People Like Us

In this episode, Kim is joined by executive producer Bradley Hope to talk about Project Brazen, their projects, and how the People Like Us podcast came about and why it matters. Throughout this first season, we also asked you to send us your questions about the show, the topics you heard and general questions about the Middle East and American foreign policy. Social media manger Nour Abdel Latif makes an appearance to bring us listeners’ questions. (This episode was produced with help from Megan Dean and Clair Urbahn) Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/

A conversation with violinist Haig Papazian and designer Jamal Saleh. In this bonus episode, host Kim Ghattas takes you behind the scenes of the creative process of the music and the logo of the show, the identity and diversity within both. From the onset, Project Brazen and Kim wanted to showcase local talent from the Middle East. Haig Papazian created the original music of this podcast. He’s the violinist of the iconic indie rock band from Lebanon, Mashrou Leila, whose concerts electrified the region’s youth for years with its song about LGBTQ rights, political protests and freedom. Haig, a multi disciplinary artist with a background in architecture, is performing solo shows from NYC to LA. Jamal Saleh designed the logo and identity for People like Us. A graduate of the American University of Beirut, she’s the creative director and co-founder of one Megaphone, of the most successful online news platforms in Lebanon, and has created and contributed to a number of logo designs and campaigns. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/

In this episode, I speak to Ambassador Jeffrey Feltman, long time American diplomat, now a fellow at the Brookings Institution to find more about how U.S. foreign policy is made, what are its limitations and its possibilities as well as the highs and lows of his career. From meeting Iranian Supreme Leader Ali Khamenei to a scary meeting in North Korea, Ambassador Feltman takes us behind the scenes. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod For more on our guest… Jeffrey Feltman is the John C. Whitehead Visiting Fellow in International Diplomacy in the Foreign Policy program at the Brookings Institution. He was a U.S. foreign service officer for over 26 years, focusing largely on the Middle East and North Africa. Feltman was the assistant secretary of state for Near Eastern affairs from 2009 until his retirement from the State Department, with the rank of career minister, in May 2012. Before his 2004-08 tenure as U.S. ambassador to Lebanon, Feltman also served in Erbil, Baghdad, Jerusalem, Tel Aviv, Tunis, Amman, Budapest, and Port-au-Prince. After retiring from the State Department in 2012, he served for nearly six years as the under-secretary-general for political affairs at the United Nations in New York. In that capacity, he traveled extensively and was the chief foreign policy advisor to both Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon and Secretary-General Antonio Guterres. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/

Can we understand a culture and a region when we don’t read its authors? And what nuances do we miss when we read them in translation? How are authors and poets from the Middle East reaching new audiences? I speak to poet Zeina Hashem Beck, from Lebanon, living in California, about being an Arab Anglophone poet, how the duality of language shapes her work and the audience she is hoping to reach. Then off to Las Vegas to meet Egyptian novelist in exile, Ahmad Naji who spent time in an Egyptian jail for his sci-fi novel full of sexual innuendos and swear words. In his dark damp cell, he met the unlikeliest fellow readers. Finally, Yasmina Jraissati, founder of the Raya Literary Agency, talks to me about her quest to get the world to read authors from her region. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod For more on our guests… Ahmed Naji is an Egyptian novelist, former journalist and literary critic living in exile in the U.S. He is the author of Using of Life which landed him in an Egyptian jail and Rotten Evidence: Reading and Writing in Prison about his experience in a prison cell. Ahmed is the recipient of many awards, including the PEN/Barbey Freedom to Write Award. Zeina Hashem Beck is a Lebanese poet now based in California, “after a lifetime in Lebanon and a decade in Dubai.” She writes about home, estrangement, language, the body, love, motherhood, and faith. Her latest book of poetry O was published by Penguin Random House this year. Her poetry has appeared in The Atlantic, Poetry Magazine and more. Yasmina Jraissati is the founder of the Raya Literary agency which she created in 2004 to better represent and promote writers from the region to an international audience. A long time advocate of literature from the region, Yasmina was active in several initiatives to promote books from the Middle East to a worldwide readership. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/

How do the new restrictions on abortion in the U.S. impact the battle for reproductive rights in the rest of the world? What does My Body My Choice mean in the Middle East? Across the region, abortion is mostly illegal but also easily available, for those who can afford it and because it is usually permissible to save a mother’s life. I speak first to Nana Abulseoud from RESURJ, in Cairo, about her reaction to the overturning of Roe v. Wade and the global battle to preserve progress made on women’s reproductive rights in the last two decades. In Beirut, I speak to Sandrine Atallah, Lebanon’s first doctor in sexual medicine, about her efforts to bring sex education to social media because there is none in the classroom. And Sura, one of the anonymous co-founders of Mauj, a sexual awareness and education online platform, tells me why they created Deem, a vibrator for Arab women everywhere. Follow People like Us on Instagram and Twitter @peoplelikeuspod And for more on our guests… Dr. Sandrine Atallah is the first doctor in sexual medicine in Lebanon, working on educating people in the MENA region on sexual health and pleasure. She’s also an MD in psychosexology. She teaches sexology at the University of Saint Joseph in Beirut and at the Lebanese American University. Nana Abuelsoud is an Egyptian feminist advocate for sexual and reproductive health and rights (SRHR) based in Cairo. She is focused on young people’s right to access information on contraception. She is also a member of the Advisory Board at The A Project, a Lebanese organization for sexual rights and health and reproductive justice. Sura is the co-founder of Mauj, an educational platform on sexuality and sexual awareness brand launched in 2020 by a collective of Arab women between Jeddah, Beirut, Dubai, and Cairo. From tackling misinformation and misconceptions about sexual health, to creatively breaking taboos around female pleasure, Mauj has created an online space to destigmatize the conversation about sexuality and reproductive health in the Arab world. People Like Us is a Project Brazen production. Subscribe to Brazen+ on Apple Podcasts and get ad-free listening across our network and early access to new podcasts. For more fearless storytelling visit brazen.fm, home to all our podcasts, documentaries and newsletters. At Brazen, we show you how the world really works. www.peoplelikeuspod.com Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices Support our show by becoming a premium member! https://brazen.fm/plus/