Atlantic Monthly Contributors's Blog, page 258

The Capture of El Chapo

This post was updated on January 8 at 2:11 p.m. ET

Joaquín ‘El Chapo’ Guzmán, the Mexican drug lord, has been captured, Mexican President Enrique Peña Nieto announced on Twitter.

Misión cumplida: lo tenemos. Quiero informar a los mexicanos que Joaquín Guzmán Loera ha sido detenido.

— Enrique Peña Nieto (@EPN) January 8, 2016

That translates to “Mission accomplished: We got him. I want to inform Mexicans that Joaquin Guzman Loera has been arrested.”

Guzman, the head of the Sinaloa cartel, escaped from the maximum-security Altiplano Federal Prison prison last July after stepping into a shower and slipping into a tunnel.

Details of his capture have not yet been made public. But his brazen escape in July, just a year after his arrest, embarrassed Mexican authorities and launched a multi-nation manhunt for one of the most notorious drug lords in the world.

Here’s what we said at the time of his escape:

For Guzman—known as “El Chapo” because of his short stature—the escape adds another chapter to an almost mythical life. Born and raised in rural poverty, the 58-year-old rose to become the head of the Sinaloa Cartel, a $3 billion drug trafficking empire that now controls 25 percent of all marijuana, cocaine, and heroin imported into the United States. Mexican authorities initially captured El Chapo in Guatemala in 1993—only to see him escape from prison through a laundry cart eight years later. Despite his complicity in untold death and misery, the escape from authority had turned El Chapo  into an unlikely “Robin Hood” figure, a man whose exploits were portrayed in books, film, and popular music.

The U.S. had requested El Chapo’s extradition days before the drug lord’s escape. Consequently, the escape spawned a cottage industry in conspiracy theories, as Ginger Thompson wrote in The Atlantic last July. According to one of those theories, he was allowed to escape by the government to restore order in the world of Mexican drugs. Here’s more:

They pointed to what’s been happening in his absence. The levels of drug violence in Mexico have begun to surge. An ascendant cartel, known as Jalisco Nueva Generacion (the New Generation Jalisco), has launched breathtaking attacks against security forces and public officials. Led by yet another ruthless killer named Nemesio “El Mencho” Oseguera Cervantes, the cartel has set up armed roadblocks to search cars driving into and out of some of the most important cities in central Mexico, in order to keep out its rivals. And when authorities have attempted to stop the organization’s members, they’ve fought back with some serious firepower. A spectacular rocket attack earlier this year downed a military helicopter, and a rampage against Mexican police left 15 officers dead in a day.

Although such theories strain credulity, Thompson wrote, the escape hurt U.S.-Mexican cooperation on counternarcotics efforts.

“I think the relationship has been set back 10 years,” an American agent told her. “If we can’t trust them to keep Chapo in jail,” he wondered, “then how can we trust them on anything?”

This is a developing story and we’ll update it when we learn more.

Anomalisa: An Agonizing Love Story, With Puppets

The first act of Charlie Kaufman and Duke Johnson’s animated film Anomalisa plays out as an unassuming, slice-of-life drama: It follows an Englishman named Michael Stone (David Thewlis) as he flies to Cincinnati, takes a cab to his hotel, and checks into his room, brusquely interacting with chatty strangers the whole time. But the film—made with stop-motion animation and eerily realistic, 3D-printed puppets—is slowly pervaded by a sense of horror. As Michael chats with his cab driver about Cincinnati chili, or a hotel clerk about the kind of room he wants, it becomes clear that every other character, whether male or female, is speaking with the same voice (Tom Noonan’s, to be precise). It’s a remarkably effective depiction of the world’s sameness, seen through the eyes of a character who’s long forgotten how to connect with people.

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Into this nightmare walks—what else—a special woman. Anomalisa, like so much of Kaufman’s work, is about someone who sees himself as existing outside of society, and who’s both emboldened and depressed by that fact. If that sounds like a tough person to spend 90 minutes with, well, it is. He’s a man who sleepwalks through life, who’s fallen for and walked away from multiple women for reasons he can’t explain, who literally sees everyone else as a drone. That is, until he hears Lisa (Jennifer Jason Leigh), another hotel guest, whose voice stands out of the crowd for him. As Anomalisa explores their meet-cute, watching the movie evolves into a frustrating internal struggle: Should viewers feel happy for the pair? Or terrified for Lisa?

As voiced by Leigh, Lisa is the standout character of the film—which, of course, she’s meant to be. A shy but warm-hearted and appreciably goofy soul, she brightens up a film that’s often near-impossible to watch when it’s focused on the somnambulant Michael. Through the theatrical device of having her voice stand out in the crowd, and the pinpoint casting of Leigh (who’s always excelled at playing alluring weirdos), Kaufman and Johnson find a wonderful new angle on depicting what it’s like to fall hard for someone. The hard part is watching it happen to a man as thoroughly awful as Michael.

To be fair, Anomalisa has genuine sympathy for its protagonist and his flaws; its main challenge is getting viewers to feel the same way. Very early on, viewers learn about Michael’s history of unhappy, short-lived relationships. The minute Lisa draws his attention, the film’s existential horror shifts from the world around Michael to the passion he suddenly feels for Lisa, which he fears will slip away at any moment.

Anomalisa has genuine sympathy for Michael and his flaws. Its challenge is getting viewers to feel the same way.

After 40 minutes of aggressive, intentional dullness, Anomalisa becomes far more compelling to watch. Though puppet sex is notoriously difficult to pull off, a scene between Michael and Lisa is astonishing in its awkward intimacy. Though the content itself is pretty gentle, it’s unsettling to watch simply because it feels so realistic and ordinary—one of those romantic sequences where Kaufman and Johnson’s direction really shines. Given the incredible human likeness of the puppets, the uncanny valley should pose a problem, but it doesn’t, which feels like a feat on its own.

Despite its focus on romance, on the whole Anomalisa left me cold, perhaps because of its narrow focus and predictable ending. Yes, Michael is a lonely, perhaps clinically depressed soul whose issues with intimacy could fill a psychiatrist’s pad. But he makes for a surprisingly dead-end protagonist after so many Kaufman scripts that explored identity and life on a much grander scale, from Synecdoche, New York to Being John Malkovich. The impact of Anomalisa’s early drudgery lingers, even after the arrival of Leigh’s character. But Kaufman’s writing works best when it’s about people genuinely contending with what it means to be human. If Anomalisa fails, it’s because Michael can’t quite bring himself to relate to anyone else on earth.

Exit, Cologne’s Police Chief

Cologne’s police chief has been provisionally suspended following outrage over his department’s handling of the sexual assaults of women on New Year’s Eve reportedly by as many as 1,000 Arab or North African men.

“This step is important so that public trust and the Cologne police’s ability to act can be restored,” Ralf Jäger, the North Rhine Westphalia region’s interior minister, said in a statement, quoted by Deutsche Welle, the German broadcaster.

News about Wolfgang Albers’s provisional suspension came after German authorities said they had identified 18 asylum-seekers among the 31 suspects linked to the New Year’s Eve assaults in Cologne, one of Germany’s most diverse cities. They included nine Algerians, eight Moroccans, four Syrians, five Iranians, two Germans, and one each from Iraq, Serbia, and the U.S., an Interior Ministry spokesman said.

Police officials said there were more than 170 complaints that alleged sexual assault—including two complaints of rape—and robbery during the night. German news reports said two people, one aged 16 and another 23, were arrested overnight in connection with the attacks. Both are reportedly of North African origin. They were later released due to lack of evidence.

As we reported Thursday:

Outrage over the incident has dovetailed with fears that the perpetrators may have been among the more than 1 million asylum-seekers who entered Germany in 2015. German officials have been quick to dispute a link between the alleged crimes in Cologne and the influx of people fleeing civil war in Syria and unrest elsewhere, but many politicians and groups opposed to Merkel’s welcoming position on refugees and migrants have been quick to make the connection.

Still, German officials, in the face of mounting criticism, have said those who don’t follow the law will be punished.

“We must examine again and again whether we have already done what is necessary in terms of ... deportations from Germany in order to send clear signals to those who are not prepared to abide by our legal order,” Chancellor Angela Merkel said Thursday.

Heiko Maas, the German justice minister, said “deportations would certainly be conceivable” for those sentenced to a year or more in prison.

Those remarks, and other similar ones by other government officials, were in sharp contrast from the initial responses. Cologne’s mayor was mocked for suggesting that women keep strangers at an arm’s length to prevent similar incidents; the police were sharply criticized for doing little to nothing to stop what was going on; and the media was condemned for failing to report on the events until this week.

“People want to know, and rightly so, what happened on New Year's Eve, who the offenders were and how these incidents can be prevented,” Jäger, the regional interior minister, said Friday.

The attacks allegedly occurred in the Cologne’s historic square, which lies between the main train station and the cathedral. About 1,000 men had gathered outside the station and were setting off fireworks. Some were drunk and aggressive, news reports say. Police cleared the square because they feared injuries from the fireworks. But the men soon returned and carried out the assaults with reportedly little to no response from the local police. Bild, the German daily, published a leaked police report on the incidents that said officers were overwhelmed by the events.

Similar assaults were reported in Hamburg and Stuttgart, as well as in Helsinki, the Finnish capital, and Zurich, Switzerland, though the latter assaults became known only after the outrage over the Cologne attacks.

Paul LePage's Racist Fearmongering on Drugs

Maine Governor Paul LePage, no stranger to inflammatory and offensive remarks, delivered a doozy Wednesday night. Maine, like many northeastern states, is facing a serious heroin problem. And LePage knows who to blame:

The traffickers—these aren't people who take drugs. These are guys by the name D-Money, Smoothie, Shifty. These type of guys that come from Connecticut and New York. They come up here, they sell their heroin, then they go back home. Incidentally, half the time they impregnate a young, white girl before they leave. Which is the real sad thing, because then we have another issue that we have to deal with down the road.

LePage’s spokesman told the Portland Press Herald, “The governor is not making comments about race. Race is irrelevant,” a statement that would be easier to credit if LePage hadn’t specifically stipulated “impregnat[ing] young, white girl[s]” in his statement. And on Friday, when he tried to clarify his remarks, he only dug a deeper hole: “I tried to explain that Maine is essentially all white. I should have said ‘Maine women.’”

There is a long history of white leaders exploiting fear of miscegenation and dilution of white blood, but typically that’s associated with the postbellum South rather than 21st-century Maine.

Another problem with LePage’s comments: They’re not just offensive, they’re not especially accurate. As Philip Bump

South Korea’s Resumption of Propaganda Broadcasts

South Korea resumed propaganda broadcasts—including K-pop, news and weather reports, and criticisms of its northern neighbor—that North Korea views as an act of war, two days after Pyongyang said it had tested a hydrogen bomb.  

“We plan to air the show for two to six hours every day on an irregular basis, but in a way that prevents any damage from a possible attack across from the border and minimize the residents’ inconvenience,” a military official, speaking on condition of anonymity, told reporters.

The official added: “Most subjects are based on facts, and some are about human-rights violations and others the nuclear test, saying the regime is worsening already difficult economic circumstances.”

Here’s more on the broadcasts themselves, from the Korea Herald:

At noon, the “Voice of Freedom” show began with the host calling for soldiers to quit smoking as a New Year’s resolution, followed by the 1980s rock band Gun Son’s popular song “No Smoking” and Rimi and Potato’s “Baby I’m Cold.”

Unfolding at 11 locations along the heavily fortified frontier, the broadcasts provide a rare source of outside news and music for North Korean frontline troops and residents of border towns in the reclusive society. It has four main themes, each aimed at promoting freedom and democracy, illustrating the South’s political and economic ascent, recovering national homogeneity and revealing the reality of the regime, according to Seoul’s Defense Ministry.  …

For the reopening, the military upgraded the content to criticize the recent atomic test, while adding latest hit tunes such as Lee Ae-ran’s viral “A Centennial Life,” GFriend’s “Me Gustas Tu,” Apink’s “Let Us Just Love” and Big Bang’s “Bang Bang Bang.” In a radio drama aired around 6 p.m., a top aide of Kim’s deceased father and late strongman Kim Jong-il sexually harrassed a married woman who then was shot to death by him while trying to protect her disputing husband.

The Herald reported the broadcasts can travel up to 6 miles.

The resumption of the broadcasts, which Seoul had suspended last year under a deal to resolve tensions with the North, came after Wednesday’s claim by Pyongyang that it had tested a hydrogen bomb. South Korea said the test was a “grave violation” of that agreement. The North’s claim hasn’t been independently verified, and confirmation could take months, though many nuclear experts have expressed skepticism.

South Korea and Japan, which have borne the brunt of North Korea’s sometimes bellicose and often erratic policies, have tried to cobble together a diplomatic front to respond to North Korea’s announcement. The UN Security Council, which met Wednesday to discuss the test, hinted at further sanctions on the North.

Much of the focus has been on China, a permanent, veto-wielding member of the Security Council, which is North Korea’s main ally. Beijing said it was not informed about the test in advance—as it had been during the North’s previous nuclear tests—and criticized the North’s actions. But on Friday, it appeared to push back against calls from the U.S. and others to do more to influence Pyongyang.

“The origin and crux of the nuclear issue on the Korean Peninsula has never been China,” Hua Chunying, a spokeswoman for the Chinese Ministry of Foreign Affairs, said. “The key to solving the problem is not China.”

That, The New York Times reports, was “a clear reference to the belief in China that efforts by the Americans to isolate North Korea economically and politically over the past decade have worsened the situation.”

The December Jobs Report Caps a Year of Steady Growth

The December jobs report is out, and it’s smashed the moderate expectations that economists had for it. Figures released by the Labor Department on Friday morning show that the economy added 292,000 jobs in December, and the unemployment rate remained at 5 percent.

The average monthly growth in non-farm jobs in 2014 was 260,000; with the December jobs report, the 2015 average comes in at 221,000—which counts as a slowdown, but still makes 2015 one of the best years for U.S. job growth since 1999.

The fantastic October jobs report has been revised up (again) to 307,000 jobs added, making October the strongest month for job growth in 2015. November’s numbers have been revised up too, to 252,000. Combined, the job gains of those two months are 50,000 more than previously reported. Together with December’s numbers, that marks the best three-month stretch for job growth in 2015.

Meanwhile, the unemployment rate stayed steady at 5 percent, where economists expect it to remain. The U.S. unemployment rate has not dipped below that level since 2007.

Friday’s report was not all good news. Wages are relatively low, a grim finding that’s been a theme of recent jobs reports. In 2015, average hourly earnings only grew by 2.5 percent, whereas the Fed would consider a rate of 3.5 percent healthy. Fed officials and economists have been looking hard for signs of wage growth and not finding it, but there’s hope that a tightening labor market would mean a bigger payday for workers.

There were other weak points. Labor-force participation remained low in December as well, and though the report shows it perked up very slightly to 62.6 percent, it’s still at the lowest level since 1977. Another consistent worry has been that so many Americans are working part-time because they can’t find full-time positions. This year, those are three areas that economists will be looking at closely for signs of improvement. With interest rates already up, 2016 is set to be another test of a tentative economic recovery.

When Diversity Is a Spokesmodel

If fashion houses can have “faces,” then Marc Jacobs has a new one: Lana Wachowski. This is notable not just because Wachowski is a film star of the behind-the-camera variety—she directed, among many other recent classics, The Matrix—but also because she is a transgender woman. Jacobs announced that Wachowski would co-star in his Spring/Summer 2016 ad campaign on Instagram, where he noted that “the people featured in our campaign … embody and celebrate the spirit and beauty of equality.” He did so during the same week that Dolce & Gabbana announced a collection of high-end hijabs and abayas, and that Louis Vuitton featured a skirt-wearing Jaden Smith, the teenage son of Will, as the house’s latest womenswear model.

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These are on the one hand cynical moves, designed to get their brands talked about (and, in D&G’s case, extended to an $8.7 billion market). They are also, however, evidence of cynicism of a more salutary strain: They suggest that fashion, with its typical combination of flamboyance and sluggishness, is trying to become more inclusive. Jacobs and Vuitton and D&G are attempting to sell their wares through the middleman of progress itself, by welcoming and celebrating people outside the mold the industry has propagated for so many years.

They’re not alone in that. In its May 2015 issue, Vogue profiled an openly transgender model, Andreja Pejić, for the first time. Céline, this time last year, made waves when it announced that Joan Didion, literary icon and octogenarian, would be its own new “face.” Madeline Stuart, an 18-year-old with Down Syndrome, walked the runway at 2015’s New York Fashion Week.

As models, those people are all, in one sense, traditional: gorgeous, in a totally unique and also totally universal way. But in another sense they are also extremely, and importantly, non-traditional: Their beauty is only part of the point. They are not merely clothes hangers who stomp and shimmy and smize. They are people, and they carry the fleshy freight of personhood. Through their stories and their histories, they inject politics into fashion. They suggest that, whatever the clothing they are helping to sell, inclusivity is the best thing to accessorize it with.

These models are not merely clothes hangers who stomp and shimmy and smize. They are people who carry the fleshy freight of personhood.

In that, certainly, they’re helping fashion to do what it has always done, which is to borrow from, and then give back to, the culture at large. In the year after Obergefell v. Hodges, the year after Transparent and Caitlyn Jenner made their various marks, the year after the Dove Men+Care ad campaign and the launch of The New York Times’ “Men’s Style” section and the launch of the TLC show I Am Jazz, the year that could well find The Danish Girl being celebrated not just by critics, but by Oscar voters—inclusivity is a fashion statement.

And that’s true far beyond the quirky echelons of high fashion. Campbell’s recently featured soup ads (inevitable hashtag: #realreallife) starring a toddler and two doting fathers. Kohl’s 2015 holiday ads featured an interracial, same-sex couple. And late last year Mattel made the heavily symbolic move of featuring a boy, for the first time, in an ad for a Barbie doll. Last year, too, found brands using social media as an excuse for ad-hoc performances of progressivism, as brands will. When the Obergefell decision was announced in June, companies from American Airlines to Bravo to FreshDirect to Jell-O to Maytag to Target came out, so to speak, with their own celebrations. (So did, unsurprisingly, Oreo, which three years earlier made waves with its “pride cookie.”)

Ads that exploit politics suggest something salutary: that beauty, on its own, is a little bit boring.

Taken individually, these are all small steps, and limited ones. The culture of Orange Is the New Black is the same culture that finds Hasbro meeting controversy for its failure to include a Rey figurine in its Star Wars-themed Monopoly set. The culture that put Caitlyn Jenner on the cover of Vanity Fair is the same one that found South Park mocking the impulse to celebrate her as “stunning and brave.” The Fashion Week that put Madeline Stuart on its runway is the same one that generally subscribes to the human-hanger school of models. The fashion industry that is claiming to espouse diversity and gender fluidity is the same one that holds, in other areas, terrible records when it comes to race and workers’ rights. And, again, ads being what they are, even the most progressive campaigns are implicitly cynical: They’re designed as much to sell stuff as to make a statement. They’re conflating the illusion of progress with a more palpable version.

Still, though. Ads don’t simply reflect culture; they are culture. And the fact that they are designed with marketing so thoroughly in mind makes them especially revealing: They make declarations and assumptions about what beauty is, what style is, what family is, what worth is—and on behalf of us all. Ads that exploit a vaguely political agenda suggest, on the whole, something salutary: that beauty, on its own, is a little bit boring. And that the way fashion has typically conceived of beauty—white, thin, young, straight, and in general fundamentally conservative—is a little bit boring. Through converting people—Wachowski, Smith, Didion—into “faces,” the brands are making an obvious, but also extremely beneficial, assumption: that business, like culture itself, is at its best when it’s inclusive.

A Higher Close for Chinese Markets

Updated on December 8 at 8:35 a.m. ET

Chinese stocks closed up Friday after a week of upheaval that roiled global markets from Tokyo to New York in the first days of the trading year. Markets in Europe and the U.S. were sharply higher, as well, on the back of extremely strong job growth in December.

The gains in China were attributed to three steps by the government: First, the suspension of a circuit-breaker mechanism that kicked in when stocks dropped precipitously, as they did on Thursday. But that mechanism, which was intended to lessen volatility, instead served to spook markets around the world.

Next, the People’s Bank of China, the country’s central bank, set a higher yuan fix for the first time in nine trading days. On Thursday, the central bank set the yuan at its lowest level since March 2011. A cheaper yuan would boost Chinese exports, but would raise fears the Chinese economy is doing worse than believed. Thursday’s decision also sparked fears of a region-wide rush to devalue currencies.

Third, Bloomberg reported, citing people familiar with the matter, that state-controlled funds purchased Chinese stocks, focusing on financial shares and on equities with large weightings in benchmark indexes.

In apparent response, markets closed up 2 percent. European stocks also performed better after China’s decision, while in the U.S., markets surged after the latest jobs report showed strong job growth in December. The economy added 292,000 jobs last month, and the jobless rate stayed at 5 percent. Many economists had estimated the economy would add 200,000 jobs in December.

Still, the volatility in Chinese markets spread around the world this week, and, as my colleague Joe Pinkser pointed out the advice from the media generally boiled down to two words—don’t panic—but some of the fears affecting markets are steeped in conflicting signals from Chinese policymakers, as well as general worries about the health of the slowing Chinese—as well as the global—economy.

Writing in The Wall Street Journal, Andrew Browne pointed to the “almost comical ineptitude” on the part of Chinese policymakers. He added:

The central bank is clearly not on the same page as the securities regulator. Its surprise decision to steer the yuan sharply lower this week added to panic in the equity markets, where investors took the move to mean that financial authorities are getting desperate about the state of the economy.

Part of the problem, it seems, is a policy-making bottleneck. Mr. Xi has reversed a collective-type leadership process inherited from Mr. Deng and concentrated decision-making authority in his own hands. …

As a consequence, Premier Li Keqiang ’s job has shrunk. His immediate predecessors ran the economy; he doesn’t enjoy the same autonomy. If things go seriously wrong, though, he might end up as a convenient scapegoat. Other highly competent economic leaders look less like decision makers and more like cheerleaders for policy concocted above their heads.

Bloomberg points out that Friday’s reversal on the circuit-breaker is lending weight to the investors’ sentiment that Chinese authorities are “improvising— and improvising poorly—they try to stabilize markets and shore up the economy.”

“They are changing the rules all the time now,” Maarten-Jan Bakkum, a senior emerging-markets strategist at NN Investment Partners in The Hague, told Bloomberg. “The risks seem to have increased.”

Mark Mobius, chairman of the emerging-markets group at Franklin Templeton Investments, wrote in a blog post Thursday:

Clearly, many investors are worried right now. As we see it, there is no question that China should continue to have strong growth this year, but one might say China is facing a bit of a conundrum. On the one hand, the government wants stability, but on the other, it also is striving toward more openness. That means we could see more volatility in China’s market this year as these conflicting forces play out.

Still, he pointed out: “That said, we are not terribly concerned about growth in China, nor its long-term investment prospects. … The fundamentals in China are still excellent, in our view. It is one of the fastest-growing economies in the world even if the growth rate has decelerated.”

Obama: 'I Won't Campaign' With Candidates Who Don't Support Gun Control

In an op-ed in The New York Times on Thursday, President Obama vowed to not “campaign for, vote for or support any candidate, even in my own party, who does not support common-sense gun reform.” At a town hall event hosted by CNN that night, he explained why.

”Yeah, I meant what I said,” Obama said when asked about the op-ed by moderator Anderson Cooper. “And the reason I said that is this: The majority of people in this country are a lot more sensible than what you see in Washington.” Obama singled out the National Rifle Association as one of the “loudest, shrillest voices” against gun control and told the audience “[that] the way we break the deadlock on this issue is when the NRA doesn't have a stranglehold on Congress in this debate.” To that end, the president said, “I want to throw my shoulders behind those who want to solve problems, and not those who want to get high scores from an interest group."

Thursday’s town hall at George Mason University in Fairfax, Virginia, came two days after the president signed an executive order to strengthen background-check processes for firearm purchases. My colleague Russell Berman noted on Wednesday that despite Obama’s touting and his critics’ complaints, the modest measures fall far short of universal background checks and won’t change much. And as my colleague Clare Foran noted earlier this week, Tuesday’s orders weren’t Obama’s first attempt to curb gun violence through presidential power. His administration also unveiled 23 executive actions in the wake of Sandy Hook shooting in 2012.

But his actions and words this week cap a significant evolution on the issue for Obama, who largely avoided gun control as a policy priority during his first term. Now his electoral support of current and future mayors, governors, members of Congress, and presidents hinges upon it.

The turning point came in December 2012, one month after his reelection, when a gunman stormed Sandy Hook Elementary School and killed 20 young children and six educators, shocking the nation and changing the political atmosphere on gun rights. “We can’t tolerate this anymore,” Obama told an interfaith prayer service in Newtown, Connecticut, two days later. “These tragedies must end. And to end them, we must change.” At Thursday’s town hall, he referred to the Sandy Hook massacre as one of the worst days of his presidency.

With the political weight of a reelection race gone, Obama threw his support behind a bipartisan gun-control proposal drafted by Senators Joe Manchin, a Democrat from West Virginia, and Pat Toomey, a Republican from Pennsylvania in Sandy Hook's aftermath. Their amendment would have required background checks on all commercial gun sales. The proposal that drew overwhelming public support from Americans as well as intense opposition from the NRA and other gun-rights groups. The measure failed to overcome a Senate filibuster in the spring of 2013.

But Sandy Hook’s shadow lingered over Obama. The president became steadily more outspoken about the need for new gun regulations with each new mass shooting. “This is a political choice that we make to allow this to happen every few months in America,” he told reporters after a shooting at an Oregon community college in October. “We collectively are answerable to those families who lose their loved ones because of our inaction.” After two shooters reportedly inspired by ISIS killed 14 people at an office party in San Bernardino last month, the president called for a ban on gun purchases by suspected terrorists on the TSA’s No-Fly List. And at Tuesday’s White House event, Obama again grew visibly emotional when he mentioned the shooting deaths of young children.

“People are dying,” Obama said then. “And the constant excuses for inaction no longer do, no longer suffice. That is why we are here today. Not to debate the last mass shooting, but to do something to prevent the next one.”

At Thursday's town hall, he echoed that sense of urgency. Stronger background checks, Obama told the audience, which included victims of gun-related violence and their families, “may be able to save a whole bunch of families from the grief that some of the people in this audience have gone through.” Gun-rights advocates were also present in the audience and criticized the president’s proposals at length.

“Part of the reason this ends up being such a difficult issue is people occupy different realities,” he told the audience. The most intense moment came when Mark Kelly, a former astronaut whose wife, former Representative Gabrielle Giffords, survived a shooting in 2011, sarcastically asked the president about fears of gun confiscation. As Obama began to describe “this notion of a conspiracy,” Cooper interrupted.

“Is it really fair to call that a conspiracy?” he asked. “I’m sorry, Cooper, yes, it’s fair to call it a conspiracy," Obama replied testily. "What are you saying? Are you suggesting that the notion that we are creating a plot to take everybody’s guns away so that we can impose martial law is a conspiracy? Yes, that is a conspiracy.”

The NRA, which received the lion's share of Obama’s ire, declined an invitation to take part in the town hall. A spokesman told CNN it saw “no reason to participate in a public relations spectacle orchestrated by the White House.” The powerful lobbying organization chimed in nonetheless by livetweeting the event, arguing at one point that “a president who compliments Australia’s gun control model does not respect the [Second Amendment].”

Why Western Designers Are Embracing the Hijab

In the ground-floor Food Hall of Harrods—the storied London department store owned by the Qatari royal family—individual chocolates beautifully arrayed in glass cases are labeled according to their alcohol content, a courtesy to Muslim customers. In the top-floor shoe salon—dubbed “Shoe Heaven”— bejeweled, flat-soled sandals by Gina, Casadei, and René Caovilla sell for a thousand dollars a pair; a bit of bling to peek out from under abayas, sarees, and salwar trousers. On the designer label-crammed floors in between, however, there are few concessions to the many Muslim shoppers who frequent the Knightsbridge stores—particularly during the “Ramadan rush,” the annual influx of customers during the holiest month of the Islamic calendar.

That’s about to change. The Italian fashion house Dolce & Gabbana has just launched a line of hijabs (headscarves) and abayas (cloaks) in the label’s signature playful, theatrical aesthetic. Sold only in the Middle East, London, and Paris, the pieces are trimmed in black lace and accessorized with oversized sunglasses, cocktail rings, stilettos, and statement bags. Printed daisies, lemons, and roses tie the pieces to beach pajamas and ’50s-housewife dresses in the Spring/Summer 2016 collection, signaling that this is much more than just a one-off.

Muslims and non-Muslim fashionistas alike have greeted Dolce & Gabbana’s announcement with jubilation. The collection has been hailed as both long overdue and worth the wait; the pieces are so gorgeously crafted that they could easily appeal to nonbelievers. And it has the added benefit of being genuinely good for business. Forbes called it the brand’s “smartest move in years,” the latest evidence that inclusiveness can, and often does, make financial sense for companies with an eye on the global marketplace.

A photo posted by stefanogabbana (@stefanogabbana) on Jan 5, 2016 at 2:49am PST

Of course, Muslim women have been wearing high-end designer labels, Dolce & Gabbana included, for years. Indeed, the fashion industry would very likely collapse without their patronage. In his 1989 book The Fashion Conspiracy, the journalist Nicholas Coleridge noted the impact of the Middle Eastern oil boom on French haute couture beginning in the mid-1970s, when it was struggling to remain culturally relevant and financially viable. “The least successful houses, up to their ears in debt, saw the Arabs as cash cows and milked them mercilessly,” Coleridge wrote. “Capitalizing on their taste for expensive beading, dresses were beaded from neck to ankle, with beads applied where beads had rarely been seen before: beaded gloves, beaded mobcaps, beaded stockings, beaded clothes-covers in which to transport beaded balldresses.”

By 1983, attitudes—and tastes—had changed. Resuscitated Paris couturiers valued and respected their Arab clients, who rewarded them with fierce brand loyalty, wearing their favorite designers from head to toe. In 2011, Reuters reported that Arab women were the biggest buyers of haute couture, and they continue to dominate a market that only serves an estimated 2,000 privileged clients worldwide. In the notoriously secretive world of haute couture, Muslim buyers are among the hardest to identify, for most never wear their purchases in public, keeping them hidden behind closed doors or under abayas made by Muslim designers. Many commission these custom-made garments for elaborate, gender-segregated wedding celebrations that might last up to a week, requiring several outfits.

But the global Muslim population is youthful—and growing. In a July article headlined “The next big untapped fashion market: Muslim women,” Fortune reported that in 2013, Muslims spent $266 billion on clothing and footwear—more than Japan and Italy combined. The magazine predicted that the figure would reach $484 billion by 2019. This boom coincides with a concerted effort to promote the predominantly Muslim Middle East—specifically the luxury retail paradise of Dubai—as a fashion hotspot. Chanel presented its Cruise collection in Dubai in 2014. Last October, Dubai hosted its first Fashion Week, showcasing a mix of Middle Eastern and European designers. In November, Stella McCartney showed her Spring 2016 ready-to-wear collection there, a month after debuting it in Paris; she already had several stores in the region. Just this week, Gucci unveiled a limited edition of its Dionysus handbag inspired by eight international fashion capitals: Rome, New York, London, Paris, Shanghai, Hong Kong, Tokyo, and Dubai. And, on Tuesday, D&G Tweeted a picture of its newest children’s boutique, located in Dubai’s Mall of the Emirates. There are even rumors of a Vogue Arabia launch later this year.

Dolce&Gabbana announces the opening of its first Child boutique in the Mall of Emirates in Dubai. #DGBambino pic.twitter.com/NE62GN82rK

— Dolce & Gabbana (@dolcegabbana) January 5, 2016

Given these high stakes, it’s perhaps no surprise that designers and retailers at both the high and low end of the fashion spectrum have been quietly courting customers there for years. DKNY, Oscar de la Renta, Tommy Hilfiger, Mango, and Monique Lhuillier have produced capsule collections sold only in the Middle East, generally around Ramadan. The e-tailers Moda Operandi and Net-A-Porter offer carefully curated “Ramadan Edits,” including Badgley Mischka caftans, Etro tunics, and Diane von Furstenberg maxi dresses. The fast-fashion purveyors Uniqlo and H&M have featured hijab-wearing models in their ads. And, around 2009 or so, savvy retailers and fashion bloggers devised a category of “modest” fashion, with the euphemism neatly encompassing the sartorial needs of Muslims, Mormons, Orthodox Jews, and fundamentalist Christians alike.

The fashion industry has always catered to lucrative emerging markets, whether in China, Japan, or Brazil, enlisting local celebrity spokespeople, creating exclusive new products, and even revamping sizing to fit new customers. Last year, Dolce & Gabbana designed a capsule collection for the Mexican market, inspired by native tiles and embroideries. But Muslims are more diverse, geographically and culturally—what sells in Kuwait won’t necessarily sell in Kuala Lumpur, or Kalamazoo, for that matter.

Dolce & Gabbana’s collection has been hailed as both long overdue and worth the wait.

Dolce & Gabbana’s new collection prompts many questions about the practical relationship between Western fashion and religion. After all, the very things the industry celebrates—materialism, vanity, sensuality—are anathema to many faiths. Add capitalism to the mix, and inclusiveness can risk looking like crass exploitation (just remember the cash-strapped couturiers scrambling for petrodollars in the 1970s).

The link between Western fashion and Islam has been particularly vexed. Look no further than 2008, when the preppy chain store Abercrombie & Fitch denied employment to a hijab-wearing job applicant in California because she didn’t fit their “Look Policy.” (The Supreme Court ruled against Abercrombie last year in a discrimination suit.) Or consider how hijab wearers have suffered not only prejudice but also a series of violent physical attacks, in the U.S. and abroad. Long a symbol of style and personal expression as much as religious devotion, the hijab is increasingly being cast off in favor of “safer” hats and turbans—or taken up as a political weapon by non-Muslims. Dolce & Gabbana’s announcement comes at a critical time, making the statement that Western fashion and Islam can make for an aesthetically compatible and socially productive union: yielding beautiful garments and helping in some small way to chip away at the marginalization of Islam in countries like the U.S., the U.K., and France.

In her 2015 book Muslim Fashion: Contemporary Style Cultures, the London College of Fashion professor Reina Lewis argues that Muslim fashion has been “underrepresented in the style media” while being “overrepresented in the news media” because of two related presumptions: “that fashion is a Western experience and that Muslims are not part of the West.” That’s no longer the case. Far from being the mark of the anti-fashion outsider, hijabs and abayas have become part of the Western fashion mainstream, virtually overnight. From here on in, they’ll be vulnerable to the same trends, knockoffs, and inflated price tags as any other article of Western clothing, but on the plus side, perhaps a new generation of Muslim fashionistas can now see themselves better reflected in an industry they admire.