyon, an airstrike on Libya that would attempt to kill Libyan dictator Muammar Gaddafi.
Ronald Reagan:
[inaudible 00:00:33] military assets that support Muammar Gaddafi's subversive activities. The attacks were concentrated and carefully targeted to minimize casualties among the Libyan people with whom we have no quarrel.
Noor Tagouri:
The attempt failed. And one of the bombs hit my family's apartment complex in Tripoli, killing five family members. Their names are Halifa Lyoussi, Yussef Lyoussi, Mohammad Ali Lyoussi, Hadija Beshara, and Rasha Sharmi. Now the story of Vanished was only intended to be an entry point to Rep's bigger investigation. How does the way we represent Muslims and or Arabs in the media impact American society and culture as a whole.
Noor Tagouri:
Where we would go on the Rep journey after that, I had no idea. I just knew if I wanted to create space for the story to reveal itself, I needed to remain totally open to where it would take me. And along the way, I would examine my relationship with the stories I tell and the truths I believe. To keep things focused for this podcast my team set an intention to look at the stories of Rep through the lens of three Ps politics, pop culture, and public opinion. We would investigate the role of this dynamic in our stories. One morning in February, before I got to work on our first episode, I sat down in front of my bird watching window and meditated. I closed my eyes and an image formed against the backdrop of a bright softly, glowing light.
Noor Tagouri:
I began to see a familial portrait being painted. I never met my family members who died in the apartment building that was bombed by American jets. I don't know how they looked in life yet. Somehow I immediately recognized the figures in the painting as them. Not as collateral damage, but as people I was still connected to. Behind my family members, their destroyed apartment began to appear.
Noor Tagouri:
And the entire building rebuilt itself brick by brick, the apartment building climbed so high into the sky that new family members, future generations peaked their faces out of the windows. In the building I saw my family appear as both ancestors and descendants. Tears streamed down my face, making their way between my smiling lips, and an intention emerged that felt as clear as the vision I saw. Your story is still alive. The ink on the page of history never dries, and it is time for you to pick up the pen. I opened my eyes, stood up and without another thought, I pulled up the files converted from VHS, from my great uncle, my Hara Mahi's archival tape of the TV recordings from the days following the 86 airstrike.
Speaker 4:
It is the largest airstrike by the United States since the Vietnam war.,
Noor Tagouri:
I spent the rest of the day going through 16 hours of tape. I paid specific attention to how the reporters covered the attacks, how some even had their own questions about lack of information being shared from our government. And I definitely noticed the absence of any acknowledgement of civilian casualties from any American officials. My questions for Rep expanded, I needed to know what stories America was telling about Libya that made the attack culturally acceptable.
Speaker 4:
We know quite frankly, little of Libya and its people. Libyans are known as Berbers. The name comes from the root of barbarian. They've been controlled by Outlaws for much of their history.
Noor Tagouri:
How do these stories connect to other US political decisions and actions? And most importantly, how do the stories we tell and consume, influence how we see each other as humans? Watching the same news reports, press conferences and talk shows that my family watched 36 years ago to piece together their new tragedy felt like time traveling.
Noor Tagouri:
Vanished our first chapter came together quickly after that and was shared with the world a couple months later on 4/4/22, the first day of Ramadan, and a few days into Arab American heritage month. Now I'd like to take you a few weeks later in April. Our second chapter entitled Golden Girls was just released and I am in Cambridge, Massachusetts speaking at Harvard university at their Institute of politics forum. The subject is Arab American identity.
Noor Tagouri:
And before the talk I ask for a space to meditate. I remember what may Maimouna Youssef the woman behind the soulful Rep theme music told me she did before her NPR Tiny Desk performance. May Maimouna laid on the floor with her face down in submission and asked God to use her as a vessel for vibrational change on the planet, and to help heal someone as she healed herself. So I tried Maimouna's way and made the exact same prayer. Use me as a vessel to help heal and be healed.
Noor Tagouri:
And then I walked out on stage. Now that you know this backstory, I feel ready to share with you what happened that night. Welcome to the final chapter of the quest we call Rep. At your service and iHeart media present Rep, chapter 10, Alive.
Speaker 2:
Rep.
Speaker 5:
Tonight's conversation is going to be about building space for Arab Americans in public service. And we're welcome by two incredible guests. Noor Tagouri and James Zogby.
Noor Tagouri:
Remember Dr. Zogby from our last chapter on public opinion. He's the co-founder of the Arab American Institute. I first met him virtually at Harvard as a co-panelist for this talk. Here's the moderator of the panel, Jena Ramadan, a Palestinian American student, and the president of Harvard's Institute of Politics.
Speaker 5:
I think perception of self is a really interesting concept. And especially for the Arab community, where being Arab has meant so many different things. I would love to hear from both of you about what your Arab identity meant to you growing up, how did that kind of shape or drive your journey through public service, but also what do you think kids our age like those that are in the audience, how are they going to see their Arab identity in the context that they live in right now?
Dr. Zogby:
One of the issues that we've confronted from the beginning, from the very beginning was the insistence on others to define us and on the external factors that shaped us. When you're excluded, that is having an impact because if you're a young person wanting to get into politics, you don't want to identify with somebody that's going to be excluded.
Dr. Zogby:
And so that becomes an issue. If you are a person seeking a profession, you don't want to be the Arab guy if that's going to get you into hot water and become a target. It happened to me. First teaching job, I went to at Shippensburg state college, they interviewed me, they said, oh, you're great for the job, but it's going to be a little too controversial for you to teach the Middle East. Somebody from your background shouldn't be doing it. They had a Jewish guy teaching Middle East. They had a woman from Britain teaching the Middle East. That wasn't controversial, but the Arab guy was going to be controversial. So I taught four sections of intro to religion is what I got to teach.
Noor Tagouri:
Dr. Zogby and I were sharing the stage tonight because of our intergenerational connection. And when it came time for me to answer Jen's question about my relationship with Arab identity, I shared the intergenerational story of Vanished the first episode of this podcast.
Speaker 7:
I decided to start the series by telling the story that felt the most untrue about my own family. In 1986, the US conducted an airstrike. It ended up killing five of our family members. And that the trauma of that incident had carried out on throughout generations in our family. I mean, it was only 36 years ago.
Dr. Zogby:
I mean, the problem is that they die, but they don't count. Because they're faceless. I bet that the stories of those people who died were never in the paper. We don't know their names. We don't know their stories. We don't see them as real flesh and blood. So I want to just thank you for what you do. Because by putting faces on those stories, by giving that history, by making them come alive, you make it more difficult to dehumanize and objectify them.
Noor Tagouri:
I felt Dr. Zogby's words, and I never could have imagined how the story of my family was about to come alive for everyone in this room.
Speaker 8:
So I'd like to invite members of the audience. If you want to go ask a question, any question you'd like to our wonderful guest speakers today, we have mic's here on the floor. So there's one over there.
Barbara:
Hi, this is Barb Roshavitz. Really, I have a question for no, I'm a fellow journalist. Are you speaking of the US bombs that fell on Tripoli
Speaker 7:
Yes.
Barbara:
This is amazing. I stood in that house. I stood in that house the morning after the bombing. And I want you to know there were a group of American journalists, Western journalists who were in Tripoli for anticipation of their being those kind of hostilities. And the role of journalists we felt like the most important contribution that I made was to be there, to witness it and to write it. So somewhere in our archives, there is a mention of that. We weren't able to get back to the neighborhoods again, to see what it was, but I was in that house. And I would love to know just from your perspective, whatever happened to the family. Tell me the end of the story. What happened with the family? Thank you.
Dr. Zogby:
Wow. I'll tell you one thing that happened to the family, a representative of that family sitting here on stage telling her story.
Speaker 7:
At Harvard university.
Noor Tagouri:
Wow. Yeah. I don't even know what to say.
Barbara:
I'd love to share with you my perspective sometime.
Speaker 7:
I'd absolutely love that.
Barbara:
This is incredible.
Speaker 2:
Rep.
Noor Tagouri:
Hello.
Barbara:
Hello.
Noor Tagouri:
Hi.
Susan:
I'm Susan, nice to meet you.
Barbara:
I'm Barb, nice to meet you. Noor.
Jerry:
I'm Jerry.
Barbara:
[inaudible 00:12:46]. Thank you for hosting us.
Noor Tagouri:
Of course.
Barbara:
Very sweet of you. And what a lovely neighborhood.
Noor Tagouri:
The night at Harvard felt like both closure and an opening. It created new space to add to the story of my family. For weeks it was all we talked about. And it turns out like my family, Barb Roshavitz and her husband Jerry Sai are also Marylanders. They both spent years writing for the Wall Street Journal. So the reason Barb was at the Harvard talk that night is because Jerry was wrapping up a fellowship at the Institute of Politics. And they only had a few days left in Cambridge. Now a couple weeks later, we are all back in the DMV.
Noor Tagouri:
And in case you don't remember, that's what we call the DC, Maryland, and Virginia region. We've all reunited in Virginia at the home of my great uncle, Halu Mahri, where I recorded my first interview for Rep. The house is packed with 20 family members who are also eager to sit down with Barb after my Harvard experience.
Barbara:
It was a shock to both of us I think.
Speaker 10:
So we watched the whole thing live.
Jerry:
Oh did you?
Speaker 20:
We watched it live. And literally we were freaking out and before they put the camera on her, we were crying and we were like, oh my God, Noor's probably crying. Noor's probably crying. And then they put the camera on her and she was sobbing, [inaudible 00:14:26].
Barbara:
I was having, as you could tell, I was having, now I am too. I was having a hard time keeping my voice steady then. Yes. Just sounds just like now. But then I started thinking like, oh no, it's like, I ambushed her. I should maybe have not said something. I should have waited till after it was over.
Speaker 10:
You came in the right time.
Barbara:
Well, I just wanted there to be a reckoning or to assure you that what had happened had not gone unnoticed. And in fact, one of the strangest things... Why am I crying now?
Noor Tagouri:
It's okay.
Barbara:
What was... It's like one of the...
Noor Tagouri:
Barb was on the ground in Tripoli reporting on the attack and witnessing the aftermath at that same time and in the same place, my family in Libya had the unimaginable burden of gathering up what they could find of the pieces left of their loved ones. While my family in the US had to rely on American news to piece together the puzzle of what happened. This is why Barb's willingness to share her story, offered a kind of closure for so many of my family members. It also showed us that our story was still being written, that it is indeed still alive and the pen recording the story now belonged to all of us.
Barbara:
I've carried those memories of that with me. How could I not. How could you not be affected by being in the middle of something like that? And that was, I said, as I told, Noor, it was 36 years and 4,500 miles away. And I haven't thought of it deeply for a long, long time. And a lot of the memories had kind of faded of it.
Barbara:
And when Noor began saying I lost five memories in Libya in 1986, my heart was jumping out of my chest, and I grabbed Jerry's knee and said, "I cannot believe that our lives have crossed." I would have never have thought that would happen. It was such a coincidence. How was it that you up at Harvard? It was my last week there. We were there for three months out of our whole lives, and it was our last week there. And I could not believe there our lives had crossed.
Noor Tagouri:
I have watched the video of that night at Harvard a dozen times. And every time I find myself in tears, unable to process, if it all actually happened. And then I'm reminded, of course it happened. It's been happening. Setting the original intention to be open and stay open during the making of Rep created this space to welcome this sort of closure for me, for my family and for Barb and Jerry. The moment on stage at Harvard was the impetus for our healing.
Barbara:
So it was already amazing. It was already amazing session until then you and I had this episode. And we know Jim Zogby. And that was really the reason we went to that lecture because we know him from our neighborhood and from our church, he goes to our church. And so we've known him. And so we thought, well, we want to go and be supportive of him. And then when we got there and found out he wasn't going to be there in person, he was going to be virtual. But we said, well, this is a good topic. We lived in the Middle East for three years, let's continue on. So I had no idea who you were until we made this really strong connection.
Noor Tagouri:
Wow. I wasn't the only person who felt something during that moment with Barb, my whole family was at home in Maryland watching the event live on their TV. My dad immediately texted our family group chat. We need to know what happened after.
Speaker 12:
And I think what Noor did is to give closure to the dead, but to the life. And I think that's what that moment, when you came out, you had that just, you had the key to do that.
Noor Tagouri:
Haru Mohri takes out an organized box of photographs of the family members and Barb gazes upon the faces of the people who's destroyed home she once stood in. It is also my first time looking at these photos. Wow. You guys look so alike. Oh my gosh.
Speaker 20:
You need to see all of them.
Noor Tagouri:
I know I haven't seen them.
Speaker 20:
Think you need to see all the.
Speaker 11:
I know I haven't seen them.
Speaker 20:
Because you need to match your dream to-
Speaker 14:
He has a huge archive of video.
Barbara:
You need to do video.
Speaker 14:
We don't get to see it unless it's a special occasion,
Speaker 10:
This si a special occasion.
Noor Tagouri:
At the time of the bombing, Barb was two years into reporting for the Wall Street Journal. Her beat was the Middle East. Now, when she reflects on this, it was a lot for her to contextualize for readers back in the US. And sometimes she wonders how she and other journalists did at telling the stories of what they witnessed.
Barbara:
I was pretty young and naive in saying the US doesn't do things like that. But I'll go back to Tripoli and wait this out. So it was a shock to me too, when it actually happened.
Speaker 14:
Were you fearing for your life, just because the people might react differently to you being an American.
Barbara:
That's interesting. So I went back and read some of my stories now. And in the previous two weeks, when I was there, I talked about how people were really nice to foreigners. They were nice to me, even though they knew I was American. The bombing happened at 2:00 AM. So it woke everyone out. First thing we did is all the journalists went down to the lobby. We get down to the lobby and we start realizing this is not a good place to be because all the plate glass, windows in the lobby. So we retreated up to the rooms. I had a room on the third floor and some friends of mine who worked for the LA Times, had a room on the fifth floor. And they said, "Well, maybe you can come up to our fifth floor room." Because we did not know how the populace was going to react.
Barbara:
Everyone knew where all the journalists were. We were all in one hotel. If anyone wanted retribution, they would know exactly where to go. So I went up to their room and we waited until daybreak. And when they were taking buses to the sites. But it's in my stories too. But I do remember this, that people were in anguish and people were angry at Reagan, but no one was angry at me. No one expressed any kind of violence toward me.
Speaker 14:
How old were you there?
Barbara:
I think I was 29.
Speaker 14:
You were too young for that.
Barbara:
How old are you?
Noor Tagouri:
I'm turning 29 this year.
Barbara:
Yeah, I agree. I look back now and I think this is incredible, but I actually read my stories and said, did I really write this?
Noor Tagouri:
I know the feeling she's talking about. As a journalist, looking back on the reporting, you've produced and wondering how it all came together. And even then the story does not stop evolving just because the writer has stopped writing.
Barbara:
I think I find so touching how our common humanity, though, has connected. I feel connected with you who I never have met, but I know that you have feelings about the same thing that I have feelings about. Even though we don't know each other, we share something in common now.
Noor Tagouri:
I shared with Barb, how much connectedness of exploring my family's history has already traveled great distances and connected people in ways I could have never anticipated. Our fourth Rep chapter sticks out to me the most, Shikata Ga Nai, it cannot be helped. We experienced the stories of a group of Japanese American elders who were forced to live in US internment camps during world war II. And after sharing her experience, one of the elders, a woman named Kosko made a direct connection that expanded my own worldview. And in turn Rep.
Speaker 15:
We definitely can relate with what you are going through. I'm very sympathetic to Muslims and I try to reach out to them. I can relate to what you're going through as a second generation.
Noor Tagouri:
And my dad, after listening to it, he said, he felt like he was listening to a ball of yarn. And I just pulled a thread that started from this house. When I interviewed Haru Mahri, my first interview for the whole series. And I just continued pulling it, pulling it, pulling it. And we're seeing how connected every single one of us is because we are all this ball of thread.
Barbara:
And as a journalist, you get the privilege of doing that for your life's work, is to try to find the essence of people and their stories and all the interconnectedness.
Speaker 2:
Rep.
Noor Tagouri:
Looking back it was our fourth chapter. The story of she Shikata Ga Nai, it cannot be helped that broke Rep wide open by witnessing Japanese American elders who were still figuring out who they were decades after being forced to live in US internment camps during world war II.
Speaker 16:
When the Japanese attacked Pearl Harbor, our West Coast became a potential combat zone. Living in that zone were more than 100,000 persons of Japanese ancestry. Military authorities therefore determined that all of them citizens and aliens alike would have to move.
Noor Tagouri:
It was through their stories. I learned Rep was never only about Muslims or Arabs Rep is about how all of our stories are braided together with the stories of those we know and those we don't know. It is with this understanding that we are making sense of this gathering in my great uncle's living room right now. I'm sitting on the floor, surrounded by the wires of my podcast equipment and Barb's husband and fellow journalist, Jerry just shared with my family, how he and Barb reported in the Middle East for three years. And for Barb, it was the story of the Libyans she witnessed that broke her worldview wide open.
Jerry:
We saw a lot, and we saw the Iran-Iraq war, we saw riots, we saw Palestinian uprising in all those experiences this one always stuck out as one that was most vivid. And I wasn't even there. I was back in Cairo. But I think because it was so human, what she saw was so intimate. It wasn't like violence at a distance. It was like right there. So I'm just saying that this experience that your family's had is very real, but it was also always very vivid for us.
Barbara:
And this is where, as I was telling Noor the night that we were at Harvard, that it felt as if one of the most important roles that we had as journalists there was to witness what had happened to civilians. Because there was a moment when Casper Weinberger was saying, "No, we had smart bombs and they hit all their targets and they didn't miss."
Casper Weinberger:
All of the targets were terrorist related. And the criteria for selecting the targets was that they would had a full terrorist connection, that we would minimize any collateral damage from civilian or other facilities nearby.
Barbara:
And we were there saying, no, this is really bad. And that you've killed people and you've killed children and we've seen it and there were enough of us. And we were Western media of all sorts TV print from all the name brand newspapers. So of course they had to then deal with the fact that they actually had caused something that caused all of these casualties.
Noor Tagouri:
Barb arrived at this gathering with a yellow folder that included printed articles from the Wall Street Journal archive, including an account she wrote of witnessing the aftermath of the United States's operation El Dorado Canyon.
Barbara:
April 16th, 1986. The headline in the Wall Street Journal reads War Against Terrorism. After the US air raid, fury amid the rubble. Two helmeted Libyan soldiers wrenched away a last chunk of concrete, then a crushed cradle. Then the dust caked, pajama clad body of an 18 month old girl. Outside the child's house, neighbors and onlookers inspected a huge crater stretching from sidewalk to sidewalk in the central Tripoli street. Half a dozen houses in the three square block area where it destroyed and other buildings, including the French embassy were damaged. Libya didn't publish an official death toll. The diplomats estimated 100 people died in Tripoli.
Noor Tagouri:
100 people. This is the first time I hear an estimated number of people who died that night. Because of the lack of documentation and reporting I only knew the story of my five family members. And Barb tells me that even now, there is still no accurate number recorded of civilian and military deaths from the US attack. My baba takes the mic next tapping in to his inner journalist and Barb, his first subject.
Speaker 12:
Did you feel like you gave the picture and the picture was given to the American public exactly the way you saw it or there was changes into it?
Barbara:
I listened to you on the earlier podcast. And I told Noor I think I have more in common with your dad and great uncle on what journalism is supposed to be. Because this is frankly, this is uncomfortable for me. I am not used to being in a story. I'm not the story. As a journalist, I'm the observer and I'm not taking sides, which is frankly, naively, how I felt when I was reporting in the Middle East.
Barbara:
I felt invincible, stupidly, but I did. . Like, I'm just an observer. I'm just a journalist. No one tells me what I'm going to write. I'm going to write what I see and translate what I've been told by people and try to put the pieces together. I think because of where we come from and our backgrounds, yes there are always certain perceptions and points of view that you carry with you.
Barbara:
But as a journalist, you do your best to try to put those to the side. Whenever you're trying to write things. It's a different kind of journalist today. It's not where we came from. And obviously we were print journalists too. So print journalists, it was even easier for us to recede to the background. Because I never had to hear my voice. I wasn't on air. I was trying to be the fly on the wall, that you never... You should never know that I myself was there. Jerry and I talk about this. I mean we grew up on Kansas. We grew up in a very homogenous community, not very racially diverse, not religiously diverse. We were both raised Catholics. I grew up in the big city of Kansas City. He grew up in a little town Haze, out in the middle of Kansas, out in the middle of wheat fields and oil fields.
Barbara:
His dad was a printer at the local paper. And our adventure in the Middle East was life changing because... One major thing, it taught me was that when you were in the US and both from the news, but also from the perspective that you get from the government, things are very black and white. We're the good guys and they're the bad guys. And then when we were in the Middle East, we found out, wait, this is all shades of gray. It's not black and white anymore. And it changes totally how we look at and analyze things now because it's not as easy. There's good and bad in a lot of things. And there's so many shades of gray. And so I think it's given us a deeper appreciation for all of these complexities and the consequences.
Speaker 12:
You're coming from a different generation, probably my generation. And Noor is the different generations in journalisms. How you see that journalism in your time and now today?
Barbara:
You can address this too. I'm not really happy with the way the journalism is going. I'm not. Because our tradition was that you should be even handed that you should be neutral. You can be analytical, which means it's more than just a he said, she said, or on the one hand this, or on the other hand that. You can be more analytical and still be neutral. But we see journalism changing. And there's a big argument. This is not a podcast issue. This is more even for newspaper writing.
Barbara:
That writers like now to take a point of view and write that point of view. I think they're sometimes too quick to think that they know the truth, and they're going to write that as the truth. Whereas the way we were trained and the way that we still have practiced is you try... Yes, you're trying to get at the truth. And it's more than just on the one hand on the other hand, but you need to stay neutral because how do I know what the truth really is? I don't know what the truth really is. But I'd like to hear you talking about it. So you've done this for 45 years. So you've seen all this change.
Jerry:
What bothers me about journalism today is that some younger journalists say objectivity is not possible. It's not even desirable. And I worry that's a admission of defeat for journalism. That it's hard to be objective because everybody has their life experiences. Everybody has their prejudices. Everybody has a point of view. But your job as a journalist is to try to set those things aside and proceed as if those weren't the issue, as you are writing what you're writing, or broadcasting or you're broadcasting. And so I think what worries me about journalism today is if you concede the loss of objectivity, then everybody just has an opinion.
Barbara:
What's interesting about this new form of journalism that you're practicing with podcasts and putting yourself into it. It's very different.
Noor Tagouri:
Totally.
Barbara:
But it's not what talking about and saying, oh, well, you can't do that. And it can't still be journalism. It can still be journalism. It's storytelling from a particular viewpoint, which you're very upfront about.
Noor Tagouri:
I understand the balance between the need to be objective, especially from where you all are coming from. And also that I think that there's just such a deep level of distrust with the media. And part of that distrust, if you parallel it with how, for example, I approach stories is that I try to build trust with all of the people I talk to before I interview them. And that's actually part of why I left local news was because I had to tell 3, 4, 5 stories a day, two, three minutes packages in the same day. I had no time to build trust with anybody. So I wanted to find a different approach that allowed me to build that into the story. Because if our intention with story is not just to inform, but to me, it's also to empower people to know that they too can be storytellers.
Barbara:
We have things in common about how we would approach it, actually listening to you is like makes the best argument for something that the whole news media industry is grappling with is getting more diversity, not just in the newsroom, but among people who make the kind of decisions about what the stories are and what goes on in the newspaper. Checking and double checking and a healthy dose of skepticism when you're told things by certain people, government officials. And seeking whether there's total truth or whether there's more to it.
Noor Tagouri:
To me, it's more about we're going to cover it completely different just because we're completely different people. And that's what I keep coming back to even when we talk about objectivity in young journalists today is like, if there's anything I've gotten from this series, it's that I catch myself now when I make a single generalization. And what you said about the truth, always stuck with me. The you, I am referring to is Haru Mohri the first person I interviewed for this series and the person who embodied what Rep was all along.
Speaker 18:
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.
Noor Tagouri:
Every single individual person lives in their own reality, has their own life, has their own point of view. And the stories that come from them, no matter how objective you think they may be, are always going to be slightly different because that's who we are as human beings. And my argument in this is that once we acknowledge that, I think that we'll have better comprehension of what a reporter is actually trying to tell us, because we have an idea of who they are and where they come from and just know them a little bit better as a human being. I don't know if we can separate the humanity from the journalist anymore.
Barbara:
That same quote from your uncle really stuck with me too. But I thought of it a little differently. And I really admired your uncle because I think are you really a journalist at heart?
Noor Tagouri:
Yes.
Speaker 14:
She is.
Barbara:
Serious. He is no, he's
Speaker 14:
He's a boy scout. And this is like-
Barbara:
He seems to be though.
Speaker 14:
[inaudible 00:38:05] the journalism [inaudible 00:38:07].
Barbara:
But it is because what stuck to me is seeking the truth because you learn a set of facts. You think you have the truth. But the more you know, you learn a little bit over here, you learn a little bit over there. And then somehow it changes. And it's this curiosity to keep going and to always be willing to reassess what you know, based on what you've now found out. That's what I think of as the truth.
Speaker 21:
This conversation should be, and the press club not here.
Noor Tagouri:
I write these words to you while sitting on a Bluestone bench in an artist cemetery. Raindrops are falling on my phone screen from the leaves of a pine tree branch hanging right above me. And this bench sits on the curved edge of a big circle stone platform. It's part of a Memorial that reads a quote from the historian, Dr. James T. Shotwell. This stone engraving reads, "Encircled by the everlasting hills they rest here who added to the beauty of the world by art, creative thought and by life itself."
Noor Tagouri:
I interpret his words as being surrounded by people who while on this planet tried their very best. Shotwell's own New York times obituary called him a man who saw the world as whole. While working on Rep I've sat on the stone bench of shot's circle, shaped Memorial, at least 100 times. My partner, Adam, and I call it our morning cemetery walks. We sit by gravestones and read out loud people's names and how their loved ones describe them. Our favorite part is checking the dates and doing the math to figure out how old they were when they passed, or if it is the grave of a couple, how many years did one have to live on the planet without the other.
Noor Tagouri:
This new routine of ours was inspired by how quickly Rep was changing how we saw the world, the questions Rep demanded we ask about life and truth. And this is the first time I've ever brought my phone on one of these walks. Adam and I have an unspoken rule about phones not being welcome in the cemetery. I think it's because being around the only truth that is true for all of us death, demands that we show up fully alive and present. So instead, Adam and I use these walks to check in with our truths of the day.
Noor Tagouri:
Rep taught us that we are constantly evolving. So it's important to our partnership that we stay updated. And with every conversation we grow closer and show up more authentically ourselves. And those authentic versions of ourselves are who we take with us throughout the rest of our day. I am able to show up fully as myself in my work, when I call my family and when I spend time with my friends. And many times that means showing up fully as myself in tears, in pain, in numbness, allowing myself to receive love and care from my people.
Noor Tagouri:
Sometimes it means showing up clear, honest, and at peace, allowing myself to give love and care from a place of authenticity and real openness. And openness was the first commitment I shared with you all in our first episode, Vanished. To stay open and let go of trying to control the stories. That is the most challenging Rep cycle for me. It's why it has taken me weeks to write these words. Up until this final chapter I am still learning lessons in not controlling the story. Each answer I have found in Rep continues to evolve like the regenerative loop of hip hop that Dr. Su'ad taught us about in our chapter Muslim Cool. We are a series of regenerative loops. We are a series of revolutions.
Noor Tagouri:
A revolution is a cycle, a circle like the stone one I'm currently writing this from. And Rep is a series of these cycles. Each episode asks a question, the answers that come necessitate a whole new way of looking at the question, which then raises new and more open questions and the cycle revolves. And then it revolves again. My co-writer Zarin has sometimes referred to the non-violent revolutions of Rep. I call it revolutionary representation.
Noor Tagouri:
And each story of revolutionary representation, challenges what we think we know as we each pursue our own truths. The cycles shed abstractions from our stories. They peel back labels, dismantle tropes, and disregard groupthink. Until at the end of each story, we arrive at a more universal understanding. And truth is always the common denominator. It's how in episode two, Golden Girls, Sunny and I were able to heal our younger selves, who felt shame around our identities. How in Muslim Cool oral historian Zaheer Ali taught me how faith can be experienced by pursuing a knowledge of self. And how Ilyasah Shabazz the daughter of Malcolm X exemplifies knowledge of self as she continues her father's revolution of evolving our own stories.
Noor Tagouri:
In Shikata Ga Nai a woman named Kosko demands that we not only tell our stories, but we must write them down, document them so they cannot be forgotten. Steve Nagano expanded this when he shared it wasn't until reparations and the US government issuing an apology that the shame of incarceration was lifted from the Japanese American community, and movies, plays and books emerged keeping their stories alive.
Noor Tagouri:
The truth truth was the entire essence of our midway point of Rep. It's Amen's journalism philosophy and how Hassan Minhaj has lets us in on iMessage him instead of IG him. America's greatest export took me to the other side of the world, questioning how America's truths are impacting the truth of others abroad who watch us as a form of insight into their own country's future. And then there are the three Ps politics, pop culture and public opinion. A simple dynamic to check in with whenever you are looking for more context for the stories around you. Even within the three Ps dynamic truth remains the foundation. In our politics episode, we witnessed Congresswoman Ilhan Omar's truth directly within her daughter, Isra, who wants revolution because she's in her revolution.
Noor Tagouri:
Like Yuna is when she asks us, do you have the guts to be yourself? Or when Minhal bravely gives herself space to explore her queerness. Another aspect of her identity. May stepping into her revolution, got her a pair of Marvel wings and like Cat slash Yusuf at 74 years old, who is still figuring out who he is because, oh baby, baby, it's a wild world.
Noor Tagouri:
Or like Bella who took a global truth about Palestinians and made it so personal you couldn't ignore the revolution within her. So much so that she's begun documenting her father's history because expressing herself without fear has inspired her to ask more questions about who she really is. And it's funny because there are two questions Adam has continued asking me during our Rep inspired cemetery walks. We'll sit on one of the stone benches, and sometimes he'll be staring right at a headstone that reads the name Adams. He puts an imaginary apostrophe on the S and envisions the grave to be his. And then he'll ask me, "Okay, Noor. So you want us all to go on our own Rep journeys, fine, but why and how?" My answer for this feels truer every day.
Noor Tagouri:
I want you to go on your Rep journey because you will be more connected to your story and interconnected to the stories of others. You will have power over your fear instead of fear having power over you, stepping outside of fear-based storylines will come with ease and curiosity. And by unearthing your deepest truths, you will stay on the revolutionary path of engaging with truth and story to better understand who you are and why you are alive. As for how one begins their own Rep journey, simple, be open and choose the quest of a question. I am Noor El Houda Tagouri at your service.
Noor Tagouri:
Rep is a production of At Your Service school of humans and iHeart podcasts. This show is written and produced by me Noor Tagouri and Zarin Burnett editing production sound design, and scoring by Chris Childs. Theme song written and composed by Maimouna Youssef, a.k.a. Mumu Fresh. Our senior producer is Amelia Brock. Our associate producers are Zara Risa, Tyler Donahue and Betsy Cardenas.
Noor Tagouri:
Audio assembly by Mary Du. Mix and master by Behe Fraser, additional production sport by Josh Fisher. Fact checking by Marissa Brown. Research consulting by [inaudible 00:49:05] Hassan. Our executive producers are Adam Haffif, Z Burnett, Jason English, and me Noor Tagouri special. Thanks to Virginia Prescott from School of Humans and Will Pearson from iHeart podcasts. I'd also like to thank Barbara Chevez, Jerry Side, Dr. James Zogby, Janet Amuldon, the Harvard Institute of Politics, Dr. Yahid Tagouri, Salua Tagouri, Mahadeen Lyoussi and the rest of my family for trusting us with these stories.
Noor Tagouri:
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. Rep has been the quest of a lifetime. Thank you for joining us till the end of our first season of the quest we call Rep. I am Noor Tagouri at your service.