Register that shows the scout one schedule for the rest of august. Before we begin we asked everybody silence their cell phone so there is no unwanted distractions. We are recording tonight its important we hear your question questions. Afterwards there will be a book signing here. We have six copies for sale behind the register. Tonight we had zahra hankir a lebanese british journalist who writes about the middle east with society and culture she is here to present tonight when then on the ground with a platform for journalists to share in their own words that times it is chilling and harrowingnd and humorous. Along with the unique advantages and then to write in that collection it is to gain a full understanding of the story of female protagonists tent can be given a voice only by other women with our women on the ground were given the opportunity and wece all benefit tonight joined in conversation with a National Security reporter covering extremism for npr. Please welcome to politics and prose. [applause] thank you for that introduction and everyone for coming out tonight it is such a good turnout with familiar friends and faces. Actually today is the first time i meet hand not even though weve been working together for months. Her essay is the opening essay in thisay collection because the way she framed her essay is me analyzing your work in front of your eyes, she shows her own experiences by speaking of the friendships she formed of the closeness to develop with. And how you felt when i first approached you to contribute to this collection and how you went with a single and how you decided to do that. Sure. Thank you for coming out. I would be remiss not to mention what happened today with Toni Morrison to had a huge influence on my world and language. So now there is a reporter so it is a project i believe it wholeheartedlyep and i would see my colleagues on the beat and there is a sisterhood that forms. So this was stuff that doesnt make it out of our notebooks. You open that you are often asked what it is like to be a woman reporter. And then with the premise of the entire book. With wrote local journalist in general covering the worlds i want to say did you have advantages and if you could recount one or two of those. The problem with that question is that its just weighted down. Then thats the rest of it. Had you ever do that job under repression . With very few exceptions it was nothing but a benefit because generally you could do everything my mail callings were doing but then to have access and those two warned some cases with very little access i could go get my nails done at the salon. I could be in the kitchen and the womens quarters so even when there was those encounters because i was a woman or in iraq i was age 26. Then i came back to my borough and it said fisherprice. That was hate mail about my agent so that was age and gender all wrapped up. That came from what we could do myam very first translator was a woman but she was eight months pregnant. Just bumping around. And then in 108degree weather so than to talk about that insurgency so as a result one of those firstrs interviews and in the terms of disadvantages if you experience similar disadvantages that you have a dual identity and i was wondering if you think that dual Identity Protection from disadvantages that other women experience. Absolutely i could choose so i wanted to present myself that no matter how bad things had gotten i had a passport that could take me away. That this was their life. As a hardship six weeks on and six weeks off but this was 24 7 365 job in terms of being a woman, yes they expected that behavior that they did not expect but i did not have to answer to extended family or to a tribe so yes there was that element. So just a little more on that identity issue, i intentionally included women that were dual nationalities with that part of the story of the arab world with the diaspora and many of them were forced out of exile and i wonder to what extent because there are many different ways to frame that to what extent you informed your career and then to work in the middle east. Did that affect your approach to various stories so she covers extremism in america so i was just wondering. [laughter] does that still a full on and form your approach in any way quick. Yes. In society you are tuned to that kind of thing. Is the bureau chief of how that correspondence bring me this sore bring me that. I just knew i didnt want that bureau. So theon first bureau chief to institute working hours, paid days off, vacation after a car bombing to bring in a masseus masseuse, i really try to be attuned to the fact that the local staff they keep us alive they know the stories better and so if you dont appreciate tha that, its not only a decent thing to do but trying to build a working newsroom so yes to play into that but if i have a flack vest and everybody does. But nobody does. If my byline is on the story then you have that co byline with me. That is something im very glad to see changing in the c industry and building up that kind of culture to more incredible distribution of credit. And taking many steps backward so can you tell us how you became a journalist in terms of the ambitions you initially have . And then going back and forth so i just remember my dad to say oh look clearly he did not see this for the government. Going to Journalism School i thought it didnt actually have to be that way coming into contact with writers like Toni Morrison. Who was beautiful and heartbreaking essay and to see that that there is a place for me here and going back to iraq in women with the bureau chief that things arent going well we probably wouldnt leave behind that great working institution. But then we go because that is what we do. But look at how your career has progressed. And then to transition from that coverage. But in preparation for publication in thinking of conflict here in the United States but it is a cautionary tale. And with that conflict and dad is terrifying so we do hope that people see that. That this will lead to civil war. We just have to get it over with. And with those america militias. And my editor has to call me to say okay ill come at a certain time and if you say yes im fine then we will get you out. And then here in michigan i do see there are some important lessons. So talk about your experience of writing the chapter itself. It feels so vivid like they happen to youu yesterday. What is that process like . I know you met your deadline in one of the very few. And it was very hard to dredge this up. But you are on a curfew often times and then working in really close quarters it is a unnatural environment. So yes just this morning i was reading an essay that i completely forgot that i included that little game that i mentioned is that the one . Basically this is what we made up in traffic because there were long traffic spells in baghdad so we would say thats the one. Tthats the one. And thats the one that will blow us up but that is how we kept ourselves in traffic now now we can laugh about it but it is a type of humor so we were living some of that that was distant and painful but of course those 13 friends and many more was syria and libya. But yes there were definitely two years. And then entitled crossfire in that section in particular for those who are stuck between ttwo identities. But then they feel guilty to have access to the region in a way that they do mentioning passports that they could leave with Media Outlets they also feel that they were not born into conflict in a way their friends might have i been. So have you experience similar feelings of guilt . And those that you want to help others in a way that people that did not have that t awareness . Absolutely. Six weeks on and six weeks off. W then they could swim and read and then and then i get to go in and they dont. Then you dont see conflict for a while. And those who dont because its culturally not available and then they say you are there is a visitor that you dont have that support networks that they have. And then they go home to their families and kids. And then as an outsider there thats the best you can do. To take your platform and use it the best that you can that you are not a voice for the voiceless. I am wondering if you have a particular story that you covered in iraq that moved you so much you still think of the characters or at different stages. I remember in 2004 walking into a shrine those that were embedded on the other side of American Forces and we had a 1000pound bomb dropped on us thate night. And i remember it was so hot and there was no w electricity so i would go in there and they taught me to take off your hijab soak it in water and put it on soaking wet and that was the answer to the heat. So while i was doing that i saw another woman she was cleaning her ear with the matchstick in a crying and said dont cry it will be okay she said no im not crying but im thinking of those american oboys dont they have mothers that want them home . Incredible. But anytime i could cap sure that humanity and to keep that iny check with the margins than those are the moments that we look for. How much did you cry quick. That beautiful anecdote is one of many in the chapter. But one final question is that actually you faced and that they derided you for. Ar pips, poor iraqi people story. I hope it is just in iraq e. Story because i need the money really try to push through the archetypes and stereotypes to make them come alive in all of their dimensions and humor and wisdom. All the things that make us human to capture that and for people it seems often that is one dimension. You also captured beautifully ndin the chapter. That is a good segue. If anyone has any questions, raise your hand so i can see you. Thank you so much for coming. Ive known them for more than a decade. I have a question for both of ioyou actually. There is time for correspondents to sell stories that dont have a hook to the trump administration. Its a lot but they struggled with now. What is your advice to some of them as far as stories that are lacking and what is the hunger and appetite and youd start to touch upon it in terms of breaking stereotypes, what are the stories that he felt kind of breakthrough at the time that the war was dominating the headlines in otherat places . Im not going to answer the question im just going to give a shout out. Shes one of the inspirations behind the book and was the bureau chief many of you probably know her work and she wrote a gorgeous essay about usleaving which i put up on my blog. It was a beautiful insight and i am so pleased to see you here today. I have no envy for people on the Foreign Correspondent in the middle east. Its very hard. I heard the same frustration what does it take to break through, and when it does come a something horribly tragic but i dont know. I just have to believe that a good story is a good story. I remember when fatigue sets in as it did com, i covered that of and on for a decade. And yes it feels formulaic. It becomes a formula so i try not to let myself fall into that formula and how can we ever makf up this story what is the way that we can move in, what about something i heard from the Washington Post when i was a Young College student, inspiring journalists can into our class and said you know, no matter how big or hard a story that you can always find universal theme. The religion is unfamiliar. At least one thing that connects and makes them keep reading, but i agree it is getting harder and harder to find what breaks through the maelstrom right now. I have a question about the process of putting together the book. I wonder if you can tell us a little bit, i know a lot of authors already knew each other but you can talk about it and that the mockery that was built between the journalists if you have plans after the book to continue what developed and where you hope to see it from here. We are quite a tightknit group and we follow each other on twitter. We havent met in person but we just support each other. He knew each other personally because we were in similar circles or i knew their work because i have been following it for years and i admired it for years. So the process of putting it together for me was the most challenging part because there were still so many incredible women doing this amazing work and it was so hard for me to go from 90 people in this book and i had to limit that for enough for one book. So i literally had to think of the background of the women, the type of journalists, the country they come from. There are so many things to take into consideration w. It was painful to have to exclude this person. There were many things to take into consideration. [inaudible] i think tha i think that there is more work to be done in t this space. I dont think that i will have another end of. Dot format is up for debate but i hope to do something that will celebrate the era of women journalists as a bit of a mouthful. This is the first time we are meeting today i feel like i am pouring my heart out to you but i wonder how did h evil for you . I was surprised at the extent to which the authors were honest and intimate in these essays. Its not that i didnt expect them to, but they shared their struggles in such a harrowing way i found myself frequenting tears when i was editing the book and also there was a couple of authors that were experiencing trauma themselves on the field they would also not quite ready to articulate the trauma or decide what stories they wanted to tell so i have to than help them through that process without coaching them to tell me one thing or another work that has so it was a verye balance and i found it surprising all of them are ablee to push through whatever barriers they had and write openly and honestly about their struggles. It is such an honest account of grief and loss and also reflect the state of the arab world today. There are moments of hope and resilience and dark humor throughout but i was surprised by certain details should we. At some point she says that she has been covering the war intended to help a mother that lost her child to grieve and the way she described it, i dont want to do that myself. Shes talking about how this daytoday life and to a certain extent many people started to be subsidized by the tragedy. She parked her car next to a school and she just starts wiping the blood off the car and calls her friend. What are we having for lunch today and i was surprised by their bravery and extent thated they were sharing the details and being honest about them and how i reacted to them myself and i got incredibly emotional. I cried when i was both editing and reading and rereading. Thank you for this wonderful talk that draws me further into the book and into reading other journalist experiences. I wanted to call on the experience of the editor. Was there something you hav hada hard time in the book that you couldntt find it was there a difficulty, whether some subjects that youer thought were redundant or a theme across the book and other things that were just really not mentioned at all . I dont know if this is a weird question, but its something that is talked about. Isnt weird at all and its something that we know me for a while because i constantly felt in my excluding some thing. But in editing the book i wanted to allow the women to tell their own story without directing them in one way or another, and i usi this and my introduction i didnt project any themes t onto that. How aboutow we go to single because that would betray the premise of the book which was to give the win in the space to tell their own story. And i actually think that strategy worked because the actual source of the writers are so unique i dont feel that there is redundancy so remembrance which is a chapter in the theme and the transition is a theme there are in a different context and a popup for example women journalists have started to rely on and communicate with sources. Its never felt redundant because the stories themselves so unique when we first pitched the book to publishers one that rejected the book said thsomething like these stories will start to feel redundant at a certain point. And i was so infuriated. Thatthat completely betrayed we were trying to do just that for a single story is unique. It is so rich and diverse but even if you have some similarities every persons story is unique so i appreciate that question and feel in retrospect maybe there is something missing in fact i couldnt include more women or anybodys stories. I have two questions. I saw women behaving like men to succeed. Im hoping that you dont have to do that so you can continue with the stories as a woman. Do you feel like you have to do that now that is one question and on a totally unrelated question, the comment about the civil war and about the warnings because when trump got elected i remember saying i feel this in my bones and this was three years ago. It struck me hearing it so i would like you to did elaborate on where you see the parallels and what you can do to alert the people and what can we do to alert people . I cant give much on that kind of thing except inline reporting. People shouldnt dismiss it as impossible here or europe orad anywhere. I think on the civil war dont rule that out as impossible. Its not impossible because it takes a certain set of facts and fault lines and a trigger. I hope it is never worn out but think that its impossible to mistake. Were starting to see more violence. I try toi put it in check if everything going on because i see it in kind of a myopic way like we are on the brink. But when we pan out it isnt quite fair and there are a lot of people working hard to heal in this country. I dont know if ive used this term before but there is a pressure with American Forces. I make sure im going to carry myad own bag. Im going to hop in the tank im going to hold my own and i dont want them to see a damsel in distress like i cant do my own stuff, so that was the only kind of stand. I was in iraq for the first when i was five months pregnant when my doctor said come back or i am dropping you as a patient. So to see the difference there, it was a time i felt a restriction because i was a woman and that was on the american side because i tried to go and i showed up to the airstrip with my belly out to here and they said you are not getting onea here and if anythig happens we will put our medic is in that situation and the women and the press corps rallied around me and supported me and we took it all the way up to the senior officers. I remember one woman telling me thanks so much for your activism. She said monday it will be me. To take the philosophy aske aske you a war correspondent he would whistle at that title and it happens to be the backdrop in this case and that resignation is with me. Also just a small way to look at the conflict that have s had soy farreaching effects for there andd for here. We know each other online but its great that we met. Ut i wanted to ask about rejection since im sure youve had this project for a while now. How did it feel to try to advocate for a womans story but also im sure you got rejection when youou mentioned one fellow writer here trying to navigate the route. I m. No am not like a gracefl person when it comes to rejection. You have to have thick skin and if you have the idea that youre passionate about, its something that you need to be committed to and also take the feedback really well, listen to it and think about how you might be able to refrain whatever youu ae proposing in a way that is still consistent with your own vision. I had a couple of people suggest completely different visions for the buck but i chose to them not work with because i didnt think it was compatible with what i wanted to do. The peoplepi i was pitching to i didnt understand in the way a t i do from where i am today so from this Vantage Point i thought okay i will find someone who shares this vision or the baby to be amplified. I found that a person, person,d that agent that works with me. I started taking it very seriously. You might get 100 rejections but all you need is one guess. Thats all that matters you just need to be patient and stick to the vision. Reach out to people for help whenever you can and those that understand the industry or the genre whatever you were hoping tore put together. Ive been pleasantly surprisedd by the reception. I didnt fully see these kind of places and its been reassuring to hear that because my overarching point of my essay or the whole reason i wanted to contribute to this is to reframe how we cover in the region and its beyond a moral thing to say. Yes there is a moral argument to have their voices heard so there is that argument, but if you just take that away and book strictly from the craft inn journalism is bad of lazy journalism to leave out half the population cannot have those who cant go and interview. I think that his journalistic malpractice to the dot this chunk of the population. Here we are liberating the voices of these women but no, were just doing our jobs. I get annoyed when people say we are giving voice to people we just want to amplify those voices. People are frustrated now with the idea that correspondence who are not from the regions which they write about command of the narrative on the region and what i try to advocate is we need to have a plural voice to tell the story in a way that you are saying to have that detail than have the intimacy not necessarily in a way that will mean that they are biased but to provide a better understanding of the story in a way that perhaps someone that isnt familiar with the culture in the tsame way ten, and i think that its important to recognize that people are frustrated with the fact that the narrative has been dominated for so long. This year as we know there have been changes and women are starting to gain recognition but i still think more needs to be done if they need to be protected at the same level as their counterparts. There are still so many things that need to be done. So finally they saw lets do Something Different but here are these voices instead. I also think it is a timing thing. Theres the foundation for disclosure im on the board but i wasnt on the board many moons ago when they gave six iraqi women from the newsroom at the time that they gave them collectively encourage and Journalism Award and so for me when people say what story are you most proud of when you look back and its actually not a story, it is watching six women who have very little journalistic experience come into their own and be brilliant writers and reporters and come from our newsroom and when this incredible honor, Angelina Jolie and meg ryan gave it to them and this speech upon accepting it is a bit and the essay thats what its all about to me. Does anything give you hope . I know that you said you were crying during the. [laughter] i do want to give many of the women credit for their resilience. They find hope that i am personally inspired many of them were rising in countries that there was more surrounding them are in the aftermath of the war they still felt hopeful for their futures. She is a photojournalist in the book and said i would love to read the last sentence in her essay. She had been committed to try to take photographs for example pictures of destruction and famine and malnutrition and she said whenever i think of giving up, i have indeed thought of giving up. Em i remember i cannot think of many girls are relying on me to show me what fighting spirit they are and that is a moving sentence for me and an honor. We need to pass it onto the nexe next generation. When you are dealingng with traa of a mass scale you must help people that are committed to continue to follow their story and to continue to work towards the good and rebuilding. And that reallydi comes throughi think throughout the book not just in that section. Thank you for asking that. Do you have any hope . [laughter] i am hopeful. Yes i keep my ideas open for sources but also i get students andsp aspiring journalists every week writing to me how did you get into that, what advice do you have for me, would you read my clips, and its really cool to see that now there are so many more and even looking in the room i see so many people doing this kind of work and so that is very hopeful. One small photo to one of the women i want to mention passing in a story that one good friend of mine im not sure that shes comfortable with this, but we were in baghdad together and young and single and didnt have kids and she did this beautiful lattice woodwork on some of the old houses and we used to say when iraq is stable we are going to buy twin houses and we are going to raise our kids and have fish in the backyard and this is going to be our life forever. And of course then i get sent to cairo, she goes into exile because she was forcibly removed from her home after i think eight years of trying to get resettled she landed in virginia right down the street. So now we joke we can spend the weekends together sometimes and we have the grilled dinners and we just got the river wrong. [laughter] we just have to rebuild where we are. [inaudible conversations] cspa. [inaudible conversations]