A new narrative for the middle east
A new podcast by award-winning Lebanese journalist and author Kim Ghattas explains the connections between today’s Middle East and the world, and why it matters to everyone, everywhere.
By Rebecca Anne Proctor
Illustrations by Jamal Saleh
At an increasingly polarised time for world affairs, which is widening the rift in cultural understanding, particularly between East and West, award-winning journalist and New York Times bestselling author Kim Ghattas is working to connect the dots between today’s Middle East and the world, unpacking how it works and why it matters, with her new podcast, People Like Us.
Beirut-based, the podcast was released on audio streaming services last October by Project Brazen, a London-based journalism and production studio, in partnership with US public media organization PRX.
People Like Us offers a global perspective on key issues with a focus on the Arab world—conversations from the region made accessible to a global audience. The title is deliberately open-ended: Ghattas wants listeners to connect across borders around common themes.
In the pilot season, she spoke with filmmakers, activists, authors, refugees, politicians, even a sexologist, unpacking a core theme in each episode. In one, Ghattas and guests discuss the overturning of Roe v. Wade and how reverberations are felt far beyond the US. In another, why the West seeks accountability for President Putin’s actions in Ukraine but not in Syria. In the season’s penultimate episode, Ghattas spoke to Jeffrey Feltman, a senior US diplomat—ambassador to Lebanon from 2004-2008—to explore what drives US foreign policy. It afforded a rare look behind the scenes at American diplomacy.
The podcast, which will launch a second season in the spring, has been lauded for its efforts to break down stereotypes and misconceptions about the Middle East—amplified in Western media during coverage of the World Cup in Qatar. But Ghattas underscores that it is about finding common ground.
“I’ve spent my career trying to make sense of the world, breaking down complex stories for a world audience,” Ghattas says. “I’m less focused on the purpose of breaking down the stereotypes as a mission. I’m more focused on finding the overlaps and the common ground between people no matter what my work is, whether I’m writing a book, explaining American foreign policy or doing this podcast.”
In the launch episode, Ghattas suggests the global order was disintegrating long before the invasion of Ukraine. She draws a parallel between Beirut, Kabul and Hong Kong.
Ghattas was born and raised in Beirut during the Lebanese civil war, and it was seeking answers to the political chaos of that time, she says, that led her to a career in journalism. If people outside Lebanon could better relate to those they saw in the news, surely the conflict could not last? If she could explain it, then others could understand it. For 20 years she reported for the BBC, first from the Middle East and then from Washington DC, and she still writes today for the Financial Times, The Atlantic and others. Ghattas is also a non-resident senior fellow at the Carnegie Endowment for International Peace, a US think tank.
Her books, The Secretary: A Journey with Hillary Clinton from Beirut to the Heart of American Power, published in 2013, and Black Wave: Saudi Arabia, Iran, and the Forty-Year Rivalry That Unraveled Culture, Religion, and Collective Memory in the Middle East, released in 2020, like her reporting, strive to appeal to Middle Eastern and global audiences, to find “the common thread in the common ground, an essential part of our understanding of why we got to where we [are].” With Black Wave, Ghattas sought “to add a new dimension to the West’s understanding of the region.” It was about showing its diversity: the Middle East, she says, is too often reduced to terrorists and tyrants.
People Like Us is about removing the Middle East from a box and making it part of the broader conversation, showing how it connects with major themes in global current affairs and culture. It gets to the heart of complex issues by delving into personalities, illuminating a subject through their stories.
The podcast is produced in Beirut and was launched during a time of profound crisis in Lebanon. “Doing this from Beirut gives me a different vantage point than if I were doing it from Washington,” Ghattas says. “It helps ground the podcast in the Middle East, staying close to the trends and themes that are driving the region, the mood, the atmosphere, the concerns. It allows me to tell the story from within, rather than looking at the region from afar.”
The team that produces it is also from the Arab world. “We were very keen to encourage and empower local talent,” she says. “From the music, to the design and the production team, we tried to find the best people in Lebanon or the Middle East. We ended up with an almost all-women team, by happenstance, they were just the best, and I’m thrilled by that.”
The podcast was partly brought about by Covid-19. “During the pandemic we were united across the globe, focused on the same issue and the same battle in ways that humanity had not been since World War II,” she says. “We were all fighting one thing and that showed our differences, but also our need to work together.”
Her work challenges political and cultural assumptions. For example, she says, the insurrection on Capitol Hill in the US showed how revolt can happen anywhere.
Her work challenges political and cultural assumptions. For example, she says, the insurrection on Capitol Hill in the US showed how revolt can happen anywhere. The podcast looks at how people in different parts of the world are managing seismic societal changes. In the launch episode, Ghattas suggests the global order was disintegrating long before the invasion of Ukraine, she draws a parallel between Beirut, Kabul and Hong Kong, exploring how the young experience a loss of freedom and witnessing the world around them unravel. “What does it mean for people there, and people like us everywhere?” Ghattas asks.
The podcast marks something of a return for Ghattas. She had largely turned away from broadcast journalism to focus on her writing. Hope convinced her to come onboard. The deal: Ghattas would return to news if there was an element of storytelling, shedding light on people’s lived experiences.
“There’s always trepidation when you produce something and release it into the world,” she says. “There was some anxiety about starting a podcast without a large organisation behind me, like the BBC. I created the show and I host it, so feedback would be a reflection of my ability to get a feel for what listeners are looking for and my skill delivering [that].”
The podcast has been praised by influential figures such as Hillary Clinton, who applauded the series in a tweet for its work to “bring together people from the Middle East and beyond to connect dots across borders.”
People Like Us mostly reaches an audience in the 25 to 45 age range. It has proved popular in the US, but also in the region, a primary target for Ghattas. “For people in the Middle East it’s great to hear their stories told from the region, for the region, to feel connected to each other and to the world,” she says. “Of course it is also meant for a global audience, and so we have these conversations in a way that is accessible to others around the world. That is why ‘there is nothing like it out there’ coming from someone in the US is very validating; it means we are filling a gap in the broadcast/podcast scene and that people have a thirst for understanding the world and the Middle East better, and understanding their place in it, by connecting with others who are working on or thinking about the same issues.”
There is no shortage of issues to explore as she looks ahead to a new season.“I would love to do an episode about how you achieve political change, and look at Chile and maybe we’ll look at Hong Kong again and compare those,” Ghattas says. “Chile has managed to transform its protest movement into a great victory with the election of its new president. Why weren’t we able to do that? What are the differences and the similarities? What about the revival or new cool around Arab identity, Arabic music, and Arab food?”
Season two, she says, will be longer. “I have loved being back behind a mic and having the opportunity to speak to a diversity of voices, and I hope I’m able to give a platform to some great people who are out there doing great things.”
