‘Strongman’ asks a simple question with a complicated answer: why do those who have power so often abuse it?
The title “Strongman” was chosen by host Hind Hassan to showcase how oppression does not just happen at the hands of state leaders but at the hands of anyone with power. There are strongmen everywhere abusing that strength they have: from the leaders of terrorist groups, to authoritarians in politics, to domestic abusers. This podcast, “Strongman,” is one that may have passed you by in 2021, but it’s a podcast recommendation that should be shouted from the rooftops. It’s definitely not an easy listen as it heavily focuses on abuse and violence from an individualistic to a societal level, but it’s an important and fascinating listen.
“Strongman” is just six episodes long, and each chapter looks at a different level of abusive bully figures in society. Starting with abusive romantic partners through terrorist organizations, the podcast covers corrupt cops, India’s caste system, and rampant sexual violence. Episodes are only 40 minutes long.
To open the series, Hind Hassan hits us with the concept that we can find authoritarian tendencies across all societies. In every country, in every community, in every pocket of our planet, there exists a hierarchy – whether it’s explicitly recognized or not. And what that says is that power matters, and anyone telling you it doesn’t probably has a lot of it.
Every episode focuses on one story from a different facet of the abuse of power. The first episode, titled “Obedience,” features author Reema Zaman and her story. Born in Bangladesh and raised in Thailand, Zaman was raised under her father’s thumb. As the eldest child of a diplomat, she was raised to speak with a “stiff upper lip” as she called it, never to let her emotions (even excitement) be too loud. When she married her husband, she was first charmed by his obsession with her. But it quickly became too much, and once he married her and became her sponsor for U.S. citizenship, he became even more controlling.
Zaman knows she was lucky to escape him with minimal scarring – physically at least. When she no longer let his verbal abuse, manipulation, and insults affect her, he grew bored and moved on, starting an affair with another woman before actually ending their marriage himself. Zaman was an actress at the time but had found solace in writing. When their marriage was finally over and she had finally escaped his clutches, she dedicated herself to writing full time, hoping that her words could help others in abusive relationships find a way to leave.
Zaman’s story emphasizes the main point of “Strongman:” that abuse of power is not always obvious, and all abuses do not look the same. Episodes walk through different ways people wield power over others, from obedience, indoctrination, separation, hierarchy, policing, and forced silence. It’s dark, but that’s why it needs to be talked about. “Strongman” doesn’t focus on just one country or one oppressed community.
Hassan brings us to Kenya, where she examines how policing in the country is a legacy of colonial oppression and its unchecked violence. She brings us to Egypt, where in this worldwide surge of sexual violence, women are being silenced. Hassan reports on a story with an exclusive account of the infamous Fairmont rape case. In one episode, she speaks with writer Lurgio Gavilan, who was 12 when the terrorist group Shining Path recruited him as a child soldier.
Each episode of “Strongman” is somehow better than the last. Hassan is letting people tell their stories – people who hope that their experiences and their escape can help even just one other person who found themselves in a similar situation.
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