‘Women and Islam’ won the Best Documentary Prize at the Festival ArtDeco de Cinema at Sao Paolo in Brazil. Look at the Festival site, the Award ceremony looks like it must have been a lot of fun. I would have also gotten an excellent audience to talk to about my work and give out promotional gifts, as they call it in the marketing World – stickers!

This award has simply inspired me to think that I have to create more and expand this project of mine. The several short films(Women and Islam is one of them), should be stringed into a feature documentary. So I think that will be next for sure.

I am really glad that the film is challenging the notions of what it means to be a Muslim woman in today’s society. Islam and it’s role and preconceptions need to be analyzed and understood in a deeper way. Mainstream media always generalizes complicated matters such as these and the individual testimonies of unique and strong protagonists do not come to the surface in Islam’s contemporary narrative. To add to the heady mix, when you bring in gender then an age old rhetoric concerned with the status of Eastern women and discrimination is heard. The wars in Iraq and Afghanistan are being waged and perpetuated partially under the guise of liberating Afghani Muslim women – as we see in the video, many Muslin women are perfectly capable of helping themselves!

Winners of the 2011 Festival ArtDeco de Cinema in Brazil

The West should get to witness and meet other women like Sameena who might wear a burkha but are taxi drivers bread earners, mothers, teachers and scholarly daughters and even risk their lives to stand for what they believe. Sameena did not see the burkha as repressive or constraining, but some of us make that assumption.  I am glad that this film is getting the attention it deserves. I hope this fuels a larger dialogue around the world – if this inspires you, get in touch with me and let’s give your take!

What is it about our society that says wearing tiny hot pants that just barely cover your buttocks is not scandalous for women? Women exposing themselves is all part of their freedom and expression while those who might chose not to show their legs and other parts of their anatomy are repressed and not living in our modern times? Why is it considered scandalous for women to cover themselves? Western society seems to be fairly at home and comfortable with women in bikinis and g-strings compared to a woman who covers her face and head, a thing I find incredibly similar to Catholic nuns habits.

Recently two twenty something french students made a short film as their response to the French Government’s ban of the ‘niqab’ and the ‘burkha’. Nikolas Sarkozy says that it has nothing to do with religion and finds the Islamic garment in opposition to French ideals of secularism and freedom. The ‘Niqabitches’ as they call themselves walk around in Paris parading in a ‘niqab’ and hot pants to the delight of the public. This tongue and cheek act is brilliant in its subversion. Orthodox radicals would of course consider the outfit obnoxious but it’s delicious to see how the public responds to this outfit. I’m guessing probably with a lot of shock and surprise and also a lot of titillation as seen when the construction workers want to have their pictures taken with the women. Are we truly being liberal when we impose a ban on women wearing the burkha or niqab? Or is it a sign of our being incapable of accepting a religion and it’s people as they wish to be?

And lastly I’d say that many who chose to wear this garment are not even the Islamic fundamentalists that many would like to consider them. They are free thinking, independent, individual women who make an informed choice to wear them. Sadly many of these moderate Muslim voices fail to be heard amongst the sharp political cacophony of the liberals and conservatives. Frankly the right to chose what to wear getting chewed into rhetoric in the mouths of the political elite leaves a bad taste in my mouth.

When India was attacked on 26th November 2008, news anchors and journalists started calling it ‘India’s 9/11.’ This film examines this terminology and the links between 9/11, 26/11 in Mumbai, Iraq, Afghanistan and Modern terror. The conversations between taxi drivers and their passengers in Mumbai taxis delve into these larger issues. A tragic terrorist attack, a lapse in security, the loss of the top Anti Terrorist Squad officials who were investigating the so called ‘Hindu terrorist’ attacks in Malegao lead the people to voice their notions of larger conspiracy theories at a time when the Mainstream media mentions none of this. These are not authoritative voices but perspectives like yours and mine on the events which affect and shape our lives. They are short takes, 140 characters long tweets in taxis, between real people riding in a taxi, in a city that experienced extreme violence, terror and loss.

The current poll on The Taxi Takes has a majority of 50% who say it should not be termed India’s 9/11 and 34% in favor of the Mumbai attacks being termed ‘India’s 9/11. However there are also a small 8 % who are not sure which hence makes this a rather balanced undecided poll.

Watch the film and cast your vote. But more importantly I urge you to listen to the common voices on the streets of the Mumbai Metropolis and gather a sense of where the Mumbai terrorist attack of might figure in the larger scheme of current happenings in the world. Please give your take and comments below.

Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri, a former Pakistani lawmaker issued an anti terrorism fatwa in London this Tuesday. It stated that suicide bombing was banned by Islam “without any excuses, any pretexts, or exceptions.” This is a great stand and one that many other organizations have taken before. Even recently after the incident at Fort Hood, The National Coalition of South Asian Organizations released ‘their fatwa.’ The NCSO consists of over twenty organizations who had issued this strong statement after the tragedy in Fort Hood. It is not any different from most of the voices I heard in the Mumbai taxis. Christians, Muslims, Hindus, Parsis and Jews traveling through bustling Bombay commented on this unfortunate misconception between Islam and Terror and voiced the same concern as Muhammad Tahir-ul-Qadri and The Quilliam Foundation.

When will mainstream media truly pay attention to all the voices of dissent? Like I said , a great stand but one which has been stated by the common man for decades. May this fatwa enter the domain of pop culture and be talked about on twitter, blogs, backyards in Alabama, streets of Kabul, Mc Donalds kitchens and headlines of every big publication Worldwide as much as it was talked about in the Mumbai taxis. Inshallah!

It’s beyond ironic to think that President Barack Obama received the Nobel Peace prize. This, just as he makes the largest blunder in the history of wars and orders more troops to catapult an ongoing escalation into another decade of suffering. It has been the aggressive policies post 9/11 that have sharpened the dagger of Islamist terrorism in the World. The Iraqis, the Afghanis have already acted like a forest that is being burnt down in search of a target – sometimes a man named Bin Laden and at other times fictitious Weapons of Mass Destruction. To send more troops into Afghanistan at a time when America is still struggling under economic debt is creating more enemies. In fact this time, I think Obama is creating enemies out of his own American citizens who once believed in ‘change’ and now plead for health reform and more jobs rather than America’s 6th war since the end of WW II.

Artists, writers, news anchors, journalists, filmmakers, poets, trapeze artists and anyone else with a voice and body need to have their say and speak out. The cartoon above was published on Little Alex in Wonderland along with the eloquent and incredible Noam Chomsky‘s ‘take’ on ‘War, Peace and Obama’s Nobel.’ Michael Moore, the famous, talented attention grabbing documentary filmmaker wrote a letter to his president. Huffington Post carries this Open letter to President Obama.

Read it and go have a conversation with your Pakistani cab driver in New York. He’ll probably tell you he’s not planning on taking a trip back home this X’mas. Obama’s choices are creating an inferno of problems in Pakistan and the Indian sub continent. And with this surge, it’s only going to get worse I predict. Unfortunately no ‘Change’ for the better.

I had the great fortune of meeting Malalai Joya, a wonderful voice against the occupation in Afghanistan. She is against the warlords and drug lords in Afghanistan who she says are just as bad as the Taliban and are becoming stronger and more corrupt with the support of the US. A good account of the talk, written by Ellora Derenoncourt can be read here on the South Asia Solidarity Initiative site.
It was an honor to stand by this incredible human being.

In solidarity with Malalai Joya at the Graduate Center, CUNY.

On a separate but related note, this Sunday The South Asian International Film Festival SAIFF is screening ‘Made in Pakistan’ which appears to be an interesting documentary posing a fresh un-stereotyped view on what Pakistanis themselves feel and are doing in their country. Possibly some good post Halloween realism.
Tickets can be purchased here

Malalai Joya is speaking tomorrow at the CUNY Graduate Center in New York City.

This extraordinary woman and her story of courage and spirit is just what the World needs! During the Taliban rule Malalai Joya started underground schools in defiance of the oppressive militants. She spoke out against the war criminals and drug Lords of Afghanistan and at the age of 27 stood for parliament elections while facing death threats. Her enemies call her a ‘dead woman walking’. “I am young and I want to live. But I say to those who would eliminate my voice: ‘I am ready, wherever and whenever you might strike. You can cut down the flower, but nothing can stop the coming of the spring.” The Independant has done a great story on her while The Gaurdian features her message to the British people. After being deposed in 2007 for publicly denouncing the corrupt war Lords in the Aghani Parliament her voice sounds a signal of truth and justice at a time when words like democracy and freedom are being misused to send more troops into Afghanistan.

Malalai Joya

Watch Wide Angle’s documentary about this Woman Among Warlords. It’s an incredible story about about one woman’s conviction and strength to stand against deadly wrongs and believe in her power as an individual. If this doesn’t move you and Hollywood’s heroic tales do, then we all might as well ask Will Smith to save the World. Because according to me the cards are on the table and increasing troops in Afghanistan is America trying to star in Hollywood’s next version of ‘The Declaration of Independence.’

Come hear these women raise their voices.

TUESDAY, OCTOBER 27TH, 2009

THE SKYLIGHT ROOM, 3 PM—5 PM

CUNY GRADUATE CENTER, 365 FIFTH AVE @ 34TH ST.

Malalai Joya, Minister of Parliament in the Islamic Republic of Afghanistan. She is the author of A Woman Among Warlords: The Extraordinary Story of an Afghan Who Dared to Raise Her Voice (Simon and Schuster, 2009).

Awista Ayub fled Afghanistan in 1981 for the U.S. After the fall of the Taliban, she returned to Kabul and founded the Afghan Youth Sports Exchange, dedicated to nurturing Afghan girls through soccer. Her work is the subject of However Tall the Mountain (Hyperion 2009).

Nasrine Gross, founder of The Roqia Center for Women’s Rights, Studies and Education in Afghanistan. Professor Gross’ work is profiled in Walking the Precipice: Witness to the Rise of the Taliban in Afghanistan (Feminist Press, 2009).

Moderated by: Laura Flanders, GritTV