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It’s laborious to be a comic; it’s by no means simply bits and punch strains. They anticipate you to weigh in on a lot severe stuff: cancel tradition, political repression. And now the newest heavy query plaguing the world of stand-up is: “Must you decline to carry out at a comedy competition in a rustic that has arrested and jailed a few of its personal comedians?” The Riyadh Comedy Pageant in Saudi Arabia concludes this week, however the outrage (from comedians who didn’t go) and self-justification (from comedians who did) continues.
The competition is an outgrowth of Saudi Arabia’s Imaginative and prescient 2030, a plan launched by Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman (MBS) to draw Western funding and glitz up his nation’s draconian picture. In line with the Atlantic employees author Vivian Salama, who has lined the Gulf states for many years, the nation has modified significantly—no less than on the floor. Ladies drive, work in numerous sectors, and gown extra vibrantly. The nation has launched a ladies’s soccer league and expressed curiosity in internet hosting the Ladies’s World Cup in 2035. However the nation’s leaders nonetheless jail and harass critics, and U.S. intelligence nonetheless suspects MBS of involvement within the brutal homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi, that are among the the explanation why Human Rights Watch stated the comedy competition “whitewashes abuses.”
On this episode, we discuss to Salama and our colleague Helen Lewis, contemporary again from seeing Louis C.Okay. and Jimmy Carr carry out in Riyadh, about what occurred on the competition and perceive Saudi Arabia’s push for modernization.
The next is a transcript of the episode:
Hanna Rosin: I’m Hanna Rosin. That is Radio Atlantic. Okay, how about this for a setup: A bunch of comedians stroll right into a competition hosted by a rustic that has arrested and jailed a few of its personal comedians, a rustic accused in American courts of offering assist to the 9/11 hijackers, whose chief allegedly participated within the homicide of journalist Jamal Khashoggi in 2018, amongst different human rights violations. After which, days earlier than the competition begins, a special comic says—
Marc Maron (from Instagram): Properly, there’s a Riyadh comedy competition; I don’t know for those who heard about that.
(Viewers laughs.)
Maron: That is true. There’s a Riyadh, Saudi Arabia, comedy competition.
[Music]
Rosin: That’s Marc Maron, from a latest video he posted on social media.
Maron: I imply, how do you even promote that? From the parents that introduced you 9/11, two weeks of laughter within the desert! Don’t miss it!
(Viewers laughs.)
Rosin: After which one other comic says—
Shane Gillis (from Matt and Shane’s Secret Podcast): Everybody’s like, Yeah, you need to do it. Everybody’s doing it. It’s like, For Saudis?
Rosin: That was Shane Gillis, who declined to go.
Gillis: Weren’t these the 9/11 guys?
(Laughter.)
Zach Woods (from TikTok): Guys, it’s that particular time of yr: It’s the Riyadh Comedy Pageant. And your entire favourite comedians are performing on the pleasure of Turki al-Sheikh, and—
Rosin: That’s Zach Woods.
Woods: Human Rights Watch has been begging the comedians to not take part within the whitewashing of the horrors which can be ongoing in Saudi Arabia. Ugh, what a cockblock Human Rights Watch is for comedy.
Let’s have some enjoyable—
[Music]
Rosin: Atsuko Okatsuka stated she was provided a spot within the competition however declined. After which she posted on social media what seemed like a contract, the place it acknowledged that performers couldn’t make enjoyable of Saudi Arabia and its management, the Saudi royal household, and principally something relating to faith.
Now, the comedians who did signal on to the competition included some fairly heavy hitters: Dave Chappelle, Louis C.Okay., Aziz Ansari, Kevin Hart, Pete Davidson, and Invoice Burr, amongst dozens of others. The quantity they have been paid isn’t recognized for positive, although no less than one comic has stated he was provided $375,000 and that others acquired greater than $1 million—which is much more than a few of them make within the U.S.
In an look on Actual Time With Invoice Maher final Friday, Louis C.Okay. stated he had “combined emotions” about attending.
Louis C.Okay. (from Actual Time With Invoice Maher): I feel all the pieces that’s being stated about it, that’s a worthy dialogue: When are you appeasing? When are you participating? And I’ve combined emotions about it too. I struggled about going as soon as I began listening to what everybody was saying.
Rosin: Jessica Kirson, who’s a homosexual comic with a giant queer following, additionally went to the competition after which apologized to her followers when she bought again.
Aziz Ansari, in the meantime, advised Jimmy Kimmel this week that he noticed performing there as an general good factor for Saudi Arabia.
Jimmy Kimmel (from Jimmy Kimmel Dwell): So that you felt that, in the long run, this will probably be a constructive: folks seeing comedy and American comedy and free speech—
Aziz Ansari: Yeah, so many individuals have been there speaking about stuff. And I hope folks see that, they usually go, Wow, this was actually nice, and I would like extra of this. Not simply in comedy, however in all the pieces.
Rosin: All of this, whether or not meant or not, introduced loads of consideration to a competition that in any other case could have gone largely unnoticed.
Rosin: So that you actually simply bought again from Saudi Arabia.
Helen Lewis: Yeah, my airplane landed about two hours in the past.
Rosin: I imply, we even despatched Atlantic employees author Helen Lewis there.
Lewis: It is a nation that has been a theocracy, primarily, working towards one of many extra conservative types of Islam. Some stuff was genuinely fairly groundbreaking. That is in all probability the primary time anybody has joked about dildos onstage in Saudi Arabia.
[Music]
Rosin: We’ll hear extra from Helen about what it was wish to be on the competition later within the present.
And in case you have been questioning, or ready, I wouldn’t have a punch line to this setup. However ultimately, perhaps it’s Saudi Arabia that will get the final chuckle, as a result of the Riyadh Comedy Pageant is only one small a part of a a lot larger plan the nation has put in place that goes means past comedy—a plan to compete with its neighbors, pull in Western funding, dominate sports activities, and usually be recognized for issues apart from 9/11 and human-rights violations.
Vivian Salama: You might actually type of envision the skyline of Dubai: You understand that it’s a purchasing hub, and there’s all these celebrities that go there, and it’s glitzy, and it’s glamorous.
Properly, Saudi Arabia has much more cash and type of seemed on all these years very jealously, in some methods, of the celebrity and fortune that got here with Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Qatar’s transformation. And it needed that, nevertheless it had some restrictions.
Rosin: That’s my colleague Vivian Salama, who lived and reported within the Gulf for a number of years.
Salama: In any case, that is the house of Islam. Mecca and Medina maintain very, very non secular significance for Muslims around the globe. Saudi Arabia was recognized for morality police and issues like that; it was not recognized for comedy and vogue and leisure.
After which rapidly, a couple of decade in the past, you had a younger crown prince—who got here in considerably forcefully into energy, pushing his cousin out of the best way—and he vowed to alter issues, and that’s when a few of these new patterns started. And so it’s been a gradual shift, a comedy competition being a part of that larger image.
Rosin: What’s the larger image? I’ve heard of Imaginative and prescient 2030. What’s that? What’s that about?
Salama: So Mohammed bin Salman, the crown prince of Saudi Arabia—who, by the best way, simply turned 40 years outdated in August—he launched one thing known as Imaginative and prescient 2030, he and others, the king included.
[Music]
Salama: Imaginative and prescient 2030 is their economic-diversification plan and which will get very within the weeds when it comes to the totally different sectors of growth. However one of many huge elements of this framework was that they have been gonna diversify their financial, social, and cultural life. In case you learn by means of this very lengthy plan, it talks in regards to the pillars for selling a “vibrant society,” amongst it getting its residents to train extra, getting them to spend extra on leisure, issues like that.
They actually imagine that they can’t rely solely on the truth that they’re the world’s largest exporter of oil as the only foundation for producing financial income; they wanted to diversify— which is what, by the best way, Dubai and Abu Dhabi and Qatar had been doing within the a long time earlier than. It’s only a extra sustainable mannequin. And Saudi Arabia, up till a couple of decade in the past, was actually in hassle in that regard due to the truth that it wanted to search out different different avenues for income. They weren’t getting tourism the best way that Dubai and Qatar have been. They weren’t getting any of that different cash. The retail purchasing hubs weren’t seeking to go there.
And it’s partly due to their report on a lot of points. Human rights, for instance, has been problematic all alongside. Repression of ladies was all the time one thing that was notable for Saudi Arabia. They’ve been attempting to alter this, along side this diversification plan that they’re additionally attempting to execute on.
Rosin: It’s humorous—you’re saying it in a straight means, however as you’re saying it, I’m like, This doesn’t essentially dangle collectively. How does “comedy competition” dropped into the center of this make any sense? Comedians are recognized for making enjoyable of all the pieces. And so how do you suppose they thought by means of that? It’s not a shopping mall; it’s a special animal, ?
Salama: The truth that we’re right here speaking about it’s what they’re attempting to perform. They need to convey eyes and folks’s consideration to Saudi Arabia for issues apart from, say, adverse headlines or simply the Hajj, for Islamic pilgrimage. They need to be recognized for different issues. They need us to be speaking about Saudi Arabia: Did you see that competition in Saudi Arabia? Did you see that vogue present in Saudi Arabia?
Rosin: So Mohammed bin Salman, or MBS, has truly made headway on this aim, proving to the world that this isn’t your grandma’s Saudi Arabia. He’s additionally an ally of President Donald Trump.
Throughout Trump’s first presidency, his very first worldwide go to was to Saudi Arabia. Within the spring of 2018, Trump hosted MBS on the White Home for some basic Trumpian dealmaking.
Donald Trump (from PBS NewsHour): We’ve change into superb mates over a reasonably brief time period; I used to be in Saudi Arabia in Might. And we’re bringing again tons of of billions of {dollars} into america, and we perceive that—
Rosin: Then, nearly six months after that heat welcome within the Oval Workplace, information broke in regards to the surprising killing of Washington Put up columnist Jamal Khashoggi.
Salama: It was finally decided by U.S. intel that the crown prince, Mohammed bin Salman, both knew about or directed the killing of Jamal Khashoggi, which was an especially brutal occasion, as we all know now—occurred extraterritorially in Istanbul, possible with using a bone noticed. And so that you had this very jarring picture of this journalist working for a Western publication who was brutally killed by this man, and on the identical time, he was on the market speaking about: I’m a special type of ruler. I’m a reformer. I need to have interaction with the West. And so that you had this split-screen state of affairs, and it simply so occurred that the Trump administration had come into workplace proper round that point.
President Trump did acknowledge, with some trepidation, these studies. He reportedly, in keeping with my sources, advised the crown prince and the king privately, I hope there wasn’t a bone noticed; I’ll be very mad if there was a bone noticed, but in addition made very clear that he wasn’t gonna get entangled of their home affairs, that this relationship is a enterprise relationship above all else: We can assist one another do rather well.
Rosin: Do you, as an observer of the nation and its ebbs and flows, suppose that MBS, for being younger and type of wanting this cultural opening, has made any precise significant reforms?
Salama: Oh, yeah, most actually. After I final visited Saudi—a yr and a half in the past, perhaps—I couldn’t truly imagine how a lot it had modified. There was a time lower than a decade in the past the place I couldn’t stroll round with out an abaya, the total gown that goes to the ground, that covers the very modest clothes. Oftentimes, I’d should have a veil no less than available in order that if anybody yelled at me, I’d simply type of throw it on my head, if not all the time sporting it.
I walked round in denims and a T-shirt. Ladies have been sporting vivid, vibrant abayas that have been open and exhibiting their denims and T-shirts beneath—and I’m speaking Saudi ladies. Their hair was uncovered rather more than I’d ever seen earlier than. Ladies at the moment are driving, which is without doubt one of the huge headliners that got here out through the MBS interval.
But additionally, Saudi Arabia was just a little little bit of an fascinating combine even earlier than this since you did have ladies who have been concerned in authorities, who have been enterprise leaders, they usually’ve simply been given a platform to develop their affect within the kingdom extra as these reforms have set in over time. And so undoubtedly, there’s been vital adjustments, and you may see it even superficially if you go to go to.
Rosin: So enthusiastic about the comedy competition once more, one apparent argument is: “You have got a comedy competition. You have got comedians present up. Saudis are within the viewers. They hear this type of comedy. Even when it’s not free comedy—it can’t criticize the crown prince or the federal government or the royal household—it’s nonetheless an edgy type of comedy, and that, in and of itself, has a gap impact.” Do you imagine that to be true?
Salama: I imply, it’s shocking to me, having been now touring and/or residing within the Gulf for shut to twenty years, it’s shocking to me to see the place we’re. It’s undoubtedly a change; it must be acknowledged.
On the identical time, whether or not or not you’ll be able to criticize the federal government, for instance, that’s clearly nonetheless a crimson line, and it’s problematic. And loads of these comedians simply determined that they’re not going to take part in a competition that attracts crimson strains, that tells them what they will and can’t say, as a result of comedy is notoriously kind of a free rein—or no less than it was once; issues are altering even right here. However the Gulf governments—and I’m not simply speaking about Saudi Arabia—the governments within the Center East throughout the board don’t take criticism very properly. They’re not a free-speech society by any stretch.
[Music]
Rosin: Yeah. I suppose what you’re observing is openness is a giant, broad time period. There’s some openness in the best way ladies stroll round on the streets, the truth that ladies drive, the sorts of comedians that have been invited. However that doesn’t imply all types of openness; it doesn’t imply criticizing the federal government, it doesn’t imply comedians can say what they wanna say, and it doesn’t essentially even translate into the very same requirements for a Saudi citizen. However it’s one thing totally different.
Salama: That’s proper. That’s proper. And loads of these comedians have simply decided that any restriction is a no-go.
Rosin: After the break, the view from contained in the comedy competition.
[Break]
Rosin: The Riyadh Comedy Pageant simply wrapped right this moment, and as followers and comedians return residence, a clearer image of what the occasion was truly like is taking form.
Atlantic employees author Helen Lewis simply arrived residence from Riyadh after we spoke.
Lewis: So we went to see the co-headliners of the comedy competition, who’re Louis C.Okay. and Jimmy Carr, a British comic. And so they had a Saudi comic as a assist act, and he stated, I simply need everybody to present a giant spherical of applause for Mohammed bin Salman. (Laughs.) And I used to be identical to, No, no. And clearly, I don’t applaud something anyway, and I assumed, Properly, what a method to go, what a method to be dragged off by the key police, is for exhibiting inadequate enthusiasm for the comedic potential of Mohammed bin Salman.
However this was organized by the Normal Leisure Authority. This was a state-sanctioned comedy competition. So I feel performing there implies not even fairly an endorsement, however actually a degree of consolation and ease with what the federal government is doing that, even in an American context, by no means thoughts a Saudi context, I feel plenty of folks would have an issue with.
Rosin: In order that expectation was not on the American comedians, precisely—like: Share a giant spherical of applause. However when comic Atsuko Okatsuka posted an image of the contract, the contract was primarily: No insulting, degrading, embarrassing the management or faith. It was particularly about insulting the heads of state.
Lewis: Yeah, and I feel that’s actually value noting as a result of, truly, the fabric was fairly blue—fairly blue—so that’s type of fascinating. It is a nation that has been a theocracy, primarily, working towards one of the vital conservative types of Islam. Some stuff was genuinely fairly groundbreaking. That is in all probability the primary time that anybody has joked about dildos on stage in Saudi Arabia. May not be the final.
Rosin: Properly, I used to be questioning about Jimmy Carr. I used to be like, He’s a grimy comic, ?
Lewis: He’s a grimy comic. I might say about 75 % of his set is about: Ooh, wouldn’t or not it’s humorous if I used to be a intercourse offender? (Laughs.) And also you’re like, You do know that they kill these over right here, Jimmy? (Laughs.)
Rosin: Sure! So how did that roll out?
Lewis: Properly, truly, what, virtually all of it went down rather well—and, truly, on this barely intoxicated means, the place he saved saying, like, Let’s push it just a little bit extra, lets? Which is one thing that got here up in Invoice Burr’s reflections on the occasion, proper? That there was a sense that individuals have been actually excited to be there. This was thrilling to them, that that is type of barely titillating, to listen to this type of what, to you and me, can be like, Oh, 9 p.m. on the Comedy Retailer any night time of the week, type of sex-based comedy. That is the primary time that’s been heard in public.
However I’ll say, Jimmy Carr, I’ll give him some credit score as a result of he did—I imply, I feel it was an disagreeable joke—however he did do a political joke, which was he’d carried out an extended part on euthanasia that stated, We put a canine to sleep, however we permit folks to go on residing in what can solely be described as, after which there was a beat, after which he stated, Yemen.
Rosin: (Laughs.) Oh my God, wow.
Lewis: Yeah, and there was genuinely a type of collective: (Gasps.)
Rosin: Yeah.
Lewis: As a result of mentioning the Saudi warfare with Yemen and the bombing of the Houthi rebels there’s an extremely sensitive political topic. Then he went again to some light-hearted anal-sex materials, and all people type of calmed again down once more.
The opposite factor I assumed was very fascinating about Louis C.Okay. is that he principally did, so far as I can inform, his present tour present. So he did a complete bit that was about how a lot he hates jury obligation. Properly, nobody in Saudi Arabia does jury obligation.
Rosin: (Laughs.) Yeah.
Lewis: After which he did a bit about how horrible it’s when it rains. It’s actually a desert.
Rosin: So he’s enjoying it protected, yeah.
Lewis: After which he did a bit about how the lady down his hallway’s actually aged and but nonetheless, regardless of that, nonetheless wears a tube high and cropped shorts, and he finds this disgusting. And I used to be like, Once more, not an issue that these folks will encounter of their day-to-day life, Louis C.Okay.
Rosin: Proper.
Lewis: So it was—and he did do a bit about his personal faith. He stated, Am I okay to mock my faith? Am I okay to speak about Catholicism? And so technically violating the spirit of the contract, besides that everyone knows that the spirit of the contract actually was: Don’t mock Islam.
Rosin: There’ve been some comedians—like Aziz Ansari, for instance—who’ve come out after the occasion and stated, I feel it was internet constructive. It was internet good for Saudi Arabia. It uncovered folks to a type of discuss and humor that they hadn’t heard earlier than.
On the Invoice Burr podcast that we talked about—you weren’t on this present. However he talked a couple of comic—who he didn’t title—who, when three members of the viewers who have been Saudi bought as much as go to the lavatory, this comic, who was homosexual, stated, Oh, are you going to verify Grindr? Which Invoice Burr thought was like, Whoa, that’s actually pushing it.
And so there are some voices popping out of that saying, like, They actually did push the boundaries in a roundabout way. Did you discuss to any comedians? What was your sense of, like, did they be ok with what they’d carried out, whether or not it had had any impression?
Lewis: I talked to Andrew Maxwell, who I’ve beforehand carried out panel reveals with, comedy panel reveals in Britain. And he gave a really fascinating protection, which was, he’s Irish, and he stated, I grew up in a de facto theocracy—divorce was unlawful; abortion was unlawful; homosexuality was utterly frowned upon. And all that modified through the time that I used to be rising up, and Eire is now a way more liberal society. And if this has an opportunity to do this, I need to be a part of it. And already, I can hear the bit in my head that’s going, Do we actually suppose that Saudi Arabia is gonna creep in the direction of Western liberal democracy by means of the medium of dildo jokes?
Rosin: Proper, proper.
Lewis: It appears hopeful. However I can perceive the truth that it is a very younger nation, proper? It has de-Islamized in very seen and apparent methods. So the obvious one is the best way that the non secular police not have powers of arrest, and for those who went over 10, 20 years in the past and also you weren’t accurately dressed, or no matter it could be, that was a very scary and repressive factor. And I’m not saying now it’s a free-speech paradise, however that’s undoubtedly one thing that has modified.
So the paradox of Mohammed bin Salman’s rule of Saudi Arabia is you could liberalize as much as the precise level that he permits, however no extra, and you have to by no means query how a lot or how little he has liberalized. So the obvious instance of this being: Across the time that ladies have been allowed to drive, additionally, a really outstanding ladies’s rights activist, Loujain al-Hathloul, who was a giant campaigner for girls’s driving rights, she was jailed. She’s not been heard from in public since; she’s not allowed to talk publicly. So the federal government has adopted this coverage that they’ve stated that her place was primarily the proper one, however she did it mistaken as a result of she spoke out towards—she questioned the Saudi state. And that’s the bit that I feel is—folks from Europe and America, it’s laborious to grapple with—is: What worth are you keen to pay for this liberalization? And what authoritarian penalty will you place up with? Must you be glad about the nice issues whereas condemning the dangerous factor?
[Music]
Lewis: And in addition, a part of that is, I feel, once I learn all of the defenses of the comedians about why they have been doing it, two issues got here throughout. One was a type of nihilism, which was a type of Doesn’t matter. You understand, Tim Dillon saying, They’re paying me sufficient to silence the screams. I don’t care. You simply take the cash, hold your head down.
After which the opposite one was ethical relativism, which was, actually, primarily boils right down to: America’s carried out some dangerous shit too. Who’re we to evangelise to different folks? And I heard that sentiment, and I feel significantly due to Israel’s warfare in Gaza, plenty of comedians in that type of sphere who took the invitation and took the cash are like, Our ally Israel is bombing a rustic again to the Stone Age; who’re we to lecture Saudi Arabia on its human-rights report?
And I heard that sentiment time and again and once more. And it’s one which I feel is sort of widespread now amongst youthful, disaffected individuals who hearken to that type of podcast-comedian sphere, an actual deep dissatisfaction with American international coverage—which isn’t a brand new factor, proper? You might have stated the identical factor across the time of the warfare in Iraq in 2004. However I feel it complicates what some folks would possibly really feel, that America is a good liberalizing drive and is morally superior to different folks.
Rosin: So now that you simply’ve been there, which of these do you discover essentially the most compelling? Or do you suppose, ultimately, none of them ought to have gone?
Lewis: I wouldn’t have gone. However then, you and I are in a special place, as journalists, proper? There’s an honor system in Britain, and generally people who find themselves editors of newspapers take honors, they usually change into Sir Such and Such, and I feel, What are you doing? (Laughs.) If the federal government likes you, you’ve carried out it mistaken, primarily, as a journalist. In order that’s my perspective that I convey to this.
And now, it’s not the identical for comedians. And I feel the bit that’s type of essential to that is, at what level did we cease having public intellectuals, and we began having comedians and began treating them as type of philosopher-kings, proper?
Rosin: Yeah.
Lewis: The concept is these are folks whose job is like dinner theater: You exit for the night, they usually make you chuckle. And I feel I wanna return to why we’ve ceded this a lot ethical authority to this class of people who find themselves—, lots of my finest mates are stand-up comedians. However they’re heat-seeking missiles for getting the fitting response from an viewers. And that’s not the identical factor as telling the reality, proper? Typically the jokes are lazy or simple, and people ones are the assured laughs. So for me, this complete competition ought to make us reappraise why we take the political ideas of comedians so significantly and whether or not or not they’ve actually earned that proper to be taken significantly.
Underneath that argument, plenty of American companies already commerce with Saudi Arabia. Why are we holding Invoice Burr to a better ethical commonplace than Chili’s or Dunkin’ Donuts?
Rosin: A final query, which is perhaps the one I ought to have requested you first: Why did you wanna go? It’s an fascinating alternative. It’s not as for those who cowl the Center East. I’m curious why—what you have been searching for.
Lewis: I assumed it could be humorous.
Rosin: (Laughs.) That’s not …
Lewis: In many alternative methods. No, ought to I let you know what—(a) once I noticed it, the 2 phrases: Riyadh—essentially the most austere Saudi metropolis; the house of the Sauds, the ruling household—along side standup comedy. Then I noticed the lineup, and it was plenty of those who I’ve lined for The Atlantic for a very long time, proper? And I used to be enthusiastic about this: that the competition actually owes its existence to 2 issues. One among them is Mohammed bin Salman and his liberalizing regime, and the opposite one is cancel tradition.
Rosin: Mm-hmm.
Lewis: And also you look down that checklist, and it’s Dave Chappelle—large backlash at Netflix over his jokes about trans folks. It’s Louis C.Okay.—bought MeToo’ed. However there’s a sense that, within the final couple of years in American comedy, that plenty of folks bought pushed out of the mainstream, they usually rebuilt a complete new—, in the identical means there was alt-comedy within the Eighties, that is type of alt-alt-comedy, anti-woke comedy.
So for me, this complete competition was actually reflective of the state of American comedy and the brand new power that pulsed by means of it, and I feel pulsed by means of it final yr, main so many of those guys to flirt with Trump, interview Trump, perhaps full-on endorse Trump. And that may be a huge problem to folks my age, who’ve grown up with the default assumption that comedy is type of liberal.
Rosin: Properly, Helen, get some sleep, and thanks for speaking to us after your journey.
Lewis: As ever, thanks for having me.
[Music]
Rosin: This episode of Radio Atlantic was produced by Rosie Hughes and Jinae West. It was edited by Claudine Ebeid. Rob Smierciak engineered and offered authentic music. Genevieve Finn fact-checked. Claudine Ebeid is the manager producer of Atlantic audio, and Andrea Valdez is our managing editor.
Listeners, for those who like what you hear on Radio Atlantic, you’ll be able to assist our work and the work of all Atlantic journalists if you subscribe to The Atlantic at TheAtlantic.com/listener.
I’m Hanna Rosin. Thanks for listening.
